Lucas was home alone with the tv on but turned down so he could hardly hear it. He lay back on his bed with his hands behind his head, watching the ceiling fan spin above him. Sonia had called in sick to work that day. Mr. Oba wasn't happy, so he called Lucas and angrily told him to stay home. He figured that maybe the investigation had hit a wall, and they weren't sure where to go next. Regardless, Lucas was happy, for the most part. He had enjoyed his day. The first half anyhow. The second half of the day he spent worrying. Sakura had told him that she would be home at 5 pm, but it was now 10:30 at night. It would have been fine if not for the fact that she had suddenly stopped texting him back around 4 pm. He had a gut feeling that something was wrong, and maybe it was nothing, but it couldn't hurt to go and check the office. Lucas eventually got himself ready and grabbed his long trench coat and threw it on as he made his way out of the door. He went downstairs and out to the bus stop. Sakura drove, Lucas did not. He used to. He refused to ever again. He had been responsible for an accident years ago, back over in Okinawa. Ever since then, he refused to get behind the wheel. He had never had a reason to, and Sakura understood that. After the accident, Lucas was badly hurt. He couldn't walk for months. That's when he took up painting. He wanted a calmer life. He had even tried to leave his career as a detective, but his father wouldn't let him. Lucas shook his head. That was all behind him now. 2 Jiro sat alone in the dark, staring into the mirror by his bed at himself. He was trying his best to remember anything he could about Bastian, for he feared that he hurt him. "It couldn't have been me, could it?" He repeated the question again aloud. He wondered what it would be like to hear himself say it. He heard the voice of the girl in his head laugh playfully and jokingly she said, "It is possible." Jiro became angry. He stood up aggressively and yelled, "Why don't you tell me what you are!? Get out of my head!" A voice spoke up from behind him that said, "Because I want to show you." He turned slowly and saw that his bedroom window was wide open and there stood a silhouette of a girl in front of it. She walked around his bed and walked right up to him, and then he saw. He saw a face he thought he'd never see again. Madame Aiko stood right there in his room. "I can't- I can't believe it," he began, confused. "Believe it, Lord Jiro." He stood there with his mouth open. "It can't be true, I saw you dead, I killed you!" She shook her head no and put a metal hand up to the side of his face. "You killed the old me." 3 It was almost midnight, and Sonia was watching Sakura as she was still attached to the machine. She was stuck, connected to the computer. The program she had found inside the fingers software had made her incapable of escaping, and therefore, she had to go right to the source, as deep as she could. She had told Sonia that about an hour ago over the speaker but had remained silent, even to Sonia when she tried to talk to her. She sat on the floor next to Sakura's chair. Suddenly, all the screens stopped flashing and went red. Sonia noticed the red hue of the light and turned around to face the computer. The giant screen in the center read, 'BIOTECHNICA.' Sonia looked on as the logo switched to a log-in screen. She wasn't sure how, but the username and password were both typed in with stars representing the characters. Sakura had found her way in. A loading screen came on and then all the screens had white code, running across them simultaneously. Sakura's hand finally moved, and it was suddenly clenched in a tight fist. Her face was completely still, almost stiff. But she saw a tear falling from her eye. She had only noticed it because it had rolled down her cheek. Sonia was worried about Sakura and was wondering what was going on in there when she heard the finger slamming itself against the glass again. It was inside of the machine still, but none of the tools were working on it anymore. It just kept going, repeatedly, throwing itself into the glass. Then a small crack appeared. "Shit-" said Sonia, taking a step back. She looked over to Sakura sitting helpless, connected to the computer. The sound of glass cracking caught her attention, and she looked back to see them slowly multiplying across the glass. She had nothing on her but a gun, and that wouldn't do her any good. She stood defenseless. The glass broke, and the finger launched towards Sonia through the air and she flinched, falling backward, closing her eyes and covering her head. She was preparing for the impact, but nothing happened. Opening one eye cautiously, then another, she moved the hand in front of her to see the finger on the floor in front of her, struggling to free itself from the wire that had been attached to it earlier. So that it could get to her. "What the hell," said Sonia as she watched the finger wiggle around on the floor, still trying to nudge itself in her direction. Suddenly, the screens went red. All but for the smallest screen, the one mentioned earlier that was about 7 inches wide, it had something on it, a picture. There was a red "REC." in the corner of the screen blinking. Sonia got a bit closer to the screen. The finger took a jump towards her. She saw it from the corner of her eye and stepped back in a gasp. It hit the floor nearby, but it wouldn't have reached her, anyway. She wondered just how long that wire was going to hold up. It was hanging over the edge of the broken glass, and he tried to get a good look at it through the darkness, but it was too far away. Then she heard