Chapter Text
Dark’s final words echoed long after the dust had settled on their aching shoulders and upturned faces.
“Daisuke, I am you.”
When that too faded, Hiwatari disentangled himself from Daisuke’s supporting arms. With some effort, they both tore their eyes from the masterpiece in front of them. On the edge of the gently encroaching shadows, Daisuke found a little stone rabbit atop a pile of feathers. He cradled it in his hands. “Thank you, With…”
He looked up in time to see Hiwatari catch himself mid-stumble on what might have once been a beautiful statue. Daisuke wiped the blur from his eyes with his torn cuff and stood.
“Hiwatari-kun, are you…?”
“I’m fine.” It sounded more truthful than evasive for the first time in their friendship. There might have been a grain of wonder there too. “Let’s go before we’re climbing in the dark.”
Daisuke tucked the remains of With into his shirt and waited at the foot of the stairs with a wobbly smile. There really wasn’t any time to waste, with the only light in the underground chamber fading quickly from the canvas where Dark wasn’t. His patience was rewarded with a long sigh.
“I’m fine, Niwa,” Hiwatari repeated, but he took the lead anyway.
Daisuke nodded at the back of his head. “I know.”
Daisuke was just… going to be ready on the off chance he had to catch anyone who might stumble on a slippery, ancient staircase. Who thought it was a good idea to leave off guard rails anyway? Hikari architecture definitely preferred form over function, he mused while they climbed a bit too slow to outrun the darkness. They had no reason to hurry and no monsters left to fear.
No cheeky commentary answered his wandering, hopeful thoughts either…
Hiwatari stopped ahead, though Daisuke could only tell by the sound of his labored breathing evening out. “Can you open it, Niwa?”
“Ah, I thought I’d left it open…” Did a draft close it? He reached into the blackness and pushed on the door. Cold metal bit his calloused fingers. He hadn’t noticed it through his gloves earlier, but they’d been full of adrenaline and magic at the time. “It’s, uh, locked.”
Dark had cursed up and down that Krad hadn’t bothered to set a single trap or lock on their way to his final confrontation. Daisuke wiped his eyes again and focused on groping the sides of the large metal frame for any weakness a phantom thief could exploit.
“Got it!” Not the lock he was expecting but okay. His fingers ghosted over the buttons of a keypad. With practiced ease, they danced on an obscene layer of dust and through at least two stringy spider webs. At the end of his code, a small panel lit up, blinding both of them for a startled moment.
“This was not installed by my family,” Hiwatari broke the ensuing silence. The bright blue lights washed out his sober features like an old film.
Luckily that meant the lock wouldn’t be hard to crack; it looked more like the bleeding edge models local museums had been paying through the nose for since this latest generation of Dark started making his way through their collections. It was far above the kind of locks found throughout the rest of Azumano Second Middle School, but then again, most schools didn’t have a secret chamber holding the Hikari clan’s greatest masterpiece…
Being underground was clearly less kind to shiny tech than art as the plastic buttons cracked further under his delicate attentions.
The panel offered just enough light to illuminate the rusted metal door and intricate markings over it. They formed some kind of circle he might have seen once or twice.
“You’re sure your family didn’t…?”
“I think I’d know of an electronic lock and magic seal down here, of all places.”
Even so, when Hiwatari pressed a palm into the center of the circle, it leapt readily at his touch, and when he twisted his arm, the layer of new white light bent obediently along with it. Sparks danced through his fingers, ever more agitated, until…
“Now, Niwa.”
Three high-level maintenance codes and a warning be-beep later, the panel blinked in approval. The seal fizzled out, and something inside the metal door clunked. Daisuke pushed and Hiwatari shouldered the obscenely heavy thing open at last. Its rusty hinges screeched in protest to that anticlimactic ending to their adventure.
“We’re back!” He coughed mid-declaration to the empty room. His lungs must be filled with at least three centuries of art dust by now. Daisuke turned to share a victorious grin with Hiwatari and found him instead examining the matching security lock jutting out from their school’s typical bland wall. It was hard to believe that the infamous Black Wings was right under hundreds of students’ feet day in and day out. “That door is kind of weird, huh?”
“... Yes.”
Daisuke promised to come back to claim his prize properly later and pushed it closed with a little more help from Hiwatari. Above his hands, on the weird door, there was no magic circle but different black markings whose cracked matte paint didn’t reflect any of the moonlight pouring in through the long windows. He’d never found nighttime to be creepy, but he was starting to get unsettled. He couldn’t recall ever seeing these wings and numbers, and he rushed through here to confront Krad less than half an hour ago, for crying out loud!
