Justice at Delphi - The Fall of Sibyl

Chapter 29

A secret's worth depends on the people from whom it must be kept.

-Carlos Ruiz Zafón

"Want to explain to me why I'm the one crawling around in an air duct?" Kogami grunted as he shifted to accommodate the tight quarters. He wasn't claustrophobic, but it was a tight fit. He squeezed around a corner, the cold metal biting into his skin. He almost missed the tunnels under the city streets. The smell might have been fetid, but there was room to stand. 

"Don't you want an exciting story to tell your girl?" Koji's teasing voice crackled in his earpiece.

Kogami scowled in the semi-darkness as he crawled forward. "I don't have anything to prove to Akane." Koji seemed determined to get a rise out of him. He supposed it was the occupation of older men to meddle in other's affairs. He paused. The duct divided in two directions. He raised his flashlight down both ducts. One continued straight into the darkness. The other curved to the left. "There's a fork in the duct. Which one?"

There was a long pause. Long enough to trigger Kogami's impatience. "Left or right?" He snapped. Though he wasn't claustrophobic, he wasn't keen on crawling around in here longer than he had to.

The radio crackled to life in his ear with Koji's surly response. "Give me a damn minute. I'm working off the old construction plans. There's not much available publicly. Ah...here we go. Go left."

Heaving a sigh, Kogami twisted his body and started crawling down the left duct. The plan, such as it was, was for him to navigate to the control room via the air duct and shutdown the security. Thus allowing Koji safely inside. Then they could take their time searching for the EMP. Simple. Kogami snorted to himself. Simple in theory. In reality, things were rarely simple. 

Like his relationship with Akane. In theory, it was simple. He loved her to the core of his being. He would die for her. In reality, it was incredibly complex. What the hell was he going to do after Sibyl was overthrown? His skillset didn't qualify him for many careers. Neither did his temperament. What if--

"Oh shit."

"What's wro--" Suddenly, Kogami plunged downward into the inky darkness below. He reached out to the smooth sides of the duct to slow his rapid descent. His flash light tumbled down ahead of him giving him a brief glimpse of his destination. He grit his teeth and braced himself for impact. This was probably going to hurt.

"Kid? You alright? Kogami!" 

***

"I'm guessing you had a reason for sending Shimotsuki back to the office?" Ginoza broke the silence as they searched Nana's apartment for a professionally taken photograph. He carefully right a table and sifted through the debris beneath. Their killer had made a mess of Nana's apartment. It always made him sad to see the wreckage of someone's life.

"I did." Akane replied not looking up from her search. "You wanted to see him." She heard his intake of breath. A wry smile twisted her lips. "Don't tell me, you changed your mind?"

Ginoza shook his head at her bluntness. She could be so like Kogami sometimes it shocked him. "No, I haven't. Does he know?"

Akane squatted in a corner, gingerly brushing away glass. "He knows."

"How did he take it?" Ginoza asked, reaching a hand under the sofa to snag a picture frame.

Akane recalled their conversation. Though Kogami was supportive of her decisions, he hadn't seemed terribly optimistic. She couldn't blame him considering how their last encounter had gone. "Fine."

Ginoza shot her an incredulous look at her over the sofa. "I doubt that. No hard feelings about that punch?"

She turned to face him, meeting his gaze, her lips pursed. "I'm not taking you there to fight. You're going to talk like civilized adults."

He snorted. "Is a hound who slipped his leash civilized?"

She sighed in exasperation. "Really? You're going to go there?"

Ginoza had the grace to look embarrassed. "Sorry...habit. He just brings out the worst in me sometimes."

"Sometimes?" Akane repeated dubiously. She didn't have a memory with the two of them that didn't involve some kind of confrontation. "Aha! We have a winner." She turned over a black and white photo of the city of Tokyo at night. On the back was the stamped logo of a gallery. Midnight Gallery Bistro. "It looks like the studio might be attached to a café." 

She sent a photo to Kunizuka for analysis. "Let's hope we can find our guy."

***

"Dammit, Kogami! You better be alive!"

Kogami awoke to Koji shouting in his ear. He groaned. His body felt battered and bruised. While the slightest movement hurt, he didn't think anything was broken. Small miracles. It seemed he'd fallen into a scrap pile. It had cushioned some of his fall. At least he hadn't landed on the smooth concrete next to the bin. He winced as Koji yelled in his ear once more.

"I'm fine." More or less.

He heard Koji sigh with relief. "Good. Had me worried for a second."

"It'll take a lot more than this to take me down." Slowly, he hoisted himself up and out of the bin.

"Sorry about that. There was a discrepancy in the blue prints."

Kogami rolled his eyes. "You don't say." With his flashlight lost to the scrap pile, Kogami slipped on his night vision goggles. They illuminated the dark room in shades of green. He was in some kind of storage area. Advancing slowly around stacks of boxes, Kogami searched for a door. 

"You should be in a storage room."

 "That's what it looks like." He ventured farther into the room, picking his way gingerly through the forest of boxes. He cursed as the toe of his boot caught the edge of a large metal trunk. He caught himself against the truck. Looking down the Sibyl System logo was stamped on the top. 

"Did you find something?"

"Maybe." Kogami replied absently. Koji had said they were working on arms for inspectors and enforcers before they were shut down. What kind of arms? The size of the trunk piqued his curiosity. He searched for a latch. He wasn't sure why he felt the need to open the trunk. It was pure instinct. He located two latches at either end. Flipping them open, Kogami raised the lid.

The sight before him made his blood run cold. Unless he was hallucinating, there was a body nestled in foam inside the trunk.