Blue Fuku, White Collar
Ch 6 Abduction - wherein Mamoru becomes a factor in this story
Actual Saturday morning - apx 10:30 am.- inside Dr Chiba's office
Dr Chiba waved goodbye to his little patient as the boy left with his parents. The boy looked on the verge of tears. Mamoru understood the feeling. He hated getting shots too. Just a moment then. Mamoru pulled out a red lollipop out of his lab coat and handed it to the child - his standard prescription after a vaccination. The kid was all smiles again.
Mamoru looked around his office. Life was good. He had his own private practice now. It was a small clinic, one waiting room, one office, and one storage room, but Mamoru was proud of it.
His favourite part was the big sign in front - Dr Chiba – Pediatrician.
Next patient please. Mamoru checked his agenda.
Well... this was interesting. Officer Aino Minako was penciled in at 10:30 am.
Minako entered his office in her uniform with a nervous looking Ami in tow.
"Good Afternoon Mamoru-san. I'm afraid I have some questions for you."
"Well, I figured that you're here on police business Minako. The uniform is never good news... but why is Ami here?"
Ami was across the room poking around the medical supplies and avoiding eye contact. Minako shrugged casually.
"She just wanted to come with I guess? Kind of like a little Stray Dog."
That broke the tension. Ami rose to the bait and gave a cheerful woof at that comment.
"You need me here and you know it. Besides, would I ever miss a chance to visit my Mamo-chan?"
"Shut it K-9."
Mamoru laughed as well.
"Well, Ami-chan, glad to see you haven't changed one bit...say...did you happen to catch the article on manipulating protein bonds and its potential applications in neuroregeneration? It was just posted on the New England Journal of Medicine website yesterday. It's fascinating. Right up your alley too. Amazing how quickly we can share new research these days..."
Mamoru batted his most innocent eyes at Ami.
Ami stuck her tongue out at him in response.
"Jerk...you know I'm trapped in meatspace for the next few months. You better summarize it for me."
"I can do better than that. I was going to give this to you at our poker night next week, but seeing as you're here now..."
Mamoru pulled a few sheets of paper out from his printer.
"Here you go Dr. Mizuno. One article, annotated by yours truly."
"Oooo! Thank you Dr Chiba. I do so love some light bedtime reading. Guess who I'll be thinking of tonight?."
Oiii...Match point: Mizuno. Mamoru was about to toss in a witty comeback when Minako cleared her throat loudly.
"Ok! Enough you two! Hate to interrupt the miracle bromance here, but you know, official police business!"
Mamoru turned to Minako apologetically.
"Oh! Right. Sorry. Sorry. What can I help you with Minako-chan?"
Ami answered instead.
"I'm sorry Mamoru-san. Long story short, I've just been hired to hack into your personal accounts at JMUH by persons unknown. We were hoping you might be able to shed some light as to why."
Mamoru's eyebrows leapt up.
"People are trying to steal my patient files?"
Minako shook her head.
"No, worse, people are trying to plant patient files on you. As in patient files that have been used to blackmail various CEOs and other fine upstanding members of society. Someone wants you to take the fall for this. Now can you think of any reason why you'd be targeted like this? I mean, I know you're innocent, but...I still have to investigate."
Mamoru addressed both Ami and Minako with his next statement. He was starting to get dizzy going back and forth between Ami and Minako both talking at him.
"I've been noticing some irregularities in our filing system. People were accessing files they had no reason to. Coincidentally, the Glico CEO was one of the examples I was looking at right around the time he was kidnapped, so I brought my suspicions to the attention of Tokyo PD. The police didn't seem to keen to investigate without more evidence and... I couldn't get more evidence without an investigation. Catch 22."
Minako got noticeably paler at that.
"Strange... this is the first time I'm hearing about this. I'm going to need to know which officer you spoke with. In fact, I flat out need to know everything you know. Do you have any physical evidence?"
"It was an officer Iwaki, with cybercrime division."
Mamoru pulled a notebook out of his desk and handed it to Minako.
"Here is everything I have. Keep an eye out for the name Dr. Fausuto on the access manifest. Some of the files he pulls don't match the times he was on duty. I thought that was odd."
Minako flipped through the notebook and then frowned. Mamoru wondered why.
"Oh bloody hell...Mamoru-san... I think you just became our star witness in a blackmail case involving the Yakuza then."
Mamoru's eyes bugged out. He knew had a certain "deer in the headlights" look about him.
