Minaka knew it! He knew there was more to this stranger, this interloper in his Sekirei plan! Though nothing official had been recorded he'd known about a big stir with Geocomtex regarding this man this… Doctor. The files had had to be committed to paper. Computer records seemed to be unusually susceptible to viral attack. The records had been vague, without so much as even a picture… the only mentions were of a blue box, havoc, many deaths and Van Statten, an old rival of his, begging on the streets of Sapporo. The blue box was the key. He knew, as did some of his associates that at the key to every great disaster lay that blue box. Though the information was years old now he knew he had to do something. The database they'd recovered from the ship on Kamikura Island had yielded secrets that would help him contain this threat.
"Takami!" he shouted in his usual manic glee, "Has the Temple of the Gods arrived yet?"
"You mean that useless blue box? It's been in holding for the last five minutes," she said, "Idiot," she muttered under her breath.
Minaka heard every word but didn't care one bit. He shot to his feet and pointed.
"To the lab!" he yelled happily before tearing off in the direction he'd pointed.
"Idiot," muttered Takami before heading in the opposite direction.
"Wait! Wait for me!" he yelled backpedalling as fast as he could.
Akitsu felt the soft green grass under her bare feet. The soil underneath was slowly turning to mud under the soft patter of rain that was slowly but surely soaking everything it could. It felt nice.
"What?" exclaimed the Doctor.
She saw him pacing about a particular patch of grass, one that had been flattened in the shape of a square. Though her face betrayed not a single emotion she thought him quite mad fretting about a patch of grass.
"No, no, no, no, no! They've taken it!" he muttered.
The Doctor concentrated. He could feel the TARDIS moving away from him rapidly. It was too fast to catch on foot, too fast to catch by bus. He wasn't too concerned, for now. Nothing could possibly get inside and there was none of that electrical tang in the air that was indicative of a transport beam like what the Sontarans had tried to pull when they'd stolen his TARDIS which meant that it had simply been picked up and towed away. If that had happened it meant it was in the hands of human organisations like Geocomtex and their ilk, which of course meant that he could take his sweet time and waltz in the front door and take his TARDIS back anytime he pleased. Right now he had slightly more pressing concerns.
"Ah, sorry bout that, lost something fairly important," he said scratching his head absent mindedly, "let's get you somewhere dry! I knew a great place not too far from here! Sold the greatest Sake in all of Japan! Of course that was back in about 600 BC and it was only the greatest Sake for about three days or so until it was all gone but the place is truly magnificent!"
Akitsu simply followed the Doctor. He was mad. Completely mad. Not too unlike Minaka but somehow different. She felt his madness was a boon rather than a bane as though it were something that let him do extraordinary things and partake of extraordinary kindness.
Kindness like looking after me, Her heart fluttered at the thought.
"Here we are!" he proclaimed, "The… Love Motel?" he muttered, "What kind of a rubbish name is Love Motel anyway?"
Akitsu quickly revised her assessment of madness being a good thing for the Doctor as he pushed his way through a side door. The Doctor entered with a flourish, intent on making one of his usual entrances to find… no one. He looked about in consternation but managed to refrain from saying 'What'.
"Oh! Right! Japan!" he said with dawning realisation and bonked himself on the head for being too thick to realise it.
The whole process of getting a room for the night was automated. He pushed a bunch of buttons before realising probably, he glanced briefly at Akitsu and revised that to definitely, that he needed a room with a shower and had to start over again. He'd have much rather actually talked to a flesh and blood person but as they said, when in Rome… actually he'd been to Rome and even the Romans hadn't bothered to do as the Romans did. Now the thing was asking for payment.
"Ooh, money, I was never any good with money," he muttered as he fished about for his Psychic paper.
When he pressed the paper to the credit card reader a complex series of interactions took place. At first the reader was adamant that nothing at all had been inserted. Then it sensed that something had indeed been inserted, but that it wasn't in fact a credit card. The machine was just about to reject the slip of blank paper in a huff when all of a sudden it sensed a magnetic presence. Irritably, if one could say that for a machine, it interrogated the magnetic data to find complete and total gibberish. It was just about to throw its very much proverbial electronic hands in the air when credit information started flowing into it. Figuratively grumbling, the machine processed the data and took its sweet time doing so as it passed on the information down the relevant paths to the higher bureaucracies of the Japanese banking system. After waiting a few seconds, practically an eternity to most computing systems, the banking system had approved the transaction as being one of MBI's VIP accounts. Its job done the machine passed on the relevant instructions to vend the appropriate key and promptly shut down with a huff. The Doctor picked up the key to his room.
