recolle | What Lies Beneath - 5/5

"Mmm," Togusa nods in agreement. "I know that sort of thing should be public domain. And Retrospec would absolutely have had to file something. It's worth it for somebody to go down to the right city offices. Building permits, construction permits, lease on the land, deed to the building? All of that should be somewhere. Maybe even hard copy, if we're lucky."

"I don't know if anyone has looked into it yet? I could definitely send some of the new people we've gotten on the application after it?" They have more boots on the ground, Togusa wants to encourage them to keep engaged. "Except that it is a safe part of the problem for someone not with the Department to go after. Tedious, but safe."

But Togusa sits up further in his seat, brow furrowed tightly, and points the light directly at an odd white and black tile, a sharp contrast to the rest of the floor. "What in the world? Hold up."

"Togusa's right, Zoning and Planning would require them to submit blueprints, among many other documents prior to even starting construction. However, that applies to a normal situation only. Considering Retrospec appeared to spring out of the ground not unlike a weed, we may be setting our expectations too high."

And yet, if someone wants to do the work, he'll not stop them. In fact, it seems like something rather suited for a lawyer to do, slogging through business and legal documents, and Ardyn keeps this idea in his back pocket for now.

Togusa's exclamation draws his attention to the pattern on the floor, and Ardyn recognizes it almost immediately. "A QR code." He'll wait until the car comes to a full stop before taking it upon himself to exit and walk over to the black and white tile. Out comes his phone, and it only takes a second before he's attempting to scan it.

"Let's see what it is, shall we?"

"That's what I thought, too." Dante frowns, slowing the jeep as they approach the tile that Togusa's pointed out. "It just showed up almost overnight. But it's something we can check out, at least. If there are blueprints, maybe it'll include some way in or out of the building that we haven't found yet."

Once they've come to a stop, he's out of his seat quickly, leaving the remote to the car in the seat as he follows Ardyn toward the QR code that's on the ground. "A QR code?" he echoes, looking at it askance. "But what's it doing here?"

As Ardyn pulls out his phone to scan it, Dante tugs out his phone as well, accessing the camera to take a photo of the strange tile. Might as well keep a record of all of this, right?

Oh. Now that's an idea that Togusa hadn't thought of yet. He nods enthusiastically to Dante's idea. He had been looking at it from the permit and legal standpoint; Dante wanted to know how to get in to the building. Standard, really.

Togusa gets out of the jeep, as well, and he hovers over another of the tiles. "There's more." He shines the light up the path. "They keep showing up." Togusa hesitates, and he puts his hands on his hips. "How do these things work, anyway? You see them all the time now. On tickets, advertisements. They're like barcodes, right?"

Togusa waves his own phone over another of them, but no matter what the three of them do, the codes don't seem to scan. Maybe they contain no information.

Of course Dante wants to break in, and Ardyn would almost make a wry remark about this if he weren't so focused on getting the QR code to scan in his phone. His device buzzes each time the scan is successful, yet it only proceeds to tell him that there's "no data found". Frustrating and puzzling, and he tries a few more times before locking his phone and slipping it back in his pocket.

"They are, the difference being that they can be digitally scanned. And, if I'm not mistaken, they're able to hold substantially more information than their regular barcode counterparts." He straightens, rolling his shoulders just a bit. "Not that it does us any good; they don't seem to possess any such information for us to view. The real question is, why are they here and who put them there?"

He's fairly certain he doesn't have to mention that this is highly unusual for an otherwise abandoned subway.

Unsurprisingly, Dante's not able to get any information from the QR code either--but for some reason, that feels about par for the course. "Anyone else getting the feeling we don't know half of what's going on in this city any more?" he asks, creating a new folder on his phone for pictures from their exploration. The QR code goes in first, saved alongside the photos he's got of the inside of the Retrospec building, and then a shot of further down the tunnel. Dante turns around, intending on taking a snapshot of the tunnel in the direction they'd come from, but...

"Uh, prof? Togusa?" In spite of his surprise, Dante takes the shot before starting to lock and shove his phone into his pocket. "I think we've got a problem."

Because there in the car they've just abandoned is a giant, furry spider, sitting in the backseat with its front legs over the driver's and passenger's seats as though it's waiting for a ride.

"I don't know about you guys, but I've got a pretty strict 'no hitchhikers' rule."

