Silence, as though snow has blanketed the world, muffling noise in veils of velvety snow.
Tatsuya stares.
Dark-haired. Pale. Young. Long black coat, hanging halfway down to just above her knees. He tries to draw breath to speak, but the air is heavier in his lungs than it has any right to, and instead of exhaling, it catches in his chest, clutching with icy fingers at the insides of his ribs. He tries to bow, but his spine has been rooted to the ground, and it refuses to bend at his command.
"Kaname Tatsuya," she says. Her voice is quiet and hard.
Something, somewhere deep in the depths of his frozen mind, whispers that it is unnatural for her to know his name. That is not enough to break the daze coating his mind. His spine remembers how to bend, and his mouth manages to form words, forced out of him without conscious thought. "H-hai," he says huskily, bowing deeply. "Yoroshiku onegaishimasu," he remembers to add belatedly, and bows deeper still to cover his blush.
Dead silence.
After several seconds, he dares to look up through his mussed hair.
Akemi Homura is staring at him. No - staring is too strong a word. She is observing him with careful eyes - too careful, he thinks, for a girl who is even younger than he had first thought. The coat, he thinks distantly, had tricked him. Now he can see that her chest is flat, her cheeks still gently rounded, and her joints are too smooth, not distinct enough beneath the shifting cloth of her sheer white shirt to be an adult's. Her posture, though, and her eyes - those are not the eyes of a child. His taicho has dark eyes. Empty eyes, he almost thinks - but as he stares, he can a spark of something buried in those eyes, too deep to make out, too far away to differentiate, a glimmer of water at the bottom of a mile-deep well.
Behind Tatsuya, Kanon Yui says, "You're late, taicho." Her voice is silky, dangerous.
Kyouma adds, "And… the Organization was - they were - beginning to make their... play for… uhm." He slumps, scratches at his head tiredly. "I need a drink," he mutters sluggishly.
Kanon Yui swivels sharply in her chair, stands, and stalks forward, halting just in front of the dark-haired girl. Kanon, but she towers over the other female. "You're late, taicho," she says again. Her voice is very soft.
The dark-haired girl's face does not shift. There is no flicker of emotion, no acknowledgement. She simply turns her eyes to face Kanon, looking at the silvery-haired woman without fear or intimidation. "Excuse me, then," she says politely. Each of her syllables have hard edges, but there is no feeling in her tone or her inflection. She could have been giving someone the time of day, or commenting about the weather. Her eyes look at Tatsuya again.
Most people smile to show happiness or glee. Kanon's smile is a spider's smile, dark and secretive, promising silent death. "No excuses? No clever jokes? Kyouma's good with those. I like those."
The dark-haired girl turns her eyes towards Kanon Yui again, silently.
Without preamble or fuss, the taller woman spits on the floor. "Only children," she says, "think that ignoring a question counts as answering it." There is a challenge to her voice, an exhilaration.
Homura does not flinch. She looks at Kanon again and tilts her head to the side, like a cat considering a squirrel it could not quite be bothered to chase.
Jumonji smashes a fist on the desk, and Tatsuya jumps. The noise is startling. It wrenches the blanket of silence away and rips silence into pieces, discarding them amid a snarling of a foreign all harsh syllables and rasping tongue, and the huge man strikes the back of Kanon's head with a stinging backhand. It is louder than it is hard, but the sheer mass of the blow knocks Kanon forward a staggering step. "Only a fool thinks that their betters owe them answers for impertinent questions, Kanon Yui," the big man says ominously. "You will refrain from such behavior in the future."
With a sigh, Tatsuya prepares himself for a very awkward first day at work.
"Kaname-kun." Kyouma stands up, his face more serious than Tatsuya has seen it yet. "Let's get some drinks."
Hastily, Tatsuya springs to his feet and follows the man out of the room, down the stairs to the door, relieved beyond words. He fully expects to hear the sound of raised voices behind him, but there are none. When he glances back, he sees that Akemi Homura is speaking quietly, and both Jumonji and Kanon are fidgeting like children as they listen.
After the dark room, the sunlight is blinding. The concrete is dazzling. Even the old Gothic house looks half-civilized in the midmorning sun, almost at peace with the graceful metal-clad buildings that surround it. Kyouma's white lab coat is especially painful to look at, in the reflected sunlight, but Tatsuya follows it like a lifeline.
