recolle | Left-Behind Trace [Open]

"No," Togusa even sits up a little more and says that as emphatically as he can, eyebrows raising. He coughs quickly afterwards ans settles back down into the bed. He shakes his head again as he is clearing his breath. Give him a second.

When he is breathing easier again. "I wouldn't have made it out of there without Malik. Period." Another breath in.

He settles in easier. "Once we got where we were going, everything else was really dark, but then one building was that same blue." He looks at Tatsuo meaningfully. Like when Retrospec had messed up everyone's vision, but Retrospec's own property was still conspicuously blue.

"And that was guarded. Humanoid robot guards. Does that mean androids? We've had this debate before." Androids versus robots versus cyborgs.

Remind him to send Malik a nice 'thank you for saving my buddy's neck' card.

Tatsuo raises an eyebrow when Togusa mentions the blue building.

"That shade of blue? The right one? Not the slightly too dark one from September?"

Because he's still suspicious of what happened with Rainbowland that month.

"So you got shot by a android. And Malik pulled you out?"

Togusa stops, and he holds up a single finger while he zones out for a second. "Uh. Okay, I can't tell with what I've got on hand. The light was also strange there, so I don't know if I'd trust myself on that one. Don't look too deep into it. I know where you're going with that, but I still don't know if we were in a Retrospec spot or, I'm assuming, a Vanderweeele spot."

The both of them like to try to piece things together, and even Togusa knows that sometimes they put too much together.

"Yeah. Malik and this dog we were working with. The dog stayed behind, I felt sad, he was a good boy."

"Malik's got-" Togusa tilts his head to one side. "He's way more powerful than I could have expected." There's a tone of respect to his voice. "I'm good, but I'm only one gunner. Never could have taken them all out myself."

Tatsuo lets out a small huff. Don't look too deep into something? Please. You really can't tell that to a CSI.

"Well. Good thing you didn't go in alone then."

And that Malik had turned out to be a surprise heavy hitter.

"So were you able to get inside the building?"

Tatsuo finally steps around Togusa's bed to sit in the chair next to it. No need to keep making his friend look up at him.

Thank you. Togusa settles into his pillow a little more. "No. It turned out the door was just a facade, the only thing inside was a tiny mouse hole. There was a key inside."

Through sheer luck, being injured, and Malik being concussed, they managed to never notice the magic properties of the key.

"Another one of those silver doors appeared close to us, and it led us back to the city. So it feels like something changed, but I still don't know what it was."

He holds up a single finger. "But that wasn't the really weird part. Before I left, I decided to plug in to one of the androids. Pull any data I could get off of it? It's like-" He's looked over and over it, and he is still having trouble figuring out how to explain it.

"The coding language was more of that language that we've seen at Retrospec, right? But if you peeled it back? The longer you looked at it? It's like it wasn't real."

A tiny mouse hole with a key inside. What. The. Hell. Why do things never make sense?

Tatsuo tries to follow what Togusa is saying, but it kind of seems like one of those 'you had to have been there' sort of things. And when Togusa mentions plugging into one of the andriods, he gives his friend an look that pretty much says 'are you nuts?' Because, really. Why, why would you plug into a killer robot?

"What do you mean it's like it wasn't real? That the language was gibberish... or that where you want wasn't real? Because that is a very real hole in you."

Togusa shakes his head. Hmm. This isn't making sense. He reaches for his bedside table and grabs the pen and pad of paper.

"So, if you looked at it, the language was there, right?" He draws a few mock-squiggles, things that approximate the language he has seen a few times in Retrospec's work. "I still haven't seen enough to read it on any level."

"But even if you can't read it, a language should still have some kinds of patterns, right? Things that are approximating a word, or, in this case, a command line. Even if you don't know what they mean, you can pick out those patterns, right?" He gestures towards Tatsuo, hoping this gels with some of his training.

"But you couldn't find any instances of such patterns? It was just completely random?"

Tatsuo can't wrap his head around how that would even be possible. Even English programming breaks down into 1s and 0s at some point.