a sound over the speaker again, not Sakura's voice, the voice of a man. Her eyes widened, and she looked at the small screen above. "You've come a long way since your accident, Jiro," said a voice. "Jiro?" she said, watching intently. A man in a lab coat was sitting in what looked like a hospital room, across from the camera, looking down. His shaggy black hair drooped down over the thick frames of his round glasses. She looked at the I.D. card around his neck. It read, "Dr. Monroe." The doctor picked up a gloved hand in his and cupped it, saying, "Since the death of your father, I-" he cleared his throat, "I've wanted to come clean with you about something." He sighed and looked down at his feet, then back up at the camera. The camera started to shake a bit and Sonia wondered to herself if someone was holding it up for the doctor. The man looked back at the camera with a serious expression. He mumbled something to himself that was unintelligible, then said, "Jiro, you... You're a-" Sonia heard Sakura yell out from behind her and she spun to see her convulsing in the chair. She made a look of astonishment, but then she heard more sounds come from the speakers that were harder to describe. She looked back at the screen. The doctor sat in the chair still, but now his head was tilted back with a slit throat. The camera moves and then raises. She watched as someone carried it through the hospital room door and out into what looked like a laboratory. She recognized the room. "That's Biotechnica Medical!" she exclaimed. The camera turned and went down towards the stairs and then she saw- there was no camera. She saw Jiro. He stopped to look at himself in the mirror. His eyes were completely blank. He stared into the mirror for a moment and blinked. Then Sonia knew. She was looking through his eyes. 4 Lucas was still on the bus. He kept thinking in the back of his mind about how he didn't know exactly what Sakura's job was at the office, what it was that she couldn't tell him about that place. With that on his mind, plus this strange case going on, he just had a hunch she was there. A gut feeling. Now, there was a chance that Sakura was at home with her father. Maybe an emergency came up. In a way, he actually hoped that was the case. He thought about calling Mr. Oba, but they didn't tell him about their relationship yet. It wasn't really his first option, considering he could just be overreacting. He looked up into the starry sky above the streetlights outside as he sat by the window. He arrived at the office building and went into the lobby as per usual. The place was open 24/7, but no one was in line. All the check-in lanes were closed but for one at the far end. When Lucas walked up to the door, he saw the one security they had on duty there starting to doze off. He hadn't even noticed him come in. He walked up to the desk and looked over the counter at the sleeping man. "Ahem." The man's eyes widened and he immediately sat up straight and looked up at Lucas, dumbfounded. "Are you gonna check me?" he asked the man, who was staring up at him with a gaped mouth. He shook his head as if he had just woken up and stood, saying, "Oh, man! I'm sorry, man!" Lucas shrugged. "It's alright, let's just hurry this up." The guy nodded and ran over to grab his handheld metal detector. He went over Lucas 4 times and before the 5th he stopped him. "Can I go through the check now?" The guy nodded, saying, "Sure, yep." Lucas walked through the check and put his hands into his pockets. He turned and looked at the security guard. "Well? Am I good to go?" The security guard gulped and said, "Yep," nodding. Lucas wasn't rude to the man. He didn't mean to be, anyway. He understood. He hated staying up all night, he never got how anyone could do that. His body would never let him. He waited outside the elevator after he swiped his keycard, and it took a minute. "There's no one here. Why is it taking so long?" Eventually, it came and Lucas stepped in. He tapped his foot on the ground as the elevator went up. In the lobby, the security guard who gave Lucas a hard time was sitting back at his desk, playing a game on his phone. Sonia came out from an elevator and ran down the hallway, then through the checkout and exits from the lobby. The man looked up at her as she ran out and said, "Sonia stayed late today? That's rare." 5 Sonia's car raced through the night as she had just finished voice texting Mr. Oba. She was driving on the country road that went up towards the cliff tops outside of town, where Jiro's manor was. Her phone was attached to the dash now, and its screen read, "Message Sent - Mr. Oba." She grabbed her cigarette pack while she was flying down the highway towards the cliff area outside of the city. Steadily she tried to use one hand to get out a smoke from the pack. She popped it into her mouth while her mind was racing about what she was going to do next. She lit the smoke and realized she had the thing backward. She spat the cigarette out onto the floor of the car and grabbed another. "Damn," she said, dropping her lighter. She could see where the light was. It had landed on the passenger seat and slid down a bit to the far side. She looked ahead and didn't see any reason to worry, so she quickly leaned over and grabbed the lighter back in her hand, and lit up the cigarette properly in her mouth this time. But when she looked out ahead once more, she saw a thick bundle of wire running right across the road; it was high off the floor. It rammed into her windshield, and she ducked down. The car spun out, and she turned the wheel, trying to slam the brakes. Glass was everywhere. When the car