Shizuo
Slumped in the lumpy "ergonomic" desk chair that would only comfortably conform to the frame of a five foot nothing contortionist I stared at the ceiling. Absently watching the blue grey smoke rise from the cigarette tucked between my lips create patterns against the sterile white was how I'd spent the last two weeks of my life once self-righteous fury had lost its edge. Fucking desk duty. Accidentally beat one halfwit fuck of a runner into a vegetative state and this is the hell they put you in. I'd feel bad for dragging Tom down with me if he wasn't finding the down time to be productive. How I ended up assigned to the Bureau of Network Investigation and Protection Protocol I'll never know. I'm—how did he put it—oh, yeah... technologically disinclined at my best; which is saying something given how much of that shit is part of day to day life. Oh, well. I'm not complaining—much. The pay is pretty damn good and all I have to do most days is tail Tom around on his inquiries and look menacing. Maybe kick in a door or two, bust a head about once a week (within the limits of "acceptable" acts of aggression outlined in NIP regs), and, on very rare occasion, chase down a runner. Hell, half the time Tom sends me home to chill while he takes care of the reports from the day. God knows I'm useless and filling them out—aka, I don't have the patience.
Another puff, another billow of smoke to add to the increasingly thick air over head. Damn. much more of this and I'll pay for the chance to chase some punk through the stinking maze of the Brakh. Give me soggy rubbish, tetanus riddled scrap, and air so thick with sulfur, rot, and HCN you could choke on it any day over the fuckwits we shared the floor with.
"I thought I asked you not to do that in here," a booming voice snarled at the back of my head.
Speaking of fuckwits...
I sucked in a lung full hot, bitter, ash laden air as I let my head fall to the side so I could pin the King of the Office Fuckwits, Proctor Inspector Aimes Quo'on, with an lazy, unconcerned stare. Then blew a steady stream of smoke right in to his arrogant face. "You did," I confirmed, as I watched him sputter and attempt to swish away the smoke; though, his version of asking had been more along the lines of threatening to rip my lungs from my body through my ass if I ever lit up on the floor again than an actual civilized request. I wasn't going to debate semantics with the grade-A asshole. It'd require too much interaction. Bad enough I had to see his face every day.
"Then why," Aimes coughed out and kicked the edge of my chair, rolling me a few feet away, and putting himself out of range for a repeat attack, "is that nasty thing hanging out of your mouth?"
"'Cause fuck you. That's why," I told him, debating the merits of flicking the still smouldering stub in my mouth at him for effect. I made it as far as tucking the thing between my fingers before I thought better of it. I had two good drags left, and didn't want to waste them on the likes of him. Especially not when a single pack of the smokes damn near cost me as much as the suit he was wearing. Instead, I took another deep drag and let the billows waft around me when I blew it back out—my own smokey bubble of personal space.
He didn't toddle off like I had hoped; just parked his ass on the edge of a neighboring desk and leered at me. "No matter how much you suck on it, it ain't ever gonna shoot," he snorted. A ripple of disgust slithered down my spine. "If you need a fix, I'm sure I could find something more substantial for you to wrap those pretty lips around, Heiwajima."
"You offering, asshole? 'Cause I know you aren't packing heat where it counts." This time I gave in to temptation and sent the last of my ciggy arcing towards his crotch. I was rewarded with a shower of embers erupting as the cherry made impact and sprayed his groin with hot ash.
Aimes jumped up and snarled murderously. He was itching for a fight. He'd never take the first swing—too much of a coward to risk landing himself with an official reprimand—so I knew that what was about to come out of his mouth would piss me off enough to want to. "Only because your brother has that cum dump you call an ass so stretched out..."
"What the fuck did you just say about my brother?" I roared and launched myself out my chair. I was going to knock his teeth, all 32 of them, in to the back of his throat and hope he choked on them while I rearranged the perfectly chiseled features of his face. And that was before I tore every limb from his body, starting with his limp noodle dick.
