That night, Makishima dreamed.

He was lying on the beach, alone, in a bed sculpted out of sand. The mattress, the sheets, the pillows—all were impeccably rendered, with the skill of an artisan. As he sat up and looked around, the sand poured around his elbows and knees. The tide was out, stranding several hermit crabs in awkward repose, their antennae plying the air helplessly. The sky was a calm pastel blue, serene, undisturbed by wind or cloud. When Makishima looked around himself, searching for other beach-goers, or perhaps a resort in the background, he saw very little, because his head seemed to turn back to the sea of its own accord. In all, though, it was an idyllic scene, and he wanted nothing more than to go back to sleep upon his bed of sand.

The air, however, carried a faint smell of damp, rotting flesh. Something has died. He sat up further, suddenly wary.

When he climbed to his feet, he inadvertently knocked over the sand headboard of his bed, and, looking down at it, he felt an uncharacteristically keen sense of loss, even grief.

This is not like me, he thought. Something is wrong. I don't belong here.

The beach extended hundreds of yards in either direction, so Makishima chose one at random—the left, because he was left-handed—and began to walk. His bare toes delved into the sand like burrowing worms, and he let them curl into it; the sensation was pleasurable, and one that he remembered from childhood. But you grew up in Tokyo, a voice seemed to whisper in his head, but Makishima shied away from it. As he walked he looked down at himself, curious as to his present state, and saw that he was smartly dressed in the uniform of a Public Safety Bureau Inspector, sans shoes. His badge gleamed silver and gold upon his chest; he reached down to polish it with his knuckles, for it was important, he thought, and signified his devotion to duty.

No, the voice seemed to say, softly. It was so quiet that the rustling of sand nearly drowned it out. That's wrong—that isn't you. This is a lie. Look around you! WAKE UP.

Turning his head, as if to look away from a distasteful scene, Makishima kept walking. The beach led upwards into a slight incline. As he walked, the fetid stench of decaying meat grew stronger, the odor more penetrating. He wrinkled his nose. Then he stopped, startled. On the sand in front of him, perhaps twenty yards away, he saw the source of the malodor: a writhing, half-rotten sea squid tentacle, its suckers outstretched as it flowed and undulated across the beach sand, searching for something

A sense of pure horror began to overcome Makishima. It was the prickly, back-of-the-neck terror when a large spider scuttles across the bathroom ceiling at night. He began to edge away from the groping tentacle.

His movement seemed to draw its attention, however, and with terrifying speed the tentacle slid from the beach and departed into the ocean, leaving only a furrow in the beach sand. Makishima stared after it, dumbfounded and slightly afraid—for the tide was just now coming in, and how long could a tentacle be, he thought—before turning abruptly to head back up the beach. He would explore the other direction, he thought.

Then he saw it.

Glimpsed out of the corner of his eye, at first it was just a swell rising on the water. It could have been mistaken for the incoming tide, but some shaky part of Makishima knew better. The ripple was too large to be a simple wave—there had to be something under that crest, he knew, and the thought redoubled his horror, amplified it until he felt sweat bead up on the back of his shirt.

His stroll became a loping walk. He hadn't run on the beach in years, but he thought he would give it a try now—he began to sprint, his feet kicking up clumps of wet sand, sinking down to his heels with each stride. His breath grew labored and came in sharp bursts, and he quickly passed the half-ruined bed of sand that he'd wakened from, and upset it further by kicking the thing to pieces as he flew by.

When he'd run nearly two hundred yards up the beach, the acid in his legs overtook him. Makishima slowed to a jog, and chanced a quick glance at the sea, hoping that it would be as flat and boring as any seaside. But it wasn't, and as the blood drained from his face, he forgot to keep running. He slowed to a stop and could do nothing more than stare in disbelief.

