Set between episodes 9 and 10 of Season 1—a sort of episode 9.5, a case for Division 1 to work on in that pause in the action.
"Mechanical Advantage"
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[noun]: the ratio of the output force produced by a simple machine to the applied input force. Synonym: Leverage
"There is a heightened area stress level warning in block B." Akane Tsunemori looked up from the computer screen to the three other officers in the room. Kunizuka was typing diligently at her station, a pair of headphones on, while Kagari hardly glanced up from his game console, his fingers nevertheless pausing and saving his progress.
Masaoka came up behind her, reading the screen over her shoulder. "A crime at the children's museum? Let's not waste any time." There were several jackets hung on hooks near the door; he picked up his own coat and tossed a second one, a bright blue windbreaker, at Shusei Kagari. "Suit up, Hound 4." He looked over at Akane, waiting for a belated confirmation of his decisions. After a moment, she nodded, logging out of her own workstation and standing up.
To Kunizuka, she said, "Please continue your analysis of the Oso Academy case. When Ginoza returns from his meeting, he may decide to follow us to the scene."
Masaoka was right. They didn't have any time to lose.
Block B was in the center of town, the arts district of the city. The street corners were capped off by fountains or perfect, leafy green trees. Gallery doors were wide open, signs leading the way to overhead espresso shops or basement jazz clubs. Komissa drones lined both sides of one city-block, directing traffic and urging each passing citizen in a soothing voice to continue on. Akane stepped out of the vehicle, joining the two Enforcers on the street.
Kagari looked up at a sign in the museum's window, stretching his arms up into the air with a loud sigh. "Exhibits on simple machines, an interactive garden, the systems of the human body," he read aloud. "Come on, what kind of museum doesn't have fossils?"
"Let's go inside," Akane said, leading the way into the building. She had been here before, as a child with her school group—in her memory the atrium was crowded with uniformed children, chatting and laughing, jockeying for position around the exhibits in the halls beyond. It was almost eerily empty now, like she'd expect the hall to look at night.
Masaoka, himself disguised as one of the friendly, nonthreatening Komissa drones, had found one of the museum's staff members and was listening to her talk about that morning at the museum. "There was a group of primary school students visiting today," she said, sighing at the memory. "These school trips are very common. Several boys went into the bodies exhibit ahead of the class, and discovered that one of the displays had been… replaced." Now her voice wavered; she was obviously distressed. "We don't use photo-realistic mannequins in our Bodies exhibits, not for these age groups. It gave them quite a scare—it gave all of us a scare. We don't know where it came from." She shifted from foot to foot nervously. "May I go, please?"
Masaoka thanked her for her help and let her go, his Komissa projection flickering away as he turned to Akane and Kagari. "Does any of this feel familiar to you?"
She nodded at him as together, they walked through the exhibit. Shades of Rikako Oryo. Or was it Makishima? For a moment, selfishly, she was glad to be here, with these Enforcers, rather than Ginoza and Kogami. They brought too much baggage with them to the Makishima case—it weighed them down, caused them both to think rashly. She couldn't blame them for it, but she couldn't bring any biases into this investigation. They had only just started; they didn't know anything concrete yet.
The lights in the Bodies exhibit were dimmed—save one, which lit the mannequin like a spotlight in the center of the room. Where the other parts of the exhibit were behind glass, or thin metal barriers, there was nothing preventing anyone from going right up to the body.
Kagari stopped, frowning. He reached out his arm for a moment before pulling it back. "That's no mannequin."
The body was displayed in cross-sections, parts of the sinewy muscle and bone revealed in various places. They could clearly see the plasticized intestines, heart and lungs, and parts of the body—especially around the face—had been completely cut away, revealing sunken cheekbones and a toothy grimace.
Masaoka looked away from the body to the rest of the room. Already, crime-scene drones were mapping the entire space and accumulating the data they needed. "And she said a couple of children saw this?"
"That woman seemed to be in denial. Hopefully the students didn't think they were looking at a real corpse," Akane said. Once the drones were finished, a copy would be sent back to their offices at the MWPSB. She wanted to get the museum back and operating normally as soon as possible. Field trips like these were one of many ways to lower student stress—the fact that this one had gone so wrong was more than a little unsettling.
One of the drones scanning the body started to buzz, and Kagari went over to check it. "No dice," he said, gritting his teeth. "There are two tiny handprints—they were daring each other to touch it."
