Opening The Way -- Chapter Two


Chapter Two




"Details," Ban said briskly, breaking the silence which had fallen. He signalled to Natsumi for fresh coffee. "Have a seat. Of course we'll have to discu --"

"Of course we'll do it," Ginji broke in. "Tell us what happened." He grabbed Kazuki's arm in one hand and Sakura's in another, towing the two of them over to one of the booths.

Ban took advantage of the moment -- not annoyed at the interruption, of course not, and certainly he wouldn't have charged that high a fee, or even gone that far in negotiations -- to gauge Ginji's mood. The other GetBacker was furious, but still in shock. There wasn't any danger of . . . other things. Good. He could still discuss things rationally and wouldn't be running off to Mugenjou solo to blow the place apart. Yet. "Okay," he said, slipping in next to Ginji. "What happened, and how?"

Kazuki inclined a long-fingered hand towards Sakura, who looked up from pleating the folds of her dress to answer. "Sakura knows more about it than I do. Makubex asked her to come along in order to give a full briefing on the situation."

Sakura nodded, a grave inclination of her head that reminded Ban of her brother. "Yes, I was the first person to go and investigate, when we noticed there was a problem with the cameras -- but perhaps I should begin from the first time that we noticed something was wrong, Ginji-san?"

Ban suppressed a twitch of annoyance at the girl's automatic subservience to her Thunder Emperor, and kept his mouth shut. She'd probably talk more readily to Ginji than to him, in any case.

Ginji nodded. "Please tell us from the first thing you noticed, yes." He gave her a reassuring smile.

"It was yesterday evening, quite early," Sakura began. "We had been having minor technical difficulties with parts of the surveillance network. Makubex said that it was not overly improbable that we should have so many difficulties at once, just -- well, general bad timing. There was also a disturbance on the edge of what used to be Fuuga territory, and Kazuki-sama went with my brother and Toshiki to see to it personally."

Kazuki nodded. The bells in his hair shifted with the movement. "It was an annoyingly slow operation," he murmured. "Vexatious. The group split up, and we spent most of the night gathering them together in order to deliver a thorough reprimand."

"Sounds deliberate," Ban broke in, before Kazuki could get into the self-reproach which was doubtless next on the agenda. "But -- not just you and samurai boy, but Toshiki too? Wasn't that a bit overkill?"

Kazuki shrugged smoothly. "Uryuu has been working quite closely with us lately. Besides, with some of the cameras in that area down, it was better to take a larger team. And people remember him."

Sakura took up the narrative again. "With everything that was going on, we didn't notice part of the network going down near Gen's apartment as anything particularly unusual. When it came back up again -- well, Makubex has never monitored inside those rooms, and the corridors were quiet. It was only when he checked this morning and Gen was not answering his email that Makubex became disturbed. He sent me round to check on the matter, and . . ."

Kazuki put one hand over hers. "I can understand that it was a shock to you, Sakura-san."

Ban's eyes narrowed. Something was fishy here. Sakura had been a perfectly efficient part of Fuuga, and had been right beside Makubex in the whole IL affair. She wasn't the sort to be throwing a nervous fit over one man's death, however respected he'd been. But Kazuki wasn't the sort to misjudge her reactions, and he'd known her longer than anyone else here. So if she was nervous, why?

Sakura cast her eyes down. "Naturally, I secured the area and raised the alarm. Makubex forced an immediate lockdown on all the entrances which could feasibly have been reached between the estimated time of death and the point at which I arrived, and asked Kazuki-sama to lead the investigation while he analysed the camera records which were available. We were able to track the murderer's passage, by piecing together camera downtimes and the occasional witness, to the point where he left Mugenjou."

"Witnesses?" Ginji leaned forward. "Did anyone see him? Who was it?"

"We cannot be sure." Sakura spread her hands. "I am sorry, Ginji-san. All that we know for certain is that he was tall, wore a white cape or cloak of some sort, had dark hair, and wore a long blade or weapon of some sort across his back. He was carrying Ren over one shoulder."