Out there, where the tide was making its final decision to at last return to shore, floated a thing. Before, it had been concealed by the waves, but now its true form rose hideously from the water. It was, he thought, an amalgamation of every night-terror of every child in Japan. If it stood—and he sorely hoped that it couldn't—it would tower as high as a building, with a ridged brow where a gaping mouth seemed to shriek in utter silence. It was impossible to say what it was, and perhaps that made it more terrible. Clearly of the sea, it was infested with dozens of insect eyes, yet they were as dead and black as a shark's; and its tentacles brought to mind an octopus, but the suckers had each their own mouth, with tiny serrated teeth that begged to find a fleshy limb to tear to shreds. Unconsciously, Makishima began to cross his arms protectively around himself. He found himself staring helplessly as the creature approached—and it was approaching, sweep by sweep of those long scaly fins—but he simply could not move.

Leave now, the voice in his head begged, and Makishima wanted nothing more than to heed its cry, but the most he could do was take a few slow, stumbling steps up the shoreline, until he stood on a rocky outcropping just beyond the sand. You do not belong here. He has you in his grip. You must fight.

"How?" Makishima croaked, and his voice came out in a dry half-whisper. "I don't know what's happening, damn you! Where am I? Who are you?"

Your thoughts drew his attention, and he has taken your memory. You must fight, Shogo!

He tore his eyes away from the terrible spectre that was fast-approaching, its tentacles beginning to climb restlessly ashore, inch by slimy inch. "Shogo?" he echoed.

Your name. You are Shogo Makishima. You are in the Sibyl System.

The beach seemed to waver slightly, as if a piece of celluloid had been twisted in a film camera. The whole scene jumped, and Makishima blinked. For a brief moment, he seemed to remember.

"Shogo Makishima," he said softly. The name fit.

We are losing the signal, Shogo. Chambers has you. The System is peer-to-peer, but all nodes go through him, and he is blocking you off from the rest of us. If he succeeds, you won't be able to return. You have to FIGHT.

"How?" he demanded. "And who are you, damn it?"

Masuda. Evelyn is with me. Do you remember our names?

"Evelyn." He tested the word and found that it conjured up exactly one idea: terrible beauty. "I think so."

Chambers will try to devour you. The voice became softer, quieter, as if its owner were whispering in his ear. Don't let him.

"I can't hear you," Makishima muttered. "What did you say?"

Fight… fight… The voice faded to a murmur, then vanished entirely, leaving only the sound of the surf and the sound of a large body maneuvering itself from sea to shore.

He looked up, slowly.

The creature was halfway onto the beach, but it was no less frightening for that. Its glistening yellow eyes were all fixated upon him. Its gaping mouth, from which seaweed clung to daggerlike teeth, almost like garnish, seemed to be howling his name, but he couldn't hear a thing. Part of Makishima wanted to flee, still, but now that he knew his own name something seemed to have changed.

"Shogo Makishima is my name," he said, as if to himself.

Glimmers of memory stirred. He began to realize that while his mind was quailing in fear, his body—covered as it was with layers of lean, strong muscle—was tensed up, ready to spring him into battle. For a few seconds he wavered on the brink between those two extremes, undecided, but the creature took the decision out of his hands.

"SHOOGGGOOOO," it howled, at once mournful and yearning, the ecstatic cry of a lover and the scream of a mortal enemy. "SHHOOOGGGGOOOOO…"

Without making a conscious decision, Makishima was moving. On the ground beside him, half-buried in the sand, was the wreck of a small fishing boat. He bent down and cracked off a length of old wood, about as tall as he was, and, using a nearby rock, he smashed the tip until only a jagged remnant remained. Good enough, he thought with a detached sort of judgment, as if he fashioned makeshift weapons as a hobby and found this particular specimen only moderately acceptable.

Chambers—for he knew that name, now, and knew that it belonged to the creature—had come fully ashore. It rose to its full height and veritably towered over Makishima, but he gripped the spear firmly and did not cower. Instead, when the creature rose to give a triumphant roar, he darted toward it with the quickness of a water rat.

His fear had gone silent, leaving only the certainty of his actions. He knew that what he was doing was necessary, so he did it without hesitation, as any frontiersman might amputate a limb after a snakebite. His feet flying over sand, his body held low, an aerodynamic surge, he ran toward the center of Chambers' body and threw the spear with all of his might toward its gaping mouth.

