As time and technology progressed, the many and varying ways in which mankind operated on itself grew in number, from the more practical prosthetics to replace lost or missing limbs to glasses that adjusted themselves to give perfect sight regardless of who put them on, to slots created like disk space along the brain stem in which one could literally download knowledge to their memory and retain it... so long as they kept the chips in place. The world warped itself through high technology and human modification followed suit. Prosthetics became indistinguishable from the real thing, with plastiskin attached by the right medtech- or they became more pronounced, silver, chrome, multi-colour lightshows that served as entertainment and distraction and a designer label and not just a replacement. Internal email systems could be established, though simple ones; painstaking thought to text, sent to a limited pool of contacts. Eye attachments gave permanent heat vision, night vision, added permanent informational text, targetting, or allowed you to take notes and store them so they would reappear the next time you returned to the same area.

Netrunners incorporated programs and tools directly into their nervous system. Medtechs gave themselves diagnostic sight. Corporate heavyweights improved their lethal aim. As technology progressed and the boom continued, the alterations ranged from the ridiculous to the invisible, more subtle changes wrought to a person's nervous system, their strength, their reflexes. A woman's muscles and bones could be reinforced so she was capable of flipping a car. A man's reaction time and speed could be so enhanced he could dodge a bullet or outrun a horse. A person's very mind could be altered in specific ways, enhancing or removing emotions. Such implants were expensive, and tended either to be a corporate investment in their employees or a means of corporate indenture to outsiders.

The media called this process many things over the decades since the cybernetic implants first started to appear on the market and public opinion swung wildly from one extreme to the other. By the year 2025, the alterations were widespread enough that the appearance no longer caused a stir. Not so common, however, that it didn't remain an unpleasant surprise for many who found themselves on the wrong end of a corporate sting.

In more recent years, the process has simply come to be known as Wiring.

-o0o-

The headache forced her awake, eventually, a low pressure behind the eyes that pulled her out of the dark by degrees. She wasn't sure she wanted to leave it. But she was warm and reasonably comfortable, and that alone told her that, at least for now, she was still safe.

Kaoru opened her eyes.

Immediately wished she hadn't.

Light drove the headache to unbearable, and she squeezed them shut, shifting against the blanket and letting the sudden stab of pain ebb away before she tried again, lifting a hand sluggishly to shade against the light. This wasn't Megumi's bed; it felt like hard wood. Someone's jacket had been wadded up to give her a passable pillow and a blanket had been tossed over her. The roof was high above and criss-crossed with rusted steel, and she could hear the echoing footsteps of someone nearby. Heels on concrete. Getting closer.

"...Kaoru-san?"

She blinked, peering at the blur that was suddenly there, leaning down to check on her. She couldn't see her clearly against the light that streamed in behind her, but Kaoru knew the voice.

"You came back." Slurred words and everything. Okay, sure. The visit to Megumi's office clearly hadn't made everything all better. "What happened? Why aren't we-"

"Ahhh well, things happened." Misao waved a hand cheerily, and it made Kaoru dizzy trying to follow it. "ED One is pretty smart. We got out just in time." The other girl paused, peering down at Kaoru speculatively, and then shifted to stand directly in the way of the light streaming down from the high windows above. Kaoru could kiss her for it. "And don't worry- Megumi sold us out, so they should leave her alone."

"Sold us out," she muttered, trying to puzzle out the words. That was bad, wasn't it? It didn't really sound like Megumi-

"Yeah. Like when it was too late to stop us making our amazing getaway." Misao grinned, and Kaoru relaxed back against the makeshift pillow. Oh. She wasn't thinking so fast. "You should've seen us, Kaoru-san. There was this amazing chase right out of a movie, I swear! I was the MVP, of course, but I guess Sano did kinda have his hands full. Come to think of it-"

Oh, no. Her heart sank. Sano was involved after all. Which, she realised, would have been inevitable once she'd failed her run so spectacularly. She hadn't managed to avoid him getting into the line of fire. All she'd done was-

-was take away any advance warning he might have had. They'd have gone through her things. They would have flagged him as her supplier. More than that. Shit. She tried to struggle up, and managed as far as resting on her elbows before Misao planted a hand on her shoulder and pushed her firmly back down again. Kaoru settled for smiling weakly. "Is he okay?"

