A Boy and His Stove: Chapter 4

While the two lads chatted away at the restaurant, the man Lan ran into had entered a hotel that was situated in another district of Den City that was close enough to Elec Town to the point that he could see some of its buildings through the window. He stood inside of a rather stately suite he had booked the night before and had changed out of his electrician disguise and into a far more comfortable outfit that consisted of a long-sleeved lime-green shirt with a large circular pattern in the middle that resembled crackling electricity, some white slacks, and a striped, slightly puffy newsboy cap that was primarily a lime-green color with thick yellow stripes. He picked up his PET from the bed and turned it on, revealing the face of a strange-looking Navi: his head was encased in a glass dome and surrounded by crackling neon blue electricity. Judging by the background he wasn't inside of the PET itself, but elsewhere.

"DynamoMan, ring up the boss. We're ready to go."  the man stated coldly.

"Yay!" the Navi cheered in an oddly nasally, rather childish voice. The man held the PET up to his ear and waited while the Navi dialed the phone number he was ordered to do so. He waited for a while, until...


"Hello, and thank you for calling Dante's! May I take your order?" the man flinched and nearly dropped his PET in shock. 

'Wait, Dante's?! As in the pizzeria?!' The man groaned in exasperation and hung up, which bought back his Navi's face. "DyanomoMan you IMBECILE! You rang up a pizzeria! A pizzeria!"

"Wha- I did?!" The Navi responded fearfully, "I'm sorry Mr. Terry! I'm so-so-so-so-so-so sorry! Really! I didn't mean-"

"DynamoMan, you have the boss's number stored in your memory banks! How on EARTH could you get it wrong?! I knew you were a moron, but seriously!"

"I'm so-so-so-so-so-so sorry Mr. Terry! Please don't delete me, I'll get it right this time!" The Navi tearfully blubbered, "I'm so-so-so-so-so-"

"SHUT UP!" the man snarled, which made the Navi go silent. "I'll do it myself." He closed the screen with DynamoMan's face and bought up his list of contacts. 'Useless freaking Navi, making me have to manually call him up. Why is Navi technology so lousy?!' the man internally whined to himself.


After a few second's worth of boredom and exasperation, he found the name and selected it. He held the PET up to his ear a second time, and breathed a sigh of relief when his boss picked up.

"Hello?"

"Hey boss, it's me! I got everything set up like you wanted, all you have to do is give me the signal, and Elec Town's gonna descend into chaos!"

"Good, good. I knew I could count on you." his deep-voiced boss chuckled warmly in the background.

"But uh, boss? Could ya give me a minute or so? I wanna go up to the roof of the hotel I'm staying at. I want a better view of what all unfolds, do you get me?"

"Of course, my friend." the man chuckled again, "I know how much this means to you."

"Thanks a bunch, boss! You take care now!"

"Likewise."

The man hang up the PET, placed it into his pocket, and raced out the door like an excited child on Christmas morning. 'Oh, I just can't wait!' he giggled to himself, 'A few minutes, and that old fart gets his! I swear, it's all been leading to this, the best day of my life! I'll show that old fart alright, I'll show him that no one screws over the future heir of Jomon Electric...'

"Now," Takuma continued, an almost fatherly, gentle tone to his voice, "I am aware of all the news bulletins after that fateful night, and the fact that they all paint me as a terrorist, or a savage lunatic looking to hurt all you wonderful people. But I can assure you that despite how scary I may be, all I truly am is a concerned citizen looking to free you all from the absolutely oppressive system that we call the Net."

'Oh boy, this again!' Lan rolled his eyes, unimpressed by what was sure to be another tirade about how "evil" Net Society is.

"You see, at the very dawn of humanity, we were primitive, and yet humble. In order to survive we had to go out into the wilderness to hunt and gather for our food, or tend to the fields and farm it ourselves. We lived in homes that we constructed ourselves, we had a general respect for nature, and we had no problems with slothfulness. There was always something for us early humans to engage ourselves with, and fortunately that system lasted for hundreds upon thousands of years! But look at what we've become." Takuma sneered with his tone absolutely radiating with venom and disgust, "We've become weak, and complacent! We've allowed ourselves to grow fat and soft all thanks to this poisonous society that coddles us like children. There's no need to go outside and do things for yourself when you can just order everything you need online, there's no need to interact with your fellow humans when you can stare into a PET all day."

'Oh you're full of crap, and you know it!'

"So that's why ladies and gentlemen, that my Omega Initiative has decided to fight. We've decided to combat the poisonous society that has sprung up and caused so much damage to us not just as a society, but to this planet as a whole. Together, we will turn back the clock, and return to embrace our primitive roots! No longer will we all be slothfully living our boring technology-driven lives, but we'll be free to work together as a whole and live the way we were intended!"

"So that is why I've decided to start with Elec Town." Takuma continued, "A town that is Electopia's hotspot for technology. Den City in general is a very problematic area, but this part of the city is responsible for so much of the technology that has killed our society! But that won't be a problem anymore, if for some reason that technology were to cease all operations." 

'W-what?!' Lan's heart skipped a beat. What was he going to pull?

"It appears that it's time for us to conclude our little chat, ladies and gentlemen. So until we meet again, just know that with the end, comes a new beginning! When Net Society dies, we ALL shall rise together and build our new world!" And with that, Takuma's image disappeared from everything that was projecting it, and the TV's and PET's went back to what they were meant to display. But in a matter of seconds, things seemed to descend to chaos in a heartbeat.


The televisions were suddenly displaying static again, the game consoles all ceased to work, and from downstairs Lan could hear the sounds of display car engines roaring to life along with the sounds of them swerving all over the place and crashing. Suddenly, the entire mall was filled with the screams of panicked civilians running for their lives while things spiraled further and further out of control. Lan saw the escalators suddenly triple in speed, which led to people who were unfortunate enough to be on them at the time to lose their balance and roll painfully down and onto the floor. The temperature become uncomfortably hot due to the air conditioning malfunctioning, which made it all the harder to escape the mall. And from the window of a nearby burger joint, Lan could see panicky employees fighting off sudden oven fires with fire extinguishers, and deduced that the same was likely happening elsewhere. But the main question was: What in the world was going on?!