Part 5 – Hachioji Manufacturing Plant – Part 2

As they pulled up in front of the house, Akane was concerned as to whether or not this kid was so bad: the house looked like your typical suburban house with a very nicely-kept lawn.

As she got out of the car, she looked at Kogami, and she could tell he was thinking the same.

Akane followed Kogami up to the front door to have him tap on it three times.

The person that answered the door was a five-foot-eleven male he was wearing a pair of black suit pants and a white button-up shirt with his sleeves rolled up above the elbows.

"Can I help you," he asked.

"Mr. Tadori," Kogami asked.

"Yes," Mr. Tadori asked.

Kogami pulled out his wallet, revealing his badge and I.D., "Sibyl System Debt-to-Society Enforcement, name's Kogami," he said before closing his wallet and pointing at Akane, "This is my partner, Akane. Does your son work at the Hachioji Manufacturing Plant just outside town?"

"Yes," Mr. Tadori said, "He's not in trouble is he?"

"That depends," Kogami said.

"Depends on what," Mr. Tadori asked.

"Whether or not he knows anything about what happened at the plant," Kogami said.

"My son's been here since midnight," Mr. Tadori said.

"Still," Kogami said, "We'd like to ask him a few questions."

"Ok," Mr. Tadori said as he stepped aside, "Please come in. Shoes off, please."

As Kogami and Akane entered, Kogami simply stepped on the back of his shoes to remove them, while Akane had to purposefully remove her heels.

Mr. Tadori led Kogami and Akane into a room in the back where they found Shio Tadori lying face-down on his bed, still in his work clothes.

"Shio," Mr. Tadori said as he walked over to his son's bed, "Shio. Shio!"

Shio just groaned and said, "Go away dad, five more minutes."

"There are some people here to speak to you," Mr. Tadori said, "Debt Collectors."

Shio opened his eyes to see Kogami and Akane standing there, "Hello," he said as he sat up in his bed.

"Shio Tadori," Kogami asked.

"Yes," Shio asked.

"We'd like to ask you a few questions about Daisuke Shioyama," Kogami said.

"Why do I have to answer questions about that asshole," Shio asked, "He picks on me so much, I don't even want to hear his name."

"He's dead," Kogami said.

"What," Shio asked.

"They found his body this morning," Kogami said, "One of the drones at the plant had practically taken him apart."

"Shit," Shio said before realizing, "Wait, you think I had something to do with that?"

"If you did, I can't blame you," Kogami said before receiving a call of his phone, "I'll be right back," he gestured Akane into the room, "Inspector, why don't you take this one while I take this call?"

Akane pointed at the chair just next to the door, and Shio gestured for her to sit, "I'm just going to ask you a few questions," she said, "But first, could you hold out your hands, palm-side down?"

"Ok," Shio said as he held out his hand, and Akane's forensic implants didn't pick up any trace amounts of blood on his hands.

"Alright," Akane said as she sat back, "Can you describe your relationship with Mr. Shioyama?"

"Horrid," Shio said, "Him and several others at the plant seem to have made it their mission to make the lives of myself and few others miserable."

"It's true," Mr. Tadori said, "My son brought evidence to me the other day."

"You were planning to open a civil case against the company," Akane asked, "Tried to make others enforce the rules?"

"Yes," Shio said, "We were going to take the evidence to court today."

"Evidence," Akane asked.

"We have video footage of how they treated me and three others at the plant," Shio said, "We also have evidence of the plant manager ignoring responses."

"How'd you get that kind of information," Akane asked.

"Yuji," Shio said, "He has access to all the cameras in the plant."

"He has that kind of access," Akane asked, "What other kinds of access does he have?"

"Access to all the machines," Shio said, "He's helped me several times when my machine got stuck."

"The two of you are friends," Akane asked.

"No," Shio said, "But we do have a common thread: we've been suffering Daisuke's bullying for way too long."

"What kind of abuse has he suffered," Akane asked.

"I know that a few of them beat him a few times," Shio said, "I'm not sure if this was right, but he told me that a handful of them force-fed him a handful of metal shavings."

"Do you think he would be capable of making a machine scrape off the numbers of the bottom of the bullets you make there," Akane asked.

"I know he can do that," Shio said, "I've seen him done it over and over again."

"How many times," Akane asked.

"Maybe about six times," Shio said, "I'm not entirely sure."

"Do you think he's capable of hurting Mr. Shioyama," Akane asked.

"Well…" Shio said before realizing something, "Good shit."

"What," Akane asked.

"I… I," Shio said before his father stepped in.

"Shio, you answer the damn question, right now," Mr. Tadori exclaimed as he pointed at his son.

"Ok, ok," Shio said before looking at Akane, "I thought he was kidding when he said this. But we were joking around at lunch when I asked him if I could do anything for him after he gave me the evidence. He told me, 'You could help me kill Daisuke and several others'."

"Good shit," Akane said.

Kogami came charging back into the room, "Inspector, we've got to go," he said, in a hurried voice, "Now!"

Akane jumped from her seat, and as she followed Kogami out the door, she spoke up, "Kogami, what's wrong?"

"That was Yayoi," Kogami said as they ran out the door towards his car, "They just found the machine that scratched the numbers off the bullets back in Chicago."

