A loud, but simplistic and pleasant melody stirs Atreus to open his eyes. He first sees his ceiling, but feels the subtle weight of Max's arm stretched across his chest. For a brief moment in his awakening, he had forgotten about her impromptu visit. He turns to see her calm, sleeping face resting on the pillow next to him. He pauses to admire her peaceful expression, but realizes that the melody he's still hearing isn't from his phone. It's from Takiyama's burner. He turns to seize it from his nightstand, letting Max's limp arm fall onto the mattress.
“Hello?” Atreus answers the call, speaking in a near whisper as he stands up.
“Hey, it's me,” Edward's familiar voice responds. “You busy right now?”
“No, I'm not,” Atreus replies as he grabs his pair of boxer briefs, which had been thrown to the floor, concealed in all the other articles of clothing haphazardly strewn about the side of the bed, and slips them on. “What's up?” he asks while walking into the bathroom and closing the door behind him for extra privacy.
“I was wondering if you were good to come by my hideout tonight at 12 AM? I know you'll be at Crown then, but I think it's probably the best time to stop by, because activity inside and outside the building as at a minimum then.”
“Yeah, I can make that. I haven't spoken to him about this yet, but I might bring my friend Devin with me, because he's been helping me with everything. I think it'd be good to have one more set of eyes and ears to see the USB drive and hear your side of things. Would that be okay?”
“If you trust him, then it's fine with me,” Edward answers immediately, feeling utmost confidence in his colleague.
“Thanks. And just to make sure, you're absolutely certain you're fine with me bringing the... you know, item, to your place, right?” the would-be detective asks, wanting another confirmation regarding the security of the murder weapon, which is currently kept in the Ryuji's office.
“The piece? I'm sure. At the end of the day, I think it's best to get the gun away from any place owned by Sanada-gumi people. I've been safe here for almost a week now, so I'm sure the piece will be, too.”
“Alright. I'll be sure to bring it, then,” Atreus accepts the terms, quietly agreeing with the sentiment that he'd like to get the gun away from the Asano family, too. “What's your address?”
“Reese-Cole Apartments, 855 Apollodora Street, room 705.”
“Reese-Cole, room 705. Got it,” Atreus repeats the address aloud to help commit it to memory. “I'll see you tonight, then.”
“Later,” Edward ends the call immediately, not allowing for a single second of dead air.
Atreus pulls the phone down from his ear, and checks the time shown on the screen. It's 1:16 PM, the latest he's woken up in quite some time. Though his body is still burdened by lethargy due to the demanding physical stress he placed on it prior to to sleeping, it's probably best for him to take his leave to the Asano family office so he can explain to his friends and peers what happened during the meeting with the 'witness', and possibly make mention of Terrence's sudden visit, too. He leaves the bathroom and step out towards his bed, noticing Max had awoken too, and is simply lying down with he eyes open, waiting for him to return.
“Good morning,” she greets him in a slight daze.
“Good afternoon,” he says back with a smile, placing the phone back on his nightstand, next to his own, personal one.
“When did you get two phones?” she asks, barely noticing the burner's existence.
“The new one is a burner phone. I need it for 'work',” he answers honestly, though vaguely.
“Should... I be worried you're doing something that requires a burner phone?” Max wonders, smirking in amused disbelief. “You're not gonna blow Kawada Tower up or something, are you?”
“No, no,” he waves his hand dismissively. “It has nothing to do with any sort of violence. I'm not gonna do a bank heist or burn any churches down or anything.”
“Good. My mom told me to never date pagan terrorists. Now come back to bed,” she beckons to lie with her again.
“I wish I could, but I need to get dressed and head out. I gotta meet up with some people.”
Max pouts. “Why you gotta play hard to get?”
“Hard to get? You're in my bed.”
“That was a slow night for me, man,” she jokingly boasts.
“Well, we can continue where we left off later.” Atreus maintains his stance, despite almost everything in him wanting to concede to her wishes, and pushes himself off the bed again. “For now, I have somewhere to be.”
“You're not gonna eat breakfast? Or lunch or whatever?”
“Nah, I'll order something when I get to the office,” he responds while picking up his other clothes.
“You make it sound like you have some modest, white collar job as a desk jockey.”
“You'd be surprised at how many desk jockey jobs there are in the Sanada-gumi,” Atreus maintains the conversation as he selects a new set of clothes from his closet. “You don't have to leave just yet if you don't want to, by the way. You can go back to sleep after I've gone, or make yourself breakfast; I can't guarantee I have anything you'd want to eat, though.”
“You're not worried I'd steal something from you?” Max asks with a wry smirk.
“Not really. But do I have anything in here worth stealing?”
“I might snatch a pair of your underwear as a trophy.”
“Can't you take a pair of socks instead?” Atreus continues humoring the conversation as he lays his fresh clothes on the bed and starts dressing.
