Searching.

Searching.

Yin's eyes drifted along the water ways of the city. Her orders were to find the man responsible for all the stolen products from a certain company. A body hijacker, apparently. She had overheard Mao explain the details to Huang. A man who could switch bodies was staging the multiple suicides.

"Smart," Huang complimented before shuffling his newspaper. The man always brought along something to occupy himself so that if the casual observer wandered by, it wouldn't immediately look like he was communicating with the rest of them. Another precaution the syndicate instilled in him.

As for herself, Yin's blank gaze stared down at her lap. While her true eyes saw nothing but the familiar darkness, her other eyes flew through the city. She scanned as quickly as she dared.

She saw…

Cars driving past her puddle of water.

Various cooks in a restaurant boiling a pot of water.

Two women walking past a drain spout.

A man running along the water way.

Wait…

"Found him…" Yin brought herself back to her body long enough to speak, but her real focus was upon the target. Her specter followed him until he ran under the bridge. He turned away from the water, and ran to a place where her eyes couldn't follow. She relayed the coordinates tonelessly to Mao and Huang. Hei wasn't with them. He was out in combat.

"Good job, Yin," Mao complimented her. He was usually the one most kind to her. "I'll go meet up with Hei and lead him."

"Just get the job done," Huang grunted, and shuffled his papers.

Yin continued watching…


"It's a list of employees going back ten years," Hei's voice spoke flatly. Almost as flat as Yin's own voice. "It'll be helpful in finding the contractor we're looking for."

Everyone had rendezvoused back at the park. Yet again they all sat and spoke together, but no one looked at anyone else. A team of strangers. It didn't matter that Yin was blind. Had she had sight in her true eyes, she still wouldn't be allowed to look at the others.

"If we can smoke out the industrial spies that have infiltrated Fiore's over the years, we should be able to find him and eliminate him," Huang's voice was intent. Yin imagined his serious expression. She imagined faces a lot, even though she was blind. She didn't really need to. Until she had gained her new eyes, Yin had never really seen a face. Thus, imagining the expressions on other people's faces was nothing more than an amusing past time for her.

"Yin, have you had any luck locating Mao?" Hei's tone was as black as his aura. She imagined his dull half lidded expression. Hei's contractor face wasn't quite as emotionless as that of a doll, Yin had seen him through her specter. Hei's expression always carried a vague anger within its depths. The only time Yin had ever seen that anger abolished was when Hei was acting as "Lee".

"Nothing yet…" Yin responded simply, "Right now he could be anywhere."

Mao had disappeared in the middle of a mission. He had cut off radio contact, and so no one had been able to reach him. Yin had been truthful, as if she could ever lie, when she had said Mao could be anywhere. Being a cat, he was much more difficult to locate than a person.

"Damn, perfect time for him to go AWOL on us," Huang grunted in frustration.

Yin paused, if only for a moment, in her search. She didn't believe that Mao had purposefully disappeared. It didn't seem like him. Of course, Yin didn't speak her thoughts. She was a doll, after all.

"We'll continue with the mission, Mao'll turn up eventually," Hei was nothing if not a practical contractor. He stood up, considering this conversation over.


If Yin hadn't known better… she would have thought that she had felt relief…

In lieu of searching for Mao, Yin had been ordered to search for the contractor from earlier. It was an order, so of course Yin had to change targets for her search. She did so without comment. The contractor turned out to be much easier to locate than Mao. Yin directed Hei towards the river, and the contractor.

Yin soon discovered, however, that Mao was in an animal carrier, carried by an unknown man. How he had come to be in such a position, Yin had no idea. She kept an eye on the proceedings, trying to estimate how long it would take Hei to arrive on the scene.

Silently, unable to affect the events before her in anyway, Yin bore witness. She watched as the contractor confronted the stranger. She watched as Mao's carrier fell towards the river, and she felt her breath catch. Yin watched, and waited. She tried to estimate how long it would take Hei to arrive. She didn't have long to wait.

Hei's figure appeared, and entered the scene. Hei battled the other contractor, now inhabiting the body of the stranger. Using his wires Hei was able immobilize the enemy, however the contractor returned to his original body. Hei released the stranger, and the man's body fell backwards into the carrier. Yin felt Hei's name upon her lips, calling out to him. Hei moved to follow the contractor, but halted. For an instant, Yin thought Hei had heard her voice…

But in truth it had been Mao's own distress that had called the man's attention. It was Mao's voice that had reached Hei, not hers.

Either way, Mao had been saved. It didn't matter whose voice reached Hei.


"This from Huang?" Sightlessly, Yin passed over the sheet of paper to Hei. Judging from it's glossy feel, Yin supposed it was a photograph. Of what, she had no idea.

She and Hei were seated upon the opposite ends of a slide. It was small, built for bodies even more slight than Yin's own. She didn't understand why it was required to sit in such a place. Two people sitting back to back upon a children's slide couldn't possibly be an everyday occurrence. But what did Yin know? She was a doll, and all she had to do was follow her instructions. So, she rested with her legs resting along the incline of the slide.

"Mm-hm."

"This is the guy I encountered," Hei murmured, "What do you think Mao?"

There was a moment of silence where Mao's response should have been. Hei waited a beat before prompting the other contractor, "Mao, listen."

"What?" Mao asked distractedly. He then apologized, "Sorry. I was busy downloading a data packet from the network."

"What are you talking about?" For once the barest inflection of emotion colored Hei's voice. Confusion stained his words.

"You don't know about that," Mao's response more of a statement than a question. "I interface with a server that helps make up for what a cat's brain lacks. If I don't do this semi-regularly the feline brain will take over. Like earlier when I got lost in the trash house."

Finished with his explanation Mao added, "That's our man." Yin figured he must have looked at the photograph that she had just delivered. Having confirmation from Mao, Yin delivered the information that she had memorized for them.

"Norio Ukiyami. He can control gravity…" The facts slid from her lips easily. Her memory had always been sharp.

"Gravity?" Hei's voice questioned her. Yin sensed, more than anything, Hei's gaze shift towards her. She felt it acutely on the back of her neck. "I thought he could swap bodies."

"I dunno," Yin responded flatly. She couldn't provide information she lacked. So, instead Yin filled in with the knowledge she did have, "Ukiyami used to operate out of Northern India. His partner was Amitabh Kapoor. A contractor with possession abilities."

Her information delivered, Yin slid away from Hei. It was an odd sensation, sightlessly slipping past on the slick metal of the slide. For an instant, it was disorienting, but then her feet touched the earth, and her world oriented it's self around the familiar action. Yin stood, smoothed her dress, and proceeded to walk away. Her job, delivering information, was complete. She had no reason to linger.

"I get it…" Mao's voice slowly digesting the information.

"Kapoor…" Hei murmured.

"I believe Kapoor took over Ukiyama's body. But while swapped Kapoor's original body suffered some kind of accident thus trapping Kapoor in Ukiyama forever… "

Mao's voice faded further and further as Yin drifted away. The last thing she heard was, "It's a story I'm quite familiar with, as you can imagine."