Kyouma leads him down the street and takes two sharp turns, into an alley where a vending machine waits patiently, leaning unobtrusively against the brick wall. Dirty white paint and neon graffiti welcome the pair of them energetically to the urban sprawl of Mitakihara. There are laundry lines strung up between the three-story apartments on either side; white shirts and dark pants flutter in the breeze, casting patches of welcoming cool across their faces as they walk.
"All right," says Kyouma gleefully. He taps the glass of the vending machine and heaves a great sigh of relief. "They still have it. What do you want, Kaname-kun?"
Tatsuya glances through the machine. "Tomato juice," he says. "Thank you very much, Hououin-san."
Kyouma presses a series of buttons. "No trouble at all. And call me Kyouma. I hate the name Hououin."
drinks heavily from the second. One sip, two - and then Tatsuya watches, fascinated, as Kyoum
The can of tomato juice clunks against the bottom of the machine, followed closely by a bottle of Dr. Pepper. Kyouhands the first to Tatsuya and a downs half the bottle before he pulls it away, wiping at his mouth with the sleeve of the lab coat.
"You must like that drink a lot," Tatsuya says idly.
The ill-shaven man looks at the brown liquid, swirls it a little bit in one hand. Hououin Kyouma is a young man, but at that moment he does not look it. The lines on his face are dark, and the fatigue written on his face is bone-deep. "It reminds me of friends," he says softly. "Dear friends of mine."
A question leaps to Tatsuya's mind, but he knows far better than to ask for things not given. Instead he cracks open his own can and sips at the drink, casting his thoughts about for something to talk about. "This reminds me of my father," Tatsuya says. He inhales the small of vegetal matter, savoring it. "He used to grow tomatoes in the garden."
Kyouma looks at him curiously. "Used to?"
Tatsuya shrugged. "He was sick, for a long time. He spent a lot of time in bed. I don't remember it that well - I was younger, then - but by the time he got better, the garden had gone dry. It wouldn't grow anymore, no matter how hard he tried." Kaname Tatsuya drank again from the can. "This isn't really as good as his tomatoes," he says, "but it still brings back memories."
Kyouma nods, as though he understands.
Perhaps he does.
They drink together, neither caring to disturb the silence further. The clothesline fluttered over their heads, setting patterns of light and shadow to dance across Kyouma's face and eyes, and they turn a brilliant of golden brown before the shadows take him gently again to their embrace, and his eyes fade to the color of mud and dust.
"Kaname-kun," says Kyouma, "why did you come to work for Division Eight?" His tone is casual.
Tatsuya shrugs and drinks from his tomato juice, matching Kyouma's nonchalant air. "There was an opening here. I took it. There's really not much else to it."
That is a lie, of course. But the truth would be far more difficult to explain, and Tatsuya knows that, in all likelihood, Kyouma wouldn't believe him anyways.
But, really, he doesn't like to lie.
The other man finishes his Dr Pepper, crumples the bottle, and tosses it in the trash. "I know a guy in Division Three. Terrible personality, but he owes me a favor or two. It wouldn't be hard to convince him to take on an extra rookie."
"Eh?" Tatsuya is taken aback. "Why do you want me to leave? Did I do something wrong?"
Kyouma smiles, but there is sadness in his eyes. There is no hint of the insanity Tatsuya had seen in him earlier - he is perfectly sane, terrifyingly human. "Not at all, Kaname-kun. You're friendly, confident, and polite. That's why I'm offering this. There's really no need for you to waste away with us, is there?"
Tatsuya is sure the man is joking, and breaks into a half-smile. But beneath the canopy of shifting shadows and surrounded by old bricks, the lab coat suddenly does not seem quite so ridiculous, and the mad scientist wearing it seems anything but crazy. The concern on his face, the raw sadness, the intensity - this, Tatsuya realizes, is the true Hououin Kyouma, hidden beneath the veil of megalomania and false confidence.
"Thank you very much, Kyouma-san." Tatsuya bows, deeply and sincerely. "But I think I know what I'm signing up for, this time. You don't need to worry about me."
