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A Curse Marked Fate

55: Jailbreak

No one noticed the smoke at first. It began when a ten of spades appeared on the floor just beside the wheels of Takagawa's borrowed office chair. Caught up in rearranging the second worst of the slides he'd been given, he never noticed it.

There was a tiny tear in the corner of the card. The moment it appeared, a thin stream of smoke began rising from that tear. Slowly, ever so slowly, that tear grew as its ragged, cardboard edges retreated. In fact, someone looking very closely might even have said that they dissolved.

The tear grew and expanded, becoming a small hole eaten through the card as though burned away by a very slow fire. As it grew, the smoke wafting away from it across the floor too thickened and began to rise. The pale, white smoke spread, thinning into a nearly imperceptible shadow in the air as it filled the small but well organized lab.

Still, it went unnoticed.

The lab team were busy talking and laughing over their dinners. Their job tonight was only to watch over the testing machines, make sure that they ran through all the tests then log the results. They didn't have to actually do anything themselves yet, only ensure that the tests were completed and the data stored. So they looked over every now and then to make sure that the machines were running then devoted the rest of their time to chatting about their lives and their weekend plans.

Only Takagawa kept working, clearly determined to transform the dreadful excuse of a PowerPoint presentation he had been given into a properly organized, beautifully presentable and efficient piece.

It was because of this dedication that he hadn't noticed the first wisps of smoke. But it was also because of this dedication that he was the first to finally notice its presence filling their space because the screen before him had become oddly fogged over.

His first thought, however, was that he had overused his eyes and they were tired. He kept eye drops in his office just for such occasions, but he wasn't in his office. He was working at a borrowed laboratory assistant's workstation.

Reluctant to stop in the middle of his work but feeling that the eye drops needed to be fetched, he pushed his chair back and rose. That was when he actually looked around the lab and saw that the washed out quality of his vision was not due to any ailment of his eyes but due to the presence of an actual screen of smoke.

A screen that was thickening now at a rapid pace. And it wasn't just smoke either.

He could smell something burning.

"Something's on fire!" he cried out, snagging the attention of every person in the room.

Lab workers leapt up, gawked a moment at the now extremely dense smoke clogging up their air, then dove at the still humming testing instruments.

That was when another card, a four of hearts that had been folded tightly in half, dropped unseen to the floor, where it was immediately kicked by a harried lab assistant. It shot across the room and right underneath a particularly large and fancy piece of equipment. There, it promptly exploded in a miniature fireball.

Sparks flew, and something in the instruments spluttered and snapped. The flames began licking through the cracks in the machinery, and a darker, more acrid smoke joined the white haze that was already beginning to make everyone panic.

This did not improve the panic.

X

Inside the pocket library, Kaito folded the five of hearts inside the five of spades and tossed them out their sanctuary's open door into the swirling mists beyond. The cards vanished, and, somewhere outside, something else they couldn't see smoldered then burst into flame. Then Kaito did the same with another pair of cards before glancing towards the window. The motion was more a reflex than anything else since the windows were still dark, and he didn't need to see the sparrow to hear the growing hubbub outside. The glance, however, also showed him that Shinichi was seated on the sill, sipping at another bottle of water as he checked over the handful of cards Kaito had given him. The way the younger boy's outline shimmered told Kaito that the concealment spell he had reapplied to the pair of them was working in good order.

He still hoped it wouldn't be called for. Not for Shinichi.

But if Kaito couldn't snag their library book when he got out then there'd be no choice. Shinichi had agreed to give him to the count of five before following. It was the most they felt they could safely afford.

No point worrying about it though. They'd prepared as much as they could with the resources available to them, and they simply couldn't afford to keep waiting for a better opportunity.

They were going to forge their own opportunity, and the forging started now.

They both jumped as something outside emitted a deafening crack.

"Sounds expensive," Kaito mused.

"It's certainly getting really hectic out there," Shinichi reported. "I think Takagawa-san's voice is actually moving away from us."

Kaito perked up. "That's good. It could mean he left his coat on the back of his chair or something. Lots of people do when they're indoors. It'll give me the opportunity to grab our book once I'm out. That way, you can stay hidden."

He saw the way Shinichi's face fell into a frown, but he also saw the calculations running behind those brilliant eyes, and he knew that Shinichi would see the sense in this.

"You should go then," the detective said reluctantly. "I'd say the mayhem's coming to a head. Some people out there are going to start getting organized soon. You want to get out while the chaos and confusion can still give you cover."

"Right." Kaito drew himself up, shoulders squared and face settled into a confident mask that revealed nothing.

"Stay alert. You'll know if you're needed." With that, he stepped out into the mist.

"Wait! Be careful!" Shinichi called after him, but it was too late. He was left staring at the soft, billowing swirls of pearl and lavender fog that Kaito had, for whatever reason, decided to make the visible representation of the portal out of their haven.

Sighing, Shinichi let his head fall back against the glass of the window behind him and wondered when, if ever, he would be able to find the time, place and words for the things he had realized over these past few weeks that he needed to say to Kaito.

It was a daunting prospect. One, he supposed, that had no place in their current challenge.

