CHAPTER EIGHT – JAILBREAK
After simply dealing with the shock of things, Sailor Mercury's brain was working on a way out of their present situation.
To begin with, the police didn't seem very smart, as none of them seemed to have noticed that she had changed back into Ami Mizuno with her normal street clothes on. She was sitting near the entrance to the jail cell, staring out through the bars and trying to get used to the fact that Ami Mizuno, model student, was in prison.
But it didn't really look like a prison. She was in a temporary holding cell, outside of which looked like an administrative office of some kind. Desks and piles of paper stood around the cluttered space. Since it was quite late at night at this point, most of the people, including the officers who had arrested them, seemed to have gone home for the night. In fact, the place looked completely deserted to her.
Except, of course, for the obnoxious analyst who didn't seem to have a filter between his brain and his mouth.
"Well, this is gonna look great on my resume!" Matt Sneider groaned as he paced frantically back and forth in the cell they shared. "Yes, I can see the list now: member of the finance society, interned at Goldman Sachs Tokyo office—and arrested for a crime I didn't even commit with people I know nothing about!" He kicked the wall in frustration; Ami remained silent and decided to let him vent.
"I'm supposed to be at the printer, like a normal freakin' analyst," he continued, frantically running his hands through his hair. "I came here to just do some banking, put in a few 100-hour workweeks, and go home with a boatload of cash. And instead I'm rotting in a fuckin' JAIL CELL!" Another angry kick thudded against the wall.
"Enough," Ami ordered. Sneider froze in the middle of another kick wind-up. He turned to look at her.
"What?"
"I said that's enough," the genius reiterated. "If we're going to find a way out of this, we have to stay calm. Getting angry isn't going to help."
"I don't know whether you noticed," said Matt testily, "that we've just been arrested?"
"I am just as aware of that as you are," said Ami patiently. "And we are in a bad situation. But we're going to try to fix it. Until then, you won't do any good kicking the wall, unless you think you can break through it wearing those shoes."
Matt slowly clenched and unclenched his fists, while glancing guiltily at the scuff mark he had left on the wall. "This is crazy," he muttered.
"Our friends will find a way to help us," said Ami. "They have never let us down before. So until that time comes, we have the make the best of a bad situation. Now sit down and take a few deep breaths before you give yourself a heart attack."
Reluctantly, Matt took a seat on the floor, stretching his legs out opposite the Senshi of Water in human form. It left only about an inch of space between the tips of their shoes.
After a minute of silence, Sneider looked at Ami's blue eyes. "So…how does one pass the time while waiting for their super-powered friends to rescue them?"
Ami shrugged. "Usually I try to go over everything in my head for an exam I have the next day."
Matt smirked and started to laugh, thinking she was kidding. But when he saw that she had said that with a straight face, he sobered. "You serious?" he asked.
She nodded. "Sometimes I feel like being in school is more demanding than being a Senshi."
Matt didn't know what to make of that comment.
"Though, I suppose," Ami continued, tucking her blue hair behind her ear, "that I could open up for a more mutual discussion."
"Meaning?"
"Well—"
"Wait, before you answer that," Matt interrupted, "is it true that you really have an IQ of 300?"
Ami paused and blushed slightly. She didn't like to brag about her smarts. It put people off and was arrogant and rude to boot. But he had asked…
She stared at the floor and answered quietly, "298."
Sneider stared in disbelief. What was this girl doing putting her life in danger and fighting monsters when she could have been designing the next space program or finding a way to cure cancer?
"As I was saying, a good way to pass the time would be to each tell the other about something only they know about," the nerd said.
"You've got an IQ of 298," Matt scoffed. "What could I possibly tell you that you don't already know?"
Ami paused. She hadn't thought of that. "Well…I confess, I'm not entirely sure what high finance is like," she told him, trying to help. "It's not something I've spent a whole lot of time reading up on. The best way to tell whether you know something is to try to teach it to someone else."
"So…I guess you could tell me what you have to know for your exam tomorrow, and help yourself out that way," Sneider offered. "I don't promise to understand any of it, though."
