Psycho Pass: All Alone With You

Where Charity Prevails, Pt. 3

    Without further incident, the MWPSB squad led the group of shell-shocked children to the dayroom.  A heavy concrete girder had fallen across the main doorway, cracking the glass and preventing it from opening.  Kogami busted the bottom section of the door with a kick and let the children crawl inside to the safety of reinforced glass walls.  There was little structural damage evident inside, and Akane quickly went to work setting up an impromptu medical area.

     Checking the children for injuries, the Inspector dismissed the uninjured and prioritized cuts and bleeds above any bruises or swellings.  Once the children were triaged, she quickly tended to their minor wounds with the medical kit and their tears with soft words of encouragement.  Kogami watched her go about the task with a bit of envy. 

    One of the children, Isamu, was giving Akane a particularly difficult time.  "Mr. Kogami, is that blood on your shirt?" she asked.  "Were you injured?"  Her smile and the tone of her voice were pure subterfuge meant to lure him into a play. 

    Isamu sat in front of her, a small cut above his eye.  The boy's quiet sobbing only intensified every time the Inspector got close to him with an antiseptic swab.

    "Yeah, hit my head on a wall right as the quake hit."  Kogami sat down on the bench next to the boy and let Akane examine the wound on his forehead. 

    "That could use a stitch or two," Akane said with a coy wink.  She cleaned the area and pulled a strip of suture tape from the roll.  "But this will have to do."  Gently, she smoothed the tape down against his skin, leaning over Kogami's face to make certain the adhesive stuck.

    Kogami tried to stay focused on being a model patient for the the boy.  It was a difficult task given that he could see down her shirt and caught a brief glimpse of her pink camisole. 

    "There," Akane said.  "That didn't hurt a bit, did it?"

    "Not at all, Inspector."  The Enforcer turned the young boy and saluted him.  "Thanks for letting me slip in line, kid."

    Abruptly, their wristcoms gave out an alert tone.  A holo appeared above the timepieces with the MWPSB logo.  "Hey, we're back online," Akane said.  "The servers are up."

    "Not quite," Kagari shouted from across the room.  "Just testing what Sachi can do with the pillbot."

    "This ought to be good," Kogami mumbled.  He glanced at Isamu.  "You want to be a decent Enforcer some day?"  When the child nodded, he said, "Then listen to the Inspector, and let her fix you up."  He glanced up at Akane.  "Keep your comm open.  I might need your help dashing Kagari's latest hair-brain idea to get himself or me killed."

    Kogami headed to the gaming nook where Kagari had gathered with Gin and Sachi.  Before he could shove his hands in his pocket, he felt a tugging at his pants leg and knew who would be waiting when he looked down.  Without hesitation, he picked up Mi-Yeon in his arms.  She yawned and nestled against his muscular neck.  Exhausted from all the excitement, the child was asleep before he could take two steps.  The stuffed cat was clutched in her hands against his chest.

    "That looks good on you, Ko," Kagari teased.  "A kid might be just what you need to keep your crime coefficient in check.  Maybe Inspector Akane could—"

    "Finish that sentence and I promise it will be your last."  Sachi and even Gin laughed at the guttural threat.   It was pleasant to hear, considering the situation they were in together.  "What have you got?"

    "Any access to the outside world is currently cut off," Sachi said, "and it's not due to a poor connection on our end."

    "Judging from the damage here at the facility," Gin said, "we can only infer that the damage is citywide; therefore, communications are down everywhere that relied on wireless access.  Cross referencing previous earthquakes, I can honestly say that what we experienced was between a 7.0 and an 8.0 event on the Richter scale, massive, particularly for an urban center."