His aim was true. The silent roar became a deafening one as the spear knocked dripping teeth aside and lodged itself into the brainstem of the creature. Makishima fell roughly onto his shoulder after throwing the javelin and rolled to his feet. He ran some distance down the shore, until he felt that it was safe to turn and examine his handiwork.

Blood the color of old coffee grounds dripped with the consistency of honey from Chambers' mouth. The roar had quickly changed into a wet coughing gasp, and as Makishima watched the creature fell onto the beach with a sound to rival a house falling.

There, as Makishima watched without pity, it died, slowly and with great painful cries.

He felt no satisfaction, for it was a job that had to be done. Nor did he feel any fear, for his memories had begun to return.

You'll have to try harder than that, Chambers.


"I didn't know that Chambers would go after you," said Masuda, his tone apologetic but also a touch remonstrative. "But whatever gave you the idea to talk to Kurou about it? He's a fanatic. He would leap from a bridge if Chambers ordered him to."

"I can't tell you," Makishima said, thinking of the attack that Choe and the Tsunemori girl were planning. If it succeeded, the Sibyl System wouldn't be long for the world, and he couldn't afford to give Chambers any warning, even if he did trust his friends. Well, mostly.

"He said that before," Evelyn told Masuda. "He thinks we're stupid." She looked hard at Makishima. "You're planning something with Shusei."

Makishima's eyes must have widened perceptibly, for Sawaki smiled and nodded at him. "That's right. You spoke his name several times in your sleep. He's still alive, isn't he? Where is he? I would love to see him again, face to face. Shusei and I have unfinished business together."

Rising from the sofa, Makishima wandered over to the kitchen and opened the refrigerator. As he peered at its contents, his face cast in its bluish glow, he pursed his lips. "I don't know what you're talking about. However." He gave Sawaki, who had been about to angrily interrupt, a forceful look. "If we were to speak hypothetically, I would tell both of you that if you have a bucket list, you should spend more time fulfilling it. Go climb Everest, if that's your thing—the Sibyl System can conjure it up easily enough, and you don't have that much time left. None of us do." He was under no illusion that he would escape the fate of the Sibyl System. On the contrary—he would go down smiling.

Spying an orange in the fruit bowl, he snagged it and began to peel it apart with his fingernails. The tough skin felt, to his memory, exactly like a real orange, but of course it was impossible to know for certain. Maybe Chambers had reprogrammed him to make him think oranges were round—perhaps in the real world, oranges and bananas were reversed. Makishima sighed. Just stop it, already.

Masuda went over to the window of his penthouse, the floor-to-ceiling one that overlooked virtual Tokyo, and stared off into the distance. Sawaki, meanwhile, went to one of the stools on the opposite side of the kitchen island and sat. She gazed at him expectantly, spinning her bar stool left to right, left to right, with only her eyes fastened on him.

"Well?" he said curiously. He wasn't sure what he meant by it.

"You tried this before," Evelyn reminded him, and stopped spinning. "Your grand attempt to reach Chambers and reveal his truth to all of Japan. It failed."

"So it did," he acknowledged.

"Then why do you expect us to think this attempt will do any better?"

Makishima thought for a moment. "I've learned from my mistakes?"

That elicited a warm, throaty laugh, and for a moment Makishima could only stare at her beauty, orange slice half-raised to his lips. Even though a murderer many times over, there was kindness in her eyes. Then he shook his head and popped the slice into his mouth.

"What's so funny?" he asked.

"That you think Chambers hasn't. What exactly do you think he is, Shogo? A computer? He is more than that. He'll always be one step ahead of you."

"As Mr Yamato explained it, he is God," Makishima said, and then frowned. "Or a god. He wasn't exactly clear on that."

From the window, and without turning around, Masuda spoke. "He's a caretaker."

With a glance at Sawaki, who rolled her eyes as if to say Here he goes again, Makishima took his orange and went over to stand beside the Sibyl programmer. He offered a slice, which Masuda accepted. The juice coated both of their fingers.

