Dad's best friend

Ningyo walked up the steps of the Konoha Intelligence Bureau. She was on her way to be recruited for an internship. She imagined that the job would be temp work, clerical, running errands, and data analysis. From the outside the building looked bureaucratic and grey. Through it's grey shaded color, off-white marble columns, and stone design it emanated a mundane simple nature that was almost oppressive to look at.

She pushed through a large revolving glass door to a main lobby, an echoing foyer with immaculately polished flooring covered in alternating black and white tile. She made her way to the front desk where a stunning clerk looked up from a book she was reading. "Can I help you?" she asked. Ningyo stood at attention "My name is Uchiha Ningyo. I have an appointment scheduled at 8:30. It's about an internship."

The receptionist shinobi chewed bubble gum. "Why don't you have a seat over there while you fill out this form." She handed Ningyo a pen, paper, and clipboard. She made her way across the large room. The noises seemed to echo but it was simultaneously eerily silent. She sat down on a wooden bench and for a few moments worked at penciling in the data on the sheet.

After a few minutes and before she could finish the paperwork another kunoichi arrived in a grey skirt-jacket suit. She offered her a manicured hand "Uchiha Ningyo?" she asked smiling, Ningyo nodded, standing up and shaking her hand gently. "Pleased to meet you." said the woman and added "right this way." They strode through a beige hallway and into an elevator past another office into a large office network. Here people were striding hurriedly, working at desks. Message scrolls were sent and arrived through tubes. "This is Information Retrieval," spoke the assistant, "and over here... Director Morpheus' office"

Uchiha Ningyo looked ahead at a large luxurious office, fitted with transparent glass doors. As they entered, a man in a white lab coat, with circular bifocals sat behind the desk. He stared down at some paperwork on his lap. "Ah, Ningyo, yes... have a seat." Morpheus signaled for the kunoichi assistant to leave as he looked up from a file. He thumbed through the file. "It's nice to meet on this side the rainbow, how have you been since I saw you last?" asked the Director. Ningyo looked a little confused, she didn't understand and didn't recognie him from anywhere. "I'm sorry sir, but this is the first time we've ever met"  Ningyo began to speak further but the director cut her off "An old friend of your Father, you may not remember me but I remember you! I've known you since you were a child." He chuckled while Ningyo fell silent.

"How's Toto?" asked Morpheus. Ningyo looked surprised that he knew about her dog, "Surprised? My dear, this is Information Retrieval." The Director smiled and continued "the position will be on an unpaid basis. Mostly courier, delivery, there are several floors here at KIB." the Director stated "The experience should acclimate you to intelligence work and the type of environment you might be working in as an intelligence asset." The Director stood up from his desk, straightened his white smock, and adjusted his glasses, "Care to have a look around?"

He got up and Ningyo followed close behind. Directly outside the office was the Info retrieval floor, with it's network of cubicles and its clear, tube like message system for scrolls. The Director walked as he spoke, "The Fire country, interested in protecting it's citizenry, from foreign threats, mind viruses, tailed monsters and the like, founded the KIB during the era of the second Hokage. The office of the KIB is constantly involved in information gathering operations. Here, in information retrieval for instance, reports come in from our agents on the ground. That information is then disseminated and finds it's way to Analytics. From there, we brief our departments on our findings in eyes only reports to Kage and Village elders."      

He strode through the floor confidently, using a key to unlock two large blast doors that opened to a large industrial concrete stair chamber, burrowing down into the dark earth. "Most of the floors are underground. I tend to use the staircase." The Director's voice echoed, reverberating against the had grey concrete walls. They descended a few floors and opened a door with alternating black and yellow caution lines and a leaf symbol above entranceway. "This is the central node of the KIB," He said while opening the door bearing a sealed shatterproof window. "Most anywhere in the Hidden Leaf village is accessible through here, via the underground tunnel network. You could say it's the Leaf hidden within the Leaf."

Director Morpheus and Ningyo navigated their way to a large white ovular room labeled 'Sensory'. The high ceilinged room was antiseptic, a glowing white the surface of everything. The technicians, mostly Yamanaka, Aburame, and the ocassional Hyuuga, all dressed in white lab coats, sitting at data banks with grey electronic visualizing machines over the top of their eyes and head.

