[Daffodil Like Yourself] Chapter 4
Aug. 4th, 2019 04:18 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
morphogenesisChapter 4
A week passed and the only discernible change was in Clover’s level of frustration. When she couldn’t take it one more day of reviewing Crash Keys’ research about the situation or pacing the streets aimlessly with Seven (she refused to be in a car with Akane) Clover slipped away from them shortly after sunrise, determined to find Light by herself or else recruit Alice who would definitely help her.
If Alice took Clover leaving SOIS personally she didn’t let it affect their friendship, although due to the nature of her job she’d been distant by necessity. Clover sent her a lot of messaging app stickers, selfies, and fashion shoots that went unanswered for two weeks or more, but Alice trusted her enough to send her the hard drives and other materials Alice had been quietly gathering about a clandestine SOIS operation. In her letter she told Clover not to look at them and that ignorance was safest, but she didn’t know who else to trust with their contents. She missed Clover and she’d talk to her soon, she’d written.
Clover repaid her by losing it all in the burglary, which after talking with Seven she realized wasn’t a random criminal act but a planned incursion. Clover wished her life was boring like her coworkers’ at the bar.
Clover’s plan to find Light on her own fell apart at the Camden Yards Light Rail stop. While she sat on a bench behind the rail separating the concrete from the tracks, she realized she didn’t have money for the MARC train to D.C. and she was afraid to go back to their apartment. She was shivering in the same clothes she’d been wearing to work that awful night and her feet were healing but still stung. She didn’t have a cell phone because they’d confiscated hers 'for safety.' This was a stupid plan not befitting a former secret agent, but she wouldn’t give up. She needed to think.
She was still thinking when Seven found her. She sprawled out to deny him a seat. Seven kept his massive hands in his pockets and considered her neutrally. “You can leave if you want. I won’t stop you, I won’t even tell them you’re gone. But I’m asking you to reconsider.”
“Why do you care?” Akane didn’t care when she put Clover in yet another game and left her with more nightmares than answers. Junpei didn’t care enough and was marrying Akane. Seven shielded the Kurashikis for years and was a united front with Junpei that working with them was wise. Clover didn’t want to be with them but she had nowhere else to go and no real friends in this city.
Akane was a surprise guest and Clover wished she hadn’t bothered. Akane had wanted to join her fiancé and brother on this operation against Cradle, and instead she ended up sitting quietly on a couch while they explained Aoi was missing too. The look on her face was familiar and she spoke slowly, asking the same questions Clover had. Clover felt a tiny stirring of empathy for her for one moment. That didn’t make them friends.
The Light Rail’s horn sounded as the train sped towards them and gradually slowed until it was behind them, its presence overwhelming to her sleep-deprived brain. It was an easy train to hop with no money; the transit cops didn’t check for tickets when the weather was in extremes and early in the morning in November qualified. She debated riding it out of the city but she had no idea what she’d do in Glen Burnie to the south or Timonium to the north.
Seven’s voice was barely audible over the train. “Listen, if I could take back convincing you two to join SOIS I would. It was nothing but trouble and I regret trusting ‘em.”
“Did you know it was necessary for her plan?”
Seven was quiet before saying, “Sometimes I think you were right about me not having balls.” He looked less like a mountain and more like an eroding boulder right now, shoulders sinking as she stared at him and anger fought with revulsion in her mind. “But if there’s any way I could make it up to you now maybe it’s by helping you save him.” He rubbed the back of his neck and offered her something: her phone. “Can we do that?” He took a few steps away and turned his back to give her privacy.
Light’s phone was dead. Of course. She called it twice to be sure and when it still went straight through to his voicemail message she bit her lip and wanted to spike the phone into the concrete. She glanced at Seven’s back and then dialed Alice. “Hey, call me when you can,” she whispered. She hesitated and then said “I want to go shopping at…” She gave her location and then said, “Do you think it’s a bad season for plaid?” That was their code for ‘I’m in danger.’
She hung up and stood, holding her phone tight in her pocket in case Seven wanted to take it back. “Fine. Are we going?”
Seven looked at her with surprise. “Really?”
“I need to find him and then I’m leaving,” she declared. Clover glanced up at the clock announcing when the next Southbound train would come, focusing on the one headed to BWI Airport. She didn’t know where she’d take her brother after or what condition he would be in, but she would save him.
**
Light’s hunch was well-informed. It took he and Aoi three tries but they found a church that would take them in, clothed them from their Lost and Found box, and gave them directions to a charity that served hot breakfast. Light even convinced the lady helping them he didn’t know how to ride the buses here or how to pay, and she forked over enough money to buy bus passes.
They were dismayed to learn they’d been gone for a week; that was an entire week of lost memories and suddenly Aoi wanted to apologize to Seven. They didn’t dwell, though. They didn’t have the luxury. Light didn’t argue when Aoi said he was taking them to a safe place. He wasn’t talkative, communicating with folded arms, nods, and headshakes, but he walked alongside Aoi all the same.
Aoi had more energy on their way to the safehouse, bolstered by the fact that soon they’d be better off and he could talk to Akane. He’d been unable to get a phone to borrow earlier and had to wait to borrow his employee’s but it was far, far better than nothing and he needed the boost before meeting elsewhere with the others. Rather than heading straight back to the hotel, where they knew Hongou was watching, they were trying to skirt his attention and take advantage of Crash Keys’ stealth.