"What did you mean just now?" Makishima asked. "A caretaker in what way?"

Between slurps of orange, Hiroki said, "It's just something I've noticed over the years. It's probably nothing."

"Please," Makishima said.

"All right." Masuda turned back to the window and made an encompassing gesture. "Tokyo. Well, a representation of it, yes. But the city exists. Home to millions of people, the hub of billions of yen of business transactions every day, it should be chaos. Right? How does a metropolis like Tokyo not fall apart? Here's one example. Think of the recycling collection. There are no human employees—there haven't been for over fifty years. Yet people put out their trash bins and their recycling bins and somehow, when nobody is looking, they vanish. How?"

"Automated garbage trucks," Makishima said. "They pick up the bins in the middle of the night."

"Yes. The software that runs those city-wide sanitation services, from garbage trucks, to tree trimming, to repairing sewer mains, is written by human beings for a specific purpose. And as such, those kinds of programs—we called them 'caretaker programs' in my industry—tend to share certain commonalities. In other words, since their goal, maintaining a system, is the same, the programs themselves seem very alike, though their individual purposes may be different."

Makishima tried to restrain his impatience. If he could listen to Toyohisa Senguji go on his endless rants about hunting, he could listen to Masuda. "What does that have to do with Chambers?"

"Well, if I had to guess, I would say that he is a caretaker program." Masuda shook his head. "It jumped out at me shortly after I arrived in the Sibyl System and saw how things operate here. Or, more accurately, how things don't operate. If Chambers were just the ruler of Sibyl, you would expect him to act like a king or a tyrant, but he doesn't. He ensures that the rules are followed and just… fades into the background, like he doesn't care if we hate, fear, or even respect him. And I think he doesn't care because he wasn't programmed to. The only thing he concerns himself with is the smooth running of the System." Masuda hesitated, as if he wanted to add more, but then shook his head and turned away.

He knows something. It was one of those moments of instinct for Makishima, when he sensed that his quarry was hiding something from him. Did they not realize that he could see through them as if they were made of cut glass?

"He goes on like this all the time," Evelyn said, rolling her eyes. Makishima glanced back at her. "It's one of the reasons Kurou banished him to Naoka's lab, where they could both talk conspiracy theories to their hearts' content."

"You think he's involved in something else," Makishima prompted, and the programmer turned to look at him, a startled expression on his face. You can't hide anything from me, Makishima thought.

"Well, just the Okaba Street project. We tried it a few times, and it worked, but it would always lead to rejection. The transplanted consciousness would be attacked by the immune system, treated as foreign tissue." Masuda sounded uneasy. "Which should have been impossible, because it was just a neurocortical pattern being transferred, not actual brain matter…"

"You said before that the project was shut down because it was a failure," Makishima said.

Masuda nodded. "We couldn't get it to work. This happened, oh, years ago. Before you ever came into the System, Shogo. Naoka used to head up our end of the research, communicating with the outside staff at Senguji Industries. I just helped out."

Makishima handed him another orange slice in silence.

"The funny thing is, I saw Naoka a while back and he was preparing the link-up again," Masuda said reluctantly. "But as far as I know, the company was shut down, so what was he connecting to?" He shrugged. "Maybe it was nothing."

A premonition ran up Makishima's spine. He stared out at Tokyo and saw his own reflection in the glass: handsome, sharp-edged, cold-eyed. "When did you see Naoka?"

"Oh, about a month or two ago." Masuda blinked. "Come to think of it, it was same day that you entered the Sibyl System, Shogo. Funny."

Yes, very funny. Makishima went to the sofa and lowered himself down like a very old man. His bones suddenly felt brittle, as if they had tiny holes bored into them, and a chill overtook him. He crossed his arms and shivered, remembering the creature—Chambers—on the beach, intent upon devouring him.

He closed his eyes. I won't let you win.


"We're ready, ma'am," the pilot shouted, his voice barely audible over the roar of the rotors, and Akane nodded.

"Go," she cried, and the two C-22 Ospreys rose in unison from the top of Nona Tower, birds leaving their mother's nest, and began to soar over Tokyo.

