"Inspector Ayase, I'm reporting for duty," says the young woman. She stands tall, coolly, eyes half-lidded as though she can't wait for the ordeal to be over. The weak drizzle of rain is making a mess of her bright hair – strands of crimson pop up every which way like it's been attacked with a cat's tongue, slightly ruining her look of unconcern.
Eli ignores this; gazes dispassionately at her wristcom-turned-street-map, watching the neon green dot that marks her partner's location slide across the sleek black background of the screen, darting along the gas-blue grids of the streets. When the flickering mark reaches a point on the interface a block away, Eli finally lifts her eyes to the other person, addressing her smoothly. "My title, First-Year Inspector Nishikino, is Senior Inspector. You might want to get out of the street."
Nishikino Maki blinks, then lurches sideways awkwardly, onto the graveled drive by stepping through the boulevard, dainty foot sinking into the thin centimeters of mud. She straightens next to Eli at nearly the same height. They stand stoically for a few moments, Eli allowing rain to pattern her in arching droplets while her newest Inspector shifts uncomfortably in the silence. Maki's eyes dart down several times; she appears to have a brief internal struggle, then reaches down and scrapes some of the squelching street mire from her sensible, glossy flats.
The evening life in this part of town is practically nonexistent. They're a fair distance away from the shopping centers bustling with consumers and security drones, instead surrounding themselves with dilapidated buildings with exposed, rusty pipes and screeching, unhinged doorways leading into smoky darkness that smells of disuse. The only people that have passed are rather seedy characters with high collars and the scuttled, jerky walks of the suspicious. But that's not what they're here for.
Eli doesn't let her relief show when the van approaches, ripping down the pot-holed street and coming to a violent, dusty stop barely feet away from the sidewalk where she stands in her dampening navy jacket. The side of the car grates open with the sound of heavy locking mechanisms clicking wildly, and Inspector Sonoda Umi emerges from around the doors, swinging a thick Dominator gun over her bony shoulder with casual, familiar ease.
"Senior Inspector Ayase," she acknowledges with a curt nod, and some of her flowing hair falls across her sharp face, obscuring the angles of her prominent facial bones, though not the flash of ghost-blue in her eyes as the Dominator powers up.
"Good evening, partner," Eli says with a bit less formality than usual, though she thinks young Maki seems like she could use some more decorum with professional interactions. "Look here, we've traced the signals of that phony matchmaking site to this run-down apartment complex," she brandishes her Holo device at the creaky-looking building. It looks like it will collapse at the slightest gust of wind.
"Oh, that old thing?" comments Umi, and swings her Dominator to her other shoulder. "I can't believe people were so quick to join that website."
Eli shrugs and crosses to the van, where a hidden compartment unfolds with more clicking and offers another Dominator by the hilt. She yanks it out of the holder smoothly, and listens to the clear voice of the Sibyl-controlled system blink across her mind. "They're hopeful, aren't they, that they find someone to be with. And I think the attraction really lies within the rebellion of the thing – an illegal matching service that doesn't use Sibyl's Hue system? Sign up all the wannabe mavericks," she snorts. The rain is starting to come down harder, and a single, thick splash lands on her cheek and rolls down poetically, like a teardrop. It's cold.
"Why don't we have any Enforcers tonight?" asks Maki, and retrieves her registered Dominator with something like nerves etched in her expression.
"This is just an informal call," explains Eli when Umi doesn't deign to reply, "technically, setting up a non-Sibyl authorized dating forum is not strictly illegal, but it's worth a visit to warn the creator that other anti-Sibyl nonsense is not to be permitted."
"We are such sticklers for rules, aren't we?" says Maki, and swipes the rain with her Dominator in one hand, showing a half-grin that is more of a baring of teeth.
As Senior Inspector, Eli gets all the fun jobs, like knocking at the doors of possible criminals. "Open up. This is Inspector Ayase of the Ministry of Welfare's Public Safety Bureau. I am an inspection officer of the Criminal Investigation Department, and I'd like to have a few words with the owner of this… house," she finishes lamely, attention drifting to the admittedly gross curb appeal, and curses internally. The crusty door does not open.
"Are you reading anything from inside? Heat signatures, outgoing communications, activated internal Holos?" she asks Maki, to distract herself.
"All three," Maki replies, tapping quickly at her wristcom device, Dominator dangling from two fingers, and Eli resists the urge to correct her grip. Maki is not twelve and does not need an overbearing adult.
"Analyst Koizumi reports that the tracking is definitely coming from this very building," reports Umi, who by contrast is standing with her Dominator in two hands, pointed at the door, amber eyes shining in the gloomy evening weather. "We have authority to enter from Sibyl."