He stole another peek at Hiwatari, hoping for a glimpse into what was going on, but he was once more deep in thought.
So deep in fact, he absentmindedly reached for the shoulder he’d been shoving against said strange door, but his arm dropped back to his side halfway.
“Your arm’s still hurt?” Daisuke asked, too concerned to feel embarrassed for prying.
“I’m—” Hiwatari paused, and then admitted, “Yes. The damage Krad caused didn’t disappear with him.”
Of course it wouldn’t. Even in the moonlight, he could make out the grooves of old and new scars lacing up Hiwatari’s pale skin. Maybe if Daisuke had moved faster when the disconcerting Police Commissioner Hiwatari told him what happened…
“Don’t start that again, Niwa.” Hiwatari’s lips twitched in the knowing, rare smile he wore outside of confronting a cocky thief on top of a building. “We’re both alive. That’s enough for me.”
“But your arm…”
“My handwriting isn’t illegible with my left hand. As for making art again… maybe it’s for the best.”
“No.” Daisuke put a hand on Hiwatari’s uninjured shoulder, and when it wasn’t pushed away, he made another promise. “No, it’ll get better. And if it doesn’t, you’ll learn to make stuff just as good with your other arm!”
“… Let’s leave before someone calls the police.” Hiwatari turned halfway, done with the conversation but not done with Daisuke.
“They know you at least. But with the way I’m dressed…” He pulled on the edges of his frayed cape. Mom had gone all out to make sure he looked as cool as possible. He almost wished he could show it off more. Unfortunately, he didn’t think Inspector Saehara would appreciate seeing his son’s best friend like this.
As they made their way out of the nondescript office and into the empty hallways, Hiwatari rummaged through his pockets. It took the whole walk, given he only had one arm to work with, but he got it all eventually. In the upturned hand he offered to Daisuke, there were a shiny police badge, a student ID, a roll of yen bills, and a cell phone. “We could get a ride home, if you don’t mind dialing.”
“Sure! Who should I call? Your dad?”
Something raw flashed across Hiwatari’s face too fast to read but too intense to let slide. Hiwatari didn’t give him an opening though. “Try your house.”
Daisuke jabbed the numbered buttons, not realizing until he squinted down at the little cracked screen how late it actually was. A ride sounded nice. Hiwatari had to be beyond tired if he was considering asking someone else for help too. They slipped out the school entrance to the frigid evening air, and Daisuke pressed the receiver to his ear.
It beeped monotonously.
“Must’ve dialed wrong…” Except the second time was still just beeping.
“Let me see.” Hiwatari held the screen up to the dull glow of a streetlight. “We can’t be out of range… It must have been damaged by Krad.” The antenna did look awfully crooked.
Daisuke didn’t know all of what Krad had done when he took over Hiwatari’s body, and he wasn’t about to ask while the wounds were still, literally, fresh. Hiwatari’d tell Daisuke when he was ready. Probably. Saehara might have mentioned earlier that Hikari’s famous bell tower collapsed overnight already… Too bad Daisuke had so much more on his mind all day.
“Riku-san…!” He hurried forward a few steps, electrified, and whirled around to face Hiwatari head-on. “I need to talk to her! And you, Hiwatari-kun…” He laid out Dark’s—his—their final request, which Hiwatari agreed to without hesitation. Daisuke would think about that later too, but not now! Their exhaustion vanished, and they parted ways to find the Harada twins.
Half an hour later or so, Daisuke hopped onto the deserted balcony. He pressed his hands against the glass door, but Riku didn’t stir from her slumber. He knocked once, twice, and then resorted to hissing her name louder and louder. She finally rolled over in bed and blinked tiredly at him with a face that very much wasn’t Riku’s. Then she screamed a scream that wasn’t Riku’s either.
Daisuke stumbled back, just as alarmed. “Sorry! I’m so sorry!”
He dashed from windowsill to windowsill of the Harada house, peeking through the glass and curtains of each one while the unfamiliar woman shouted for someone to chase away a perverted intruder. Who was that!? The younger Harada wasn’t in her bedroom either, like Hiwatari guessed, but it hardly looked like her cutesy bedroom at all. Lights flicked on in the house and the voices of more people he didn’t know raised in alarm.
