Series: Abs Calamitas
Numbers: 1:7
Anime: Witch Hunter Robin

A/N: Thanks to everyone for reading and reviewing! Back from internet death.

Karasuma pressed the button for the elevator. The doors opened and she stepped inside, reaching over to press the button for the fifth floor when Sakaki pushed his arm into the closing door. The doors stopped just shy of his arm, reopening, and he stepped inside.

"Good morning, Miss Karasuma," Sakaki says as he tucks his helmet under one arm and leans against the back of the elevator.

"Good morning, Sakaki. You're in early, even for you," she replies with a smile, pressing the elevator button again.

"I was watching the news last night and I saw an unusual murder case. I thought it would be a good idea to come in early and check in on things."

Miho nodded. The two of them rode up to the fifth floor in relative silence, the noise of the electronics all that passed between them. In contrast to the lack of verbal traffic, Miho's thoughts moved much quicker.

It's like a role reversal, she thought. How many years ago was it that I was Haruto, and Amon was me? When did I start coming in early and leaving late? When did I start being team leader… if not in action, in my own mind?

On the top floor, Sakaki headed out of the elevator. When Karasuma lagged behind, he paused and turned to look at her. "Miss Karasuma?"

Karasuma looked up and smiled, following him out of the elevator and into the office. What the two of them found there surprised her.

Michael sat at his desk with his headphones off, eyes trained to the screen in front of him. His hands flew across the keyboard furiously typing, and occasionally moving over to the mouse. Sakaki paused as he headed in as well, stopping steps ahead of Miho, and looked at the hacker who had so recently stopped doing this sort of all-nighter work.

"Michael, what's up?" Sakaki asked, heading over to the other young man's desk.

"Someone's trying to hack into our records," Michael said absently, focused on the task at hand too strongly for detailed descriptions.

"Someone's trying to hack Solomon?" Miho asked, regaining her wits and heading across the room to Michael's computer terminal. The code flashing quickly by the screen did not make sense to her eyes, but she knew from the speed of it that the hacker must be fairly good, for Michael to be working so hard at keeping them out.

"Not Solomon. The STN-J mainframe here in the building," Michael replied.

"Can't you just take it offline for a little while?" Sakaki asked.

"What I can and can't do at the moment is limited by talking," Michael said in an annoyed voice. A part of him was annoyed at the interruption, another part was annoyed that he didn't think to do that when the hacking started. Moving a hand, he slid the mouse over and did as Sakaki suggested, continuing to type one-handedly.

"Damn!" Shelly cursed, grinning and leaning up to her keyboard. "Whoever's working the computers at the STN-J doesn't play games with intruders."

"Would you be relieved if it was easy?" Paul asked, not looking up from his newspaper. He leaned in his chair with his feet up on his desk. "Besides, it's not like you go easy on anyone. And that guy wouldn't know you were from another STN office, so there's no reason to go easy on you."

"That might be why he's playing so rough," Shelly countered.

"What do you mean?"

"Well, I'm trying to sneak a peak at personnel files," Shelley explained, grunting. "If the guy really was a member of the STN-J, what's to say they haven't had problems with him before? Or with people trying to hack information out of them? It happens all the time to our system, I just don't feel the need to bring it up every time it happens."

"It might increase your job security," Paul replied, looking over the fold of the newspaper at her.

"I'm not worried about job security, P- SHIT!" Shelly flicked her hands off the keyboard and leaned back in her desk chair.

"What is it?" Paul lifted an eyebrow.

"He took the mainframe off-line. It's inaccessible… but he didn't do that at first… I wonder why not."

"Maybe he wanted to play," Paul offered.

"Yeah… sure… but if I can't get the information this way… it's going to be a shit ton harder to hack the system at Solomon HQ. Simon is not going to be pleased."

From the doorway, the man himself spoke up. "No, no I'm not pleased. But it doesn't matter, we've gotten a hunt order."

Robin followed along, down the stairs behind Amon. He finished dressing himself on the way. She had managed to get into her shoes and get them zipped up the sides, but she found herself reaching for the gloves tucked deep inside her pockets as they made their way quickly out of the building.

"I checked us out before I came back upstairs," Amon said, pushing their way out the side door of the stairwell and into the morning sunlight.

She didn't bother to reply, focusing instead on keeping up with his longer strides. At the STN-J, Amon had slowed just a little so they kept up with one another. He must be really worried, she thought.

Her eyes glazed over for a moment, and she felt a little…

He's never been hunted, she thought. Not like I have.

"Is it a hunter from HQ?" she asked, finally, reaching forward to take his wrist to keep from falling too far behind him as they moved down the alley behind the hotel and out onto the street on the far end.

It was an area of New York that seemed to never really get quiet. There were people out there. Amon hesitated at the end of the alley, and Robin caught up to him. He was taller, by a lot. His gray eyes scanned the crowd, and he took the hand of hers that was on his wrist and held it.

Robin was surprised at that, but remained silent.

