“I don’t want to go back.”

  Case File #5

  January 4th, 2044

  04:15 PM

  Central Ward

  Horizon District

  Nanbu Naoya

  On the eastern side of Central Ward, Naoya stood outside in the rain, his semi-translucent hood pulled up over his head. Up and down the street were various sheltered waiting areas and bus stops, though the countless commuters that had packed themselves into the small spaces had warded Naoya away from joining them. His nerves were still rattled from everything that had happened this morning.

  Down at the end of the street was a tall post. Small luminescent screens floated around its base, offering local news to those travelers that had armed themselves with umbrellas to protect them from the rainfall. At the top of the silver pole, a red ribbon of light weaved itself through the air, the words “PLEASE STANDBY,” printed on it in large, bold white letters.

  Behind Naoya loomed the Eastern Central Municipal Metro Station. It was a pristine white building with smooth curves rather than hard angles. The building itself was two stories tall, with the top floor serving as a waiting area with shops and bathrooms, while the ground floor was for ticket sales and processing. Below ground is where the actual rails were, charting their courses through the abyssal innards of Yo?gai-shima. Naoya had never seen the inside of one of the rail cars and knew he likely never would. Just the thought of being trapped in a metal can and ferried underground gave him chills. He waited outside the building, where bus stops were lined up across the street.

  The sprawling building itself served as the informal border mark between Central and its eastern neighbor, the Sin Ward, though the area around the station lacked the gaudy décor of the Sin Ward proper. Set on the southeastern side of Central with its back to the sea, the Eastern Municipal Metro station had rail lines that traveled further east, deeper into Sin Ward, and the Harbor beyond it, or north, to bring commuters up to the Government District where it sat in the shadow of Getto?-dake. The rails, however, did not travel west.

  The Eastern Municipal Station was not far from the boundaries of the Bureau sub-district, and even from here, Naoya could see the walls of the Bureau’s private fortress standing tall. No public transportation was allowed over, under, or through that esoteric sector and the rail lines that had been laid down beneath the Bureau HQ had been dismantled and condemned when the organization had declared it to be so. As such, in order to reach the mirroring Western Municipal Station from its Eastern counterpart, one had to take a bus north and west to get around the border of the Bureau’s private retreat.

  That was something else Naoya felt sure he’d never see. What was behind those walls? What secrets did the Bureau hide? Beyond the checkpoints and armed guards that secured every entrance and exit was a world Naoya knew nothing about. In there, Suzume lived a different life. One that he wasn’t allowed to be a part of. She spent twelve hours a day working for the Bureau, but even the smallest anecdote about her experiences was seldom shared.

  With a forlorn sigh, Naoya put aside all thoughts of his lover’s other life and returned to waiting for the bus that would take him home. All around him were men and women, their ID’s flashing a mixture of different colored lights as they waited for the bus. There was the occasional murmur of conversation, but almost everyone had their heads craned downward, staring at the phones in their hands as they ignored the world around them.

  “Attention, attention,” the silver lampstand at the end of the street called out in an automated voice that projected across the station grounds. “Please standby for the evening forecast.”

  “Consumption of Hurricane Izumi is currently reported at forty percent. As such, light showers are expected to continue throughout the rest of the day and into the early morning tomorrow until the weather has been stabilized,” the mechanical, feminine voice reported.

  The glowing words around the lamppost disappeared, and animated holographic banners descended around the pole to reveal additional glowing screens. Each screen displayed a map of the island along with a weather forecast showcasing the movement of the storm clouds. Different areas along the city map were highlighted and color-coded to represent different potential events.

  “Please be aware, a category 2 storm warning issued by the Department of Civil Safety is still in effect. All beaches have been closed until the storm warning has been lifted. Please avoid the waterfronts if at all possible and dress appropriately for the weather to avoid hypothermia,”

  As the automated report continued, a small, chibi fire fighter appeared on one of the screens. He wore a dark flame-retardant suit with a wide, red hat, and his face was comically blocky with his eyes in a perpetual squint, though his mouth showed a wide, toothy grin.

  “Does that mean my trip to the beach is cancelled?” Kumori, the mascot of the Arcade District, asked even as he wasted no time in whipping off his jacket. While he applied suntan lotion to his cartoonishly large muscles, an animated cloud appeared overhead, and he was soon pelted with rain.

  “Learn from my mistakes, folks!” Kumori implored the indifferent travelers at the bus station, his teeth chattering.

  “The western bus route through Iron District has been rerouted due to the potential flooding of several cross streets,” the Forecast went on, going down a list of warnings. “We are sorry for any delays this detour may cause. Please remember that everything we do is for your safety.”

  “The Yo?gai-shima light rail between the Sin and Central Wards has been delayed by half an hour. There exists a thirty-three percent chance of a car accident in the Central Ward between the hours of 1900 and 2100. Please drive carefully. The Office of Public Safety urges commuters heading to Harbor Ward to please be aware that the area is still showing a heightened probability of violent crime after last week’s riot.”

  “I’ll make sure to bring my axe with me if I head out that way!” true to his word, the firefighter on screen pulled out a red and silver fire axe, brandishing it with joy. Even as the small figure of a red-haired policewoman leapt onto the screen, blowing her whistle and wildly windmilling a billy club, Naoya stopped listening to the forecast and joined the rest of the crowd in silence.

  He rubbed the fingers of his right hand, his digits still throbbing numbly beneath an assortment of bandages provided to him by Mrs. Gamo?. She’d been quick to offer countless apologies and, perhaps as an additional remedy, agreed to sign on a six-month plan. It was the first and only win of the day, and Yamato had been quick to continue warning him that the small victory would be cancelled just as soon as the woman’s husband came home.

  He’d been let loose from his leash after that, as Yamato had abruptly declared that he’d be going to lunch and told Naoya to meet him at a bus stop between Horizon and the Iron District later that day. As strange as the timing was, Naoya didn’t question it. The chance to spend time by himself without anyone breathing down his neck was like going on vacation.