"Allons-y!" he exclaimed.
Takami rolled her eyes. Minaka was practically drooling over his 'prize', his 'gift from the gods'.
"It's a blue box you idiot!" she yelled. She rapped it hard on the side. "It's even made of wood!"
"Such a clever disguise! Only the mad or the magnificent would suspect its true nature!" proclaimed Minaka.
Takami pulled out yet another cigarette and lit up. The only thing magnificent she saw in the room was the depths of madness Minaka had sunk to. This obsession of his with that damned box had almost derailed his other obsession with the Sekirei plan. Almost. The damned fool honestly believed the complete and total nonsense he spouted… the Sekirei plan was as pointless and useless as the damned box he was fawning over. The only reason he was still in charge of MBI in any sense of the word was because anyone who dared challenge Minaka openly tended to wind up dead or worse. Only Takami had any leeway to challenge Minaka and even then, only as a kind of twisted muse to his madness. If she was going to challenge Minaka she would have to move certain individuals into the right places in the company, a plan that was already quietly in motion, and ensure that her timing was impeccable. If she moved too soon the Discipline squad would turn her to paste in spite of all the work she'd put into each and every Sekirei. Too late and she'd miss the opportunity in its entirety. She'd have to wait until the Discipline squad had their hands full and that in turn meant waiting until the Sekirei plan was further along.
"Fine. Do whatever you want. I'm going back to the lab," she snapped.
Takami stalked out of the holding area and made her way to the freight elevator. When the doors closed, she thumbed a series of floors in sequence, hesitating five seconds before pushing the final button. The panel quietly popped open to reveal a smaller hidden panel inside with six buttons. She punched the button for the fourth floor and felt the elevator lurch down as she quietly closed the main panel again. She relaxed as she entered the fourth floor of MBI tower, a little secret she'd managed to keep from Minaka. Even security didn't know about the fourth floor. Soon enough her little program in MBI's security system would activate and insert a false feed of her making her way to her labs over the security cameras, all the better to not arouse suspicion. With a relaxed familiarity she entered her real lab.
Officially, the Sekirei plan was a battle royale to decide who would 'ascend' or whatever nonsense Minaka had spouted. Unofficially it was more akin to a deathmatch. Minaka's orders had been that any Sekirei terminated on the field of battle were to be 'Disposed of'. Even more unofficially, Takami had been recording those Sekirei as successfully 'Disposed of' whilst funnelling them here to the fourth floor.
She shook her head as she read the file for one of half a dozen Sekirei recovering from their wounds in battle. At this early stage none of them had been winged, instead they had been eliminated by other Sekirei seeking to shape the battle to come. Fortunately their injuries were minor and they would recover in time. Unfortunately Minaka had filled their heads with his poison about destiny and the gods. Most of them truly believed that they had been forsaken, never to find their destined Ashikabi and disgraced in the earliest stages of the Sekirei plan as too weak. Her thoughts were interrupted by footsteps.
"The files you asked for, Takami," said Number 55.
Her name is Saki, she reminded herself, I have to remember I can think of them as people on this floor.
"Thank you Saki, please tend to the others as I showed you," replied Takami.
Saki did as Takami had asked. Sadly she had been amongst the first Sekirei to be eliminated before finding an Ashikabi and the first to recover. Now she was acting as a nurse to those too injured to tend to others and Takami knew she'd soon need as many assistants and nurses as she could safely train working on this floor. She could sneak in individual Sekirei and supplies here from time to time but she truly doubted she could bring in all the specialists and doctors she'd need and keep this place a secret. The only way to get the staff she needed and keep things under Minaka's nose would be to train the Sekirei that recovered to assist the injured as they came in. In time the numbers here would grow, hopefully not so fast that the injured would go untended, and when the critical time came to decapitate Minaka as the head of MBI she knew more than a few Sekirei that would grace these wards would be more than willing to give her the physical clout she'd need to make sure it stuck. Takami smirked at the irony of using the Sekirei plan against Minaka. The fool was going to pay.
A/N
Thanks for the comments everyone! I assure you my muses feast upon them ;)
The next chapter has already been plotted out. As long as work and family don't crunch up too much of my free time it should be up within a week.