S.I.U. - The Sailor Investigation Unit
by DARK DAY FOR ANIME
Disclaimer - all characters pertaining to the series Bishoujo Senshi
Sailormoon are owned by Takeuchi Naoko, Bandai and Kodansya. All
other characters were thought up by me. Well, its true, isn't it?
Part Three
Predator of the Mind
Kaji slipped through the corridors of the police morgue,
sniffing with some distaste. He hated the smells you'd get with
this place... Reason enough to make sure you never made a visit
as a patient, he supposed.
For some reason, morgues like this had the annoying tendency
to be painted a nice white and green colour, which only seemed to
make the mood of the place that much more joyous to be in. He
chuckled mirthlessly. Morgue humour... Had to love it.
The door to the observation room was also green. And just
across the main corridor sat the toilets. There was nothing like
a well-planned layout. He punched in a code on the keys of the
combination lock and opened the door, stepping in.
The soft hush of the air conditioning belied what this room
had seen in its past. Here, families had come to identify lost
loved ones. And some not so loved. The room was deliberately soft
hued and pleasant. And to Kaji, this just made it all the more
macabre.
The room was L shaped, with the observation window around the
corner from the doorway. he listened as the door glided shut, and
could hear a couple of muted voices.
He turned the corner and saw Shimazaki and Katarin standing
by the viewing window to the autopsy room. "Yo!" He waved at them
as they turned to greet him. "Anything interesting?" It was
Katarin, the older of the two, who responded.
"Not much." He almost sounded disappointed. "They've found a
heart, on the left side of the chest, two lungs, a liver, a stomach,
intestines, kidneys... Generally all the kinds of things one should
expect to find in a human body."
"So they're cutting her up already?" He moved alongside them
and peered in. Pleasant sights awaited him.
"Hey, we like to move things along quickly, you know?"
Shimazaki sounded hurt. "And besides, its been about three hours
since she was moved in here. About time they started to look
around."
"Not that it was worth the wait. I've seen this kind of stuff
before. She even has a womb, you know?" Katarin pointed. Kaji
studied rather needlessly.
"Well, I could tell you that was going to be the case." He
huffed. "She was female, after all."
"Well you never know in this day and age. If you've seen some
of the things I've seen...." Katarin cleared his throat.
"True, true..." Kaji watched for a few moments more as the
surgeons pushed organs out of the way, prodding at something in the
centre of their subject's chest cavity, obviously obscured by the
ribcage. He then turned to Shimazaki.
"Who's the guy working on her right now?"
"Hmm? Oh, that's Toriyama. The head forensic pathologist
with the local branch of the feds."
"The feds? What do they want?"
"Hey, its not every day you get a dead Sailor. Everyone wants
a piece of the action. Sorry, bad joke." Shimazaki snorted as the
sound of a small cutting instrument whirred away within the theatre.
"So, you gonna tell me what it was you found that was so
special, hmm?" Kaji threw in with a sideways glance.
Shimazaki looked at him for a few moments, shaking his head.
"And who told you we found something?"
"Your boss did."
"Kurabuto?" Shimazaki gawked at Kaji. "What is he doing,
mouthing off like that?"
"His job, I suppose. I'm SIU, and that means all evidence
involving the Sailors comes my way. Course, he'd already told my
boss about the thing, so I guess its pretty old news by now."
"Whoa... SHIT! Will you look at THAT!" Katarin had his face
up against the window, staring in with disbelief. The other two
followed his gaze and were equally stunned. The surgeons were
pulling a crystal from the girl's chest. It looked fairly dirty and
bloodied, but it was a crystal all the same. They'd had to cut the
ribcage to remove it, as it was reasonably large. The autopsy
photographer was snapping away like mad as they levered their prize
away from the bone and clinging flesh.
"So, that's a heart crystal..." Kaji bit his lower lip,
drawing stares from Shimazaki and Katarin.
"What in Kami's name is a heart crystal?"
"Its related to the star seed and the psychosis flange." He
snorted. "Its that thing those monsters were trying to rip outta
their victims four years ago. Dunno why, but the effects on the
health of those who lost 'em were pretty severe. Of course, the
Sailors managed to get them all back. All the same, I've never seen
one actually in a body after its death. Maybe that's one thing that
defines us from them...."
"Hmmm... Could be. It might be what gives them their
powers... A Heart Crystal of greater constituion, capable of
surviving the death of the senshi." Katarin leaned against the
window.
Kaji shrugged. "I dunno. If it were that simple, then it
would mean nothing more than compulsory screening of high school
students for these things to catch the little bastards. And
somehow, I don't think we're going to be let off the hook quite that
easily." They watched for a few moments longer as the heart crystal
was placed in a tray, photographed a few more times, then covered
over with what looked like a plastic film.