Whenever possible, they maintained two safehouses in the area of a mission—one manned for safety, and one unmanned for utmost privacy. Aoi was taking them to the manned one in Harlem Park, located because Edmondson Avenue cut through the neighborhood and in a pinch they could speed out of the city via that road.
Light adamantly stood on the bus; Aoi rolled his eyes but put his feet up on the extra seat to rest his leg. He’d hurt it not on some super special mission but from falling while rushing to his gate for the flight here. (LAX was one of the layers of Hell.) The sweater and jeans were too big and too small respectively and of the many things taken from him, right now he missed his credit cards the most. Aoi shut his eyes when the sun peeked out from between two buildings and blinded him. The bus’ clock said it was pushing 8:00am; he’d take a nap first thing.
This plan was ruined when they arrived at the house and Aoi crawled in through an unlocked back patio window, gagged on a metallic smell, and slipped on the bloody kitchen linoleum. The body of one Crash Keys’ field agent was facedown in the doorway. He had also been bashed in the skull which explained the blood in the kitchen. Aoi waited and listened but didn’t think anyone else was in the house so he crept forward to investigate. The poor guy had a neat hole in the back of his head, and poking around Aoi found the same was true of the other two in the living room.
“Hello?” Light called behind him and rather than explain Aoi opened the back door and let him in. When the smell hit him he coughed and nearly puked, then shook his head as if that were undignified. “What happened?” He couldn’t hide his shock when Aoi explained.
Aoi didn’t know the people dead on the floor in the next room well, but he did know he’d just lost one of his best bets. Before he tried the unmanned house Aoi needed time, energy, and a plan in case that one had also been found. The house had been stripped of communication devices of all types and the whole one payphone he’d passed in the city was broken.
Aoi put a hand to his forehead and cussed.
“I have an idea,” Light offered, shifting on his feet from the exterior doorway. He still looked sick from the scent of blood, or considering his history it was likely shot nerves. We’ll return to my apartment." He rubbed his left upper arm. "Not to stay,” he said as if anticipating Aoi’s objection. “I need several items that I believe are still there."
"Clover tell you that?"
Light shook his head, face darkening. "No. She didn't."
Up to Light's neighborhood it was, via a forty-minute commute riding two buses. Aoi missed Japan at times like these; it was no wonder everyone in America owned cars. When they got off the second bus they didn't speak as they walked. At an ideal spot known only to himself Light turned his head as if listening for cars and crossed the street, leaving Aoi in his dust. Getting in without his keys should've been a greater challenge, but they ran into a maintenance man and a few name drops of ‘Clover, Clover, Clover,’ greased the locks for them. (Aoi remembered her as a cute kid, it didn’t surprise him she made friends everywhere she went.)
"Stay away from the apartment with the police tape,” the man said as he unlocked the outside door, “They're still pokin' around in there."
"...Where exactly?" Light said.
"East side, end of the hall on the second floor."
"I see," Light muttered, and hurried inside without Aoi (who thanked the maintenance man for getting them out of the cold).
"Wait!" Aoi had to give chase and catch up with Light on the second floor.
Light was ripping the yellow police tape away like a cobweb before rushing inside. "Clover?" he called softly, and then louder. "This isn't funny, Clover." He sounded like he desperately wanted this to be a poor prank. He nudged around with his foot and when he found an errant shirt kicked it away from himself. "She's not here."
Obviously. The place was trashed floor-to-ceiling and corner-to-corner. Mattresses flipped off box springs and slashed open, dresser drawers upended, makeup and shoes and clothing all over the floor. A poor attempt at disguising this as a basic burglary. Aoi recognized what they hadn't damaged: the wooden mattress frames, cabinets, and desks. The burglars wanted something in here, but not money. "No signs of a struggle though."
Light made a soft, annoyed ‘tch’ noise. "I know she can handle herself. That doesn't mean she's impervious to gas."
Aoi fixated on a broken lipstick tube and its candy-pink smear on the concrete floor. "Aerosolized Soporil stains walls. Nothing here."
Light didn't untense. "I know that. That doesn't account for the numerous other possibilities."
"What's the point?" Aoi said, stuffing his hands in his pockets. "Ask her yourself through the fields."
Light shook his head. "Don't," he enunciated each word for emphasis, "you think I'm trying?" Aoi wasn't oblivious to his meaning; he hadn’t been able to receive or transmit a single thought to Akane since waking up in that basement. He folded his arms, rubbing his burning right one. He'd felt like he was on fire the last time he heard anything clear from Akane and his arm still remembered.
'I am, too,' he wanted to say, but instead he said, "Get what you came for."
**
After they determined nobody else was in the apartment or coming soon, they mutually agreed to refresh themselves before moving on.
Light needed two things: a library card and a safe place to doff his prosthesis without an audience. Someone had tried to properly maintain it while he'd been held, but between the foreign nylon socks (he always used wool because it irritated his skin the least) and the improperly-fitted socket, the pressure blisters and muscle pain from his residual limb to his neck locked him into place on the bathroom floor. He needed to keep a note on his person for the next time he was kidnapped: ‘Please remove my left arm and leave it off until I can handle it myself.’
He had no idea how long the prosthesis had been left on during their captivity, and more concerning, what the transdermal implant at his nape did. It was a lump under his skin near the shaved spot on the back of his head, the stitches crude and the bulge just enough to irritate him when he moved. He resented these things and that they’d been done to him without his consent, and by whom.