"This is Sensory" said the Director standing before a massive wall of crackling TV monitors near the center and at the edges of the room. The innermost bank of surveillance monitors showed street level views of all nearly every single nook and cranny of the hidden village of Leaf, with even a few in black and white or infrared. "Sensory is our central eye. Sometimes they like to call it the 'eye in the sky', or Skynet." He laughed. On the TV screens Ningyo could see the average villagers and ninjas casually making their way across the city to their various destinations, unaware or unconcerned about what or whom may be watching, simply going about their daily business.

Ningyo looked at the images for a while. "The CCTV feed are maintained by ninjutsu constructs and animal summons." said the Director. Ningyo paused, "So the animals, you're saying..." the Direction interjected "Yes, many animals we would assume are natural animals, squirrels, pigeons, rats, etc. throughout the city are actually are contracted summons that relay their visual information back here to Sensory. We use Aburame insects as well."

Sitting before the columns of TV banks was a circular, holographic map of the village, suspended in the air by a complex jutsu. "Working closely with the barrier team our Sensory Skynet generates this datamap of the village." The villagers and shinobi could be seen as little radar blips on the holographic map. "Everything that happens here happens in real time, and can become a matter of public record. We can know exactly what is happening in every second, in every corner of the city, all the time 24/7. We know when they drink their morning coffee, when they go to work and when they get home." The blue of the data-map against the stark white of the room lit up his face in an eerie glow. He gestured at various pedestrians on the walls of CCTV feeds. "Let's just say the shinobi of Sensory are like like the 'Elf on the Shelf', they see you when you're sleeping, they know when you're awake. They report everything back to the 'big elf', or the 'man in red', the Hokage."    .

He walked forward past the rows of TVs, motioning to a group of Yamanaka-clan shinobi sitting before a data-bank, wearing white lab coats and the grey neural headgear attached to wires. "Due to the tenacious and insipid nature of ninja jutsu and enemy shinobi, this alone would never prove to be enough to protect the village." he rapped his fingers on a hi-tech white surface next to this group. "Countermeasures include anything from the simple Henge, Transformation, and Invisibility techniques that are among the most common amongst shinobi. Not to mention methods like face manipulation or masks that bypass facial sensors." the director coughed "Soo...that is why we use these highly talented Yamanaka ninja to scry into the virtual landscape of the mind  These shinobi can scan the thoughtwaves of every single frequency that enters our neural net, which we have cast village-wide, here take a listen."

The Director flicked a switch on a panel connected to a playback speaker. A hum of whispering voices emerged through the machine. Suddenly a few in particular could be singled out. Through the staticky speaker subvocalized thoughts like; ('I hope my boss doesn't realize I'm slacking off'), ('I should have studied for my exam'), ('I wonder what I should have for dinner tonight, pizza again?'), ('Shoot, I have to buy a birthday gift for Mom'), ('Did I turn off the stove this morning? Maybe my roommate will check'), ('I wish I would have pursued my dream career'), ('how many more times will I have to practice these jutsu?') Ningyo placed her hand over her ears and squeezed her eyes shut. One of the Yamanakas in the braingear started to get a nosebleed. The director turned the volume down.

Ningyo regained calm "Sorry, it was too much information all at once." The Director became wide eyed, "Imagine what the Yamanaka hear! They have to listen to this their entire shift, and many of them work double overtime. Right now this division is understaffed." the Director walked towards the center of the room again, continuing his technocratic soliloquy "Using these active listening networks, we can detect threats to public security before they occur." Ningyo scratched her head in confusion. She had known about all this stuff in a vague way, but seeing it here up close was a little overwhelming. "This, in combination with Aburame insects under the skin collecting biometric data, allow us to know who they are, where they go, who they meet, and let us respond to threats on village security before the thought of them occurring even arises. We can even view into their dreams, which we hope can tip us off in the event of an emergency and allow us to continue maintaining the security of Konohagkagure."

They continued through the labyrinth of the KIB reaching again the large industrial stairwell, they passed a floor called 'Interrogation' another floor called 'Research'. The Director finally guided Ningyo to a floor labeled 'Analytics'. "Ningyo, It's important that you  ask not what your village can do for you, but what you can do for your village." He said as he smiled opening the door to Analytics for her.

'Analytics' had the same interior design as 'Information Retrieval' yet boasted a slightly different floorplan. The industrial grey high ceilinged pillared room looked like a bureaucratic temple, some sort of deep office mine. To the left and right were small compartmentalized numbered offices and cubicle banks. Here, some employees could be seen thumbing through newspapers, others through books. The tube style, scroll delivery system was in place on this floor as well.