"What I wouldn't do to have that thing mounted on my office
desk." Kaji wiped his nose. "After all the trouble these chicks
have given us, it'd make a great trophy."
"Might I remind you that your trophy would come at the expense
of that young girl's life." Katarin thumbed towards the window.
Kaji shrugged.
"So, are you going to show me what you found?" He turned
back to Shimazaki and Katarin. Shimazaki looked at Katarin for a
moment, who just smiled.
"Yeah, I suppose so. Come this way...."
They turned and walked away from the window, back towards the
door to the main corridor. Shimazaki turned aside to Kaji.
"Here's something I bet my boss hasn't told yours..."
"What?"
"You know the fuku the girl is wearing?"
"Yeah? What about it?"
"The lab reports have just come back. First off, they needed
diamond-sharp surgical knives to get the thing off the girl. I mean
off completely, it didn't WANT to come off, literally."
"What do you mean, it didn't want to come off?"
"I mean it didn't want to. The thing is alive. That was the
second point.... Its fifty percent normal clothing material, fifty
percent human flesh."
That stunned Kaji slightly. Well, more than slightly since
the revelation was somewhat unexpected. He stopped in his tracks
and scratched his head.
"Jeez... You know, that's kinda sick..."
"Heh, that's nothing. They did a genetic test on the
clothing. It matches the genetic structure of the girl. The part
that was human, that is."
"So, have you run the genetic samples through the databank to
try and identify her?"
"Yep. And its come up a blank. Either that girl has never
seen a hospital, or her genetic structure is malleable, depending on
what state their in. Transformed or Untransformed."
"Where is it now? The fuku, I mean."
"Its locked away in the freezers. Kami knows what it will do
if its left to turn all on its own.... As soon as they'd managed
to cut the whole suit off, it healed itself right up. Gloves,
boots, the lot."
"What? Even the tiara?"
"Even the tiara. We almost had to cut THAT off, too. Then,
it just fell off... Almost as if it had given up...."
"Pity you people have never been able to catch one of these
girls untransformed." Katarin sniffed.
"Hey, if we knew what they LOOKED like untransformed, we'd
drag 'em off the streets, straight away. Don't think we wouldn't."
Katarin shrugged. "Bet we would have caught them."
"Bet you would have got as far as us. Did you know the SIU's
duties were going to be delegated to Major Crime?"
"You're kidding?" Shimazaki and Katarin stared at him.
"Nope. That was one of the options the old boys at the top
were considering when they set up the investigation. Eventually
they came to the conclusion that the amount of information from
various sources was simply going to swamp you guys. So we ended up
with the job, thus relieving you of the tiresome duties...." Kaji
smiled. "Of course, I could put a word in about Major Crime taking
over the SIU's business. You know what they're like these days,
cutting back on services and costs and such...."
Shimazaki and Katarin were somewhat less smug for the rest of
their journey to their office. Katarin opened the door to the
darkened room, switching on the lights. He waved Shimazaki and Kaji
through, stepping in as the pair stepped over to his desk, on top of
which sat a small plastic bag containing a transformation pen. Kaji
picked up the bag, examining it.
"Don't look like much to me."
"Well, that's one of their transfo thingies. They just shout
out their spiel, this thing flashes in from some unidentified
subspace pocket and they turn into girls in skimpy sailorfukus."
Shimazaki just resisted snorting. "Can't say I find the idea
unappealing. Pity things have got this serious."
"Hmm." Kaji looked at it a few moments more. "I thought
these things disappeared once the transformation was complete."
"Apparently they just disappear back into that little subspace
pocket. This one, however, must have reappeared upon her death. I
don't suppose we'll ever find out why." Shimazaki sighed.
"Well, it might have something to do with what happened in the
motel. I take it this is now being treated as more than a suicide?"
"Hmm. We've been told from on high to treat it as a homicide.
But I dunno. This whole Sailor business is so out there, bizarre.
I mean, I find it hard to believe that this kind of stuff exists in
the real world." Katarin shrugged.
"Deal with the pain, boyo." Kaji chuckled. "Its out there,
and its coming to get you." Kaji held the bag higher, staring at it
in the light. "There's a kind of symbol on the side...."
"That's apparently an astrological symbol... For her planet."
Katarin pursed his lips, thinking for a few moments. "I'm not sure
of their origin. I don't actually think the origin of the things
are that old. Although it is hard to tell. Its based on European
astrology, or a form of it. Each planet is represented by a certain
symbol... The same with star signs and such. I don't know if the
symbols themselves have any meaning after that."