Finally, as though Amon saw nothing, and was still unsure of the street, he asked her, "Can you feel them?"

"Feel… them?" she asked.

"The Craft users," Amon said. "There were two of them at the park. One used wind."

"I can't sense that sort of thing," Robin said, looking down the street.

"You can tell who is an unawakened Seed, but not a Craft using witch?"

"That was different," Robin said, feeling more than uncomfortable. Amon, telling her to use her Craft? But no… he had done the same before, when they were working together… when they were escaping… "I don't know. He was right in front of me."

"Try," Amon said, ignoring her denial of her powers. "If you can't, then you can't. But try."

With a slight nod, Robin scaned the crowd, hoping… she tightened her gloved hand in Amon's, and scanned the walking people. There was nothing, at first… "Amon, I-" shed starts to say, again.

"Try, Robin," Amon said. For the briefest moment, Robin felt Amon's fingers tighten around hers. In reassurance… in support…

She closed her eyes for a moment, and then opened them again. Her vision blurred, and she saw the crowd, but the crowd looked different. The people were all slightly different colors. Most appeared to be red, glowing slightly, but with pulses and heartbeats and…

And some of them were blue, or green or…

None of them were looking back at her. She turned her eyes to Amon and saw that he, too, looked blue to her, but throughout the blue there were traces of yellow, a golden glint here or there. She looked down at her own gloved hand and found it was a bright gold.

Gold then, she thought, lifting her eyes to the crowd again. I look gold. Witches look gold. Hunters will look gold…

Robin shook her head slightly, "There aren't any here," she said, closing her eyes and willing her sight back to normal. She did not like to do that sort of thing, she found. She did not like to invade people's privacy.

Amon nodded, and stepped into the motion of the crowd, leading her through it.

"Is there any clue as to where the hack came from or what they were after, Michael?" Administrator Kosaka asked the young man, standing in the briefing room with the Hunters.

"Something in the mainframe," Michael said, adjusting his glasses.

Patricia gave him a look. "Why would they go through the STN-J's computers to get to the Solomon mainframe? Isn't that an indirect route? A roundabout method?"

"You don't want to get caught hacking into the Solomon mainframe," Michael said soberly. "Using one of the satellite systems to hack in would be one way of covering your tracks but…"

"Then why didn't you think of it?" Doujima asked.

Michael ignored the question. Sakaki looked down at his cup of coffee and heaved a silent sigh. Karasuma gave Doujima a stern look.

"But if they just wanted to piggy-back onto our link with HQ, that wouldn't have required the in-depth hack that was attempted on the STN-J mainframe," Michael said. "There was something that they were looking for in our data files."

"Maybe it's another STN office looking for some recon," Sakaki suggested.

"That doesn't make sense either," Karasuma said, folding her arms on her chest and putting a hand up to trace her lower lip slowly. "None of our data files pertain to anything that another STN office would need."

Doujima looked up, and across the terminal screens she met Sakaki's eyes. Well, not much of anything… unless…

The Administrator cleared his throat. Hattori came to the door behind him.

"Whatever it may be," Kosaka said. "We have other things to worry about than one failed hack attempt on our system. Michael is more than up to the job of our computer security, and I see no reason to dwell on this problem any further. Please continue the investigations you are working on and leave this to him."

The Administrator turned and nearly bumped into Hattori, who happened to be carrying a tray with a cup of tea on it. The tea nearly spilled, but Patricia reached out from where she was leaning against the wall near the door and lifted the cup, setting it back down once the tray was stable again. She shook her head, stepping between the two men to exit the briefing room. "Honestly, you people and your tea," she said softly, as though to herself.

Hattori looked at the Administrator, and Kosaka shrugged at his assistant. "Carry on then," he said, heading out of the office.

It was after the three of them left the briefing room that Karasuma turned to Michael. "I want you to isolate all of the files pertaining to Amon and Robin in the mainframe and keep them off-line when you re-connect the system to the outside, Michael."

"All the files pertaining to Amon?" Sakaki asked. "That's… a lot of files. He was here a long time."

"What if you just isolated the most recent ones… from the last year?" Doujima suggested. "Wipe out anything that has to do with Robin, so there's nothing for the other office to learn from us…?"

"Wouldn't that be telling them something too?" Michael asked, staring at his screen. His eyes were focused through it. He was tired, and this discussion about Amon and Robin wasn't helping.

"Telling them what?"

"If all our hunt files for the last six months of Amon's tenure with the STN-J are missing, that will let them know we're on to the intruder's search pattern."

"At least we know that Amon and Robin are alive somewhere," Sakaki said. "Not crushed by three hundred tons of rock."

"Contrary to our report," Karasuma said, looking over at Michael. She thinks about that for a moment, looking down at the floor.

"If HQ finds out we know anything about Amon and Robin's disappearance…" Michael started. "We may end up with worse than a substitute hunter to pick up the slack. That Italian priest that came to visit Robin, the night before we attacked the Factory… he seemed to be on her side. But we can't tell if he's highest up the pecking order. And if he's not, and someone else doesn't like Robin… we may all end up in very real danger if they find out about what we all know."