"He's pissed," Misao announced. "So's Megumi, but you already knew that. And both of them can wait. How do you feel?"

Debatable; Sano was obviously still alive, but there was a world of detail she wasn't being told. And Megumi selling them out didn't mean Megumi was safe. Kaoru fought with the guilt briefly, and then surrendered it. The whole situation was a mess- but Yahiko was still involved in some kind of weird project where kids were dying, and she couldn't have left that alone. She'd... find a way to apologise later.

"Better," she said after a moment, quietly, and wasn't sure how true that was. But she didn't have time to spare, either in self-recrimination or recovery. "Where's Sano now?" Pretty sure he wasn't here, unless he was fuming somewhere out of view. Come to think of it- "And where are we?"

"Sano's gone to talk to his dealer to warn him of a possible investigation." Misao punctuated the end of her sentence with air quotes. "Then he's getting supplies. We're in a safehouse that he knows of. Or a safe-warehouse, if those exist. I mean, I guess they do, huh?"

That explained the rusted steel overhead. Kaoru shifted her gaze to glance across the gloomy expanse of concrete; the only light was from the high windows above, and most of those were broken. Somewhere far south of Megumi's clinic, then.

Golden eyes flashed back at her from the shadows, and she flinched.

"Kaoru-san?" Misao was a gentle touch on her arm. "Still seeing things?"

She didn't answer, putting a hand over her eyes. That wasn't going to go away. It would get worse. How long until her mind unravelled?

"Kaoru...?"

"I need a new board." She fought to keep her words crisp. No, officer, I'm not drunk. "I have work to do, it's urgent-"

"More urgent than recovering?" Misao's tone managed to be both skeptical and judgmental all at once, and Kaoru didn't have to see her to know she'd be standing there with both hands planted on her hips. "Do you have a death wish or something? You're a mess, you can't go around playing superspy hacker right now-"

"Yahiko can't wait." And she needed to help him while she still had the clarity of mind to do it. "He's part of some experiment called the Nanodust Project. They had four kids acting as their control group. Two of them are already dead." Misao sucked in a breath, and Kaoru risked a glance through lashes to peer at her hazily as the other girl rocked on her heels, mouth a flat line. It wouldn't be just Yahiko that Misao would be thinking of. "I don't know how dangerous this experiment is, but it involves the word nanodust and children-"

"Yeah." Misao said unhappily. "Sounds all kinds of legal." And she hesitated, before dropping to a crouch at Kaoru's bedside. "But you're not thinking outside the box. Don't you know who I am?"

Kaoru blinked at the question, and then gave her a crooked grin. "You're... secretly a ninja?"

"Hardly." Misao snorted, and dug through the backpack at her feet before flashing her press pin. "I'm a reporter, remember? Don't you think the media would go nuts over this news? They've been looking at ways to crack Zaibatsu shields for ages."

It was a nice thought, but- "They won't do anything without evidence. The backlash would be too great."

"We could find some," Misao said. "If you can point us in the right direction. You don't think journalists employ netrunners?"

Meaning: netrunners with a board and skill set far above her own. Kaoru didn't take offence. She knew she wasn't A-list. But she couldn't help remarking dryly, "You're telling me Juice! has the skills to take on Sumitomo?"

"Well, no," Misao admitted sheepishly. Juice! was the equivalent of the teen lifestyle channel. They only skirted the edge of politics; a little bite behind the bark. "But something this big? They'd go to one of the big companies. Maybe Diverse or CN3, or 54."