Ban blinked thoughtfully, while beside him Ginji twitched like a gaffed fish and began to babble, "But -- no, it couldn't be him -- surely it wouldn't --"

"Couldn't be," Ban cut in. He turned to explain to the two from Mugenjou. "There's this -- person -- called Miroku Natsuhiko. He has six, um," he decided to err on the side of simplicity, "siblings. They usually show up together but one at a time. He takes jobs as a protector and bodyguard, and that does sound like a rough description of him, but I can't see him doing that. Quite."

"And Yukihiko certainly wouldn't," Ginji chimed in indignantly.

Ban shrugged. "Yukihiko would do whatever his older brother told him. He always has. They all do. But -- no, I don't think it's him. You don't have a photo, do you?"

Sakura shook her head. "We have absolutely no recorded pictures of him. Unfortunately."

"So when did they leave Mugenjou?" Ban asked, getting back to the narrative.

"Approximately half past five this morning," Sakura replied. "We lost track of them after that, and while Makubex is attempting to activate some of his connections outside Mugenjou, he thought of the two of you first."

Ban had to appreciate the graceful phrasing of that sentence. Why, she hadn't even mentioned the word Raitei yet today. If he'd had a plate of cookies, he'd have offered her one.

Ginji nodded eagerly. "Right. We can see if we can find any trace of him here. If he kidnapped Ren, then he has to be keeping her somewhere. Right, Ban? And if this is a big conspiracy of some sort, Hevn might have heard something -- she couldn't tell us anything confidential, of course, but she might have just heard something around the edges, even if she wouldn't hire us for it. And . . ."

Ban tuned him out for a moment, as another thought came to mind. And if they, whoever they were, needed to move Ren out of Tokyo fast, then there were certain people who might be called on, and Hevn knew where to find them too. But better not bring up Doctor Jackal for the moment.

". . . and Ban knows all the seedy bars round here!" Ginji was finishing.

Ban smacked him round the head on principle.

"There is one other thing," Sakura said, cutting through Ginji's whimpering. Kazuki turned to look at her with an air of faint surprise. "Ginji-san, Midou-san, this is something which has not been brought up before, which puts the entire situation on a different level." She hesitated, clearly looking for words. "You are aware of Makubex's nature? Ren is the same."

Ban choked on the coffee which he had been about to swallow. He was conscious of Ginji going rigid, and -- far more interesting, in some ways -- the narrowing of Kazuki's eyes, the sudden shivering of the bells in his hair. "W-what -- virtual?" he burst out.

"Yes," Sakura said hastily, before Kazuki or Ginji could formulate their own questions. "Yes, like that. Yes, Kazuki-sama. Makubex and I have known ever since the lens affair. She knew as well. It was her own business. If she had wanted anyone else to know . . ."

"But she's . . ." Ginji began, then trailed off. "Oh. Wait. The timing and everything. And her being his granddaughter. Or saying she was. She really thought she was, didn't she -- that is, she must have, but -- when did she find out?"

"She didn't know." Kazuki's voice was surprisingly cold, surprisingly angry. "When did she find out, Sakura?"

Sakura turned to face Kazuki. "It was when she tried to leave Mugenjou, Kazuki-sama. She -- well, you could see that she realised then."

"And you did not tell me," he said precisely.

Sakura spread her hands. "You have been in Mugenjou more than once since then, and if she had wanted you to know --"

"Of course she wouldn't want me to know." He flattened one hand against the table. "Yet I had a responsibility towards her. If there was something which I could have done --"

"Kazuki." Ginji's voice cut across the other's rising tones, and Ban felt the hair on the back of his arms prickle as static plucked at the air around the four of them. "At present Ren's safety is our concern."

Kazuki took a long breath, then shifted position, letting his long tails of hair sift across his back. "You are correct. I apologise, Ginji-san."

"She knew that we knew," Sakura said softly. "She saw our eyes -- she knew that Makubex and I understood her condition, Kazuki-sama. That Makubex understood it too well."