In the cabin, Akane lingered for a few moments in the cockpit doorway, watching the pilots as they charted their course to Akita. Just behind her, she was acutely aware of Itaru Arishima watching her silently, as he always seemed to be doing. They're Sibyl's men, she thought, before turning to face the assembled Enforcers. Her strike teams looked bored—well, apart from Nami Chisaka; she looked as if she were going to throw up from excitement—but Akane knew that it was all a mask. This kind of operation was unusual enough that she knew everyone on board was dying to know why Shinya Kogami was so damn important to the Sibyl System.

They won't hear it from me.

"Our ETA to Akita is one hour and fifteen minutes." She spoke in a half-shout in order to be heard over the sound of the engines. "Strike Team A, headed by Inspector Arishima, will do a fast-rappel and secure the area surrounding the establishment of any civilian bystanders. Strike Team B, which I will lead personally, will land on the rooftop, enter the nightclub, and capture Shinya Kogami. When the target has been acquired, local Akita authorities will be called in to manage crowd control if necessary, but we won't remain. Once we have Kogami, our orders are to head back to Nona Tower immediately and deliver him to Sibyl. Is that understood?"

There was a chorus of Yes, Inspector! Akane nodded, satisfied, and belted herself into the seat across from Arishima. Her assault rifle was an unwieldy burden, so she rested it on her lap. She noticed Arishima taking apart his magazines and checking each individual nonlethal round.

"What are you doing?" she asked curiously. She hadn't expected a rookie fresh out of the Academy to be so meticulous about his weaponry. It was something Kogami would have done.

"Department policy, Inspector's Handbook, Chapter 6, Paragraph 8, Section 3: 'The individual Department officer is responsible for the safety and proper functioning of his own firearm.'" Arishima raised an eyebrow and slid the magazine home. It slotted into the rifle with a steely click. "I'm just following regulations, ma'am."

"These weapons came direct from the armory," Akane pointed out.

The rookie rolled his eyes. "And that means what, exactly?"

He's suspicious of everything, isn't he? Akane shook her head. "What about your Dominator, then? You can't check the clip on that. Do you hire a hacker to examine its source code?"

"Of course not," Arishima replied. "But I do sleep with my Dominator."

Now it was Akane's turn to roll her eyes. "That's not the only thing you sleep with," she muttered under her breath. She had seen both Shion and Yayoi follow Inspector Arishima into the Data Hive yesterday, and it hadn't looked as if they were there to discuss area stress levels.


The beautiful jeweled spires of Tokyo, all reflective glass pandemonium, wearing soft blue and purple lights like an old woman weighed down by gemstones, passed below and beneath the churning blades of the aircraft. As they flew north, their path slowly banking to the west, their backdrop became winding highways of brushed asphalt and the sinuous lines of the Shinkansen, whose track seemed to flow over Japan like a length of fine ribbon adorning a beauty contestant. Then concrete gave way to thatched rectangles of pure green—fields of Camellia sinensis, stretching for kilometers in every direction. The air smelled of mint, here, beneath the tang of the jet fuel.

Then even tea gave way to something else. Hyper-oat fields filled the cockpit's viewport, extending like a blight upon the surface of the earth. Akane closed her eyes and inhaled deeply, remembering the swaying height of the oats and how she and Kogami had run through them in search of Makishima.

When she'd come upon the body, after Kogami fired his last shot, Akane had been struck by how ordinary it seemed. Shogo Makishima was a criminal icon, a mastermind of chaos, almost a devil. But there he was lying among the oats—a frail, hungry-looking man bleeding out his last, his eyes sightless.

"Inspector Tsunemori," the co-pilot called, and Akane unstrapped herself and went to the cockpit doorway.

"What is it?" she asked.

"Akita," the pilot answered for his colleague. "We're approaching the designated LZ."

