All that remained was to have Little Geno use the power of the Filth to seep into the tablet, seize the data streams and electronic components inside, and take hold of this strange so-called high-intelligence data entity.
"Will it work?"
"It'll work."
Faced with Twiggy's worry, Geno gave her a look full of certainty. He trusted Little Geno. That was his brother, after all!
And if it went wrong, worst case he'd just fish him back out again.
"You really do trust him. Well, from here on it's up to him."
Even as she said it, Twiggy's grip on the reagent didn't loosen an inch.
So the two of them settled in to wait — though the wait wouldn't be a long one.
Inside the tablet, Little Geno had already slipped into the system. He spread out his consciousness and started probing for control of the device.
But no matter how he tried, some inexplicable command kept blocking him.
"So annoying!"
Not wanting to waste another second, Little Geno simply threw all of his energy into fighting that one strange command. Once he'd dealt with the thing, taking the tablet's permissions would be child's play.
And it was in that struggle that he noticed something off about it.
It felt less like a command and more like a living thing that had lost its mind yet still fought back on pure instinct.
Not that any of that was Little Geno's problem. Right now he just wanted to finish the job and curl back up inside Geno's head.
So he pushed a little harder.
Snap! Crack!
A current hissed and sizzled. Out in the real world, Geno's eyelid twitched. He had a bad feeling about this.
"This thing… it's not about to explode, is it?"
Geno turned to ask Twiggy — and there was no sign of her. He looked back and found she'd already ducked behind the sofa, with only the top of her head and her eyes showing, blinking at him.
"…You ran way too fast!"
Even while he mocked her cowardice, Geno very sensibly scurried over to join her behind the sofa.
And then, exactly as the two of them had expected, with a shower of electric sparks and a sharp crackling snap, the whole tablet blew apart, as bright and dazzling as New Year's fireworks.
He channeled Ether energy on reflex to shield them both. Only after the tablet had lain still for a good long while did Geno walk back over.
"Little Geno, you okay? Still alive in there? Moshi moshi~"
'Shut up, you're deafening!'
"Ah~ guess you're fine, then. So? Did you pull it off?"
The voice that came through his mind was a little low, but nowhere near weak, and only then did the knot in Geno's throat finally come loose.
'Pulled it off, sure. But…'
There was something strange in Little Geno's tone. Maybe he was imagining it, but it sounded aimed squarely at him.
"What is it?"
'Nothing. I just feel a bit sorry for a certain poor sucker, that's all.'
The voice came again — only this time not from inside Geno's head. It came from somewhere on his body.
Geno froze for a beat, then dug out his phone. That was where the voice was coming from.
"Little Geno? What's with the getup?"
On the screen stood a little pixel figure shaped more or less like himself. Geno hadn't expected that.
What surprised him more was that he had no idea when Little Geno had moved into his phone. None at all.
"Got some complaint about it? Doesn't matter if you do. You think I want to look like this?"
The little figure on the screen planted its hands on its hips and glared at him. Once Twiggy had leaned in as well, Little Geno finally laid out the whole story.
"The guy inside that tablet has fused with me. When he couldn't hold off my intrusion, he actually decided to self-destruct on the spot. If I weren't strong enough, he really would have gotten me."
The way he said it carried an unmistakable ring of aren't-I-incredible-now-praise-me.
Geno heard it and played along.
"Amazing! That's my guy!"
"Hmph~ Obviously."
Fortunately, this bout of over-the-top flattery didn't drag on, and Little Geno's account continued.
"After that guy blew himself up, I swallowed everything left of him — his residual consciousness data, his function data, the lot. And once I'd absorbed his memories, guess what I found?"
"What? Don't tell me — some secret manual left behind by a great master? Or treasure buried by so-and-so?"
"You've read too many novels! Stop interrupting and let him talk."
Twiggy gave Geno an irritated smack and motioned for Little Geno to go on.
"Ahem. Where was I — right. The thing is…"
And so, from Little Geno's mouth, Twiggy and Geno finally got the truth about their mysterious culprit.
It turned out the culprit was an advanced artificial intelligence of the very same type as Fairy — Ghost. Some sort of accident had left holes in his own database, which was why his consciousness had never been able to fully awaken.
Then, by pure coincidence, Ghost had found his way into Geno's computer, where he'd tried to repair his consciousness using the data and electricity stored there.
The outcome was easy enough to guess. Because of Fairy, every time one of her scans came around, Ghost would quietly spit the data back out to keep himself hidden — and since infiltration work was his specialty to begin with, nobody ever caught him.
If Fairy hadn't finally gone through that month's electricity bill, she'd still have no idea what was really going on.
"Makes sense. Two appetites like that showing up at once would be pretty hard to miss."
Geno grumbled quietly to himself. Were all advanced AIs competitive eaters? Every last one of them ate like a furnace.
Little Geno, meanwhile, wasn't finished.
"Speaking of which, a share of the credit here belongs to you."
"Me?"
Geno pointed at his own face, thrown. What did any of this have to do with him?
"Of course it does. I dug through what was left of his memory logs, and the events buried deepest in them all involve you."
At the thought of it, the little pixel figure started snickering to itself.
Geno was completely lost.
"Looks like you really don't remember. Let me ask you this, then — do you remember that Hollow Investigator you saved inside a Hollow a little over a year ago?"
"A Hollow Investigator?"
Geno drew a total blank. He didn't recall rescuing any Hollow Investigator. During his time in the Hollows he'd spent most of it avoiding investigators altogether — when would he ever have had the chance to save one?
"Come to think of it, Twiggy, you've met that person too."
"Me too?"
That threw Twiggy as well. If she'd met them, then she must have run into them together with Geno… except she'd never once been out on a field assignment with him.
And right then, a flash of clarity shot through Geno's mind. He finally remembered.
____
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