"But this is fucking impossible," Ban broke in before everyone could start blaming themselves. "If she was -- like that -- then she couldn't have left Mugenjou!"

Ginji opened his mouth, then shut it again. Kazuki looked gracefully thoughtful, in the way that Ban suspected meant he hadn't a clue but was damned if he'd admit it.

Sakura looked grateful for the interruption. "One of the witnesses says that she was wearing heavy jewellery. Makubex suspects that this was actually some sort of technology which allowed her to be removed from Mugenjou. Of course, this casts matters in a rather different light."

"Um. I didn't think you could do that," Ginji commented.

"Nobody really knows what is possible in these matters, Ginji-san," Sakura agreed. "Of course, this suggests that whoever behind this has high connections in the technological world."

Kazuki tilted his head thoughtfully. Some of the danger had ebbed from his eyes and voice. "Perhaps a faction working against Babylon City? They are taking pains to remove her from the area, it seems; and Gen was . . ."

There was a silence in the booth. None of them had really known anything about the old man's motivations, Ban reflected, and it was too late to ask now. He'd been involved with Babylon City -- that much was certain -- but had apparently broken with them to some degree. What could the designer of Mugenjou have said, had he chosen to speak? And how much had that knowledge been a threat to his former colleagues?

"I think we can divide the work up for the moment," Ban said briskly. "Thread spool here --" Ginji kicked him under the table. "What I mean is, there's no point us going over the same ground twice. You lot inside Mugenjou know far more about what Medicine Man Gen's quarters should have looked like -- especially if Sakura here was visiting him all the time. You can search them and tell us if you find anything. Move in the computer boy's cameras and have him microscope the floor or something. Put the eye-witness accounts together and do a photofit thingy. Hit the Interpol servers -- I bet computer boy can hack into them. See if you can check up on the Miroku while you're at it, just in case."

Sakura nodded. "This can be done, Midou-san."

Kazuki gave him a heavy-lidded, ironic stare. "Yes. I will be happy to supervise the investigation inside Mugenjou. I take it the two of you will be using your own connections out here?"

"Of course," Ban said expansively, stretching out his arms to either side. He squeezed Ginji's shoulders. "The GetBackers are on the case! We'll check the usual illegal transportation channels, look into who might be handling that sort of technology, get round to all our usual contacts and see if anyone saw anything then -- don't worry, we'll probably be bringing her back by this time tomorrow."

Ginji nodded, restored to his usual perkiness. "Don't worry, Kazuki-chan, Sakura-chan! We'll find her and bring her right back -- and then we'll find out who did this!"

---

Kudou Himiko waited till she'd added the final three drops to the distillation, then picked up her phone to stop its pestilential ringing. If she'd been earlier on in the process, then it could have rung itself to perdition and back -- the call was unlikely to be anything so important that it couldn't wait ten minutes.

"Hello?" she queried. "Ah. Oh, I beg your pardon -- I was a little distance from the phone, and it took me a while to reach it. I hope that you were not inconvenienced."

The liquid began to slow its turbid swirling, deepening in colour.

"Why, yes, I will be available tonight. Medical specimens? Of course, that will be no trouble at all. And -- oh? Those two? Certainly, I have no problems working with them."

Drop after drop.

"Yes -- just a moment, please." She walked across the room to where her computer was sitting, and brought her email account up on the screen. "Yes, I have just received the email you mention. I will stop by this afternoon to collect the documents for the handover and procedures. Thank you very much, that will work nicely. I believe we can move your cargo to the schedule you require."

Maps and data blossomed on the computer screen in intricate patterns.

"Of course. That is part of the standard deal. We're very well known in the business, I assure you. We get the job done. No excuses. No stoppages. No problems for you."

She clicked the phone shut, and turned back to her glass apparatus. There was time to refine, bottle and stopper the latest scent before her appointment this afternoon. From what she had been told, it would be a good thing to be prepared.

That was all part of being a professional, after all.

---

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