Before I could finish cocking my arm back, the authoritative voice of the level's ranking officer cut through the air like a honeyed knife.
"Quo'on. Heiwajima. Sit down, the both of you." Chief Superintendent Will Akabayashi, Captain Scarlet as we called him lovingly when he was out of hearing range, was not a man you messed with. Ever. Not if you had any attachment to your non-vital (read: expendable) appendages. The man could make a Jouwah hardened scrapper piss himself without losing the friendly smile that lived on his face. I don't in the three years I had served under him I had ever heard him so much as raise his voice over the level at which one delivered an enthusiastic greeting. Even so, there was cold steel that lived in the man's eyes that cut deeper than any physical weapon ever could.
So, yeah. I sat my ass down.
I'd been robbed of the satisfaction of seeing Aimes' blood stain his crisp white shirt, but all the bile and loathing still churned in my gut. I wished I had stabbed the fucker in the eye with my cigarette when I'd had the chance. "Mother fucking son of a poozakh. I'll fucking gut you like a ssango dja if you say one goddamned more word..." I spat under my breath.
"Something to share, Heiwajima?" Akabayashi asked, peering over the top of a non-commissioned portable link with a definitive smirk. Yeah, he'd heard me alright.
I had the decency, not to mention enough survival instinct intact, to be mollified and grunt a quick no at him. Apparently it wasn't enough to bring out from under the crosshairs.
"No..." the Chief Superintendent prompted.
"No, sir."
"Excellent," he said and looked back down at the screen he held up before him. "You and Tanaka are on roller duty tonight."
I took one look at the read out that popped up and muttered, "Fucking great." The guy looked like a runner: small sunken eyes that seemed to dart around looking for the nearest hole the crawl into even in the snap, bland face, sallow skin despite the mandated weekly UV treatments, and thinning hair slicked back by its own filth rather than being intentional. I know I said I would rather chase some rat through the Brakh than sit on the floor, but now that I was getting my wish, I didn't want it. Though, if he ran, I might get to work out some of the pent up frustration I was feeling at not being able to cave Aimes's skull in. I did a quick scan of the rest of the dispatch to see what my partner and I were being sent to deal with. Name: Irving Aster Jaeger. Allegation: Unauthorized Data Solicitation via the Network, Criminal Retention of Confidential PSWU Reports, Criminal Transmission of Confidential PSWU Reports, Intimidation via the Network, Improper Use and Manipulation of the Network, Possession of Unauthorized Technologies. Action: Apprehend for Inquiry.
It was quite the list of charges. Poor Bastard. He must be a special brand of idiot to get caught with all that crap tied to his name. Oh well. Not my place to question. My job was to make sure he came in mostly intact. Smarter men than me would deal with what came next.
"Come on, Shizuo," Tom clapped me on the shoulder. I didn't remember him being anywhere near me a few minutes ago, so his soft voice startled me more than it should have. "Let's see if we can catch him at home."
"Yeah." I heaved myself out of my chair and popped my spine back into place. As I grabbed my smokes and shuffled after Tom towards the bank of lifts I hoped Mr. Jaeger lived a few floors up in one of those cement block corporate dormitories. That way, if we did catch him at home, there'd be nowhere to run, unless it was out the window to save me the trouble of breaking his legs myself.
"And Heiwajima?" Akabayashi called after us. "Do try to refrain from smoking on the floor in the future, hmm?"
Yeah. I'd have to work on that.
Izaya
Being able to merge with the data stream had its benefits. For one, there wasn't a security measure on the planet that could prevent me from accessing the contents of a file. It also meant I didn't leave any traceable footprint behind when I went skimming. Even the most ingenious of hackers were limited by technological constraints that I didn't have to abide. They had to intercept and divert a data stream and copy it to their local environment or host cloud, or strong arm their way into a system and mine the data, all of which, no matter how careful, how thorough, left a trail, some hint that said they had been there. Where as I could simply slip right in to the fiber optics network, allow the data to wash over me, filter out what I needed without impeding its progress, and then slip back out again with no one being the wiser. If I were content with just collecting data, only learning people's secrets, I'd be a ghost, completely untraceable.
