Check 51: Some things don't need to be shared

Daisuke Kambe was not happy. In fact, to say he was unhappy might be an understatement. Right in the middle of taking care of corporate business, Katou had called, asking that he come down to the precinct to clear up a few matters on the police report. Well, it was better that he call, instead of the current acting First Division director. The two didn't exactly see eye to eye.

Dressed more formally in his suit coat and tie, Daisuke adjusted his cuff links as he made his way to his car. He'd hoped to spend a relatively quiet afternoon over paperwork. Apparently the MPD had other ideas. He just hoped it wasn't some wild goose chase. Hoshino was a good egg, most of the time, but he did occasionally get a bit too caught up in protocol for his tastes.

Not bothering to let anyone else in the mansion know where he was going, he drove away from the grounds and into Tokyo traffic. He tapped impatiently on the steering wheel at every stop light until he made it to the multi-story building. Once there, he made his way to the elevator and the floor housing the First Division offices.

Before Daisuke could enter the main office area, with its many cubicles, he saw Katou motioning him over to a conference room just down the hall. He made his way over, looking less than pleased. "What's the problem?" he asked without preamble. Katou had refused to give any details over the phone.

Motioning him into the conference room, Katou looked just about as happy as his partner did. "Apparently they want more information," he began. "Some people aren't quite buying the gun misfiring and think there's more to it."

Of course they did, Daisuke sighed as he noticed Hoshino at the far end of the room with another man. He wasn't sure who it was off the top of his head, not immediately seeing his face. And then he recognized the profile of the acting chief of the First Division. He released yet another sigh. This was going to be fun.

"Gentleman," he greeted, bowing formally. He couldn't immediately remember the man's name and so used his title in greeting. "I understand you have some questions." Quietly, he instructed HEUSC to contact the appropriate people to put a stop to this nonsense. Getting to the meat of the matter was all well and good, but he needed to protect his family interests. It was time to put this new division chief in his place.

…..

The movie marathon lasted well into the evening, with both Suzue and Cass losing track of time. Since Cass had yet to procure a new cell phone, she didn't have to remind her, though she did have her watch, something she'd neglected to wear during most of their trip. And Suzue had become so engrossed in the films that she hadn't really paid attention.

As the end credits to their current film began to roll, Suzue almost jolted at the sudden awakening of her two-way link with HEUSC and Daisuke. She put one hand to her ear as she listened. "Understood. I'll see to it."

When Cass looked over, she gave a grim smile. "Master Daisuke asked that I make sure everyone has dinner without him. Apparently he's gotten stuck at the precinct and will be home as soon as he can, but isn't sure when that will be."

Cass couldn't help but raise an eyebrow at that, wondering when he'd ended up leaving. Well, chances were good it was police business. Though it might not involve recent events, she couldn't negate the possibility either. "I hope everything's okay," she said aloud.

Looking a bit worried, Suzue agreed. "He did sound rather put out," she admitted. "I'm not sure if he was being reprimanded for investigating behind the First Division's backs or for something else, but I got the impression he wasn't happy with whatever it is."

Now looking thoughtful, Cass couldn't help but contemplate the possibilities. "I hope he didn't get in trouble on our account."

"I'm sure it's just a formality," Suzue said, though it sounded more like she was trying to convince herself. "He should be fine. The Kambes have more than enough pull if things get to that point."

Cass got up from her position on one of several comfortable couches. "Well, if dinner is coming up, it might not be a bad idea to check in on Hiro to make sure he didn't fall asleep in the tub."

Suzue nodded. "While you're doing that, I'll ask the kitchen to prepare something if they haven't started already. Any requests?"

"I'm sure whatever is fine," Cass said with a wave of her hand as she made her way towards the door. "We're not too picky."

The Kambe woman nodded, though she knew Cass couldn't see it. As soon as Cass left, she got back on the link with Daisuke, trying to figure out what to do next.

….

Hiro had dozed off in the tub, though not for long. Baymax had woken him before he had the chance to drown himself. And, once all was said and done, he'd dried off quickly, gotten dressed in clean clothes, and then promptly dozed off on the bed. His experiment on the grounds had taken a bit out of him and he needed the time to recover.

A light knock on the door woke him and he got up, a bit groggy, as Aunt Cass entered the room. "Hey, Aunt Cass," he greeted as he rubbed his eyes. "Something up?"

Moving into the room, Cass took a seat next to him on the mattress. "Dinner will likely be ready soon," she responded. "Though I think something might have happened with Daisuke at the precinct. Apparently he was called in for some reason."

Hiro gave a decided nod, like he understood the situation far better than she did. "I see," he said, sounding a lot like his older cousin. "I'm willing to bet it's because the higher ups weren't happy with the report, or with everyone doing things on their own, though I'm not sure what they expected. It's not like the temptation to do something wouldn't be strong coming from where it did."