"And," Akane asked.

Ten minutes earlier…

As the team was examining the robots, Kuraudo was following the team close behind.

"Do you have to follow so close behind," Ginoza asked.

"You are messing with our machines," Kuraudo said, "I'm just making sure nothing is damaged along the way."

Yayoi was using a special device that would scan the bar-code on the side of the machine, and see if it was the labeled robot.

"Why don't you have the robot just listed as the defective one," Masaoka asked.

"We did," Kuraudo said, "But we keep those records on paper-back file, and it's hidden amongst a mountain of other records we have."

"How convenient," Shusei said.

"You try hacking into written records," Kuraudo said, "Impossible to erase those kinds of records."

As Yayoi was continuing to scan the droids, she eventually came across one that caused her scanner to go crazy, "Boss," Yayoi said as she gestured Ginoza over to her, "This is the one. I'll get on the horn with Terminator," Yayoi said as she pulled out his phone, "Tell him we found the machine."

Ginoza walked up to the machine, and the scanner showed Ginoza that the machine in front of him made the exact same striation found on the shell that hit Kogami in the leg back in Chicago.

Ginoza looked at the machine and simply said, "Hello my friend," he then turned to Masaoka, "Grampa," he pointed at the machine, "Think you can find who was using it when it made the bullet that hit Terminator?"

Masaoka walked up to the machine and pulled out the shell that hit Kogami. Discovering when the filing was made is a simple method of using an etching reagent, and seeing how long it would take for the serial number to appear back on the bullet.

"Let's see," Masaoka said as he plugged the date and the serial number into the computer attached to the left side of the machine, "I got it."

"Tell us who then," Ginoza said.

"It seems your security guy isn't exactly good at following the rules you pay him to enforce while he's here," Masaoka said as he pointed at the screen to show Yuji taking the bullet.

"Damn," Kuraudo said as he saw the screen, and turned around to pinch his nose in frustration.

"Hold on," Masaoka said as he looked at the screen to see Daisuke walk up to the machine, and download a few files, "I think we know who might have killed Mr. Shioyama."

"That's absurd," Kuraudo said, "Why would Yuji kill Mr. Shioyama?"

"Aside from the bullying," Yayoi asked as she looked up from her phone, "One second," she lowered her phone, "That was Kogami. Apparently, Mr. Shioyama was not only bullying Shio Tadori, but he was also bullying a few other workers at this plant, one of them being Yuji. And from what Kogami heard, the bullied workers complained multiple times, and you didn't do shit about it, so Yuji handed over some evidence of you ignoring them."

"Now I'm gonna fire his ass," Kuraudo said.

"After we have our time," Ginoza said, "No one gets away with murder when a debt collector is around."

As they were walking toward the security office, Masaoka stopped them, looking around he noticed something.

"What," Shusei asked, "What is it?"

"Listen," Masaoka said.

The team listened and heard the sound of running wheels, the same wheels that the moving drones that killed Daisuke Shioyama would make if they were moving at a high speed.

The drones then came around the corner with Yuji sitting on top, attached to the arm of one of the drones was a welder that was made into a make-shift flame-thrower with the use of a simple bottle of hairspray.

Attached to the other one was a hydraulic gripping arm and an electric arc welder that was turned into essentially an electric-club with the use of a large metal ball that seemed to be made of welded brass casings.

"Yuji," Kuraudo said as he stood at the front of them, "What is the meaning of this?"

"What's the meaning of this," Yuji asked, "You don't get it, do you? I've worked here for years! No raise! No promotion! And on top of it all, I have to put up with constant torment day, after day, after day! AND YOU DID NOTHING! Now I'm going to correct that! You're the cause of the problem, and I'm going to remove it!"

"Not on my watch," Shusei said as he reached into his coat and pulled out a Steyr M1912-like pistol with a box-magazine and a 1911-style slide called a Totalize II.

As he raised it to fire, Yuji leveled the drone's arm toward the team and activated the flame-thrower which caused the team to duck against the side of the wall.

Meanwhile, Kuraudo had dived to the ground, the tail of his suit having caught on fire thanks to the flamethrower.

"RUN," Ginoza said as he helped Kuraudo to his feet, and pulled out his pistol: a .40 S&W FNX-40, and leveled it at Yuji before firing off three shots which the drones blocked.

"Kogami, get here now," Yayoi exclaimed as she pulled out her compact Totalize II which was two inches shorter than the one Shusei was using, and returned fire, "We've been engaged! Yuji's rigged two mover robots as war machines!"

End of flashback…

Kogami was hauling ass down the interstate, and Akane didn't care: her sole focus was on making sure that they got to the plant in time to help their friends. Luckily there were no police on the road at that time, otherwise, they would have been too late to help them.

As they were pulling into the parking lot, many of the workers were scrambling out the front of the plant, and running for cover.

"Let's get our guns," Kogami said as he unbuckled his seatbelt, and ran out of the car.

The two of them ran over to Yayoi's car, and using their access, opened the trunk to retrieve their primary arms.

Kogami grabbed almost every shell that was placed next to his weapon and loaded the cylinders as Akane slid several magazines into the space between her skirt and waist.

The two of them ran up to the front of the building as the plant workers ran by them.

To be continued…