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Chapter 10: Authority
"What happened this time?" Naru snarled as we stared at the mess that was the Base. The coffee table that had been set in the middle of the room had been flipped over. Papers were scattered across the entire floor. The equipment was luckily still on the shelves, but the monitors were covered in silly string. The couches and chair were soaked with what I figured was water. Forgotten cups of coffee lay untouched on the end of the equipment table. A bucket of steaming water with rags hanging over the edge dangled from Annabeth's hand.
Annabeth and Gene were in similar disorder. Silly string was stuck in Annabeth's chestnut hair, tangling the coppery strands that were loose from their usual ponytail. The silly string clung to Gene's and her clothing, making colorful patterns across the dark fabrics.
"Well, you see," Gene began, running a hand through his hair, but Annabeth cut him off.
A smile tugged at the corners of her scowl, threatening to overtake the downturned lips. "My partner and the other guys thought it'd be funny to come in here when Gene and I were half asleep, and start spraying us with silly string and water. I ended up overturning the table at them on instinct. The battle kind of just ended," she explained.
Before he could blow up on the indifferent pair, Naru swung around to face Yasu, Jessica, and me. "What did you find yesterday?" he asked, holding out his hand for any papers that we had printed off.
Yasu pulled a stack of papers from his backpack, handing them to our seething leader. "Well, to start off, they've only had around a hundred prisoners since the prison was established around eighty or ninety years ago. Those prisoners include the three that are here now, or I guess, two at this point," he started, moving past Naru deeper into the room. We all followed after him, bending down to scoop up papers. "I only included the profiles of the most suspicious prisoners, and summarized the profiles of the rest. Since Annabeth didn't tell us how long these things have been going on, I couldn't narrow it down by years." He shrugged, shuffling the papers in his arms.
Annabeth flinched at the mention of her name, but no one seemed to notice except for me. I frowned, thinking back to the dream I'd had that night. I hadn't told Naru about it yet. Maybe it would be better if I held off on telling him that little piece of information.
"How many did you narrow it to?" Naru asked, flipping through the papers. He seemed to be counting the profiles, but was probably just making a show for it. It was too early in the morning to do much else.
"Hm, I think it was to about ten, give or take a few. They're mostly men, but there are a few women in there too. I didn't know if they'd be relevant or not. Most of the women were abducted at some point," Yasu replied, dropping the papers in his arms on the equipment table.
Monk flipped the coffee table over, setting it down on the marks its feet had made. "Why have there only been a hundred prisoners if the station had been here for ninety years?" he asked, wiping the silly string gripping the table off with a damp cloth.
"Well, the cells here are only used if there is no other option. The amount of prisoners needing to be held had increased steadily over the past couple years." Yasu rummaged under the couch, and pulled out a half full can of silly string. He smirked, wiggling his eyebrows at me, and jerking his chin towards Monk then Naru.
I shook my head vigorously, but was trying so hard to keep down the laughter that threatened to escape my mouth. My shoulder shook with the contained giggles as Yasu inconspicuously slipped the spray can into his backpack.
I breathed deeply, trying to find the will to calm my laughter. "I think we should only be looking at the last maybe five years at most," I suggested, putting my papers in order before setting them beside Yasu's discarded stack.
Ayako bumped me out of the way with her hip, running a damp cloth over the monitors. She grinned at me before asking her question. "Why only go back five years? Shouldn't we be going back as far as we can?"
"It's just a feeling I have," I mumbled, my eyes flicking to Annabeth who had her back to me. She glanced over her shoulder, catching my eye, before glancing away quickly.
"A feeling," Ayako scoffed, moving to drop her rag in the bucket.
"Maybe you should direct your action to finding my missing prisoner," a young man's voice said from behind us.
"C-Captain!" Annabeth cried, straightening instantly and saluting the man in the doorway. There was no trace of the smile she'd been sporting at something Gene had said.
We all turned toward the door to find a young man just a few years older than Naru leaning against the doorframe. He had blonde hair that fell across his forehead above eyes the color of wet ash, and just barely brushed the color of his navy blue uniform. He had only a few inches on Naru and just as much muscle. He gave our little ragtag team a cursory glance, his eyes half-lidded with boredom. His eyes lingered on me for a moment too long before moving back to Annabeth. "Care to explain what happened here, Officer Oshiro?"
"Yes sir! Officers Takahashi, Akiyama, and Ueda decided to play a little prank on me sir, but it will get cleaned up," she responded, her arms held at her side, and her chin held high.
"Good, make sure of that, and clean yourself up. You look disgraceful," he told her, turning his eyes to stare at Naru, "You must be Mr. Shibuya. Make sure your first priority is finding my prisoner."
My teeth snapped together in aggravation. I wanted so bad to put this man in his place. Who was he to be treating Annabeth that way? Or to be ordering Naru around for that matter? I stared intently at Naru's back, urging him silently to tear into him.
Naru's eyes narrowed in annoyance. "My first priority is to rid your station of whatever is haunting it. If the woman turns up along the way, then that is simply a bonus," he replied with as much authority as the man standing before him, "If that is going to be an issue, my team and I will simply leave."
A muscle in his man's jaw jumped. He glared coldly, only receiving just as cold a glare in return. "No, stay, do whatever you like. Just get me my prisoner back," he said, turning from us. He was turned halfway when he paused and glared at Annabeth, "Get cleaned up, and get back to work. Don't let me find you in this sorry state again."
"Yes sir!" Annabeth called again, saluting him once more. He walked out the door, his shoulders pushed back, his muscles tense.
I waited until the tap of his shiny black shoes had faded. "How long is that stick shoved up his ass because he's pretty fucking uptight?" I asked, my eyes narrowing with anger and the pain of my migraine. I curled and uncurled my fists, resisting the urge to punch the closest thing next to me, which happened to be John. He cringed away from my rage, skittering across the room to start cleaning up the couch and chairs.
Annabeth was silent, staring down at her shoes. "Let's just get this cleaned up as quickly as possible," she mumbled, bending over to pick up the papers under her feet.
"Annabeth?" Gene asked, gently placing a hand on her shoulder. She shrugged out from under his hand, ignoring any concern he directed towards her.
Unfazed, Naru kicked the door shut, moving to the monitors. "What else did you guys find?"
"Only one of the prisoners has ever mysteriously gone missing. We couldn't find a picture of him or even his name, but he was documented as being housed here for less than a year before his disappearance," Jessica replied tightly, crushing the paper she held.
"When was he here?" Naru asked, bringing up the video from last night so he could begin reviewing it.
"There was no date. I think someone tried to erase him from the system. Something other than a disappearance must have happened." She unfolded the paper, smashing it once more with even more force. Her face screwed up in anger showing just how truly angry she was.
"I'll bet Mr. High-n-Mighty knows something," Ayako muttered.
"Is that all you found?" Naru asked, ignoring his team's displeasure.
"Besides the usual nonsense about structure and what not, yes," I answered this time, "Can we please finish this case as soon as possible?"
Naru nodded, tapping the stacks of paper so they were all even. "That's fine by me," he agreed.
There you go! My swim meet went okay. I felt so bad about not posting a new chapter, so I kind of rushed this one. So, who already hates Mr. Stick-up-his-ass because I already do, and I only made him up for padding more or less. He might become more prominent later on though. Anyway, review good sirs and ladies! Yes? :D