"No. You really don't know what you're signing up for, Kaname-kun." Kyouma shakes his head slowly and pulls the lab coat tight across his shoulders. "This job isn't what you're looking for. Most of the time, it's time wasted. You'll be left in the office to pursue your own ends, occasionally being called upon by taicho to do some work that will leave you thinking that you just took an acid trip. There's no opportunity to be promoted in the force, no chance to distinguish yourself. The three of us aren't with Akemi because we trust her, or like her, or are needed by her; we're here because we've flunked out everywhere else, and because she really doesn't give a shit."
"No," Tatsuya says suddenly.
Kyouma eyes him oddly, and Tatsuya flushes, but the instinct that had driven him to speak had been too compelling to ignore, and it still drives him to say, "I think you're wrong. About Akemi-taicho, that is."
"Is that so?" Kyouma chuckles richly and shoves his hands deep into his lab coat pockets. "Is that so! So even I, the great Hououin Kyouma, have begun to experience the effects of the Organization's memory suppression. But!" He throws the coat wide. "There is no madness that they can conceive that I have not already thought of myself! I, Hououin Kyouma, shall destroy them, and turn this sickening world upside down!"
Kyouma begins to walk down the alley, shoulders straight, head held high, chuckling to himself. "Come, boy! We have work to do." He pauses, back still turned, and says, "But, hey - if you ever want out, Kaname-kun, I can give it to you."
"Understood," says Tatsuya firmly.
Kyouma laughed shortly, more an exhalation of nervous tension than anything else, and picks up pace again. His stride is a work of art - a sort of meandering lope, with his shoulders bowed and hands shoved deep into some hidden pocket in the depths of his lab coat. "Let's go, Kaname-kun. I'll show you the ropes. First - the Institute!"
No longer quite smiling, Tatsuya follows Kyouma out of the alley of shifting shadows and into the street.
There is a noise behind him, a sort of flurry, perhaps of footsteps, perhaps the wind. Tatsuya glances backwards, the last remnants of his smile fading - but there is nothing behind him, of course. Just clotheslines, twisting in the wind, white cloth and dark shadows against a sky of pale blue.
They take a train to the industrial district and walk ten blocks to the outskirts of it, where thick office buildings give way to tree-lined blocks of silvery buildings whose spires scrape the skies. Then they turn again, and Tatsuya finds himself looking at a garden, tucked away between two skyscrapers - a pocket of empty space, among the busy buildings and endless streets.
It is beautiful.
Though the highway is less than three hundred meters away, the sound of it is muffled by thick trees and the sound of running water from the river nearby - a stream, perhaps, running behind the gardens of luscious flowers. The entire circle of greenery, perhaps a hundred meters, is flanked by squarish office buildings, on both sides. The opposing city skyline is visible through the trees; Mitakihara Bridge glowers at Tatsuya from across the river. Standing in the middle of is a shed of sorts, made of silvery iron, almost large enough to be called a building. It is obviously newly made; there is still a metallic sheen to it that gleams in the afternoon sun.
There is also no apparent institute. Of any kind.
"Here." Kyouma lopes down the meandering green path and taps lightly at the door of the too-new garden shed. It opens smoothly at his touch, sliding swiftly into the wall - a mechanic far too advanced or a garden shed. Not without reservations, Tatsuya follows the man inside, noting, for the first time, the faint letters carved into the shed: Mitakihara Institute of Research and Development.
The inside of the shed is steel grey and bare of decoration. No paintings adorn the metallic walls; no color breaks the cold monotony of metal. A line of fluorescent lights lines the ceiling, leading down the length of the room, where a thick block of a desk awaits them, guarding a massive elevator door set into the far wall. Seated behind the desk is an man with grey hair that very nearly mirrors the shade of the walls. His hands are folded in front of him. His eyes are closed. The glaring light draws harsh lines down his face. There is a stylus lying by one of his gnarled hands, but no sign of tablets or screens for which it would be used
Kyouma halts five meters away and waits.
"Hououin-san," says the man at the desk, opening his eyes. He is thin and reedy-voiced, wearing a dark suit that is several years overdue for replacing, but his back is straight and his head is held high. There is iron in his eyes. "All is well, I hope?"
"Cletus-san." Hououin Kyouma kneels dramatically, throwing his lab coat out with a stiff arm, drawing the harsh lines from the overhead lights across himself like a veil. "We remain eternally grateful for you and yours. May good fortune shine long upon you. May - "
"Shut up and get in the damn elevator, Hououin."