  He’d never spent any time in the Sunset Ward. He couldn’t remember when he’d actually been there himself, but he was sure he’d been there at least once before. The more he thought about it, the stranger it seemed that he’d lived in this city for a decade without really seeing it. But he shuffled that thought to the back of his brain during his brief break. There was too much to see and too little time for him to spend it thinking about what couldn’t be changed.

  He’d spent his entire break going up and down Sunset district, mostly window shopping. He didn’t enter any of the stores and he didn’t buy anything. He didn’t want Suzume to lecture him on wasting money. That didn’t stop him from wandering as long as he could, though. More than once, he pondered going further out, travelling into the Arcade Ward.

  Arcade Ward had the largest shopping arcade on the entire island. Thousands of people commuted through the area day after day, more than he could meet in a lifetime. In his mind’s eye, Naoya could see the sprawling Western Harbor that extended into Yo?gai-shima’s southern waters, essentially a floating island unto itself. If Yo?gai-shima truly had a heart, it must be there, thought Naoya. Not here, in the bland and lifeless Central Ward. So tantalizing was the illusion in his head, he could nearly smell the salt on the air. But he didn’t go.

  As much as he’d wanted to wander and wander until his feet were blistered, thoughts of Suzume and his job kept him somewhat grounded, though he spent so much of his time lost in his own head that he nearly ran out of time to eat. He crossed back to the opposite end of town, back to Horizon and its somewhat more familiar environs to grab a meal from a fast food joint. He ate outside on a park bench as he looked eastward to the austere and uninviting Iron District.

  Naoya found himself waiting at the bus stop for Yamato, cooling his heels for twenty additional minutes before the other man showed up. He was distracted and suspicious, seemingly still bent out of shape over what happened at Mrs. Gamo’s apartment. They scarcely said two words to one another before getting back to work, Naoya listlessly following on Yamato’s heels.

  They spent the rest of the day together going through the motions, but Naoya was unable to get into his rhythm again and Yamato simply lingered at a distance, emanating creepy vibes in uncomfortable silence rather than doing anything useful. The last few hours had been a miserable damp slog through the city’s streets, doing wonders to douse Naoya’s good mood after his brief taste of freedom. He’d been glad when they returned to FAIR, eager to part ways with his new “partner.” Thankfully, Adachi-san had been kind enough to take an early day off with short-notice, meaning that Naoya and Yamato simply left the information on their one and only sale and went their separate ways.

  The sound of tires sloshing through water brought Naoya out of his recollections, and he looked up to see the four-thirty bus coming down the street a few minutes early. The green and white vehicle came to a halt in front of the bus stop nearest Naoya, the brakes whistling and groaning as it stopped. The doors opened with a hiss and a dozen commuters strode out into the rain even as a sea of eager travelers gathered at either side of the opening, waiting to board. Just watching the men and women that pressed and jostled one another as they climbed in and out of the metal coffin made Naoya’s skin run cold. Before he knew it, he’d turned away and begun walking down the street with his hands in his pockets.

  “Screw this,” he decided. In the back of his head, he knew he wasn’t taking the route home Suzume asked him to, but he couldn’t make himself take the bus. Not today. Looking down at his hand, Naoya briefly wondered what would have happened if he touched the side of the passenger car with it. Would it break apart like the teacup?

  “That wasn’t my fault!” he told himself, curling his fingers so hard that it hurt. “I didn’t make that happen.”

  Naoya let his feet wander as his mind did the same. Looking out over the skyline, he laid eyes on the teardrop shape of the Bureau HQ raised over its defensive walls in the distance, the black moon and white crescent instantly recognizable. He saw that building every day whenever he found himself looking out from the window of his apartment. The monotone symbol decorating the side of the building felt intimately familiar to Naoya, even the first time he laid eyes on it.

  Using the distant tower as his guiding star, Naoya made his way home in a round-about way. The streets were livelier than they had been this morning, with groups of people walking briskly down the street beneath umbrellas heading toward the rail station in the opposite direction Naoya was walking. Students walked together, huddled close, as they shared gossip. Buses drove down the street, carrying dozens of people at a time like cargo, followed by the occasional private car driven by businessmen or politician eager to let loose in Sin Ward after a long day of embezzlement.

  Tasting the fresh air and watching the city come alive around him, not for the first time, Naoya felt out of place. How long had he been living on this island without really seeing it? With each step, Naoya’s eyes landed on little shops and nooks he’d never seen before. He saw a charming bakery on one corner that had already closed for the day, its lights dim. Around another corner was a classy restaurant decorated in a black marble skin. Naoya stopped outside the automatic doors, listening to classical music wafting out to join the sound of the rain. A small holographic banner scrolled across the outside wall, tempting passersby with the delicacies offered inside, and Naoya paused to look at it.

  “Tonight’s Special: Genuine Kobe-Beef Sirloin.”

  Kobe-Beef. What was that? It was something he felt like he should know but didn’t. Did Suzume like Kobe-Beef?

  There was so much about the city he didn’t know. Thinking back to the cars passing him by on the street, he questioned himself: how did he know that businessman stole money and spent it in Sin? What was Sin Ward like? The more he thought about it, the more he wondered where the thought had come from. Maybe it was something he picked up from Suzume.

  With every moment, the more bizarre but inviting the city around him became. There was a world of possibilities around every corner and down every street. There were a thousand things Naoya didn’t know and there wasn’t half enough time in the world to learn it all. Deep inside, a familiar wanderlust began to bloom. But then he remembered where his feet were taking him: home. To the apartment on the border between Central and Sin Ward. That tiny little cell where he spent every waking moment when he wasn’t at work.

  “I don’t want to go back.”

  He found himself looking at the sky, standing alone on the middle of the sidewalk, frankly shocked at the thought. He tried to suppress the sentiment, to quash it as though it were a blasphemous statement that needed to be hidden and buried, but the attempt quickly fell flat. He didn’t want to go home. He didn’t want to go back to his boring life of endlessly changing jobs, staring at the same four walls while he muttered apology after apology and sat through countless lectures.