Eli rummages in her Inspector jacket pocket and puts her MWPSB badge to the door's shining red scanner, thanking the stars that the building, falling apart though it is, has enough modernity for her to not have to break down a slab of wood four inches thick. With a few whirring clicks, her CID badge overrides the lock, and the door is open.
"Oh," says a soft-faced young woman with long, messy hair, who is on the other side, seated across from the door in a squashy-looking armchair with rolling wheels. Eli feels Maki peering over her shoulder to see the grimy, dusty inner hall. There are a few footprints in the layer of dirt, and the whole floor is illuminated in the darkness by the blaringly bright light from what looks like an entire wall of monitors before the woman. It smells like wet dog. "Did you knock?"
"Yes, we did," says Umi politely, and steps into the hall, towards the girl surrounded by technology with her badge in her hand. Eli follows, Dominator down but ready, with Maki standing guard at the door. The whole scenario feels, suddenly, glowing with suspicion.
"Are you-" Umi stows her badge after flashing it towards the chair's occupant and consults her wristcom, "-Toujou? The woman in charge of-"
"Yes, that's me," interrupts Toujou, and she's smiling so intensely, Eli's grip tightens on her gun, and she points it subtly at Toujou's foot.
Target's criminal coefficient is 25. No action is required. The gentle voice of the Dominator doesn't quite dispel Eli's twitch, but she relaxes and lets her arms loosen slightly. Toujou is fiddling with her skirt; it's a short thing in a pale, grass-green plaid. It matches her eyes. Umi is still talking.
"The dating website you've been operating isn't necessary for our society and undermines the authority of Sibyl's matchmaking system. Sibyl requires you to shut it down. For further notice, please refer to your provid- hck!" Umi makes an odd sound, a sort of strangled huff, and Eli whips around from where she'd been staring, fascinated, at the pulsating wall of screens, and sees Umi drop her Dominator and slide down the nearest wall by her palms, shaking, coughing, and ultimately disappearing in a roiling curtain of odd greenish smoke. Eli darts forward, and her foot hits a thin canister, still spurting the poison-green gas, and she kicks it into the larger room with a clang of metal on her iron-toed boots, and Toujou has vanished.
"NISHIKINO," snarls Eli, and rips off her jacket to cover her face. She gropes in the dust for Umi, and drags her partner out of the building through sheer fear, muscles twitching like an over-eager predator, and dumps Umi unceremoniously into Maki's astonished arms, snapping orders like the crash of teeth on stone. "Call the CID, order Enforcers, forensic drones, and inform Director Minami that our informal business call just went sour. Get Umi back to the van and do first-aid; I'm going to retrieve our gracious host."
The first-year Inspector doesn't even question the legitimacy or wisdom of this idea, just slings the shorter Umi over her back and half-piggybacks the woman down the few steps towards the stationary van through the now-storming rain.
Eli sprints through the apartment complex with her Dominator in one hand and her Holo activated on her wristcom, scanning each room quickly for life-forms before dashing to the next. Her running shoes squeak with every step, damp from the rain and picking up the film of dust that covers seemingly every surface of the complex. Why didn't her Dominator pick up Toujou? It must have been Toujou that deployed the gas canister, but her coefficient was ridiculously low. The only other explanation is another person in the complex – a latent criminal, now a full-blown criminal – and Eli has to protect the civilian. But first she'll have to locate her, an attempt that is proving challenging.
Everything in this building smells awful, a musty, guttural scent that makes Eli wrinkle her nose as she sprints and squeaks through the hallways, breathing evenly. There's a vague sense of panic as she realizes, too late, how dark it is. How she's surrounded by the pitch black, echoing into empty space. She slows her steps and comes to an eventual halt, just listening, holding back her old fears, things that have worn themselves into her mind as a child. Just as a child…
"Your Hue is getting a little cloudy," says someone, and Eli does not startle, just swings around and positions her Dominator solidly. It's Toujou, holding a boxy item in one hand close to her face, and her slim, purple-nailed fingers wrapped around another gas canister.
Toujou has lovely emerald eyes, which for all the world look like some sort of toned-down traffic light green; that can't be natural. But she smiles brightly with her sweet, round face, revealing dimples and a small gap in her admittedly large front teeth, and her whole face is brightened by the white glow of whatever electronic device she has in her hand. Eli's gaze slews down to that canister, where Toujou's thumb strokes languidly across the dull metal.
"Your Hue is a divine shade of blue," says Toujou, still fixated on her device. "But you seemed to be getting a little stressed a few seconds ago; it's clearing up, though. Isn't that nice; Sibyl won't throw you into rehabilitation therapy!" She smiles, all lovely cheer. She can't be more than twenty, twenty-two.