Having scoured the parameter with no sign of Riku, Daisuke had no choice but to abandon his target temporarily. He was Phantom Thief Dark though! He’d see the girl he loved again no matter which continent she’d left for (without so much as a goodbye)…
Trudging down the dark streets, enthusiasm thoroughly doused, he found a thin silhouette leaning against a lightpost, pale blue with a splash of dulled red.
“Hiwatari-kun, did you find Harada-san?”
Hiwatari took one look at his face. “I take it your meeting went similarly.”
“I don’t understand…”
“Did you notice anything odd on the way here?”
“Odd? Like what?”
Hiwatari didn’t answer, which wasn’t unusual. His hands stayed in his pockets, and he would have looked casual if not for the weary hunch in his normally tall frame.
“Any more luck with your phone?” Daisuke asked, just to fill the silence. He didn’t know what to think about Riku’s uncharacteristically quiet rejection, or where Harada had gone looking for someone who was both here and never coming back.
“Still no signal.”
“My house is closer than your place. Why don’t you spend—”
“Niwa,” Hiwatari said, and there was something urgent in his calmness. “I went to my apartment before searching for Harada.”
“Ah, uh, okay.” It was a good idea; Hiwatari had looked like a mess. He actually… still looked like a mess. “What for?”
“It doesn’t matter. The point is, I couldn’t get inside.” That explained that. But then…
“Your passcode didn’t work?”
“It didn’t, because.” Hiwatari passed in front of a darkened storefront, and his reflection’s gaze met Daisuke’s. “The locks were changed.”
“I don’t understand…” No, there was something sharp and clever in his gut telling him in no uncertain terms to get the hell out of here. But why? The street was mostly empty, with few lights and even fewer salarymen wandering to and from the office. “Hiwatari-kun. What about my house?” If Hiwatari couldn’t get into his place, and the Haradas weren’t at theirs… “Have you been there? What did you see?”
“… I haven’t.”
“Then let’s go!”
Daisuke latched onto Hiwatari’s uninjured wrist and pulled him along. Hiwatari didn’t protest or lag far behind, but he did scan every new street they came across like it too couldn’t be trusted to stay where and what it had always been.
They came to a breathless stop in front of the small, barely legible placard.
“Niwa—” Hiwatari began, but Daisuke hopped his home’s iron gate. He hopped the chainlink one after it too.
“Mom! Dad! Grandpa…!” Daisuke called out, voice cracking at the last syllable. Their responses were swallowed by the empty lot before him. Faded police barriers and caution signs surrounded a jagged pit in the center. His boot hit a stone and it tumbled down, echoing into the exposed staircase of his family vault. “Towa-chan? Argentine-kun? Baku? Any—anyone…?”
Gravel crunched behind him and Hiwatari stood as stiff and real as a statue on the other side of the chainlink fence.
“Hiwatari-kun…” he started, pleaded.
“I don’t hear the voices of art here anymore.”
Argentine said the basement had been terribly noisy lately, but Daisuke never managed to hear all their voices, before they…
“That’s just because the artworks lost their power.”
“It’s possible,” Hiwatari said, and Daisuke knew he was trying, in his own way, to comfort him.
Part of Daisuke wanted more of that comfort, as much as Hiwatari could stand to give, while he cried in fright and grief. But the other part of him that had been showing its face more and more this past year and a half said there were more important things to do.
“Saehara’s apartment is just a few streets away. His dad will let us crash there.” They’d know where everyone had gone. They’d have the answers. Daisuke cleared the chainlink fence in one bound but stopped his march at the gate. It must have fallen off one of its hinges when Hiwatari opened it. He studied the ugly groove it dug into the dirt that had been green garden for as long as he could remember. Gone too were all the seedlings his dad and Towa planted only last week.
Daisuke held tighter to the stone rabbit cradled inside his shirt. He didn’t care anymore what Inspector Saehara thought of him in the clothes of Phantom Thief Dark. He just wanted to go home, somewhere, anywhere.
***
“The fuck you kids want? It’s the middle of the night!”
“Sorry…” Daisuke apologized, feeling only half of it for a man he’d never seen before in his life. “Do you know if Saehara Takeshi lives around here? Or Inspector Saehara?” They live here, he wanted to say, and hear.
“Is that supposed to be a joke? Get lost.” The door slammed shut. And they were once again locked out of a place they once knew.
“Okay. Okay…” He stayed in front of the door a little longer, just in case it burst open to Saehara laughing boisterously at them for falling for such a stupid joke. “Okay, where do we go next? Sekimoto’s all the way across town, and…” And to be honest, Daisuke knew he wouldn’t be there either.