Suddenly the lights in the room flickered on and a man in a suit and tie came into the room. "They only just told me the police had gotten here." Ignoring the Enforcers, he held out his hand to Akane, who shook it. "Jun Kuwashima. I'm the chairman of the museum."
She gently ushered him from the room, nodding at the others to continue working. "Please, sir, you can't be in here. A crime has been committed."
"Oh no…" He took off his glasses, ran his other hand through his hair. "The staff…those children…something like this has never happened here, for as long as I've been at the museum. I'll make sure everyone has access to emergency counseling."
"I appreciate that." Akane said. From this position she could see into another of the exhibits, a life-size garden with cheery flowers of various colors, the walls covered with glowing touch-screens. It contrasted with the Bodies exhibit like night and day. Following a hunch, she asked, "Who decides what sorts of exhibits get displayed here?"
"The museum has a board of directors that vote on new ideas twice a year," he answered. "This exhibit is only a month old—all of the rooms in this level have rotating content. The animal room upstairs, for example, is a permanent installation."
"We're going to need a list of names of all the employees who work here, including the board," Akane said, glancing down briefly at the comm on her wrist when it buzzed. Ginoza. "We'll need access to your records," she finished, smiling apologetically as she turned to the phone. "We need to establish who could have done this, how, and why."
"Of course." Kuwashima nodded. "If I can do anything further to help, please—don't hesitate to ask. It's…why I'm here."
Finally left to finish her work, Akane looked for her Enforcers, hoping to see if they had learned anything more. Masaoka was monitoring feedback from another drone—he had sent several of them out to get a layout of the back rooms and hallways, places guests couldn't go but where their perpetrator might have.
"Where is Kagari?" She asked, not seeing him. A moment later, a terrific crash was heard from another room, and they could just hear his voice over a series of mechanical beeps. They looked at each other, Akane breaking first, giggling. "I guess he is helping himself."
"Do you think Makishima is behind this?"
Kogami looked across the table at her. She liked to eat dinner with her colleagues, the more she got to know each one the less she felt like a stranger. Ginoza didn't approve, but then again, the last time they had shared a meal he spent half the time talking about rare coins and the other half fidgeting. Whenever she talked with Kogami, Akane felt like she was learning something: about him, about his philosophy, about ways to become better at her job.
He set down his hamburger and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. "First a school, then a museum…there's an opportunity there, for the criminal to say something about society, about culture, like Makishima seems to relish. But why a children's museum? It doesn't fit."
In front of Akane was a bowl of noodle soup, loaded with vegetables. She took a sip of her drink, letting the thoughts swirl around in her mind. She could see her reflection in it. Think, Akane. What had she been learning?
"Makishima would choose a different museum," she concluded. The subtle change in his eyes showed her that he was thinking the same thing. "His audience isn't children—it's the elite of this city. He's…red wine," Akane continued, looking at her drink. "The children's museum is milk. Could this be a copycat murder? Someone saw Rikako Oryo's…installation, and got inspired."
Kogami finished off his hamburger in silence. From her comment about the wine, he couldn't shake the idea that somewhere, Makishima was doing the same thing they were. Sharing a meal, sharing ideas… except instead of some exclusive salon, they were trapped in a cell.
"What is it they say? Life imitates art?" Shion Karanomori chuckled to herself. The sound of her fingertips clacking against the keys of her computer filled the room. Ginoza and Akane were seated at opposite ends of the couch behind her, looking at the slideshow of images on the large screen monitor. "Or is it art imitates life? Either way, it was the end of the line for our artist friend."
Several pictures of the same man flickered up onto the screen, first an ID picture, and then a full-body shot. Then the image halved, split-screen with the corpse from the museum. "Ichiro Fuji," she read aloud, "31 years old, single, owned an art gallery on the same street as the museum. Healthy Psycho-Pass, no vices or money troubles—he sold art to wealthy clients. Street cameras are scarce in this part of town, but his gallery had plenty of them, and I found nothing out of the ordinary. If I had to guess, he was just in the wrong place at the wrong time."
"Can you check to see if he was close with anyone who worked at the museum?" Ginoza asked. There were several moments of keyboard clicking, and then Karanomori answered him.
"He's on the list of donors for the museum, so there must be some connection." A few taps later and she pulled up the list, his name appearing halfway down.
