Latent Criminals -Psycho Pass-

3

"Kagari! I said no more annoying games. I won the bet fair and square, remember?" I said, kicking him in the leg in return. "Hehe, sorry, I guess I forgot..." He said, looking somewhat proud of himself. We were currently being taken to the Hachioji Drone factory where a man named Daisuke Shioyama was killed.

"Bullshit," I mumbled. I heard Kogami and Masaoka groan at us in unison. The doors opened up and we all walked out, Kagari still smiling like a fool.

"Detectives! Thank you for coming!" A chubby man walked out of the building as Gino and Akane walked out in front of us. He had a creepy smile that didn't leave his face, even for a second. He proceeded to give us a tour around the place, explaining how the workers are here 24/7, how there's no internet, and how the place is 100% secure from hacking. So in other words, our dominators won't work in here...

He led us to the place where Daisuke Shioyama was 'accidentally dissembled'. "A clean up drone removed the body during the initial response. Here's a recording of that," he said, handing me a disk that I proceeded to put into the police box that was with us. A hologram appeared in front of us of the dismembered body.

"He was alive as the attacking drone ripped him apart piece-by-piece." Gino informed us, to which Kagari pulled a face. "Nasty," he said, looking down at the twisted and grotesque body.

Masaoka began asking questions about Shioyama's relationships with other workers, but the man showing us around, who's name I didn't bother to learn, just brushed him off and said that he was loved by all workers and he had a clear psycho pass so it must've been an accident. But this was definitely no accident.

"If three dismemberment deaths are accidents, you should watch more workplace safety videos," Masaoka said, partly mocking the man.

Gino sent Akane back to the car to upload the hologram to HQ with Masaoka and Kagari, leaving only Kogami, Gino and I to continue asking 'Chief Goda', as Gino called him, more questions. Akane looked somewhat disheartened by the simple task, but she agreed and left with the two boys in toe.

Once up in his office, I stood in the corner and looked out the window. The scenery here is nice, but I could never live in isolation ever again, even though I was only trapped in a facility for a few days, it was definitely one of the worst experiences of my life.

When I started paying attention to the conversation again, Goda was giving Ginoza a file of some sort. Gino asked the chief if we could assemble the workers outside to use our dominators on them, but Goda just threw a fit and in long, said absolutely not.

We left his office and went to meet back up with Akane and the others. We ended out sitting in the cafeteria together with all the workers and had something to eat.

As I sat there picking at my food, Kagari took in a mouthful of whatever was on his plate, and to my disgust, started talking. "Foods good, but this is such a sad place to work. Imagine spending every minute of your life offline in this day and age." I barely understood what he was saying since he still had food in his mouth. Gross.

"That's so gross, Kagari, please, don't ever speak with food in your mouth again. At least not while I'm around," I complained, taking a sip of my tea. He glared at me before Akane began speaking.

"But if it's as bad for the workers as you say, why are their hues so stable?" She asked, pulling up a hologram on her watch and showing it to Kagari.

"Hey, don't underestimate a persons ability to entertain themselves," he replied, to which I lightly kicked him in the foot. "And Kana proves my point," he said before shoving another mouthful of food into his mouth.

Chief Goda came over to speak to us, but was interrupted when we heard a crashing noise behind him. When I turned to look, I saw a man on the floor with his food tray, along with all of his food, spilled on the floor. There were five others surrounding him and laughing, calling him 'yellow-green' and making fun of him.

Akane questioned Goda, but he simply brushed it off as he was 'helping them' by being bullied. He then went on to say that Sibyl chose him for this job because he was suited for that kind of 'whipping boy' role, to which Kogami retaliated and went to help the man.

"Jeez... Not a very family friendly way to have fun, now is it..." I said, dishing up some scrambled eggs onto my fork.

When we were all done eating, we went to an office to talk things over. Masaoka was standing in front of a board, pointing out everyone's hues and when they were most clouded.

"With the data we've got, it leaves no doubt about it. I see a big board of Psycho-Passes with clear colours, and then one employee that gets cloudy." He pulled up a file on the employee and to our surprise, it was the same man who was being bullied today.

"Mister Yuji Kanehara. His hue is yellow-green..." Akane said, the sudden realisation hitting her. "So that's why they were calling him 'yellow-green'..." I said, somewhat disappointed that it was him.

"I guess it's company policy that all hue checks are out in the open for all employees to see." Kogami said. Akane just said what everyone was thinking, "that's a bad idea."

I folded my arms on the table in front of me and rested my chin in them, pushing my chair back so that I wasn't bending my back uncomfortably.

"I'll say, but this guys most recent assessment shows his hue improving a bit," Kagari said, probably giving Akane hope that it wasn't him.

"His hue looks like it was most cloudy the day before Shioyama died." Kogami said, observing his hue check. With the false hope that Kagari provided her with, Akane began trying to brush the idea off. "Can't be, it doesn't work like that. The colour of a persons psycho pass doesn't just improve after committing murder," she said, a weary smile on her face.

"Don't forget, though, that we're seeing this principle at work when the other debuggers relieve their stress by beating up on Kanehara. There's no mystery here guys. Back before we had cymatic scans, desperate people getting pushed past their breaking points and then committing crimes wasn't uncommon." Masaoka said, confirming everyone else's theory.

"That's enough! I'm tired of hearing about your gut feelings!" Gino yelled, clearly mad at Masaoka for some reason. "You're just deluding yourself! With that kinda paranoia and aggression it's no wonder you latent criminals are society's garbage!" He said, making me want to hit him in the face. He calmed down slightly before turning to the rest of us, "we can't go around acting on hunches from circumstantial evidence! We maintain an orderly society by using Sibyl to judge Crime Coefficients." He said, trying to convince us of his point. "If we change that then we'll lose the publics trust!"

"You crow about order and yet we're still here investigating three dead people. Gino, let me do it. Let me investigate Kanehara. If there's hard evidence, I'll find it." Kogami said. By now, I was no longer relaxing on the table, but glaring at Ginoza.

"That's enough!" Ginoza yelled, banging his fist on the table. The table shook slightly, and Kagari almost dropping his own head onto the table, as he was resting his chin in his hand while leaning no the table.

"Sir, can we speak please?" Akane asked. She took him out of the room and everything went quiet. Even though it was a somewhat serious moment, I broke out into laughter, causing the other three enforcers to stare at me strangely before Kagari and Masaoka joined in slightly. Kogami just looked at us like we were a bunch of fools and leaned back in his seat.

"Man, I've never seen Gino so worked up in all the years I've known him," I said, rubbing the tears from my eyes as I stopped laughing. As soon as they came back, Kogami went through his plan with us.

This should go smoothly if Kogami is right.