"Back again so soon?"
Akane closed the lid of her laptop and smiled coolly up at the person who had just entered her room. It might be her jail cell, and an excessively secure one at that, but there was no place that the erstwhile Inspector appeared more at home, more in her element. That irked Mika to no end, and Akane seemingly knew it. Still, Mika had a favor to ask, and it wouldn't do well for her to act all indignant about something she ostensibly had so much capacity to control, so she kept her lips sealed and took her usual seat in front of the desk.
"Not making any coffee today?" she noted dryly.
Akane snorted. "Not after you harangued me for wasting government resources last time. I don't particularly like coffee, anyway – I just need it to stay awake. It's easy to fall asleep in a nice, warm place like this."
"I bet. The office is like the inside of a cold storage on the best of days." Mika paused. "Don't you miss the old days sometimes, though? Chasing criminals, upholding the law. You know, everything that we actually signed up for."
"Chasing latent criminals," Akane corrected her. "And yes, of course I miss it, just like I miss being able to actually go outside. You think I want to be in here?"
For the first time in some while, Mika could detect an undercurrent of vexation, of anguish, in Akane's voice. On another day, that might have made her feel a little better about herself; today, though, she somehow had it in her to sympathize. "I'm sorry."
"No, you're not. Anyway," Akane tilted her head as she insouciantly scrutinized her guest, "what did you come here for?"
"I wanted some advice."
"Come on. What did you really come here for?"
A rush of bile abruptly coursed through Mika's gut, a familiar phenomenon when talking to someone who was equal parts slippery and sardonic like her former colleague. Inspector she might no longer be, but Akane knew Mika all too well – arguably even better than Mika knew herself – and she knew exactly what buttons needed to be pressed at what times. Maybe coming here would turn out to be the mistake Mika had anticipated it would be.
No, no. Calm yourself. Mika closed her eyes, pressed lightly on her temples and massaged them for a few seconds. You're the one in charge here. You need to start acting like it.
"I'm serious," she said.
Akane nodded, perhaps detecting the unusual lack of causticity or sarcasm in her old junior's voice, and crossed one leg over the other as she eased her back onto the sofa cushion. "Advice about what?"
Mika chewed her lip, pondering how best to phrase what she wanted to say without risking the ire of the people she toiled under. There were eyes and ears everywhere, particularly in a setting like this, and every word would have to be carefully weighted lest she turn the attentions of those surveilling the two of them unfavorably upon herself. "I…" She paused. "Well, I wanted to ask you this. Why did you join the CID in the first place?"
Akane tilted her head to the side, as if not quite understanding the question. "Why…?"
"I mean, there must have been some reason, right?" Mika continued. "For instance, I joined because…" She blew out a breath through her nose. "You already know."
"I do. But…" Akane scratched her head and shrugged. "I didn't really have a special reason like you did. The Sibyl System told me I'd be a good fit, and I agreed. That's all there was to it, at least at the start."
"That can't be it, though, right?" Mika pressed as she leaned forwards, a mixture of curiosity and desperation creeping into her voice. "You had something you wanted to do, something you wanted to achieve while you were in the CID. Didn't you?"
"Well, of course – I wanted to help those in need. I would have joined another department if I didn't," Akane replied, her brow still slightly furrowed in bemusement. "A cushy desk job somewhere else in the Ministry of Welfare awaited me, if I so chose."
"Then —"
"But that would never have brought about the change I wanted to see. As the saying goes, you have to become the change you want in the world. I thought I might be able to make Japan a better place from my position in the CID, naïve and idealistic as that might sound now." Akane let out a mirthless chuckle. "I tried, but I fell short. And that's why I'm here." She spread her arms, gesturing around at the four walls that now confined her. "I failed."
"I wouldn't say that," Mika remarked, in a half-hearted attempt to be magnanimous. "You were a good Inspector, despite your flaws. At the end of the day, you efficiently brought the Sibyl System's justice to where it was most needed. That much I can say with confidence."
Akane's gaze only grew more forlorn.
"That," she replied solemnly, "is exactly why I failed."
The wind and water whipped against the windscreen, blotting out the road ahead, blurring and blending the red lights of the cars ahead and the white glow of the streetlights above into the roiling mass of dark gray that crowded the sky, marred occasionally by the puncturing flash of lightning arcing across the torrential curtain through which Mika now traveled. Though she kept both eyes firmly on the road, her focus floated far, far away from her present reality, and not even a close shave with a vehicle in the next lane could shake her from her reverie.
In the end, her second visit in as many weeks to Akane Tsunemori's prison had yielded little fruit. After all, there was little meaning in asking for advice when one didn't know what they were asking advice about in the first place. Wherein laid the source of Mika's unease? If that question could be answered, she would undoubtedly find the relief she sought; yet if answering it were so simple, she would not be so confused as to how to begin resolving the problem, let alone discerning what the solution might be. There was an obvious alternative – namely, that there was no real reason for her discomfort – but she steadfastly refused to entertain that particular option. To her, the only thing more infuriating than not being able to solve a mystery was the notion that there was no mystery at all to begin with.
Ironically, her anxieties were at their least potent when she immersed herself in her work, allowing her beleaguered mind some reprieve by distracting itself with whatever task was at hand. Now, though, as she sat in the front seat of her squad car with nothing to accompany her but her thoughts, it was all she could do not to pull the vehicle over and sit by herself on the curb, ignoring the inquisitive glances of passersby as she ruminated in the pouring rain.