"Did we ever get a list of the crime coefficients for every employee?" Akane's pen was flying over her notepad, trying to get everything down. "Is there anyone's who is particularly cloudy?"
"Why would an employee kill one of their donors?" Ginoza scoffed, adjusting his glasses. "It doesn't make sense."
"Maybe, in the criminal's eyes, he was more valuable this way." It was Masaoka who spoke, leaning in the doorway of the room. "Think about it—what's the purpose of a museum like this? To teach."
Ginoza turned around to face him, frowning incredulously. "You think this is some sort of next-level learning display? You might see it that way, but I sure don't. This is someone trying to mess up a bunch of schoolkids, and it's our job to stop them before they try again."
"You think they're going to try again?" Akane asked.
"Think about Rikako Oryo," he replied. "Nobody ever stops at one. We may see escalation, boldness, behavior that makes them easier to catch. But we will see a second attempt." With the tiniest of nods towards Masaoka, he continued, "If they were trying to teach us something, I don't think they're very satisfied with the outcome so far."
It was a lively Wednesday afternoon in the arts district. Crowds milled about, waiting for the matinee showing at the local theater, and a group of children crowded around the entrance to the museum, ready to begin their tour. The sunlight filtered through the trees, and music could be heard from an open store, the front door propped open to welcome visitors.
A woman navigated her way through the crowd, plaid jacket buttoned up tight against the chill. On each arm was a shopping bag, designer logos emblazoned in bright colors, and she was talking with someone on her phone. She crossed the street and continued on.
"Oh! Sorry…" She brushed against something, a rock in the ripple of traffic, and it snagged against one of her shopping bags. There was a torn glove wrapped around the handle of her bag, one end still connected to its owner. "I wasn't looking where I was going…"
Set just in front of the window was a mannequin, dressed head to toe in stylish but inconspicuous clothing—save the sinewy, muscled arm and bony wrist previously hidden by the opera glove. Once the illusion was shattered, all of the gaps in the clothing could be clearly seen—bony feet in slip-on shoes, an exposed trachea behind a loosely-wrapped scarf.
She felt her mouth go dry, unable to answer the person on the other end of the line. Her mind still hadn't caught up to her body—the sleeping, primal part of herself started to act on instinct, and she pulled backwards, scrambling back and falling down in her haste to get away. The plasticized body was tugged along by the still-attached glove, and the two were tangled together on the ground.
The crowd swarmed around them—clusters of children and their teachers, businessmen and gallery patrons, reaching out to help her up, to separate them, whispering and talking to each other, and all the woman on the ground could do was scream.
"I don't like that we're getting familiar with this place." Masaoka frowned, stuffing his hands in his pockets.
"And I wanted to see the animal exhibit," Kagari whined, casting a sly look at each of the Enforcers in turn. "Anybody with me? How about you, Gino?"
Ginoza glared at him for a moment before stalking back underneath the roof of the tent. The drones had set up a temporary cover over the crime scene, while two other lines of Komissa drones had closed off the street again. This was a nightmare—dozens of citizens had seen this corpse, touched it, and when they figured out the truth the resulting stampede had gone right out into traffic and several had been injured.
The psychological toll was just as high—and not only for them. He had to try to keep the media off of this case, actually solve the case, report to the chief, keep his Enforcers in line, and keep Inspector Tsunemori from being led off a cliff by Kogami…the list seemed endless. God, he just might go see the animals with Kagari.
Akane crouched down next to the body. "What is this supposed to be teaching us?" In one ear she heard Shion Karanomori's voice, back at the precinct, compiling everything they had learned so far.
"Are the people in the sun this clueless all the time? I only have a few camera shots, from drones passing by, but this corpse was there for hours. Maybe all day."
"They are." Akane could feel Kogami's eyes on her. Resisting the urge to turn around, she continued, "It's the truth. Most people are oblivious to things outside of their own bubble. I'm sure we've all been guilty of that at one time or another."
"If you say so." Karanomori sighed over the line.
Akane reached out, her fingers running over the luxurious fabric covering up the body. "These are expensive…maybe we can find the killer this way. Figure out where they came from, maybe we can figure out who bought them."
She looked up when Kogami came up beside her. "I think the fancy clothes were part of the smokescreen. In this part of town, someone dressed like this blends in. Gino and the old man may be right—it's a twisted sort of exhibit, and whoever is behind this is trying to teach us something, to open our eyes to things outside our bubble, like you said."