"The symbol looks kinda strange... Kind of like a..." Kaji
paused, thinking, then shrugged, putting it back on the table. "Oh
well, next question... Have there been any reports of missing
girls?"
"Well, of that I'm sure. And the answer is no." Katarin bit
his lip. "Unless one is being reported now. You know how long it
can take some to do the simplest tasks."
Kaji nodded. "Well, I suppose that means we're going to have
to continue as if nobody is going to file a report."
"Do we know if the victim has a family to report anything?"
Shimazaki raised his eyebrows, hopefully.
"About their private lives, boyo, we know diddly squat. All
that is known about them, is what they get up to when they do the
senshi thing." Kaji smiled lopsidedly.
"Well, it is a possibility. You could look around the school
records for students who are missing parents."
Kaji rolled his eyes. "How many kids in this city are missing
one or other of their parents, eh? Come on, it'd take forever. And
anyway, we've tried that before."
"Well, it is worth a go. If we still don't get any reports, then it becomes more likely."
"Or they're just trying to fox us. Have you ever thought that
these girls' only family is each other?"
"Which should make the search easier." Katarin smiled.
"There can't be that many households in Tokyo that are made up of
nine or so girls in their late teens and early twenties...."
"Oh, I dunno. As you said before, I've seen a lot of things
in my time." He paused for a few moments. "But I'll give it a
thought."
"Look at it this way, Kaji... If you find out the identity
of this one, the rest may tumble down like a house of cards. Groups
like this tend to survive by the most minute of threads."
"Hmm. Better not talk too much like that around Kiko-san."
"Why?" Shimazaki sneered. Thoughts of the woman still fresh
in his mind.
"Because she's got this mean and nasty streak, miles wide.
And the target lock is currently on the Sailorsenshi. You start
talking about them falling down like a pack of cards, and you'll
never hear the end of it."
"Where is Kiko-san now?" Katarin enquired.
"Back at the office. She's going over the psych reports on
the mainframe."
"Well, give her something to do. Call her and ask her to look
up student records in the Juuban district schools of approximately
five to six years ago." Katarin rubbed his mouth, smiling
underneath.
"Just because the Juuban area has tended to be the centre of
their activities doesn't mean they live there."
"Its a pretty good bloody pointer, though."
"As I've said, we've gone through the records before. There
are just too many students. And the records are rarely, if ever,
complete or satisfactory." Kaji shook his head. "And the movement
of students.... No, we had a fifteen-strong team working on that
before, trying to pick out the senshi through the schools' photo
records. Eventually, the task just overwhelmed them."
"Yes, but look at it this way, Kaji... It will keep Kiko-san
out of your hair. After all, if she's so bloody obsessed with
taking the senshi down, just feed her a line and she'll run with
it."
"Like what?"
"I dunno... Tell her to look up female students that have
no... Umm... Parents, maybe? Students whose parents are
deceased."
Kaji considered it. Oh well, it couldn't do her any harm....
Aoi sat in her chair, snoring. She'd just reached the point
in Professor Kando Makimichi's discussion on the apparent schism
between Sailormoon the senshi and the occasional appearances by the
mysterious Princess Serenity when her brain decided to rescue her by
shutting down the concious aspects of the left and right
hemispheres. This meant she was now swimming in a river with
blank-faced Sailorsenshi throwing the complete works of J.B.
Priestley at her from the banks.
She was rescued from this horrific fate when her mobile phone
rang, causing her to jump and fall out of her chair. Getting to her
feet, cursing, she grabbed the phone and answered it.
"Moshimoshi..." She said in her best mock-cheerful accent.
Then she backed away from the computer. Then out of the room.
"Okay, I can hear you now."
"Kiko-san, its me."
"Hello Me. What do you want?"
Aoi could hear Kaji sighing at the other end of the line.
"Well if you're going to do this with your usual cynicism, you might
as well forget it."
"Oh, get a life. You've called me now. What do you want?"
"Look, I really need you to look up something on the
mainframe. The school enrolement records for the Juuban area during
the 1992-93 period. Perhaps extending into 94."
"And what is this going to achieve except a lot of useless
names?" Aoi snorted.
"Now now now.... Just wait up and listen. We've been told
to look into this... By the higher-ups. What we want are the names
of all the female students in that area who have lost one or both
their parents. Preferably both." Bullshit, she thought. Higher-
ups be damned!
"Oh yeah, that's just great, you know." She snorted with
contempt. Kaji ummed and erred a couple of times.
"Well there can't be THAT many that were in that situation.
