4:36am, Friday the 10th October, 2132.
In the aftermath of his talk with Nami, Kato’s mind raced. He was ushered out of her room by disapproving nurses, and sent back to his own like a scolded child as they rushed in to help her. In the following quiet, he lay back against his pillows and forced himself to keep his eyes open, even as sleep tried to drag him back into its embrace. With every passing minute that sleep was growing more difficult to ignore, but he couldn’t just let it take him; not yet, and not when he finally had something concrete.
Aiden.
He couldn’t have asked for a better name. It was not only uncommon but had a distinct sound, and he could already imagine the Kanto database narrowing his list of suspects down to the thousands. With that name, security footage from multiple locations, DNA evidence from the scene of the murders, and his own encounter with the man at the hospital, he was almost certain the case was about to be solved. He wouldn’t even have to get out of his hospital bed to see him arrested.
But then… It wasn’t that simple, was it?
Even if they found Aiden’s true identity, would they really know who he was? Would matching his name to his face reveal why he had been hunted? Would it reveal why so many acts of violence seemed to follow in his wake, or why someone had possibly tried to stop an investigation into his crimes?
Greaves was right. It had begun to rack his brain as much as it had racked hers, and the more he thought about it, the more he came to believe that her hunches were correct. Someone out there was trying to cover something up, and if they kept pursuing it, they would be stuck right in the middle of a conspiracy that had already killed dozens of people.
Did he really want to do that? Did he really want to risk his life, his future, on something so dangerous?
How could he not? So many innocent people had been hurt, and so many had been killed, that how could he just sit back and let it continue? How could he live with himself if it happened again, if it kept happening, and even more died because he had been too busy trying to save himself?
That wasn’t not the kind of man he was. That wasn’t not the kind of man he had been raised to be, or the kind of police officer who had made it all the way to Detective Sergeant in one of the most dangerous cities on the planet. That wasn’t not the kind of man who had risked his own life to save his partner’s without even thinking.
If there was someone out there - some organization - who would gun down an entire hospital just to try and get to a killer before the police could, Kato couldn’t just let them continue.
He pressed the request button on his bed remote, and soon a nurse opened his door and stepped inside to greet him. “Hai? Nanika hitsuyou desu ka?” She asked. “Is there something wrong?”
“I need to make a call,” he replied, “but I don’t have my phone. Is there any chance..?”
The nurse, somewhat suspicious of his motives after his earlier escapade, never-the-less gave him a nod. “Iiyo. Is there anything else?”
“The woman - Nami. Is she alright?”
“She’s fine. She’s sleeping again.”
Kato nodded, feeling somewhat guilty over the idea that he had caused her whatever condition had suddenly arose. Still, he watched as the nurse left the room and, half a minute later, returned with a tablet phone.
“I’ll return for it later,” the nurse said, placing it down on his bedside table.
When she left again, Kato picked the phone up. It almost certainly had none of the network security functions that came standard with force issued phones, but he would just have to hope that no-one else would be listening. He wasted no time in entering the number for Greaves’ car, and as it began to ring, he could only hope that she was still driving.
She answered almost immediately. “This is Detective Laura Greaves,” she said. “Who is this?”
“It’s Kato,” he replied.
He could almost hear the shock in her voice. “Kato?” She asked. “Are you calling me on one of those cheap hospital things?”
“Yes, I-“
“How do you even know my car’s number?”
“I memorized it. Greaves, listen-“
“-you memorized the comms number? For my car?”
“Greaves, stop getting distracted! Where are you?”
“About ten minutes from the precinct. Why? Has something happened.”
“Yes, maybe,” Kato told her. “Just… Look, Greaves, I need to ask you something. It’s important.”
“Let me guess; am I sure I want to keep doing this even if I get my suspension revoked, knowing full well that it could be dangerous and that I could die? And that you would understand if I would rather back out now?”
“I… Yeah. Pretty much exactly that.”
“Then forget it, Kato. I’m in. I’m in for the exact same reasons I know you are. Partners share the shit, remember? It’s barely been more than twenty-four hours since you told me that.”
Kato looked down at himself, wondering how so much could have happened in only a single day. Still, Greaves’ words made him grin. “Good. I thought you’d say that,” he told her. “Look, Greaves, I spoke to Nami. She gave me a name.”
“You spoke to her?” Greaves asked. “Damnit, Kato, can you really not just stay in bed for a single fuckin’ hour? You’ve just been shot!”
“It’s Aiden, Greaves. The name is Aiden. I don’t have access to the database here, and I take it they cut your access while you’re under investigation?”
“Yeah, they did. You want me to try and get a check on this guy? Maybe we should go to the captain.”
“No!” Kato found himself snapping, perhaps a little more forcefully than he intended. “Sorry. Look, just trust me on this. I trust the captain, but… Look, if we’re right, and someone is trying to cover this whole Aiden thing up? We just need to be careful who we talk to.”