Doujima stood up. "And what do we all know, Michael? They were here, they're gone."

Sakaki frowned. "Do you really believe that, Miss Doujima? Do you really think Amon and Robin could be…"

"Enough, everyone," Karasuma said, her voice heavy. She had been the last to see them… the last to… "Michael, what do you think would be best?"

The three other members of the STN-J blinked at that.

"I…" he smiled. "I think that as a precaution, when I'm not in the building, we should keep the mainframe off-line. If HQ questions that, we can at least sight the hacking incident as reason for the change in our protocol. Other than that, we shouldn't do anything. It would arouse suspicions."

Karasuma nodded. Michael had the most experience with what tipped the higher ups into a deeper investigation of a situation. She turned to Sakaki and Doujima. Sakaki and Doujima. Inwardly, she sighed. "And the two of you… if you have a problem with any of this, deal with it where listening ears can't hear you."

Turning for the doorway, Karasuma headed out of the briefing room and back over to her desk. Michael whistled quietly, and Sakaki looked down.

Doujima frowned for a long moment, and then collected herself, pasting a smile on her face. She headed out of the briefing room and gathered her coat.

"Is this it?" Mary asked, looking up at the small hotel. It was just nearing noon, and the Simon and Mary stood outside of a small building that Mary thought she never wanted to set foot in outside of work. It was quaint, but at the same time a bit shady. Not the normal type of shady. There were certainly shady hotels in the city. In the area, even.

This one just felt… like…

The enemy, Mary reasoned at the end.

Her thoughts turned back to the pictures of the Witch they were hunting. The Witch in the robes of a nun, with her imposing guardian. There was something familiar about this Robin Sena… something that she couldn't quite place.

Simon, standing beside her, nodded. She threaded her arm through his, and the two of them headed into the lobby. "We're going to check out the front, Paul and Jessica should cover the exits."

"Roger," the double voices came over the headsets.

Where had she seen the girl's slender face before? Why was she familiar? Mary's lips twisted in a minute smile. Why did she want, so badly, to leave the girl alone? Was something about the work environment causing this, or was it something about the girl?

There was enough with the STN-A office she worked out of to make her uneasy. The fourth office in the broad country, they were understaffed. Only two voices… A standard STN hunting unit was five hunters, if not six, plus the tactical contact, making it a seven person unit per office, or eight. Not five. Simon shook his head and headed into the lobby with Mary beside him. The desk clerk smiled at the two of them brightly.

"Hello, my name is Margaret, and I'm the manager of the hotel. How can I help you two?" she asked.

"We're looking for my niece," Simon said. "She would have checked in a few days ago… the airline lost her luggage. She was coming over from Japan with her boyfriend… a tall fellow with black hair… he's fairly stubborn about things," Simon chuckled.

Add to that the coldness of the leader. Simon was barely convincing in his rouses at times. Like currently, his voice had very little to command belief in it. If Simon… or rather Shawn, as he went by on this sort of chatting excursion, if Shawn had any niece, he didn't care to find her. Or he wanted something bad from her. It was unacceptable to be so transparent on recon.

Margaret raised an eyebrow. "Mister Shouji didn't mention meeting the girl's family in town…"

Mary had been Simon's partner for years. They were in their thirties, or about to be, and had been hunting together in New York for almost ten years. But looking at him as he stood staring at the woman who was glancing at them quizzically made her feel more on the side of the young woman they were hunting. What was it about Robin that she remembered?

If she was a hunter… if she had been a hunter at one point, perhaps they had crossed paths. But where? In that habit it would be hard to forget seeing her.

"Mister Shouji doesn't like the American side of our family very much at all," Simon lied. "Something about being all-Japanese, I guess."

Margaret didn't look convinced. "You're supposedly related to that young lady?"

Unless it was among other nuns, Mary reasoned finally. And in an instant she knew where it was she had seen Robin. At Headquarters when she had her last training refresher. "Yes," Mary spoke up. "Little Robin. All he talks about, sometimes," she patted his arm tolerantly. "I told him to book with a better airline when her parents agreed to let her come over to visit, but he just wouldn't listen to reason, and now we can't quite find them."

"Well you still can't. Mr. Shouji and his… 'girlfriend' checked out early this morning." She turned the book around. "With the night clerk,my nephew."

It was still well before noon by the time the two of them boarded the bus, and Robin wondered if the entire country was hot and humid at that point. No luggage must look suspicious to someone somewhere.

Amon led the way back to their seats on the bus, and let Robin sit next to the window, taking the aisle seat with a frown on his lips for any casual onlookers. From New York to Chicago… another big city, another humid summer landscape.

More unfamiliar faces.

But at least he knew there would be a break for them there. A bank card, new clothes… hopefully a respite from hunting. America had seven STN offices, but the likelihood of them coming up on the radar for two was low, unless Solomon was actively hunting them.

And why would Solomon do something like that?