  He pictured Suzume’s face in his mind’s eye, and she scowled back at him. Maybe that was too strong a word. Still, the woman he saw in his head didn’t have a friendly expression, but one of suppressed annoyance. Her porcelain skin was smooth, her mouth a thin line, but her forehead was creased with irritation and her cold eyes spoke of disappointment. It wasn’t always like this. Once, things had been better between them. How long ago was that?

  Naoya felt a weak smile forming on his face, despite the image of his irate paramour. He wanted to see her again, her smile most of all. He wanted to hold her in his arms. He wanted to be the man she needed him to be. That was enough to justify going home again, no matter how much he resented it. He fished out his Augur, checking the time on the display: 04:24.

  “I still have a few hours before Suzume gets off work,” Naoya considered, renewing his pace. “I’ll make dinner,” he decided. “If it’s good, maybe I can ease off the tension after this morning.”

  His feet carried him homeward as he steeled himself for another day with Suzume’s crushing disappointment. As the streets and buildings around him became somewhat more familiar, Naoya spied a small convenience store and, on instinct, he decided to step in. He’d frequented this store a dozen times, stopping in on his way to and from work at other jobs. In a way, it was almost a second home. Naoya stepped through the sliding glass doors, listening to the familiar jingle overhead.

  “Welcome!” to the right of the store entrance was the cashier’s station and behind it he saw a tall white man with pale skin, freckles and red hair in a lime green employee shirt.

  “Are you here to buy an umbrella?” the man asked, noting that Naoya was leaving a trail of water wherever he walked.

  “Not today, James,” Naoya answered to the American. “I’m used to life raining on me.”

  “Well, let me know if you need anything.”

  The shop was split into rows that imitated a convenience store you might’ve found on the streets of Tokyo, before the days of Yo?gai-shima, however, the times had brought an almost unfriendly quality to daily shopping. To the left of the doorway, the store was split into five aisles, each offering a different item. The far wall was the refrigerated section, offering salads, premade lunches and sandwiches and ice cream. Beyond that, there were aisles for medicine, snacks, electronics, and so on.

  Something about the way the store presented itself seemed normal to Naoya, but it was never quite right. Each aisle was locked behind a clear shatter-proof plexiglass case with each individual row of items having their own transparent hatch. Each little door had a small electronic lock set into it to stop people from simply raiding the store to get what they needed: a holdover security measure from when Yo?gai-shima had so much less to go around.

  Naoya wandered the snack aisle before his eyes caught on a particularly tasty looking rice cookie. He reached under his jacket and unclipped his Civil ID, lifting it up to tap the lock. There was a mechanical beep, and a small light switched on, signaling that the door was open and Naoya pulled it open before retrieving his afternoon snack. He let the door swing shut by himself, choosing to waste a few more minutes of time browsing through the store’s selection.

  He'd moved to the front of the store and had begun poring through the selection of magazines, manga, and cheap movies that were thankfully left open for customers to peruse, when he heard the sound of the automatic door opening and the chime of the motion sensor. Naoya didn’t look up, but he knew that he’d soon be joined by a familiar face. It happened nearly every time he came in at this hour, and he’d long since stopped finding the common occurrence to be disturbing and more a simple fact of life.

  “Looking for something to watch?” asked a young, girlish voice at Naoya’s left elbow. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw her: a short girl, maybe five-foot, with pinkish red hair pulled up into a ponytail on the side of her head, her orange eyes staring up at him innocently. She was wearing a dark green wool sweater with a hood that was thick and baggy over tight, red leggings and red and white sneakers. Pinned to the chest of the hoodie were various pins, some of them anime characters and others of city mascots. Despite her short size, she was a fully figured woman and Naoya was painfully aware of how cute she was when he felt her eyes on him. He knew her face without question, but he’d never been given a name to put to it, so he’d taken to thinking of her as “Conbeni-chan.”

  “Figured I’d find something the girlfriend and I can watch to unwind after dinner,” it wasn’t the first time Naoya mentioned his better half in the presence of his persistent admirer, not that it ever seemed to deter her. He wondered whether or not the strange girl was simply trying to be kind to him, striking up conversations like this, but the way she coyly clasped her arms behind her back and angled her face to one side, smiling up at him told him there was more than just a neighborly interest in her actions.

  “Well, you’re not going to have much luck with that one,” the girl cocked an eyebrow at the movie in Naoya’s hand: Revenge of the Blood-Sucking Mutant Teenager.

  “Maybe she and I are into monster movies?” Naoya challenged while watching the girl from the corner of his eye.

  “Somehow, I doubt it,” she answered without hesitation, even having the audacity to roll her eyes.

  “Well, what would you suggest?” Naoya found himself a little annoyed, but somehow, he was getting playful as well. He turned to fully face the girl, their eyes finally meeting. He felt his body heat rise half a degree as she smiled at him. He tried to quash the feeling, but he couldn’t deny the fact that he was attracted to her. Somehow, just acknowledging that made him feel guilty.

  “May I?” without waiting for an answer, Conbeni-chan gently plucked the movie case from Naoya’s hand with a finger and thumb and replaced it on the rack. She scanned the selection of movies on display with a finger to her chin, her face brightening when her eyes recognized what she was looking for. She slid a movie off the rack and turned back to Naoya, holding it clasped to her chest.

  “This movie,” Conbeni-chan swayed back and forth on the spot, eyes downward. “It taught me a lot about love, y’now?”

  “So, it’s a romance?” Naoya asked, tilting his head to try and see the movie case obscured by the girl’s fingers and her red-painted nails. Would Suzume like something like that?

  “It’s more than that!” Conbeni-chan told him with sudden intensity. “It’s a movie about relationships. About struggle. The drama of life!”

  “That sounds like a romance to me,” Naoya scratched the back of his head, awkwardly.

  “I first watched this movie with someone very special to me,” Conbeni-chan went on. “He and I didn’t understand it at first, but as our relationship got stronger, everything that happened in the story suddenly seemed a lot more meaningful, y’know? Since then, I’ve looked at the movie as kind of a crucible.”

