1:18am, Friday the 10th October, 2132.

When the man in white forensics overalls took photographs with his smartscreen, the flashes were red in Kato’s eyes. They should have been bright white, clear and blinding like a spotlight or a light in a precinct ceiling, but instead there were flashes of blood and gore that made him squirm with each picture taken.

“Can you… Can you calm down with the flash photography?” Kato asked, which made the man pause to look at him.

“Sure, sorry about that, Detective Sergeant,” the photographer replied.

Kato sighed and closed his eyes. He was out in the entrance hall of the nighclub, the red carpet too vivid for him to look at, and though the double doors leading into the scene of the carnage were held open there were too many people entering and leaving for him to look inside. That suited him fine – he didn’t want to see.

“If you don’t stop moving this won’t work,” Kato’s medic told him, pressing an anti-bleeding pack tightly into the bullet hole in his shoulder. It hurt – yet the drugs had numbed any feeling to the point he didn’t care.

“Just take me to the damn hospital already,” Kato grumbled. “I don’t really want to be here. Where’s Greaves?”

“With the Captain,” the medic replied. “Don’t worry about her right now, Detective, you’ve lost quite a bit of blood.”

Kato blinked for a moment. That explained the headache and the dizziness, he supposed. He looked up to where the IV drip hung from a cold, metal stand and attached to his arm via cannula, then slouched back slightly in his chair.

“Stop moving!” The medic complained. “You’re lucky, Kato. Extremely lucky.”

The detective closed his eyes again. He had remembered passing out for a minute and he had remembered Greaves keeping pressure on his wound as tactical officers stormed the building, but with the drugs and the exhaustion he felt sleep attempting to rip those memories from his mind. He held on tightly, not wanting to let them go.

When Kato opened his eyes again he found that the medic had secured the anti-bleed pack with a compress wrap. “Doin’ a good job there, doctor," he said.

“Right, he should be stable,” the medic said, though it took Kato a few seconds longer than he would have liked to realize that he was talking to someone else. “Where’s the cart?”

“Hang on,” Kato said, shaking his head more alert. “I want to speak to the Captain first.”

He was ignored and soon found several men lifting him out of his chair and onto his back on a stretcher bed. “Don’t ignore me,” he complained. “I’m a damn Detective Sergeant and I want to speak to Captain Kurohiko. You’re treating me like I’m freaking dying or something.”

Captain Kurohiko suddenly appeared by Kato’s bed as though he had overheard the man. “What is it, Kato?” He asked, stopping them from wheeling the stretcher out.

“We had a lead on a guy from Fukaya General,” he said. “He might not be far. You need to send Greaves and a tea-“

Kurohiko shook his head. “I know, Detective Greaves already told me,” he replied. “We’ll follow up your lead, but you should know that Greaves will be taking a few days leave.”

“What? Why?” Asked Kato.

“You should know why, Kato. You were here for it. It’s a mess.”

“Bullshit,” Kato argued. “She didn’t start what happened in there, she was defending herself. It got completely out of control.”

Kurohiko shook his head. “Don’t worry about that. The review will determine whether she was in the right or wrong,” he replied. “Get yourself to hospital and rest. This whole thing is beyond a nightmare at this point.”

“Fine, but you tell Greaves I expect to see her there off-duty or not.”

Kurohiko nodded, then Kato watched him turn to address one of the forensics specialists as the medics began to roll his bed out of the nightclub. As the fresh air of the street outside hit him so too did the tiredness, and as they pulled him up onto a waiting air ambulance Kato fell asleep.

1:25am, Friday the 10th October, 2132.

“I’m telling you, something’s strange about him,” whispered Yuji. “I don’t trust him. We should do this on our own.”

“He saved my life, Yuji,” replied Hiromi, her voice little more than a breath.

