Hmm... okay, part 4 of... well, I won't say how many, any more, but
shouldn't be too many more. Funny thing, though- I've gotten NO comments
at ALL on this fic. Ya know, I DID post this fic in multiple parts for a
reason- I WOULD like something on this thing from SOMEONE. Preferably
something with some genuine comments, but hey, anything would be nice...
* * * * *
"Ah, Inspector Matsui," Gotoh said. "Find any more... irregularities... in
our weapons log?"
"No," he said gruffly. "I'm done with that portion of this investigation.
I have a pretty good idea what weapon was used- we just need to find it and
perform a ballistics test on it. In the meantime, however, there are a
couple other angles to work on. Takeo's taking one- she phoned me to let
me know she's discovered a confidential inside source on the conspiracy,
and she'll be working with him independently for a while. In the meantime,
however, she gave me the results of another file search I'd engaged her on.
Um, would you and Captain Shinobu please investigate me? There's someone
I need to question, and I'd like to have you two along with me when I
conduct this particular interrogation."
Gotoh looked over at Shinobu, who shrugged and nodded, before getting up to
walk over to him. "Certainly- though may I ask why?"
Matsui coughed. "Well, I'm going to be questioning another police
officer."
"Not one of MY men!" Shinobu cried, outraged.
"No, not one of your men," he said reassuringly. Glancing casually at
Gotoh, he added, "Not one of yours, either. Nor Sakaki's."
Shinobu and Gotoh looked at each other. "Well... if it's not our men,"
Gotoh asked, almost to himself. "Who does that leave?"
"Are you taking us off base? If so, I'm afraid I won't be able to go..."
Shinobu said.
"No, we should find the person who I'm intending to talk to in this
facility right now...."
* * * * *
Noa and Asuma, half-dressed after their difficult night's sleep, were
trying to relax in the main room of their hideout. Things were slightly
tense between them after what they said and did the previous night, and
they were uncertain how to relate to each other after the unexpected
change. Trying to avoid the issue, they'd seperated to do very different
things. It had turned into a very lazy afternoon.
Noa was furiously her Patlabor game, trying to beat her top score. She'd
seen a steady improvement in her performance that day, but part of that
might have been that there wasn't much else to do in the cabin. Briefly,
she glanced over at Asuma, blushing slightly. No, not much else to do at
all.
Asuma was lying on his elbows, reading one of the manga they'd been
supplied. It wasn't something he'd normally be interested in (it was a
girls manga), but considering the limited options it was a way of keeping
off the boredom. In an attempt to breech the wall of nerves they'd erected
between them, he first tried helping Noa out on her video game. That
hadn't worked out, however, and he found that the screen on the Headgear
Mini-Game device wasn't big enough to allow two people to view what was
going on at once. He also considered suggesting they watch some
television, but he doubted anything of interest was on the local TVs...
though he should probably consider watching the news later that night, just
to make sure there weren't any major updates on their case.
"Say, Asuma?" Noa said, not looking up from her game.
"Yeah, Noa?"
"Are there any OTHER girls you'd have hesitated before sleeping with?"
Asuma blinked, and looked over at her. She was doing her best to keep her
smile from showing- obviously, she was teasing him.
"Not in this building," he said.
"And outside of it?"
"I don't know... I mean, there definitely are some. Most of those others,
however, are for completely different reasons."
Noa raised an eyebrow. "MOST of those others? What about those 'others'
who aren't covered in that 'most?'"
"Well, let's see. They'd have to be someone who I liked a lot... and who I
would be afraid of losing what I had with them... and who I trusted with
pretty much anything... hmm, not sure there really ARE any others who fit
all of those requirements."
"Good," Noa said smugly.
"Now, what you SHOULD have asked is if there are any other girls who I
WOULDN'T have hesitated before sleeping with," he added, smiling up at her
maliciously.
"What! Why you-"
"Shh!" Asuma said suddenly, leaping to his feet. "I think I hear
something."
Noa started listening along with him. She just barely made out what it was
he was listening to. "Is that a... helicopter?"
Asuma nodded. "Yeah... and it's getting closer. Do helicopters come
around here often?"
"First time I've ever heard one in these mountains, as far as I can
recall."
"Damn- that's almost certainly the police," he growled as the helicopter
got close enough for them to know that it was landing near them. "Wong
must have sold us out- quick, grab anything you can, and let's get out of
here!"
Noa glanced out the window. "Asuma, wait!"
"What is it?" he said, stopping with his shirt half-buttoned- he'd been
wearing just the T-shirt up until that point.