"Did you… did you gas my partner?" Eli has to ask, and readjusts her grip on her gun because it's getting a little sweaty. Target's criminal coefficient is 19. No action is required.
"Yes! I did that," confirms Toujou, and sways a little on the balls of her feet like an excited child. She's wearing ridiculously impractical little kitten heels, a glossy black with a sassy little strap going over the top of her foot. There's really pretty, but Eli is confused as to why she didn't hear them clicking, how Toujou snuck up on her, why her Dominator isn't working. "Don't worry about it, though. I found something really, really interesting." Toujou turns the thing in her hand to face Eli, and walks forward, ignoring the pointed gun, until she's hardly a few feet away, so Eli can read the screen.
Inspector Ayase Eli the screen says, and it's somehow identified her and… Eli's eyes fly wide – the box is connected to Sibyl, somehow, it must be, because it's got her home address and her Hue color and all of her data is flying up and down the screen. She gets an eyeful of her blood type, and then Toujou whips the box back around and taps the surface a few times, humming in a nasally pitch that seems completely disconcerting coming from her pretty, pursed lips.
"What is that device? What in the he-"
"Look!" budges in Toujou, and Eli gets the box shoved in her face again. She lowers her gun, bemused. "This is how I made my matches on my website. I identified the people and brought in Sibyl's own matching program to calculate their compatibilities. Believe it or not, it's actually pretty good."
Eli bats the box out of her face and scans Toujou with the Dominator again, still watching the hand with the gas canister. It looks homemade. Target's criminal coefficient is 29. No action is required. "But you told them all the wrong advice. You matched up all of your consumers in pairings that went directly opposite Sibyl's readings!" Clearly Toujou had attacked Umi, but the Dominator says it isn't so. The Dominator is connected directly to Sibyl. What is going on?
"Yeah, well, I don't much like the Sibyl System dictating who should end up with whom – where's the fun in that? But that's not actually what I wanted to show you, Inspector Ayase. Here."
Eli has to look at the screen this time, instead of those wickedly bright eyes. Ayase Eli and Toujou Nozomi: 95% match.
Holy… this will be hard to explain to Division 9. "Wait just a second, what is-" and a resounding force whacks her across the head, she's falling, dizzy as the stars, the hiss of a gas canister, and then she's being propped up against a wall. Eli struggles to keep her eyes open, but the world is jumping around her, and she's coughing like mad when soft hands curl around her palms and force something into her grip. She tightens her fingers around a cube-like object and surrenders to the void.
"Ayase?"
"Eli!"
There's an awful clanging noise, like an old-fashioned cowbell reverberating about Eli's skull. Her vision blurs into focus slowly, like a calibrating camera lens, and she gets a close-up of Sonoda Umi's dusky face smeared in chalk-like streaks that must be the remnants of the gas.
Holding this observation close in hand, Eli tries to look around, but receives only a blinding strike of light to her face as someone – Maki's voice, low and commanding – waves the brightness across both of her dilated pupils. "Inspector, what happened? Did you find Toujou?"
"I found her, definitely," Eli manages, and puts a palm against her burning cheek. She regrets this quickly, as it's apparently been lying on the filthy ground, and she's just rubbed it on her skin. More pressing things come to mind. "My Dominator didn't work on her."
"What?" comes Umi's serious voice, and her face, pale with two spots of splotchy pink high on her cheekbones, swoops into view. Eli realizes she's barely in an upright sitting position, leaned against the narrow hallway wall, exposed slats of wood digging into her jacketless back.
"She took a swing at my head with another gas can, then deployed it on me," Eli explains, and forces herself to rise slowly, thighs complaining as she strings them into a compatible position for standing. Maki has one firm hand under Eli's armpit, guiding her superior into a vertical stance. "But the Dominator didn't even register her as paralysis-level."
Umi frowns, expression visible through the feeble morning streaks of light coming in through the damaged walls of the complex. "Is your gun functional?"
"Yes, perfectly. It just… didn't read her as a threat, seconds before she had a go at my head." Eli glances down, notices something in her hand, held so tightly her knuckles are sore.
Maki shifts uncomfortably. "Director Minami has called us back in. The forensics bots and Division 4 are here, since I reported in that our Senior Inspector was injured. We should ditch this place."
"You're right; let's go," Eli stumbles, catching her foot on the uneven floorboards, but ignores Maki's offered hand and Umi's tilted head.
"Eli, what have you got there?" gestures Umi as Eli ducks down to retrieve her Dominator. Eli glances at the screen of the tiny Sibyl scanner and flinches.