The risk of detection, of being caught, came from distributing what I gathered back out again. I couldn't manipulate the network or transmit on my own. And for that, I was in the same boat as every other hacker; I had to rely on technology—flawed, limited and traceable technology. No matter how careful, how paranoid I was, how thoroughly I destroyed any trace of my online presence, how many times I trashed entire banks of high end link stations and elaborate server set ups, picked up and relocated with nothing and started again in a different corner of the world, relying on technology always ran the risks of getting caught. I hadn't yet, obviously, but there had been a few mishaps over the years. Close calls if you will. Close enough that I had more than a handful of contingency plans in place should start sniffing around again.
Getting caught wasn't a concern at the moment. Nope. At the moment, my sole concern lie with completing the replication of the file I had skimmed before the ache behind my eyes progressed to unbearable levels of torment. Human bodies are weak, and mine was no exception to the strain and fatigue of staring at a display for hours on end.
When I say replicate, I'm not talking about a simple copy, paste, wait for the status bar to finish sort of operation. Part of the reason I am capable of skimming data undetected is because I don't actually take anything. Instead, I read the file, commit it to memory, and manually reconstruct the content on one of the computers I have that is not connected to the Network in any fashion. A major violation of the Network/User Codes, but a minor infraction compared to other illegal activities I get up to.
Not to suggest that I manually reconstruct every little thing. Oh heavens no. Can you imagine? I'd never have time for anything—or anyone—fun if I went about it that way. Little diversions like the Bannon episode this afternoon would be nothing more than a flight of fancy, a wistful little whispering of longing that could never take bloom. Life would be tedious, and that is a notion I could simply not abide by.
But things like this? Files whose origins were hidden away by layers of virtual vault doors, whose contents were parsed out and masked to be unintelligible without the rest, and then transmitted at "random" intervals over the course of weeks? Things like this were delicate matters that required the utmost care in handling unless I wanted to bring the full weight of the powers that be and the entire contingency of pions at their disposal down upon my head. I happen to like my head. so... Kidd gloves and whatnot.
"And..." I drawled to myself as my fingers flew over the keyboard, giving shape to the final lines of code that wrapped the rest of the mess together. "There. All done. Let's see if you're ready to spill your secrets to me yet, my darling."
I selected the five pieces of the larger file I had collected, opened a command prompt, quickly tapped out a simple combine function, and left the lumbering beast to run while I contemplated what to occupy myself with while I waited. I made a few lazy revolutions in my chair before inspiration struck.
"I think a trip down to Semyon is in order," I nodded to myself in agreement with the planned course of action, and hopped up to find my favourite coat and fill its pockets with a few spare comm units and filched access keys in addition to the one officially registered in my name. One never knew where a few moments of entertainment might be had, so it was best to be prepared. With a hodge-podge of ceramic and folded steel blades (antiquated things, but I preferred the heft of them to the featherweight alloy now being produced, even if it held an edge better) slipped into the mix, I whisked out the door and bounded down the stairs to the tune of an excess of locking mechanisms (the number of which surely would have raised an eyebrow or two among the authorities if I had gone through proper channels for their installation) sliding home behind me.
"I do hope Denis have managed to smuggle in another shipment of Ootoro, because there is no way I am being subjected to another one of his sushi experiments." I shuddered at the memory of the plate that had been placed before me during my last visit and nearly missed the last flight of stairs all together. "Last time it wasn't even fish! Blech."
AN: A quick word of warning: Yes, I will be using OC's sporadically in this story, but, No, they will not play any significant part in the plot. I will make every attempt to use characters that are already part of Narita's world when I can, but sometimes I'll need a few fillers until we get in to the thick of things.
Thank you for reading. I do hope you're enjoying it thus far. If you have the time and inclination, I would love to hear your thoughts, because, honestly? I live for feedback in any form.