Hiwatari reached into his pocket again, not for his cell phone but the roll of yen.
***
More than any other place in Tokyo, Azumano attracted international fame for its grand, old buildings. There was no shortage of tourists and citizens alike who stopped on their way down the street to admire the morning sunlight on yet another masterful facade. And deeper inside those buildings, or nestled in crooks atop, or even dancing on fountains just outside their entrances, were many more beautiful works of art, blanketing the city in centuries of artistic tradition.
None of that stopped Azumano from boasting all the modern amenities and enjoyments of other cities too.
“Welcome to Koujiki 24! Best net cafe on the street since our competitor closed! How may I help you to… uh…” The young man fumbled for the rest of his rote greeting as he looked Daisuke and Hiwatari up and down under the flashing, colorful lights. “What are you kids doing out past curfew?”
“We’re booking a room for the night,” Hiwatari said like a commander of the police force and not a lost teenager.
The young man’s unshaven throat bobbed, but he managed to find the words in the end. “Sure, yeah, just one? They’re not roomy, you know.”
“Your sign offers a package of six hours for 1300 yen.”
“Yeah, but…”
Hiwatari put the roll of bills on the table and slid them out one by one with his thumb until he counted the right amount. Daisuke would give a hand, but Hiwatari’d grown increasingly tired of Daisuke’s concern, which, to be fair, only came up because his formerly dying friend had grown very tired for real on the walk to the newer side of town. Waiting with less patience, the young man overlooked Daisuke’s famous, suspicious outfit in favor of Hiwatari’s normal school uniform for some… reason…
“Hiwatari-kun, are you bleeding!?”
Hiwatari shot him such a look that Daisuke had to slap his hand over his big, stupid mouth.
“It’s fake blood,” Hiwatari corrected in a powerful monotone, “for our class play.”
Daisuke just nodded behind his hand because he was sure as hell going to spit out many, many more concerns as soon as they were alone.
“Right… ‘Hiwatari’, was it?” the young man continued, losing his last shred of interest in his guests after that mundane revelation. “I don’t see you in the system so you need to sign this form to get a membership. I’ll make a photocopy of your IDs too.”
“Uh…” Daisuke patted his black regalia. Phantom thieves didn’t normally carry wallets.
Hiwatari pulled out his student ID. “This should suffice.”
“Very funny. I need a real ID, not your prop.”
“… It is real.”
“Then take it from me, you’ll have better luck buying booze with something from this century.”
Hiwatari and Daisuke shared a glance, with Daisuke doing most of the confused brow bunching, but it was still definitely shared. It was a break from pretending not to ogle the blood dried onto Hiwatari’s face, arms, and formerly white shirt. It had all looked like innocent dirt in the dark.
“Can we get a shower while we’re here?” Daisuke blurted out.
“Comes included in the package. Along with the manga library downstairs. Just need to, you know, finish signing up.”
Hiwatari took back his rejected card and didn’t bother trying the police badge. Daisuke didn’t blame him.
The young man looked them up and down again, lingering on the exposed, aching skin Daisuke suspected were turning into bruises, and then the clock that showed how much time they were wasting. Or how late the hour was. “Did you sign up for the government digital ID? It should be easy enough to pull up on your phones…”
“My cell phone isn’t working. We’ll try another establishment.”
“With that fake-as-hell card? Good luck. Watch out for those curfew fines too; damn, do they add up…”
Hiwatari swept up his cash, clearly done with the negotiation, but Daisuke didn’t miss the waver in his posture. How hurt was Hiwatari, actually? He’d been hiding it this whole time? Maybe they should go to a hospital instead. Maybe tomorrow, when they recovered enough strength to drag themselves across town again.
Daisuke stepped forward. “Please, we don’t want to get in trouble. We just need a place to stay the night. Can’t you help us?”
“… You’re not running away from home, are you?”
“No,” they said firmly together.
The young man looked again around the flashy lobby where a few older guests milled in and out, paying no mind to what was around them, and sighed. “Give me your names, and I’ll see what I can do. Meals are complementary, just check the signs for the times.” He rolled his neck until it popped. “There’s actually some curry left over from dinner; I’ll heat it up.”
Two showers later, they found themselves lying on the floor-mattress of a room the size of a closet. Or, Daisuke was lying down while Hiwatari sat beside his feet, scrolling through webpage after webpage on the paper-thin computer monitor. His bowl of watery curry and rice rested at his elbow, half-eaten. The contents of Daisuke’s empty bowl sat uncertainly in his stomach.