Kyouma laughs softly and rises. The thin man takes a key from his belt and jams it into a space beside the elevator doors; with a cheery ding that does not suit the room at all, the doors open. The elevator box is as steely as the rest of the room, but lined with thick panels of dark reflective stone. Black marble winks at Tatsuya and presents him with a clear image of his own startled face.
"Cletus-san, this is Kaname-san," says Kyouma. "Lab Assistant…" he counts silently on his fingers. "Seventy-six?" he guesses. "Perhaps seventy - no, seventy-six." Kyouma nods, satisfied. "Lab Assistant Seventy-six," he announces proudly.
Tatsuya gulps and tries not to think about what might have happened to the first seventy-five. He follows Kyouma into the elevator, marvelling at the smooth contours of the glass.
"First time?" the thin man - Cletus - asks him. His face is not so harsh, away from the desk, even against the backdrop of the stell shed.
Tatsuya manages to grin at the man through the frame of the elevator. "It's pretty obvious, isn't it," he says.
Cletus blows air sharply through his nose. It is almost laughter, but Tatsuya does not think that Cletus laughs often. "Hououin-san doesn't come back with the same person twice," he says. "Unless, of course, the person is a middle-schooler with unnatural hair." He turns the key sharply in the wall, and the elevator doors begin to close. "Safe trip," he says. "Do try to make it back up."
The doors close with a clang of finality.
Tatsuya looks at Kyouma. "He was joking, right?"
"Probably," Kyouma says. He inspects his face in the glass and rubs at the stubble on his chin. "They handle dangerous materials, but they're well-contained." He presses a button, and the elevator begins to move.
"What are we doing here?" Tatsuya asks. "This doesn't seem like police work, especially not rapid response."
"There's a member of the IPCC who taicho has sniffing at her heels," Kyouma explains. "Thinks that we're up to something. We aren't, of course, but we deal with some sensitive material that isn't well received by some. Especially the IPCC. The less backlash we have to deal with, the better. Taicho wants us to fetch the reports by hand instead of having electronic communication." Kyouma shrugs, hands thrust deep into his lab coat.
"Oh." Tatsuya watches the floors flash past. "What's the IPCC?" he asks.
Kyouma laughs loudly. "Your knowledge is lacking, Kaname-kun! But I expect that one who dedicates themselves to fighting the organization would know exactly what the Internal Protocol Control is, and would only ask to test my own knowledge."
"Of course," says Tatsuya blandly.
"A weak grouping of fools who believe that mad scientists should not be given control of police stations," says Kyouma distastefully. "The audacity of it! They do not understand he with whom they are dealing, do that?" He chuckles and puts his hands on his hips proudly, closing his eyes. "No. Of course they don't."
Tatsuya raises an eyebrow and resumes watching the numbers on the elevator rise past.
At B25, they finally stop.
"We're here," says Kyouma. "Welcome, boy! This is - " He halts and stares distractedly at the room outside the elevator.
It is, for all intents and purposes. a rainforest, growing underground. Monkeys chatter from close to the ceiling. An insect buzzes towards the elevator and veers away sharply.
"This isn't right," says Kyouma distrustfully. "It's supposed to look like - "
"We still need to go down another floor," says a short man with glasses standing just outside the doors. "So this is the rookie, hmm?" The bespectacled men inspects Tatsuya and then looks at Kyouma with vague incredulity. "You're trying to overthrow the likes of the Organization with this sort of specimen? A shaved ape would likely be more optimized, especially for a man such as yourself, Kyouma-san." He walks into the elevator and presses the button to close the doors.
"True, true." Kyouma nods empathetically, deathly serious. "We had an orangutan from Madagascar, but - " The man winces, clutching at his chest. "It pains me, Marcos-san. We've lost so many."
"Orangutans are from Indonesia," says Tatsuya. "Not Madagascar."
Both men look at him.
Tatsuya shrugs sheepishly. "Just saying."
"Impossible!" Kyouma points an accusing finger at Tatsuya. "You're a rookie! You aren't supposed to know anything!"
"Especially the geographic distribution of orangutans," adds the other man, sounding vaguely impressed. He holds out a hand for Tatsuya to shake. "I'm Marcos Nolan, a member of the Mitakihara Institute of Wave Technology."