"WHAT? HOW?"
Ami had been reading the notebook over Minako's shoulder the whole time and finally had something to say.
"...Mamoru-san. That letter. Did you send it anonymously?"
"No...I signed it as Dr. Chiba. I thought it would be more credible."
Minako cringed. Ami face faulted so hard she smacked her giant head into the back of Minako's shoulder.
"Ouch! Watch where you swing that thing! Your head is like a freaking bowling ball. Seriously, Mamoru-san that explains a lot. Good thing Lethal Weapon here was the one that was hired to set you up to take the fall."
Ami gave an embarrassed little wave from where she still had her head down on Minako's shoulder.
Mamoru still felt fairly stunned by the turn of events.
"Well...in that case...I assume I'm safe then?"
Minako nodded somewhat reassuringly.
"From Ami at least, yeah. Still, be careful. We are dealing with Yakuza here. They have proven willing to resort to violence and kidnapping in the past. I don't want to worry you unnecessarily Mamoru-san, but this is worse than I thought. If what you say is true, then that means there is someone on the police force that is working with the Yakuza. I have to go to Sakurada about this ASAP."
Ami picked up her head and nodded as well.
"Sounds logical to me. You had your suspicions to begin with. That's why you wanted an outsider on the case..."
"Yeah, and I kept hoping that my instincts were wrong...but hey, since when has hoping ever worked."
"Sorry Minako, this really is terrible. I know how much you must hate dealing with dirty cops."
Minako sighed.
"I'm going to head back to HQ now then. You're welcome to come with, but I think it's best if I talk to Sakurada alone."
"No, you go on ahead. I'm not going to be of much use to you with actual police business...besides, I've got a bad feeling about this. I think I'll just stick around and keep an eye on Mamoru here. It'd make me feel better if nothing else."
Mamoru looked back and forth between the two women before figuring that he really didn't have any say in the matter.
Ami grabbed a book and settled herself on a couch as Minako left the office. She was still there 3 hours later when Mamoru received the worst email of his life.
Saturday afternoon - apx 1pm- still inside Dr Chiba's office
Ami puttered about the clinic aimlessly.
It had been about three hours of total boredom sitting around in Mamoru's waiting room. Even the patients were boring. 90% of the kids ha a cold and just wanted a day off school from the look of things. One kid caught her eye as possibly having scarlet fever...or maybe Izumi fever? Ami hoped for his sake that it wasn't Kawasaki disease, but she trusted Dr. Chiba to sort all that out.
Ami sighed and tried to turn off the part of her brain that automatically jumped to differential diagnosis procedures. Being in a medical clinic was just too much of a tease and there was nothing to distract her from getting melancholic about it...
It was a relief at first when Mamoru poked his head out of his office and called her in. Ami was about to say something snarky when she caught the terrified look on his face. She ran over in an instant.
Mamoru had an email open on his computer. He pointed at it silently. Ami read the contents.
"Dr Chiba. We understand you have been investigating our activities. This stops today. We have your fiance. Come to us by 4pm today if you want her to live. Bring us everything you know. Leave nothing behind. Come alone. No police. We are waiting."
A map was attached to the email, but Ami paid it no mind yet.
Also attached was a photograph of Usagi being held at gunpoint.
A.N.
Oh no! Usagi! Things just got serious. Well..as serious as they are ever going to get in this story at any rate.
Mamoru and Ami's miracle bromance. Not sure where I first heard that term, but the more I think about it, the more it works. There's alot of story potential in there...hmm...
Oh! and Happy 100,000 words published on FFnet to me. Factoring out the all the author notes, I think the 100,000th word is somewhere in this chapter. Yay!
How appropriate that it comes in a chapter that is borderline self-parody.
Seriously, it's not a Drifter story until the plot goes out the window the second someone gets kidnapped.
*koff* *koff*
Cheers,
-Drifter.
P.S. Dear readers (Valkyrie Celes, I am looking at you :D *warm fuzzy feeling*) who are following this story live, bad news (or is it good news?). 3 chapters left in this story... but we are a bit delayed because I accidentally deleted the last chapter. Now it has to be re-written. This will cause a delay in the post rate of this story. I hope to resume by the end of the week. Just a heads up on that. I don't mean to leave things on a cliffhanger...sort of.
P.P.S. tiffanywillow - You are my inspiration. Ami's got a giant head. You have a giant head. Mwah. Love you.