Director Minami is a juxtaposition. Her sharply creased suit and professional hairstyle clash with the motherly, caring look in her eyes, an expression she can't seem to keep out of her face even when she's reprimanding one of her Division leaders. Like right now.
"You should never have gone back in alone. You shouldn't have even engaged without Enforcers."
Eli stands as solidly as she can before her superior, refusing to cave her spine, knowing she's in the wrong, but facing her rebuke without blinking. The director's eyebrows crease, and Eli glances around the circular room in the silence, trying not to move her eyes. This high in the sky, the office's wall-wide windows throw open the whole cityscape, dazzling morning sunbeams painting the magnificent mahogany décor a warm gold. Eli can't see any slight wavering in the room's heavy Victorian era style, so she concludes that Minami's desk is in fact, authentic expensive furniture.
"Inspector Ayase," the director says, exasperated. "You made a mistake. This will result in extra paperwork for me to Chief Joshu, especially since Division 9 is the newest section of the CID." She peers over her thin navy frames to gaze at Eli, who fixes her director with the iciest, most serious expression she can project. This causes Minami to blink. "However, due to the described circumstances in your report, the chief has asked me to impart a certain delicate piece of information regarding Ms. Toujou Nozomi."
Eli sharpens her gaze, frustrated immediately at the mention of that Toujou girl. Who she's apparently almost perfectly matched to. She feels her whole body tighten, half panic and half eager to be let off her leash, to hunt down that criminal, tear after her, and bring her to justice. "Director Minami, I am listening."
Criminally asymptomatic. Weird term. Eli stalks down the sleek halls of the Public Safety Bureau, shoes striking out a patter of irritation on the gridded tile. She scans her badge at the door marked "Division 9" in thick black lettering, and waits patiently as the metallic doors glide apart.
First she sees the blocky array of screens in the dim room, dancing with lines of green code and street cam images, and then she catches Enforcers Yazawa and Hoshizora tossing a very familiar bit of machinery between themselves, snorting capriciously.
"Nico, Rin," snaps Eli, and the shorter women stutter themselves into sobriety. Yazawa Nico, with her thin-boned face, scowls at the appearance of Eli, while lithe little Rin grins toothily. "Where's Analyst Koizumi?"
Rin bounces excitedly. "Hanayo is in the restroom! Eli, did you know this box is like, a knockoff Hue-scanner? It's connected to Sibyl but doesn't register on the system, that's what she said."
Nico shoves Rin, clearly using all of her strength, but the other Enforcer hardly rocks on her heels, still grinning widely up at Eli. "This dork used the Hue-scanner to compare her compatibility with everyone in the room."
"Yeah! I matched most with Hanayo, but like, Maki was a solid 60% too."
"She got embarrassed and left to freshen up," smirks Nico.
Eli frowns at both of them. "Don't play with the evidence. Rin, will you fetch Maki and Umi?"
Rin clambers over the back of the L-sofa and vanishes out the sliding door. Nico side-eyes Eli sullenly. "Why are you such a serious killjoy?"
Eli raises one eyebrow. "Enforcer Yazawa. You're out of line," she says warningly.
"Whatever," says Nico, and flicks a strand of her dark hair away from her pale face with knobbly hands. Eli rolls her eyes.
Inspectors Umi and Maki file into the Division 9 wing along with Enforcer Rin and Analyst Koizumi Hanayo. The latter is mousey in stride, with heavy-framed glasses that she has to shove up with her whole palm.
"Why is it always so dark in here?" grumbles Umi, and taps the environmental Holo control panel by the door, slowly opening the room to a level of brightness reminiscent of a surgical room. Eli chooses to ignore this, instead gesturing for the Division members to gather by the couch. Hanayo perches before the wall of monitors in her observing chair. Nico stretches out on the cushions of the couch, and Maki leans nonchalantly by Hanayo's desk, running her manicured fingertips over the loose papers.
"Division 9," Eli starts, "We've been issued a priority mission: capturing the criminally asymptomatic Toujou Nozomi alive."
"Criminally what-a-what?" Rin asks curiously.
"It's an old term," says Nico in a superior tone. "About one in two million civilians have brains so weird that Sibyl can't scan them cymatically." She pauses. "I didn't think they existed, really."
Umi leans forward, eyes narrowed. "If Sibyl can't scan them, that explains why the Dominator couldn't identify Toujou as a danger." Her fingers tap out a harsh rhythm on her thigh.
"We're not to go around bandying this sensitive information," Eli reminds them. "It's just our new primary goal. Remember – she must be alive."
"I wonder why they want this criminal alive," says Hanayo hesitantly. "Usually they don't mind when you guys Lethally Eliminate."