X

Kaito emerged from the little library to find himself crouched underneath what he assumed was the workstation desk that Takagawa had been borrowing. Before him was an empty office chair and a coat that he recognized as Takagawa's. His hand flew forward immediately to lift their pocket library from its home of the last few days. He considered stuffing the book into one of his own pockets for safekeeping, but he wanted Shinichi to be able to see as much as he could of what was going on outside as possible. So instead, Kaito held the book close as he peered out from under the desk he had fortuitously appeared beneath to study the scene unfolding in the lab.

This was when he discovered a problem. There was so much magical smoke and real smoke in the air by now that it was extremely difficult to see anything clearly. It didn't help that his eyes had immediately begun to water.

He could make out a lot of moving shapes and larger, motionless shadows that were probably either furniture or equipment.

He took a moment to cast a quick spell to protect his eyes and airways from the smoke then checked the wiring under the computer table to see if it was backed up against a wall. Confirming that yes, it was, he edged out from underneath it, keeping low to the ground to avoid as much of the smoke as he could, and started following the wall away from the center of the mayhem. Was it the way to the door? He had no idea. But he figured that it was a little like navigating a simple maze. If you kept following the wall in one direction, you would eventually find the way out.

He just hoped he found the way out before someone tripped over him. Being technically invisible didn't prevent him from being solid—and, now that he thought about it, being a moving pocket of emptiness in the smoke was only marginally better than being visible in the normal way.

On the bright side—or at least he hoped it was a bright side, the chaos he had started with his card bombs had taken on a life of its own.

"Damnit, someone cast a fire dampening spell!" someone was shouting.

"No!" another roared back just as emphatically. "If we use spells in here now, we could ruin the entire batch!"

"What the hell are you talking about? They're already ruined! Let me just—"

"No! She's right. The light's still green."

"Where's the damned fire extinguisher?!"

"Where the hell is all this smoke even coming from?"

"Someone turn up the fans!"

"I already did."

"Then why's the smoke still so thick?"

Keeping one ear on the continued ruckus, Kaito picked up his pace. He could sense a breeze and a shifting in the air as well as the quality of sound that told him he had to be near a doorway or some other kind of large opening. Just a few more steps and—

"Whoa!" a woman yelped as she crashed into nothing and nearly fell flat on her face. She caught herself by grabbing onto Kaito's shoulder.

"I'm sorry!" she blurted out. "I couldn't see where I was going. Are you all right?"

Uh oh, Kaito thought. Smoke or not, if the woman got either too worried or too suspicious and leaned just a little closer, she'd realize she was holding onto an invisible man. And even the most unimaginative person in the world couldn't possibly miss the fact that an invisible man shouldn't be here. He had to do something and fast.

Give her something she'd expect, he decided quickly.

"It's okay," he said gruffly in a perfect imitation of Takagawa's voice. "I couldn't see where I was going either."

"Oh, it's you! Sorry Daisuke. Here, let me help you up."

"That's not necessary." Rising quickly from his crouched position, Kaito gently but firmly brushed the woman's supporting hands off. "Go help the others. I'm going to go look for that fire extinguisher."

On cue, one of the other disembodied voices cried out, "Daisuke! Did you find that fire extinguisher?"

Takagawa Daisuke grunted from where he was yanking said device from its box and called back, "I got it!" from entirely the wrong side of the room.

The woman who'd bumped into Kaito stopped in mid step. "Wait, huh? But Daisuke was right here…?" She turned and waved a hand through the smoke where she could have sworn the man had been just moments ago but felt nothing but a shifting of the air currents because Kaito had already taken his cue and legged it.

The woman he'd left behind would puzzle about the odd encounter for a few seconds, but she would eventually dismiss it as a trick of the perception. Takagawa had obviously just been moving fast, and she had simply misjudged their exact positions. He'd said he was going to look for the fire extinguisher, and then he'd found it. Did it really matter how he had managed to do so by getting all the way across the lab in such a short time when no one could see where they were going?

X

"Now that was close," Kaito muttered under his breath as he darted down the corridor he had found himself in. He knew he was grinning—which probably wasn't terribly appropriate, but he couldn't seem to stop.

That had been close, but it had also been fun. Kaito wasn't ashamed to admit that he had always enjoyed sneaking around. He delighted in slipping unnoticed in and out of places where he wasn't supposed to be. And okay, he knew that that probably wasn't a very appropriate hobby, but he reasoned that he had no intentions of doing anything nefarious or sharing anyone's secrets. Quite the opposite really. He was good at keeping secrets (because he liked knowing things that other people didn't—especially things people didn't want him to know).

But that was neither here nor there.

If he had been on his own, he might have chosen then to take advantage of the situation and poke around some more. After all, this had to be the top secret underground portion of Choice Foundation HQ. Who knew what juicy secrets he could unearth now that he had ditched the one pair of eyes in Tokyo that could see through his self-developed cloaking spell (okay, yes, he didn't actually know for certain that there were no others, but you get the point).

He wasn't alone though, and that made all the difference.

Shinichi was running out of time.

That sobering thought wiped the grin from his face as indigo eyes hardened with renewed focus.

First thing's first. He had to figure out where the hell they were. Ai had given them the floor plans, but those plans wouldn't be much use until he knew where on that map he placed.

Well, he supposed that meant he'd be doing some of that poking around after all. Now, where to start?

TBC