He didn't get long to contemplate; he finished bathing and brushing his teeth and Aoi was pounding on the door, demanding to know what was taking so long. Light took a moment to brush his hair to prolong the solitude.
"Yo! You've got one minute before I take a piss in your sink!"
Light grabbed a cloth he used to wipe his socket clean and left with the prosthesis under his other arm. Aoi pushed past him and slammed the door. Light trod on a few items—books, slippery clothes—before sitting on his bed. The room still smelled like Clover: her shampoo, her makeup, her perfume, and the gel she used to keep her hair piled atop her head for work. Somebody had broken in again and destroyed more of her things. ‘We’ll buy more,’ he thought. They'd buy more when he saw her again.
He cleaned his socket, and donned his wool sock by the time Aoi returned from his shower. He smelled like Clover's hair product and Light's deodorant. "Does she wanna smell like a candy store? Bubblegum crap everywhere."
"Yes, help yourself," Light said dryly. "Had I known you were coming I would've warmed the towels, too." They only had the two anyway. He and Clover only had the bare minimum of everything in the house, citing ‘minimalism’ instead of ‘broke.’ One call to Mother would fix that, but when they came to Baltimore on her dime they pledged to each other that first night in a hotel room that this was the last time. No more SOIS paychecks, no more parents. A lack of money provided its own freedom, they thought at the time. After burning through their savings on a series of naive whims and three failed starts elsewhere, Light loathed that logic now.
"Got what you need? Cash? Phone? No cards, they can be tracked easier—"
"You should know they took our electronics in the first burglary, but Clover hid her tips in a makeup bag under her bed." He let Aoi search and come to the obvious conclusion. "Gone?"
"Yup. But we’ll figure it out." They were silent, lost in their respective worlds, until Light rubbed his neck and shoulder and couldn't help but sigh. Aoi avoided commenting on it and instead said, "What'd you lose? On the tech, I mean."
"My works-in-progress, my master copies of my published pieces—"
"I'm talking about important shit."
"I said I would follow you. I never said I'd betray anyone else's confidence."
"So...government secrets?"
God did Light have a saint’s patience. "Tell me what you know if you're so desperate. If you have anything worth sharing."
"We think SOIS knows where the First Nonary Game kids in their employ disappeared to." Aoi didn't attempt to soften his delivery. "And that they covered up how serious it was." He tapped his foot, awaiting a response.
"...And your reasoning?"
"They were the first people to disappear, way too close together. Only two people turned down SOIS and went home, and they were kidnapped a few weeks later. It’s almost like most of them were handed over—and who kept them in one place?"
Light rolled this information around his head, letting it pick up relevant details as he went. Clover's insistence they leave SOIS upon her return. Her secretive calls to Alice in the interim. And finally: "We held onto encrypted files for Alice—an agent within the organization. As far as I know, we were the only ones who had them. After we left the organization she approached Clover and asked her to keep them. She never told us why, except that she needed them hidden from her organization."
Aoi paced with heavy, faltering steps, and despite Light’s reluctance he donned first his socket and then his prosthesis, biting back any pain. "How did you hurt your leg?" he asked Aoi.
"Huh?"
"I hear a limp in your gait—the left side perhaps? You're favoring on your first step, which is likely your right leg considering most of the world is right-side dominant."
Aoi snorted, chuckled, and then said, "You really can't help yourself can you?"
"What do you mean?"
"'Oh, I'm gonna pretend I'm Detective Galileo all of a sudden so you forget I couldn't even hide a hard drive.' That kinda shit."
"And who put us in this mess all those years ago so we needed to hold them?"
"Gentarou Hongou," Aoi said coldly. "So Alice has you holding mystery shit, and then someone breaks in and steals it all around the same time people working for SOIS vanish into thin air." He scoffed. "Well, gee, I wonder what ties that all together?" Something clattered to the floor. "Shit!" It wasn't the first time Aoi dropped something this morning.
"Let go of whatever you stole."
"I ain't giving you a box cutter."
Light got up and reached toward the voice, catching Aoi's shoulder. "That belongs to Clover."
"And she's not using it." Aoi got out of his grasp. "I'll give it back when we see her."
“It’s funny that you think I’ll let you near her.”
Aoi ignored him. "Wanna get off our asses now? Where can we send some emails?"
This was nowhere near over. "Downtown. The Enoch Pratt Free Library. Walking via Guilford Avenue is likely faster than waiting for the bus."
"Get a move on, then."
**
The Port of Baltimore offered a view of the Patapsco River that didn’t make it look less depressing to Junpei, knowing it had been a watery grave not long ago. Cargo ships for steel and industrial materials, ships called ‘roll-on, roll-off’ for vehicles, and big metal shipping crates dominated the view. Despite his gawking from the car and aimless driving near the locked yard, he couldn't tell which one was The Defiant, an odd name but fitting for a secret prison ship in the possession of an arrogant madman.
On paper it was listed as yet another ‘ro-fo’ owned by the Dominion Shipping Company and carrying a shipment of Japanese-made cars, but by working backwards through import and export documentation, the company's falsified background, and Seven's knowledge of the First Nonary Game they'd narrowed it down to a likely hiding place for the captured victims. There was also the redacted testimony from a dock worker claiming he'd seen two figures falling from the starboard side around 3:00am on the night the Nomoto brothers died.