The console on her dashboard emitted a sharp beep that finally jolted her back into attention. The screen blinked, and a grid map of the surrounding area materialized. A thick, white jagged line flashed into view, linking her current location to a spot a few minutes' drive away. Around that spot was a glowing red circumference above which read the words: "Area Stress Warning. Enforcers deployed."
"Great timing," Mika muttered, easing her car into the side lane and off the freeway, curling into a tunnel that ran like a knife through a cluster of nearby structures, its walls strapped with strips of fluorescence that blinked incessantly as she drove on. Emerging from the underpass, she turned the corner onto the road indicated on her map, where she spied a couple of CID vehicles already parked alongside the pavement next to a line of security drones and a tall, glassy black van.
The back of the van opened, and a familiar troupe of latent criminals stepped out into the storm. The man at the front of the queue took off his glasses and, upon noticing Mika's arrival, gave her a quick wave. Mika pulled up beside them and clambered out, holding a hand to her forehead and squinting as the relentless rain lashed into her face. "Things must be real bad if you were sent out here," she veritably yelled into the deafening squall.
"Same goes for you, Inspector," Nobuchika called back. He reached into the rack that rapidly extended from the side of the van and extracted his Dominator, giving his glasses a quick wipe before immediately realizing the futility of doing so. "What are we looking at?" he asked as he slipped his glasses into his jacket pocket.
"From what little I can tell, we have a potential Psycho-Hazard incoming inside there." She pointed up at a derelict, stubby-looking office building that sat between two taller neighbors, its rows of windows completely dark – which, in the middle of the day and in the middle of the city, was essentially an impossibility, and thus an anomaly. "But details are still thin on the ground, so we're going in blind. Teppei and Hinakawa, the two of you head down that alley and take the back door. Ginoza and Kunizuka, you're with me at the front. Keep your wrist-links on standby and ping us if you meet any armed hostiles. Alright?"
"Got it," came the chorus of replies.
"Let's move." As the heavy-set Sugou Teppei and crimson-crowned Shou Hinakawa darted out of sight, Nobuchika and Yayoi drew closer to the main entrance of the building. Through the glass doors was the lobby, empty and devoid of any sign of life, a hollow chamber that stretched into the darkness beyond.
Mika, one hand on her Dominator, pushed cautiously through the doors and plunged into the building proper. At once, the blast of the violent tempest outside was silenced, and the only sounds left to fill the expanse were the clicking of Mika's shoes on the linoleum floor and the muffled footsteps of her Enforcers trailing behind her.
"Power's been killed," noted Nobuchika, who had made his way over to the reception counter and was staring at the terminal screen on the workstation. "Cymatic scans are still working, as expected, but the computers, lights, electricity… all off. Elevators, too. We can turn them back on, though – power boxes are in the far corner of this floor."
"Negative. Whatever's up there will know we're coming as soon as we hit those lights. We want them to stay blind for as long as we need." Mika lifted her arm and tapped on her wrist-link, blowing up a holographic projection of the building's interior. "We'll take the main stairs and make our way up," she said, pointing at a corridor some ways to their left. "Teppei and Hinakawa will check the emergency stairs on the other side, start from the top floor and go downwards. You copy that?"
"Copy," responded a voice frizzled with static.
"Alright. Stay close." Mika and her entourage slipped into the nearest corridor, making their way towards the glowing bulb at the end of the hall, where a gray steel portal just past the dormant elevators led into the building's main stairwell. Slowly but surely, they clambered up the steps, making sure to soften the impact of their shoes against the cold concrete surface as best as they could without sacrificing too much by way of speed. Before long, they were on the second storey.
"Spread out," Mika murmured. They did as instructed, peering around the corners, shifting stealthily up and down the hallways, peering into pitch-black rooms, never once letting go of their grips on their trusted weapons. All the while, the conspicuous lack of any noise, yet another oddity amongst a burgeoning number, continued to weigh on the Inspector's thoughts, though she paid her anxieties little heed as she trained her focus on the task at hand.
"Nothing here," commented Yayoi as they met up back at the elevator lobby and made ready to move upwards again. "Maybe a false alarm?"
"The cymatic scans are never wrong. And neither is the Sibyl System." Mika gestured up at the ceiling. "Let's keep moving."
As they climbed the stairs again, Mika glanced up as the entrance to the third floor loomed into view. Unlike the doors to the previous levels, however, it was ajar, swinging outward slowly, creaking as its frame was dragged across the ground. Eventually, its handle met the wall behind it, and its movement outward was duly halted.
Mika held a hand up, pointing her Dominator towards the open void beyond the doorway. The others did the same.
The third floor, at first blush, was seemingly as still and undisturbed as the second, and equally as uninhabited – save for the sight of a single room in the distance from which an ochre wash of light poured forth, pooling onto the ground around its entryway, so bright as to be blinding in the sheer murk of its surroundings. Mika nodded towards the room, and inch by inch, she and her Enforcers edged closer, barrels of their Dominators never once wavering away from the direction in which they walked.
Yet as they were moments from taking their first step into the glow, to their immense surprise, a voice abruptly called to them from within, stopping them immediately in their tracks.
"Put your weapons away, Inspectors," the voice said. "I mean you no harm. And I hope you will return the favor."