Glasses and death

In his first week of working at STNJ, Michael had brought all sorts of changes to bear. Staying up late into the night, he had adjusted the communications gear so that communication during hunts was more reliable. He was finding new sources of information on witches which enabled the Hunters to attack targets with far more precision. He was revolutionising hunting at STN, the Hunters themselves all agreed on that, and their original suspicion at the introduction of a fourteen year old kid with a history of delinquency, soon melted away. Michael was throwing so much into his work, however, that Amon's partner, a woman named Karasuma Miho, began to get concerned for him, fearing that he was using work to immerse himself and repress emotional turmoil. She did not realise how bad it was for him, however, until one night when she returned to the office late, having left her communicator on her desk.

It was around 2 am when she slunk back to the office, hoping to collect it without anyone noticing. It was a condition of employment that all employees have access to their communicators at all times, so for her to be without it, could put her in quite a bit of trouble. In her bleary haze, she had forgotten Michael, and nearly jumped out of her skin when the bundle of clothes below a desk grunted. Looking down, she saw the teenager curled up in a dusty heap, fast asleep, still in his clothes with work on his screen, looking like he had succumbed to exhaustion at his desk. Of course, it had never occurred to her where he might sleep or what he did when he was alone in the office. Looking down again, she saw he was still wearing his glasses, and she reached down carefully to remove them, concerned that the boy would injure himself. As her cold hands brushed the frame, though, something black and horrible shot into her mind.

She usually had her Craft well under control at all times, but her tiredness combined with the strength of the emotion, was enough to break down her barriers. She felt a sudden despair, deep and twisted. She gasped with the intensity of the emotion, and knew suddenly how close Michael was to suicide. She debated shaking him awake to speak to him, but as she considered it, he groaned and awoke by himself. Shocked to see her crouching over him, he scooted away, sitting up so fast he banged his head on the desk. Grunting with pain, he froze and looked at her with deep suspicion. Karasuma, discomfited by the silence, spoke first,

"I'm sorry, I just came back here for my communicator and saw you asleep. I thought I should take your glasses off so you would not hurt yourself."

"Thank you," The boy replied quietly, getting himself together. "I'm sorry, I haven't had much sleep lately"

"I can imagine" smiled Karasuma, "Why are you down here anyway? Haven't; they given you a bed?"

"No," he replied quietly, then, glancing around the offices, he said nervously "I don't have anything, not even a change of clothes. I don't know what to do about it, I don't know, I don't know anything" he trailed off again, fear and exhaustion etched deep into his young face.

Karasuma looked closely at the teenager, who looked every bit his fourteen years in the moonlight. He was young, frightened and completely disorientated and, she realised from her scrying, seriously considering suicide. Slipping off her coat, she said

"Here, use this as a blanket for tonight and sleep on the couch. I'll talk to the chief in the morning,"

He half-smiled hopefully for a moment before the nervous look came back on his face as he replied

"But won't you get cold going home?"

"No, it's OK, I drove" answered Karasuma as she stood to leave. "Try and sleep tonight, things will look better in the morning"

She tried to ignore the doubtful look which cut through the fear on the hacker's face.

What kind of organisation was she a part of which treated children like that, which locked them up with no regard for their needs or fears? The type of organisation that people join when they don't have a choice, she realised. She would be lying to herself if she thought she had any more of a choice than Michael, than any of them. She had known from puberty, when combined with the physical pains which racked her body, she had felt the searing emotional pain of those around her, that she was something different. And those who are different must be contained for the good of society. She had repeated the mantra to herself day in day out for years,

"Witches must be contained for the good of society, their powers must be constrained and controlled. You will become a witch if you lose control. Do not lose control!"

But her constraint did not mean that Michael should suffer, now she knew what he was feeling and how bad his life was, she could not be silent. She resolved to talk to the Chief in the morning, her last thought before her sleeping pills kicked in and she drifted off into a dark sleep.

Karasuma stood in the Chief's secluded office the next morning. He was not Boss, Zaizen, but was one below him in the chain of command, and as such, would have responsibility for Michael's day to day life. She had noticed the boy as she had come in, sitting in front of his computer as usual with a spare communicator in pieces on the desk, fiddling with it. Her coat was neatly hung up on the coatstand, but she could see traces of dust on it, and was pleased that it seemed he had slept in it. She glanced at Michael again through the glass wall in the chief's office

"Sir, the kid is desperate, you can't expect him to live like this. He doesn't have anything. Not even a bed, nothing,"

"Well, maybe he should have thought of that before hacking in" replied the short, balding Chief Kosaka, officiously

"Oh sir, that's ridiculous. Whatever he did, he's here now and we've surely got some sort of responsibility to him. He's a kid! He at least needs a bed and some clothes. And what about food?"

Kosaka pasued for a minute, then called to his assistant

"Hattori, are Amon and Takahashi there?"

"Yes" replied the assistant

"Ask them to come in"

Amon and Takahashi entered the room.

"We were discussing our latest recruit" Kosaka began. "How do you feel he's getting on? Is he an asset worth keeping? Is he worth spending resources on?"

The three Hunters exchanged looks. Karasuma spoke first

"Since he's been here, hunting efficiency has improved. We can communicate better, we have better information before starting out on a hunt"

Takahashi added

"It's a complete improvement, he's been such a fast learner, on his first day here he got into the city surveillance grid and that was the thing which enabled us to hunt Sakata successfully. I definitely think we should keep him"

Kosaka looked to Amon, the unofficial leader of the Hunter group

"Give him what he needs, " said Amon, "he's an asset"

And so he got a room, a bed, some clothes, food and toiletries. The cheapest anyone could find for him, but the essentials none the less. His life gradually settled in to some kind of routine, nap for a couple of hours each day, then pass out for fifteen, even twenty hours on a Sunday to make up for it, and eating junk food every day to give him enough sugar and energy to make it through. He concentrated on researching witches, providing information, guiding the hunt, then, late at night when there was nothing else to do, he worked on his own projects. It was the only way he could maintain any sanity, any sense of self.