Hiwatari’s scarred arms were hidden by the overlong sleeves of an only-moderately-worn robe, courtesy of Tokei, who insisted he didn’t want to have to clean up fake blood. At least Hiwatari wouldn’t spend the night in… that. What they’d do after their six hours were up, Daisuke hadn’t had the energy to consider.
He laid With on his folded cape in the corner of the room and stroked the unresponsive stone.
“Grandpa and Dad said the artworks might wake up again. They might not be dead forever.”
“They might not be.”
Daisuke bit his tongue before he could ask for something more committal. It was too selfish to wish to hear Dark’s voice again, aloud at least, when Hiwatari had been trying so hard for so long to escape Krad.
“I saw a phone at the front counter. Tokei-san might let us make a call. I’ll try everyone’s numbers and you can dial the police department or the inspector or—”
“Niwa,” said Hiwatari with the subdued care of early hour confessions in boobytrapped towers.
Daisuke breathed in the stale air and imagined beyond the cramped walls—and the desolate lot haunting his every blink—a canopy of stars and black wings overhead.
“It’s okay. Whatever it is, you can tell me, Hiwatari-kun.” He stroked With gently despite tension seizing him from head to toe.
“Your home was destroyed ten years ago… according to online news sources.”
Daisuke closed his eyes, and the tears he’d held back all night finally spilled over, down his nose, onto With.
“How?” he rasped.
“I don’t know. The present year is also 2025.” Hiwatari did nothing to soften the blow. Maybe he didn’t know how, this time.
“T-twenty-six years!” Alone, in a terrible future, for no good reason whatsoever. And Dark wasn’t here to shove a playful elbow in his side when he needed him most.
There was more Hiwatari wasn’t saying. Beyond the thumps and voices coming from neighboring rooms, he could hear Hiwatari’s hesitation between breaths. No more horrible revelations came and Daisuke decided not to push tonight. Maybe not ever, his gut suggested.
“We’ll find a way to get back,” Daisuke said. His declaration was dampened somewhat by the following sniffles. But, still, they had to. Phantom Thief Dark didn’t settle for less.
Maybe Phantom Thief Dark didn’t fall asleep crying over his pet rabbit and missing family either, but Hiwatari let it slide. Unmemorable dreams came in fits and too many interruptions by noisy guests on every side. The only constants were the sounds of Hiwatari’s mouse clicks and keyboard typing.
***
When Daisuke woke, groggy and sore, he found Hiwatari slumped over that same keyboard—alive, thankfully, and dead asleep. Lowering him onto the floor mat, Daisuke covered him with the blanket before he slipped out of the room-closet without a sound.
It was easy to dodge the other guests among the narrow aisles of computers and books. He didn’t have a good excuse for being so unpersonable, save for a strong feeling he didn’t belong here. He wondered if Hiwatari felt it. He worried everyone who saw them could feel it too.
There was one person he didn’t dodge. Maybe the young man lazing at the register would have preferred that. “Sorry, Tokei-san?”
“Niwa-kun, right? You’re up early.” He stretched almost casually and slipped a raunchy manga under the counter. “My shift’s about to end; what’d’you need?”
“Nothing, uh, well, it’s kind of…” He and Hiwatari probably should come up with a cover story. “My friend and I haven’t come to this part of town in a while.” A long, long while. “Where can we buy clothes around here?”
“Method acting’s not all it’s cracked up to be, eh?”
“Haha, you could say that…”
When Daisuke returned sometime later, he found Hiwatari back at the computer. “I-I’m back…” He hovered in the doorway, wary of and desperate for more news, until a drunk guest shouldered into him and the plastic bags of clothes spilled into their tiny room. Hiwatari didn’t so much as glance his way as Daisuke folded a thin shirt and trousers into a pile and packed his thief regalia back into its bag. The tag of his new shirt itched his neck terribly. Tokei hadn’t lied about where to find the cheapest of the cheap at least. Even so…
“We’ve got 250 yen left,” he said, since it was obvious where he’d gone. They didn’t even have enough for two strawberry milks now. He placed the coins at Hiwatari’s elbow and risked a peek at the screen. “Is that… the Azumano Police Department’s database?”
“I would like it to be.”
“And you’re brute forcing passwords? From here!?”
“We’ll be gone in less than an hour.”
“I guess so… Wouldn’t it be easier to inject SQL into the directory?”