It wasn't a bad idea, but it still came down to there being no solid evidence to go on. With her board destroyed, the only thing she had was the email she'd ghosted to Sano, which was hardly damning; just a record of some casual corporate stalking of one of their employees. Which happened all the time, given loyalty could be bought and sold and the stakes in corporate espionage had risen so much higher. She'd sent it to Sano as a warning that he'd been flagged meeting with Rurouni. Not that any of it mattered now, did it? Sano's meeting would be vastly overshadowed by the fact he just aided and abetted a netrunner trying to steal corporate secrets-

-oh.

"Rurouni," she muttered.

"Come again?"

This time when she struggled to sit upright, Misao didn't try to push her back down again. Kaoru almost wished she had; the accompanying rush of pressure made her feel like her head was thousands of feet underwater. She curled, pressing both palms to her forehead and hunching her knees up on the bed, waiting far too long for the roar in her ears to subside. Misao was right; she was a mess. She couldn't do any running like this. The specks dancing in front of her eyes were gold. She clenched her eyes shut. It didn't help.

Misao had moved after all, but not to force her to lie down. Instead, she realised the other girl was bracing an arm across her shoulders in support, not saying a word. She was grateful. Misao practically radiated concern, but at least she was letting Kaoru call the shots. For now, at least. When she thought she could trust her voice, she tried again.

"Rurouni. It's an online handle for someone I met at Elysium."

"Elysium as in the meat market?" Misao sounded so amused. "You didn't tell me you were shopping for a one night stand."

Kaoru smiled wearily. They both knew that wasn't it. "I have better standards, trust me. I was there to meet Sano- his choice of venue. I wanted to ask him about Yahiko. But he double-booked me with this Rurouni guy. I assumed he was another one of Sano's customers, but... I found out last night he worked for Sumitomo." She frowned. "It was last night, wasn't it?"

"Yeah, don't worry. You're only missing a few hours." Misao gave a thoughtful hum. "Does Sano do a lot of that? Meeting corporate goons?"

""I honestly don't know." She felt the bizarre urge to protest that Rurouni wasn't a goon. But then she couldn't be sure that he was also the man on the stairs and, even if he was, corporate employees could be nice as pie. It didn't mean they wouldn't stab you in the back at the earliest opportunity. Still... "Rurouni was being monitored by Sumitomo, and it didn't seem like they thought highly of him. We need to ask Sano. If this Rurouni's already in the process of, I don't know, trading secrets or whatever-"

"Well, it's a possibility." Misao was skeptical. "But do you have any idea who this guy actually is? What he looks like? How we can contact him?"

"Sano might know..." She paused. If Sano knew more about Rurouni, he probably wouldn't be meeting him in a place like Elysium. But it was all she had. Well, not quite. "...he might have red hair?"

Misao was quiet for long enough that she finally opened her eyes again to find her friend staring at her thoughtfully, brows furrowed.

"...Misao?"

"Yeah, sorry. Just thinking." Misao tilted her head. "Why do you think that?"

She wished she hadn't thought of him now. Trying to picture Rurouni was immediately superseded by a full vision of the other samurai, staring at her with death in his eyes. He was so much closer, reaching forward to grasp her by the shoulders, and she flinched with a thin sound of distress.

"Kaoru-san," he said, and shook her. Gently, like she was made of porcelain, and she stared at him in confusion until he fluttered away between blinks to leave her with Misao's worried face. "You're not okay."

She couldn't bring herself to deny it, but she refused to confirm it, either. Instead she gave a shaky half-laugh, trying to remember what they were discussing. "Uh... I don't think it, just it might-" She broke off at Misao's flat look, and knew what was coming. Cut it off at the pass. "Look. I visited Sumitomo a few days ago to just, you know-"

"Kaoru-san-"

"-try the official way to find Yahiko, and their security tried to throw me down the... the stairs. Th-there was this guy there-"

Misao's hands squeezed at her shoulders, and she abruptly realised she was shivering. The room had gone dark. "You need to rest." And then a muttered, far away, "I need to talk to Megumi-sensei, this isn't-"

"I'm sorry," Kaoru blurted suddenly, hands finding the blanket beneath her fingers, twisting it into knots. "I didn't- I was so rude-"

"Shush." She felt the world give a little, and she closed her eyes, resting back against Sano's jacket with Misao's help. She'd felt fine a minute ago. Sort of. She'd triggered something. Or the vision did. Or-

I'm in trouble.

