You're Under Arrest Fan Fiction ❯ One Week of Summer ❯ Innocent Mistake ( Chapter 4 )

[ A - All Readers ]

ONE WEEK OF SUMMER
Jay Pantig
[chanel_jay@mailcity.com]

STANDARD DISCLAIMER:
Taiho Shichauzo/You're Under Arrest is owned by Kosuke Fujishima and is presented by TBS, Kodansha Ltd., Bandai Visual Co. Ltd., and Marubani Corporation. Japanese manga presented by Kodansha Morning Party Extra, English adaptation brought by Dark Horse and Studio Proteus. I own nothing, zip, wala, nada, (except this fic) so please don't sue me!

DAY FOUR: INNOCENT MISTAKE

"Now you little girls behave while I talk to somebody, okay?" Miyuki's father told his daughter and her friend as they entered the office where he worked.

Miyuki nodded and watched her father enter his colleague's room. Natsumi ran towards the window and gawked at the sight that laid before her.

"Wow! So many cars and motorcycles!" she exclaimed.

"Daddy helps make a lot of cars," Miyuki said, standing beside Natsumi.

"Do they race?"

"Sometimes. Once a big man with furry hair under his nose and black glasses came with a boy. The man used one of the new motorcycles in a race," Miyuki informed. "Daddy takes me with him sometimes, so I saw the man ride."

"Really? What did the boy do?"

Miyuki shrugged. "I don't know. He just watched, I think. I can't tell because he was wearing black glasses, too . . ."

"Hmm . . . I wonder if they're monsters who can't look at the light?" Natsumi teased, remembering the previous night when they stayed up to watch horror movies with the Kobayakawa's neighbor while their parents were away. Miyuki couldn't stop screaming afterwards.

Miyuki covered her ears and frowned. "Stop that! You know I'm scared of monsters!"

"How come? Those are just movies!"

"They're still scary!!"

"You wanna watch again today?"

"NO!"

"WILL YOU LITTLE GIRLS PIPE DOWN?!" A huge, deep voice suddenly said.

Miyuki squealed in fright and grabbed Natsumi's arm by instinct. Natsumi, shocked and scared at first, turned around to face the big, burly man.

"Aw, we're not doing anything bad, mister," she said.

"YES YOU ARE. THE LOUD NOISE YOU ARE MAKING IS INTERRUPTING EVERYONE AT WORK!"

Miyuki bit her lip and spoke in a small voice, "So how come you're making loud noise, too?"

The employees who were listening to the exchange chuckled.

The huge man glared at Miyuki, who responded by hiding further behind Natsumi. "YOU."

Miyuki trembled as Natsumi moved over her protectively. "Yes?"

"YOU'RE WAITING FOR YOUR FATHER, ARE YOU?"

"Yes."

"THEN BOTH OF YOU SIT ON THAT CHAIR AND WAIT FOR HIM QUIETLY."

"But . . ." Natsumi started saying.

"NO BUTS!!"

Miyuki meekly followed the man's orders while Natsumi stuck her tongue out at him while he was not looking. The two girls sat on the chair he indicated.

"THIS IS MY TABLE. I'LL BE WATCHING YOU . . ." The man said, before turning around and walking away.

Natsumi made a face at him before grumpily slumping down the chair. Miyuki just pouted. "I don't like that man . . ." she admitted. "He's scary!"

"I hate him, too. Hey . . ." Natsumi suddenly perked up as she noticed the computer that laid in front of them, the familiar MS-DOS C:\ prompt on screen. "Can we play?"

"I don't know . . ." Miyuki said, but Natsumi started pounding on the keyboard anyway.

"How do we make this thing work anyway?"

Miyuki turned her attention to the DOS Instruction Manual that was beside the CPU. "Maybe this will help?" she said, picking up the book and leafing through the pages.

Natsumi looked at her and frowned as soon as she saw how thick the manual was. "But reading that is so boring!" she complained. When Miyuki did not respond and seemed so absorbed into reading, Natsumi shrugged and continued to type away.

It wasn't very long when Natsumi heard Miyuki slam the book shut. Turning to face her, she was surprised to see a satisfied look on Miyuki's face. "Did you find out how to make this thing work?" Natsumi asked.

Miyuki shook her head.

"But didn't you read the book?"

Miyuki nodded. "So what'd it say?"

"I'm not sure." Miyuki looked at the book that laid on her lap. "The pictures didn't look very nice - they're all black and white, and they weren't very many."

"Oh."

Miyuki moved closer to the monitor and the keyboard. "What are you doing?"

Natsumi was frowning at the monitor. "It keeps saying the same thing . . ." she complained, staring at the "Bad command or filename" messages. "The TV's a mess. How do we get rid of the letters?"

"I don't know . . ." Miyuki started typing random letters on the keyboard. "Maybe I should ask Daddy to teach me how to use this one day."

Natsumi nodded. "Yeah . . . the only thing I know how to press is this one . . ." she pointed at the Enter key.

"Me, too." Miyuki pressed the key.

The screen completely cleared out all the letters and returned to the C:\ prompt.

Natsumi's eyes widened. "What'd you do?"

"I'm not sure . . . I just put in a word I saw in the book."

"What else does it say there?" Natsmi grabbed the book and browsed through it. "Here, let's try this."

She copied the commands from the book and pressed Enter. An "Are you sure [Y/N] message flashed on screen.

"What do we press now?" Miyuki asked.

"Uhh . . . I think you should press Y." Miyuki reached over and pressed the Y key. A few nanoseconds later, the command "del *.bak" executed and brought both girls back to the C:\ prompt.

Natsumi groaned. "This is so boring! The book is too thick and I hate guessing - what else can we do? Oh!" She sat up straighter and typed in a few keys.

Minutes later, Miyuki's father came out to find the little girls sitting on one corner of the room, while one of the new employees was crying in another corner. Wondering what happened, he ushered the girls out of the chairs. "C'mon, girls. Let's go."

"So, what did you kids do inside the office while I was gone?" he asked while he strapped his daughter with the seatbelt at the front seat.

"We played the computer, Daddy. Could you teach me how to use it one day?"

Miyuki's father smiled. "Sure thing, dear. And what did you girls played on the computer?"

"Oh, we were counting from 0 to 100 with it!" Natsumi said.

"Counting from 0 to 100? Funny . . . I don't remember installing any programs like that on that employee's computer. How'd you make it count?"

"Easy. I just put something I saw my dad did the other day, when he just got our new computer," Natsumi said proudly. "It was in the book. That's why I remembered!"

"And what were the letters you entered?"

"F-O-R-M-A-T."

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"One week of summer, that was fulfilling as a year, seemed as short as a day . . ."

-Morisato Keiichi Ah! Megami-sama OAV 5: "For the Love of Goddess"