Suddenly, Max lunges forward while still lying down to seize his wrists as he grabs his pair of pants, her body played across the width of the bed to reach him. She looks up at him with an honest smile and kind eyes, dropping her aloof demeanor for something more sincere.
“Nope,” she answers succinctly. “I came for much more than that.”
While her words are still somewhat vague, Atreus feels he knows exactly what she means: something more serious than a single night's engagement. He smiles back at her, feeling the exact same way that she does. He bends over to give her a peck on the lips.
“I want more than that, too,” he confesses.
After their exchange, Atreus continues getting dressed, eventually leaving to start a new day in a positive mood, despite a slight lack of sleep. Max, opting to stay in his apartment for just a bit longer, curls herself back up into a ball underneath the blanket and resumes her rest. Despite this being her first night over, she's made herself very comfortable.
Outside, at the street, Atreus summons an Automa, and his call his answered with an immediate arrival of a vacant car. On his way to the Asano office, now alone with his thoughts again, the upbeat, refreshing attitude he left his apartment with becomes overshadowed by the details he recalls about his progressing investigation. During the silent ride, he tries to organize his knowledge so he can be sure to thoroughly convey what he knows to Devin and Ryuji when the time comes. Interrupting his reflection, a chime from one of his pockets is heard. He retrieves his personal phone to see that a text message had come in, coincidentally, from Devin.
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[Hey, are you coming to the office?] he asks in the message.
[I'm in an Automa right now, so I'm on my way,] Atreus answers quickly.
[Did you ever meet up with the guy you spoke to on Takiyama's phone?]
[I did. I have a lot to tell you and Ryuji. Hold tight, I'll be there in a few minutes.]
Atreus braces himself for a lengthy conversation with his peers about the events of the previous night. His quiet ride continues through the busy afternoon Kyoba streets until he arrives at the building at the southern end of the district. He exits his taxi and makes his way through the lobby, to the elevator, and up to the top floor. At the end of the corridor, he enters Ryuji's office, where the two men are sitting in their usual spots: Devin on the sofa, Ryuji at his desk in the back.
“Hey, man. You got good news for us?” Devin eagerly asks while looking up from his phone.
“I have... some sort of news,” Atreus answers as he approaches the adjacent recliner and sits down.
“I'm going to order some gyudon for lunch, by the way, you want some? It's Millennium Kyushu again.”
“Uh, Millennium Gyudon with mixed rice, and orange juice.”
“Alright, got it,” Devin gives a thumbs up with his free hand as he places his and Atreus's order. “So, while we wait, what went down last night? Just to reiterate, you did meet the guy, right?”
Atreus nods. “Yeah, I met him. We met up in front of Kawada Tower at 1 AM, but before that, I had to meet up with Okada, so I had to leave Crown early.”
“He picked a very public place to meet up at, so I assume he wasn't someone dangerous?” Ryuji interjects from his desk.
“No, he wasn't dangerous. Quite the opposite, in fact. It was Takiyama. Edward Takiyama is the witness,” the augmented man bluntly reveals with a stone face.
Neither Devin or Ryuji react immediately. They pause to process the name Atreus just spoke, but it's crystal clear that the gears are turning in their heads to try and make sense of how this could be possible before they begin to ask questions.
“H-how?” Devin is the first to speak, wearing a gobsmacked expression. “Wait. Let's rewind this a bit. I thought we called him from Takiyama's phone, right? How does he have a second phone, and why was he using it to call the phone we had?” It's obvious he's straining himself to even put that sentence together.
“That, and how is he involved with all of this to begin with?” Ryuji throws in an addendum to Devin's inquiry.
“Alright, this is a bit of a long story, and it's going to seem extremely far-fetched, but bear with me, okay?” Atreus leans forward and takes a deep breath, mentally preparing to give a long-winded explanation. “According to Edward, Camlin had a friend from college – named Isaac Noah – who went on to work for Zephir Industries, in network security.”
“Okay, hold on,” Devin lifts his hand in a halt gesture. “Let me stop you right there. Don't tell me you're actually going to say that we have another Fortune 500 company somehow involved in this?”
“Well, let me finish talking, and you'll know,” Atreus lectures. “Anyway, Camlin's friend, Mr. Noah, allegedly discovered some suspicious documents – evidence of a possible illegal deal being made between Zephir and some other entity I've yet to identify, and decided to send them to Camlin.”
“Isaac Noah?” Ryuji speaks up again, rubbing his chin in confusion. “I feel like I've heard that name recently, but I'm not sure why I would, since Zephir's based in San Francisco.”
“He was the guy who went missing for two weeks, then they found his body in the woods some days ago,” Atreus answers bluntly.
“Jesus,” the patriarch utters, becoming wide-eyed at the revelation. “So, I take that as all but a total confirmation that his murder is related to Camlin's and Choi's, then? When does Takiyama come into play here?”