She needn't have asked—the 3D briefing had involved a flyover of Akita, and she recognized its stubby smokestacks and the seaweed-colored harbor that seemed to collect rickety-looking fishing trawlers and ancient freighters like mildew growing on a puddle. The holographic HUD showed the location of the Neosalanx, the nightclub where Lor Sam Pau was apparently sheltering Kogami. They were approaching the harbor from the far side of the city, the Ospreys flying fast and low, gliding over the buildings.

Akane left the cockpit and addressed her troops a final time. "We'll be at the target in moments. Strike Team A, prepare for drop-off."

Half of the Enforcers stood and buckled themselves to the rappel line. There weren't any frightened faces, and for good reason, she thought. Team A would have an easy time of it simply cordoning off the area. Team B would face the real risks.

Arishima brushed past her to attach himself to the line. "Inspector," he murmured.

After about thirty seconds, the co-pilot gave the all-clear and the drop-off light flashed on. The rear doors of the C-22 Osprey whined open and revealed a whirlwind of flying paper, gravel, and trash not fifty feet below them. They were hovering over an alleyway.

"Go!"

With practiced ease, the members of Strike Team A rappelled down the line, each man seeming to vanish from the back of the aircraft. Akane kept count. When the last member—Arishima—disappeared, she gave the order for the aircraft to position itself above the Neosalanx. From her spot in the rear of the C-22, Akane saw the other aircraft dropping off its own portion of the assault team. The deafening sound of the rotors seemed to be having an invigorating effect on the town of Akita—as their aircraft moved into position over the nightclub, Akane could see people begin to spill out from the doors of a nearby coffin hotel, their confusion and fear backlit onto the water by the C-22's blinding spotlights.

We just need the element of surprise for a few more moments, she thought.

"Inspector, we're in position," the pilot called. "You can begin your drop."

"You heard the man," Akane said. "Let's move out." She attached herself to the rear of the line and watched as her team began to rappel down onto the waiting rooftop.

Nami Chisaka was in front of her in line. As the Enforcers smoothly took their turns, the girl hesitated, her hands trembling on her assault rifle, and glanced back at Akane.

"You went through the simulations at the Academy?" Akane asked.

"Yes," Chisaka replied, cheeks flushing.

"It's no different than that," Akane lied, and pushed the rookie officer forward. After a moment of hesitation, Chisaka gripped the rope, closed her eyes, and disappeared.

"Maintain this position," Akane called over her shoulder.

"Yes, ma'am," the co-pilot answered.

And with that, she followed her team. The last time she'd done tactical simulations of this nature had been in the Academy, just like Chisaka, but she tried not to let that on. The wind whirled into her face and for a moment gravity seemed to have turned her wrong-side-up, but it was only for a moment—then she was gripping the rope and sliding to a stop on the fresh green lawn of the Neosalanx's rooftop.

She let go of the rope and looked around, frowning. It was grass that grew in hilly clusters under her feet. There was also a swimming pool—closed for the season, apparently—and a bar, tables, a racquetball court… Is this a nightclub or a luxury hotel? she thought, and shook her head. It was of no consequence, though; no matter how fancy the surroundings, Kogami was hiding somewhere in this building. She would tear every plank from the structure if it meant returning him to her.

"Inspector?" a voice called, and she saw that it was Isao Egusa. The Enforcer had his assault rifle trained on the only doorway that seemed to lead to the interior of the club.

She went over and conferred with her team, keeping her voice pitched low. "Is it locked?"

"Negative." Egusa demonstrated by reaching out to push the door open a few inches. It wasn't even latched. "It's like they weren't expecting to be attacked, at least not from the roof. Are you sure this is the right place?"

"No," Akane said after a moment. "But Sibyl is."

She swung the door open the rest of the way, and, training her weapon on whatever occupied the darkness of the stairwell, began to descend the steps. "I'm on point," she murmured. "Egusa, you're next. The rest of you follow along."

Her men acknowledged the order, and she heard nothing but fast breathing and combat boots scuffing on floors as they slowly made their way into the Neosalanx. She held her rifle with a death-grip, trying not to startle as the Enforcers above her made unexpected noises. There didn't seem to be anyone inside the nightclub—there was no music, no laughing, no singing. It was almost as if the whole thing were a trap…

Don't, she thought, shaking her head slightly. That's a Kogami thought, and I can't afford to go paranoid right now. But the thought lingered, and she realized that Egusa, if he were in on the plan, would only have to fire a round into the back of her head for Sibyl to silence her forever.