"Then we need to figure out what, and fast," Akane replied. "Or else things are only going to get worse."
Shusei Kagari was cooking her dinner. They had played three rounds of racing games for the honor, loser cooks for the winner, and if Kagari wasn't so competitive Akane would have thought he let her win on purpose.
She had noticed something different about him while working this case. Granted, she hadn't known him for very long—she hadn't known any of them for very long—but Kagari always liked to let someone else take the lead. He complained more than the rest of them, professed to be happier with his games and toys than a case to work on, and seemed sometimes to take his job as an Enforcer with a cavalier attitude that made his behavior now seem all the more intriguing to Akane.
True, Ginoza usually picked the teams, and Akane understood why; it just meant she had less opportunities to see his skills in action. No matter what any of them said, as a team was where they worked the best. Without each other's help, she might even argue that they didn't work at all.
"Hey Akane! Earth to Akane…" Kagari was waving a wooden spoon in her direction, a curious smile on his face. On the stovetop in front of him a small skillet was heaped with fried rice, curls of steam rising up from it. "Are you ready to eat?"
It was towards the end of their meal when he asked, "How did you learn about the human body? You know… in school?"
She noticed, then, the assortment of building blocks and construction toys scattered around on the console table. He had made several shapes—levers, wheels—that she recognized from the museum exhibit. "Illustrations, mostly. What was in our textbooks, nothing hands-on, especially for those who didn't want a career in biology or medicine…" She paused, thinking. "It was very…safe."
"Safe?"
"We learned how to become productive members of society, not given knowledge that could be used to harm each other more proficiently. The Sibyl System puts a lot of time, effort, money—into each student. They wouldn't jeopardize that by exposing children to what could upset them or raise their crime coefficients."
Kagari scoffed. "That sure sounds like Sibyl." Then he shoveled up more rice with his chopsticks, vehemently chewing every mouthful until his bowl was empty. Above them, the ceiling fan spun and spun.
"What if someone disagreed with that idea?"
His question surprised her. Clearing his throat, Kagari continued, "I asked the old man what these things were like back in his day. What he said didn't surprise me—changes in education went hand-in-hand with the changes in law enforcement."
Her eyes lit up when she looked at him, finally understanding just what he meant. "You think our culprit is a teacher?"
"Or used to be one, or tried to be one."
Akane nodded. "It would explain what Kogami was thinking about this case, too. Makishima was a teacher for a while. He thought that this person, whoever they are, was inspired by him."
"Or maybe they had their own hands-on learning experience growing up," Kagari said, an out-of-place grimace on his face where there would usually be a cheery smile. This was why she liked spending time with each of them. With time, she got to know them better. Ginoza cautioned her against it, saying that she was risking too much, but it was almost the opposite—even in the short time she had been an Inspector, they had trusted each other with their lives, and would have to again. So he could laugh and complain, and she could stumble and fall, but she knew someone would be there to help her back up. There were still things they could learn from each other.
And without hesitation, she'd say he was acting like a detective.
They'd gone directly to Karanomori's station and found her lounging on the couch, a cigarette in one hand. Her computer terminal was on and playing a song Akane didn't recognize, an acoustic guitar melody playing quietly in the background.
"Well? You look like you know something I don't." She moved to her desk and stubbed out the cigarette.
"We have an idea…" Akane said, leaning over her shoulder to see the computer screen. "Can you check against our list of people connected to the museum for someone who was a teacher? Or tried to be one, but was never hired."
"On it."
Behind them, Kagari sat down on the couch, propping his feet up on the coffee table and folding his arms back and behind his head. If this worked, he was taking all the credit. He smiled, relaxing deeper into the couch. He'd be basking for days.
There was a sound at the door and Kogami poked his head in, coming inside and closing the door behind him. "I thought I heard voices in here."
"We got a match!" Karanomori crowed as the two lists synched up, the common name highlighted in yellow. "Jun Kuwashima tested for the Ministry of Education twice, with hopes to teach primary school, but didn't receive a high enough ranking to proceed. He comes from an elite family…maybe his position at the museum wasn't earned so much as bought."
Akane remembered him; he was there the morning of the first incident. She had talked to him, and while he had seemed more interested in their investigation than the other woman they had talked to, nothing about him struck her as out of the ordinary.