After a period of silence, Greaves sighed. “Fine, I understand. What do you want me to do?”
“Don’t speak to the captain - not anymore. Go to the precinct as a favour to me. Pick up my car from the lot and take it to my apartment. While you’re there, feed my cat and get my laptop from my desk. You’ll need my biometric scans to get inside so you’ll have to bring it back here.”
“Don’t speak to the captain? Kato, are you sure? What about that SpecOps team?”
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“It could be that someone is inside his network, perhaps even his office. It might sound like paranoid crazy, but considering the circumstances I’d rather be paranoid than dead. Going to him right now could raise too many eyebrows. Plus, like you said, you can’t just go up to his office, and we shouldn’t waste time waiting for him to come out.”
“Fine. What about your phone?”
“I’ll get another. I hate those work-issued phones anyway.”
“Right. Okay. Get car, feed cat, bring laptop. Simple enough. I can remember all that. And in the meantime, you’ll get some sleep, right?”
“Sure,” Kato grumbled. “You know, sometimes you remind me of my mother.”
“Yeah. I’m gonna pretend I didn’t hear that. I’ll see you in a couple of hours.”
Once Greaves ended the call, Kato put the phone down on his bedside table and lay back against his pillows. Maybe she was right - maybe he should actually sleep. Now that he had a plan, he had the time to do so, and the pain in his shoulder was more exhausting than he wanted to admit.
But was he right? Were they really doing the right thing by going behind Captain Kurohiko’s back?
Yes, he decided, as he finally closed his eyes. Captain Kurohiko was a good captain; a good man. The further away he was from Kato’s investigation, the safer the entire Fukaya precinct would be. At least until he was ready to actually do something.
At least until he knew he wasn’t being crazy.
4:58am, Friday the 10th October, 2132.
The doctor whistled down the corridors of Kamishiba East Hospital, idly reading through the tablet in his hand as he walked. The nurses ignored him; they were all busy, and they had seen him a thousand times before, and he had proved his expertise a thousand times more than that. He was a surgeon of peerless skill; a master of the medical trade, and an esteemed expert in his field. He was completely unquestioned.
When he stopped in front of the armed officers outside of Taniguchi Nami’s room, they watched awkwardly as he scrolled through a list of names and medications, not so much as turning up to look at them.
“Um… Doctor?” One of them asked, breaking a silence that hung over them like a smell.
The doctor blinked, pulling away from his tablet to eye, for only a brief moment, the armed officer’s tactical rifle. “Oh,” he said, slightly unnerved. “You have a gun.”
“Uh, yes, Doctor,” the man replied. “We’re armed protection officers.”
With confused blinking, the doctor went back to his tablet and scrolled up with rapid swipes of his finger. “Ah, yes! Taniguchi Nami - armed protection. It says so right here! I must have missed it. What for? Kamishiba East already has armed security.”
“I’m afraid I can’t say, Doctor. I’m just told to stand here and stop anyone from doing her any harm.”
“Ah, I see. We’re alike in that sense, eh? Just as the scalpel can both cut a throat and remove a tumour, a gun can shoot a man and stop another man from shooting.”
“I suppose?”
“Protectors, officer. We’re both protectors. You protect them from getting injured, I protect them from death when they do. But I digress - I should get back to work.”
The doctor reached for the door panel, but the officer suddenly turned to stop him. “Um, Doctor… Arabe, is it? The other doctors only came not half an hour ago.”
“Yes, yes,” Arabe said, “I know. But I’m not here for the same reason they are, or else I wouldn’t be here, would I?”
Momentarily confused, the armed officer relented, and Doctor Arabe entered Nami’s room.
Inside, Nami was sleeping quietly. It was only when the doctor turned on the room’s main lights, and began to check the monitors of the various machines around her, that the woman woke. She looked up at him wearily, her breathing slow and calm, then gave a slight groan.
“More doctors?” She asked. “What now?”
Arabe looked at her with a pleasant smile. “Sorry to disturb you, Miss Taniguchi. I need to take you for some tests. It won’t take long. You can go back to sleep if you’d like.”
Nami nodded at him and groaned, and pulled her bed sheets up over her head. Soon she was sleeping peacefully again, and Doctor Arabe called in several nurses.
“Tests, Doctor?” One of the nurses asked. “Now?”
“Her earlier vomiting episode was serious, Nurse,” he said. “I want to run a full spectrum scan to rule out anything oncological or neurological that might have been exacerbated by her attack. It’s possible that what happened to her caused damage that we’ve yet to see, or perhaps even woke an underlying dormant condition. I have one of the basement rooms booked.”
They didn’t question him. To the surprise of the armed officers, the nurses and Dr Arabe rolled Nami’s bed - with Nami sleeping in it - down the corridor and to the surgery elevator. Within a few minutes they were passing down below the ground floor, where the corridors were quieter and more dimly lit, and approaching the scan room that Arabe had specified.