They did not think he could hear them, but he could. Aiden was watching the large TV the Centipedes had in their hideout, and some distance behind him Yuji and Hiromi were speaking in near total silence under the volume of some cheesy historical drama. Yet their conversation carried through the room in subtle ways, and somehow Aiden could drown out the television and hear them.

“Because of him we lost people. Friends!” Yuji whispered. “You shouldn’t have brought him here.”

“He can help us,” the girl replied. “There’s something strange about him. I don’t think he has anyone else and I think if we get rid of him now, he’ll end up doing what he said anyway. We’ve got so many enemies now, Yuji, why can’t we have an ally?”

“Because what if he’s not an ally. What if he’s just another enemy?”

Aiden kept pretending to watch the television, to be too exhausted and half-asleep to properly listen to them. Yuji’s distrust of Aiden seemed to come rapidly and without warning, and both he and Hiromi spent the best part of five minutes arguing over whether they should give Aiden a chance or not. Hiromi kept defending him, despite what she had known and what he had told her, and for that Aiden respected her.

“Look at him,” Yuji whispered. “He’s sleeping like nothing happened. Like people didn’t get killed right in front of us, like that crazy Sarratt bastard wasn’t a monster.”

“We don’t know what he’s been through. He’s exhausted! Besides, this is MY hideout, and me and you are no longer together. You have no say if he stays here or not and if you don’t like it, get lost.”

Yuji seemed to go silent for a moment and Aiden could imagine some shocked, perhaps even hurt expression on his face. Eventually the reply came. “Fine,” he said, “I’ll leave you with him.” He stood and moved towards the door and when he reached for the handle Aiden pretended as though the movement woke him.

“Hmm?” Aiden grumbled, shifting and looking around at the two of them. “Where are you going?”

“Got to make sure the rest of my guys are okay,” said Yuji, before he stepped out and closed the door behind him without another word.

“Is he alright?” Aiden asked, turning then to Hiromi, who was sitting at an old table with one foot up on the chair with her.

“He’s stressed, scared. Same as all of us,” Hiromi replied, looking suddenly at Aiden’s bare chest. “You need to get some clothes, dude.”

Aiden looked down at the torn, bloodied trousers he still wore. His shirt was gone now, though where he had no idea. “Do you have any spare?” He asked.

“I do, actually,” Hiromi said with a nod. She stood up and walked over to an old wooden cupboard and opened it. “There are no trousers or shoes or anything, but here – “ she threw a black t-shirt and a pair of grey socks over to where Aiden was sitting, who immediately pulled the shirt over himself.

“Thanks,” said Aiden. “I’ll pay you back.”

Hiromi laughed at that. “How? You have no money, no identity, no memory, unless you were lying. And not to sound cliché, but I know a liar when I hear one.”

“Still, you’re a kind woman, Hiromi,” said Aiden. Hiromi blushed slightly at Aiden’s words, then pretended to rub her eyes out of tiredness to hide it.

“I owe you, that’s all,” she said.

“You keep saying that but I seem to remember that it was you who shot him, not me.”

"Don't say that," Hiromi told him. "I don't want that kind of blame put on me."

"Oh, sorry, I was just-" Aiden tried to apologize, but found himself stopped when Hiromi shushed him and stood up from her seat. Without warning she began to unzip the leather of her dark purple bodysuit, and Aiden watched openly as she climbed out of it until she stood in her underclothes - cream shorts and a blue t-shirt.

"Don't you get hot in those suits?" Aiden asked her.

"No. They've got breathe tech in them," she said. "They're real expensive, you know. They're abrasion-resistant, surprisingly hardy and yet still flexibe. It's made out of... Synthetic something or other, I can't remember. The point is, I don't wear this suit because I like looking like a latex whore, I wear it because it's actually practical. Though I must admit, it looks cool, and that's pretty important these days. Are you gonna make me watch this shitty history show?"