"The MEWT," says Kyouma with satisfaction. With a grand flourish he indicates Nolan. "And this, Kaname-san, is no mere researcher - this is the researcher of the Institute, First Elected Chairman of Wave Particles -"
"No," Nolan says. "Really, I'm just a researcher."
Kyouma bends over towards Tatsuya and puts one hand over his mouth as he whispers. "He struggles greatly to maintain his secret identity, you see. The Organization watches him closely."
Somewhat gingerly, Tatsuya shakes Nolan's hand. The elevator jolts, and they both let go hurriedly to brace themselves as the elevator begins to descend.
"Kyouma-san," says Nolan without bothering turning around, "please stop making faces at the camera. Cletus-san does not enjoy it. He informs me as such. At great length."
Kyouma mumbles something inarticulate.
The elevator doors open again, and Tatsuya follows the two men out.
This hallway is more like Tatsuya had expected from a research institute - tall white walls and high ceilings and glossy office doors lining the corridor. He follows the two men past glass windows in the walls, through which Tatsuya can see men and women wearing lab coats stare intently through microscopes at endless lines of petri dishes. They pass a massive set of doors, propped open, past which wait two dozen computers, three to a desk, where technicians watch screens intently, fingers tapping at keyboards. A printer spits out sheet after sheet of paper, which a women dressed in grey scrutinizes closely while two white-clothed young men wait nervously nearby.
"Yolanda-san is checking reports today," Nolan tells Kyouma. "If you hear screaming, it's likely due to her."
A young man runs past them, arms full of paper, panting, panic written all over his face.
"Even for the Organization, this seems cruel," Kyouma says darkly. "Authoritarian rule. Strict deadlines. This shade of white on the walls - a psychological attack? Whiteroom torture." He curses quietly, passing a hand across his face. "We were fools to come here, Kaname-san. Prepare the device!"
"Device?" echoes Tatsuya.
"Yes, yes. The device. Prepare it! We may need a speedy escape should things turn sour."
"Ah." Tatsuya nodded wisely. "The device. Yes."
Nolan smiles and glances back at Tatsuya, his eyes twinkling merrily. "I see you've already learned how to keep Kyouma quiet, then, Kaname-kun. Perhaps there's hope for you yet in Division Eight. Unless you have any interest in an internship with us?"
"Nooolan-san!" Kyouma growls, drawing himself up. He stops and point a grand indicting finger at the slightly built researcher. "For the Organization to poach recruits from the police - that is unforgivable! Unforgivable! I will absolutely never forgive you!"
"Yes, yes," Nolan says consolingly. "But, Kyouma-san - the Organization knows how strong your emotions are on the subject, and so schemes to give you a heart attack by repeatedly provoking high-stress reaction from you and so raising your blood pressure."
Kyouma makes a strangled noise and clutches at his breast. "Impossible," he whispers. "What kind of mad scientist dies from a heart attack? It's ridiculous. I won't allow it!"
"Then tone it down, Kyouma-san."
Nolan opens the a door in the wall and holds it wide. Kyouma sweeps his way in. Tatsuya reaches to hold the door for Nolan, but the man waves him through merrily and shuts it firmly behind them.
The room inside is dark, but filled with the steady hum of machinery and . The walls are holographic, but there is a screensaver running, a simulation of all of the stars in the Milky Way, rotating gradually on its axis. A comet trails its way across the upper corner. A single CPU sits in the center of the room on a circular table; eight oversized monitors face outwards. Thick padded chairs, empty of workers, wait silently for their masters to return. Nolan taps one of the monitors, and it stirs to life. The Milky Way disappears; the walls are white and empty, waiting patiently for content to fill them.
A virtual keyboard flares to life. Marcos works at it competently, one hand dancing on the keypad, the other tapping icons that flash on the the monitor.
PROGRAM CUBIC reads the screen. PASSWORD?
Kyouma and Nolan hold their phones out to the screen and, in perfect unison, give a quarter-turn to the left. A red light blinks off, and the walls flare to life. Numbers and graphs flash past in quick sequence, ending up in hovering anticipation on the left wall; a series of dias and bars fill out below it, silvery text on dark bluish-black. Occasionally the numbers spike to the hundreds, but they hover close to zero for the most of the time, somewhere less than one but greater than zero. The right wall is dominated by a set of data tables at the top and text on the bottom. But it is the center wall that captures Tatsuya's attention.