"Probably because the Dominator won't know what the coefficient is," Eli inserts, and crosses her arms. "She could be just a paralysis level, and salvageable to society through therapy." Privately, Eli thinks Toujou is ridiculously dangerous, but acting judge and jury is not her department.
A sharp crack sends Hanayo ducking to the ground. Umi's on her feet, expression fierce, but it's just Maki, red-faced as she scrambles on the floor to retrieve Toujou's illegal Hue-scanner device.
"Don't play with evidence!" says Eli once more, irritated, but Maki's face is so upset that Eli lets her off. "Everyone back to work. We're going to scan the street cams for Toujou's face and Psycho-Pass." Everyone disperses to individual scanning stations, each linked to the city interface. Eli glances at Maki, who seems rather cagey. Her blush has not faded, but Eli shakes her head and goes to her office door.
2.
Sonoda Umi is a second year Inspector who lost her original partner, Inspector Kousaka Honoka, to latent criminal tendencies. Eli knows this makes her twitchy, and more easily irritable in her attitude towards work. It makes her stern, almost as terse as Eli herself, and sometimes she is vaguely concerned about Umi's daily state.
As Senior Inspector, she keeps a close eye on her partner. Umi submerges herself in this case, going far below the slick water's surface. There may be a chance she will drown. She stares with a slate expression into the monitoring screens long after even careful Hanayo has zoned off, eyes glazed, and Rin is snoring deeply, curled into the plush carpet of the lab room like some overgrown housecat.
Eli waits another two weeks into their fruitless case before she makes her move. Rising lethargically, she stretches, reaching for the sealed skylights above, feeling the vertebrae along her spine crack like the defined snick of the second hand. Maki, in the desk adjacent to Eli, desperately pretends she has not been playing hangman with Enforcer Yazawa by shoving the messy scrap of paper in her high combat boot and glaring determinedly at her street cam display where colorful sticks of people, not unlike her hangman, wander in and out of doorways in the shopping district. Nico yawns widely and spins in her chair, tapping her wristcom absently. It's hardly noon.
Eli slips away from her bored team and exits Division 9 headquarters, watching the eggshell clouds spill across the breadth of oceanic sky as she walks along the windows. Nozomi. An interesting name for a criminal.
She comes to Director Minami's office and knocks without hesitation. "One moment," says someone from inside, voice muffled through the heavy chamber door, and Eli crosses her arms patiently. A security drone rolls by while she stands, reddish siren rotating smoothly. She checks her messages on her wristcom, shifting her weight to her other hip, and the sloping sunlight continues its crawl along the carpet. A slow two minutes drain by when the door is pulled open.
"Senior Inspector Ayase," greets the short-haired, fierce-looking woman with one hand still on the knob. Her expression is taut with something, fear, anger, displeasure? None of it is good for Hue, in any case, and Eli sidesteps the door casually.
"Good afternoon, Senior Inspector Kira," Eli says, and nods briefly to one of her own rank. "How is it going in Division 1?"
"Lovely, you know," says Kira Tsubasa, curious gaze roving over the hallway. She's very alert for someone simply exiting a meeting with the director. "I'm going to get a new partner soon, hopefully. It's unfortunate, the way there's only me and two Enforcers in my entire Division."
Eli widens her eyes slightly. "Only three in your whole Division?" Counting their Analyst, Division 9 has double Tsubasa's count.
Tsubasa looks uncomfortable now. "Well, we've got the largest district area to cover, but we're doing fine with it. The only problem is managing Crime Coefficients in junior Inspectors assigned to the busiest Division, you know? Our Analyst just went sour, so we need some more backup, stat."
"Feel free to visit Division 9 if necessary," urges Eli, who feels the slight tension between Divisions, but opts to ignore the sense of competition. They're all working for the same team, aren't they?
Tsubasa smiles at that. "Thanks, Ayase, that means a lot. You guys down in 9 are pretty alright." They salute each other and go their separate ways.
"Ayase Eli, how may I help you?" asks Director Minami as Eli approaches the familiar ornate desk. There's a new potted plant on the side. It looks like an oversized weed, but Eli ignores this and submits her request.
"I am concerned about the darkening Hue of Sonoda Umi."
The next day, Division 9's headquarter doors slide open and let in a blast of what seems, at first, to be heavenly light. Nico destroys this brief image by dimming the overhead Holo, and the six members of 9 squint in the sudden weak lighting at the new arrival.
"Hello, is this-" the newcomer checks a rumpled paper held tightly in smooth, long hands (Old fashioned, Eli thinks), "Division 9's pla- oof!"
Eli approaches the doors more cautiously than Umi, who has literally leapt upon the woman still in the way of the sliding doors. At second observation, they are hugging tightly rather than the Inspector keeping the guest in a chokehold, so Eli backs away quickly, not wanting to intrude on… whatever that is.