Cass swung her feet as she contemplated that. "You're probably right. If Hoshino and Katou didn't omit certain things from the report, or word them the right way, I'm sure people asked questions. But I sure wish they'd leave us all out of the lime light. The last time that happened didn't end well. It's not like we can call on Jack to smooth things over."

"Yeah," Hiro agreed. "I doubt he works in Japan, though I could be wrong." He looked thoughtful as he gave Baymax a glance. "Not gonna lie. It's kinda tempting to hack in and see what all the fuss is about." He couldn't help but recall Daisuke's warning about purposely doing anything else with his abilities while on the grounds. One never knew who might be watching. He could only hope that wasn't part of the issue.

It wasn't like he could control it most of the time. He did try. But, with people who didn't understand how things worked, one never knew what had slipped into the report. He'd definitely have to send Jack an email though, just to be safe. In fact, he figured the sooner he did that the better and quickly pulled out his phone, speed-typing out a message he then sent to the encrypted email address Jack had given him.

"If Loki was here, he could just wipe a few memories or something," Cass mused, though she wasn't sure if that was really a possibility or not.

Hiro gave a careless shrug as his phone chimed with a notification. He quickly glanced at it, nodding in acknowledgement to the reply email he'd gotten. Jack was sometimes a man of few words, but he knew he'd take of things. "Did Suzue say when dinner would be ready?" he wondered out loud, hoping to distract his aunt from any further thoughts on that matter.

Now put to the notion, Cass had to admit she wasn't sure. "I think she was checking with the kitchen to see if they'd started preparing something or not, but we could always find her and check."

"How about it, buddy?" Hiro asked, looking over at Baymax. "What does your sensor tell you?"

Baymax re-positioned himself to face towards the inner wall. "I am detecting a large amount of activity in the kitchen area," he reported. "I believe it reasonable to say a meal is being prepared."

Cass gave him a look. "Using Baymax in new ways, I see," she commented. "You know that's not what he's built for."

The teen shrugged. "Next best thing to tracking Suzue down and asking her, or invading the kitchen to find out. Chances are good, as Baymax said, they're working on something. We can either wait to be called or make our way down. Up to you."

Now laughing, Cass resisted the urge to give Hiro a one sided hug, complete with knuckled fist rubbing against his skull. It was a childish temptation, though she did give him the side hug. "Might as well go down," she said with a smile. "Worse to worse, we get there early."

"Sounds good," Hiro agreed as they made their way to the door, Baymax behind them.

…..

When Daisuke finally returned home, he didn't expect anyone to be awake, let alone in places he usually had to himself after hours. The moment he'd returned home, he'd headed directly to the control room with its giant super computer. There, he hoped to quickly catch up on anything he'd missed with the Kambe Conglomerate. What he found was Hiro chilling in the swivel chair, with Baymax standing nearby.

"Shouldn't you be in bed?' Daisuke asked with disapproval. Surely Cass wouldn't be happy to hear the teen hadn't gone to bed at a reasonable hour.

Hearing the master of the house enter the room, Hiro swiveled around and gave him a non-committal stare. "Thanks to my impromptu nap earlier, I don't really feel that tired. So I figured I'd wait up for you. That and I needed to fit Baymax's new electromagnets."

Daisuke frowned as he removed black gloves and shoved them into his pants pocket. If it weren't for the remaining corporate items to take care of, he'd have headed directly for his room. He had no idea how Hiro had figured out he'd come downstairs instead. Then again, this was Hiro he was thinking about. "How very thoughtful of you." His tone, however, didn't reflect the sentiment of his words.

The teen stood, offering up the chair. "I hope work wasn't too hard on you," he continued. "I know how testy police officers can get, especially higher ups." He gave a knowing look that was followed by a quick flash of chagrin, before it turned to sincere concern.

Behind them, Baymax waddled closer, taking in the entire scenario. "Scans indicate you are tired," he observed as he focused in on Daisuke.

"You scanned me?" Chances were good Baymax had done so on a regular basis and Daisuke just hadn't noticed, but he was too tired to have any filter.

The robot tilted his head to one side. "I have been programmed to scan every individual I come in contact with," he answered.

Hiro laughed. "It's kind of his thing. He's always scanning everyone, making sure they're all good. You can ask him to stop, if you want."

Daisuke contemplated that for a moment. Having someone, something, constantly keeping an eye on one's health wasn't necessarily a bad thing, especially if you needed it. He didn't need it. But at least the robot had kept most of his findings to himself. In a way, it wasn't that different from HEUSC keeping a constant eye on things. He released a sigh. "It's fine. Just don't go sharing that information with anyone else."

"I will not," the robot promised.