It depicts a real-time video feed of a black cube, singular and indistinct, waiting with silent malevolence. It pulls his gaze into it, against his will. He is powerless to look away.
"The argon pools have been absorbing neutrinos, just as we predicted," Marcos is saying somewhere far away, "but at a far greater rate than we predicted. \What's more, the tau neutrinos are missing. We're picking up the electrons and the muon just fine, but whatever sort of radiation we're missing isn't releasing the tau neutrinos. They stay bonded."
Tatsuya manages to tear his eyes from the screen. Nausea tugs at his stomach, and he shuts his eyes for a moment, hoping that he doesn't vomit on the floor of the Institute.
"Not even when we added the gallium-germanium reaction, huh?"
"Not even then," confirms Nolan. He rubs at his arms, as though suddenly chilled. "The total amount of radiation emitted continues to drop. Every third day."
"Hmm. That's strange." Kyouma sinks down into one of the padded chair and leans back, resting his head on a fist.. "Any chemical changes in the table?"
"Uhm… what?"
"The table," repeats Kyouma with vague impatience. "Could any parts of it be absorbing any of the radiation?"
"Every bit of its surface is covered with the argon pools," says Nolan. "The only possible variable would be the harvesting of data every four seconds when we connect the circuits through the argon, but it shouldn't be responsible for any sort of loss to this degree. Especially at such precise intervals, to such dramatic effects."
"Hmm."
There is a silence that stretches, waiting for something indistinct. Kyouma stares at the screen intently. Nolan fidgets, then takes a deep breath and lets it out, slowly. Tatsuya and Kyouma both look at him.
"I'm afraid I have to ask you a question, Hououin-san." Nolan straightens and pushes his glasses a little bit further on his face. The walls fade back to white at the tap on the keyboard, and the researcher stares at the man in the lab-coat with level calm. "The money from this experiment - where is it coming for?"
Kyouma raises an eyebrow. "I don't know that it is within my jurisdiction to disclose that sort of information," he says seriously. "And it is unlike you to ask me a question like that, Marcos-san."
"It is, it is," Marcos agrees sternly. "But, you see, Kyouma-san - it cost us roughly two million American dollars to set up this whole procedure, and we're sinking sixty thousand a week into maintenance and replacement of the argon pools. None of this would seem particularly irregular - but I was informed that, in the last two months, that there was a series of robberies from a series of shipping companies based in Mitakihara. The total stolen was nearly three million."
Tatsuya looks at Kyouma nervously. The greasy-haired man has gone deathly silent. His face is waxier than before, except for two spots of scarlet rage that bloom on his cheeks.
"You commissioned this experiment for ten weeks, Hououin-san - and I can't for the life of me guess at why a police department would spend three million much on testing for research into a substance so totally irrelevant to rapid response." The man spreads his hands helplessly. "I don't want to pry, Hououin-san - but it seems to me that it was quite a coincidence, how closely those sums were related."
"Indeed."
Kyouma does not elaborate, and Nolan does not immediately press him. The self-proclaimed mad scientist pulls a chair back from the desk and sits, obviously deep in thought. Nolan watches him. Tatsuya glances between the both of them.
"That man who told you this," Kyouma says.. "A blonde man? Looks European, but speaks with a Kanto dialect?"
"That's right," says Marcos, his voice still hard-edged. "Is that relevant, Hououin-san?"
Kyouma sighs heavily. "I should not be telling you this, Marcos-san," he says, closing his eyes, "but a mad scientist sees no need to follow tiresome regulations when his lab members are concerned. This information is classified. I'll need you to promise me to keep quiet about it, especially to those who ask."
"On my honor and reputation," Nolan says quietly, pressing a fist across his heart.
"Our funding is military in source; I do not have information regarding the precise designation. Division Eight has no particular interest in it; we are a mere proxy to deflect investigation into military spending of potentially obsolete materials that may also turn out to be dangerous. That is why I am investigating, rather than wasting my taicho's time; we are errand-runners, not masterminds." He opens his eyes to narrows slits that bore balefully into the researcher opposite of him. "Did you disclose anything of the experiment?"