"Kotori!" says Umi with unusual excitement, so much excitement that Nico stares, dumbfounded, and Hanayo looks as she's been the one whacked with a gas canister, "what are you doing here?"
"You're Minami Kotori?" asks Eli politely, and the visitor, still holding onto Umi's arm with a sunny grin, turns slightly to face her.
"Yes, that's me," she says cheerfully, and her voice is cutesy but has a depth of sincerity Eli would not expect from first glance. "You must be Senior Inspector Ayase Eli?" Kotori curves around at the waist –she's so reedy, like a gray tree sapling, but so tall in the same way – without letting go of Umi, peering at the other members of Division 9. "I've been appointed as a sort of assistant to your Division."
"How so?" asks Eli, and has an awful awareness of how unnecessarily frosty her tone is, but can't think of a way to lessen the impact without looking stupid.
Kotori takes this attitude into stride without losing her smile. "I've been working as a therapist for Hue-threatened people in rehabilitation. The director of the CID worked with Sibyl and arranged this position for me."
"That's a weird sort of nepotism," says Maki in a scathing aside to Rin, who snorts at her desk and knocks over a bobble head tiger. "Besides, why do we need a Hue-cleaner?" Eli gives them both a rather icy side-eye as they reclaim the tiger, resulting in some very sudden interest in the monitoring screens.
"I've been very good friends with Kotori since childhood," explains Umi now that she's calmed down slightly. "Us two and Honoka ran around together at all hours." Her eyes darken, and Kotori rubs her back comfortingly.
"Don't worry Umi! I've been talking to Honoka a lot in the facilities, and there's a pretty good chance she'll be added to the Enforcer ranks! Maybe she can work with you again!"
"Well, if that's the director's plan," says Eli in a final sort of tone, slightly mollified. "I'll contact some drones and see if I can't get a station set up for you, Minami Kotori. Any preference to the Holo design?"
"Oh, please, call me Kotori," says the newest member of Division 9. "And, um, I'm pretty indecisive, so maybe anything will do." As Eli walks out of headquarters to place her order, the rest of the Division returns to street scanning. Umi drags Kotori to the couch, and the doors slide closed over their energetic chatter.
Hardly a week later: "Kotori's not bad at all," says Maki, a little taken aback. "I've never met someone so genuinely nice. It hardly seems real."
Even Eli can't help smiling. "Maybe we've been too serious all this time." The van hits a bump, sending Maki flying into Eli's space by accident. Eli, who has been bracing herself on the seatbelt with one hand, hardly moves.
"Whoops, sorry. Anyway, I can't believe you just said that you're too serious, haha." Eli rolls her eyes, but allows it. "And Eli? I really think Kotori has caused a general increase in Hue color at HQ. Mine has never been a lighter shade of red…"
"Maybe you're just enjoying your new job," suggests Eli, and Maki purses her lips.
It's been much too long since they've been on a case. While no crime is an ideal scenario, searching for Toujou has so far, proved useless. Lately, Eli's been thinking the asymptomatic is more of a serious techno-wizard interested in messing around than an awful terrorist threat, but orders are orders, and Chief Joshu has sent down strict ones for Toujou's capture. Either way, Eli's division has been cleared for normal duties as well as hunting down Toujou, so here she is with first-year Maki en route to their latest case, down a bumpy avenue packed with so many automobiles that the auto-pilot is having trouble routing them.
"This is a pretty busy area," says Maki, glancing out the tinted windows, one hand twirling a strand of crimson hair madly. "How will we find the criminal among the civilians?"
"Target is Noribu Kaiba, male, thirty five with mid-length black hair. He's just murdered a couple out of some sort of jealous rage. His Criminal Coefficient will be unbearably high." Eli glances out the window at their sluggish progress through the traffic, and hits the emergency button. Sirens begin to blare from their hovercar while thick scarlet halogen lines illuminate the shell, running down the sides of the car like ancient runes, prompting all the other vehicles' auto-pilots to clear a path. She glances at Maki. "This will definitely be a Lethal Elimination. After murder, Coefficients do not recover." The first-year looks a bit green and spins her strand of hair a little faster. "Put your hair up, Inspector Nishikino. We'll need to look professional."
The van shudders to a halt outside an unobtrusive-looking residential block in the north side. Eli slams her car door, prompting the gathering crowd outside to disperse slightly, a few running away down the dusky streets. All the houses look the same on the outside, save for a few decorations on some of the outer doors, but Maki immediately moves toward the abode with a shattered window and sets up some Holos. Police line, do not cross. Some of the gathered civilians are waving their arms at Maki; Eli nods, and the first year moves among them to receive information as the Enforcer's van screeches into the street.