The newspapers were from villages in the Lands of Earth, Lightning, Water and Wind. The signals intel teams were designed to break down bits of information for reports. They studied the material in circulation in the foreign countries and were hard at work, filing away synopsis for any articles of political value and deciphering the encoded messages within the material themselves. Members of the Analysis team waved to the Director casually, cups of coffee in hand.

The Director moved to the coffee machine in the common area to pour some coffee for himself. It seemed as though there was going to be a meeting soon. The employees of Analytics shuffled into a large lecture room with rows of chairs as the Director and an assistant stood at the front of the room talking in front of a chalkboard. Ningyo sat in the back.

The Director faced the recruits. "Today we're going to be talking about personal security." said the Director. He wrote the words with a stick of chalk in big letters. "Although some of you here are just Analysts which is fine, many of you are working for Leaf. Personal security is important because..."

Suddenly there was a knock on the professional wooden doors to the hall. "Just a minute..." The Director put down his piece of chalk and strode forward to answer it. As he opened the door a ninja in dark blue with a hidden mist headband lept forward with his katana and slashed down, cutting through the director and shouting "HAAAAAA" with a single strike and sending a streak of blood across the chairs, floor and ceiling. Blood spewed forth and several people in the room bolted up, making sharp cries, or put their hands over their mouths in disbelief. As the mist-nin threw a smoke bomb he was practically gone and the event had ended almost as instantly as it started.

The room was in shock. Ningyo rushed over in the ensuing chaos to see if the Director was okay, As the smoke cleared he got up and said "Okay, I was killed just now." He moved back to the chalkboard, blood pellets smearing his suit, and made a motion with his hands as if to signal everyone to sit back down. "Now, let me ask you, if this attack had been real, could anyone provide a description of my attacker? What sort of weapon did he use?" Several of the analysts answered excitedly, raising their hands. Interestingly most of their answers were contradictory. Ningyo discovered that even she could not remember the face of the interloper, she had been too shocked, she did however see that he used a sword.

Sketches were drawn up of the suspect, and the ninja who had acted as the mist shinobi was summoned back into the room, this time smiling, with a different more positive attitude. Of all of the descriptions and sketches, none came close to the face of the man. He happened to possess a square head and short styled brown hair. "In the theatre of operations where shinobi work, they are surrounded constantly by dangerous combatants. They must assume that every single man woman and child, wants them dead, nevertheless it is important that they do not become paranoid." The Director drew a few more diagrams and delivered some motivation. "Our work here is in intelligence gathering, and we have developed a system that will help us to do our jobs. The system will continue to develop itself. Follow this system and it will operate perfectly. Fail to follow the method at your own peril."

The Director then fielded any questions.

Director Morpheus descended the stairwell to the next level, a floor called 'Synthetics'. It bore the same yellow and black caution lines with the spiraling leaf symbol over the blast door.

He opened the door to an austerely lit, somewhat blue tinted room. Continuing through a corridor he entered rooms with various technicians who strode from laboratory to laboratory or played with chemical and other science equipment. As they continued to walk they arrived at a lookout where the Director and Ningyo, behind shatterproof glass, could see a hockey rink filled with dirt, and several bleachers. "I'm not sure if you have ever read about the undercover shinobi who were genetic copies of the first Hokage." mused Director Morpheus as he walked, continuing, "They were the coveted tools of Root ANBU, because of their ability to quickly fabricate shelter and erect structures."

Ningyo listened while walking, her shadows angling in the dimly lit bluish glow of the laboratory rooms she passed.. "Well, the KIB took up in a formal albeit classified capacity, the work started by Root ANBU and those other scientists, whose dream was to produce living clones." As they walked Director Morpheus and Ningyo entered a larger arena sized room, a room filled with multi storied banks of glass tubes. These tubes were filled with a synthetic amniotic type liquid. Within these glass tubes that glowed in a strange turquoise, naked people could be seen floating inside.    

"There are two types of clones." said the Director "Mk1 and Mk2s. The Mk1s are created by the artificial insemination of modified egg cells. They can be grown in a petri dish but take time to fully mature into an adult. By this I mean it would take them as long to mature as you or I." Ningyo marveled at the sleeping bodies in the high tech tanks. Some of them curled into a sort of fetal position while others 'stood' up in a sort of suspended animation.

