"Third step, third step," Misaki muttered to herself as she groped under the third step down from the second floor landing. "He could have at least told me which third step."
She stood up and rounded the corner to the flight of stairs leading from the second floor to the third, and reached under that third step. Her fingers brushed a small metal object. Finally! She withdrew the key and returned to where Xu was waiting in front of apartment 212, leaning against the doorframe to keep as much weight as possible off her bruised hip. Misaki was a little disappointed that it hadn't been apartment 201.
They were at a large apartment complex just a few blocks north of the Roppongi nightlife district, the type that catered to office workers: utilitarian and compact. Misaki was glad that they hadn't had to try and get back to Ookayama. She was exhausted, Xu was limping horribly, and they were probably safest someplace completely unconnected to either Xu or Misaki.
"Here we go," she told Xu. She put the key in the lock, then hesitated. Should she knock? Hei hadn't said anything about whose place this was, he'd just given her the address and told her where to find the key (sort of). He probably would have mentioned it if there would be a problem with them just walking in. Misaki turned the key and pushed open the door, her gun ready in her other hand just in case.
The lights were off. Misaki went in ahead of Xu. "Wait here," she told the other woman, and leaving Xu in the tiny entryway, she flicked on the lights and moved in to sweep the apartment. It was a small square, broken up into a galley-style kitchen that opened into a living room; a bedroom; and a tiny bathroom. It only took Misaki a minute to clear.
"Alright," she said, returning to Xu and holstering her gun. "Why don't you go sit down on the sofa, I'll see if there's any ice for your hip."
"Who lives here?" Xu asked, moving carefully into the living room, where a short sofa faced away from the door and towards an old boxy television set.
Misaki turned the deadbolt on the door, turned the second deadbolt, and slid the chain into place. Pretty heavy security for a simple office worker; this must be one of his safe houses. "I'm not sure," she told Xu. "A friend of your cousin's, I guess."
She tossed her blazer onto the back of the sofa and moved into the kitchen. At first glance, the apartment looked lived in: fully furnished, curtains around the windows, pictures on the walls. But now that Misaki was looking more carefully, she decided that her guess that this was a safe house was probably right. There were no people in any of the pictures, no dirty dishes in the sink, no knickknacks or worn paperbacks sitting out on the coffee table. No one lived here.
The refrigerator was empty except for a few condiments and frozen vegetables, but there was an automatic ice maker and some ice in the tray. Misaki wrapped some in a dish towel for Xu. "We should probably get a doctor to look at that," she said. "But unfortunately we need to wait until we understand what's going on before we move."
"It's not so bad," Xu said, taking the ice and holding it on her hip, wincing. "I could walk alright. Some aspirin might help though."
"Aspirin…give me a minute to look around." If this was a safe house, surely there would be a first aid kit with some kind of pain reliever. The kitchen cupboards turned up nothing except some instant meals and basic cooking supplies. She found what she was looking for in the bathroom, in the little cupboard under the sink: a first kit worthy of a trained field medic. You could perform minor surgery with the contents of that box. A bottle of ibuprofen was nestled in between some vials containing drugs that Misaki was pretty sure were illegal to possess, at least without a medical license.
Misaki fetched a glass of water for Xu to take the pills, then sat down next to her on the sofa.
"Where you and Tian on a date?" Xu asked her abruptly.
Misaki felt her cheeks flush. "What? No! We just happened to run into each other there." She would have expected Xu's first question to be about the contractor and the people who had attacked her; maybe she just didn't want to think about it? Misaki didn't really want to think about it. Now that they had time to stop and breathe, she kept hearing the echo of a gunshot in her mind.
"Oh." Xu sounded a little disappointed. "It's lucky you were there though. I didn't think I could be any more scared than I was in the park. I'm so tired of being afraid," she added, mostly to herself.
Misaki felt for her, but there was no way to sugarcoat things. "Xu, I'm going to be honest with you, so I need you to be honest with me, okay?"
Xu looked confused, but she nodded her head.
Misaki continued, "I was at the bar tonight because I was following you. I had a hunch that you might be in trouble, but it was just a hunch. I haven't told my department about it, and I'm here off duty."
Xu's eyes widened a little. "Is that we ran instead of calling the police? But, why would I be in trouble?"
"We ran because I still don't understand exactly why you're in danger; it seemed like the most prudent thing to do would be to get someplace safe, then try and figure things out and act from there." Her first instinct had been to call dispatch, but then Hei had taken her arm and said, It's too messy to bring in the police; Jiao-tu comes first. Please. It was the 'please' that had done it. That, and his hand on her arm. And his mouth so close to her ear.