  “So-o-o,” Naoya let the girl’s words pass right over his head. “Are you recommending it to me?”

  “I am!” she briefly held out the movie to Naoya with both hands but then pulled it back when he reached for it. “If! If you think your relationship is strong enough to handle it.”

  “It’s just a movie,” Naoya insisted, starting to get annoyed.

  “It isn’t!” the girl objected. “Weren’t you listening?”

  “I think my girlfriend and I can handle it,” Naoya held out his hand and Conbeni-chan appraised him with a keen eye before holding the movie out to him again. Naoya reached out to take it and then paused, expecting her to pull it away again, but instead, she pushed it closer to him with a smile.

  Naoya took the movie case and held it up, halfway expecting it to turn out to be a horror movie or some kind of raunchy comedy as an elaborate prank. Instead, the cover showed a man and a woman with their backs to each other while the sun rose, and the moon fell behind them. The title was one simple word: Collision.

  “It’s a Shimono Kojiro? film,” Conbeni-chan stepped closer, peering over Naoya’s arm to look at the cover. “It’s one of his early works.”

  “Wasn’t he involved in some kind of scandal recently?” Naoya asked.

  “Is that a deal-breaker?”

  “No,” Naoya answered after thinking for a moment.

  “You won’t regret watching it,” Conbeni-chan assured him, clapping her hands together with a smile.

  “Well, thanks for the advice, I guess,” Naoya felt a distinct sense of déjà vu as the conversation seemed to dovetail into its usual resolution. He looked at Conbeni-chan, silently, and she cocked her head at him, a coy smile on her face in invitation.

  “I’m sorry,” Naoya began. “But what was your name again?”

  Conbeni-chan backed up a few spaces, her hands once again hidden behind her back. Her smile deepened and her cheeks reddened somewhat. There was a warm intensity in her eyes. Naoya couldn’t take his eyes off her.

  “That-,” she raised her right hand, wagging a finger at him, “-is a silly question.”

  And with that, their conversation reached the same conclusion it had half a dozen times. Conbeni-chan walked away, disappearing into one of the other aisles. Naoya took the movie and the barely remembered rice cookie up to the cashier. James smiled at him knowingly as he came up, glancing over Naoya’s shoulder. Naoya followed his gaze to Conbeni-chan putting in a pair of wireless headphones while looking over the selection of salads.

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  “I think she likes you,” James whispered, bringing Naoya’s attention back to the cashier.

  “You think so?” Naoya tried to play it off, but he could only imagine what he looked like or how he sounded. He paid the cashier with automaticity, still thinking about the strange girl. Nothing stopped him from going back over to where she was and continuing the conversation except an unspoken sense that told him not to. Part of him wanted him to keep speaking to her, to get her name, her number. Naoya was ashamed of that attraction he felt, and he quashed it down somewhere deep in his stomach. He had someone to go home to, after all.

  “Women,” Naoya sighed as he stepped out into the light rain, enjoying the feeling as it cooled him off.

  January 4th, 2044

  04:30 PM

  Central Ward

  Horizon District

  Senior Inspector Sumitomo Suzume

  “Rainy days like this are much more dangerous than you might think, you know?” a voice intruded on Suzume’s thoughts as she stood leaning against her car under the downpour.

  She pulled Negative Karma out from within her body and wove it around herself, creating a sheath of Negativity that caused the rain to fall away from her, keeping her dry even as the rest of the street was drenched. In her left hand, she held her Omen which projected a digital map. Using her right forefinger, she played with the map and double tapped on the projection, causing the map to zoom in.

  “Hakamada and Uragami Rhinoplasty and Reconstructive Surgery,” Suzume read off the name to herself. “My last stop.”

  She’d been driving up and down the city since she’d left the office this morning. She’d travelled up and down the Ward, visiting the hospitals closest to the apartment building that had been torn down in the confrontation between the Envoy and Inspector Takeyoshi. From there, she’d widened her search perimeter, expanding outward while moving from place to place, hoping that her target’s self-mutilation had served some purpose. Instead, she’d felt from the outset that the Spider was simply laying down a false trail.

  The day had been filled with repetition; go to front desk. Flash badge. Speak to hospital administrator. Get access to the hospital’s close circuit security system and run down the list of patients admitted to the facility after 0700. Find nothing. Repeat. Yet, there was precious little else she could do.

  The security system from Kazuma Iori’s apartment had been destroyed in the chaos of the crumbling building and the street cameras nearby had been blinded in the whirlwind combination of the debris, the torrential downpour, and the darkness of the early morning. Without a direct trail to follow, Suzume had put out a request to the Civil Police, requesting that the Bureau be informed if any calls were put out on a man with a wounded face that matched Inspector Asahi’s description. There was always a barrier to overcome when the Bureau communicated with the local government’s police force, so Suzume expected that the Civil Police hadn’t taken to her request with any speed.

  “You see, the storms we get here on Yo?gai-shima are much worse than back on the mainland,” the salesman in the black suit went on. Moments after getting out of her car, the man had walked up, sheltered underneath a wide, red umbrella and struck up a conversation. “There’s much more saltwater in the rain from typhoons like this and that makes the storm that much more damaging. The damage from saltwater corrosion isn’t something that you can afford to just ignore.”

  “My apartment building has walls lined with nanite laminate to prevent that kind of thing,” she answered. “I’m well protected from water damage.”

  She didn’t bother looking the other man directly, only glancing at him from the corner of her eye. He was tall and dressed in black, though he had a slight hunch that made him seem smaller and leaner. His umbrella was angled to shelter him from the rain, his face obscured by a black mask, but the glasses he wore seemed to shine with the glare from the light that pierced the swirling grey clouds overhead.

  She tucked her Omen into holster on her right thigh as she stood up straight. She tried to non-verbally signal to the other man that she was done with the conversation, if only to avoid being rude.

  “Is that so?” the man gave a hesitant chuckle and rubbed the back of his neck. “I suppose the men and women responsible for keeping us safe would be given the very best of everything. Even so, I like to try and help in my own way, when I can. You’d be surprised how often I run into people that aren’t prepared for the unexpected. Sometimes, I wonder if people realize how dangerous this city can be.”