‘The bodies of,’ the media carefully labeled Hideaki and Itsuki Nomoto when they were found floating downriver. Junpei hated that phrasing; people were found, not inanimate objects. Maybe they still were in the river, struggling ghosts because nobody acknowledged them properly. Maybe Junpei was being sentimental. But after a week interviewing Clover about what she knew from her time in SOIS, and watching her kick a wastebasket across a room in impotent rage about Light, how could he not be?
He and Seven had been killing time brainstorming new ideas for the ‘Detective Brothers’ series of e-books they wrote and self-published for fun, but that died out as they became lost in their own thoughts. By nature a stakeout wasn’t supposed to be chatty but they’d always had an ease with each other that made it rare to stay quiet. They finally left after it became clear their presence was noticed, and found a different place to watch the ships pass through a choke point. Somewhere called Locust Point, a remnant of a dead industry and the city’s apparent attempts to re-purpose it. Junpei admired what he’d seen of Baltimore despite that; it was a little city filled with residents who wanted the best for it.
It was almost 11:00am and Junpei’s coffee was cold and his hands too despite the car's dogged heater. The plan was simple: await the arrival of a Crash Keys’ plant ship, board The Defiant, retrieve and transfer the captured to the plant ship, and take everyone downriver to freedom. Simple compared to what they'd done together before. "So you ready for another cruise?" he asked Seven.
"No offense, but I'd like it more if I was going on a real cruise with a woman who’s got the measurements of an idol." Junpei didn't want to know if Seven meant pop music or porn.
"Hey, I have the hips."
"Dunno why you'd advertise that, Junpei," Seven laughed. Junpei wanted to quip back that the woman he really wanted with him was no pure idol, but he wanted to make it home to his fianceé. Seven and Lotus (Junpei could never get into calling her Kashiwabara despite her threats) had adopted an ‘Only I Can Make Fun of Them’ policy. Seven had laughed when Akane asked if they had any intention of marrying. He’d said, “Why go to Hell before I die?” This was the same man who emailed Lotus coded messages every night to check on her, and bragged that he had no idea how kids as good as Nona and Ennea had come from Lotus.
Seven sucked down the rest of his coffee and crushed his cardboard cup. “You heard from Akane?”
Junpei shook his head. Since he’d turned his phone back on ten minutes ago, no messages. Considering Clover was left behind with her in the hotel, that could be a sign she was dead and Clover now roamed downtown like a bloodthirsty spirit. After her disappearing act this morning he wouldn’t be surprised if she left again. When told they still hadn’t found her brother, Clover threw a half-full coffee cup across the room. It had been a trying morning in general: they’d found out their manned safehouse had been raided and the agents inside dead when Akane called him reporting what she’d heard on the police scanner.
Or maybe Akane was simply not messaging him after their conversation last night, as they lay in her adjoining suite’s bedroom with the curtains drawn tight as possible and a towel stuffed under the door to keep out light. Still jet-lagged and grumpy, Akane said she was going to nap after they’d placated Clover with the promise of a conversation later, and went alone. Curious, as she usually liked him to lie beside her while she fell asleep, curled up. He followed her to her bed and lay on top of the duvet, one arm under his head and the other across her chest, but he had to say her name to get her to acknowledge him.
“He was scared,” she said quietly.
“What do you mean? You heard from him?” It was a huge sore spot that for some reason Aoi was not responding to her morphogenetic communications.
“He called out to me when I was on my flight here.” She bit her lip and wouldn’t look over at Junpei. “He was confused and in pain but he still had the strength to reach out to me.”
“What did he tell you?”
She shook her head. “He couldn’t think straight. I saw a dark room and felt like...like I was bound to an exam table. And my head was on fire.” She turned her head away when he tried to stroke her forehead like she liked. “And now I don’t hear anything.”
Cold trepidation spread from his core to his limbs. Of course Aoi’d reach out to Akane if he could. Junpei wanted to believe Aoi escaped the struggle safely and was hiding, waiting for a moment to contact them. But if Aoi was vulnerable and afraid, reverted to a weak state, the only person he’d want would be Akane. “We’re going to find him.”
“I know,” she said as she rolled to face Junpei, pushing his arm off her, glaring with betrayed, hurt tears in her eyes. She didn’t cry but went stiff when he tried to hold her. This morning Akane had been focused but distant with everyone, like something had finally snapped. She didn’t eat even when Junpei offered her an almond croissant with jelly.
Junpei texted Akane that the ship hadn’t moved yet and she could go ahead and advise the other ship to get into place. He and Seven stopped at a chain gas station where Seven insisted on buying three sandwiches filled with a pressed, browned pork offal patty called scrapple and ate them in the car. Seven hadn’t gotten that big by fearing grease and he was dedicated to trying local cuisine whenever they went somewhere new, but Junpei took one bite and handed his sandwich to Seven. Coffee it was, his stomach couldn’t take food right now.
Assuming Junpei was disgusted with the food, Seven said, “You eat intestines.”
“Not boiled, gray slop.” Their ribbing was interrupted by Junpei’s phone lighting up in the cup holder. Hoping for Akane, he instead got an email. Reading it, he smiled for the first time in a while.
“What?”
“Just like a cat,” Junpei said as he handed Seven the phone (making a face as he smeared the case with grease), “Aoi always finds his way home.” He tilted his head to consider the traffic light camera snapshots of the two missing men walking around Southwest Baltimore around 6:00am and felt content.