She hoped he would be here soon; she felt too vulnerable without backup. "Do you have any idea who those people in that alley were?"
"One of them, maybe, the one you killed - he was a contractor, right?"
Misaki frowned. "You know about contractors?" Had Hei told her?
"A little. That man - there was blue light around him…that must have been synchrotron radiation, so he was probably a contractor. He was trying to squash me with the dumpster." She shuddered. "He would have killed me if you hadn't shot him."
Misaki saw a sudden image of a bullet tearing into a man's back, the man crumpling to the ground like a puppet whose strings had been cut.
"I don't know who the other two were," Xu continued. "They said to give them my phone, and asked what I told the police. It didn't make any sense. Then the other guy, the contractor, he said to just take my phone, that they didn't need me alive. What is going on?"
There was a pleading note in her voice. "We're going to try and figure that out," Misaki told her gently. "Why they would want your phone?"
Xu shook her head again, and pulled a purple phone from her back pocket. "I don't know. It's just a phone."
Misaki took the phone from the girl. It was the same one they'd found in the park.
Suddenly the phone buzzed in her hand and a voice shouted "Tutturoo!" Both women jumped, and Misaki nearly dropped the phone.
"Sorry, just a text message," Xu said, taking it back and adjusting the volume. "It's from a show," she added sheepishly.
"That's fine," Misaki said, her heart pounding. "Who is the message from?"
Xu tapped the screen. "Just my roommate asking where I disappeared to. Um, what should I tell her?"
"Don't tell her anything for now - wait, which roommate?"
"Sun Liang."
Misaki frowned. "Is she the one with the red glasses?"
"No, that's -" A knock sounded twice on the door, causing them to both jump again.
"Stay here," Misaki said. Holding her gun at the ready, she cautiously approached the door and looked out the peephole. Hei. She sighed in relief. "It's alright," she called back to Xu, and undid the locks to let him in.
"Any problems?" was all the greeting he gave.
"No," Misaki replied, re-holstering her weapon and locking the door behind him.
"Tian!" Xu levered herself up off the sofa, and said something in Chinese.
"Use Japanese," Hei told her. "What's wrong, are you hurt?"
"Just a bruise," she assured him as he came around the front of the sofa to hug her. His visible relief at seeing her safe dispelled any lingering doubts Misaki may have had about whether he truly cared for his cousin. He helped Xu back onto the cushions, then leaned against the half-wall the separated the kitchen from the living room, allowing Misaki to take the other side of the sofa; it was only big enough for two.
"What were you doing in that alleyway?" Hei asked Xu. His face and his voice both betrayed his tiredness.
"I went to go talk to my roommate. She sent me a text asking me to meet her there."
"Which roommate? The one with the red glasses?"
"How -"
"Just answer," Hei said, a little too shortly.
"Those attackers were obviously waiting for you," Misaki explained, casting a warning look at Hei. This was no time for him to suddenly start acting like a contractor. "Someone must have told them you were coming."
"I thought they were just trying to mug me," Xu said uncertainly.
"What did you tell me earlier? That they wanted your phone, and said something about the police?" Misaki asked.
"Yeah. The woman told me to tell her what I said to the police - I didn't know what she was talking about."
"They knew you were at the crime scene in the park," Hei said, "because the police used the Chinese Embassy to translate your statement. Did you tell anyone that you'd lost your phone?"
"Wait," Misaki said. "Are we just assuming they were MSS?"
"Not assuming," Hei said darkly. She remembered then what he had said when she and Xu had left: that he was going to 'clean up' and find out what he could. She wasn't sure she wanted to know what that entailed. Actually, she was pretty sure that she didn't.
Xu was looking between the two of them. "I don't understand."
Misaki looked at Hei. "I need to tell her at least some of it."
He sat down on the floor and nodded, leaning his head against the wall and closing his eyes.
She turned to Xu. "What you saw in the park was an interrupted selling of information. Your professor, Iwakara Sachio, had a flash drive containing some kind of valuable files that he was selling to an unknown organization. The two men who were killed that night were agents belonging to the Chinese MSS, who tried to steal that flash drive. Something was missing from it though, a key that allowed the other files to be read. Iwakara thought that someone had stolen the key on purpose, to keep him from selling the information. This person is presumably the one who set fire to his laboratory, killing him."
Xu was listening wide-eyed. "But, what does that have to do with me?"
