Imagine Yourself On a Beach…

They hurried through the crowded Akihabara streets. The vanguard were everywhere. Rinako and Kurama saw them at the corners of most streets. At a pedestrian crossing, the crowds bustled past each other, and as they parted, standing between them, still as a fire hydrant, there was one, its eyes two unmoving blue lights. The people had learned already to ignore them. Rinako saw a kid tripping over his trainers as he crossed, his hand raised up to his mother’s. He stuck a piece of gum to the side of the vanguard as they passed.

‘Come on.’ Kurama pulled her arm and they disappeared into the next crowd.

What they had learned at Itari’s and everything since had convinced Rinako that the vanguard were at least not to be trusted. But every answer seemed to lead to more questions.

‘How is corpse harvesting connected to the vanguard?’

Kurama looked around urgently. ‘… because VisAge doesn’t need to do it.’

She looked at him, puzzled.

‘It’s the biggest corporation in the country. A few extra yen here and there, maybe someone at Intraderma earning a bit extra on the side but no... it’s not worth the risk on its own.’

He looked up at a sign on the side of a building and dragged her in the opposite direction. ‘I think that the purpose wasn’t to harvest parts for Intraderma. That was just the method. Co-ordinating the Geists, learning how to control them, that was the purpose. This thing has been going on for decades, as long as Geists have been around, the pattern I found is just the tip of it—it’s like Itari said, ARPol’s whole structure is shaped around stopping them. And now the vanguard… with the Geists on the rise it makes it a lot easier for the public to accept them. Banks, law offices, for anywhere that needs security to give them access. You saw the banners outside the station. People want the Geists gone. Kurogari won his election on it. And that little speech he made…’ He added this last part as though it had just occurred to him now.

They hurried across an intersection among a flood of people.

‘So you think it was all to prime us for the vanguard… ‘ she thought for a moment. ‘It’s like you were frying chicken when you should have laid an egg.’

He looked at her briefly as they ran through the crowd.

‘Why is it ok when you say it?’

***

The offices of Dr. Omori were high up on the top floor of a glass and white panelled building just off the central streets. Chizaru had run a check on the Chinatown woman and among all the nail salons and parking fines come up with the name of a therapist near Akihabara. Everything in the waiting room was designed to be calming. Yet somehow the lift music had the opposite effect on Rinako.

‘How are we gonna get in?’ She whispered.

Kurama was on the seat beside her. ‘We’ll just… wing it.’

Great, wing it, that never goes wrong…

Opposite them, a small child sat on the floor beside a toy box, pushing a train up and down on the carpet.

‘Hiiiiii…’ he leant forward, smiling up at the receptionist as she walked past. ‘Appointment with Dr. Omori—‘

She looked down at the holopad in her hands. ‘Oh, yes. Please step through.‘ She led them to a curved desk beyond a glass partition wall.

As she flicked through a screen behind the desk, her face shifted through shades of attentiveness, to puzzlement, before finally settling on suspicion as she eyed the badges on their uniforms. She made a brief call on the office comm, glancing up at them at several points.

Rinako and Kurama smiled as disarmingly as they could.

‘I’m sorry.’ She said, as she replaced the phone. ‘The doctor is not in the office right now.’ She wore a practised smile.

‘Really?’ Said Kurama. ‘Who were you on phone to?’

‘He’s not in.’ Her smile now lost whatever humanity it had.

Kurama sighed. After a moment, he turned, walked around the desk and straight past her. Rinako hurried after him.

Winging it…

‘Excuse me!’ She looked at the holopad, ‘Goda-san, you can’t—’ She snatched the comm and started speaking hurriedly.

Kurama shoved open the door to Omori-san’s office.

‘Ah, Dr. Omori.’

A small man in glasses got up suddenly from his seat, slamming shut a a compartment on his desk. ‘What is—‘

‘Sit.’ Said Kurama.

Rinako stood by the door. She could hear the receptionist chattering nervously.