Even if it only cuts it down to a hundred, I want you to go over the
photographs of that hundred with a fine-toothed comb. You know what
they look like in their transformed state better than anyone else."
Aoi sighed. "Alright, alright. Anything to keep me busy,
eh?" She hung up and stepped back into the room, placing the phone
on the tabletop. "Bastard!" How dare he! She sat and sighed.
Well, there was nothing for it. She'd gone through this ritual
before, and had found nothing.
Hundreds of witnesses to senshi activity had gone through the
process of trying to identify senshi from photographs of young girls
and women who, for one reason or another, had become suspects. Not
once had any of those witnesses actually found someone who looked
vaguely like the senshi. Then there was the taskforce that had been
set up to check through the school photographic records. Everyone
within the SIU knew what they looked like, and yet.... Either they
were just too tired to bother when they did get to the right
photographs, or there was some kind of block placed on the minds of
those who had seen their faces. Either that or they didn't go to
school. She didn't see how that was entirely possible, but then,
they weren't dealing with normal human beings here.
No, just people who lived fantasy existences.
She exited the program she was using. It was easy enough to
access student records, including photographic records, through
the Police's system. The biggest problem was getting the
surprisingly simple-looking search program to do exactly what you
asked it to do. It was TOO simple, and that was the problem. You
could only search for one group at a time.
And so she asked the program to search student high-school
enrolement records for the years 1992 - 1993. And, of course, not
being too specific, it spewed off a list of names the size of
several small nations.
Once that was finished (it actually took about five minutes to
stop scrolling) she put in another parameter... Juuban District.
Well, with three public and two private schools, that cut down the
numbers to something like eight thousand students. She
sweatdropped. Things were not looking good, here.
Third parameter - Female. Now the number was four thousand,
or aroundabouts. Fourth - Those students amongst this group with
no parents.
7
Aoi stared at the number for several moments, not believing
her luck. In fact, she started to giggle inanely. Looks like it
was time for another cup of coffee. Wai, caffeine dai yo, hway
hway!
Instead she chose to bring up the school photographs of each
of the students. That was when her heart sank. Nearly all the
pictures looked suspiciously like passport photographs, like the
students had just thrown themselves together moments before the
shots were taken. Then there was the fact that most of them had
been done by amateur photographers hired by the schools at dirt
cheap prices. The coffee was now looking extremely attractive. So
were the packet of cigarettes sitting in front of her. She lit one
and studied the pictures, intensely.
She put the cigarette in her mouth and took a long, hard drag,
extracting the maximum amount of smoke as was possible. She lifted
it away and sat back, closing her eyes, holding in the vapours.
An image flashed across her mind, and she almost choked,
coughing the smoke out roughly. So much for the little pleasures
in life. What the hell was that, anyway? It happened occasionally
and would worry her.
She sat up again after wiping spit from her chin and looked
up at the faces on the screen. For some reason, one of them seemed
to be leaping out at her. She took a long, hard look.
She hadn't spotted it at first, and she wondered why. It
should have been so obvious. The hair of the girl matched the
photographs and other descriptions for the senshi known as Jupiter.
It was SO obvious.... How could she have missed it?
She clicked on the photograph and brought up the girl's
records. Kino Makoto. Age 14 (1992). Birth Date - December 5.
Blood Type - O. Lives Atashi Apartments, Juuban. Parents deceased,
killed in airline accident. Guardians - Takezaki Michie (aunt) and
Takezaki Nobuhiro (uncle). Lives separate from guardians due to
irreconcilable differences. Receives monthly support from school
services.
So, the girl lives on her own, eh? Aoi took down the address
and stubbed out the cigarette. She closed off the mainframe,
grabbed her jacket and left her office. After putting on the office
security alarms, she locked the front doors and grabbed her car keys
from her pocket....
So, you thought you could keep me busy, did you, Kaji? You
and the other boys? She smiled inwardly, flexing her fingers.
Well, Ms Kino.... It looks like we have a date with destiny coming
RIGHT up!
She unlocked her car, got in, shut the door and drove away,
not once noticing the figure sitting on the seat in the small
garden area just above the car park.
"The Kikotsuka woman is moving.... She looks pretty
motivated, too, I must say." He held the two-way close to his face.
"Should I follow?"
"Negative, Unit Three has got her in sight, and are
following."
"Copy. Heading back now." He switched off his radio and
stood, pulling his rainjacket tighter as a light mist began to fall.
Sighing, he began to walk away. All things considered, he felt very
lucky not to be caught by the woman.
He hated jobs that involved Mind Predators.