Togusa rubs at his brow as Ardyn helps explain, and Dante voices the frustration quickly bubbling up in his own mind. There has to be a reason for this all. He's following the steps he needs to, gather information, analyze later. But whatever piece would put this all together remains just out of reach-

Dante's sudden tension snaps Togusa out of his thoughts. He spins to look the same direction as Dante, and his eyes go wide at the sight of a spider the size of a car. Normal spiders are not this big, why did all the animals get bigger, too?

Shining the flashlight at the insect seems to have agitated it, and it begins to crawl over the car at them. Togusa reaches behind himself to draw his gun as he starts backpedaling. "Back!" He barks it out, practically as an order. As he backs up, he moves to cover Ardyn more so than Dante. The kid can move, he's seen it. But he was more worried about Ardyn's safety down here in the first place. The spider advances, and Togusa waits an extra second, wait for the damn thing to get clear of the car so that he doesn't put a bullet in it.

Ardyn turns to see just what the commotion is about, only to be met with the sight of a spider hanging onto their car. In normal circumstances this would be almost comical — however, here they are, in the depths of a darkened subway, sized-down and still caught off-guard despite their caution. This is not unlike being face-to-face with a monster, and it’s eerie how the light casts thin, alien-like shadows across its hide when it crawls forward.

Before he knows it, Togusa is stepping in front of him, and Ardyn will gladly take a step back as a result. It’s difficult to fight down the primal emotion of fear, but he manages to not let it transform into panic through sheer willpower alone. Anxiety, however, is something that’s not so easily set aside.

It doesn’t take long before the spider completely crawls free of the car, eight legs moving in conjunction with terrifying coordination. It obviously has no qualms about getting closer, and the scariest part is whether or not it actually considers the three of them as prey.

“Are you actually going to shoot it?!”

What sort of damage would a gun do against a giant spider? Agitate it further? Actually incapacitate it? Ardyn has no frame of reference for something so ridiculous, yet stressful.

It's just like the mantis, only bigger. It's just like the mantis, only bigger.

Yeah, bigger and fuzzy and with little protrusions coming out of its face. Ugh. Dante's not afraid of spiders, not by a long shot, but there's something deeply unsettling about facing down one that's bigger than he is, especially when that spider's mostly lit from behind by the LEDs on the jeep, light filtering through the hair on its body and legs to give it a fuzzy sort of shape. The light from Togusa's flashlight is reflecting off of its eight eyes, and even though Dante's stepping out to make sure he can back Togusa up, he's battling the dual urges to run away and to run toward it, a beast that's threatening the three of them whether intentionally or not.

In the end, it's Ardyn's shout that spurs him into action, expression settling into one of determination as he shifts into an offensive stance, left arm extended toward the spider and right arm crooking above his head. As he pulls his arm up and back, an inky blue/blackness swirls around his hand, summoning Soul Eater from its resting place into existence. His fingers wrap around the hilt, the point of his weapon aimed directly for the spider.

"We need to get it off our backs somehow!"

Dante spares only a moment for a glance at Togusa to see what he's doing. If Togusa's planning on firing, Dante will wait to make sure he's not at risk of being shot himself before charging the spider. But sooner or later, he's going to charge it, sword held overhead until he's near enough to bring it down in a swing toward one of the spider's fuzzy legs. Maybe just hurting it will be enough to convince the spider that they're not worth fighting.

Togusa has been well-trained for chaotic situations, and the most important part of that training is to be able to remain calm and make a judgement call while under pressure. However, multiple strange and unexpected things just happened there all at once.

Togusa had every intention of shooting the spider, yes, Ardyn, but he swings the light to focus on Dante when yet another impossible thing this week happens. Dante just summoned a sword, a sword made of shadows from out of nowhere. There's really only one possible thought to summon up the last few seconds:

"What the hell, Dante!?"

The spider takes exception to not being the center of attention, and skitters up to climb along the side wall towards the three of them. Oh, it definitely considers them prey, and it moves faster than Togusa was expecting, almost like it's gliding along the surface of the wall. He nearly elbows Ardyn back as he tries to keep between him and the spider, and also get a shot.

There are definitely multiple strange things happening at this very moment. The one that grabs Ardyn’s attention first is the fact that Dante appeared to summon a sword out of shadow itself, out of nothing — how was something like that possible? How long has he been able to? What the hell, Dante, indeed.