By the time Hiromi had asked that last question she had taken a seat on the sofa next to Aiden, though she leaned on her arm away from him. Aiden shrugged and passed her the remote and Hiromi began to flick through the channels until the local news station showed a smartly-dressed woman talking.

"A mass shooting has occurred near downtown Fukaya this evening, only 2 kilometres away from Fukaya General Hospital," the reporter said. "The KMPD have yet to give any official statement regarding the matter, and it is unclear if this shooting is connected to the night's earlier terrorist incident at Fukaya General that now has a confirmed death toll of 63."

They were both silent as the woman read her report and the media cameras hovered around the cordoned area outside the nightclub. The police were walking around the street outside like ants, and forensics units were entering and leaving the building. "I know that club," said Hiromi. "That's Redpool. That's right around the corner from our bar..."

"I walked past it," revealed Aiden. "I'm sure I did. It must have been right before it happened."

Hiromi ran her hands up through her hair. "This can't be a coincidence," she said, though Aiden realized she seemed mostly to be talking to herself rather than him. "What the fuck is happening?" She asked in a whisper.

She looked at him then. "This has something to do with you, doesn't it?"

"I... Don't know," replied Aiden, though he knew that somehow she was right. It was too much of a coincidence for anything else.

Hiromi was trying not to panic. As she sat there watching him, trying to keep her breathing steady, Aiden could hear her heartbeat increase and smell a coppery sweetness beneath her skin that knocked him sick. Suddenly Aiden became aware of a hunger that had been with him, suppressed, for far too long, and a mixture of ravenous need and desire began to rise in him as he sat and watched her.

"Maybe you should go to the police, Aiden. I never thought I'd say that, but maybe you've gotten involved in something too big for you to handle. I don't know what's happened to you, or what you've done, but this could be ge-"

As she spoke the volume of her voice began to decrease and soon all Aiden could hear was the pumping of her blood through her heart, and the rushing of it through her veins. He could smell it so vividly that he could mark the exact parts on her anatomy where he could bite down and taste her, and the possibility of such a taste grew unbearably enticing.

"What are you doing?" Asked Hiromi, as Aiden began to grow closer to her across the sofa. She began to lean away nervously but Aiden crawled along the cushions and hovered over her lips so gently and impassioned that Hiromi did not even consider that maybe she did not want it - want him. Soon Aiden's lips touched hers and she let out a passionate sigh as though he was the air she needed to breathe. Aiden kissed her, and ran his hands down her side, and when he looked up again he saw strangely silver eyes that did not belong to Hiromi - they belonged to Nami.

Suddenly Aiden saw Nami's body below him in a half-remembered dream, her last breaths fading away as her blood pooled beneath them. He remembered the taste of it in his mouth, the feel of the warmth on his tongue and behind his teeth, and how it so very much smelled of her - that kind woman who had offered him shelter. That kind woman he had killed.

Hiromi drew her lips away from him and began to wrap her legs around Aiden's thighs, but Aiden suddenly became aware of what he was doing to her, of what he was going to do, and forced her hands away from his chest as he pushed himself away. "W-What are you doing?" Asked Hiromi, her voice a hazed and pheremone-filled drug-trip, the unnatural need she had so dangerously apparent to Aiden that it scared him.

"You need to get away from me," Aiden told her. He could still hear her heart beat, he could still smell what she would taste like.

"What do you mean?" Hiromi asked him, her voice slightly more aware. "Come back to me. Let's... Be together."

She tried to reach out to his hand, but Aiden pushed it away and recoiled. He half-fell, half-stood from the sofa, and began to step away as she looked ever-more confused. "I'm sorry, Hiromi," he forced himself to say. "I won't harm you again."

If Hiromi tried to protest, or to ask what was wrong, Aiden did not hear her. He left the hideout as quickly as he dared and shut the door behind him, and before he realized what he was doing he had run into the old service elevator and pressed the ground button. The elevator shutters and doors closed and blocked the hall off from him, and soon he was riding it to the surface.