Psycho Pass: All Alone With You

Drift! Chapter 9

 Double parked behind Kogami on the boulevard outside of Dis, Luda shook his head from side to side as he admired the exquisite lines of the Porsche beneath the street lights. "This car right here. She's one of a kind."

"So is Rocio," Kogami said, speaking around the cigarette in his mouth. Hands in his pockets, he leaned against the quarter panel of the car and eyed the underground pit boss with a grin. "You two a permanent thing?"

"All human evil comes from a single cause, man's inability to sit still in a room."

"The most esteemed Blaise Pascal? Doesn't quite answer the question." He held Luda's gaze from beneath the thick forelock of his black hair.

"When I look at her, the world doesn't exist. I mean, it does, but it all slows down, and I can finally sit still in the room. She makes the best in me possible."

"And?"

"And we just found out this morning, she's expecting. So yeah, is this a permanent thing? I hope so." Luda stroked his chin, and then pretending to throw a punch, he playful thumped Kogami's chest. "And you? What's a nice girl like that doing with a lone wolf like you?"

Kogami narrowed his eyes. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"Hard lessons can lead to a hard head and an even harder heart. Something tells me, you've had some hard lessons, and still she sticks by you."

Kogami swallowed hard and bowed his head. When it came to any matters pertaining to Akane, he was undeniably weak. "I honestly don't know what she sees in me."

"Something she clearly doesn't see in anybody else." He took Kogami by the shoulders and gave him a shake from melancholy. "And that ain't such a bad thing."

Abruptly, frantic screaming came from inside the club. Scores of frightened people sprinted through the entrance where they scrambled in all directions on the sidewalks, even disrupting traffic in the street. Luda's phone chimed with an incoming text. "It's Rocio: 911. Something's wrong." He reached into his coat and pulled a .380 from a concealed shoulder holster. "You strapped?"

"Is that a rhetorical question?" Kogami asked. He tossed the cigarette to the ground.

As the two men were poised to force their way through the panic-stricken crowd and back into the club, Rocio came running from the doors among the runners.

"Luda, there were men with guns," she said breathlessly. Her arms instinctively went to her stomach to protect the unborn child growing within her. "They tried to trap me and Akane in the bathroom."

"Where is she?" Kogami asked.

"They weren't interested in me. Akane knocked the hell out of one of them and told me to start running. She took off in the opposite direction."

"Did they follow her?" Luda asked. Two gunshots came in answer to his question.

"That came from the back of the club," Rocio said, "not inside it."

"Virgil, priority initialization."

The face of the Roman poet appeared as a hologram above the screen of Luda's phone. "How may I serve, Lord Patriarch?"

"Locate Cerberus' navigator and any inbound hostiles. Now, Virgil!"

A magnified city grid appeared where the poet's face had been. "The navigator is on the other side of the municipal parking garage, one block north, and moving quickly. Local feeds show two hostiles moving in on her. Shall I send a distress call to the nearest law enforcement authority?"