The stairwell ended in another door. This one, too, was unlocked, and she swung it open as soundlessly as she could. It led onto a carpeted hallway with several doors on either side and one—which she presumed was another stairway, for it didn't feel as if they were on the ground floor yet—at the far end.

With gestures, she ordered her team to search and secure the rooms. Somehow, she knew Kogami wasn't here. With Egusa behind her, she went to the door at the end of the hall and opened it.

Another stairwell, but only one level. Nodding her head, Akane descended it, then tried the handle at the bottom. Locked.

"Figures," she said softly, and gestured to Egusa. "Do you have the kit?"

"Yes," he replied, and began to search among the pockets of his tactical vest for the lock-override tool. It was a handy piece of Sibyl kit: with a precalculated collection of codes for every conceivable electronic lock in existence, the tool would make quick work of any barriers. She watched as Egusa attached the device to the lock and punched in the command sequence. The Enforcer smiled. "Watch this."

Fifteen seconds passed. Akane looked at her watch, then at Egusa. The man frowned and poked at the tool's keypad, and they waited for another minute or two.

Nothing happened.

"Well?" Akane demanded.

"It's a good lock," Egusa muttered. "We'll have to establish a radio link-up with Sibyl, let the old girl crack it herself. She'll have no trouble with that, I assure you."

"Kogami is in there," Akane said slowly. "I can feel it."

"So?"

"We're not waiting." She removed the lock-override tool and handed it back to Egusa, who looked confused—until she spread her feet apart and pointed her assault rifle at the lock. She flicked the toggle to Lethal and took careful aim.

"Are you sure about this, boss? It wouldn't take Sibyl long—"

"Get ready," Akane said. And with a deep inhalation of breath, she held it, then squeezed the trigger. The gun bucked in her arms, seemed to kick her right in the sternum, and gave off a sound that might as well have been an exploding grenade for how loud it was in the enclosed stairwell.

The lock was gone, blasted clean apart—as was part of the door itself, which now only hung on one hinge, and rather poorly so. Akane took another breath and kicked it open with all her strength, then rushed into the room, her weapon poised with her finger on the trigger. She heard her Enforcers filing in behind her.

The room they entered seemed to be a private office of some sort. Its walls were the uniform reflective gray of holo-screens, and the furniture was a throwback to the pre-war style of the early '00s. There was a steel desk and a swivel chair and a couch, but that wasn't what drew Akane's attention—it was the four men who gaped at her (well, three seemed to be gaping; the third might have been unconscious) from across the room.

"Who the fuck are you?" one of the men yelled, his tone one of pure, unbridled fury. "Do you know where you are? Do you know who this is?" As he spoke, Akane's team flooded into the room from the stairwell and took up positions arrayed beside her. To a man, they pointed their rifles in the same direction.

"MWPSB!" Akane shouted, and trained her own rifle on the men. "Don't move!"

"I don't believe it," said another of the men. "This is impossible." He looked at them as if they had committed some sort of crime. "Don't you realize that we have an arrangement with the Prefecture?" His eyes were large and wet—he almost appeared to be weeping. "You can't touch us—this is Lor Sam Pau, you assholes."

"This is the Ministry of Welfare's Public Safety Bureau," Akane said icily, and gestured with her rifle. "Now get away from that man. Along the wall, hands over your head. Egusa, arrest these men."

"Yes, ma'am."

"You're making a big mistake," the tallest of the men said over his shoulder. "When word gets back to the Prefecture, your bosses are going to tear you a new one. Trust me."

As Akane approached the fourth man, the one who seemed to be unconscious, she felt the blood begin to drain from her face. "Radio the Tower," she told Chisaka. "Inform them that we want an antenna link-up for our Dominators."

"Yes, Inspector."

