“Ah… it seems you have grown reckless…” A seductive whisper crawls through the back of his mind, lingering on the tongue like an acrid trail of smoke. “It is the difference, I’m sure… but to have grown so bold is… tantalizing.” Foreigner turned his body around, turned his head to gaze at a massive entity just beyond his reach, at the tips of his visions with those unflinching yellow slits. “Ah… how you have sunk down… the gates are open yet the mind is not flooded… the pool’s too shallow for us big fish.” He tried to reply but felt his voice caught in cotton, a lack of air in his lungs as the waters became turbulent with motion. “Find your gentle rise of tides… or even you will find yourself beneath these churning waters.” Foreigner felt his body lift upwards, hand outstretched for a flickering light just above his head, his entire body forcing movement just to grab hold-

——————————————————————————————————————–

Foreigner woke up in a panic, his breath curt and hoarse, heavy hot air leaving his lungs in quick rasps. His surroundings were familiar; he was resting on the long surgical chair in the Wired Oceans workshop with a worn brown blanket draped over his person. His body immediately ached with the pains and sores from yesterday’s exertion, bandages covering the length of the gash on his arm. A light amount of force sent him recoiling in pain, the wound still tender. Even in pain, he makes a sigh of relief. Using his cement borer as a staff, he clattered the loose tools on the chair upon standing up to leave the room.

“He’s awake!” He heard Foxtail call out from the other room before appearing in the doorway with her own set of battle scars from yesterday. He didn’t realize it until now but the side of her face that had once been laying on the floor in the fire was slightly redder now, a trail of slight burnt flesh trailing from the ear down to her neck. If Foxtail saw him frown, she didn’t show it. Without a word, she ran into his torso for a hug. The force itself was painful but Foreigner relented to her silent demand and, after some hesitation, consoled her before wriggling to be let go.

“Ahem. I am intruding on this moment.” Jin walked into the room with their empty stare and waited for the two to finish their moment before getting down to business. “So, what is the news about my Meister’s whereabouts?”

“It appears your Meister was probably kidnapped.” Foreigner stated, handing Jin the report done on the Meister by the Turned Stone Office. “We visited his apartment and are quite certain that this mysterious Banshee Fixer is responsible for taking him. It looked like he was trying to skip town from all of the half packed luggage thrown around the bedroom.” Jin merely nodded in agreement.

“That would mean he’d have something to hide, however. I was unaware he had any plans to leave without me or this workshop.” On Jin’s empty face appeared small signs of emotion, a crease of the brow suggesting confusion or sadness.

“The good news at least is that the Fixer has unlikely killed the Meister. There wasn’t any blood on the scene and we’re pretty sure she’s out for me, not him.” Foreigner chimed in, attempting to alleviate Jin’s incongruities. Jin nodded once more and their face transitioned from faint emotion to pure stoicism.

“Well, I am not surprised by the turn of events but am curious as to why it took so long for the Turned Stone Office to compile this much information and not hand it over.”

“I can put that piece together,” Foxtail began, “It seems they were bought off by another party. They couldn’t say that a Fixer had bought your contract for double what you were paying due to other obligations but we could put two and two together in assuming this Fixer and the Banshee hunting Foreigner down are one and the same.”

“Hm. The logic stands. Only a Fixer intimate with Foreigner’s current predicament would have known to hunt him down. But the time doesn’t sync.” Jin removed junk off of an elongated table to reveal a crusty whiteboard and flipped it over to its cleaner bottom, diagrams of strange contraptions still drawn on its corners. They erased the letterings and drew out two circles with two lines. “My Meister disappeared about two weeks prior. Before these two weeks, he was working on a private project and asked me now to pry on the specifics. You, Foreigner, appeared yesterday. The chances of your search for a fix to your memory partition problem coinciding with the disappearance of my Meister is less plausible.” They looked at Foreigner and Foxtail staring intently back at them with open ears and eyes. Jin continued, “It is much more plausible then that the Meister disappeared during the previous two weeks.” Foxtail frowned at that conclusion and rummaged through Foreigners pockets to pull out a note wrapped in a purple ribbon.

“But we found this note at the crime scene hidden in a slot carved into the wall. The carvings are the same as the carvings made by the weapon used against Foreigner when he first woke up. How would she know to leave a note behind?” Foxtail looked at the both of them. Foreigner had a realization and went to the board.

“What if the Meister is more involved with this mind partition than previously thought?” It was their turn now to listen to Foreigner give his piece about the situation. “The Meister disappeared two weeks ago. Before that he was working on a secret project. He’s the only well known Meister in this area, as far as I know, that deals specifically with tools of the mind. What if he was the one that installed the mental lock?” For the first time, Jin’s eyes widened and they bolted to the whiteboard, their black marker jotting down bits of information to fashion a rudimentary timeline.

“If what you’re saying is correct, then his disappearance must have happened within this first week after he had finished working on his secret project and he would have been gone by the second week. It clicks with the Turned Stone report as they were only called a week prior. How quickly this fixer bought off the Turned Stone is another mystery but their motivation changes too.” Jin looked to Foreigner and pointed with their marker. “They took the precaution to make sure you wouldn’t get your memories back by removing access to the Meister before you ever woke up.” The trio stood in the workshop room in silence, a pregnant pause falling over them as they thought over the information.

Without another word, they looked at the still unopened note and unfurled its contents.