END OF PART 3
DDFA ayanami@internode.on.net
MAPPY on DALnet's #ajas
19th February 1998
by DARK DAY FOR ANIME
Disclaimer - all characters pertaining to the series Bishoujo Senshi
Sailormoon are owned by Takeuchi Naoko, Bandai and Kodansya. All
other characters were thought up by me. Well, its true, isn't it?
Part Three
Predator of the Mind
Kaji slipped through the corridors of the police morgue,
sniffing with some distaste. He hated the smells you'd get with
this place... Reason enough to make sure you never made a visit
as a patient, he supposed.
For some reason, morgues like this had the annoying tendency
to be painted a nice white and green colour, which only seemed to
make the mood of the place that much more joyous to be in. He
chuckled mirthlessly. Morgue humour... Had to love it.
The door to the observation room was also green. And just
across the main corridor sat the toilets. There was nothing like
a well-planned layout. He punched in a code on the keys of the
combination lock and opened the door, stepping in.
The soft hush of the air conditioning belied what this room
had seen in its past. Here, families had come to identify lost
loved ones. And some not so loved. The room was deliberately soft
hued and pleasant. And to Kaji, this just made it all the more
macabre.
The room was L shaped, with the observation window around the
corner from the doorway. he listened as the door glided shut, and
could hear a couple of muted voices.
He turned the corner and saw Shimazaki and Katarin standing
by the viewing window to the autopsy room. "Yo!" He waved at them
as they turned to greet him. "Anything interesting?" It was
Katarin, the older of the two, who responded.
"Not much." He almost sounded disappointed. "They've found a
heart, on the left side of the chest, two lungs, a liver, a stomach,
intestines, kidneys... Generally all the kinds of things one should
expect to find in a human body."
"So they're cutting her up already?" He moved alongside them
and peered in. Pleasant sights awaited him.
"Hey, we like to move things along quickly, you know?"
Shimazaki sounded hurt. "And besides, its been about three hours
since she was moved in here. About time they started to look
around."
"Not that it was worth the wait. I've seen this kind of stuff
before. She even has a womb, you know?" Katarin pointed. Kaji
studied rather needlessly.
"Well, I could tell you that was going to be the case." He
huffed. "She was female, after all."
"Well you never know in this day and age. If you've seen some
of the things I've seen...." Katarin cleared his throat.
"True, true..." Kaji watched for a few moments more as the
surgeons pushed organs out of the way, prodding at something in the
centre of their subject's chest cavity, obviously obscured by the
ribcage. He then turned to Shimazaki.
"Who's the guy working on her right now?"
"Hmm? Oh, that's Toriyama. The head forensic pathologist
with the local branch of the feds."
"The feds? What do they want?"
"Hey, its not every day you get a dead Sailor. Everyone wants
a piece of the action. Sorry, bad joke." Shimazaki snorted as the
sound of a small cutting instrument whirred away within the theatre.
"So, you gonna tell me what it was you found that was so
special, hmm?" Kaji threw in with a sideways glance.
Shimazaki looked at him for a few moments, shaking his head.
"And who told you we found something?"
"Your boss did."
"Kurabuto?" Shimazaki gawked at Kaji. "What is he doing,
mouthing off like that?"
"His job, I suppose. I'm SIU, and that means all evidence
involving the Sailors comes my way. Course, he'd already told my
boss about the thing, so I guess its pretty old news by now."
"Whoa... SHIT! Will you look at THAT!" Katarin had his face
up against the window, staring in with disbelief. The other two
followed his gaze and were equally stunned. The surgeons were
pulling a crystal from the girl's chest. It looked fairly dirty and
bloodied, but it was a crystal all the same. They'd had to cut the
ribcage to remove it, as it was reasonably large. The autopsy
photographer was snapping away like mad as they levered their prize
away from the bone and clinging flesh.
"So, that's a heart crystal..." Kaji bit his lower lip,
drawing stares from Shimazaki and Katarin.
"What in Kami's name is a heart crystal?"
"Its related to the star seed and the psychosis flange." He
snorted. "Its that thing those monsters were trying to rip outta
their victims four years ago. Dunno why, but the effects on the
health of those who lost 'em were pretty severe. Of course, the
Sailors managed to get them all back. All the same, I've never seen
one actually in a body after its death. Maybe that's one thing that
defines us from them...."
"Hmmm... Could be. It might be what gives them their
powers... A Heart Crystal of greater constituion, capable of
surviving the death of the senshi." Katarin leaned against the
window.
Kaji shrugged. "I dunno. If it were that simple, then it
would mean nothing more than compulsory screening of high school
students for these things to catch the little bastards. And
somehow, I don't think we're going to be let off the hook quite that
easily." They watched for a few moments longer as the heart crystal
was placed in a tray, photographed a few more times, then covered
over with what looked like a plastic film.