"That isn't a police helicopter. In fact, I think I see Utsumi waving to
us from its window," Noa explained, using the pseudonym Richard Wong had
first given them when they had first met.
"Utsumi?" Asuma said, surprised. He resumed buttoning his shirt, but with
less urgency. "Why is he here this soon? It's only been a day since we
last saw him!"
The helicopter finished its landing procedures, and Wong left it
accompanied by someone else. Noa, still looking out the window, gasped.
"Asuma, Takeo's with him!"
He paused. "Well... it's too late to try and run now that they've landed.
Let's just hope she's on our side. Utsumi said he would try and help our
investigation- maybe he's bringing her in to do it, and she has to ask us
some questions or something."
Noa turned to face him, and as she watched him fix his shirt remembered her
own partially-clothed state. Quickly, she buttoned up her own blouse
(which she'd been wearing unfastened), and turned to wait for the
unexpected guests.
There was a knock at the door. Noa glanced at Asuma, who nodded, and
opened it.
"Ah, hello, Noa, Asuma," Wong greeted. "I brought along a guest who simply
insisted that she see you to make certain you two were safe."
"Hello, Asuma." Takeo said, stepping in alongside him, smiling. For the
first time, Asuma noticed an odd similarity between her smile and Wong's-
perhaps it wasn't as wide, but it appeared almost identical in shape. It
was almost as if she WOULD be smiling just like him if her lips would let
her.
"Uh, hi, Takeo," Noa said nervously.
"Noa," Takeo acknowledged. "Have you been taking good care of Asuma?"
Noa blushed. "Well... we have had a few problems. We need a few supplies
to remain... comfortable."
"Oh?" Wong said. "Did we not bring enough for you in our care packages?"
Asuma nodded. "We need some changes of clothing- we've been stuck in our
uniforms ever since we escaped, and there's only so much bathing will do.
We could also use something to help clean those clothes."
Wong nodded. "Oh- oh! I'm sorry I did not think of that when I showed up
yesterday! Give me your clothing measurements before I leave, and I'll get
you a complete wardrobe by nightfall. Is there anything else?"
Noa raised her hand. "Yes! We could use a larger futon and- ulp!" She
was cut off as Asuma's hand went over her mouth.
"A larger futon?" Takeo repeated, raising an eyebrow.
"Uh, yeah," Asuma said, still holding his hand over Noa's mouth despite the
fact she was now biting him. "See, she's had to sleep on this really small
kids' futon she used to sleep on when she was, like, five or so, and was
hoping to find something a bit more comfortable." Once Noa realized he was
only trying to keep their secret a bit longer, she stopped biting him, and
he was able to move his hand away.
Wong laughed. "Of course! I'll send her a nice queen-sized futon along
with the clothing. Is that all?"
"Well, the whole place is a bit shabby, and could use a few things to fix
it up. We don't need that stuff right away, but if we have to stay much
longer we could use some materials and tools to rebuild the damaged
portions of this house."
"Oh, I doubt you'll have to stay in it much longer," Wong said. "A few
days, a week at most."
That surprised all three of them. "You really think we'll be done with
this investigation so quickly?" Takeo said.
Wong looked at her sadly. "I'm afraid so... and then our truce will run
out, and I'll have to start hiding from you again. A shame, really, but I
promise to do my best to keep my end of the bargain."
"How do you figure we'll be done in a week?" she asked.
"Ah, well, see- our little research project with those phone records worked
two ways. You were able to discover what people in the police were
actively conspiring to force the investigation to turn on Asuma, and I was
able to find out who it was in Shaft who'd ordered the frame-up. I talked
to my friends in the departments those people head, and they'll try and
find for us the murder weapon your Inspector Matsui identified. Once they
do that, we'll go there, extract it, and use it to prove Asuma's innocence.
In the meantime, your Inspector Matsui and Captain Gotoh, if I'm any judge
of their competence, will be able to break down the police conspiracy in a
very brief time." He paused. "Which really doesn't leave much
investigation for us, does it? Ah, well- do you want to join me on the ski
slopes before we leave?"
"Richard Wong," Takeo warned. "We're only here on business. If you're
attempting to butter me up into liking you again, you're wasting your
time."
Wong sighed. "Oh, well."
"I would like a chance to talk to Noa and Asuma privately before we depart,
however. Would you mind leaving us alone for a little bit?"
Wong raised his hands in surrender. "Leaving you alone as ordered. Have
fun." Winking at her, he left the house and made his way out to the
helicopter.