"I don't promise, either," said Ami with a smile. When the analyst gave her a skeptical look, she continued, "I won't pretend. Truly intelligent people know that compared to the vast compendium of human knowledge, they don't know anything. There is so much that we don't understand. They know their limitations."
"I think it's safe to say that your limitations are a good deal bigger than most," Matt observed. "Shall we begin?"
"Be my guest."
"Okay," Sneider took a deep breath, "A good way to start, I think, is by watching the movie Wall Street. Now the plot goes something like this…"
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Sailor Moon and Sailor Jupiter were supposed to be two of the most powerful Senshi. But in certain circumstances, they seemed to utterly deflate, particularly when faced with angry talking cats.
Luna was truly in rare form, lacing into the two of them with what was probably her angriest tirade to date. The feline punched all the possible insecurity buttons: Mina was still suffering at youma hands, Ami and Sneider had been embarrassingly carted off to jail, Rei nowhere to be found after the restaurant blew up. Not to mention the wisdom (or lack thereof) of sending in their unproven rookie without adequate backup, the blatant stupidity of falling for a decoy truck, and of course, how would they rule a lunar kingdom with any competency at all if they couldn't even handle a simple rescue mission?
Luna would have a sore throat in the morning without a doubt. Frightening images of sailor outfits languishing behind bars in a dark jail cell haunted her mind. But she couldn't believe that such an embarrassing failure had been attached to the Senshi. Thankfully, her sputtering rant was coming to a close.
"It's ludicrous!" she screeched. "I'm putting my foot down. Both of you are returning to the temple, and you're going to stay there until I sort out this whole mess you've gotten us into!"
"Luna, you're being unreasonable," Makoto tried speak soothingly.
"Don't!" the cat snapped. "For the rest of the night, you both have lost your privilege of leading this group. Nothing you have tried to do tonight has worked; it's time for someone else to take charge. Now get back to Hikawa Jinja, or so help me I will claw both of your faces off!"
"Please Luna, let us help—" Usagi started before being cut off.
"Absolutely not! You'll only screw everything up again! And then I'll have to explain to your parents what happened! Next time, Sailor Moon—next time you take the lead into danger and we can be rid of your stupidity!"
Sailor Moon choked back a sob and blinked back the mist that clouded her blue eyes. It was difficult enough knowing how badly they had botched the operation and probably done some serious damage to their fighting power. Dealing with Luna's after-action chew-outs was one of the things she disliked most about her life. Luna had been angry with them before, but this hurt more than all of those…because this time, the cat was pretty much entirely correct.
Luna saw how hurt the two remaining Senshi were and mercifully cut herself off. They were only girls after all, and human beings to boot. Even with their powers, it didn't make them perfect.
"I'm going to fix all this," the cat said in a voice of forced calm. "Go back to the temple and wait for me there. Rest."
The two exhausted girls got into a taxi while Luna started to work on a plan.
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"Let me get this straight," Matt pressed his knuckles into his forehead. "There are two types of genes. One kicks ass. One doesn't. And…when they get combined…one emerges dominant over the other. But not always."
Ami fought to contain her laugh. "Yes, go on."
"And…even if the little gene still somehow manages to win…the stronger gene can still somehow come back and kick its ass later on down the road."
A smile spread across Ami's face. "Not the most technical explanation in the world, but that's the basic concept," she said. Matt leaned his head back, mentally exhausted with the effort of trying to get his head around a complicated medical concept. "God, this stuff makes Black-Scholes option pricing look like a walk in the park."
"I didn't think that formula was so complex," she said innocently. "It's only six inputs."
"Try saying that in an interview," said Matt. "You'll get mind-screwed on technicals if you act like you know everything."
"I don't."
As they were talking, the door to the office opened, revealing a guard with a strange, mesmerized look on his face. "Right in here," he slurred. "Let me know if you have any issues."
"Thank you; you have been most helpful," said a silky British voice, the source of which neither of them could see. The guard turned and left. "I'll just go ahead and dispose of this report as if it never happened," he confirmed.
Luna bounded over to the jail cell door and looked in. "Are you two comfortable?" she asked with a quirk of an eyebrow.
"Luna, how did you do that?" asked Ami, standing up.