had stopped spinning, she put her head up and saw that the glass had been broken, but the car was still on. There was a dent in the front of the roof where the wires had hit. She looked out the window into the silent night. No other cars were out there on that lonely country road with her. The wind was barely there. She could hear it, rustling the leaves of the surrounding trees. Then, she heard a familiar whipping sound. The car started to move and shift. "Not again," she mumbled with the smoke in her mouth as she grabbed the wheel with both hands. "Not this time!" She yelled, pressing the turbo again. She ripped away from whatever tension had her outside the car, and she sped off towards the manor. She looked into the side mirror here and there, but she saw nothing. Once again, she hadn't seen what had attacked her. She remembered back to the video. Jiro couldn't do this, could he? Back at the office, Sakura was still stuck inside the computer. Sonia had to leave her there after what she had seen. It was obvious that Sakura was going to stay trapped in that thing unless something was done. She know that Jiro was somehow involved in all this, but she wasn't stupid. She was in a shitty situation, yes, but she did realize the danger. She had a weapon. A little something she had brought from the office. There weren't a lot of direct pickings. Usually. if they needed anything extra, they would have it brought in from headquarters. But there was something. She looked over at the rearview mirror, and in the back was a rather large gun. It looked almost like a potato gun, but it was a serious weapon. A flamethrower. It was all she could think of to bring. Lucas was just coming off of the elevator when he got a text message from Sonia. He read it silently to himself and then said, "Oh, shit." She ran down the hallway and to Sakura's office door, which was propped open with a wooden chair. He opened it and walked down the long hallway. He saw the black door ahead, it was propped open with a chair as well. He could see a crack in the room ahead. Lights were flashing rapidly. He looked in before touching the door to open it, and he saw Sakura there attacked to the machine, completely still. Codes were running across some of the screens. "Sakura," he said quietly as he opened the door. She didn't move. He looked down on the floor and felt squeamish when he saw the finger rolling around. It was making crawling motions of the floor, trying to get to Sakura from where it was. Luckily it was still attached o the wire. The large screen in the center flashed a few times, then something came up on the screen. Words reading, "Lucas Sato." He looked at Sakura laying there, and he understood. "Yes, I'm here." He continued to watch the screen, and it switched to what he recognized as a security camera recording. He saw Jiro, sitting at his piano in the light of the moon with the window open behind him. He was playing Clair de Lune. He stopped playing when the song was over, and Lucas heard the voice of a girl say, "Well done, Jiro." A gloved hand came out from behind the camera to caress Jiro's face. Then, the screen quickly blinked to a black screen. What was that? Thought Lucas. "Shall I play moonlight Sonata now?" Asked Jiro. "No," said the voice of the girl, suddenly aggressive. "I never liked when you played that song." Jiro frowned. "But you said you did." "I was lying to make you feel better." The girl hissed. "But Madame Aiko, you said-" Jiro was cut off mid-sentence by the girl that Lucas still couldn't see who was talking out of frame. "I told you to never call me that. My name is Aiko, only Aiko." It seemed that she was the one holding the camera, strangely at eye level. Lucas suspected that perhaps this person was wearing a hidden camera. He became upset and said, "I'm sorry, it was just out of habit." The screen blinked and Lucas saw the camera pan down to look at Jiro's hands, and he saw something unbelievable. His hands were completely made of metal. He hadn't been able to see them properly while he was playing, Lucas assumed Jiro was wearing gloves. But now he saw them clearly. Then, two more joined them on his knee. They cupped his right hand into theirs. "Remember when you told me to call you 'Just Jiro,' and not 'Lord Jiro'?" He smiles widely and said, "Yes! I'm so glad you remember that day." The screen blinked again. 5 The door whipped open from behind him and Mr. Oba walked into the office off of the elevator. He was worried for his daughter, Sakura. Mr. Oba was a daily drinker, and he had fallen asleep drunk at home while everyone had been trying to contact him. Now he was here, and he was still quite groggy. He wiped his face and put a hand up on the wall. He coughed heavily and spat onto the floor. Lucas came out into the hallway from Sakura's office. "Mr. Oba, I-" He punched Lucas square in the face and sent him flying backward onto the floor. "What the hell have you two done!?" yelled Mr. Oba in a fit of rage. He slammed the side of his fist on the wall above where Lucas lay. "You guys have really screwed us all this time." He looked up from Lucas and over towards the propped open door to Sakura's office. "And my Sakura-" He cried out, taking a gasp. "She trapped in there." Mr. Oba shook as he gazed down the hall. Lucas said to him, "You know more than I do." Mr. Oba's eyes drifted slowly down, and he gave him a loathing look. He took a deep sniff, wiggled his nose, and smirked. He then reached into his pocket and retrieved a small flask, taking back a shot. "Shit-" said Mr. Oba as he began to stumble down the halls. Lucas got up and hurried over to him, saying, "Wait sir, you