Spring Upon the Solstice

XVI - A Promise From Neverland

{ 001 }

"Kat, I'm pretty sure Jhiro's not here anymore."

A scream crawls out of my throat, and I unleash it into the empty cell before me.

"Fuck!" I curse, throwing my fist into the wall with reckless anger. "Ow, goddammit!"

"Okay, okay," Yumei says, "let's dial it back a bit. Maybe the others are having better luck?"

I retrieve whatever lost bits of patience I have from the cell wall, and refocus my mind. Since the four of us split up to cover more ground, we still have a long shot Hail Mary chance to find him elsewhere. Soru and Klaus currently search somewhere on Sublevel Two, while we muck around on the fourth level where he originally was held. At this point, we're manually checking based on old information, because getting cell numbers and names, I've been told, is impossible while Namakemono's digital hurricane sweeps the data left and right. Ever since our fiasco yesterday evening on the observation deck during the trial, she's unleashed her wrath on every available server log. 

"Yu, they had to have moved him. I can't think of any other possibility."

"Did he pass the trial?"

"Yeah. I was hoping they would let him come back to his cell."

"Well, that makes things twice as difficult now. Security around him is gonna be a pain," she mopes.

"I realize that."

"Do you think they're on to us by now?"

"After the stunt we pulled yesterday? I'm fairly sure they figured it out once we hacked his neck implant. And I'm definitely sure the guards they sent were there for a reason. You even said yourself that the server logs are shifting on purpose to prevent us from accessing them."

"Well, that's a network-wide attack, not a specific one. I mean, do you think they know it was us us?"

"Depends on how well you covered our tracks. I don't know if they'd be so bold as to straight up call us out on it."

"I did a damn good job, I like to think."

"Well, if he shows up at Cell Wing E with an entourage, we'll get our answer."

Yumei checks her watch and removes a lighter from the breast pocket of her lab coat. It's an ugly, beat up thing, with only a strip of masking tape keeping its surface together. Funny, because she never smokes either.

She pops open the cap, examining the sparkwheel with meticulous interest.

"Okay, we got two minutes before time runs out."

The lighter, which Yumei affectionately nicknamed Failure #2, forms a protective shell around her device, and the sparkwheel functions as a physical representation of the timer, ticking down gradually in measured intervals. Unfortunately—or maybe fortunately—it doesn't actually light a flame, but it does send out a signal that pings her computer, which then runs some subscript to automatically loop the footage and audio. I don't really know the details, but I get that we have a five minute window before the system forcefully refreshes itself.

"We're not ready to stage a rebellion yet," Yumei continues. "I'm still developing the override for Akuma-1, and I haven't even gotten a chance to test it yet. This isn't something we can just dive into."

Sublevel Four's solitary wing is soundproofed for a reason, but I look over my shoulder with anxiety.

"Well, we have to make a move at some point. Tetsuya Hirosano is onboard. Jhiro should be trying to meet us at my cell. Things are moving either way," I say.