  “And striking up conversations with officers on duty is the best way to help people, in your mind?” Suzume fixed the other man with her best disapproving stare, and he wilted, to her satisfaction.

  “I’m sorry,” the man apologized. “Am I getting in the way? I didn’t mean to be a bother. It’s just that I have a friend in the Bureau, so I guess I’ve developed something of a blind spot when talking to Inspectors.”

  As he spoke, the man in black fished out a business card and handed it to her. Though he couldn’t use both hands to offer it due to his umbrella, he still bowed humbly. Suzume found herself taking the small card in hand and her eyes scanned it, but she didn’t really read it. She’d thought she’d made her point already, but the salesman’s demeanor made her unsure.

  “My company is the best in the Ward when it comes to preparatory evaluations and providing extensive coverage for all kinds of claims,” the man went on, and Suzume found a sense of irritation rising in the back of her mind. “I imagine in your line of work, you run into many people that could use a helping hand from a good insurance agency.”

  “Does he think I’m going to start giving him referrals now?” Suzume wondered. “As if I don’t have better things to do.”

  “There I go again!” the salesman flashed a grin, the umbrella that concealed his face lifting upward just enough to reveal his bright, scarlet eyes. “I just can’t seem to switch off today! Please, excuse my rudeness. I’ll leave you to your business, Inspector. Take care.”

  The man backed away a few steps with a warm bow and he turned and pattered down the rain-slickened street. Suzume watched him go for a few moments before she strode toward the door of the clinic, putting the strange man out of her mind. Taking hold of the front door handle with her left hand, she tucked the business card into the pocket of her waistcoat as she stepped into the building.

  A mechanical chime sounded as Suzume stepped into the lobby. The inside of the building was warm and quiet, a refreshing change from the damp, cold outside. The floor was a bronze-orange tile, and the walls were a neutral white. The waiting room was empty, leaving the small seating areas to either side of the doors vacant. Small tables had been set up with stacks of untouched magazines laying across them. On the right-hand side of the room was a door that led further into the building with a sign that said:

  “Please wait outside until a nurse arrives to escort you.”

  The front desk was pushed back into the far side of the room opposite the entrance with a counter that stretched from wall to wall. Above the counter was a transparent plastic screen that reached up to the ceiling, creating a complete barrier that prevented patients from directly interacting with the staff. The desks had computers that hadn’t been powered on and vacant chairs, as well. Behind the desk were two doors, one closed and the other slightly ajar.

  “No one’s here,” Suzume noted, listening to the soft sound of music being played over the office speakers. “Are they closed on account of the storm? But who opened the office?”

  Suzume stepped to the front desk, peering toward the halfway opened door. There was a light on in the room inside, though the door wasn’t open wide enough to see anything. Looking down at the desk, there was a small chime with a note next to it.

  “If front desk is unoccupied, please ring for service.”

  Suzume rang the bell without hesitation and the office was filled with a soft, echoing chime. Immediately, the light in the backroom clicked off and she heard the sound of shuffling feet. Apparently, whomever was in there hadn’t heard her entering the building.

  The door swung open, and the light from the lobby poured into the now darkened backroom. A man stood in the doorway, tall enough that the light only fell on his chest. The man’s head and shoulders were still in darkness, though Suzume could tell the man was staring at her from two small glints of light reflecting off the whites of his eyes.

  “You’re not who I was expecting,” the man spoke as he came forward.

  His voice was deep, but he spoke softly and uncertainly, almost as though he was talking to himself. The tall man was over six foot and broad across the shoulders. His head was shaved down to the skin, but his wide, square chin was covered by a well-trimmed, dark beard. He was dressed in a white set of scrubs with short sleeves that revealed his thick, trunk-like arms.

  “Who were you expecting?” Suzume asked, immediately, as her eyes scanned the man’s face, covered in nervous sweat.

  The big man refused to make eye contact, looking down somewhere to his right. Suzume’s eyes sped up and down the man’s frame, taking in his uniform and the badge on his chest. The ID pinned to his uniform marked him as Mori Kotaro, a nurse. The picture matched the face, but the photo was an old one, as Kotaro had a thinner beard and a buzzcut. The scrubs he was wearing were tailored to fit his giant frame, further confirming that he worked here. So why was he so nervous?

  “A-a-a,” the man stuttered. “A man.”

  “Who?” Suzume asked, fixing her eyes on the strange nurse.

  “No one you’d know,” Kotaro assured her. “Just-just a patient. I guess he was held up on account of the storm.”

  “Is that right?” Suzume wondered, not letting her guard down for moment.

  Without taking her gaze off the man in front of her, she reached into her coat pocket and pulled out her badge. The black leather wallet was marked with the symbol of the Bureau, the black moon cradled by the white crescent, and she opened it, revealing her ID and the gold badge that marked her as an Inspector. She pressed the wallet against the desk and slid it through the small opening in the plastic barrier to the nurse for him to look at.

  “Inspector Sumitomo?” the man read aloud as he held the wallet up to his face, brushing nervous sweat from his brow with one hand. “Is there something I can help you with?” he asked, sliding the ID back to her.

  “I need to ask you a few questions,” she told him as she slid the small wallet back into her coat. “Have you been in the office since this morning?”

  “Uh, yes.”

  “Have you had any patients this morning with wounds on their face?” Suzume asked.

  “We’re not an emergency medical service provider,” the nurse informed her. “If someone came in with an injury, we would redirect them to the nearest hospital.”

  “That’s not an answer to my question,” Suzume noted, and the man glowered at her, placing his hands down on the desk.

  “There was one man,” the man admitted, his voice low and quiet.

  “Who?” Suzume asked.

  “I didn’t get a name,” the nurse explained. “He came in, holding a bloody rag to his face. He just stood here in the lobby, demanding to see one of the doctors on staff. He had this crazed energy. I don’t know how else to describe it. I was about to call the police until Doctor Uragami stepped in.”