Takeo closed her eyes and shook her head, that smile that reminded Asuma of
Wong still on her face. "You two are in a lot of trouble, you know," she
said. "I don't think you realize what it means to ally yourselves with
Richard Wong."
"Maybe not," Asuma said. "Though I do know enough not to trust anything he
says."
"Well, that's a start," she said with chagrin. "But there's a lot more to
Richard then just an untrustworthy guy. He's not going to hurt you, or let
you get hurt- not physically, at any rate- if you're a friend of his. And
when he told me he thought of you two as friends, I believed him."
"Are you sure about that?" Noa asked. "It sure didn't seem that way when I
had to fight the Griffin!"
Takeo nodded. "Hurting and humiliating are two very different things in
his book. Realize, the Griffin got into a lot of fights- many of them very
intense battles- but it was controlled well enough that it wouldn't kill
anyone. It hurt Asuma, yes, but that was unintentional. If it had been
going to kill you, it could have, Noa- and probably long before the battle
turned in your favor, too."
Cold chills ran down both her and Asuma's spines- Noa, at the thought of
how close she was to death in those fights, and Asuma, at the thought of
how close he had come to losing Noa in those same fights.
"So you're saying we can trust certain things about him?" Asuma asked.
"No- don't even trust what you know about Richard, because he'll use his
own patterns against you. Trust me- I've seen him work."
"Why is he really doing this for us?" Noa asked.
Takeo laughed. "Who knows? Richard's quite eccentric- he told me those
speakers that Bud was using on the Griffin to yell at you were put there so
that he could get the labor to play selections from Wagner's operas as it
moved. He lives by his own rules, and no-one understands Richard Wong but
Richard Wong himself."
"So how did you two come to join forces in this case?" Asuma asked. "Did
he approach you, or what?"
"No... we were following the same lead, and just happened to meet. I was
about to arrest him until I found out he could contact you two, and we made
an agreement where I would arrest him if he kept you two safe. He's
actually been quite helpful- which isn't really a surprise; he usually is,
when he wants to be."
"So... what should we do?" Asuma asked.
"You?" Takeo said. "You're already doing it- stay hidden. Just relax,
have some fun, and think of this as a vacation... but stay indoors. Well,
maybe there are some things you could do- I suspect it would be safe to go
skiing, if you wear some sort of disguise- but just use caution and don't
let anyone see your faces."
"Yeah, that's pretty much what Utsumi told us," Asuma said.
"I just wish there was more to do around here," Noa sighed.
Takeo's smile grew a little. "Oh, I'm pretty sure you'll think of
something. Look, I'd better be going- I'll come by to check on you guys in
a week if we haven't cleared you by then."
"Bye, Takeo," Noa said.
"Hold on," Asuma said. "Give Noa and I a chance to write down the things
Wong needs to get us our new clothes."
Takeo nodded, pulling out a pen and a small note pad from her vest and
handing them over to Asuma. "Write down anything you want to tell him in
this."
Asuma and Noa took their turns with the notepad before handing it back to
Takeo. "We'll see you in a week, Takeo," Asuma said.
Takeo smiled as she turned to go. "By the way... if you hadn't tried to
hide it, you'd have gotten a bigger futon."
"Huh?" Asuma and Noa chorused.
"Well, it's pretty obvious you two are sleeping together. If you'd just
come out and admitted it, he'd have given you a king-sized futon to share
instead of the smaller queen-sized one. Honesty has its rewards with
Richard."
As she continued out the door, Noa and Asuma both facefaulted.
* * * * *
Inspector Matsui stopped leading when they reached the door labeled
'Section Chief Fukushima.' His two companions halted when he paused and
pulled out a cigarette. Gotoh looked at the office, looked at Matsui, and
nodded slightly. Shinobu, on the other hand, just looked confused.
"Are we going in to get the section chief's help, too, or are we just
stopped so you can smoke a cigarette?" she asked, somewhat harshly as she
wasn't very comfortable being left in the dark.
"His 'help?'" Matsui echoed. "Hmm... I guess that's a good way to put it.
The answer to your question is we're stopped here so that I can smoke a
cigarette BEFORE we go in to get some 'help' from your section chief. I'm
going to need it to calm my nerves- sometimes it seems Mr. Fukushima does
his utmost to make me feel uncomfortable, and I'm gonna need this smoke to
get through this."
Shinobu looked at him, still confused. She was used to reading between the
lines with Gotoh- well, sometimes she was- but she didn't understand
whatever it was Matsui was implying. "Well, should I go in and get him, or
are we all going to have to wait for you to finish this cigarette break?"
