"They were last seen… entering that shopping mall north of Tokyo. Agawa Hajime... he was flagged by a scanner two hours ago," Karanomori said.
Low but audible rhythmic synthpop music echoed throughout the building. People wandered the long corridors, browsing clothing stores or sitting down to eat at restaurants that had tables scattered throughout the place. The sound of shoes and heels clacking against the gleaming white floor was constant. Small, circular cleaning drones whizzed slowly by, keeping the floor clean. Many screens hung on the walls displaying various advertisements.
"This place is huge!" a young man chewed on a chip, clenching the snack packet in his fist.
Wearing a black jacket with rolled-up sleeves, black shirt, red tie and black pants with two white belts, Kagari tossed it into a nearby dumpster and turned around, placing his hands on the back of his neck, over his orange hair, to stretch them out as he gazed at the oval architecture of the building. The ceiling was gridded and the colors alternated between white, pink, orange, purple and even blue, without obfuscating the audience. It was late afternoon, but since the day was cloudy it looked like night outside, and it managed to further exhibit the colors inside the building.
"We can't let people with those hues on the loose. Shion, we need drones blocking all exits from the building," spoke Kougami.
Yashiro turned to the enforcer, who was using his wristcom to check the profiles of the suspects. She was beside him, studying them as well. An image of Agawa Hajime being flagged by a scanner appeared on the hologram above his wrist. His crime coefficient was 277.
"I'm on it," Karanomori responded.
"We should split up," Katashi instructed them, lifting his chin for a second.
When Kougami turned off the hologram and turned to the others, Yashiro raised an eyebrow for a few seconds and frowned. In the center of the hall, several meters away from them, a young woman shorter than her, with brown hair, had her head raised towards a screen on the upper floor, which was showing an advertisement with a blue logo that resembled a brain as seen from above. Yashiro did not hear what they were saying, as her feet reacted automatically and she walked up to stand behind her. She was wearing the blue CID jacket over a white shirt, a thigh-length skirt and brown loafers. For a few seconds she watched her, then looked up at the screen.
"As blue is generally associated with trust, it's often used in logos to influence the emotions of the public, especially when it comes to attracting customers. Do you think it suits the design of the Sibyl System?"
Tsunemori Akane blinked and turned around, her brown eyes quite wide and her lips parted for a few moments. However, she lowered her face, staring at the ground with narrowed eyes. The short, loud sound of a gunshot shook both them and the people around. Yashiro automatically leaned forward and brought her hand to where she held the dominator, looking around. Akane turned around with her eyes wide open. Yashiro looked up to the upper floors, and saw a huge crystal hanging chandelier on the ceiling of the building, moving with a high-pitched sound of glass hitting glass, until it disengaged from the ceiling, separating itself from its hologram, which had begun to tinkle irregularly.
Her eyes widened and she took a few quick steps towards Akane, pulling her forearm tightly and pushing her away a few meters, just before it fell on the floor where they were, shattering into pieces and scattering shards of glass around, with a thunderous sound that made people scream and Tsunemori stagger, almost falling to her knees from the trembling they felt under their feet. When she turned around, her mouth dropped open to see a young man several meters away, lying on the ground with his head bleeding, and a woman kneeling in front of him. Tsunemori ran to them to help them up, but when she turned around again, Yashiro pulled out her dominator and held it in both hands, pointing it towards the upper floors and walking past them.
Dominator Portable Psychological Diagnosis and Suppression System has been activated. User authentication: Inspector Takahashi Yashiro. Affiliation: Public Safety Bureau. Dominator usage approval confirmed. You are a valid user.
"You should go back with the others," Yashiro turned her head towards the other inspector, without looking at her.
It was not an order, but the tone of voice was distant, dry, like that of a soldier. A figure moving on the floor above caused her to start running towards one of the long, wide white escalators, pushing her way between a couple, and gripping the dominator with one hand for flexibility.
"No, wait!" Tsunemori's voice echoed.
Her heart rate increased as her footsteps echoed through the wide hall, merging with the soft ambient music, and the murmurs of people approaching without stepping on the pieces of glass that had scattered all over the floor, surrounding Tsunemori, who lost sight of her in the crowd. Yashiro held on to the railing of the escalator to keep from slipping, and at that moment a couple of gunshots ruffled her skin, making her duck instantly.
Yashiro looked over the railing, but clicked her tongue when the hologram advertising a drug got in her line of sight. Seconds later, as she scrolled upward, she saw the enforcers running half crouched, taking cover with columns. Two men emerged from the end of a corridor with pistols, and were approaching Tsunemori, but Katashi ran up to her, pointing his dominator in their direction.
Hiding behind an artificial fountain, Daiki lowered his dominator as he saw people around him running and screaming, getting in his line of sight and causing his weapon to transform, alternating between lethal and paralyzing mode. He saw a trail of blood on the white, almost transparent ground, and as he followed it he saw a man staggering up, a shard of glass stuck in his arm.