She'd sleep it off. Maybe.

-o0o-

Soujiro had received the news with some mild annoyance, enough for him to frown slightly. Tsukioka was in the wind. Either Sagara had got to him first, or the man was merely canny enough to look at the uproar downtown and decide laying low was an especially good plan. Either was possible, he conceded. Sagara wasn't the brightest target he'd ever come across, but nor was he stupid.

Nor, in the end, was it important enough to warrant more than shrugging and moving on. Finding the program designer might have given them further ways to track Sagara and thus the errant netrunner, but it had been a small lead. There were other angles. He'd sent several orders out, some more practical, some whimsical-seeming enough that his new team had given him an odd look, before they remembered who he was and scurried off without question. Then he'd returned to his favourite place to think, perched high on an old and long disused chimney stack, eyes closed and fingers tapping gently together as he sent an update to Shishio through his IM implant, detailing concisely the events that led to the second riot. Himura's involvement in them.

The response was delayed, and he could well imagine Shishio chewing on those details for a moment, considering his options. -do you know where he is now?-

-Only an assumption.- He was apologetic about it, though that hardly translated to text. Shishio knew him well enough. -The medtech has left her clinic. He was last seen with her there.-

-Find her.-

-Yes, Shishio-san.- He'd already given that order. If nothing else, he was intrigued. The medtech was only peripherally involved, yet had vanished completely; gone from her office in the scant few minutes between her first interview and- after he'd reviewed Chou's report- ED One's attempt to arrest her. And Himura had taken over the investigation. He found it very unlikely that the medtech could have found time to be interrogated a second time and flee from pursuit in that window. So Himura had... what? Spirited her away? Did they have ties, or was that Himura's strangely bleeding heart at work again?

What an odd man he was.

There was a polite cough from nearby, and Soujiro opened his eyes, blinking against the light for a moment. Chou had joined him on the roof, his long, upstanding hair flopping sideways in the breeze in a fashion another man might call ridiculous. The man grinned at him dopily, holding out a steaming styrofoam mug. "You wanted coffee? Don't blame you, it's kinda chilly up here."

Chilly? He hardly felt it. Nevertheless, Soujiro hopped down from his perch and beamed at him as he accepted the offering gracefully, cupping it in his hands. Coffee was an indulgence, but while he was waiting for any number of lines he'd cast to receive a bite, he may as well enjoy it. "Thank you, Chou-san."

Chou shrugged, an eye closed as he scratched his ear. Honestly. Aoshi should instill better decorum into his team; Soujiro made a note to tell him so if and when there was a handover. "S'alright. Just a shame we're kinda stuck waiting, huh?"

"Not for long," he replied blissfully. The team was chasing more specific leads. Street inquiries were being conducted. Makimachi's and Takani's known contacts were being investigated. A watch was kept on the ruin of the pawn shop just in case. Upon approved request, both enforcers and ED drones were sweeping street by street, making their way through from the busy streets to the more quiet automated industrial zones. They'd find something eventually- and from Takani's report, the netrunner was unlikely to be able to elude them on her own; had fried enough of her own internal systems on the way out of Sumitomo. Both the runner and Sagara would need medical assistance and would have to surface from whichever hole they'd crawled into. It was just a matter of time. A matter of hours, at most.

He took a sip of his coffee, relishing its bitterness, idly aware that Chou was chattering away in an attempt to be social, and he offered a vague smile in return and tuned him out, the gears still turning. There was another anomaly that nagged at him; ED One seemed to have misplaced one of its members, last seen at the herbalist's. He was nowhere in evidence now. One assumed, if Makimachi or Sagara had managed to down him during their escape, that he would have been found in the alleyway, though Soujiro supposed any number of things could happen to a body in Lesser Tokyo, especially in an area home to a handful of unsavory medtechs, the good Takani-sensei aside. Perhaps the man had been harvested for body parts or something equally macabre. He'd reported that, too, and been told to delegate it to the downtown police. Kamiya took priority. But it was a loose thread, and he tended not to like those on general principle.