"Then... how could the androids even operate?"

Because robots require programming. And programming requires a language.

"It's like there was something else glueing it all together. Something not in the code. I'd need somebody more knowledgeable in- uh- the magic stuff." He seems sheepish when he admits that he is seriously considering that as a possibility.

One hand reaches out, and Togusa points at the water cup on his bedside table. Didn't realize how dry the air in the hospital is until he started talking.

"I actually want to see, if there's a way to get things to Retrospec. Without Zee, my best bet is going to be to download it and stick it in the mailbox, see what happens." Said without the knowledge that Zee is about to be back among the living...

"Magic. Someday, I will get used to the fact it actually exists."

Tatsuo wonders if Derek's magic would in any way be useful in trying to figure this out, as he passes Togusa the cup of water. It's so... incredibly specific to the point it gets a bit bizarre. Why would you ever need a spell to make something tap dance? ~~Sadly, that spell has actually been useful at least twice.~~

"You want to try to send them the code you harvested? I guess the mailbox is as good a spot as any to try to get it through to them. Chuck a thumb drive through or something."

Togusa nods as he takes the cup of water and takes a long series of drinks through the straw. He downs the whole thing without even noticing. Maybe it's the pills drying him out, too.

"It's worth a try," he says after a second, voice refreshed. "After those talks with Zee in his office? I can tell how much Retrospec can and can't really see. This is one of those things they might not actually know."

He stretches out to put the empty cup back on the table.

Togusa hesitates, and his hand unconsciously goes back to the side of his chest. "I- remembered it." Soft. "I know how the other guy got shot."

And then they come back around to the real reason for this visit. Togusa getting shot. Tatsuo's eyes follow his friend's hand as they touch where the bullet had struck him. And for a moment, that detached feeling starts to take hold again... until Togusa mentions the memory. It's like yanking the string of a balloon.

"You do?"

Of course he does.

"What happened to him?"

Togusa lets out a sound, not quite a laugh or a frustrated noise, before he starts. "I'd been so worried, the whole time. Because Grell examined it, and she noticed that he'd obviously been shot in the back. So, I'd been waiting for some terrible betrayal, the faces of one of the people I've been seeing turning on the other Togusa?"

Togusa's face falls flat. "It was an accident. The shot, that is. A building Togusa was in got attacked. From his thoughts at the time, he was the only person capable of fighting back. He took the first guy out, and," Togusa gestures to the back of his neck, "plugged himself in, took a look at who it was. Japanese DEA." He is so confused, that's the piece that doesn't make any sense.

"But then more were coming, so Togusa went behind a desk, waited in ambush. First guy in the door just," he waves a hand back and forth, pantomiming having a gun. "Shot up the room, make it look like the whole thing was two sided? Didn't even know Togusa was there, but got him."

For a moment, Tatsuo is silent. And then he lets out a small slightly choked laugh. Because of course, of course, it would be something like that. Dude was some sort of futuristic cop and this is how he got shot.

"An accident. Of all the ways your past life could have possibly gotten himself shot, and it was an accident."

Tatsuo gives Togusa a deadpan look.

"At least you improved on that by getting shot by killer robots."

He's joking. Mostly.

Togusa can't help it, he joins in the laugh, briefly. It is so stupid when you say it out loud like that. He reaches up, presses the heel of one hand to his eye.

"This is an improvement. You know, I'll take it. Thanks, Retrospec, for importing the one thing from that other guy's world that would save my life, too."

The surgery scars are bigger, now, but they both know how it will look over time, thanks to the faded marks already on his chest and back.

"I still don't get it. The building he was in, it was for this society, an activist group, really, that was set up to help patients of that thing I told you about? Cyberbrain sclerosis? What did Togusa want there, and why would the Japanese DEA want to stop them?"

"I'm assuming the Japanese DEA handles the same sort of things our DEA handles. Drug smuggling, controlled substances, etc etc."

This is much more fun to think about than the fact Togusa got shot.

