Almost immediately upon entering his shabby dwelling, the man whipped out his handheld terminal and started busying himself typing something into it. YF looked from the yellowing shikibuton with no cover, to the stacks of kakebuton — probably to keep warm in the winter, to the hundreds of pictures and scribbled notes lining the walls. There was a sitting desk, sets of plastic drawers, and trash littered everywhere.
"It's not a lot of proof," said the man as he was going through his terminal. "You'll have to look at the evidence and see for yourself."
“Proof about what? And why did Honda send me to you?” asked YF.
“My name is Minami.”
“Minami…?”
“Minami Motohiro.”
That name sounded very familiar, but YF could not remember where he had heard it. “Could you remind me why that should ring a bell?” asked YF.
“I used to be Commissioner General of the National Police Agency.”
YF suddenly recalled walking through the Ward Office hallway where portraits of various agency leaders hung overhead, including those from previous generations. The beard and disheveled look were enough to change the former Commissioner General’s appearance. But now that he had mentioned it, the man did resemble one of the portraits YF had seen. And he was sure he remembered seeing the name Minami Motohiro — probably because YF had a tendency to remember the names of any nobility.
“I see. Ueno Fumio, please take care of me,” said YF as he bowed to him.
“I know you are Sakai Yasufumi,” said Minami. “And that was not something Honda told me.”
“It doesn’t hurt to be cautious in these parts.”
“You don’t have to tell me that. I’ve been here long enough.”
YF kept silent as Minami continued working. In any case, the latter did not seem interested in explaining his current living situation nor getting offended by YF’s lie.
“Done,” said Minami. “I have multiple layers of protection for this information, so it can take a while to get to.”
“Uh huh,” said YF confusedly.
Minami turned to the back wall and pressed on a random spot. A panel at ground level opened up, revealing an old fashioned printer. Minami got on all fours and pulled out what looked like a stack of pictures, getting back up and handing them over to YF.
YF took the pictures from his hand and started going through them slowly. As he did, he found himself frowning. The first set of photos revealed what looked like a young woman lying on an open morgue locker. The final picture was a closeup of the woman’s face. Without her makeup it was hard to make out who it was at first, but YF could eventually tell she was Reina.
YF raised his eyes to the man. “What am I supposed to make of this?”
The man pointed his fingers toward the pictures. “It’s exactly what it looks like.”
“Reina is dead?”
“She was dead,” said Minami.
“Does this have something to do with why you’re…”
“In hiding?”
YF nodded.
Minami sighed. “It’s far enough in the past that people don’t know the NPA used to not have their own operators. We were more like an oversight agency. After some reforms during my grandparents’ generation we received most of our units from the Akeha Metropolitan Police. It was a rushed decision to ensure we had competent people. This temporary measure became permanent, and our operators always started out in the AMPD and transferred to the NPA. Once they did though, the problem was who they were loyal to.”
“The AMPD, not you.”
“Precisely,” said Minami. “Honda was one of the transfers who cooperated with us, and suffered the consequences for it.”
“I was always under the impression she uncovered some large scale bribery that might have involved AMPD officers…” YF started.
“That’s accurate,” said Minami.
YF shook his head. “A complete exile to the outer wards seems a lot, even for something like that. And the hush money to the press must have been enormous. It couldn’t have just been some money. It was what the money was for.” YF raised the pictures. “What she uncovered back then and what she uncovered recently. It has to do with this doesn’t it?”
Minami nodded approvingly. “We may have some hope yet.”
“How were you in contact with Honda?” asked YF.
“I gave Honda a one way messaging hash and an address to memorize when I left the capital only to be used for something critical. She chose to contact me about this, which is when all the missing links came together.”
“Did she know about any of this?” asked YF, still raising the pictures.
“My theories are incomplete,” said Minami.
“Honda would have run herself into an even earlier grave if she had seen these,” thought YF. Perhaps it was better she didn’t know.
YF looked around the room. “How sure are you that message was untraceable?”
“Positive,” said Minami.
“Then how did they track down Honda?”
“I am not sure but it must have been something she did during her investigation.”
“I told her to look into the Itsugo Sentinel Office records, particularly records from about twenty years ago,” said YF.
Minami nodded. “The information she gave did mention that.”
“Mention it?” asked YF.
“As I said, my theories are incomplete.”
“What do you think happened back then?”
“My number one priority is to see if what you just sifted through and what Honda just found are related.”
“You didn’t answer my question,” said YF.
“I need you to do something in order to answer your own question. It will be a much more definitive and satisfactory answer than any I could give,” said Minami with some force.
The author's content has been appropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.
“What is it?” asked YF.
“You sure you don’t want to look at the other pictures before I talk to you about it?”
“Is it related to Kamakura Boulevard?”
“No. It’s related to what comes after we find out about Kamakura Boulevard.”
YF turned over the rest of the pictures and placed the stack to the side. “Then it can wait.”
Minami smiled for the first time. “I need you to go to the reactor core at Itsugo.”
YF felt his heart sink to his stomach. “The reactor core of every municipality is guarded by…”
“Yes, my former organization, the NPA.”
“And I assume by go you mean I’m going.”
A brief look of guilt flashed over Minami’s face. “Yes that’s correct.”
YF was slightly troubled by the fact that Minami didn’t even make a symbolic gesture to volunteer to go with him.
“And this information has to do with the Kamakura Boulevard incident,” said YF.
Minami nodded. “Of that I’m certain.”
“But you won’t explain more until I get it.”
“It doesn’t help to disseminate theories we have no proof of. That only causes unnecessary resentment. Conspiracies can take on a life of their own.”