Concern surges forth, because was his student actually intending on using that sword against a spider that had literally just skittered across a wall? It falls just out of the beam of LED lights, and instead they’ll have to rely on Togusa’s flashlight to keep it properly in their vision.

“What is it you plan on doing, exactly?!” he yells at Dante, starting to doubt that any of this was a good idea, and feeling a growing bias against spiders with each moment that passes him by.

Togusa practically elbows him in the chest, and Ardyn remains in the back of the group, not needing any more encouragement. There’s a feeling of uselessness that twinges within, but he honestly thinks he’d just be getting in the way if he did attempt to aid them.

His eyes dart back to the car, now abandoned. “All we need to do is make it back to the car in one piece and escape! No need to turn this into a debacle!”

It’s already a debacle, Ardyn. This should be obvious by the way the spider is literally leaping off of the wall, straight towards Dante.

"I'm making it up as I go!"

It'd be a lie to say that Dante feels confident, watching the spider skittering toward them along the wall, but strangely he doesn't feel scared either. After all, he'd fought those shadow-like things in the dark, hadn't he? Maybe not him, but the him he'd once been--he'd fought through all of them, and even though more kept appearing to take their place, he'd never fallen. He can fight in the darkness. He just needs to keep on his guard and--

Dante lets out a yell as the spider leaps from the wall, all eight legs spread wide as though it's going to trap him in some sort of a bear hug. For an instant he's paralyzed by shock and, yes, a fear he hadn't expected flooding him, but the instincts he's been honing for the past month and a half kick in, throwing himself in the opposite direction from Ardyn and Togusa, tucking into a roll and surging back to his feet. He pivots on his heel just as the spider lands, already searching for the one it's separated from the rest of the pack, and as the spider starts to turn toward him Dante's surging forward, swinging his blade down on one of its legs.

The blade cuts through the spider's leg as though it were nothing, and Dante winces as there's a sort of noise from the spider that he can only classify as "bad," the clicking, chittering sounds it makes increasing in both volume and speed after.

"You guys okay over there?" he calls, jumping back from the spider and bringing his sword back to stance. He can't exactly see them, not with the lights and the spider situation as they are, but he doesn't hear screaming in pain so... they're okay, right?

Togusa tracks the spider as it leaps, but he doesn't have a clear shot so he doesn't dare let off a round. And then, of all things, Dante just handles it. He slices a leg clean off the spider, and Togusa jumps at the suddenness of it. The look he gives Dante is nearly as worried as the one he was giving the spider. There's no way that Dante is that strong, is there?

He turns his attention back to the flailing spider, but shakes his head. "We're good. It'll die, leave it! Let's get out of here!"

Spiders don't do as well once their exoskeleton has been punctured. The one Dante injured is having a lot of trouble getting back onto its remaining legs. But oh, is it making noise, a noise that Togusa really doesn't like. Sometimes the bugs have kept a wide berth of another one that has died, like they can smell the death in the air. But the way the shadows are moving up the tunnel? Togusa doesn't think that's going to be what happens here.

"You said you wanted to escape," Togusa suggests, and he starts to run for the car, but leaves the driver's seat well open for Ardyn.

The sound the injured spider makes is disturbing, but it'll not garner sympathy from Ardyn in this moment. Instead, the professor is almost gawking at how easily Dante dispatches their "foe", yet he's not given much time to react properly. (This is definitely something he'll be asking his student about later, however.)

For now, there's movement once more flickering at the edges of his vision, and he isn't particularly inclined to stay to figure out what it is. He makes a dash for the car, and seeing that the driver's seat is left open to him... well. Looks like he'll be the one manning their escape.

He settles into the chair, eying the remote control before him. He pushes the stick forward, testing it out, and the car jerks forward as expected. Okay. Easy enough. Right?

He twists in his seat to yell at Dante. "Get in, Dante!"

Dante isn't as convinced that the spider is done as the other two men seem to be; as Togusa and Ardyn make for the car, he covers their retreat, steadily backing away, sword at the ready, until Ardyn finally shouts for him. Then he's twisting, letting go of the hilt and letting the sword disappear back into the shadows, running for the jeep and climbing up the framework to slide into the back with ease. "Let's go!"

He's not entirely certain how comfortable he is with Ardyn at the controls, especially considering the way the prof balked at his driving skills before, but there's not much he can do about it at the moment. The shadows are getting closer, close enough that they can make out the gleam of eyes in the dim light and the shapes of legs and bodies, and Dante's positive that it's a battle they don't want to fight if they don't get going soon.

