"Give me one good reason why I shouldn't just take you in right now," Clover Field said to the man in front of her, the muzzle of her handgun buried in the messy white of his hair. "Why shouldn't I throw you in the slammer like you deserve?"

A strained chuckle came from Aoi Kurashiki as he held his hands out to either side. "Is this any way to greet an old friend?"

Clover tilted the gun slightly, savouring the grind against the back of Aoi's head. "Nine…" she hissed. "Eight. Seven…"

"Jeez!" Aoi exclaimed. "I'll tell you why we called you out here. Calm the fuck down, already."

Certainly, the dingy back alley the two of them were in was a good location for a clandestine meeting, which was probably why the mysterious note calling her out here had specified it as her destination. It was equally an excellent location for an ambush, which was why Light was sitting two blocks away in a van filled with reinforcements, waiting for the merest thought of alarm from her. And why Clover had undertaken to get the upper hand on whoever came to meet her, by every trick and method her SOIS training had instilled in her.

That strategy had led her here, sidearm planted satisfyingly in the back of the man who had kidnapped her and her brother only so many months ago. Still, Clover knew a single arrest wasn't the objective of this little operation. She gritted her teeth, and said, "Go on. Tell me."

"My sister and I were looking for a team-up. Join forces. Crash Keys and SOIS, having a nice little house party together."

Clover could just imagine his smirk, even looking from the wrong side of him to see his face. "Why would we want to do that? What have we got to gain from teaming up with you?"

Aoi scoffed. "I'd have thought you'd already have a good guess on that. You gonna make me say it?" He shrugged, and Clover by well-ingrained instinct shifted her attention to his hands, making sure this wasn't the start of him trying something. "Guess you are. Akane's got some idea about the struggles you chumps are having with that so-called 'mind virus'. And whatever you're telling the average joes, we both know it's morphogenetic in origin. You guys and us are the only fuckers who know anything about this, so we're the only ones with any chance of dealing with it. Admit it. You need our help."

"It's not just that," Clover snapped. "You've got some other angle on this. Haven't you?!" The two Kurashiki siblings had kept up their façades for nine hours back then, impeccably. Clover was never gonna take anything either of them said at face value, ever again. "I just bet it's some scheme to get one over us, while we're busy trying to solve the real problems."

"I'm not gonna try lying to you," Aoi replied. "Of course we've got some agenda. Who the fuck hasn't?"

"Then tell me! Tell me, or any deal's off the table."

Aoi Kurashiki grunted. "I can't tell you just whatever… I'm not hiding anything that'll be a problem to SOIS. Fucking god, Clover, I swear I'm not!"

"Then prove it! What are you hiding?"

"You think you can just do whatever you want, 'cause you're with the government," Aoi spat. His tone was as cocky as always, but something about him was almost… desperate. Clover was about to press him further when he suddenly spoke again. "A hostage."

Clover squinted her eyes. "Huh? A hostage?"

"Yeah. Against Crash Keys' good intentions." Aoi's shoulders relaxed and slumped as he let out one final half-laugh. "I guess you're gonna get to throw me in the slammer after all."

o-0-o

Back at SOIS HQ they'd set up a meeting room so that Alice's squad of espers could prepare the next stage, as they moved on from just managing one crisis after another to actually being able to get ahead this thing. A meeting room specifically chosen so that Aoi Kurashiki could be handcuffed to the table.

"You really think this is necessary?" he complained, testing the range of motion the restraints gave him.

"Perhaps not," Light said as he sat down on the opposite side. "Nevertheless, it cannot be denied that it is a reassuring precaution. Perhaps you could take a moment or two to reflect on why this has happened."

Aoi scowled. Then he turned with a plaintive expression towards Alice, who'd taken position at the head of the table.

"I wouldn't have gotten to where I am today if I hadn't learned to trust my subordinates' judgement," she said to him.

As Aoi sulked and sank, defeated, into his seat, Clover opened up her laptop. "Here's what we've got!" she exclaimed, plugging in the flash drive Aoi had brought along to the rendezvous. The maps it contained were projected onto screens around the room, to which Clover added streams of camera footage from her own investigations. "It really does look like this is the place all those people are going. See? There's that group from New Mexico we lost track of, going into the big building."

"Very good. That's impeccable proof that this is where we need to go," Alice replied. She glanced at Aoi. "How come your people knew about this place?"

"What can I say?" Aoi said with a languid gesture. "It wasn't any great feat of detective work. These people just happened to use one of the same construction supply companies we did, back when we were retrofitting Building Q. We noticed people were purchasing the same sort of stuff, put three and six together, and got a great big screaming 'look here' sign."

"Hey!" Ennea interjected, tapping the side of her head. "Is it, like, just a coincidence they used the same company?"

"Heh. No," Aoi replied. He didn't volunteer anything more.

"Now we have a target location," Alice said, "we'll need to infiltrate. Find out what's in there, what's causing the morphogenetic mind virus and, if possible, what we can do to cut it off for good."

"What's the plan?" Light asked.

"This one won't be a direct assault. Until we know what's inside, we can't take the risk that some of them will escape and set up shop again somewhere else. Looks like a quiet infiltration's on the cards."

Aoi took that moment to interrupt. "And you'd better not step on Crash Keys' toes while you're at it. That's half of why I'm here."

Actually, the whole of why he was here was that Clover had hog-tied him and dragged him back to base. Clover let a scornful smirk in Aoi's direction be her only acknowledgement of that fact.

"We'd be doing this anyway," Aoi continued, "even if you chose not to co-operate with us. It's too important to our organisation's goals. Having your guys along for the ride is good, but mostly I just wanted to make sure you didn't stumble into us halfway through and fuck this up."

Alice sighed and rubbed her forehead with her fingers. "Yes. It looks like agents of Crash Keys will be engaging alongside you when you enter the building. Respect their expertise, but do not place your complete trust in them. I'm sure you understand why."

"Do you have to talk about us like I'm not sitting right here?" Aoi said.

Into the silence that followed Nona hesitantly, shakily, raised her hand. "Alice… you said… when we enter the building. Us newbies?"

"Yes," Alice said with finality. "It'll be your first major mission. You'll be supported by more experienced agents, sure. But, given the nature of what we're looking for, you'll need to be on the front lines. It might be that you're the only ones who'll be able to recognise the morphogenetic cause."

At Alice's pronouncement, a deathly pallor descended on the other espers in the briefing room. Nona, lips almost white with how much she was pursing them, wrapped her arms round her sister's elbow; Ennea, in turn, leaned into it. For Light… well, no one else would have been able to tell that his demeanour had changed. But Clover knew her brother well enough to see his uncertainty. Who knew how it would have been if they weren't all trying to keep brave faces in front of this outsider among their midst.

Clover gritted her teeth. She slammed her palms down on the table, half-standing up in the process from sheer momentum. "We can do this!" she hollered. "We'll kick their asses."

"That's right, Clover," Alice said, her smile warm and proud. "I wouldn't have recommended you all for this mission if I thought there was any risk to my impeccable reputation. This is what all the training was for. We do our best here, and we can put the convulsions of the last few weeks behind us." She pressed a button, bringing up a schematic of the building on the screens. "Now, the plan is…"