"Is Vella always this noisy?" Back for a daily visit, the falcon had stuck around to burble in ears as the pair suffered slowly in the confines of their lab. Even with a full day of healing, the persistent pain of a hangover still throbbed through Akiza's skull.
"Only when we deserve it." With less patience in his pain, the large bowl of crushed ice Din was squatting in had arrived within minutes. Collapsed on the table, Akiza was constantly listening to burbles of noise that sounded uncannily like laughter. Any attempts to wave the bird away were only met with stern indifference and a slight clutching of talons when she returned to rest on Akiza's shoulder.
"Isn't there some super-drug to get us through this?" Stumbling upright, she rummaged through the cupboards to find a rat for the buzzard to snack on.
"Top-secret job. A few biology idiots cooked up some bacteria cocktail." Cramming himself a bit lower into the ice, he risked frostbite as the ice crept higher on his body. "Got a few vials locked up somewhere in case an idiot drinks what we did but in less time." Sneezing, he wrapped a patchwork blanket about himself. "No use trying to find out where, they got tight-lipped after I vomited in their algae pool trying to steal it. Good times."
Another wave of nausea had his head spinning and the bile-tainted burp was enough to send Akiza to the window in case her own stomach churned over again.
"Maybe if we're very good, somebody will come and kill us." Grabbing a handful of ice, Din slammed it against his head.
"Good luck has a way of avoiding me." Touching Vella affectionately on one claw, she held her arm out for the bird to waddle down and soar into the wind from. "We should get back to work before somebody calls Yusei on us." Pulling out the tablet, she winced as the holograms stung her eyes. After the encounter with the American scientists, she and Din were slumming it with only the one hologram but it was still enough to drive steel needles into her brain.
"How far did we get last time?" Everything was still a mild blur from the night before. A nightmare had plagued her, born from the mocking laughter of Musume, Trudge and even Carly when they heard about the incident that had almost lead to her arrest.
"Trying to calibrate the cerebral inhibitor." Unwilling to move from his therapeutic posture, Din simply shuffled his tub across the floor until he could lean against the central workstation in the furnished half of the room and still able to squint at the projection of Yusei's brain.
"Let's start at ten percent of maximum output." Adjusting figures and parameters on the tablet, she let the program start to play itself out.
For hours, she and Din continued to tinker with the scenarios and simulations. Each time they made progress with one recording, another would throw up a problem they couldn't have accounted for and they were forced to start again. After the first few hours, Din called a brief halt to dump his warm water down a drain and put on a shirt. With a substantial bill still owed to Chris and a frosty reception from any member of staff that enjoyed a nice place to hang out – and there were few members of staff at odds with the chef – they decided to skip lunch and press on well into the evening.
"Just supposing that we use this device to actually cure our patient." Strictly speaking, the cerebral inhibitor wouldn't cure Yusei. It would hopefully suppress the attacks long enough for his own immune system to do something about. "Who gets the credit? Whoever credited this machine or me for figuring out the successful application?"
"Where do I come into play?" Tired from her hangover and double shift, Akiza was ready to throw in several towels for the night.
"As the leading researcher, I'll assume full credit." Dipping a rag into a bowl of chilled water, Din wrapped it around his head like a leaky bandanna. "I'll make sure to mention you. A footnote, maybe a fun anecdote about the time you likened my wisdom to the glory of the cosmos."
"In other words, to lie and steal my credit?" Adjusting the conditions again, Akiza set off another test.
"You can get equal credit if you let me do all the awards." Staring at the dwarf, she tried to imagine him in a suit of any kind. Maybe a jacket – a straitjacket.
"Deal." A delightful little ping sounded from her tablet as the simulation completed with a positive result. "On to the next one." Reaching for the tablet, she was surprised to find Din stopping her hand.
"That's the last one." Even through the banter and posturing, he was always paying attention to the work he was doing. Maybe a lesser mind could have lost focus but this was Din. Nothing got by without him noticing it.
"Abi," Tapping her earpiece, Akiza tried to keep the exuberance inside her from spilling out. "Test this against all the scans we have for this project." Lights flickered and whirled as columns and rows of holograms sparked into life. Pulling all available processing under her control, the sentient computer even went as far as to include half of Building Four – her own personal haven – into getting the calculations crunched as quickly as possible.
"Simulations complete. No negative results." Whooping in joy, Akiza actually slapped Din on the back before she realised how disgusting his shirt was.
"Yusei," Wiping the sweat and grime across her trousers, she used her left hand to call him. "I think we've found something."
"What?" It wasn't an actual question, simply an exclamation of incredulity.
"I'm coming right over." She could already hear the screams of outrage scientists as programs and simulations across the SRC fell dead from the sudden redirection of processing power. "Abi will send you what I have." Scooping up the tablet, she paused in the door to look back at Din. "Aren't you coming?" Baring his teeth in a smile, he pulled the bandanna down over one eye.