Yashiro continued to climb half crouched, until the smooth movement of the escalator itself carried her up to the next floor. Her gun shot through the air as a short brown-haired man ran towards her down the adjacent hallway, grabbing her forearm and shoving her. Yashiro barely noticed his black jacket, as her body tensed and she raised her trembling hands in front of her, gasping and recoiling, as she saw another man with a blue coat and black hair out of the corner of her eye.
When they lunged, Yashiro dodged their punches, hitting one in the knee with her fist and doing a quick spin, ducking and evading a kick that was aimed at her face. She landed one in the chest on the other who approached, causing him to stagger backwards. When the first one came back, Yashiro grabbed his forearm and drove her knee into his chest, knocking him to the ground, and turning to dodge a punch and hit his partner in the stomach. The other got up, kicking her back, but she stopped his leg by catching it with her own, and threw him to the ground again, causing him to let out a low groan of pain. She heard footsteps as the other man slid towards her, to punch her in the face and kick her. Yashiro grabbed his leg and chest in time, and threw him to the side using his strength and weight.
At that moment a taller figure with black hair and a black suit crossed the hallway, and Yashiro got to see an expression of genuine surprise. No one was used to having to fight people who had the will to kill, and despite his training, one of the men managed to take out his dominator with a sharp jab to his forearm, and a kick to the chest just as the weapon began to glow by switching to eliminator mode. Kougami clicked his tongue and frowned, backing up a few steps, but he raised his fists quickly and struck back just as hard.
When the man tried to punch her in the face with his fist, Yashiro slipped behind him and kicked him in the back of the leg, causing one of his knees to fall to the ground. She wrapped an arm around his neck, but he grabbed her back and yanked her in front of him. A slight grunt of pain escaped her lips as she felt the hard floor hit her back and head, but she avoided a punch with her forearms and grabbed his neck, turning him to the side and managing to get up, to knee him in the face and then elbow him in the back.
Several meters away from her, Kougami was dodging a few blows until he grabbed the man's wrist, punching him in the stomach, and grabbing him by the back of the neck to drive his knee into his chest. When the latter stood up gasping and tried to punch him in the face, Kougami slid to the side and grabbed him by the neck, slamming him against a column with the weight of both of them, then spun around jumping backwards, to throw him against another wall and drop him. The blow delivered directly to the back of his neck and head left him sprawled unconscious on the floor. Kougami staggered, falling to his knees on his hands with a cold sweat on his forehead.
Yashiro gave a kick, but the other stopped her leg with his forearm next to his face and kicked back. She grabbed his ankle and spun around, turning him and leaving him on his knees and back, facing her. When he tried to elbow her, Yashiro got up and slid down beside him, grabbing him by the hair and driving her knee into his nose. The man fell backwards with a groan of pain, and touched his bleeding nose for several seconds, rolling over on the ground, until he got up again, staggering.
Yashiro was standing with bated breath, but did not react in time when he ran crouching towards her, wrapping one arm around her waist and hitting her with the other. She grunted as she felt his fist on the side of her abdomen, and began to hit his back with her elbow as he pushed her into a column. When she kneed him in the chest, she managed to break away. Out of the corner of her eye, she caught a glimpse of the silhouette of a man running towards her, and with her hands still stretched out in front, Yashiro quickly bent down and kicked him in the middle of his chest, throwing him backwards.
Then she raised a knee to kick his face, forcing him to protect himself with his forearms, but suddenly lunged towards him, hitting him in the chest with her fists, making him lose his balance, and slid backwards to kick him in the stomach, which made him cough and violently hit the glass railing, shattering it into pieces with loud sharp sounds of glass crashing together.
Crime coefficient is 342. Enforcement mode is Lethal Eliminator. Please aim carefully and eliminate the target.
Kougami's narrowed gray eyes merged into a light blue after pieces on the underside of the dominator spun, slid and rotated in seconds, and as he pulled the trigger, the weapon fired a concentrated blast of blue energy that impacted against the man's chest, swelling rapidly before exploding and spilling traces of blood around it, staining the white floor. For a few seconds, the sight in front of them seemed surreal, and it took her a while to grab her own dominator, which Kougami was handing back to her. They both approached the railing that had been broken and looked down. Then Kougami turned and walked over to the man he had knocked unconscious several feet away from them, pulling handcuffs from inside his black suit.
A few floors up, in an expensive and modern coffee shop, the gunshots made people get up from their seats and approach the glass railing, taking out their cell phones to record what was happening, uploading it directly to the internet. There was one man who remained seated in a black armchair next to the railing, one leg over the other, dipping a madeleine into his tea before eating it and leaning back, elbows on the armrests, in one smooth motion. He had a beige three-piece suit with a tie and dark brown dress shoes. His golden eyes watched the figures scurry about on the second floor. It was a curious look, kindly indifferent.
"Here says that the PSB is killing civilians," a young man read from his cell phone, showing the screen to a group of people his age.