  “What happened then?” the Inspector prompted him.

  “Well, the Doctor, he,” the large nurse rubbed that back of his head, nervously. “He talked him down. Got him to settle. He took him into the back and ordered me to call an ambulance.”

  “How long ago was this?” Suzume took her eyes off the other man and glanced toward the door to her right.

  “About an hour ago,” the nurse answered, and Suzume turned her eyes back to the nurse with a quizzical expression.

  “An hour ago?” she repeated. The timing didn’t seem right. “Is he still here?”

  “I’m still waiting for the ambulance,” the large man confessed. “Neither he nor Dr. Uragami have come back out since.”

  “Show me where they are,” Suzume told him, and the man nodded.

  He stepped to his left, entering a door that exited into a hallway out of Suzume’s sight. Not waiting for an instant, Suzume crossed to the door on her right and opened it without hesitation. She stepped into a hall with bronze linoleum floors and bright white walls, fluorescent lights flickering in the ceiling. Doors to small rooms were spaced at intervals on either side of the hallway. A door to Suzume’s left opened and the nurse stepped out and he paused to stare at her as though he didn’t expect her to be there.

  “It’s just down at the end of the hall,” he told her, gesturing in the direction she should go. “He’ll be in the operating theater.”

  “Operating theater?” Suzume inwardly questioned the man’s story, again. “For first aid?”

  Nonetheless, she stepped forward, and took the lead, just as the nurse clearly wanted. Suzume remained keenly aware of the large man behind her, who seemed reticent to have her move outside his arm’s reach. Down at the end of the hall, the corridor took a sharp left and as Suzume turned the corner, she could see the operating room at the far end, clearly marked with a sign. The door was wide open though the interior seemed darkened, which seemed odd. Nevertheless, Suzume continued.

  Passing a partially open door on her right that led into an exam room, she heard the sound of it closing as she went by, and she immediately stopped. She glanced at the closed door, noting that the lights inside the exam room appeared to be off, judging by the lack of light coming through the doorframe.

  “Who’s in there?” Suzume pointed at the door and looked over her shoulder toward the large nurse.

  “Uh, it’s,” the man stumbled over his words again. “It’s just another nurse. Probably getting the exam room set up.”

  “I’ll need to speak with them, as well,” Suzume told him as she read his face.

  “Oh, um. Of course,” he answered, swallowing hard. “I’ll bring them out once you’ve spoken with the doctor.”

  As the man gestured back toward the surgery room, Suzume simply continued walking, noting the man’s obvious intensity. She came to an abrupt stop about five paces from the open door and stared, not into the room, but the doorframe itself. Her senses told her something was there. Something that couldn’t be seen with ordinary human eyes.

  “Is there something wrong?” the nurse asked, but Suzume ignored him.

  She let a lightning bolt pass through her mind’s eye, bathing herself in the momentary light and lingering thunder. She fully immersed herself in her Exigency, letting the adrenaline and Hazard Energy transform her into something more dangerous than a human could ever be. She was keenly aware of the flow of fortune and misfortune that writhed through the building and, in particular, the negativity that hung over the doorway ahead of her.

  While she couldn’t perceive the culprit directly, she knew that if she were to attempt to cross the threshold, she would be wounded, somehow. Lethally so. She saw herself being entangled by something. No. Her senses sharpened. She would be cut to pieces. Without turning to look, she had a premonition of another danger: a large, right-hand creeping toward her back, intent on pressing her into the doorway.

  Suzume spun to her right, moving with speed and grace. Before Kotaro could touch her or even perceive that she had moved, Suzume took hold of the man’s outstretched arm, her right hand on his wrist, left on his elbow. With casual ease, she yanked him forward as though he was a child and sent him stumbling toward the door ahead of them. The man spread his hands outward, trying to take hold of anything he could to stop himself. He let loose an inarticulate scream, but the sound was cut short as Suzume took hold of the back of the man’s collar, stopping him from falling through the doorway.

  “Clearly, you knew what was going to happen to me if I’d stepped through,” Suzume noted. “I’m going to ask you a few more questions, and this time, I want real answers.”

  The man said nothing but simply trembled in Suzume’s grip. Before she had a chance to pressure him, she was interrupted by the sound of a door opening behind her. Suzume turned to look, her eyes falling on a young woman dressed in pink scrubs with a surgical mask and cap stepping into the hallway. The second nurse looked at Suzume with deranged fixation, clutching a Liston knife in one gloved hand.

  The woman charged toward Suzume, eerily silent save for frenzied breath, and the Inspector was forced to let go of Kotaro to defend herself. The nurse slashed wildly and forcefully, but without skill. Suzume leaned backward to avoid a cut across the face, more out of habit than necessity; an ordinary blade couldn’t cut her. A second slash was stopped short when Suzume grabbed the woman’s wrist with her left hand. The nurse tried to pull away as Suzume stepped forward, striking her in the sternum with a right-handed palm thrust. The woman bent double and wheezed, but Suzume pressed her attack.

  Drawing on her Crisis, the disaster imprinted on her being, Suzume created an electro-magnetic field through the Hazard Particles within her body. She instantaneously altered the polarity of the particles in her right hand to match the particles in the nurse’s body. The matching Karmic fields created a repelling force, sending the woman hurtling down the hallway. The nurse in pink spun through the air, end over end, before colliding with the far wall and collapsing to the ground. Though the force Suzume used had been more than enough to knock an ordinary woman unconscious, the nurse placed both hands against the cold linoleum beneath her and use them to prop herself up, still eerily quiet.

  Suzume straightened up and casually reached backward with her right hand, stopping a punch from Kotaro aimed toward the back of her head. She turned and pulled the heavy man down to his knees as she twisted his hand into an agonizing finger lock, intent on subduing him. However, it was to no avail.