A week passed and the only discernible change was in Clover’s level of frustration. When she couldn’t take it one more day of reviewing Crash Keys’ research about the situation or pacing the streets aimlessly with Seven (she refused to be in a car with Akane) Clover slipped away from them shortly after sunrise, determined to find Light by herself or else recruit Alice who would definitely help her.
If Alice took Clover leaving SOIS personally she didn’t let it affect their friendship, although due to the nature of her job she’d been distant by necessity. Clover sent her a lot of messaging app stickers, selfies, and fashion shoots that went unanswered for two weeks or more, but Alice trusted her enough to send her the hard drives and other materials Alice had been quietly gathering about a clandestine SOIS operation. In her letter she told Clover not to look at them and that ignorance was safest, but she didn’t know who else to trust with their contents. She missed Clover and she’d talk to her soon, she’d written.
Clover repaid her by losing it all in the burglary, which after talking with Seven she realized wasn’t a random criminal act but a planned incursion. Clover wished her life was boring like her coworkers’ at the bar.
Clover’s plan to find Light on her own fell apart at the Camden Yards Light Rail stop. While she sat on a bench behind the rail separating the concrete from the tracks, she realized she didn’t have money for the MARC train to D.C. and she was afraid to go back to their apartment. She was shivering in the same clothes she’d been wearing to work that awful night and her feet were healing but still stung. She didn’t have a cell phone because they’d confiscated hers 'for safety.' This was a stupid plan not befitting a former secret agent, but she wouldn’t give up. She needed to think.
She was still thinking when Seven found her. She sprawled out to deny him a seat. Seven kept his massive hands in his pockets and considered her neutrally. “You can leave if you want. I won’t stop you, I won’t even tell them you’re gone. But I’m asking you to reconsider.”
“Why do you care?” Akane didn’t care when she put Clover in yet another game and left her with more nightmares than answers. Junpei didn’t care enough and was marrying Akane. Seven shielded the Kurashikis for years and was a united front with Junpei that working with them was wise. Clover didn’t want to be with them but she had nowhere else to go and no real friends in this city.
Akane was a surprise guest and Clover wished she hadn’t bothered. Akane had wanted to join her fiancé and brother on this operation against Cradle, and instead she ended up sitting quietly on a couch while they explained Aoi was missing too. The look on her face was familiar and she spoke slowly, asking the same questions Clover had. Clover felt a tiny stirring of empathy for her for one moment. That didn’t make them friends.
The Light Rail’s horn sounded as the train sped towards them and gradually slowed until it was behind them, its presence overwhelming to her sleep-deprived brain. It was an easy train to hop with no money; the transit cops didn’t check for tickets when the weather was in extremes and early in the morning in November qualified. She debated riding it out of the city but she had no idea what she’d do in Glen Burnie to the south or Timonium to the north.
Seven’s voice was barely audible over the train. “Listen, if I could take back convincing you two to join SOIS I would. It was nothing but trouble and I regret trusting ‘em.”
“Did you know it was necessary for her plan?”
Seven was quiet before saying, “Sometimes I think you were right about me not having balls.” He looked less like a mountain and more like an eroding boulder right now, shoulders sinking as she stared at him and anger fought with revulsion in her mind. “But if there’s any way I could make it up to you now maybe it’s by helping you save him.” He rubbed the back of his neck and offered her something: her phone. “Can we do that?” He took a few steps away and turned his back to give her privacy.
Light’s phone was dead. Of course. She called it twice to be sure and when it still went straight through to his voicemail message she bit her lip and wanted to spike the phone into the concrete. She glanced at Seven’s back and then dialed Alice. “Hey, call me when you can,” she whispered. She hesitated and then said “I want to go shopping at…” She gave her location and then said, “Do you think it’s a bad season for plaid?” That was their code for ‘I’m in danger.’
She hung up and stood, holding her phone tight in her pocket in case Seven wanted to take it back. “Fine. Are we going?”
Seven looked at her with surprise. “Really?”
“I need to find him and then I’m leaving,” she declared. Clover glanced up at the clock announcing when the next Southbound train would come, focusing on the one headed to BWI Airport. She didn’t know where she’d take her brother after or what condition he would be in, but she would save him.
**
Light’s hunch was well-informed. It took he and Aoi three tries but they found a church that would take them in, clothed them from their Lost and Found box, and gave them directions to a charity that served hot breakfast. Light even convinced the lady helping them he didn’t know how to ride the buses here or how to pay, and she forked over enough money to buy bus passes.
They were dismayed to learn they’d been gone for a week; that was an entire week of lost memories and suddenly Aoi wanted to apologize to Seven. They didn’t dwell, though. They didn’t have the luxury. Light didn’t argue when Aoi said he was taking them to a safe place. He wasn’t talkative, communicating with folded arms, nods, and headshakes, but he walked alongside Aoi all the same.
Aoi had more energy on their way to the safehouse, bolstered by the fact that soon they’d be better off and he could talk to Akane. He’d been unable to get a phone to borrow earlier and had to wait to borrow his employee’s but it was far, far better than nothing and he needed the boost before meeting elsewhere with the others. Rather than heading straight back to the hotel, where they knew Hongou was watching, they were trying to skirt his attention and take advantage of Crash Keys’ stealth.
