"Okay, here's all you have to do," Kanon explained to me over the counter of our kitchen the next morning. "Just take this plastic cover off, and put the not sticky side in your hand. When you run into her, just grab her phone. It'll stick onto the back and she'll have no idea that it's there."
I sighed. "I still don't see why I have to do this," I muttered.
"Because we said so!" Rin said matter-of-factly. "Plus, out of all of us, you're the least likely to be recognized."
Kanon held a small strip of clear paper in her hand. It looked like tape. There were no wires running through it, no blinking lights or buttons. It just looked like a normal piece of paper.
"How does this thing work?" I asked, gingerly taking the slip from her and turning it over in my hands. It reminded me of a contact lens. If I were to drop it, I would never find it.
She smiled proudly. "Made it myself. Stick it onto the back of her phone and it'll transmit all of her calls directly to my tablet."
I raised an eyebrow. "What if she's not involved with Luka at all? What if she's just some girl trying to make a living?"
She shrugged. "Then she's about to have all of her privacy invaded. And that's not my problem. We have bigger things to worry about."
She was right, but I still didn't like it.
"So, let's go," Rin pushed herself off of the counter. "We're wasting daylight."
"Go on without me," Flower said from the couch. She sat next to Yuma, who was still intently tapping away at his laptop. "We're working on my life next."
"When do I get a turn?" Kanon muttered, half-joking.
"Next, if you want," the pink-haired boy called.
"Come on," Rin grabbed her bag and opened the front door. "Let's get out of here."
I was sweating again. Whether from the heat or the intensity of the situation, I did not know.
Anon, Kanon, and Rin stood across the street from me, nonchalantly glancing towards me every so often. I leaned next to one of the entrances to Skye, waiting for those bright blue pigtails to appear. We weren't even sure if we'd see her today.
The clear slip was in my hand, sticky side up, ready to tap into her phone.
I was terrified I was going to drop it. I was equally terrified I was going to touch my face, arms, clothes, anything with it. Kanon had warned me against such a stupid act. She only had one of these made, and once it was stuck, it was not going to come off.
I had been standing there forever, adjusting myself nervously, pulling at my clothes with my right hand and keeping my left held limply at my side, when Rin's voice sounded through my earpiece.
"Helgi," she said. Across the street, I noticed her glance to her left. My right. "Three o'clock. No guards."
I took a deep breath and stepped forward.
Through the crowd, I spotted her walking her way gracefully back to the offices. She held a bag in one hand, no doubt containing her lunch, and her phone in the other. Lika before, it was pressed firmly against her ear.
Here we go, I thought to myself.
I tried to look as casual as possible, blending in with the crowd. Everyone walked without care of bumping into the people around them. This should be easy. The more steps I took towards her, the faster my heart pounded. Her high-pitched voice was within eavesdropping distance now.
"-Friday?" She was saying. "Or maybe Saturday? We could go out to dinner! I know you like that place right on the river-" She was speaking English. Another oddity in a city like this.
I was so distracted by her words that I almost forgot about the mission at hand. Just as our shoulders began to pass each other, I faked a trip, knocking straight into her shoulder.
I calculated it perfectly. The girl's blue eyes widened as the phone flew from her hands.
I caught it in my left hand. And then panicked. I couldn't feel the tapper in my hand anymore. Did I just drop it?!
"Oh, ah, sorry!" I muttered at the girl who was now looking up at me. I handed her the phone. "Must have tripped." Seeing her up close, I was even more sure that she was not who we were looking for. She talked cheerfully and happily, but there were dark circles under her eyes, no doubt the effects of her stressful job. Her suit was neatly and elegantly presented, but her posture was poor. She slugged everywhere.
And now her lunch bag was on the dirty sidewalk.
"That's okay!" She chirped, taking the phone gently from my hand. "Thanks for catching it." She smiled.
There's no way. If I had ever ran into Meiko like this, whether she knew it was me or not, she would have screamed at me.
"And, uh, your lunch," I pointed to the bag, rubbing the back of my neck nervously. "I'm sorry about that, too."
"No worries!" She said, quickly snatching the bag from the ground. "It's just a sandwich. And it's wrapped, too. I'm sure it's fine."
I could never imagine a girl this kind and cheerful to be working for a criminal mastermind. "Oh! Great! Well, I'll let you get back to it."
With her phone in one hand and her food in the other, she looked up at me with one more smile. "Have a nice day."
"You, too."
She walked away, raising the phone back to her ear. "Sorry, Love. What were you saying?"
I blinked after her, almost too stunned to move.
"Good shit, Helgi," Kanon said through the comms. "You got it."
"I really don't think that's-"
"Shut up, idiot!" Rin said. "If you're gonna talk to us, come over here! You'll look crazy otherwise."
One tense street crossing later, I leaned next to Rin. Kanon was staring intently at her tablet and Anon had picked up another copy of the newspaper. When I approached, only Anon paid any attention to me. Kanon had her headphones connected to the tablet, her earpiece removed and the earbuds replacing them.
"I don't… I don't think that's the right girl," I told them.
Rin raised an eyebrow. "Why not?"