"What I wouldn't do to have that thing mounted on my office
desk." Kaji wiped his nose. "After all the trouble these chicks
have given us, it'd make a great trophy."
"Might I remind you that your trophy would come at the expense
of that young girl's life." Katarin thumbed towards the window.
Kaji shrugged.
"So, are you going to show me what you found?" He turned
back to Shimazaki and Katarin. Shimazaki looked at Katarin for a
moment, who just smiled.
"Yeah, I suppose so. Come this way...."
They turned and walked away from the window, back towards the
door to the main corridor. Shimazaki turned aside to Kaji.
"Here's something I bet my boss hasn't told yours..."
"What?"
"You know the fuku the girl is wearing?"
"Yeah? What about it?"
"The lab reports have just come back. First off, they needed
diamond-sharp surgical knives to get the thing off the girl. I mean
off completely, it didn't WANT to come off, literally."
"What do you mean, it didn't want to come off?"
"I mean it didn't want to. The thing is alive. That was the
second point.... Its fifty percent normal clothing material, fifty
percent human flesh."
That stunned Kaji slightly. Well, more than slightly since
the revelation was somewhat unexpected. He stopped in his tracks
and scratched his head.
"Jeez... You know, that's kinda sick..."
"Heh, that's nothing. They did a genetic test on the
clothing. It matches the genetic structure of the girl. The part
that was human, that is."
"So, have you run the genetic samples through the databank to
try and identify her?"
"Yep. And its come up a blank. Either that girl has never
seen a hospital, or her genetic structure is malleable, depending on
what state their in. Transformed or Untransformed."
"Where is it now? The fuku, I mean."
"Its locked away in the freezers. Kami knows what it will do
if its left to turn all on its own.... As soon as they'd managed
to cut the whole suit off, it healed itself right up. Gloves,
boots, the lot."
"What? Even the tiara?"
"Even the tiara. We almost had to cut THAT off, too. Then,
it just fell off... Almost as if it had given up...."
"Pity you people have never been able to catch one of these
girls untransformed." Katarin sniffed.
"Hey, if we knew what they LOOKED like untransformed, we'd
drag 'em off the streets, straight away. Don't think we wouldn't."
Katarin shrugged. "Bet we would have caught them."
"Bet you would have got as far as us. Did you know the SIU's
duties were going to be delegated to Major Crime?"
"You're kidding?" Shimazaki and Katarin stared at him.
"Nope. That was one of the options the old boys at the top
were considering when they set up the investigation. Eventually
they came to the conclusion that the amount of information from
various sources was simply going to swamp you guys. So we ended up
with the job, thus relieving you of the tiresome duties...." Kaji
smiled. "Of course, I could put a word in about Major Crime taking
over the SIU's business. You know what they're like these days,
cutting back on services and costs and such...."
Shimazaki and Katarin were somewhat less smug for the rest of
their journey to their office. Katarin opened the door to the
darkened room, switching on the lights. He waved Shimazaki and Kaji
through, stepping in as the pair stepped over to his desk, on top of
which sat a small plastic bag containing a transformation pen. Kaji
picked up the bag, examining it.
"Don't look like much to me."
"Well, that's one of their transfo thingies. They just shout
out their spiel, this thing flashes in from some unidentified
subspace pocket and they turn into girls in skimpy sailorfukus."
Shimazaki just resisted snorting. "Can't say I find the idea
unappealing. Pity things have got this serious."
"Hmm." Kaji looked at it a few moments more. "I thought
these things disappeared once the transformation was complete."
"Apparently they just disappear back into that little subspace
pocket. This one, however, must have reappeared upon her death. I
don't suppose we'll ever find out why." Shimazaki sighed.
"Well, it might have something to do with what happened in the
motel. I take it this is now being treated as more than a suicide?"
"Hmm. We've been told from on high to treat it as a homicide.
But I dunno. This whole Sailor business is so out there, bizarre.
I mean, I find it hard to believe that this kind of stuff exists in
the real world." Katarin shrugged.
"Deal with the pain, boyo." Kaji chuckled. "Its out there,
and its coming to get you." Kaji held the bag higher, staring at it
in the light. "There's a kind of symbol on the side...."
"That's apparently an astrological symbol... For her planet."
Katarin pursed his lips, thinking for a few moments. "I'm not sure
of their origin. I don't actually think the origin of the things
are that old. Although it is hard to tell. Its based on European
astrology, or a form of it. Each planet is represented by a certain
symbol... The same with star signs and such. I don't know if the
symbols themselves have any meaning after that."