The car jerks forwards once, and Togusa briefly second-guesses his idea to let Ardyn behind the wheel. But they really have no other options. And if they die here, well, at least it'll make an interesting story in the next life.

The shadows loom closer, and Togusa braces against the back of the seat. "Dante, cover your ears," this is going to go off a little too close to his head for comfort.

Breath in, half-breath out, and Togusa starts to pick his shots carefully. He's unfamiliar with this gun, and damn you, Retrospec for backing him into a position where he had to use it. The first shot goes off, and with it, goes any chance of Togusa bringing a weapons charge against Retrospec. So much for a gun like this rotting away in the evidence locker.

Bullets go into anything that gets too close to the car, and Togusa can only hope it buys them enough time for them to get moving.

The sound of a gun firing rings out behind him, and Ardyn takes that as his signal to get them going. With grit teeth, he pushes forward on the control, hesitation be damned. The RC car lurches forward again, and then begins to pick up speed as they start to zoom down the darkened subway.

"Hold on!" he yells, though he doesn't even know if he can heard over the commotion. He imagines they haven't had any time to strap themselves in, and while going straight is easy enough, the path curves ahead. The professor doesn't exactly have much practice driving this wretched toy, and he overcompensates with his "steering".

As a result, the car darts across at an angle rather suddenly, but at least they didn't slam into the oncoming wall! And their speed is picking up, so he can only imagine that they're beginning to outpace whatever it is giving them chase.

The first time Togusa fires the gun, Dante listens and claps both hands over his ears, watching the shadows and the way one of them lurches as the bullet strikes it. But after that the car shudders into motion and jerks forward, and Dante stands up so that he can grab hold of the top rail of the jeep's framework as the professor pushes the car to its limits.

There are still spiders following them, and although the jeep is beginning to outpace them it seems as though more of them are still coming--had some of them been in front of the jeep when all of this began? He summons his sword back to his hand with another pull of that same dark energy, hanging on with his free hand as he takes aim himself.

He's practiced fighting up close enough to be comfortable with it, but there's no much he can do with his sword from afar. Still, there's that part of him that Dante's come to compartmentalize as his "fighting instincts" that knows what he should do, even if it blanks afterwards. It's the same instinct that made him throw his knife-blade toward the mantis he fought with Kiyomitsu, the same desire, and even though he doesn't know why or how or what should happen afterward, Dante knows that at least this time, he can get his sword back if he throws it. And so when one spider gets a little bit too close to them and Togusa's firing at another, Dante throws his sword, instinctively flicking his wrist so that it spins end over end.

The sword strikes true, slicing into another of the spiders, and Dante might cheer if not for the way the car suddenly jerks to one side, knocking him off his feet entirely. It's a good thing he's holding onto that rail, because for an instant it feels like his feet almost leave the floor of the car entirely. Dante swears, dragging himself back upright, then twists to look first at Ardyn, and then at the tunnel ahead of him.

"You know, prof," he shouts over the noise, grinning in spite of everything, "I'm pretty sure you're breaking the speed limits down here! And with a cop riding shotgun, too!"

What? There's always time for a bit of smartassery, especially when it seems like the spiders are beginning to fall behind!

Togusa slams into the back of his seat and clings to it tightly to keep from getting thrown all the way out of the car. See? those rubber bands aren't a dumb idea now, are they? He takes a second to briefly glare at Ardyn. "Did we switch Izunias when I wasn't looking!?"

He tries to settle back into a firing position, but then Dante launches his own attack. Even in the dim light, Togusa can watch as it strikes true, and the nearest spider leg breaks apart into a shower of-

...sparks and wires?

No. No that's not what he saw. It's still just a spider. But for some reason that's what his mind is telling him he should be seeing. The effect gets worse as they pull away from the spiders and the shapes get more vague. The more he continues to stare and try to resolve details the more things his mind fills in.

They should be blue and metal, moving in very much the same way, but mounted with guns, and talking?

The sensation passes as they continue to pull away, but Togusa keeps looking behind him with an expression that is slowly growing more confused and faraway. A look that Ardyn and Dante might recognize.

"...What the hell was that?"