Eli doesn't bother waiting for her division to fully (and in Nico's case, dramatically) materialize from the prison-like interior of the van, instead sticking her hand out for the holder to thrust her Dominator at her.
It feels odd, holding the gun again since Toujou, like touching the hand of a traitorous friend. But Eli listens all the same to the silky voice of the operating system booting up, purring in her hand. She turns to see Umi and Rin with the tell-tale flash of ice blue in their irises, Dominators in practiced, loose-but-ready grips. Eli runs her fingers over her tight, high ponytail to ensure it won't get in the way as Maki and Nico come towards the dispenser, mouths pulled into grim lines.
"What is it?" asks Umi at once. Rin tilts her head, and Eli braces herself for bad news.
Nico throws a thumb over her shoulder at the townhouse next to the crime scene. "Our target's gotten hold of the neighbor lady. The civilians think he's going to use her for leverage on us."
Everyone glances at the next-door house. It's one of the several with an independent decorating style. Eli squints at it through the descending night and thinks she might be making out a neon orange eyeball, complete with incredibly long lashes by proportion.
"Hey," says Rin slowly. "I recognize that logo. It's that entertainer, that one that goes on the TV and does fortunes, what's-her-name…"
"Oh yeah, that old bat," says Maki, as the blue light clears from her irises and she hefts her weapon at the crime scene house. "Tarot isn't real."
"So we know we have a hostage," interrupts Eli. "Priorities: reclaim victim, eliminate target. In that order; I don't want any waste of life tonight. Everyone's communicator on?" A circle of nodding women. "Bibi unit, with me. We'll be handling objective two. Lily White, take objective one around the back entrance. Everyone understand?" More nods. "Let's go."
Civilians are not permitted weapons; the blanket ban on firearms long ago took care of that problem, but knives are still deadly items. Eli kneels at the end of the walkway to the front door with her Dominator straight out. Through the lit window, she can see splashes of garish crimson on the panes, dark against the glass. The chill of the cement bleeds through her thin legwear, making her wish she'd thrown on something more substantial. The wind blows against her hair, tossing irritating slivers of sunlight-gold in her eyes. She doesn't move her gaze from the house. "Lily White One, where are you?"
"Lily Two opened an entrance through a regrettably ajar window, Bibi One. We are both inside the kitchen; there's a lot of blood in here, but no bodies."
"This is Lily Two. I hear a woman sobbing. Seems to be upstairs."
"Nobody in the second-story windows," Nico's voice comes through the communicator. "Nobody watching."
Maki says, "Two heat signatures on the second floor," at the same time.
"Alright," says Eli clearly into her wristcom. "We're going in."
The front door is unlocked and opens straightaway into a small foyer with pretty, bone-white tiles. They're speckled in fresh red dots; apparently someone went through here bleeding. To Eli's immediate left is the kitchen – it extends all the way to the back of the house. Umi is standing guard, Dominator at the ready. Eli sneaks a glance at the window in the living room to her right. It's absolutely splattered. Right underneath the sill is a gutted form. Eli averts her eyes while Rin and Nico materialize, and everyone but Maki is standing at the foot of the stairs, back to the body.
"Enforcers, be careful," instructs Eli, and Rin and Nico raise their Dominators and charge, taking the steps two at a time, Umi on their heels. Maki's voice whispers into the communicator: "Five heat signatures on the second floor."
Eli reaches the top in record time and whirls around. The second story is one circular room with mint-colored walls. It's got piles and piles of novels – hardcover and paperback and what looks like an entire quarter of the wall devoted to manga – and on the far south side is the target, already engaged with Rin and Nico. Umi's dragging the hostage, a crinkly sort of old lady who seems plenty scared but not obviously injured, towards the stairs.
Eli can see why Rin and Nico are having a hard time with the target. He's larger than both of them combined, for one, and while Nico has excellent aim, and Rin has unbelievable speed and stamina, in the few seconds it takes for the Dominators to boot up into Lethal mode, the target is swinging a silver candelabra in one hand, and a two-foot machete blade in the other. There's not enough room up here to dodge a decapitating slice and aim a gun that takes a whole three seconds to shoot.
Eli listens carefully to her Dominator. Target's Criminal Coefficient is 230. Aim carefully and eliminate the target. Her Dominator begins to buzz in her hands, fractions of the metal coating clicking, unlocking, elongating as the blue lines flash down the sides. She can't aim with Nico and Rin so close, but the new blink of lights makes the target look askew in her direction reflexively.