  As Kotaro looked at her, the expression on his face changed. Suzume snapped his right forefinger and thumb, hoping the pain would distract him, but he seemed not to care. He stood himself back on his feet and pulled back against Suzume, his strength growing as he, too, became something more than human. Kotaro’s throat expanded grotesquely, and his mouth opened wide, his jaw bones strained against the flesh of his cheeks. His neck tore open, revealing a chain of black, bloody wires that connected his now severed head to his body. The man’s mouth followed, his cheeks ripping open as his lower jaw dislocated.

  Suzume let Kotaro go and ducked backward down the hall as he moved toward her, blood staining his white uniform. A frenzied look filled his eyes as his head dangled down toward his feet by the black and bloodied tether, nearly being dragged across the floor. The big man lurched backward, pivoting on his hips as he whipped his head around like a wrecking ball. Spinning and gyrating, the grotesque flail tried to collide with Suzume or to latch onto her with its gnashing and biting bloody teeth. Instead, Suzume effortlessly evaded each strike, and the head whipped through the walls and floors of the hall around them, callously tearing through everything it made contact with.

  Sensing danger behind her, Suzume ducked an attempted headbutt from Kotaro’s cranial flail and glanced over her shoulder. The nurse lay on the floor, her back likely broken from Suzume’s attack. However, she propped herself up on her hands, and the woman’s chest heaved as though she were about to vomit. Her mask was torn and blood flowed out of her mouth and down her chin, heralding a black tentacle that forced itself through her jaws. Just like Kotaro, the new growth looked like it was made from a braid of black wires, though this one was lined with teeth, bones and what appeared to be surgical scalpels. Had she swallowed them?

  Suzume didn’t have time to think through the question and instead focused on the fact she was about to be pinned between two attackers. Kotaro’s flailing head demanded that Suzume give up ground to avoid it and the other nurse’s blade encrusted pseudopod arched backward like a snake, ready to strike as Suzume retreated closer and closer. Suzume ducked another sweep of Kotaro’s flail, and his head arced around in a clockwise motion, the bloody wires wrapping around his chest.

  Kotaro leaned backward on his ankles, bending so far that it seemed impossible for him to stay on his feet. The cords wrapped around his chest loosened and fell down his shoulders and bloody neck to pile themselves on the floor. With exaggerated slowness, Kotaro began to swing forward, not simply to move upright, but to swing his own skull at Suzume in as direct and powerful an attack he could muster.

  As Kotaro whipped his upper body forward, sending his tethered skull toward Suzume, the Inspector gathered electromagnetic energy in her right hand. Charging her right middle finger with positive energy and her thumb with negative, she held up her hand in front of her and clicked her fingers, creating the world’s smallest lightning bolt. She used a Transaction to take away all the heat of the surging electrons, trading it away to enhance the brightness of the flash and the power of the thunder. Directing the reaction toward Kotaro, the former human was lit up so brightly by the thunder bolt that Suzume could momentarily see his skeleton. The thunder that followed after ruptured the man’s eardrums and Kotaro stumbled backward, deaf and blind as his head whipped back and forth around his toes, uselessly.

  Suzume didn’t press her attack, instead turning about to face the other nurse as she lashed out with her monstruous tongue. Suzume took hold of the writhing, blood coated member with her left hand, stopping it from striking her. As she did, the tentacle lashed itself to her arm, trying to pull her down. Instead, Suzume altered her magnetic field so that she opposed the floor beneath her, rooting herself to the ground and preventing the member from yanking her from her spot.

  Her right hand reached down to the brown leather holster on her thigh, drawing out her mirror-silver Omen, Kaminari. The thin brick of nanometal shifted and split apart, reshaping itself into a spear longer than Suzume was tall. The elegant weapon had a long, curved blade at the top, marking it as a naginata. Hefting the polearm in her right hand, Suzume thrust it upward, instead of at her enemy. The liquid metal weapon pierced through the light above Suzume and drove itself into the electrical cables of the building itself. Using herself as a conduit, Suzume drew energy from the office, causing the lights to flicker as she sent the current of electricity through the nurse’s black tongue and into her body.

  The nurse writhed and spasmed as the electricity ravaged her body, her eyes bursting and her skin blackening and falling off. In moments, the black tongue went limp, and the nurse fell still, only twitching occasionally on account of her ravaged nerves. Kotaro left little time for Suzume to celebrate her victory, once more pressing his attack.

  Heedless of his own safety, Kotaro swept his head toward Suzume, and she spun, striking him on the forehead with the blunt haft of her weapon. Kotaro’s head flew backwards over his shoulders with such intensity that his body was forced to walk backward several steps in order to avoid being dragged to the ground. Before he could recover, Suzume twirled her weapon, the shimmering blade carving through the confines of the building around her without resistance as she launched her own attack.

  Twirling the silver weapon in both hands, Suzume sheared off Kotaro’s right arm at the shoulder, then spun the weapon in a low arc to sever his left leg at the knee with surgical precision. The big man sagged to the floor, unable to twist and turn his body so that he might attack any longer. Suzume held up her blade toward the kneeling man, pointing the tip at his chest. She felt a surge of pity somewhere in the back of her mind for the creature the innocent man had become, a transformation not of his own choosing. But it was pointless to dally; nothing could make him human again and he would never betray the one that had made him this way. There was only one thing to do.

  “Repulsion,” Suzume spoke the word aloud, pushing him away with a magnetic field. The nurse lifted into the air from the force and, in Suzume’s eye, he dangled limply and quietly like a puppet with broken strings. Kotaro crossed through the doorway into the surgical suite and, instantaneously, he was diced into a thousand pieces. He fell into the room beyond and splattered across the floor, so finely minced that it seemed like there was more blood than flesh or bone.

  Suzume allowed herself to breathe for a moment, an entirely human expression that was unnecessary in Exigency. Still, she didn’t let down her guard. There was no telling if there was anyone else still hiding in the building. She crossed over toward the door of the surgical suite, the entryway coated in what appeared to be a web of blood left behind when Kotaro passed through. Pieces of his skin and bone still hung in the air, suspended, seemingly, on nothing. Suzume leaned close, peering at the grisly display.

  “The doorway was strung up with wires so thin, they can’t be seen by the human eye,” she concluded. “They must be close to a molecule in thickness. Nothing would have survived passing through.”