Whenever possible, they maintained two safehouses in the area of a mission—one manned for safety, and one unmanned for utmost privacy. Aoi was taking them to the manned one in Harlem Park, located because Edmondson Avenue cut through the neighborhood and in a pinch they could speed out of the city via that road.
Light adamantly stood on the bus; Aoi rolled his eyes but put his feet up on the extra seat to rest his leg. He’d hurt it not on some super special mission but from falling while rushing to his gate for the flight here. (LAX was one of the layers of Hell.) The sweater and jeans were too big and too small respectively and of the many things taken from him, right now he missed his credit cards the most. Aoi shut his eyes when the sun peeked out from between two buildings and blinded him. The bus’ clock said it was pushing 8:00am; he’d take a nap first thing.
This plan was ruined when they arrived at the house and Aoi crawled in through an unlocked back patio window, gagged on a metallic smell, and slipped on the bloody kitchen linoleum. The body of one Crash Keys’ field agent was facedown in the doorway. He had also been bashed in the skull which explained the blood in the kitchen. Aoi waited and listened but didn’t think anyone else was in the house so he crept forward to investigate. The poor guy had a neat hole in the back of his head, and poking around Aoi found the same was true of the other two in the living room.
“Hello?” Light called behind him and rather than explain Aoi opened the back door and let him in. When the smell hit him he coughed and nearly puked, then shook his head as if that were undignified. “What happened?” He couldn’t hide his shock when Aoi explained.
Aoi didn’t know the people dead on the floor in the next room well, but he did know he’d just lost one of his best bets. Before he tried the unmanned house Aoi needed time, energy, and a plan in case that one had also been found. The house had been stripped of communication devices of all types and the whole one payphone he’d passed in the city was broken.
Aoi put a hand to his forehead and cussed.
“I have an idea,” Light offered, shifting on his feet from the exterior doorway. He still looked sick from the scent of blood, or considering his history it was likely shot nerves. We’ll return to my apartment." He rubbed his left upper arm. "Not to stay,” he said as if anticipating Aoi’s objection. “I need several items that I believe are still there."
"Clover tell you that?"
Light shook his head, face darkening. "No. She didn't."
Up to Light's neighborhood it was, via a forty-minute commute riding two buses. Aoi missed Japan at times like these; it was no wonder everyone in America owned cars. When they got off the second bus they didn't speak as they walked. At an ideal spot known only to himself Light turned his head as if listening for cars and crossed the street, leaving Aoi in his dust. Getting in without his keys should've been a greater challenge, but they ran into a maintenance man and a few name drops of ‘Clover, Clover, Clover,’ greased the locks for them. (Aoi remembered her as a cute kid, it didn’t surprise him she made friends everywhere she went.)
"Stay away from the apartment with the police tape,” the man said as he unlocked the outside door, “They're still pokin' around in there."
"...Where exactly?" Light said.
"East side, end of the hall on the second floor."
"I see," Light muttered, and hurried inside without Aoi (who thanked the maintenance man for getting them out of the cold).
"Wait!" Aoi had to give chase and catch up with Light on the second floor.
Light was ripping the yellow police tape away like a cobweb before rushing inside. "Clover?" he called softly, and then louder. "This isn't funny, Clover." He sounded like he desperately wanted this to be a poor prank. He nudged around with his foot and when he found an errant shirt kicked it away from himself. "She's not here."
Obviously. The place was trashed floor-to-ceiling and corner-to-corner. Mattresses flipped off box springs and slashed open, dresser drawers upended, makeup and shoes and clothing all over the floor. A poor attempt at disguising this as a basic burglary. Aoi recognized what they hadn't damaged: the wooden mattress frames, cabinets, and desks. The burglars wanted something in here, but not money. "No signs of a struggle though."
Light made a soft, annoyed ‘tch’ noise. "I know she can handle herself. That doesn't mean she's impervious to gas."
Aoi fixated on a broken lipstick tube and its candy-pink smear on the concrete floor. "Aerosolized Soporil stains walls. Nothing here."
Light didn't untense. "I know that. That doesn't account for the numerous other possibilities."
"What's the point?" Aoi said, stuffing his hands in his pockets. "Ask her yourself through the fields."
Light shook his head. "Don't," he enunciated each word for emphasis, "you think I'm trying?" Aoi wasn't oblivious to his meaning; he hadn’t been able to receive or transmit a single thought to Akane since waking up in that basement. He folded his arms, rubbing his burning right one. He'd felt like he was on fire the last time he heard anything clear from Akane and his arm still remembered.
'I am, too,' he wanted to say, but instead he said, "Get what you came for."
**
After they determined nobody else was in the apartment or coming soon, they mutually agreed to refresh themselves before moving on.
Light needed two things: a library card and a safe place to doff his prosthesis without an audience. Someone had tried to properly maintain it while he'd been held, but between the foreign nylon socks (he always used wool because it irritated his skin the least) and the improperly-fitted socket, the pressure blisters and muscle pain from his residual limb to his neck locked him into place on the bathroom floor. He needed to keep a note on his person for the next time he was kidnapped: ‘Please remove my left arm and leave it off until I can handle it myself.’
He had no idea how long the prosthesis had been left on during their captivity, and more concerning, what the transdermal implant at his nape did. It was a lump under his skin near the shaved spot on the back of his head, the stitches crude and the bulge just enough to irritate him when he moved. He resented these things and that they’d been done to him without his consent, and by whom.