"They easy answer is they were a front for a drug smuggling ring. Pose as something heart wrenching and you can get away with a lot of things."

But that's too... simplistic.

"You told me that the treatment for cyberbrain schlerosis is more micromachines. It stands to reason some people might be uncomfortable with that. Maybe they felt micro machines had already ruined their life of the life of their family member enough. So they start looking for alternatives. Maybe some of those alternatives aren't quite legal?"

Togusa slowly shakes his head, and he looks dark. "This wasn't a bust. It was a setup. The people in that building couldn't fight back. They had to make it look like they were." He sounds like he has something foul-tasting in his mouth.

They both know this sort of thing can happen. It's never happened in Recolle, but they would have to be naive to try to say that no law enforcement agency ever could do this.

"Why would other alternatives be illegal..?" It's not denial, Togusa is actually asking this question out loud. "I can't imagine an illegal substance that would help brain recovery like that, but maybe. Maybe?"

His brow furrows tightly, like he is struggling to remember.

"That is so... ugh."

It reminds him of Zero. How they would go in to silence someone or make someone disappear. All the while hiding behind a police badge. It disgusted him in his past life and it disgusts him in this one.

"Maybe it's not something we have yet. Or ever will unless we start developing cyberbrain technology here. Maybe the situation there was like using marijuana for medicinal uses here."

Togusa responds by pointing over at the back shelf, on the other side of the bed. "Tatsuo, my stuff. I need you to do me a favor."

He is suddenly animated, as if Tatsuo hit on something truly important and it is feeding in to a realization. "My apartment keys are in there. I need you to pick something up from my place. I saw it, I didn't realize that I'd seen it."

He holds up his hands in about the size of a file folder. "Bedside table, the drawer on top, there's this blue binder, the front of it reads 'Ministry of Health and Welfare' in Japanese. I need that. That was there when he got shot. Can you get it for me?"

Tatsuo gives Togusa a Look for a second. Because you are supposed to be resting man. But he remembers the boredom of having to recuperate from this, so after a moment he gets up and retrieves Togusa's keys.

"Did you have that on your desk at work? Because I feel like I've seen that before... Though, it was before I got Japanese back, so all I could tell was that it was listing something."

As in when him and Fynn catified his desk.

Togusa has to think about that, but he makes an 'ah' sound and vigoriously nods. "Yes! I remember it now, it was so weird. It was before the mailbox, so it just showed up mixed in with things on my desk. I might not have paid attention to it, except it was blue." When nothing else was.

Togusa lets out a laugh. "Hey, I'm the one that's supposed to have the photographic memory now, how come you remember that so well?"

"Because when I happened to see it coincided when you desk got covered with cat pictures."

It makes for a great point of reference. And with that, Tatsuo ducks out of the room to go get said blue binder.

There is a beat pause, before Togusa's peals of laughter follow Tatsuo up the hallway.

Someone (likely Koutarou) has already been through Togusa's apartment. The temperature is turned down, and Daisuke has been whisked away for doggie pampering until Togusa gets out. The binder is right where he said it would be, given a dubious place of honor right next to the copy of Catcher in the Rye.

Togusa is awake again when Tatsuo returns, but he clearly napped for a bit.

Tatsuo takes a quick look in the binder, now that he can actually read it. Lists of names and dates. What it all means though, he'll have to wait for Togusa to enlighten him.

"So, who are all these people?"

He asks, laying the binder on Togusa's bedside table.

Togusa reaches over and moves his water cup so he can plop open the binder to a random page so they can both see.

"Uh-hunh. Okay, look at this. Name, date. Lot of dates. It's the same person coming back a lot. And then," he points to a value that he had no concept of.

"Dosage. Got to be the guess, if you're right, and there was some other treatment for cyberbrain sclerosis."

Left-Behind Trace [Open]

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

(no subject)

(no subject)

(no subject)

(no subject)

(no subject)

(no subject)

(no subject)

(no subject)

(no subject)

(no subject)

(no subject)