The target realizes his mistake quickly enough, slashing wildly with a low bellow at Rin's attempt to settle and aim, and though Rin's fast enough to dip aside, he changes his swing and catches her on the arm with the machete. Rin lets out a screech and kicks him in the solar plexus as she rolls out of the way, blood spraying from her upper arm, and Nico shoves her charged Dominator up against the target's exposed back as he moves to chase Rin, and Enforcer pulls the trigger.
It always happens like this. Eli sees the microwave pulse – that stunning electric blue (for some reason, her mind throws an image of Toujou Nozomi at her; "a divine shade of blue") – enter the target's spine. His skin swells grotesquely at the contact point, Nico is backpedalling rapidly, the target's body fluids are boiling inside his own skin, bursting – and then there's just a sickening pile of gore in the library. It smells, well, like a sickening pile of gore, and Eli's stomach is strong, but it's not attractive.
Sonoda leads the hostage out carefully, so as to not raise her stress level, and the Enforcers pile into the van to visit the CID hospital. They were in range of the target during Nico's fatal hit; they both look like they've been hit with a gallon of thick maroon paint. "Don't worry about me, Eli," says Rin with clenched teeth as Maki binds her arm. "It's just a scratch, really."
Eli bites her lip. "I'm sorry this happened, Rin." A half a block down, Umi gets into a car with the hostage to drive her to MWPSB-licensed therapy.
"No, it's okay. It's what I'm made for," Rin says, and turns her head to face the window. Maki has already set the clean-up and forensics drones to work, but since she's accompanying Rin to the hospital, Eli is left to do report. Nico, of course, may not leave PSB premises unless it's for an Enforcing mission. Eli watches her Enforcers and Maki drive off, lights flashing.
The drones will do most of the forensics from the original murders, so Eli holsters her Dominator in her waistband and sets off for the neighbor's house to get notes on the abduction for her report. Before she enters, she leans the broken-down door back on its hinges neatly. It sags awkwardly before sliding down slightly. Giving up, Eli activates her wristcom to record and walks in.
This townhouse is arranged exactly like the one next door. She takes a left and strolls the length of the kitchen, decorated in pre-Christmas décor. Eli's foot almost catches in a branch of evergreens splayed across the floor, which she puts down to general messiness rather than a result of a struggle in the house. "Notes: Victim's house was broken into by way of the front door, very direct. A large force was used to smash the locking mechanism and the scanner was disabled as the hinges were crushed." Eli wanders back past the foyer, into the living room, where she receives a horrible shock to see Toujou Nozomi kneeling over the lowest drawer in a file cabinet, rifling through the papers as bold as you please.
Toujou straightens at once, smoothing her skirt over her knees. "Good evening, Ayase Eli," she says cheerily, and depresses the button of yet another little handheld device. Eli is only marginally horrified to see her wristcom and the room's internal Holos slowly power down. She doesn't even bother checking her emergency GPS, knowing she'll find it dead as well.
"I find the art of fortune-telling absolutely fascinating, don't you?" asks Toujou conversationally, as though she hasn't just technologically grounded Eli into subservience. "This lady's things are pretty show business-styled, though. I guess I was hoping for more of a connection to the arcane, spiritual power of it all?" Toujou seems to notice Eli's rabbit-ready stance, the locked knees and clenched fists. "Oh, you probably don't know much about that. It's kind of old-timey now, especially with all of our advances. But it's still interesting to learn about! I bet I'd be good at this sort of thing, if there were any real information left on it. Sibyl's probably demolished a lot of the old ways."
"What did you do to my wristcom?" snarls Eli, forcing the words out between her grinding teeth. Toujou beams, round face lighting up with those damned dimples. She's adorable. She's mad.
"It's a pulse-dimmer. I designed this one myself. The radius isn't that large, but it's excellent for ensuring truly private conversations." Toujou tilts her head; puts her hands behind her back like a fifteen-year-old flirting awfully, tactlessly. "Ayase Eli, are you mad at me?"
Eli is torn between putting her non-functioning Dominator to her own head for the drama, and doing her best to punch Toujou. She does neither, instead pinching the bridge of her nose with two fingers and scowling. "I don't know why you… I don't know why you've got this fascination with me. I'm supposed to capture you."
"It's because I think you're a beautiful person," says Toujou simply. "You're so cold, but I think you're bored. Or lonely. You seem a bit overworked. I could help you relax." She smiles like a girl with a secret after her miniature speech, and Eli is so shocked, she might have been zapped with the paralyzer.
"Well, I'd better get going. Your division is going to wonder why you dropped off their trackable map… until next time, Ayase Eli!" Toujou sidles out from the room, leaving Eli traumatized, until she hears: "And there will be a next time!"
That doesn't help at all.