He didn't get long to contemplate; he finished bathing and brushing his teeth and Aoi was pounding on the door, demanding to know what was taking so long. Light took a moment to brush his hair to prolong the solitude.
"Yo! You've got one minute before I take a piss in your sink!"
Light grabbed a cloth he used to wipe his socket clean and left with the prosthesis under his other arm. Aoi pushed past him and slammed the door. Light trod on a few items—books, slippery clothes—before sitting on his bed. The room still smelled like Clover: her shampoo, her makeup, her perfume, and the gel she used to keep her hair piled atop her head for work. Somebody had broken in again and destroyed more of her things. ‘We’ll buy more,’ he thought. They'd buy more when he saw her again.
He cleaned his socket, and donned his wool sock by the time Aoi returned from his shower. He smelled like Clover's hair product and Light's deodorant. "Does she wanna smell like a candy store? Bubblegum crap everywhere."
"Yes, help yourself," Light said dryly. "Had I known you were coming I would've warmed the towels, too." They only had the two anyway. He and Clover only had the bare minimum of everything in the house, citing ‘minimalism’ instead of ‘broke.’ One call to Mother would fix that, but when they came to Baltimore on her dime they pledged to each other that first night in a hotel room that this was the last time. No more SOIS paychecks, no more parents. A lack of money provided its own freedom, they thought at the time. After burning through their savings on a series of naive whims and three failed starts elsewhere, Light loathed that logic now.
"Got what you need? Cash? Phone? No cards, they can be tracked easier—"
"You should know they took our electronics in the first burglary, but Clover hid her tips in a makeup bag under her bed." He let Aoi search and come to the obvious conclusion. "Gone?"
"Yup. But we’ll figure it out." They were silent, lost in their respective worlds, until Light rubbed his neck and shoulder and couldn't help but sigh. Aoi avoided commenting on it and instead said, "What'd you lose? On the tech, I mean."
"My works-in-progress, my master copies of my published pieces—"
"I'm talking about important shit."
"I said I would follow you. I never said I'd betray anyone else's confidence."
"So...government secrets?"
God did Light have a saint’s patience. "Tell me what you know if you're so desperate. If you have anything worth sharing."
"We think SOIS knows where the First Nonary Game kids in their employ disappeared to." Aoi didn't attempt to soften his delivery. "And that they covered up how serious it was." He tapped his foot, awaiting a response.
"...And your reasoning?"
"They were the first people to disappear, way too close together. Only two people turned down SOIS and went home, and they were kidnapped a few weeks later. It’s almost like most of them were handed over—and who kept them in one place?"
Light rolled this information around his head, letting it pick up relevant details as he went. Clover's insistence they leave SOIS upon her return. Her secretive calls to Alice in the interim. And finally: "We held onto encrypted files for Alice—an agent within the organization. As far as I know, we were the only ones who had them. After we left the organization she approached Clover and asked her to keep them. She never told us why, except that she needed them hidden from her organization."
Aoi paced with heavy, faltering steps, and despite Light’s reluctance he donned first his socket and then his prosthesis, biting back any pain. "How did you hurt your leg?" he asked Aoi.
"Huh?"
"I hear a limp in your gait—the left side perhaps? You're favoring on your first step, which is likely your right leg considering most of the world is right-side dominant."
Aoi snorted, chuckled, and then said, "You really can't help yourself can you?"
"What do you mean?"
"'Oh, I'm gonna pretend I'm Detective Galileo all of a sudden so you forget I couldn't even hide a hard drive.' That kinda shit."
"And who put us in this mess all those years ago so we needed to hold them?"
"Gentarou Hongou," Aoi said coldly. "So Alice has you holding mystery shit, and then someone breaks in and steals it all around the same time people working for SOIS vanish into thin air." He scoffed. "Well, gee, I wonder what ties that all together?" Something clattered to the floor. "Shit!" It wasn't the first time Aoi dropped something this morning.
"Let go of whatever you stole."
"I ain't giving you a box cutter."
Light got up and reached toward the voice, catching Aoi's shoulder. "That belongs to Clover."
"And she's not using it." Aoi got out of his grasp. "I'll give it back when we see her."
“It’s funny that you think I’ll let you near her.”
Aoi ignored him. "Wanna get off our asses now? Where can we send some emails?"
This was nowhere near over. "Downtown. The Enoch Pratt Free Library. Walking via Guilford Avenue is likely faster than waiting for the bus."
"Get a move on, then."
**
The Port of Baltimore offered a view of the Patapsco River that didn’t make it look less depressing to Junpei, knowing it had been a watery grave not long ago. Cargo ships for steel and industrial materials, ships called ‘roll-on, roll-off’ for vehicles, and big metal shipping crates dominated the view. Despite his gawking from the car and aimless driving near the locked yard, he couldn't tell which one was The Defiant, an odd name but fitting for a secret prison ship in the possession of an arrogant madman.
On paper it was listed as yet another ‘ro-fo’ owned by the Dominion Shipping Company and carrying a shipment of Japanese-made cars, but by working backwards through import and export documentation, the company's falsified background, and Seven's knowledge of the First Nonary Game they'd narrowed it down to a likely hiding place for the captured victims. There was also the redacted testimony from a dock worker claiming he'd seen two figures falling from the starboard side around 3:00am on the night the Nomoto brothers died.