“Thank you,” Arabe said, stopping outside the door. “That will be all. My team are already preparing inside.”
Slightly confused, the nurses merely shrugged and left him. Once they were gone, Arabe opened the door with a flash of his keycard and pulled Nami’s bed into an open scan room, where he left her sleeping in the center. Two imaging specialists, both wearing dark blue scrubs, looked up at him as they finished preparing the machines.
“We’re almost ready, Doctor,” one said. “Just another minute or so.”
“Oh, that’s fine,” answered Arabe. “The patient is still sleeping.”
Gently, Arabe nudged Nami until she woke again. She looked up at him groggily, then when she didn’t recognize her surroundings, she opened her eyes and looked around. “Mm? Where am I?”
“In the Full Spectrum Imaging Room,” the doctor replied, gesturing to the large machines and the specialists behind him. “We need to perform some scans. It won’t take long.”
“Scans?” She asked nervously. “Why? What’s wrong?”
“Well, Nami, we’re not sure. That’s what we’re here to find out.”
“Will it hurt?” She asked. “I’ve never had one of these before.”
“Oh, not really. It’s hard to say. Did it hurt when Aiden bit into your throat?”
Nami looked up at him, blinking. “Sorry? Um… I don’t remember.”
“Well, perhaps that’s good. It certainly won’t hurt as much as that.”
“Doctor.. Arabe, is it? How do you know that name?”
Arabe shrugged. “And your neck? How is it doing? Is it still rather painful?”
She looked down, raising a hand to gently press against her dressings. “I… No, actually. It doesn’t hurt at all.”
Behind Arabe, the imaging specialists moved to their stations. “We’re ready, Doctor,” one said.
A second later, Arabe pulled a silenced pistol from the inside of his coat. He aimed it at the two specialists without even looking, and before either of them could react, shot both of them in the head.
As they crumpled to the floor, their blood splattered across the white walls behind them, Nami screamed and tried to drive herself as far from the killer as possible.
“Oh, don’t worry about them,” Arabe said, watching as she rolled from her bed and hit the ground, shrieking all the while. “They won’t be found for hours. You don’t have to scream, you know. No-one can hear you in this room. It’s made that way, you see. Part of the imaging process in a Full Spectrum scan is to use sound waves. Sounds crazy, I know, but it’s true. Now, I can’t say I really understand it - as you might have guessed, I’m not really a doctor - but apparently these rooms have to be soundproof.”
Nami did stop screaming, but only because she had scrambled across the floor and reached up, trying to pull the door open with her hand. But no matter how much she pulled, it wouldn’t budge, and the ‘doctor’ simply smiled and approached her.
“Get away!” Nami screeched. “Don’t you fucking dare come closer or I’ll fucking kill you, you fuck!”
“Relax. I’m not going to hurt you. Quite the opposite, in fact.”
Arabe leaned down over her, reaching out towards her throat. She pressed herself back as far into the door as she could, turning away and squeezing her eyes shut so she didn’t have to look at him, and crying as he took hold of her dressing. He removed it - tearing the tape away from her skin to leave it sore and red - and unwound the red-stained bandages until they came free from her wound.
Or, rather, what little wound was left.
Only faint marks, red but almost entirely healed, were left in the skin where Nami had been bitten. What had once been four grievous punctures were now no more than imperfections in her skin, and Doctor Arabe cocked his head at them curiously.
“Fascinating.”
He wasn’t the only one who noticed. Nami felt at it with her fingers, and gasped when they came away from her wounds without blood. “What’s going on?” She asked. “What’s happening to me?”
“What’s happening? Oh, nothing. Not really. Not yet.”
Arabe took from his other coat pocket a small vial; a gas-powered auto-injector filled with barely a fingernail’s volume of red, almost black liquid. Before Nami could struggle he grabbed hold of her arm and turned her hand over, and into her forearm he punched the tip of the injector. It hissed, and the volume of red disappeared into her skin, and when Arabe placed it in his pocket again, he found Nami sobbing on the floor.
“Let me go!” She cried. “I just want to go home!”
“Then go,” said Arabe, unlocking the door with his card. The door opened by Nami’s head and he looked down at her with a smile. “I don’t need you for anything else. And why cry, Taniguchi Nami? You have a special gift. A rare gift. And I just made it so you never have to cry again.”
Nami left the doctor there in the room. The moment he allowed her to do so, she scrambled up to her feet and fled through the basement corridors, looking for a way to reach help. She screamed and yelled but no-one listened to her, or saw her, and none of the doors she tried would open except the one to the stairs that led outside.
It was still dark as she broke out into the morning air. Medical disposal bins were piled high around her; bags of waste and biological contaminants. She ignored them, ran to a gate whose lock had been broken, and then fled out into the street.