Minami took out his terminal again and started typing again, turning the screen toward YF when he finished. “But I’m not sending you in naked. Memorize this address, a set of NPA armor will be waiting for you there.”
“A twenty year old one?”
“No.”
“And once I get to the reactor core, do I just figure out where I need to get the files?”
“Precisely.”
“You’re going to give me an issue rifle right? Maybe a sidearm?” asked YF.
“That would come with the armor,” Minami replied with a hint of annoyance. “You have any obligations? This operation may take a while.”
Being in Itsugo, YF could probably combine a stack of cases he was supposed to work on and tell the Ward Office he was checking in on those. By the time he was done with whatever it was, Mizuno would probably have the names ready. Higashikuni…well, YF had to hope he could just deal with him in a short timeframe. “I’ll figure something,” said YF.
Minami set his terminal aside and approached YF, stopping two strides from him. “As you know there won’t be any signal in the core, even if I would have risked contacting you. It means you are on your own. Good luck, and I will see you at the end.” He then bowed low, the first indication to YF that Minami respected him at all.
***
YF patted his breastplate pocket where he had placed two pairs of socks in place of reactor cartridges. If it came to a firefight, it was not like he was coming out of the core in anything but a body bag. He brushed his thumb past his sidearm. Still, it didn’t hurt to be ready in a pinch. YF could see the line of operators in front of him getting shorter as he approached the gate; he tried to push away the sense of dread that grew with each step he took toward the guards. YF clenched and unclenched his fist to resist the urge to check his bracer — it’s not like touching it would confirm that his ID worked.
When he reached the gate he opened the bracer scanner and swiped it against the reader. It returned a yellow light. An armed guard pushed open a side gate and motioned for YF to step aside toward him. YF complied.
“Swipe it here,” said the guard, holding up a portable device.
YF swiped against it.
“Kondo Sasuke detected.”
“Reassignment?” asked the guard.
“Yes sir.”
“Welcome to paradise,” he said, voice dripping with sarcasm.
As they walked toward the badge office, the guard glanced over his shoulder. “So who’d you piss off back at HQ to get assigned here?”
YF took a moment to determine that behind the sarcastic tone, it was a sincere question. “I’d rather not talk about that,” said YF, trying to sound as disappointed as possible.
“Fair enough. Bar fight with the sarge, maybe slept with his girl, something like that.”
“Right,” said YF.
“Wakayama,” said the man. “Might see me around. Work assignments change enough to keep us sane.”
“Sounds good to me,” said YF.
“You interested in sports? Cards? Shogi? Igo? Mahjong? Video games?”
“Not really.”
Wakayama nodded. “You’ll pick up something sooner or later. What you’ll get here is time. There ain’t much to do in this shitty village.”
It was not like YF and other Itsugo people didn’t fully agree, but hearing it from the mouth of someone from the capital made him want to set Wakayama straight. He clenched and released his fist three times instead.
“We get leave to the villages?” asked YF.
Wakayama scoffed. “If we didn’t there’d be a mutiny.” He suddenly stopped and looked around, checking to see that no one was within earshot. “Turn off your comms.”
“Sir?”
“Don’t make a big deal out of it, it’ll be like two minutes.” Wakayama went ahead and disabled his first.
YF followed suit.
Wakayama opened his visor and whispered toward YF. “You don’t like games and you’re asking about shore leave. You into women?”
YF kept his visor on. “Who isn’t?” he asked as convincingly as possible.
“Well when you get leave either me or one of my buddies can show you a good time. That’s all I’m saying.”
“Appreciate it.”
“All right.” Wakayama reactivated his comms and started walking.
YF did the same.
“So what do you like Kondo?”
“Driving,” YF replied honestly.
“Oh! Well there’s no shortage of fuel rods and heavy machinery that needs to be moved about. Make sure you tell the assignment desk about that.”
“Yes sir.”
The two of them soon reached the badge office, where Wakayama waited while YF swapped his reassignment ID for a formal location ID. They then started toward the administrative building, where YF assumed the assignment desk was located.
Suddenly halfway down the path, Wakayama stopped. “Hey I almost forgot. Let’s go take a look at the reactor.”
“Assignment won’t care?” asked YF.
“Nope.”
Wakayama led YF over to the truck path and flagged down a fuel rod truck, which promptly stopped in front of them. “Something wrong Wakayama?” asked the driver.
“No, just wanted to show the new guy the reactor.”
“Sure.”
Wakayama and YF climbed onto the truck, with YF seated between the two NPA officers. They drove somewhat recklessly down the winding metal path, dodging other vehicles and pedestrians. When they descended about six or seven levels below, they suddenly rounded a corner that opened up to what must have been the reactor.
Several levels further below, YF could see multiple trucks lining up to deliver fuel to what looked like a giant glowing tree with no leaves or branches. It was as if the trunk had roots on top and below, reaching up into the ceiling and down deep into the earth. The thing was entirely transparent and constantly changing colors from white, black, gold, green, blue, red, and brown in random orders.
“That’s it,” said Wakayama pointing with his hand toward the trunk. “So what do you think? Bit different from what you imagined, right?”
“Yeah…” YF admitted. Was it even a machine? It had to be organic.
As if reading his mind, Wakayama held up his hand. “Whatever questions you have about it I can’t answer. They’ll debrief you on it a bit during orientation, and anything else about it you’ll need clearances for.”
“Sure,” said YF.
Wakayama tapped on the window. “Drop us off over there Kanezaki. We’ll hitch a ride back up.”
Kanezaki nodded. “You bet.”