"His crime coefficient is 89," Akane said, reading more of the data aloud. "Very cloudy, but he is not a target for enforcement."
"When was his last hue check?" Kogami asked.
Akane started, she hadn't noticed him come in. "Three months ago. He has to be purposefully avoiding the hue scans—that's way too long to have gone without otherwise."
Beside her, Karanomori continued to type. A map of the city appeared, focusing in on two separate areas. "Like the Talisman guy—Mido?—I hope this doesn't catch on, since that always means more work for us."
The two images sharpened; one was of the museum, the other a nondescript apartment building near the waterfront. "It is getting late…is he going to be at work, or at home?" Akane asked.
The first picture changed slightly, showing the building at a different angle. "None of the lights in the museum are on," Karanomori said. "Not even in the rooms where the offices are."
They were already starting to move; Kagari stretched, cracking his knuckles, and Akane typed directions to the transport drones downstairs, readying them to take them all out. Neither of them noticed Kogami walking up to the desk; he smoothly swapped out Karanomori's empty cigarette carton with a full box of the same brand. "Nothing gets past you," he said.
"They'd have to be really smart or really handsome," she replied, winking at him, "and Kuwashima is neither. Don't stay out too late."
The skyscrapers in the center of the city glittered like new, lights on and shining brightly like stars in the night. From the windows of the police car Akane could see the lights of one tower blending in to the next, the highway's overhead lamps and the lights of passing cars on either side…it was making her dizzy. There were so many people here, and this was all she could see of them, the only way they could tell themselves apart from each other. A thousand flickering points of light, and they were looking for just one.
At the edge of the city, where the land ended and the water began, stood a string of modest apartment buildings. There was no one in sight, although a few parked cars dotted the street. The police car came to a stop in front of one of the buildings, the paddy wagon in line behind it. Kagari and Kogami jumped out, and in a moment each had a dominator in one hand. Akane took hers, her eyes momentarily brightening as the connection was established.
Dominator usage approval confirmed. You are a valid user. Carefully holding the weapon in one hand, she approached the building, motioning for Kogami to take the lead. "You go up the main staircase, I'll cover the back exit," she whispered, and he nodded. He started to climb, Kagari following him.
Akane went around the corner, heading towards the rear staircase, but stopped when she heard the rustle of keys. There was a row of mailboxes set into the wall—a man was at one of the doors, reaching inside and pulling out a handful of magazines. She could hardly believe it; Jun Kuwashima was checking his mail.
Almost holding her breath, she carefully raised the dominator and pointed it at him. Crime Coefficient is over 190. Suspect is a target for enforcement action. Enforcement Mode is Non-Lethal Paralyzer. Aim carefully and disable the target.
Akane looked down the barrel of the gun and saw Jun Kuwashima, keys in hand, looking right back at her. A second later he was gone, running as fast as he could down the hallway.
"Stop!" she shouted, and started to run after him.
"Inspector!" Kagari's voice rang out on the line. "What happened?"
"I saw Kuwashima!" She kept running, then opened the door at the end of the hallway and dashed through. Where had he gone? "He's bad news—his crime coefficient is through the roof. I've nearly caught up to him."
"We'll be right there," Kogami told her. He clicked off the line—in the background she could hear Kagari complaining about the number of steps they had just climbed.
Akane passed through another door and found herself outside. She could smell the saltwater and hear the waves lapping against a seawall not too far away. She could hear the click of a gun's safety being thumbed off; she could see Kuwashima pointing a pistol right at her.
"Put down the dominator," he said, his voice low and composed, a marked contrast to the carefree businessman she had met before. "You're coming with me."
She grit her teeth. "You will face justice."
He led her to the water's edge, where a small boat was moored.
"You go first," he said.
"And when were you planning on using this?" she asked, climbing down and taking a few careful steps towards the front. Her balance wavering, she put her arms out to either side to steady herself. She was trying to stay calm, to buy time for the enforcers to get to them, but she was out of her element here. The boat bobbed and swayed in the water, and her stomach jumped up with every wave. She hoped he didn't catch on how nervous she was.
He started the motor and pulled away just as the back door opened and the enforcers ran outside. Kogami looked like he was going to jump in the water and swim after them, but Kagari held him back and motioned to the harbor around them. She turned back to Kuwashima, shivering. Even with her jacket, it was cold out on the water.
"You even had a getaway plan…how long have you been planning this? Did Makishima help you?"