"The symbol looks kinda strange... Kind of like a..." Kaji
paused, thinking, then shrugged, putting it back on the table. "Oh
well, next question... Have there been any reports of missing
girls?"
"Well, of that I'm sure. And the answer is no." Katarin bit
his lip. "Unless one is being reported now. You know how long it
can take some to do the simplest tasks."
Kaji nodded. "Well, I suppose that means we're going to have
to continue as if nobody is going to file a report."
"Do we know if the victim has a family to report anything?"
Shimazaki raised his eyebrows, hopefully.
"About their private lives, boyo, we know diddly squat. All
that is known about them, is what they get up to when they do the
senshi thing." Kaji smiled lopsidedly.
"Well, it is a possibility. You could look around the school
records for students who are missing parents."
Kaji rolled his eyes. "How many kids in this city are missing
one or other of their parents, eh? Come on, it'd take forever. And
anyway, we've tried that before."
"Well, it is worth a go. If we still don't get any reports, then it becomes more likely."
"Or they're just trying to fox us. Have you ever thought that
these girls' only family is each other?"
"Which should make the search easier." Katarin smiled.
"There can't be that many households in Tokyo that are made up of
nine or so girls in their late teens and early twenties...."
"Oh, I dunno. As you said before, I've seen a lot of things
in my time." He paused for a few moments. "But I'll give it a
thought."
"Look at it this way, Kaji... If you find out the identity
of this one, the rest may tumble down like a house of cards. Groups
like this tend to survive by the most minute of threads."
"Hmm. Better not talk too much like that around Kiko-san."
"Why?" Shimazaki sneered. Thoughts of the woman still fresh
in his mind.
"Because she's got this mean and nasty streak, miles wide.
And the target lock is currently on the Sailorsenshi. You start
talking about them falling down like a pack of cards, and you'll
never hear the end of it."
"Where is Kiko-san now?" Katarin enquired.
"Back at the office. She's going over the psych reports on
the mainframe."
"Well, give her something to do. Call her and ask her to look
up student records in the Juuban district schools of approximately
five to six years ago." Katarin rubbed his mouth, smiling
underneath.
"Just because the Juuban area has tended to be the centre of
their activities doesn't mean they live there."
"Its a pretty good bloody pointer, though."
"As I've said, we've gone through the records before. There
are just too many students. And the records are rarely, if ever,
complete or satisfactory." Kaji shook his head. "And the movement
of students.... No, we had a fifteen-strong team working on that
before, trying to pick out the senshi through the schools' photo
records. Eventually, the task just overwhelmed them."
"Yes, but look at it this way, Kaji... It will keep Kiko-san
out of your hair. After all, if she's so bloody obsessed with
taking the senshi down, just feed her a line and she'll run with
it."
"Like what?"
"I dunno... Tell her to look up female students that have
no... Umm... Parents, maybe? Students whose parents are
deceased."
Kaji considered it. Oh well, it couldn't do her any harm....
Aoi sat in her chair, snoring. She'd just reached the point
in Professor Kando Makimichi's discussion on the apparent schism
between Sailormoon the senshi and the occasional appearances by the
mysterious Princess Serenity when her brain decided to rescue her by
shutting down the concious aspects of the left and right
hemispheres. This meant she was now swimming in a river with
blank-faced Sailorsenshi throwing the complete works of J.B.
Priestley at her from the banks.
She was rescued from this horrific fate when her mobile phone
rang, causing her to jump and fall out of her chair. Getting to her
feet, cursing, she grabbed the phone and answered it.
"Moshimoshi..." She said in her best mock-cheerful accent.
Then she backed away from the computer. Then out of the room.
"Okay, I can hear you now."
"Kiko-san, its me."
"Hello Me. What do you want?"
Aoi could hear Kaji sighing at the other end of the line.
"Well if you're going to do this with your usual cynicism, you might
as well forget it."
"Oh, get a life. You've called me now. What do you want?"
"Look, I really need you to look up something on the
mainframe. The school enrolement records for the Juuban area during
the 1992-93 period. Perhaps extending into 94."
"And what is this going to achieve except a lot of useless
names?" Aoi snorted.
"Now now now.... Just wait up and listen. We've been told
to look into this... By the higher-ups. What we want are the names
of all the female students in that area who have lost one or both
their parents. Preferably both." Bullshit, she thought. Higher-
ups be damned!
"Oh yeah, that's just great, you know." She snorted with
contempt. Kaji ummed and erred a couple of times.
"Well there can't be THAT many that were in that situation.