"I did not," says Marcos. He bows, deeply. "Thank you for humoring my rudeness, Kyouma-san."
"I want the printouts for this last week," Kyouma says. His voice is heavier than before, more sluggish. The dark circles have returned beneath his eyes. "Also, the IDA has given permission for the second phase of the experiment."
Marcos raises an eyebrow. The expression on his bland face is distinct "You'll have to bring the forms to the notary," he says. "Though how you managed to get animal experimentation authorized without clear ideas of consequences is really beyond me." He picks up a stack of papers from the printer. "I have a briefcase around here."
"No need." Kyouma takes the paper from the researcher, holds his lab coat open with one hand, and unceremoniously stuffs them into a pocket. He taps his phone and holds it against the computer screen, and the walls turn from white to black, powering down. "Let's go, Kaname-san."
If it was anything but his first day, Tatsuya might have argued with Hououin Kyouma, might have offered Nolan a smile, a quick word of apology. He can also sense the mood. He glances once at Nolan, fleetingly, and then follows the lab coat out of the darkroom turned white, where the dark cube waits somewhere behind the walls, and into the pale hallway.
"Let's go, Kaname-kun." Kyouma is walking quickly, eating up the white corridor with his feet, very nearly running. He smashes the elevator button with a fist, several times; when the doors do not open, he hisses something unintelligible and starts for the stairs.
"It'll be faster to wait for the elevator, Kyouma-san." Tatsuya says heavily, breathing hard from the walk. "We're a long way down."
Kyouma nods and draws a deep breath, raking a hand through his disheveled dark hair. "You're right." He stabs his hands into his lab coat pockets and leans back, staring at the white ceiling, ta. "You're right."
They wait in silence until the silvery doors open. Tatsuya presses the button for the first floor, and they begin to rise. After a moment, he says tentatively, "What -"
"Not now." Kyouma eyes the camera in the corner of the elevator and scowls at it viciously.
They ascend in silence.
The doors open. Cletus is at his desk, the back of his head facing them when the doors open. He does not turn around, and Kyouma whisks past him without a word, single-minded in his pursuit of the exit. Tatsuya pauses just before the door, turns, and bows to the silver-haired man seated at his desk.
"Thank you for letting us visit," he says. Tatsuya thinks that it is surprise that tugs at the silver-haired man's eyebrow, but it might just as easily have been scorn. He doesn't stay to hear the answer either way. The whiteness of the room is hurting his eyes, and the patch of blue beckons from outside the door, so he scurries afte Kyouma and out into the day.
The messy-haired man is standing in the shade of the trees, staring out at the river. One of his hands toy with something in the pocket of his lab coat. An absentminded cigarette is pulled from the lapel pocket by a steady hand, tapered, inserted into the man's mouth. With the same hand, he lights it, every movement slow and steady, dreamlike.
"I hate confrontations," Kyouma says sourly. He flicks a flake of ash from his coat.
"I see," Tatsuya says carefully. He stands in the flowers and waits, the sunlight on his back, hoping that it is melancholy and not anger that draws lines of tension down the mad scientist's back.
After a long moment, Kyouma snuffs the cigarette and puts it back into his pocket, half-burned. "Do you know what the hardest thing about this job is, Kaname-kun?" the man asks without turning around. His voice is deep and sonorous, intermingling with the babble of the river, a symphony of sad sound. "One day, you realize that you've become a monster yourself, and you aren't quite sure when."
Tatsuya gives a wan smile and closes his eyes.. "I see," he says. He lets his voice soften into warm honey "But, Kyouma-san - monsters don't feel guilty afterwards, do they?"
Kyouma laughs shortly. "I don't know, Kaname-san. I wish I did." There is a trash can, made of river stone, waiting by the flowerbeds; he tosses the half-burnt cigarette in. "Let's go, then."
Tatsuya follows him away from the Institute and the little garden. The silvery shed, tiny among the buildings that scrape at the sky, is more contented in its foundation than all of the giants that tower about it. The sunflowers dance in the wind, as though waving, and Tatsuya smiles his farewell in return. "It really is beautiful," he says.
"Did you say something, Kaname-san?"
"No, nothing."
They move forward, and then the gardens are gone, swallowed by the city and the office buildings and the gathering shroud of dusk.