Chapter 8

"Sakaido, Anaido, and Hijiriido have all died." Togo announced.

Momoki rubbed his forehead. "Eject them." His shoulders sank under the burden of the already long day. Before they had even brought Narihisago into this dive they had already spent several hours—first with Hondomachi piloting solo, then adding Fukuda in an effort to utilize her real world knowledge in tandem with the brilliant detective persona. Since adding Narihisago to the mix they'd reinserted no less than a dozen times, with a long music learning phase in each one. Fortunately Fukuda was cooperating, not hesitating to let the other two in on the real identities.

It should have been working. It should have been reaping some result by now. But the damn music maze guarded its secret well. What were they missing?

Habutae leaned on the railing, not much to do considering there were no people to identify as of yet. "Well, so much for this well's initial impression that it wasn't a death pit."

"They're all death pits." Shiratake replied dryly. "That's the nature of an id well, seeing as how it's a manifestation of the urge to kill."

"Not what I mean." Habutae lifted a hand. "I was referring to the in well lethality factor. Every single time the brilliant detectives select a score from the music maze and play it on the appropriate instruments, it results in the same thing. A simultaneous suicide. To be honest, I'm not sure this is good for Hondomachi."

"I'm not a marshmallow, you know." Hondomachi's voice crackled over the speaker followed by a pair of barely suppressed chuckles.

Momoki spoke up, "No one is suggesting that. It's just that this many back-to-back deaths in such a manner would undoubtedly affect even a strong psyche."

Narihisago stared up at the camera with a smirk. "Funny, I've had a more rapid series of death runs and all I ever got was—can you do it again?"

"Narihisago—"

"Technically speaking," cutting off the director, Wakashika still continued to mess with the rendering of the id well's musical scores, the most recent one the dive team had selected, "this is a different scenario than many of the other ones. In most cases we were looking at accidental deaths due to hazards within the well—falls, fires, collisions, etc. However, in this well the brilliant detectives' ends are always a simultaneous suicide. I admit, it's been pretty hard to get that image out of my mind of Fukuda's death by piano wire. That was like a cheese grater!"

On the screen Fukuda glanced toward the room's camera with half-hooded eyes. "You can't get that out of your head? You didn't experience it, pal. Sheesh, that's not even close to how I ever intended to end things. And yeah, I went through a lot of plans."

"Enough! All of you!" Momoki's raised voice snapped all eyes to him, even averting toward the ceiling those in the cockpit room. "We're not getting anywhere at this point. We need to come at this from another angle. Kokufu, you in on this?"

His voice invaded the com-link. "I am."

"I hate to say this, as I know time is of the essence, but I think we need to pause the dive sequence and simply process what we've learned thus far. There may be a subtle detail we've overlooked."

"Momoki." Narihisago leaned forward in his cockpit. "There is no need. We can keep going."

"You will always say that no matter your condition. This kind of a push is insanity."

Fukuda laughed, "Yeah, insanity—doing the same thing over and over, expecting a different outcome. All we've proven is that at the end of each of these musical scores results in a full stop, never a coda."

"Oh hah hah." Hondomachi groaned. "Suppose you think it's funny comparing suicide to musical notations."

"You laughed."

Narihisago rolled his eyes. "In that case I'll take a rest until we're brought in again."

Fukuda snorted a laugh. "See, even the wet blanket gets it!"

"Chief Kokufu, we're past dinner now. Let's walk away and process this overnight. Come back with fresh eyes tomorrow." Not that he could even eat. Momoki stopped himself from mentioning how much his stomach churned at the images from the well. Still, he shut his eyes hoping that no one Wellside would call him out on never having called it off before, it had always been Hayaseura. He pumped a fist knowing how rare even an overnight break was. He could feel their eyes locked on him.

"Right, everyone." Kokufu announced. "This is proving to be a puzzling one. Let's resume tomorrow."

What a relief. Momoki allowed himself to release the hidden fist as he heard the guards securing Fukuda and bringing Narihisago his crutches. There was a little bit of grumbling from the chamber, the odd cadence of Narihisago's effected gait on the hard floor accented by the crutches, but once the three were out of the mic's capture relief washed over him. One by one the Wellside staff shut their systems down until at long last he stood in silence, staring at the sparkling threads of music stretching through the id well construction. It was strangely beautiful.

Maybe this was all for naught. The cognition particles for someone intent on committing suicide also constructed id wells—this need not be an actual murderer. He hoped this was over. That he had not made a bad call. All he knew was he couldn't stomach witnessing it anymore … hard enough to watch the brilliant detectives die, it was worse when they were self-aware, no matter what the pilots said.

"Kokufu? You still there?"

"Yeah. What do you need?"

"Might want to have someone keep an eye on Hondomachi after those dives."

"Already thought of that. Not worried about the other two?"