On the second floor, a young woman running suddenly turned around, colliding with a man, as her young son's hand let go of hers among other people pushing to get out, and Makishima's eyebrows rose for a second as he saw a blue blast impact against her arm, lighting up the hall and spreading an expansive wave across her body, until it exploded and drenched the floor and the people around her with blood.
"If you wanted to surprise me you've done it brilliantly, Choe," he waved his shoe gently in the air. "As you always do."
Choe Gu-sung was in the parking lot, sitting in a black car with a laptop on his thighs and an earpiece. His yellow and red eyes glowed in the dark, slightly open, and his body was only illuminated by the glow of the screen, revealing a black jacket. Tabs on it showed what was happening inside the building. For an instant, people stopped, looking at the remains of what had been a human being, and a woman screamed, causing everyone to run harder than before, jostling each other like beasts. Makishima narrowed his eyes and tilted his head, looking for the child who had been separated from his mother. He wondered if he had hidden, or had ended up being crushed by the people desperately searching for the exit.
"Why?" Choe Gu-sung replied in a much deeper voice.
Makishima stopped the movement of his foot, and looked at the empty teacup on the black-rimmed, circular, glass table in front of him.
"Aren't you the one manipulating the media?" he brushed aside a lock of white hair and placed the small black earpiece.
"Not this time. Anyway, I don't think it would be… appropriate to help someone we betrayed."
Makishima frowned and turned his head, peering over the glass railing. On the other side, a tall man with short black hair, surveyed the second floor with his forearms resting on the railing. He was dressed in black, with an open blazer, a shirt and a half-untucked tie over it, in a calm, nonchalant posture like his own. When their gazes met, the man pulled away from the railing, stretching his shoulders, and continued walking down the hallway.
"To speak of betrayal there must be trust. The only people who can betray us are those we trust," Makishima thought aloud, and heard Choe sigh. "Do you know how to turn an enemy into a friend?"
"Creating a problem for them and then solving it," Choe pointed out instantly.
Makishima laughed with his mouth closed, and smirked for a moment. It was a quiet, guttural sound.
"Most likely, yes."
"It's a good way of making money."
"And gain power and influence. After we're done here, I'd like you to gather all information you can find on the Chiyoda bombing."
Suddenly, Makishima's smile faded as he got up and stood in front of the railing, looking down one floor below, to which the man had descended and a PSB member was making his way with rapid strides, after nimbly taking down another who stood in his way with a firearm. There was a long, wide, roofed walkway linking the two corridors, to which they were both heading. Makishima rested his hands on the railing and frowned, as they both entered that walkway from opposite corners, and huge advertising holograms on either side blocked his line of sight.
"Something's not right. Can't see them," he shook his head.
"Got eyes on them now," stated Choe.
"I need to hear what they're saying."
"If we're not careful, they'll know something's off with the security system. It's dangerous," Choe paused. "I like it. Already working on it. Might take a minute."
"I'm going to get a little closer. Stay on task."
Makishima exited the cafeteria area, passing through the group of people who had huddled against the railings. The thought of seeing them fall crossed his mind for a millisecond, but he continued on his way to the end of the long hallway with a leisurely gait, looking for stairs.
"Got access," informed Choe.
"You like games? There's one I particularly like. It's called Go. Ever played it? Most modern civilizations believe that chess is the ultimate strategy game. Chess has 20 opening moves, whereas Go has 361. And I've played them all. You're thinking about your next move, aren't you? Your enforcer there... trying to take out men and corner me. Alas he won't get far, because he's pretty busy right now, isn't he? Every angle you've contemplated, every move you're considering... forget it. I've had my eye on you for years, especially since you joined the bureau. Fixating on unsolved cases. How unfair they are. I brought you here because I knew you were someone I needed to recruit."
"I'm not like you."
Makishima's eyes flashed for a second, and he turned his face towards the hologram of a huge pink fish, pausing at the sound of that slightly deep, cold and determined voice.
"You know this isn't about killing serial killers and righting wrongs. And thanks to you, now that Miyake is dead, we might be just one step closer. I'm going to make you famous, Yashiro."
For an instant, Makishima thought he was no longer able to hear the conversation.
"All you've done is confess to murder," she finally spoke.
"I've revealed myself to you. Just like you revealed yourself to me. And maybe even to yourself. What is it going to be then? Oh…! Thank you, Yashiro. You've played quite remarkably."
Yashiro's long brown hair fell down her back and chest. Her gray eyes narrowed, melting into an almost pale blue, similar to those of the man standing in the middle of the hallway, and at whom she pointed her dominator, holding it with both hands in an upright, relaxed stance. She frowned and looked at the top of the gun. She had the impression that it took too many seconds to synchronize with the Sibyl System, until data began to unfold in front of her, merging with reality. Her eyes widened slowly, as the female, mechanical voice echoed in her head. Agawa did not flinch.
Crime coefficient is 86. Not a target for enforcement action. The trigger will be locked.