"I don't know," Misaki admitted. "Apparently your phone is involved. We found it in the park, and it was in our possession for almost twenty-four hours - somehow these MSS agents from tonight knew that. Did you let anyone use it, or borrow it recently?"
"No."
"Didn't you tell me that you had dropped it earlier?" Hei said from the floor, still not opening his eyes.
"Oh, that's right," Xu said. "I dropped my bag outside of Iwakara's office, and it fell out. Arakawa picked it up for me."
"Who's Arakawa?" Misaka asked.
"Arakawa Hiro. He's - he was - Professor Iwakara's research and teaching assistant."
Now that's interesting. "He just picked up your phone and handed it back to you?"
"Um…" Xu paused, thinking back. "He gave it back to me after I left the office, maybe ten minutes later?"
Misaki raised her eyebrows. "That's certainly long enough to do something - but what?"
"The key," Hei said. "Iwakara left the flash drive on his desk; this Arakawa removed the key, but needed a place to hide it. Jiao-tu drops her phone, he picks it up, and transfers the key to it. Then all he has to do is wait until everything has blown over, and find an excuse to borrow Jiao-tu's phone and get it back."
"Wait!" Misaki exclaimed. "Before we knew who the phone belonged to, I had our tech lab go over it. They didn't find anything suspicious, but there was one file that looked corrupted - pages of text that looked like nonsense. I bet that's the key that Arakawa stole."
"Arakawa?" Xu said.
"Is he the one who was with you in the hallway, right before the lab caught fire?" Hei asked her.
"How…"
Misaki laid a hand on her wrist. "Please just answer. Was Arakawa with you?"
Xu nodded. "Mei-li needed to pick up her assignment. Iwakara hadn't been in class that day, so she was hoping that it would just be Arakawa in the office. We met him in the hallway; he was just leaving because he'd forgotten his key and couldn't get in."
"So he's the one who set the fire," Misaki said. "He was just making an excuse to get you two out of the hallway."
"What? No, he wouldn't!" Xu protested. "It was as much his research as Iwakara's, he wouldn't destroy it! And how could he kill the professor?"
"He probably didn't know the professor was there. And he must really have wanted to protect this information, to go to such extremes." Misaki leaned forward with her chin on her hand. "I wonder what that information was? Something from his classified research?"
"Um, Arakawa said…" Xu began.
"What?" Misaki prompted her.
"Well, while we were watching them put out the fire. He said that the professor was researching a way to interfere with contractor's powers, maybe even strip them of their powers completely. But Arakawa talked like he hated contractors, wouldn't he want that information to get out?"
Misaki frowned. "Some kind of anti-contractor device? Any agency would certainly kill for that; such technology could put China back on the map in regards to contractor affairs."
"Oh…wait a minute." Xu put the heel of her hand to her forehead. "When I went to Iwakara's office…I heard him arguing with Arakawa. Arakawa told me they disagreed about grading papers, but that's not what I heard. They were talking about…Pandora? I'm sure I heard Pandora mentioned once or twice."
"Hm, he wants to give it to Pandora? I'll buy that," Misaki said. "Except for the MSS - how do they fit? Did Arakawa tell them about the flash drive, and where to find the key? Why would he do that, if he wanted the research to go to Pandora?"
Hei spoke up. "The roommate."
Xu was looking confused again. "What?"
"Jiao-tu, who is the girl with the red glasses?" Hei asked her.
"My roommate. Long Mei-li."
Hei opened his eyes. "Long?"
"Yes. You don't know her, do you?" Xu asked.
"No." He gave Misaki a significant look. "But 'long' means 'dragon' in Chinese."
Misaki's eyes widened. "Oh, damn. What was she doing when she was outside?"
"She sent a text, and received a response. Then she sent another text on a different phone."
"Damn," Misaki said again. Xu had said that it was a text message that led her out into the alley behind the bar. The other phone must have been a burner that 'Dragon' was using to communicate with the other MSS agents.
"What are you talking about?" Xu said, tears starting to form in her eyes.
Hei just closed his eyes again, leaving Misaki to explain. Damn him. "Xu," she said as gently as she could, "it sounds like your roommate is working for the Chinese intelligence service. She must have been the one to tip off the MSS about the research, and told them where you were tonight."
Xu was shaking her head. "No, she wouldn't do anything like that. She's my friend, my best friend!"
"She might not have known they were going to hurt you," Misaka said. She didn't know if it was true or not. "Although, it still doesn't explain how she knew the key was on your phone. Did she know the police had it?"
"Yes," Xu said. "I used her phone to call you."