Feeling a bit more deflated, Daisuke allowed himself to fall back into the chair, one hand to his face as he pinched the bridge of his nose. "They wanted to know more about you and your involvement," he admitted to the teen.

Hiro folded his arms as he watched his older cousin. "Figured as much. So what happened?"

Was it just him or did Hiro sound a bit too interested? Daisuke sat up; scrutinizing him before deciding it was a trick of his imagination. "After going the round for several hours, the Chief Superintendent showed up with the essential equivalent of gag order. Apparently someone deemed any involvement you may have had with recent events as classifiable under the strictest of secrecies available." He pressed his lips together as he contemplated that, wondering how word had gotten that far up the food chain.

Hoshino's reaction to that had certainly been amusing. Though, to be fair, the looks of surprise all around had been entertaining to say the least. He'd especially enjoyed the Division One Chief's reactions. Hiro might have had a hand in it all, though he had no idea how. But to hear that one of those unnamed government agencies so top secret they had no designation had decided to step in and quash any further investigation to Hiro or his involvement certainly made for an interesting situation. Was this a result of Hiro's no longer quite human status?

It was possible, he supposed, that the teen's name had shot off red flags all over the place, especially as it was mentioned more and more in the police databases. Hiro might have had nothing to do with its reaching so high up they'd literally told the whole of the Japanese government to put a lid on it. Well, it was a moot point, but it certainly raised his estimation of Hiro's involvement in various events previously hinted at or partially explained.

"Hmm," Hiro said, looking smug. "You don't say."

Of course he had had something to do with it, Daisuke decided, seeing that expression on the teen's face. He had to have. That or someone had mentioned it to him. He had no idea which. "Unfortunately, I still had to add my statements in to the final reports, which took longer than expected." Why was he telling him this? He wasn't sure, other than he just felt like it was warranted.

"What about Aunt Cass's incident when she was younger?" Hiro wondered. Technically speaking, the police reports had said it was related to a random spree of crime. The teen's jaunts into her memory said it was more of an accident of sorts they'd decided to try and cover up for some reason. The real crime, he supposed, was what she might have seen and why they felt a need to cover it up.

Daisuke released his breath in one, long, slow exhalation. "Circumstantial evidence being what it is, there's no way we can pin the incident on anyone," he admitted. "From all outwards appearances, based solely on what you conveyed, it was an unfortunate accident. The only thing Aneko Kimura did was chase her. She didn't technically cause the incident. And she even brought our aunt to the hospital after the fact."

It was reassuring that Daisuke had seen the same thing he had. And he wasn't wrong about how things looked either. "So I guess it's a case of leaving things the way they are for now," Hiro hazarded, "with the random attacks on the police report that is.

"Unfortunately, there's no evidence of any other crime," Daisuke agreed. "If she could remember what she'd seen in that room, and it could be proven, that might change things. But, as they stand, it's best to leave it as is, unless you want your name dragged even further into things. After the gag order, it's probably wiser to leave it alone for now, at least as far as the police are concerned. I will, of course, keep digging on my own."

Hiro nodded. It was good to know that it didn't quite sit right with him either, and that he was going to keep going down this rabbit hole as well. The more he thought about it, the more he couldn't help but wonder just what connection the Hamadas had with the Kambes, outside of marriage. "Guess that means all our hard work scanning things was for nothing."

Lips pressed together, Daisuke's expression was sour. "I asked my division chief if he could have the others in my department look into possible connections for the other victims of the so called student attacker, but outside of that, it would seem so."

"So I guess you just want to finish up here and then head to bed," Hiro guessed.

He sounded way too awake, Daisuke thought. Though, he supposed he wasn't entirely surprised, all things considered.

Hiro made a show of looking around. "No Katou tonight?"

"No," Daisuke replied. "We both thought it best he sleep in his own bed tonight." That and Katou had decided he didn't want to overstay his welcome, even though that wasn't the case. Chances were good he was just ready to sleep in his own bed, just like Hoshino had been. And with his ribs on the mend, that would be easier now than it would have been a few days ago.

The teen looked like he was debating things for a moment before making a decision. "I'm going to bed, though I did want to tell you Aunt Cass wanted to have a word sometime in the not too distant future. I gathered she wanted to talk to you in private." He shrugged, having no idea what she was up to. Despite teasing, she had refused to indulge his curiosity. "Pretty sure she's also gone to bed, though, so you'll want to wait until morning."

"What Hiro said is correct," Baymax confirmed. "Aunt Cass has indeed gone to bed."

Not waiting to see if Daisuke would respond to that, or how he'd respond, Hiro headed towards the elevator with a backward wave. "Anyway, good night!" He walked into the empty elevator, faithful companion behind him, leaving Daisuke to wonder just what their mutual aunt wanted to talk to him about.