"I've never met any Makishima," he said. "An immigrant man gave me the tools to make my exhibits a reality."
The boat curved a path through the water, the wind whipping through Akane's hair and making it difficult to see. "What you call exhibits were healthy, hardworking people! Surely what you wanted to say could be achieved without senseless loss of life? The Sibyl System gave you a means to teach and inspire people—"
"I've seen what Sibyl gives," he said bitterly, his fingers shaking over the boat's throttle. "You don't know how my family has suffered…I had to watch my brother live with tremendous guilt, without the means to express himself. I wasn't able to help him—nothing could help him! I resolved to change things—to be able to teach others how to deal with trauma, how to deal with death, so they have the words to describe how the world really is…how we really are. People aren't illustrations, or diagrams, or numbers."
Kuwashima looked to the horizon. "To learn anything about ourselves, first we need to start with the real thing."
Enforcers Kagari and Kogami were just in time to watch their culprit and his hostage sail away.
"Damn it," Kogami said, judging the distance from the shore to the boat and moving as if to swim after them. "What was she thinking?"
"Probably that she could talk him down and he'd see the error of his ways; we could all hold hands and dance around the museum like things weren't any different." Kagari smoothed down his tie when it started to twist in the breeze.
"Foolish."
They scanned the coast—there were several empty spots where boats might have been docked, but it was dark and difficult to make out much of anything. They could barely see Akane; even the wake of the first boat was starting to blend back in to the dark water. Kagari narrowed his eyes, shouting and pointing out another little speedboat moored at the other end of the apartment complex. They ran to it, Kogami jumping in right away while Kagari fumbled with the ropes for a moment before successfully freeing the boat from its harbor. "Can you drive it?" he asked.
"Can't be too different than a motorcycle," Kogami answered, shrugging.
Kagari hopped in, and in fits and starts the boat pulled away from shore, kicking up a spray of water. The engine rumbled loudly. "If Gino has to come rescue us, we're never going to be able to live it down."
If he had been looking at Kogami, he would have seen the barest hint of a smile. "He'd probably think we were trying to bail. Escape by boat."
It almost felt wrong to laugh, so Kagari smothered his into the sleeve of his jacket. "What a lousy escape plan. Come on, we're nearly caught up. I know you can go faster than this."
Kogami revved the throttle, looking forward and into the wind. They were gaining on them.
Akane shifted in the boat as it skimmed over the waves. "There's nothing out here," she said, one hand curling around the dominator, the other clenching the edge of her seat. "Nowhere for you to go…and nothing waiting for you afterwards but a cell in the isolation facility. Turn this boat around before it's too late."
"Too late? For me?" Kuwashima scoffed. "It's too late for the people that Sibyl lets slip through the cracks. If they only knew, they would be thanking me."
He guided the boat over the crest of a large wave and Akane took her chance, darting forward and wrenching the gun away from him just as the boat thudded down. They both fell forward and before he had time to react she threw the gun over the side and into the water.
With Kuwashima's hand off the throttle, the boat came to a stop, rocking back and forth over the water. Akane looked at him with a mixture of triumph and trepidation, her hair stuck to her face from the spray, daring him to make the next move. There was nothing more he could do; he had no more power over her.
Suddenly, she could hear Kagari's voice, yelling at them, and saw another boat skittering madly over the waves in their direction. "Please," she said, and aimed the dominator. "It's over."
She blinked, confused, when the message she expected to hear never came. There were no numbers in her vision, no voice in her ear; the dominator remained powered-down. "…What?"
She shuddered at Kuwashima's wild grin. "Out on the water, we're out of range—there's no wireless connection out here. You can't do anything…but I can." He grabbed Akane's arms and hauled her to the edge of the boat, forcing her over the side and into the water. He returned to the controls and revved the enging, leaving them behind without looking back.
"Inspector!" Kogami took off his jacket, throwing it into one of the empty seats. Next, he kicked off his shoes, one sock coming off along with it. "Hold on!"
"What is it?" Kagari said, instinctively taking his place at the helm of the boat. He looked back and forth between Akane and the other boat, wondering which to head towards first.
"She can't swim."
Kagari could feel the words sinking to the pit of his stomach. There was nothing in the boat they could use for flotation, and now their targets were split—with every passing second, Akane was further in danger, and Kuwashima was farther away. "Go!" He fumbled for the controls of the boat, and it came back to life with a loud, mechanical roar. "I got this."