"We're going to have to wait, Shinobu. See, Fukushima isn't going to help
perform the questioning- he's going to be the person we're going to
question."
Finally, it all clicked in Shinobu's head. "You don't mean HE'S the one
who sold us out to Shaft? But he's our section chief! Surely he
wouldn't..." her voice trailed off into memories. Memories of the time
she'd confronted the same section chief about the possibility that the
SRX-70 that had been donated to her labor unit was being used by Shaft to
develop military labors. Blood money, she had called it. Fukushima's
response, for some reason, rang in her head that moment.
"Labor units run on money, not on pride," he had said.
"In addition to a number of phone calls between him and several suspected
Shaft administrators," Matsui explained, "I accessed his bank accounts and
discovered regular deposits to him by dummy corporations set up by Shaft
Multinational. While Shaft is not the only group I started out suspecting,
I've since got a few 'tips' to make me believe that Shaft WAS the
organization which framed Asuma and murdered his father, and while
Fukushima isn't the only person who appears to be receiving bribes from
Shaft, we've got other leads- namely your apparently altered report on the
missing weapon- that seem to connect to him."
The door behind the three of them opened. "And, in addition to all that,
you're able to discuss all of this in front of my office without giving me
a chance to defend myself," Fukushima growled. "Come in- I've heard what
you all had to say. Let's talk."
The three officers, looking a little like schoolchildren caught cheating on
a test, followed him in and closed the door behind them. Fukushima sat
down at his desk, gestured for them to take a seat, and then folded his
hands together.
Matsui, sitting down, cleared his throat. "Um, sir, I still have a few
questions-"
"Stow it!" the section chief barked. "You can ask your questions later. I
get a chance to explain my side of things, now." He paused, waiting for
their reactions.
Matsui seemed unhappy, but nodded and leaned back in his chair to hear what
Fukushima had to say for himself. Shinobu felt vaguely shell-shocked-
while intellectually she'd been convinced that there had been an internal
conspiracy to frame Gotoh's protege Asuma, she hadn't quite connected that
to corruption in the police- especially not to someone who she worked with.
She might not have liked Fukushima, but she was very by the book, and had
always felt that Fukushima was a by-the-book man, as well. His apparent
betrayal was something she'd never have expected in a million years, even
if the evidence for his had hit her on the head.
Gotoh, however, was as unflappable as ever. "Go ahead, chief. We all
appear to be wondering why you would frame one of your own for the murder
of his father." Unflappable, but still not very happy. Shinobu, who had
never heard him address someone so darkly- least of all someone as powerful
as the section chief- shuddered slightly at his tone.
"I did nothing of the kind!" Fukushima denied violently. "I will admit to
taking money from Shaft Multinational, but I wasn't doing anything like
that for it." He paused, sitting back defiantly. "I merely was something
of a paid consultant and lobbyist for them. I was asked to support their
labor designs over that of the Shinohara Heavy Industry designs back when
the two were competing for the Patlabor contracts, and received a modest
fee for my support. Since then, I've been supplying them with some
information when they've requested it- medical reports on the effects of
high-stress assignments on pilots and that sort of thing. However, I've
never done ANYTHING which I felt has hurt or hindered my policework in any
fashion- especially nothing which might have lead to one of my officers
being framed for murder." Disdainfully, he added, "In fact, I think it
could have helped us out significantly, if we hadn't been paranoid about
their motivations. They were willing to just GIVE us an SRX-70 was in part
due to my aid... and I STILL feel it was a mistake to get rid of it."
Shinobu was starting to get angry now. The SRX-70 incident had been a
trying time for her, and she still got mad thinking about how she'd almost
been duped into illegal weapons testing. Fukushima had refused to see her
problem with it at the time, and now he was only compounding his errors in
her mind. Still, she was able to keep her cool, and not do anything too
violent. She did break a pencil she was holding between her fingers,
however.
Gotoh noted Shinobu's waning restraint, and decided to ask a question
before she snapped. "Hmm... you say you've done nothing to lead to one of
your officers being framed for murder. I don't doubt that you believe that
when you say it, but can you be certain they never used your work in ways
you weren't aware of? I wonder... you didn't happen to alter a report at
their request, did you? A missing weapons report?"
Fukushima blinked. "Now that you mention it, they did ask that I change
one report from listing a missing revolver to say that it fell into the
Tokyo Bay instead of listing it as having been misplaced following the
action. I happen to know for a fact that the weapon in question was
non-functioning, however."