"The Mk2s grow much faster and can be made to order in a matter of weeks, but are generally less intelligent and more prone to malfunction. They are useful in situations that call for disposable body doubles or to otherwise prolong and protect the body of the original donor." The director made a signal to one of the scientists at work in the main clone bank. Morpheus climbed onto a boom lift, ascending toward a certain tank. The clone tanks were cylindrical and stacked on top of one another. The Director played with a module and the blue liquid began to flush from the tube.

Inside the tank was a muscular hairless light-skinned male bio-robotoid. His eyes were closed and a breathing apparatus and feeder covered his mouth. The liquid drained to his shoulders slowly, funneling out of tubes in the tank. It reached his waist. "This is a Mk2, he's ready for activation." The Mk2 was removed by a mechanical arm from the tube and placed on the boom lift with the Director. As they descended an assistant in a hazmat suit came and covered the clone in a damp sheet.

"Say hello to this Mk2 Ningyo!" beamed the Director. "Hello" managed Ningyo. The clone wrapped in the sheet stared shivering ahead with a blank and puzzled, mindless look. Strange blue fluid dripped from his body. "He still needs to be programmed, at this stage he is like a child, he has no intelligence or motor skills." The hazmat suited scientist came and escorted the clone away as he slipped and fell on the polished stone floor. The scientist helped him up again and he was escorted to programming.

The Director and Ningyo strode casually along a moving walkway to 'Programming'. The underground corridor was high vaulted and extremely long, thus the necessity of a moving walkway. "When people can master their time they have the secret to success." said the Director.

When they arrived in 'Programming' Ningyo could see rooms of various colors akin to the bright white walled room that was 'Sensory'. These neon rooms came in red, orange, teal, and a variety of colors. They walked into the neon yellow room where the Mk2 had been taken for re-programming.

The scientist from 'Synthetics' removed the hood of her hazmat suit and it was revealed to be the assistant in the grey jacket that had first guided Ningyo to the Director's office. She removed her hazmat suit and underneath revealed a white latex nurse uniform, complete with a small hat bearing a red cross.

The clone, his flesh still tinged blue from his exodus out of stasis, lay on his back upon a spartan metallic operating table. His face bore the outward appearance of a confused animal. The nurse smiled as she flicked a large thick hypodermic needle, and then pushed a clear substance into the Mk2's bloodstream. She placed a helmet that looked like a spaghetti strainer on the clone's head, the top of which contained dozens of little wires. "The nanodes connected to these wires emit an electromagnetic pulse." explained the nurse. "That pulse contains information that travels to his brain." She patted the shoulder of the of the Mk2 as he stared blankly, his eyebrows arched in a confused animal look. "Now we can begin to give him a personality" noted the DIrector.

The clone's eyes bulged as the Director pulled a level. With an electrical jolt the information began uploading to his brain. The Mk2 screamed in pain. On a staticy TV screen Ningyo could see images, language, the history of the FIre country, a programmed life of memories for the clone.

He had been a student at the academy, telling himself that one day he would become the best shinobi in the village. He loved his village, the hidden village of Leaf, and would die to protect it. He would become a hero, like the heroes he remembered reading about in school. His parents had died, and he was an orphan. The Director pointed to the monitor "We make most of them orphans so that we don't have to clone them a family." He had made bonds with the shinobi of his team only to watch them die before his eyes at the hands of the enemies of Leaf. He hated those enemies and missing-nin, who had hurt his friends and family. They were violent extremists, criminals without morals. Along with science and maps, he was also given some nice normal memories to have. He had once had a girlfriend, he had once been named Chuunin of the month etc.

Director Morpheus nodded, he turned to his nurse assistant "Perfect, continue with this robotoid's synchronization while I take her" pointing to Ningyo "for some maintenance" Ningyo was shocked (maintenance?) she thought. They exited the the yellow room and entered another neon purple room down the hall. Morpheus motioned for her to sit on a chair. "Don't be afraid Ningyo and turn your left eye towards your nose while keeping your right eye straight." Ningyo did as she was told. "If you are going to be an intern assistant here at the KIB, I must build within your brain, a 'mind file' that I can access so that you can take part in operations here within the office. The mind file doubles as an organizational an mnemonic tool, and a security measure." He placed the spaghetti strainer like object over Ningyo's head.

Ningyo's mind file flashed onto the walls as the room's color turned white. "Charly-src-ex0-path47" flashed across walls in a projected image. "As I count backwards you become more relaxed." said the Director "I would like to speak to Charly, is Charly here with us?"