The tall man snorted. His hands, she saw, were covered in dried blood. They didn't, she thought silently, but as she neared the sight it became clear that oh yes, they had. Shinya Kogami sat tied to a wooden chair, his head slumped down, his body naked. Ropes coiled around his wrists and ankles and chest made him seem to be one with the chair, and welts on his skin and deep wounds on his thighs and arms seemed to make it unlikely that he was alive. Oh, god, Kogami. What have they done to you? Akane dropped to her knees and cradled his face in her hands—when she raised it, she saw that he was unconscious, and judging by his pulse, nearly dead.

"We need a medkit here right now," she snarled to Chisaka, who jumped and gazed at her wide-eyed. "Radio Arishima to bring his men inside. I want that antenna link."

"Do you think our Crime Coefficients matter?" the tall man said in disbelief. "Those numbers don't mean a thing for us, girl. We're connected, see?"

Akane was about to speak, but the only man who hadn't spoken—and the one she presumed was Lor Sam Pau—raised his hand and murmured to his companions, "Be quiet."

The tall man, whose face was ugly, with a nose shaped like a turnip, Akane thought, said, "Why, boss? You know they can't do anything to us."

"I said, be quiet."

"He understands," Akane said softly, and began to untie the ropes that bound Kogami to the chair. The blood that caked his nude flesh was the color of rust, as if someone had slathered him with paint. His breath was worryingly ragged, and both of his eyes were black and blue. He looked like the last man standing in a brawl.

Lor Sam Pau gazed at her in silence. Akane thought, If Kogami dies, I'll kill you. Even if the Dominators don't work, I'll kill you. I'll kill you with my bare hands. Some of her fury must have gotten across, for Pau swallowed and looked away.

"Egusa."

Working together, Akane and the Enforcer laid Kogami out on the ground. While doing so, they realized that he had a broken leg. Akane applied a splint as best she could, using one of her kevlar pads and adhesive bandages.

"He looks rough," Egusa said. "We'll need to do a transfusion on the flight back to the Tower."

"Agreed." Akane ran her hands through Kogami's sweat-and-blood-caked hair one last time—he looked so peaceful, she thought, even lying broken and wounded, and near death—before climbing to her feet and wiping her bloodied hands on her vest. "Chisaka, get a stretcher and carry Mr Kogami to the Osprey."

"Yes, Inspector."

Now that killing (or dying, Akane supposed) was off the table, Nami Chisaka was a model of composure and practical efficiency—she arranged matters so that Kogami was gently slid onto a stretcher and carried to the roof. When she and her men had gone, Akane went over to Egusa and spoke in a low tone.

"Egusa."

He looked at her curiously. "Ma'am?"

Akane licked her lips and gazed at the three men huddled against the wall. She felt like baring her teeth. "You have a certain reputation."

The Enforcer frowned. "Ma'am?" he repeated.

"You were written up," Akane said softly. "I looked at your file. Restraining a suspect and beating him with your Dominator. It's not exactly Department policy, is it?"

His face seemed to crumple into an inscrutable expression. "No, Inspector."

"Why did you do it?"

Egusa opened his mouth to speak—probably a denial, she thought—but seemed to think better of it. "Sometimes a perp deserves what he gets from Sibyl."

"And?" Akane prompted.

"And sometimes he deserves more than he gets."

Perfect. "I agree with you, Egusa. Sometimes a suspect deserves to be beaten to within an inch of their life." Akane glanced rather obviously at Lor Sam Pau as she spoke.

Understanding appeared in the Enforcer's eyes. His lips quirked in a half-smile, and he gave her an almost imperceptible nod.

"You men bring Pau's associates and follow me," Akane ordered. "We're going to rendezvous with Inspector Arishima downstairs."

When her men had filed out ahead of Pau's flunkies, Akane lingered in the doorway and flashed the crime lord a toothy grin. Some previously untapped part of her emotions seemed to have taken over. She wondered, with genuine curiosity, whether her Crime Coefficient could indeed be in the danger zone. She felt as if anything were possible.

"This is for Kogami," Akane told Pau, and closed the door.