"Soujiro."

He frowned, shifting his gaze back to Chou. The blond had one hand to his ear, looking intent, and Soujiro brightened. News, then. "They've been found?"

"One of the drones caught the reporter on film," Chou said. "Uh, but not for long. It lost her again. Man, for a teen music show, she's-"

"Clearly not just a reporter," Soujiro said easily, sipping his coffee. Another fascinating oddity. "I'm assuming you have a general location? Don't waste more time."

Chou straightened, throwing him a look that seemed guarded, and Soujiro tilted his head. But all he said was, "Sure. About two blocks from the old drift zone."

An abandoned racing track; he knew of its existence. It was on the edge of the industrial zone. The thin ribbon of old factories and warehouses that were still run by human hands. It wasn't so surprising. He gave a thoughtful hum, then pinched the bridge of his nose in sudden weariness. Perhaps the coffee was actually useful today. "She could be acting as a distraction, but the area is full of boltholes. Concentrate our search..."

He broke off, frowning. The world was drifting out of focus.

"...Uh. Sir?"

Chou sounded nervous. Soujiro blinked rapidly, squinting at the blond. And then, sharply, down at his cup, half empty.

Ah.

"Chou-san," he said sweetly, flinging the cup aside, letting still-hot coffee splatter across the roof tiles. "You had best make sure you finish the job."

He made an effort to draw his sword anyway, and was distantly amused at the way the other man hopped backward with a yelp as if he were a snake. Soujiro smiled.

A moment later, he pitched forward to sprawl across the roof.

-o0o-

"Pain in the ass..."

Chou reached out and grabbed Soujiro's shirt, hauling the boy back up to lean him against the chimney stack. He wiped the sweat away from his face with the back of his arm. He wasn't made for all this cloak and dagger stuff, but not like he had a choice. Sitting down a wary distance away, he put a hand to his ear, patching in. "Yo."

"You're still alive, I see."

"Yeah," he muttered dourly. "No thanks for that. You sure I can't just drop him off the roof head first?"

"It's an act of war if you do. Our aim is not so high."

"Great. So when he wakes up he's gonna just kill me."

"Your concern, not mine. He could still be useful."

Chou scowled, but he didn't protest. It wasn't as if he expected any better. Instead, he just delivered his report. "Yeah, well. He's down for maybe two hours at most, so make the most of it. I'm sending you co-ords for the last sighting of the reporter. Your runner chick is probably somewhere near there, go nuts."

He waited for a reply, and was rewarded with a disconnect signal.

"Okay. Fine." He muttered, leaning across to gingerly fetch Soujiro's sword from his belt. "Whatever. Good job, Chou! Asshole."

He made his way to the fire escape and cast one look back. He got it. He really did. Soujiro wasn't Aoshi; was completely loyal to Shishio in a psychotic kind of way, and was too efficient at his job. There were too many bodies on the floor. And without direct orders from their superior, the search for Kamiya would be directionless, far less effective. But getting Chou to do this? It was overstepping his comfort zone in a big way, and he wasn't sure it was worth the cost.

You had best make sure you finish the job.

"Yeah, well," he muttered, tossing the sword down behind the dumpster below. "You'll have to find me first."

Look at that, I exist. Sort of.

As a note: I only just noticed the existence of the ff dot net inbox in which people have tried to contact me. Some of those messages are two years old. It's safe to say I had no idea this was a thing, and as it doesn't notify me of any such messages via email I just don't see them. Sorry if this was you! But if you want to contact me, it's probably better just to go poke my Tumblr at plothooksinc.

Here's hoping you have a good new year!