‘We’re going to need to see your patient records. Yung, Anna. You saw her numerous times last year.’

‘I—’ After a moment, the doctor leant back, his eyes half closed, a veneer of professionalism replacing the fear that had been on his face. ‘As I’m sure you know, we operate under the strictest standards of confidentiality. I cannot—‘

‘Yeah. I’m not too interested in that.’ Kurama had shoved him to the side and was leaning across his desk, reaching for the holoscreen.

The doctor grasped the arms of his chair to stop it from falling. Rinako had never seen someone’s eyes bulge before. She’d thought that was something that only happened in manga. ‘I know my rights!’ He shouted. ‘I invoke Article 45!‘

Kurama hung his head and sighed. ‘Why do they always have to pick the hard way…’

***

Kurama flicked through the data he had copied to his holopad.

‘Did you really have to tie him to his chair?’

‘He was obstructing an investigation.’ He said.

Their voices echoed in the stairwell. It had seemed safer than the lift.

Rinako looked up distantly. ‘I didn’t know shirt sleeves could stretch all the way around…’

‘Hey, look at this…’ he was pointing at the holopad.

Rinako looked at the image on the screen. ‘PET. What is that?’

He flicked the page again. ‘—patient experiencing night terrors, waking hallucinations that interfere with ability to function daily. Recommend Primary Evocation Treatment.’

He pressed the screen again. There was a brief section of transcript. It was like diving deeper and deeper into unknown waters.

PET results:

Session terminated due to patient relapse.

He flicked through the sessions. Every page was the same. Eventually they found a video. In a still frame, a woman sat in a chair in a dimly lit room. It was the woman from Chinatown.

Kurama pressed the clip.

‘Patient F765. Date 3.01.09, 33rd cycle. Hypocampus and prefrontal cortex supression active. Evocation session begin.’ It sounded like Dr. Omori.

The woman was glancing around.

‘Please, there’s no need to be nervous. Could you start by saying your name, and your mother’s name for the recorder. Please try to speak—‘

Kurama scrubbed forward on the video. The woman’s gestures jerked rapidly as it played in fast motion. All of a sudden she was standing. Kurama released the video.

‘—It’s here.’ She said, looking around frantically.

‘Now, you know that’s not possible. We are perfectly safe. Any bad memories or thoughts are repressed—‘

The woman looked into the air beside the camera, her face contorted in terror. ‘The Geist. The Geist.’

‘There’s nothing—‘ began the doctor.

Suddenly, she was flung herself back against the wall. She started screaming, her hands held either side of her head.

‘—Programme end, programme end.’ Said the doctor. Readouts filled with numbers were printing out beneath the camera. ‘Errr, must be a system error—‘

The video stopped.

‘What was that?’ Said Rinako. They had stopped on one of the landings of the stairwell. ‘She said… Geist. How could she see what was going to happen to her?’ She looked up at Kurama.

He was staring at the screen. ‘I don’t think it was what was going to happen. I think it was what had happened.’

***

They walked out the doors, lights from the street flashing against the glass. ‘But if the memory came from the sens-sim implant, whoever was the donor—‘ she stopped. ‘Whoever it came from was the one killed by the Geist.’

‘Yeah.’

Rinako thought. ‘And then she was killed by a Geist too.’

‘Yeah.’

‘But then… why would they—‘

‘I dont know.’ Kurama was looking down, lost in thought.

‘Hey Merrrrl.’ The voice took them both by surprise. ‘I knew you’d fuck up eventually.’

Kurama looked up. It took a moment for them to register the man before them.

‘Hashimoto…’

Hashimoto was holding his id in the air, a huge smile spread across his face. Behind him, several squad cars were parked at angles around the entrance to the building.

He pulled a light-stick from his mouth. ‘Look up, asshole.’

Both Rinako and Kurama looked above them. Spinning in the air above Kurama’s head there was a single blue token.