"After the other day, people are going to be coming right here to start the blame." Swinging across the room, he pulled a thick wooden pole from the storage cupboards in the corner. "It's not that often that people run towards me." Stumping back around, he was greeted by an empty room. "I still want that damn credit!" Leaning out into the hallway, he was in time to see the first of many angry faces start towards his door.
Putting on a turn of pace that would shame even Obake, Akize made it to Building Eight in record speeds. Every time she had to stop for even a second – to open doors, wait for elevators stumble and catch her breath – was another moment she felt the satisfaction of diagnosing a successful treatment course power through her. By the time she reached Yusei's office and stood proudly in front of his desk, he had barely finished scrolling through the results.
"I've been looking over the findings of your research." For such a short time-frame, Akiza had made incredible progress into the cerebral inhibitor. It was an impressive feat of technological and neurological advancement for such a small time and not to be taken lightly in any circles. "Working with Din really paid off. When you're working." A raised eyebrow pointed towards the incident that had last brought her to his office.
"From what I hear, the police are still trying to figure out what happened." Not that guilt had stopped Haruka from apologising to them all and bringing around trays of food. She and Chris seemed to have reached an understanding as to what had happened to his club. As far as the rest of her friends were concerned, she was avoiding answering any direct questions about the chef's feelings towards them.
"These things take time. Others do not." Reaching into his top drawer, Yusei laid a thick metal oval on the table.
"What is that?" Picking up the device, she flipped it over in her hands to better ascertain a function.
"A cerebral inhibitor." Casting her mind back to the blueprints in Din's lab, Akiza could instantly see that this model was more advanced than the design she had been sent.
"Where did you get it?" Handing it back, she already knew the answer.
"Dr Cavanagh originally designed this device whilst working alongside Dr Panabaker. Dr Valdes, their associate, was kind enough to send me some schematics." Taking the disc, Yusei turned it in his hands as he tried to lessen the blow. Every time Akiza made the slightest progress, it ended up being down an avenue he had already exhausted. "It works, more or less. But such a device was not designed for long-term usage. If I use it too much, there's a risk of permanent neurological suppression." In essence, to stop his brain overheating, Yusei could end up restricting his intellect to the same levels as Jack without coffee – a total idiot. "I was hoping that there was a way to counteract the effects but I haven't made any progress so far." After sixteen months of work, he had concluded the effects were unmanageable and searched for a separate solution. "I use it when I need to spend time away from the SRC." Curling his hand about the device, Yusei couldn't bring himself to look at her.
"I'm sorry. I should have finished reading the files." In her haste to develop a cure, any sort of cure, she had only skimmed a few of the larger files. Eight years of detailed research was impossible to fight into such a short time-frame.
"I don't want you to be sorry!" Slamming his fist onto the table, a deep cut sliced through his hand as the edge of the device was pressured into his palm. "That's why I gave you this assignment."
"What?" Sliding herself into the chair, she watched him drop the bloodied instrument onto his desk.
"Every time we have to bury a friend, everyone around the grave stands there and thinks they could have done more. If they had noticed sooner, acted quicker." Pulling open his drawer, he angrily swept the instrument inside and slammed it shut again. "Eight years, sixteen deaths. Six from natural causes, seven from crime and three from incidents in the SRC." Watching the oil of his mortal engine slowly ebb away, he counted the drips onto the table. "And every time I have to stand with those families and wonder what I could have done better." Leaning back in his chair, he kept the bleeding hand where it lay. "So I wanted to give you the opportunity to see there was no cure, no quick fix. In less than a year, I'll be dead. I don't want my family looking down on my body and wondering what they could have done better." Unable to stand the look in her eyes, he looked back out the window.
Tearing fabric distracted from his pity party and forced him to actually look at Akiza as she torn the sleeve from her eggshell blue scrubs. "Maybe you've given up," Grabbing his wrist, she wrapped the cloth tight about his hand and held it in place with her own grip. "But I still have a few months to look at the data and find a cure." Holding the bandage in place, she stared down her friend with enough intensity to actually make him think she could still do it.
"If you do, promise to never stop holding it over me." It was not often that people in positions of power come with humility but Yusei was smart enough to see when it was needed.
"Okay." Holding the bandage in one hand, she swiped a stapler from his desk and used it to clip the covering into place. "That should probably do well enough for now but you should still have it looked at."
"Whatever the doctor orders." Holding his hand upright to slow the bloodflow, he gave her a crooked grin. "You do know there's a first aid box in the elevator?" Embarrassment bloomed across her face as she realised she was still holding his hand.
Before the moment could progress any further, the forgotten phone on the side of the desk rang.
"It's from Nanashi." Taking back his bleeding hand, Yusei flipped his phone open. A quick glance gave him all the information he needed. Holding out the phone, he let Akiza see the one-word message still scrolling across the screen. Tomorrow.