‘The bodies of,’ the media carefully labeled Hideaki and Itsuki Nomoto when they were found floating downriver. Junpei hated that phrasing; people were found, not inanimate objects. Maybe they still were in the river, struggling ghosts because nobody acknowledged them properly. Maybe Junpei was being sentimental. But after a week interviewing Clover about what she knew from her time in SOIS, and watching her kick a wastebasket across a room in impotent rage about Light, how could he not be?
He and Seven had been killing time brainstorming new ideas for the ‘Detective Brothers’ series of e-books they wrote and self-published for fun, but that died out as they became lost in their own thoughts. By nature a stakeout wasn’t supposed to be chatty but they’d always had an ease with each other that made it rare to stay quiet. They finally left after it became clear their presence was noticed, and found a different place to watch the ships pass through a choke point. Somewhere called Locust Point, a remnant of a dead industry and the city’s apparent attempts to re-purpose it. Junpei admired what he’d seen of Baltimore despite that; it was a little city filled with residents who wanted the best for it.
It was almost 11:00am and Junpei’s coffee was cold and his hands too despite the car's dogged heater. The plan was simple: await the arrival of a Crash Keys’ plant ship, board The Defiant, retrieve and transfer the captured to the plant ship, and take everyone downriver to freedom. Simple compared to what they'd done together before. "So you ready for another cruise?" he asked Seven.
"No offense, but I'd like it more if I was going on a real cruise with a woman who’s got the measurements of an idol." Junpei didn't want to know if Seven meant pop music or porn.
"Hey, I have the hips."
"Dunno why you'd advertise that, Junpei," Seven laughed. Junpei wanted to quip back that the woman he really wanted with him was no pure idol, but he wanted to make it home to his fianceé. Seven and Lotus (Junpei could never get into calling her Kashiwabara despite her threats) had adopted an ‘Only I Can Make Fun of Them’ policy. Seven had laughed when Akane asked if they had any intention of marrying. He’d said, “Why go to Hell before I die?” This was the same man who emailed Lotus coded messages every night to check on her, and bragged that he had no idea how kids as good as Nona and Ennea had come from Lotus.
Seven sucked down the rest of his coffee and crushed his cardboard cup. “You heard from Akane?”
Junpei shook his head. Since he’d turned his phone back on ten minutes ago, no messages. Considering Clover was left behind with her in the hotel, that could be a sign she was dead and Clover now roamed downtown like a bloodthirsty spirit. After her disappearing act this morning he wouldn’t be surprised if she left again. When told they still hadn’t found her brother, Clover threw a half-full coffee cup across the room. It had been a trying morning in general: they’d found out their manned safehouse had been raided and the agents inside dead when Akane called him reporting what she’d heard on the police scanner.
Or maybe Akane was simply not messaging him after their conversation last night, as they lay in her adjoining suite’s bedroom with the curtains drawn tight as possible and a towel stuffed under the door to keep out light. Still jet-lagged and grumpy, Akane said she was going to nap after they’d placated Clover with the promise of a conversation later, and went alone. Curious, as she usually liked him to lie beside her while she fell asleep, curled up. He followed her to her bed and lay on top of the duvet, one arm under his head and the other across her chest, but he had to say her name to get her to acknowledge him.
“He was scared,” she said quietly.
“What do you mean? You heard from him?” It was a huge sore spot that for some reason Aoi was not responding to her morphogenetic communications.
“He called out to me when I was on my flight here.” She bit her lip and wouldn’t look over at Junpei. “He was confused and in pain but he still had the strength to reach out to me.”
“What did he tell you?”
She shook her head. “He couldn’t think straight. I saw a dark room and felt like...like I was bound to an exam table. And my head was on fire.” She turned her head away when he tried to stroke her forehead like she liked. “And now I don’t hear anything.”
Cold trepidation spread from his core to his limbs. Of course Aoi’d reach out to Akane if he could. Junpei wanted to believe Aoi escaped the struggle safely and was hiding, waiting for a moment to contact them. But if Aoi was vulnerable and afraid, reverted to a weak state, the only person he’d want would be Akane. “We’re going to find him.”
“I know,” she said as she rolled to face Junpei, pushing his arm off her, glaring with betrayed, hurt tears in her eyes. She didn’t cry but went stiff when he tried to hold her. This morning Akane had been focused but distant with everyone, like something had finally snapped. She didn’t eat even when Junpei offered her an almond croissant with jelly.
Junpei texted Akane that the ship hadn’t moved yet and she could go ahead and advise the other ship to get into place. He and Seven stopped at a chain gas station where Seven insisted on buying three sandwiches filled with a pressed, browned pork offal patty called scrapple and ate them in the car. Seven hadn’t gotten that big by fearing grease and he was dedicated to trying local cuisine whenever they went somewhere new, but Junpei took one bite and handed his sandwich to Seven. Coffee it was, his stomach couldn’t take food right now.
Assuming Junpei was disgusted with the food, Seven said, “You eat intestines.”
“Not boiled, gray slop.” Their ribbing was interrupted by Junpei’s phone lighting up in the cup holder. Hoping for Akane, he instead got an email. Reading it, he smiled for the first time in a while.
“What?”
“Just like a cat,” Junpei said as he handed Seven the phone (making a face as he smeared the case with grease), “Aoi always finds his way home.” He tilted his head to consider the traffic light camera snapshots of the two missing men walking around Southwest Baltimore around 6:00am and felt content.