"No more comments from the peanut gallery! We're still alive, aren't we?" This time, Ardyn makes certain that's heard over the sound of sword swipes and the car rocketing across the ground, its motor whirring with the strain. Because, honestly, the two of them were just hi-lar-ious.

The professor is having to mostly rely on his other senses to tell if they're out of danger, considering he's keeping his gaze focused on the path before them. Occasionally he'll glance over his shoulder to check, and when he no longer sees the terrifying sight of spiders lurching towards them, only then does he dare slow down.

And when he spots Togusa caught up in a look of faraway confusion, uncertainty fills him. Yes, he knows that expression quite well -- he's sure he's sported it a few times himself.

"Togusa, what is it?"

As they get out of range of the spiders, Dante drops back to the seat, fighting the urge to laugh. It's the absurdity of the entire situation--shrunken down to six inches tall, riding in an RC jeep alongside his law professor and a cop, fighting giant spiders swarming them with some sort of a magic sword that appears whenever he needs it to... he shakes his head and then his arms, trying to get some of the residual adrenaline rush to run its course, when he hears Ardyn's question to Togusa.

Dante might have built in restraints to his miniature ride, but he hasn't bothered strapping himself in, not with the prof driving. He slides forward in the seat, leaning forward so he can put himself into the conversation as well.

"What did you see?"

"Tachikoma," he says the word hesitantly, then blinks, as if snapping out of his thoughts, and looks at Dante, first, then to Ardyn. It clearly sounds Japanese, but that isn't even a real word.

"I saw-" He puts a hand out, and he is clearly struggling to figure out how to put it for a moment. "Robots. But, built and moving like those spiders. The same size as them, too. Multiple legs, but wheels on them, so they can drive on the walls. They're-" his brow wrinkles heavily, "tanks. Gatling guns, mini-grenade launchers, I could tell you the full damn loadout that they have."

Pause. "And they talk." And for some reason, the feeling that cuts through the worry when he mentions that is irritation?

Oh, good, because that's enough to snap Togusa 100% out of it and he looks between the two of his companions with his jaw set. "This? This is what you two and everybody else have been going through all these months?"

Ardyn turns around to focus on the path ahead, making certain the car moves forward at safe, respectable pace. They were fortunate, at least, that their little adventure with the killer spiders didn't derail their journey too badly. They're still heading in the direction they had intended to begin with.

But of course he's listening intently to Togusa's explanations in the meanwhile. Robots, was it? And mechanical ones at that. It's funny how quickly he accepts the notion without questioning it; a consequence of having been subject to his own brand of fantastic, impossible memories, and of knowing others who experienced similar.

Thus, skepticism is the last thing in his tone as he responds. "Talking mechanical spiders. Not the most far-fetched thing I've heard as far as memories are concerned." But he nods quietly to himself, answering Togusa's question next.

"Yes. Those flashes of memories are rather disorienting when they happen, aren't they? And in your case, it appears to have been triggered by the encounter with our eight-legged friends."

"Wait a moment." Dante shakes his head, holding up a hand to keep them from continuing. "Was that the first one you've had?"

But it's been months! Togusa's been on the network at least since March--maybe from the beginning. How has he managed to avoid any memories up until now...?

"They're not always that straightforward," he says after a moment, looking out over the tunnel in front of them. "The first one I got was in a dream. I didn't realize it was a memory until over a month later."

Togusa shakes his head in disbelief. "How can you stand it? And it still doesn't tell me anything about myself, I always thought these things were personal?" Whatever the connection to these Tachikoma to Togusa remains too vague. Did he used to drive one? Why does the idea annoy the hell out of him?

Togusa leans back in his chair, and he nods at Dante. "First one, yeah. I'd heard about the dreams, we'd been joking," he waves a hand towards Ardyn, "that I needed to get on a regular sleep schedule to join in the fun." He runs that hand down his face. "Turns out all I needed was to get almost eaten by spiders. Great."

But what Dante had to say there is troubling. Togusa stares out the front windshield for a moment that stretches on so long that maybe he's fallen back into silence. Those damn QR codes are still on the floor, the whole way between Enprise and Tisse. But no way is he suggesting getting out of the car again.

"How did you know?" Togusa finally asks. "How did you figure out that it was a memory that didn't belong?" He glances at Ardyn. "Yours seem to have stuck out, magic and creatures. But how could you tell, Dante?" There is something starting to bother Togusa, but he can't figure out how to articulate it.

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