"Same way I reawakened you all into the Senshi years ago," she said, looking for the keys. "The Luna Mindmelt has other uses besides that, you know."
"You can read and control minds? Jesus," Matt muttered, rising to his feet as well. "How?"
"Because destiny says so," said Luna as she unlocked the door. "I must protect the Senshi at all costs, and that extends to breaking them out of a human jail cell."
"It's a good thing we all can't do that, then," said the analyst. "Because I have a feeling Rei would make me jump off a bridge right now if she could do mind control."
"That would be too kind of me," said the namesake voice. "You deserve much worse." The Senshi of Fire in human form had walked into the office, having accompanied Luna on the mission.
"Rei, I didn't—" Matt started to defend himself, but she cut him off with a cold, "Not now. Later."
Matt pressed his lips together and hung his head as the four of them trooped right out of the jail and all the way back to Hikawa Jinja. It was very late at this point, nearly four o clock in the morning, and Sneider felt as if he had just put in another brutal day at the office.
Usagi and Makoto were two silhouettes at the top of the temple steps, a warm yellow light shining behind them. Ami walked into Usagi's warm embrace. "Thank God you're both okay," their leader said calmly. "Thank you too, Luna," she added. A late night breeze blew up; Matt thought he could almost see the first pink rays of sunrise. It was a calm moment that wouldn't last.
"No thanks to these two," said Rei through gritted teeth. "We were just about to get Mina back, and you two screwed it all up! You're smarter than that! Now we'll never find out where she is!"
Matt glared at her. "Don't take that attitude with me," he snapped. "You're the one that blew up the restaurant and almost everybody in it! 'Oh yeah, let me go ahead and use a fire attack indoors where there are gas pipelines.' Dumbass."
"That restaurant NEEDED to be blown up!" she roared. Matt returned to staring at the ground, as though wishing he could sink into it.
"Enough!" said Usagi, fighting to control a laugh. "We're just going to have to find another way. Our plan didn't work this time—fine, we'll have a better plan next time."
Matt looked at her. "Princess Usagi," he said. He walked up to her and hesitated before awkwardly sinking into a half-bow. "It was all my fault, what happened in there. I…I messed up big time. I thought I could outsmart Lucretius, but…I was wrong. This wouldn't have happened if I wasn't so cocky. Please don't blame Sailor Mercury—it was all me. I know you all care about Mina a whole lot, and, uh…I know that you wouldn't do anything to…put her life in any more danger."
Usagi surveyed him compassionately as he told her this. She graciously placed a hand on his shoulder. "Matt, I want you to know I appreciate what you did out there tonight. You did the best you could, and that's all that can be asked. Isn't that right, Rei?"
The angry miko rolled her eyes and went inside without a word.
Makoto placed her hand on Matt's other shoulder. "Think of it like baseball—it's a long season! You can't win every situation. Plus, you totally kicked the shit out of like twelve of their guys! That counts for something!" she finished cheerfully.
"Sure it does," he replied.
"Go home, have a nice meal, get some sleep," said Makoto. "All things considered, I thought you did okay tonight. Nice job, rookie."
"Thanks, I guess. I should get back to the office. Heck, I practically live there anyway…wait, where's Ami?"
The Senshi of Water had disappeared after Rei and Matt had started arguing.
"I think she may have gone home," said Usagi. "Knowing her, she probably has a test or something today."
Matt said good night and left the temple, his laptap case and suit jacket over his shoulder. A quick check of Google maps and he was walking through quiet streets to get back to Goldman headquarters.
He gained the impression that he was being followed.
"You know, I appreciate what you said back there," a shy voice said. "It was…very humble. Noble, even."
Matt turned around to look at Ami. "It's the truth," he said. The two of them looked at each other awkwardly. "I…I live near here, that's why I'm walking this way," she stammered.
The analyst smirked. "Well, should I walk you home then? I mean, if you think about it, we hung out with your friends, went to a restaurant, got into a little trouble…I should walk you home, right?"
Ami blinked, opened her mouth, closed it. "Um…sure," she said. They walked side by side for a few minutes until Matt broke the silence:
"GOD DAMMIT, I'M SUPPOSED TO BE AT THE PRINTER!"