Hiwatari kept typing. “That vulnerability has since been patched.”
“Finally, after everything Dark and I did to their security feeds.” His heart still gave a small leap when he talked about his many crimes with the police commander himself, but they’d honestly been beyond that for a while. “What took so long anyway…”
“Dark would only find another exploit elsewhere, and then my honeypots would go to waste.”
“You mean those were you…!”
Hiwatari’s withering smirk startled a laugh out of Daisuke. A short one, but no less real.
“Too bad for us now. What are you looking for exactly?”
“It doesn't matter,” Hiwatari said, not unexpectedly, and shut down the sleek computer. “Their security has advanced beyond our current skills.”
After a hearty breakfast of plain toast and watery miso soup, thanks to much prompting from Daisuke and one attempt by Hiwatari to skip it, they set their room key on the counter of Tokei’s dayshift replacement, who might have been too busy with another guest to notice. No one outside the net cafe looked at them oddly in their new, normal clothes either nor paid any mind to the criminal evidence folded inside Daisuke’s plastic shopping bag.
Hiwatari had probably been right to throw out his bloody uniform, but doing that to Mom’s handiwork felt so wrong…
“Where do we go now?” Daisuke asked. The streets were filled with people shopping or going to work, many of them absorbed by the bright, rectangular screens in their hands.
“Back to where we came from.”
“I really am so glad you have a plan.”
“Nothing that solid. We can assume our arrival here is connected to the Black Wings, thus we investigate the source.” Made sense.
Daisuke and Hiwatari melted into the crowds, eyes finding each other every minute or so as if they’d disappear into this strange Azumano like everyone else they cared about.
The ornate stones Daisuke dodged police through and the tiled roofs he’d leapt across over the past year were all still there. He could even overlook the signs that had aged overnight and the newer ones smattered between them. But a cloying loneliness clung to every single surface of the bustling town.
(It was all in his head, he knew, and his heart, where he kept and missed Dark at the same time. Anyone would feel that way if their friends and family and house suddenly disappeared.)
Right before they reached their school, Hiwatari leaned against a thick tree, out of sight of the cluster of cars parked across the street.
“Oh no, someone must’ve reported the break-in!” Daisuke whispered.
“Niwa,” Hiwatari murmured back, “look between the police cars.”
Their models had evolved beneath the black and white paint jobs, as had those of the two unmarked vehicles with them. No, they weren’t entirely unmarked…
“It’s those wings again…”
“That’s the logo of Division 28.”
One of the officers smoking by his car turned their way, but Daisuke pulled Hiwatari fully behind the tree a second faster. “Who?”
“A government agency responsible for special property tax assessments. Supposedly. There’s very little useful information available online.”
“Just our luck. Why now…”
If Hiwatari didn’t know why they were here or why they had a big metal door blocking the way to the Black Wings, that left them at a dangerous disadvantage. Local police could be outrun and outsmarted, but his family had always been careful to stay under the radar of higher branches of government. Two teenagers without identification were the smallest of fry, so they just had to stay that way. Daisuke sighed in frustrated disappointment and pet With through his shirt. “Okay, the Black Wings will have to wait. A break-in won’t take long for them to sort out, at least? We can manage until then.”
“With no property damage or leads, most investigations of the sort are abandoned after forty-eight hours.”
“Two days!” For once he wished the officers would move faster. “How are we going to manage?”
Hiwatari smoothed his new, permanently-wrinkled shirt. “What’s your stance on thievery?”
***
“No signs of anomalous activity.”
“You’ve got to be kidding me. I get a call at two in the morning for nothing? Let me see the security footage.”
“Happy? It's just some punks trespassing for kicks, like the APD said. Can we leave it to them now?”
“Where’s the rest of it?”
“Eh? The cameras record movement, and there they go.”
“Our systems alerted us to a breach in Zone 0 at 2:16 A.M., which just so happens to be when the cameras catch these ‘punks’ exiting the Sealed door.”
“So?”
“So either our system developed a very convenient and temporary fault, or a couple of kids figured out how to get inside without triggering the motion sensors and four separately primed alarms, or…”
“… Fuck.”
“That’s the spirit!”
“But I swept the entire floor! No residual energy whatsoever. No more than turns up on the annual inspections, anyway.”
“Don’t look at me; I’m an Appraiser, not a researcher.”
“You’re going to be the one to tell the chief about this then, Ikoma?”
“He’s been looking forward to my report all morning.”