  Gathering Positive Karma in her body, Suzume channeled it into the silver blade held in her hand and swept the naginata up through the doorway. She felt only the least resistance as she did so, so imperceptible that it could have been mistaken for the air itself. Only the slackening of the bloody curtain told her the strings had been cut.

  Suzume stepped cautiously into the room beyond, focusing all her efforts on discerning any potential traps around her. A human figure lay on the operating table, covered by a white sheet. Blood soaked through the covering where the figure’s head was, marking a grisly mutilation beneath. Before approaching the table, Suzume glanced to her right, where a door led into a small room off to the side of the theater. At once, she struck the doorknob off and pushed the door inward with the tip of her weapon, remaining at a safe distance. Inside was a small preparatory area where surgeons washed themselves and their tools in a sink to decontaminate them before operations. It was a dark and cramped room, but there was no one inside.

  Moving on, Suzume cautiously stepped to the feet of the figure lying on the table. She lifted the sheet to uncover the person’s feet, and she reached down, squeezing the figure’s left big toe. She could feel the cold, dead flesh through the glove on her hand, but her suspicion demanded she go the extra mile. She summoned a jolt of electricity and let it pass through her fingers and into the corpse. The body jerked once, then lay still once more. Dead.

  Satisfied, Suzume stripped the sheet off the dead body, revealing the faceless corpse of a man lying on the table, his eyes staring endlessly upward as his teeth were bared in a grotesque grin. Blood was caked around his face and neck, meaning he’d been alive when he’d been flayed. All he wore was a hospital gown with no identification or personal effects to be seen.

  “Iwamoto, come in,” Suzume pulled out her cell phone and called her support team still waiting on the street outside.

  “Go ahead, Inspector,” came the nasally voice of one of her officers.

  “I need you and the rest of the team to lock down the building,” Suzume ordered as she stared down at the dead body. “Make sure no one gets in or out. Dial in to HQ and get a forensic team down here, as well.”

  “Any injuries or fatalities?”

  “Three,” she reported. “Two of them were hostile and had to be eliminated. The third’s a corpse in the operating theater with no ID. Have Jyo?ji run it down to the coroner for identification. Have the rest of the patrol search the building, top to bottom. I need to know where the rest of the staff went.”

  “Understood,” the officer acknowledged. “I’ll put the word out.”

  Distantly, Suzume heard the sound of sirens as her funeral procession spurred into action. In moments, her officers would be combing the building and tearing it apart for evidence. But what was there left to find?

  Suzume’s eyes travelled down the dead man’s body, a victim whose name and face had been stripped away from him, along with his life. She cocked her head to one side as her eyes fell on his left hand. He was holding something. She gently took the dead man’s hand by the thumb and turned it over. Clutched in his fingers was a small scrap of folded, colored paper.

  She turned her weapon back into its compact form and tucked it into her holster before carefully plucking the folded paper from between the dead man’s fingers. Smoothing and opening the paper with careful precision, Suzume found it was a greeting card. Displayed on the front was a scenic shot of Tokyo Bay. Inside was a small handwritten note:

  “You know I always loved the view of the harbor.”

  Whatever meaning the message held was lost on the Inspector. It didn’t matter to her, though, as she saw the bigger picture.

  “You tore off your own face and then came here,” she told the corpse as though he was the killer. “You took another man’s face and name for your own and turned the nurses into Petitioners to set a trap for whomever came looking for you, right? That’s what you wanted Takeyoshi to think, anyway. But I’m not Takeyoshi.”

  She placed the gift card down on the table and replaced the sheet, covering the cadaver’s missing face.

  “And I know that this is a game I’m not meant to win. So, I’m not going to play.”

  Incident Report

  January 4th, 2044

  Central Ward

  Horizon District

  Hakamada and Uragami Rhinoplasty and Facial Reconstruction Services Office.

  I entered the office at 0430 PM and questioned the staff regarding any patients or visitors that matched the description of the fugitive Human Calamity that attacked Inspector Asahi this morning (See Inspector Asahi’s report from 0700 AM on 01/04/2044). After being informed a man with a wound on his face was seen entering the building and going into the back room of the clinic with one of the doctors, I asked to be allowed to see him.

  In the halls, I was attacked by two nurses, Mori Kotaro and Go?da Kako, and nearly forced into a trap. Both nurses transformed into Human Calamities with Crises matching Inspector Asahi’s attacker. After eliminating both of my attackers, I proceeded into the operating room where I found a deceased man that appeared to have had the skin of his face removed, with a post card held in his hand (Photographs included with this report). Fingerprints and blood samples were taken and forwarded to the Civil Database for identification.

  Both doctors, Hakamada Ban and Uragami Ginji are missing, along with two additional nurses on the company registry, Wakisaka Itachi and Akane Mashiro, that were not found in the building. Attempts to contact either the doctors or the nurses has been unsuccessful, and their IDs appear to have stopped responding shortly after 1100 AM. Request for access to public security camera footage outside the clinic has been submitted to the Civil Database.

  Conclusion

  The presence of two Human Calamities with Crises derived from Asahi’s assailant proves his assertion that the culprit is an Envoy. The bodies of Mori and Go?da have been sent to Corpse Disposal for dissection and analysis as Petitioners. Based on the evidence at hand, it is my conclusion that the Envoy visited this clinic in hopes that Inspector Asahi, or another member of the Bureau, might seek him out here. In hopes of catching a pursuer in a trap, the Envoy turned Mori and Goda into Petitioners by imprinting his Crisis on them, before instructing them to remain in the clinic while he left with the remaining staff.

  The clinic staff appear to have been abducted, and no trace of their current whereabouts has been left behind. The taking of hostages does not appear to be within the subject’s former modus operandi, but they may have been taken as hostages, or he may intend to use them to create more Petitioners. The note left behind at the clinic has been forwarded for forensic analysis.

  Senior Inspector Sumitomo Suzume, Human Calamity Response Bureau,

  Bureau Patrol 01.