"Non-functioning?" Shinobu said. "How?"
"It was defective, according to my source at Shaft. They were merely
studying the trigger system, but the barrel had been damaged."
That got Shinobu out of her chair. "And you believed him?" she growled,
slamming her fists down on top of Fukushima's desk. "Shaft makes weapons
systems for the armies of fifty different countries. The police revolvers
used by Ingram and Peacemaker labors are pretty pathetic compared to Shaft
equipment- they had no need to study the trigger systems of those weapons!"
"Shinobu," Gotoh said, trying to calm her down slightly.
"The ONLY possible reason they would have for wanting to obtain one of
those revolvers would be to use a labor-designed weapon that WOULDN'T be
traced back to them," she said. "So, 'Chief,' guess what? You DID
participate in framing one of our officers- and it's your fault he's on the
run right now!"
"Shinobu!" Gotoh snapped, trying to get her attention.
She relaxed slightly, turning to Gotoh. "Sorry... but to think I used to
actually treat this man with some respect..."
* * * * *
Noa went through the box of stuff that had been delivered for her.
Fortunately, she and Asuma hadn't had to unload the futon themselves, but
the boxes of clothing Wong had sent were much larger than they were
expecting. Noa pulled out some laundry detergent (complete with
instructions for how to hand-wash things, as if she needed them), four nice
blouses, three pairs of slacks, a skirt, and some underwear. Then she
started finding some items she hadn't asked for- an iron, some soap and
shampoo for the bath, some toothpaste, some mouthwash, some maxi pads (not
her usual brand, but she couldn't really complain) and other toiletries.
There was one thing that she couldn't quite identify, however, until she
took it out of the box and carefully studied the English writing.
"Eep!" Noa blushed, dropping the box once she realized what it was.
Asuma, unpacking his own box, looked over at her. "What?"
Quickly, she grabbed the box and hid it behind her. "Uh... nothing."
Asuma smiled teasingly. "Are you hiding something from me?"
"No!" Noa cried out, her voice trembling with embarrassment. Realizing she
just shouted, she giggled nervously.
Asuma's smile grew, and he crawled over to her on his hands on knees so he
could confront her face to face. "Come on- what is it?"
"Nothing! Really!" Noa insisted desperately. He was trying to be playful-
she was just trying to keep him from finding the box and getting the wrong
idea.
"Then what's that you're holding behind your back?" he asked.
"I'm not holding anything behind my back- see!" Noa said, showing both her
hands.
Asuma feinted a look of surrender, then with a battle cry of "Ha!" ducked
around underneath her hand to grab the box from behind her.
"Asuma!" Noa cried, outraged.
Asuma gave her a toothy grin of victory, but then noticed that she wasn't
just disappointed or embarrassed like he'd expected, but actually looked a
little scared. His smile dropped, but he still took a good look at the
item Noa had been trying to hide.
"It's a box of condoms," he said simply. "An assortment- ribbed, flex-tip,
and... flavored?"
Noa nodded. "Uh huh," she mumbled.
"What's the problem, though? I mean, it's probably just a gag gift- you
wouldn't believe some of the silly things they put in my box. But you're
acting scared of this. Why would a box of condoms scare you?"
Noa blushed. "Um... I'm not sure how to explain it. Last night was
wonderful- we found out what we meant to each other, we snuggled up under
the sheets- even if part of why we held on so tightly was to fit on the
futon, we kissed each other, and we... um... did a few other things." Her
blush grew until she looked as red as her hair, but she continued. "But we
never got far enough to have to use anything like that. I was a bit glad,
actually... I'm not ready for that kind of step. This morning, when I was
thinking about last night, I was wondering what I'd have done if you HAD
tried to start something like that... something I wasn't ready for. I
figured one excuse I could use was that we didn't have anything like this
to protect me from... well, getting pregnant." She sighed. "Now that
we've got them, though, I... I can't think of any reasons other than 'I'm
not ready yet.'"
Asuma smiled comfortingly. "And what makes you think you NEED any other
reasons?" She blinked at his response. "Look, Noa, I'm not going to do
anything to hurt you, nor will I do anything to rush you. Like you said- I
can boss you around in the daytime. At night, however, it's your turn."
Noa smiled back weakly. "And what if you try something during the day?"
"Then you automatically take over, okay?"
"Okay," she said. "Say... you said you got a bunch of gag gifts. Like
what?"
"Um..."
"Come on! Let me see!"
"Ack!"
* * * * *
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Sir Desaix, member # 116 of the Knights of the True Fiancee
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