"Was Long friends with Arakawa? Do you know if she talked to him at all, after you lost your phone?"
"Not friends," Xu said hesitantly. "But…she told me that after I left the fire, she told Arakawa that I had been acting strange, and that my phone had ended up with the police."
Misaki frowned in thought. "So, we have two different players here. Arakawa, who was trying to get the research to Pandora, and hid the key on Xu's phone. Long, who was probably spying on Iwakara and told the MSS about the buy. Long mentions to Awakara that Xu lost her phone and the police found it; he asks her about it, maybe tries to get her to remove the file from the phone for him. Long passes that information on to her handler, and they set up an ambush to steal Xu's phone and take the key. It's plausible…but what use is the key without the rest of the files? It wasn't the MSS that Iwakara sold them to, and the fire destroyed the research data." She half hoped that Hei would speak up then, about the fate of the files, but of course he didn't.
Xu was shaking her head again. "Not Mei-li. She wouldn't do anything like that."
"Well, we don't know anything for sure yet," Misaki allowed. "But in the meantime, don't try to contact her; we can't risk anyone finding out where you are right now."
"I hate this," Xu muttered.
"Maybe you should try and get some rest," Misaki suggested. She could feel her own exhaustion pulling at her - all that coffee had finally worn off. "Things may look different in the morning. I saw a futon in the bedroom, I can help you set it up."
But Xu looked to her cousin. "You never said what you're doing here. How do you know about the MSS, and all this? You told me you were going to go to bed early tonight."
"I lied," Hei said simply, not looking at his cousin.
Xu stared at him. "You never lie."
"I'm not the same person I was ten years ago."
"Wait." Her eyes grew even wider. "You said you burned your arm in a kitchen fire. But…you knew I was outside Iwakara's laboratory with Mei-li and Arakawa. You…were you there?"
There was a note of sadness in Hei's voice. "Yes, I was. But that's not something I can talk to you about, Xiao-tu."
Xu stood up, dropping the ice pack. "Don't call me that! You don't get to call me that!" She added something else in Chinese, then limped to the bedroom and pulled the shoji door shut.
"Should I go talk to her?" Misaki asked. Hei didn't respond, just closed his eyes again and leaned his head against the wall. She wasn't sure he'd heard her at all.
Misaki unstrapped her gun harness and set it on the coffee table, then walked over to the bedroom. She knocked softly on the door. "Xu? I'm coming in."
Xu was sitting in the middle of the empty room, hugging her knees tightly to her chest. Misaki closed the door, then went to sit down next to her. "Are you alright?"
"No," Xu said bitterly. "My best friend is some kind of spy who tried to kill me, and I don't even know who Tian is anymore."
"How long have you known Long?"
Xu sniffed, trying to hold back tears. "Since our first class at Tokodai. We've been roommates since last semester. I thought she was my friend."
"It's possible that she doesn't know what this is about either, or that the attackers would hurt you." Misaki said. "She may have only been set to spy on Iwakara because she was in his class; it wasn't her fault or yours that you ended up in the middle of everything."
"Do you think they paid her?"
"I don't know - probably, I guess. Why?"
Xu stared at her feet. "Mei-li's family doesn't have very much money; she was only able to go to school because she won a scholarship. She saves as much as she can and sends it back to China."
"That could certainly explain why she started working for the MSS," Misaki agreed. "People will do a lot that they wouldn't normally do, if it's to take care of their family."
Xu sniffed again. "Family. Tian doesn't care about his family."
"That's not true," Misaki told her sharply.
"It is true! He left us and never came back! He must have left Xing too, or why isn't she here? He hasn't told me one true thing since I met him!"
"Maybe he hasn't told you the truth about everything," Misaki said, "but why do you think he was at the bar tonight? He followed you there, just like I did, because he wanted to keep you safe."
"You mean, he was working with you?"
Misaki hesitated, then nodded. They had been working together, hadn't they. It was a strange thought - her, teaming up with BK-201. She was starting to have trouble thinking of him as BK-201 anymore; he was just Hei. "I've only known Li for a few weeks, really, but I trust him with my life." As she said them, she realized that the words were true. "I know you can trust him, too."
"Maybe," Xu conceded, burying her face in her arms.
"Why don't you try to get some sleep?" Misaki said. "I saw a sleep aid in the first aid kit, do you think that would help?"
"Okay."
Misaki fetched the pills and a glass of water from the bathroom, then helped Xu unfold the futon and get settled. "You're safe here, alright? Li and I will be right outside." She left the bedroom, sliding the door closed softly behind her.