Momoki sighed. "No. Soma is on duty tonight. He'll make sure they don't accomplish anything foolish. Those two are different than Hondomachi … they are … guilty. She's not like them."

"We couldn't always solve these right away. Quite a few cases took several days to get answers. So this isn't exactly new. Take your own advice, go home. Come back tomorrow."

"Thanks Chief." His shadow stretched long across the floor.

~ID~

One last trip around the usual trouble spots, Matsuoka had propped his Wakumusubi up in the passenger seat. He wasn't supposed to be doing this. Protocol stated that a team patrolled, one driving while the other held the device. To heck with protocol. He had a funny feeling pulsing in the old scar on his face. That notion never seemed to fail him in the past.

It didn't matter that he was off duty now. It's not like murderers kept business hours. That deepened his frown lines, the very idea of murderers with some 9-5 routine, signs on the door open for business that flipped to sorry, we're closed.

He huffed a breath as he waited for a red light to change. "I'll close these guys down permanently. No good pieces of demented shit. Society will be better off without them."

The light shifted to green and he eased the car forward and down along the shoreline road. A full moon sparkled in the bay's dark waters. Downright peaceful.

Out of the corner of his eye the gentle glow of the Wakumusubi beside him remained at rest. He had the radius set to a mid-range net. Nothing. Maybe it would be a quiet night after all.

Too bad this thing didn't catch all criminal impulses. He'd bet his whole salary it would never stop going off if that were the case.

Picky device. Simply stuck on killers. That's not the only way people can hurt others. If the thing could detect any impulse of deviant behavior … but where would the line be drawn? His thoughts circled around in a vicious cycle.

Beep! Beep!

The car nearly swerved off the side of the mostly empty road. Matsuoka slammed on the brakes and grabbed the device. The flare of the particles on the screen cast out toward the rolling surf beneath the moonlight. He held his breath.

No, what is this?

Racing out of the car, he left the door open and dove down a staircase two steps at a time, nearly spraining his ankle in the process. Through the faint light nothing moved except the waves.

"Field Agent Matsuoka, this is the Kura night shift. We have a signal from your Wakumusubi."

It was a good thing the phones auto-connected. "Yeah. I'm tracking down the source right now."

"Do you need a team?"

There was hardly a breeze and the signal was strong, pulling him toward the rolling surf.

Fresh footprints in the sand formed a path. Single. One direction. The particle line pointed the same way toward the dark ribbons of water in the moonlight. Particles, do they belong to the murderer or a victim? He had his hand on his gun.

"Standby." No sense in a team coming down if the only thing was cognit…

Something broke the frothy crown of the waves. Careful not to disrupt the footprints, Matsuoka ran into the water. The cold bit into his legs as he fought his way out, thigh deep. At last the object collided with him. A young man, face down. Swiftly, he turned the body over and dragged him to the shore.

"Kura. This is Matsuoka. I'm north of the dockyards. Send an ambulance we have a victim." He spoke as he accessed the scene. "Male, possibly late twenties? Unconscious. Recovered from the bay. Not breathing … water in the lungs. I expelled that. No pulse. Going to perform CPR. He's really cold too." There had been cases where someone had gone hypothermic and recovered. He couldn't give up now.

"We have a team en route, locked onto the GPS of your car."

Matsuoka didn't respond as he kept count of the chest compressions. Lost in the sequence he hardly noticed the flash of the emergency vehicle strobes as the medics raced from the ambulance. Right behind them a couple of police vehicles entered the scene. A medic placed a hand on his shoulder and moved him out of the way to take over.

He stood back and watched helpless now to assist the grim-faced EMTs.

"Hey, what we got?" An officer flashed a badge and squinted at the device still bleeping as the top hung out of his pocket. "You're one them Kura agents. No wonder that call came from a weird number. So what did your toy find?"

"Not sure." Matsuoka pulled it out and studied the number sequence on the screen. His eyebrows drove into a deep V. Those numbers, he'd seen them before. The same as the ones picked up from a fatal vehicle crash the other morning.

There on the sand lay a young man, even in the pale light he could tell the eyes were clouded. The skin shaded in blue was no mere illusion. Deny it as he might wish, Matsuoka knew the truth. The man was dead. As the medics lifted him onto a stretcher a small object fell from the deceased man's ear, hanging on a tether.

Matsuoka leaned a bit closer without interfering. An earbud? "This is a case of interest to the Kura. Connected to a current investigation. Document everything."

"As if we wouldn't." The officer smirked. "Alright boys, this is a crime scene. Let's get to work, you know what to do."

Typing a message Matsuoka sent it off to Kokufu. Bay side cognition particle collection. Same source as current id well. Victim appears to have been alone. Single footprints leading into surf. Assume listening to something due to earbuds. Will get phone from officers. Please don't ask why I was still running Wakumusubi off duty. We've already had that discussion before. I hope this changes your mind on that habit.