recolle | Detective Work [Closed]

WHO: Togusa and Naoto Shirogane
WHERE: The Police Department Tech Lab
WHEN: The 24th
WHAT: Togusa and Naoto try to investigate the photos sent by Retrospec, find nothing, but it's a good primer for Naoto in detective work.
WARNINGS: None.

It's almost funny for Togusa to think that now that school is letting out, a few of his best helpers are going to become more available. When Retrospec is insisting on adding so many young adults to their platform, especially ones with so much skill? Togusa will take the help he can get.

But it's different with Shirogane. He has potential. His name got the Department's door open for him, but he has already been proving to have the skills to stick around as a junior detective. So, Togusa is happy to run him through some more intensive detective work.

They had collected any photos they could from willing volunteers if someone spotted a reflective surface in the background. With luck, and the Department's software, they'll be able to get a glimpse of whoever was taking those pictures.

When Naoto arrives, Togusa is seated at one of the computers with a large monitor, looking over what Retrospec had sent to him. It's a photo of the entire damn bullpen, inside the precinct, during the weekly briefing, so everyone is looking away. He's not the only one who can be spotted in the photo, but also Izunia, Sakakura, Kadam, and that's probably Gabranth on the edge. This one felt like a message.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Naoto is looking forward to the end of the term next week, even if it means she has to deal with finals this week. It means that she can't stop by as often as she would normally, but she of course persists in doing her work.

It's partly that she has a task she's been assigned, and she absolutely wants to prove that she's reliable. It's also that she herself is becoming consumed by what's going on and the apparent flimsiness of reality.

She's not expecting, though, a picture of the precinct on Togusa's screen when she walks in. "That... is inside this building."

Stellar observation, Shirogane.

Togusa turns around in his chair when Naoto speaks up. He nods as he pulls out a chair next to him for Naoto to have a seat. "Yeah. I think Retrospec was getting funny when they sent this one to me. Or maybe they were just being efficient to get as many of us as possible?" He frowns at both implications.

"I couldn't ask for a bug sweep of the room without being really suspicious. But Retrospec wants us to be paranoid. So I'm trying not to rise to the bait."

He puts on a smile. Right, focus on why they're there. "We've got plenty of examples, but did you get any other pictures that fit the bill?"

"Several. None with a reflective surface in the right place," she says, laying her bookbag on a table and removing a carefully organized folder full of pictures, which she slides across to Togusa.

"Though several at an angle not easily reachable by a man on foot." She pauses. "What do you know about camera drones?"

Togusa's eyebrows go up, and he turns fully away from the computer screen. "Now there's a thought. I know they can get photos of this kind of resolution even from high altitudes." Togusa frowns. "Wrong term. They wouldn't need to be at don't-get-shot-down-height, just high enough that pedestrians would ignore them."

"Can't get photos indoors, so that wouldn't be our magic bullet answer." He reaches for the folder. "But that certainly might be one of multiple things Retrospec is using."

"That makes an assumption, sir," Naoto says as she sits across from him, "that the drones in question would be like the ones commercially available-- large and obvious."

"What about a microdrone? Something the size of a mosquito. Technologically speaking, it'd be incredibly advanced to the point of possibly not feasible with current technology," she admits, "but it would also explain how these seemingly impossible photographs were taken."

"Ohh." Togusa nods in understanding. "Something the size of the bugs we use, but mobile. Maybe. I can see it happening. But it's not something we have access to right now."

Togusa starts to pull up the photos that he got sent, all digital. "What else do you have? I can transfer anything on to here." He clicks the photo of the bullpen closed. It was a good reminder of what is at stake, but not functional for what they are trying to do now.

"It's just a theory," she admits. "Something beyond the technology we know of, but what would the other explanation be? An invisible free-roaming cameraman unfettered by doors?"

The folder she had handed him has pictures from several Retrospec users, all that seem to be taken without their knowledge. "I couldn't see anything in the reflections, even at the maximum resolution."

"Well," Togusa smiles a little, he can't help but start to brag, "that's what we have this for." He slides out one of the photos and puts it into a scanner, but instead of just scanning the picture, it blows the image up to put it on the large screen. "Speaking of tech not easily commercially available."

One of Rachel Hishimura, but she's walking past a shop window that seems to have a good reflection behind her. Togusa clicks around a little to enhance just the window portion of the picture. "Still takes a human's eye to judge what we're looking at. But I can't deny that it helps."

"That's true, it does," she acknowledges, standing up and walking towards the screen, squinting as she leans in. "A passing car," she concludes, pointing at a set of lines. "I don't think there's any human visible, though... perhaps the driver?"

Hmmm, Togusa tries to enhance that portion of the picture even further. True enough, a figure pops out, but it is definitely not taking a photograph.

"Good eye," Togusa comments. He scrolls around the image a little more. "You think it's weird that our eye gets automatically drawn to anything that looks like a face? We're better at knowing something is a face. Computers are better at figuring out whose face it is."

Maybe nothing else in this photo. Togusa reaches for one that Naoto supplied to put up next.

The photo that comes up next is a classroom at Naoto's school. In fact, it's her own classroom; she's visible on the extreme left of the image. Other classmates, like Noah and Anya, can be seen all through it. So it's unclear who it's supposed to be of.

"Again, I would have noticed a photographer in the classroom."

Fuck. "Retrospec went for the group shots whenever possible, hunh?" Togusa mutters. He blows up the area of the classroom window, it's not the best reflective surface, but he's still looking to see an extra outline. He very carefully scrolls back and forth, looking intently.

He keeps looking, but a question comes up. "Who sits in the back of the room? There a chance that Retrospec just hijacked the camera of someone's phone? Kind of like how they got those video a few months ago?"

Naoto takes a moment to think. "A classmate named Julian," she answers after several seconds. "This would seem to be his perspective."

"But as far as I can tell, he's not a Retrospec user. He's a 'normal' person. Which doesn't rule out your assertion, mind you," she adds. "But how would that explain the aerial shots?"

"Right," Togusa nods. "There's no reason they can't 'borrow' someone's hardware and leave no trace of themselves."

Togusa leans back in his chair, and puts one hand behind his head. "I'm tempted to say traffic cameras, but that almost feels too simple." He looks over at Naoto, and pulls the current picture off of the viewer. "Do you have something, even if it doesn't fit the exercise, that looks like it was taken from the air? Just, what kind of perspective are we talking about here?"

She shakes her head. "Nothing but the photo of the precinct from before," she tells him. "Which was clearly taken from above the ground." She flicks back to it, "approximately eight or nine feet, I'd guess."

"Not that the cameraperson couldn't have been, say, on a table."

Togusa looks very closely at the picture again in silence, staring as if trying to put himself in the shoes of the person who could have taken it. "But in all these places, we would have seen a photo being taken," he mutters.

But the closer he looks, the more it starts to bring back an idea. The more familiar this all feels. Togusa's gaze almost starts to slide out of focus before he blinks in surprise. "How do you take a picture without a camera?"

With that nonsequitur, Togusa starts looking between the last two pictures. "You were the one saying that maybe Retrospec has got a way to control what we see, right? Expand on that. Maybe all the changes we're seeing are just, what? A change in our perception, or a different filter being put into place?"

Detective Work [Closed]

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