The Contingency Plan

Chapter 5

Leverage

It felt a lot like being trapped under the ice. Running on what little mental wattage he could scrounge, that was the best analogy Kudo Shinichi could come up with. He had never actually had that particular pleasure before. However, he reasoned the experience couldn't be too much different than having your waking mind forcibly rattled right out of your skull.

From the cold depths of unconsciousness, everything seemed so incredibly distant. The abyssal pressures of sleep dragged on what little movement he could muster. Even the slightest headway in wrestling back motor control from the ether of bedlam proved to be a monumental task. Direction and time were purely academic in such a state. His eyes saw only dim flashes of red and blue. His ears registered only static. And everything else felt only numb.

All together, a rather unpleasant experience.

Eventually, a tiny, tinny sliver of sound managed to pierce the white noise. Eroded, staccato waves in the acoustic storm but distinctly there. He furrowed his brow and focused, desperately trying to filter the audible gain to ensure it wasn't a figment of void or some sonic version of pareidolia.

It was a voice, faint, and indecipherable.

"Kudo. Kudo? Kudo! Wake up!"

Dazedly, he managed to pry open his eyelids. At first, he saw nothing. However, a series of heavy grunts and hard blinking regained enough contrast to adjust for the poor lighting.

It was a bizarre sight which greeted him. A table holding a feast was arrayed before him. Bread, wine, vegetables, sauce, and a fileted fish of some sort serving as its centerpiece.

This was juxtaposed starkly by the choice in venue, being situated in the middle of a derelict concrete vault some three stories high and as long as a soccer field in depth. Sickly yellow moonlight saturated the salt air through broken glass windows mounted high above as a cacophony of seagulls' cries and foghorn's sound cut through the night. Along one of the peeling-painted walls ran rusted catwalks of decaying iron bars while banks of modern computer servers and fiber optic cable framed the bottom wall opposite.

The place had the charming aura of an industrial graveyard.

"What on earth...?" He muttered.

Silver joy echoed from his right. "Kudo kun! Thank God, you're alive!"

He turned sharply to see Shiho seated next to him. She looked worse for wear. Her hair was matted and stained with blood from a cut on her forehead, while her makeup, previously unnoticeable at the gala, now flew wild across her face.

"What's going on?" He grimaced.

"I don't know. Can you move?" She brought up her hands from her lap to show the addition of steel cuffs.

He tried to lurch his body forward but was restrained by heavy-duty zip ties and paracord lashed across his chest.

A metallic switch snapped, and the ominous buzz of electricity grew beyond the gloom. Then the blinding lights of judgment opened up on the pair. They recoiled against their fetters as specially placed floodlights seared their retinas with over two million candle power.

Deprived of sight, they had only the sound of slow, methodical footsteps reverberating off the wet concrete to fill their fears.

Kudo forced himself to look but found only a shadow approaching.

"Welcome back to the waking world. Truly delighted you could join us. You must forgive the mess. So seldom do I entertain guests here." The silhouette spoke with the synthesized quality of a voice modulator. It pulled back a chair and sat down at the end of the table. "Can I offer you something to drink?"