Kogami dove into the water, ignoring the shock of the cold as he kicked against the current. His clothes felt like weights but he took a deep breath and reached out one arm, each stroke bringing him closer to her.
The first thing Akane noticed was the cold, creeping up her body and getting into every pore of her skin. It was in her shoes, weighing her down; it was in her eyes, and her nose, and there was so much of it. She clutched the useless dominator with one hand, trying to flail her arms to get back above the water. She gasped, forcing out the water that was trying to get in her lungs. It was salty and it stung. The current was trying to take her away, and she didn't know how to fight it.
She went under and fought it, breaking to the surface again. And just when she braced herself for the next wave, Akane felt a hand, fingers slipping under one of her arms and holding on tightly. "I've got you."
Her hair was soaking wet and dripping into her eyes but she blinked back the saltwater and saw Kogami there beside her. "You're okay," he said, and together they glided through the next wave. "I'm not going to let you drown."
Trusting him, she stopped fighting against the water and let him guide them through it. Floating in his arms, she looked up at him. Chattering teeth and lips smiled.
Kagari steered the boat in a haphazard arc through the water. That bastard Kuwashima thought he had gotten away, but there were two of them, and this hound was going to run down his prey no matter what.
Akane had her comm on when she had been in the boat with him, and Kagari had heard most of what he said. It made his blood boil. How arrogant, for Kuwashima to think that he was the only one to know suffering.
Maybe his dominator didn't work, maybe he was on a stupid rickety boat on the edge of the ocean, but Kagari was going to bring him in. The boat jumped over the waves, Kagari clinging on through the rough patches of water. He could see Kuwashima's boat; he was getting closer and closer. It was almost worth it, this whole twisted journey, for the look on Kuwashima's face as he saw Kagari's boat careening wildly towards him.
In the instant before one boat rammed in to the other, Kagari killed the engine and jumped, the dominator in its holster and Kogami's jacket tucked under one arm, swinging his other fist out as he leapt for Kuwashima. "You monster!" Kagari's fist struck the edge of his cheekbone with a satisfying thud. "You think you're doing something good, but I'll tell you this—" and he raised his fist again— "I don't need your help."
Kuwashima fell to the floor of the boat, unconscious. Kagari looked at the scene around him—one boat, smashed and leaking, the other, with controls he didn't know how to operate—with nothing else except sea below and sky above. He pushed Kuwashima's legs out of the way and took the helm, scouring the water for signs of his friends.
He reached them a few minutes later, relieved that they appeared no worse for wear. He helped Akane into the boat first; Kogami climbed up after her. She wrung out her hair as best she could and sat down on the bench, shivering. Without a word Kogami retrieved his jacket from the boat's floor and dropped it over her shoulders. She clutched at it gratefully, snuggling into the shearling lining.
For a moment they all just stayed there, in the boat. She could tell without looking that they were all watching the same thing. In the distance, the city gleamed brightly, lights blinking and flashing, announcing to the world the presence of the people inside. They would never see them or meet them, or know that there were three people in a boat on the water watching out for them in turn. She had never seen the city in this way before. It really was quite something.
She traced the skyline, the buildings she knew so well. Somewhere in the thick of it was her home, but towering over all of the others, unmistakable, was theirs—the MWPSB. The tower rose over them all, and from this angle she could see every level and every curve of the main chamber, in the iconic shape of the dominator. She'd never noticed it before. It pointed upward, as a beacon or a warning, almost as if it could judge the sky.
The End.
Author's Notes:
1. The title, Mechanical Advantage, not only references the simple machines exhibit in the children's museum, but also the knife-edge by which the characters in this world need to balance to keep their hues in check. The smallest change can lead to a huge outcome.
2. All of the characters are seen eating their favorite foods: noodles, hamburgers, rice.
3. Jun Kuwashima is the OC brother of Koichi Kuwashima, a prominent character in Season 2 of Psycho-Pass. The feelings of grief and survivor's guilt he experiences would be felt secondhand by his brother, and twisted into something that would make for a great case for our detectives to solve.
4. Akane cannot swim. The MWPSB tower really does look like a gun.
5. Heaps of love and appreciation to my beta, My Misguided Fairytale. Thank you!
6. Thank you for reading and please review, I value and treasure each one.