"She just seemed… too… nice," I couldn't find any better words. "Like she was so polite and everything. I couldn't even imagine-"
Kanon shook her head. "No," she said, removing one of her earbuds. "This is definitely the right girl." She handed Rin one of the buds, the other to me.
"Are you sure?" Miku asked. "Skye's going really well. I don't think it needs much more attention this week. I'm all free-"
"Maybe another time. I'm busy." The voice that replied was another girl, her voice much lower and much more melodic than the business woman's.
Rin tensed up next to me. Her eyes widened in a mixture of terror and excitement. I had never heard this voice before, but she clearly had. The very air surrounding us seemed to grow dark at this voice on the phone, as if the sun had been eclipsed by the sound. With Rin standing close enough to share a headphone with me, I could tell she was shaking. Trembling.
Miku let out a huff. "What about… what about Sunday? I'm sure you could spare just one night-"
"How about this." Luka cut her off. "I'll see how my schedule fills out tomorrow. And then maybe I'll come by."
Miku's voice lit up like a candle. "Really?! Okay! Just let me know! I mean, worst case scenario, I can set us up a nice dinner in the office! We could totally-"
"Meeks. I gotta go. I'll call you tonight."
"Okay! Okay! I'll talk to you tonight. I love-"
Click.
"Holy shit," I said.
Rin handed the earbud back to Kanon. "That… that was her."
The sisters each wore a devilish grin. "We fucking found her. Holy shit. We actually managed to-"
"We need to get this back to Yuma," Rin said. Her voice was flat. She seemed bothered by the phone call. Or perhaps troubled at the simple sound of Luka's voice.
She didn't say a word as we walked back to the cottage.
Yuma gently removed his earbuds. "Wow," was all he could say.
The six of us gathered around the coffee table of our cottage, relaying the end of our phone call to Flower and Yuma. They shared similar expressions as Rin. Complete and utter awe.
"I… I honestly didn't think we'd be able to do it," he said. "But that's her. That's definitely her."
"Whoa whoa whoa," Flower held up a hand. "We can't celebrate yet. Yes, we've got her on the phone. But we haven't found her yet." The sun had set. Through the window, the darkness of night was unfamiliar.
Anon, who sat cross-legged on the floor, looked up at Yuma. "Can you track the number?"
"I tried," Kanon answered for him. "First, it told me she was in Paris. The second time, it told me she was in Moscow. Third, Washington. Luka's using a scrambler for her phone. Generates a random number every few seconds."
I furrowed my brow. "Then how do they keep in touch with each other? How can Miku get those numbers-"
"I'm assuming Luka calls her," Kanon answered. "Miku can't call back."
"She's gotta be somewhere close," I pointed out. "She said in the call she could be here by tomorrow. She's within a days travel."
Flower leaned back in her seat with a sigh. "I fucking knew it. She's gotta be in the rainforests somewhere."
"But where?"
"She could be anywhere."
"At least we've got it narrowed down to a continent," Kanon chuckled.
There was a pause in the room as everyone tried to think of a solution to our problem.
"So what's the next move?" Rin asked. She sat in that same loveseat, her legs crossed, her eyes deep in thought.
"We can't track her. We have no idea where she is. I don't know what we can do," Yuma stated, rubbing his temple.
I crossed my arms. "We can wait for her to come here."
Everyone looked up at me like I was the biggest idiot in the world.
"What?" I asked in response to their glances. "Her and this Miku girl seem pretty… close. She's gotta come out here. She said she'd try tomorrow. Who knows? Maybe she'll be at Skye for dinner!"
Flower nodded. "He has a point. We may not know where Luka is, but we know where her girlfriend is."
Yuma furrowed his brow. "I just… I don't understand any of this. Why are they at Skye Offices? How can they stay there without arousing any suspicion? That entire building has to be dealing Luka's shit. How do they get away with that?"
Rin shifted in her seat. "Flower. You said the building was a branch of Amazon?"
She nodded.
Rin kept her eyes glued to the coffee table as she spoke, still lost in her own thoughts. "So Luka is dealing with the underground side of the business, and she has her girlfriend dealing with the business side. They're masking as Amazon dealers. Which means they can ship their drugs over Amazon without being detected."
Yuma's mouth dropped open. "That's… that's fucking genius."
Flower shook her head in disbelief. "If I didn't hate her so much, I'd want to shake her hand. That's clever."
"So all those people think they're working for Amazon," I concluded to myself. "When they're really working as Luka's drug dealers?"
"Exactly," Rin said.
"Holy shit."
Yuma was in such a state of awe that he rose from the couch. "We're a five-minute walk away from the biggest Black Market hub in the world."
"Our next step," Flower concluded. "We need to wait for Luka to show."
"I'll keep monitoring Miku's phone calls for any updates," Kanon said with determined eyes.
"Fuck, dude," Yuma muttered. "Why do I have to sit out for all the fun shit?"
Thank you guys so much for understanding my wild upload schedule right now. I'm starting to get into the swing of things. And I've got a lot of plans for future fics.
Thanks for reading! You guys really are the best :)