can't just run in there, there's a-" Mr. Oba scoffed at him, and said back, "I may be drunk, but I'm not an idiot. You think Sonia didn't tell me about the finger?" He looked back at Lucas with a sardonic grin. "You think I don't know about you and my daughter?" Lucas shivered. He could have never imagined the kind-hearted and formal Mr. Oba being this way. Sakura had told him before about how her father liked to drink daily. But he didn't understand until now. "Nobodies perfect," thought Lucas. Mr. Oba was still looking back at him when his expression suddenly changed. He stomped his way jaggedly over to Lucas and jabbed a finger into his shoulder, saying, "You're gonna drive down there and finish this. Sonia's there now, and you're going." Lucas objected, "I can't, I can't drive-" Mr. Oba rolled his eyes. "You can drive, you're just too scared." Lucas said nothing. He was right. "I checked your file." He paused. Look at me, Lucas. I'm messed up too," he slurred, "But I can't fix this, you know that." Lucas nodded, then Mr. Oba reached into his pocket and took out his keys. "What are you gonna do? Let Sonia go there alone?" He turned his head back to look at the open door to the room where Sakura sat helplessly. He looked back at Lucas and shifted through his keys. he took off the ones to the car and put the others back into his pocket and held them in his hand, asking, "Are you gonna let her die, Lucas?" Lucas gave Mr. Oba a confident look and held out his hand. "Good lad," he said as he handed Lucas the keys. He left the office without saying anything. Mr. Oba had a car parked at a reserved spot inside the building, and Lucas had been shown it by Sakura before when they went to retrieve her bag from it once. He went directly there and walked up to the driver's side of the white BMW. It was one of the few cars left in the large underground lot. He paused. A thought had occurred to him on the way here that perhaps if he had tried to act like it was old times and get into that mindset, he could just get into the car and drive away. But that didn't happen. Instead, what he saw when he came up to the door was the image of the people he had killed in his past accident. A woman and her three children. Lucas hadn't been drinking, and he wasn't speeding. He had been on his phone. He didn't mean for it to happen, it just did, and he could never forget it. Now Lucas hated being in cars, but he couldn't avoid it. He figured that the best thing to do from that point on was to stay on the force. He had been let off. The court didn't find out that Lucas was on his phone, and a nearby camera had caught that the woman had actually gone through a red light. It didn't have to be Lucas that hit that woman's car, it could have been anybody. But he blamed himself, because, maybe, if he wasn't texting on his phone, he could have stopped it from happening. Maybe she would have still been hit, but it would have been someone else. But it wasn't, it was him. Back upstairs at the office, Mr. Oba had just entered the room Sakura was in. He looked down at the disgusting mechanical finger wriggling around on the floor. He looked over at his daughter, laying helpless. She looked like a sleeping beauty. A tear rolled down his cheek, and he thought, "Sakura is very loyal, and that causes conflicts." In the building's reserved parking, Lucas had summoned up the courage to get in and turn on the ignition, but just as he did, his blood pressure rose. He could hear his heartbeat in his ears. He sat with both his hands holding the top of the wheel, and he just idled. He opened the window and started to look around the car. He had remembered Sonia had said something specific about Mr. Oba to him. That he smoked. Lucas hadn't in a long time. Not since that night. He looked inside the middle compartment of the car. "There they are," he said, lighting one up. His head was spinning as he coughed into his hand. It wasn't like it used to be, but it was slightly nostalgic. He took another long drag and stared out into the parking lot. It was dark and quiet. He hated that combination. He had to go. Sonia was alone out there, and he was here just being a wuss. Sakura could die, and he was just sitting here afraid to drive a car. He had been driving sports cars for years, and he was afraid of a new BMW. He had to force himself to do it. He slowly drove forward through the parking lot, skipping over all of the lines as a shortcut. He steadily made his way down to the street exit and waited for his turn. When he turned, he nervously drove up the road, constantly checking his mirrors. He stared at the right one too long, his anxiety had kicked in. He ended up hitting his front right wheel off the curb and the car bounced, but he quickly got it back straight. He wasn't pulled over, and he kept going through the city streets, heading towards the highway and out onto the country road that lead up to the cliffs overlooking the city. He cracked the window and lit another smoke. He had slowly gotten a bit more used to driving at this point. It began to rain. "Just my shit luck," he said, lighting the smoke. He put on the windshield wipers. The car was automatic, and even though that helped him get to this point, he didn't like it. He was anxious, so his muscle memory kept acting like the car was manual. He coughed a few times and spat out the window into the storm. He was coming up to a point where one would have to make a sharp turn, and he saw it early on. He wasn't expecting, however, that just around the bend was a deer. He swerved the car, and it spun out over the wet road, going over the guardrail down into the rocks below.