“Some time after Noah went missing, Camlin got in touch with Edward. Turns out they were close friends in middle school and high school before losing touch once Camlin went to college.”
“Why didn't he just go to the police?”
Atreus shrugs. “Not sure yet. According to Ed, he said going to the cops wouldn't solve the problem at its source. So, I suppose he felt that the documents would be safe in the hands of a Sanada-gumi member, and luckily for him, he knew one.”
“So Takiyama has these documents right now?” Devin asks. “Does he know what's in them?”
“No, he doesn't. They're on an encrypted USB drive. I'm going to meet up with him later to take it off his hands, and we're gonna have to ask Tetsuya for another favor.”
“Shit, I hope it's easier to crack open than the phone was. If it's not, he might just tell us to fuck off. You know how much trouble he had with that thing, and we didn't even pay him for it.”
“I know, but we don't really have any other choice.”
“Okay, so let me summarize,” the family head leans back in his chair and closes his eyes to help him process the new information he was just given. “Noah, as a network security member for Zephir, found documents of an illegal project happening in the company with the assistance of a third party we don't know about yet. He sends those documents to Camlin, knowing that he can't go to the police just yet for some reason, then goes missing. Since going missing, Camlin decided to contact his old friend, Takiyama, who is now with the clan, and sends the documents to him. Is that everything?”
“Yes,” Atreus answers with a firm nod. “Three men have been playing hot potato with extremely important documents, and two of them are dead because of it. And we have the added bonus of Marvin Choi on top of it.”
Devin and Ryuji look at each other with dumbfounded expressions, uncertain of how seriously they should be taking such a story. They're probably considering the likelihood that Atreus is playing some sort of prank on them.
“Hey, I told you it was going to sound far-fetched,” Atreus punctuates the silence by repeating himself.
“So, does this mean we're going after Zephir or something?” Devin asks with great reluctance. “Because it's one thing to look for one killer roaming around Kyoba, but a multi-billion dollar company that's not even based in LA? I think that would be the point where we just give up.”
“Not necessarily. Just because Zephir has some part in this, doesn't mean they're orchestrating the murders. Remember that a third party that's yet to be identified is still connected to this.”
“Can we still assume that they're going after Atmos's user data?” Ryuji asks a question that's yet to be brought up, recalling their initial speculative motives for Camlin's death. “If Camlin was killed because he had these documents, then maybe his position as network security really was just a coincidence?”
“True, it looks like they might not be interested in breaching their servers like we first thought, but it would also make sense that Zephir would want to illegally obtain their data if they're going to use it for highly illegal means, since they both work in health,” Atreus ponders with an idle rub of his cheek. “So I think we might still need to keep the possibility in mind.”
“Fuck, this shit is getting out of hand,” Devin gripes as he places his palms on his face in exasperation. “It was already bad enough chasing around one murderer, but since the start of this whole thing, two more bodies have showed up, and now we have corporate corruption of a pharma company as the cherry on top.”
“Well, to be fair, I think a major pharmaceutical corporation being corrupt is hardly a surprise,” Ryuji remarks with bitterly humorous cynicism.
“You know what I mean.”
“Continuing on,” the patriarch advances the discussion, ignoring his lieutenant's agitation, “how exactly did Takiyama end up being a witness to Camlin's murder? Or did he just say that to get your attention?”
“No, he actually witnessed it,” Atreus answers. “He said he was meeting Camlin in the alleys, but got there just in time to seeing him being intercepting and killed by the murderer, who took Camlin's phone and left immediately.”
“So Camlin was meeting someone there, but it was Takiyama,” Ryuji thinks aloud, calling back to their theory that the crime scene was initially meant to be a scheduled meeting place between the victim and someone else. “It's a good thing he was late, or he'd be dead too, and we'd truly have no leads.”
“Exactly. After the killer took off, Edward checked on Camlin's body and took his burner phone and USB drive, which were stuffed into his socks. Camlin's burner phone, which he had been using to communicate safely with Edward, was what Edward was using to talk to us on his own burner phone.”
“So why did he leave his own burner in his apartment?” Devin asks.
“He said that was just an accident – that he just forgot it before the meetup. But after he saw Camlin get killed, he was too scared to go back to his place to pick it up. And another interesting tidbit that explains something we were wondering: it was actually Camlin who installed the operating system on Takiyama's phone.”
“Well, that makes a ton of fuckin' sense,” Devin nods, accepting the explanation. “So, now that all of this shit has been established, we just need to get our hands on the USB drive, right? You're going to see him later today, yeah?”
“Yeah. Tonight, at midnight – 12 AM, on the dot. He's been hiding out in an apartment outside of Kyoba. And also,” Atreus takes a deep breath, bracing for a possible sour reaction to what he's about to say, “he's volunteered to keep the murder weapon with him there.”