Participants:
| Scene Title | Metastasis, Part V |
|---|---|
| Synopsis | Like shadows in love’s frenzied stifled throes |
| Date | November 8, 2020 |
A tendril of smoke winds up from the glowing ember at the end of a lit cigarette. Otherwise, everything is dark.
Kimiko Nakamura’s face briefly becomes visible as she takes a drag off of the lit cigarette, when the glow from the ember blooms bright amid the total darkness of her office. Armor-plated shutters cover the window to the city outside, no gaps for light to creep in through. The leather of her chair creaks as she shifts her position, eyes unfocused at a black point in space.
When Kimiko moves the cigarette from her mouth, there’s a whirring sound from her prosthetic arm at every tiny motion. This arm is louder than her last one, a temporary substitute for something much more elegant that was lost in her abduction over the summer. Moving her flesh and blood hand, Kimiko gently taps the glass surface of her desk, causing the time, date and weather to become visible in a small pixel-bounded rectangle.
Her eyes narrow at the time.
Yamagato Industries Building
CEO’s Office
Yamagato Park, NYC Safe Zone
November 8th
3:33 am
Kimiko draws in a deep breath, then sighs and snubs out her cigarette in an ashtray nearby. She reclines against the high back of her chair, leather groaning in protest once more. Her eyes upturn to the darkness of the ceiling, putting the glowing panel on her desk out of mind. She hasn’t been able to sleep much at all lately. Others can see it, though only the people closest to her have called her out on it.
A soft chime from the door to the office disrupts Kimiko’s thoughts. She rolls her eyes in the dark, then taps another part of her desk and reveals a camera feed of the lobby outside. There, she sees Eizen Erizawa standing outside the closed door. She double-taps the image, turning on the intercom.
“«Why are you sitting outside like a lost puppy?»” Kimiko asks, to which Eizen replies by looking up at the camera over his shoulder expectantly. Kimiko groans, sliding two fingers across the image, which opens the door. When Eizen steps through, wordlessly, she reverses the gesture and shuts the door behind him.
“«I received an alert that your console came out of sleep mode.»” Eizen explains, not moving far from the door, though Kimiko can barely see his dubious expression in the dark. Her fingers move to another part of the desk by memory, revealing a pair of sliders that she moves from their lowest setting a few notches up, bringing the ambient lighting in the room to roughly candle-lit intensity.
Kimiko does not dignify his intrusion with a response save for a stare fixed on her chief of security. Eizen shifts awkwardly at the gaze, then approaches Kimiko’s desk. Whatever he was going to say is interrupted by a red light blinking on Kimiko’s desk at the same time his phone chirps in his pocket.
Eizen retrieves his phone as Kimiko answers the call at her desk. “Nakamura,” she says into the air, and a holographic image of a Yamagato data analyst.
“«I’m sorry to bother you at this hour. We have multiple emergency medical deployments within the Safe Zone on Hot Listed targets.»” The analyst explains. Kimiko looks up at Eizen who has circled away from her desk, talking on his phone.
“«Who.»” Kimiko states flatly.
“Childs, Gillian. Caliban, Abigail. Faulkner, Isaac. Thatcher, Kaylee.”
Kimiko looks sharply up to Eizen who ends his call at the same moment. “«I was just notified of the same.»” He confirms.
“«Observe.»” Kimiko directs the analyst. “«Spin up a Jiba subroutine to monitor all incoming and outgoing calls through GhostNet from their mobile devices. Route all medical transports to Fournier-Bianco and put a direct line into the monitoring suites. I want eyes on every camera in the hospital, full surveillance.»”
“«Yes, Sir.»” The analyst says before Kimiko ends the call. Eizen watches her intently, slipping back over to her desk.
“«Should I wake Damaris?»” He asks.
Kimiko pauses and considers, then nods. “«Yes. Get her up. We need bodies on the ground at Fournier-Bianco. Distant. But I want all footage of the hospital and every single phone call, email, and scrap of data coming out of there filtered back through us.»”
Eizen nods sharply, then turns to head toward the door. Kimiko stands from her seat, hands flat on the desktop. “«Eizen.»” She says, and he stalls in his tracks, looking back over his shoulder.
“«Clamp down building security. One is an anomaly, two is a coincidence, three is a pattern. This could be some kind of attack.»” Kimiko says in a stern tone of voice. Eizen looks down, then back up to her and nods, heading for the door.
Kimiko slowly slouches back down in her seat, crumples forward, and rests her head in her hands with elbows propped on the desk. Her brows knit together.
Droplets of blood spatter on the glass desk surface.