Even if it only cuts it down to a hundred, I want you to go over the
photographs of that hundred with a fine-toothed comb. You know what
they look like in their transformed state better than anyone else."
Aoi sighed. "Alright, alright. Anything to keep me busy,
eh?" She hung up and stepped back into the room, placing the phone
on the tabletop. "Bastard!" How dare he! She sat and sighed.
Well, there was nothing for it. She'd gone through this ritual
before, and had found nothing.
Hundreds of witnesses to senshi activity had gone through the
process of trying to identify senshi from photographs of young girls
and women who, for one reason or another, had become suspects. Not
once had any of those witnesses actually found someone who looked
vaguely like the senshi. Then there was the taskforce that had been
set up to check through the school photographic records. Everyone
within the SIU knew what they looked like, and yet.... Either they
were just too tired to bother when they did get to the right
photographs, or there was some kind of block placed on the minds of
those who had seen their faces. Either that or they didn't go to
school. She didn't see how that was entirely possible, but then,
they weren't dealing with normal human beings here.
No, just people who lived fantasy existences.
She exited the program she was using. It was easy enough to
access student records, including photographic records, through
the Police's system. The biggest problem was getting the
surprisingly simple-looking search program to do exactly what you
asked it to do. It was TOO simple, and that was the problem. You
could only search for one group at a time.
And so she asked the program to search student high-school
enrolement records for the years 1992 - 1993. And, of course, not
being too specific, it spewed off a list of names the size of
several small nations.
Once that was finished (it actually took about five minutes to
stop scrolling) she put in another parameter... Juuban District.
Well, with three public and two private schools, that cut down the
numbers to something like eight thousand students. She
sweatdropped. Things were not looking good, here.
Third parameter - Female. Now the number was four thousand,
or aroundabouts. Fourth - Those students amongst this group with
no parents.
7
Aoi stared at the number for several moments, not believing
her luck. In fact, she started to giggle inanely. Looks like it
was time for another cup of coffee. Wai, caffeine dai yo, hway
hway!
Instead she chose to bring up the school photographs of each
of the students. That was when her heart sank. Nearly all the
pictures looked suspiciously like passport photographs, like the
students had just thrown themselves together moments before the
shots were taken. Then there was the fact that most of them had
been done by amateur photographers hired by the schools at dirt
cheap prices. The coffee was now looking extremely attractive. So
were the packet of cigarettes sitting in front of her. She lit one
and studied the pictures, intensely.
She put the cigarette in her mouth and took a long, hard drag,
extracting the maximum amount of smoke as was possible. She lifted
it away and sat back, closing her eyes, holding in the vapours.
An image flashed across her mind, and she almost choked,
coughing the smoke out roughly. So much for the little pleasures
in life. What the hell was that, anyway? It happened occasionally
and would worry her.
She sat up again after wiping spit from her chin and looked
up at the faces on the screen. For some reason, one of them seemed
to be leaping out at her. She took a long, hard look.
She hadn't spotted it at first, and she wondered why. It
should have been so obvious. The hair of the girl matched the
photographs and other descriptions for the senshi known as Jupiter.
It was SO obvious.... How could she have missed it?
She clicked on the photograph and brought up the girl's
records. Kino Makoto. Age 14 (1992). Birth Date - December 5.
Blood Type - O. Lives Atashi Apartments, Juuban. Parents deceased,
killed in airline accident. Guardians - Takezaki Michie (aunt) and
Takezaki Nobuhiro (uncle). Lives separate from guardians due to
irreconcilable differences. Receives monthly support from school
services.
So, the girl lives on her own, eh? Aoi took down the address
and stubbed out the cigarette. She closed off the mainframe,
grabbed her jacket and left her office. After putting on the office
security alarms, she locked the front doors and grabbed her car keys
from her pocket....
So, you thought you could keep me busy, did you, Kaji? You
and the other boys? She smiled inwardly, flexing her fingers.
Well, Ms Kino.... It looks like we have a date with destiny coming
RIGHT up!
She unlocked her car, got in, shut the door and drove away,
not once noticing the figure sitting on the seat in the small
garden area just above the car park.
"The Kikotsuka woman is moving.... She looks pretty
motivated, too, I must say." He held the two-way close to his face.
"Should I follow?"
"Negative, Unit Three has got her in sight, and are
following."
"Copy. Heading back now." He switched off his radio and
stood, pulling his rainjacket tighter as a light mist began to fall.
Sighing, he began to walk away. All things considered, he felt very
lucky not to be caught by the woman.
He hated jobs that involved Mind Predators.
END OF PART 3
DDFA ayanami@internode.on.net
MAPPY on DALnet's #ajas
19th February 1998