Chapter 1: Information

Morning in the City Central. Crowded, indifferent. People moving with the numb efficiency of those who've learned not to look up. I move with them, listening.

Fragments. Gossip. A secretary's complaint about Sumeragi's new security protocols. A salaryman muttering into his phone about contracts being frozen. A street vendor telling a tourist which buildings to avoid after dark.

Nothing I didn't already know. Still, you don't hunt a beast by charging its den. You walk the edges. Wait for something to bleed.

The noise presses in. I find a bench in front of a fountain and sit.

Water arcs and falls. The sound is softer than I remember. Clean. I lean back, close my eyes, and for a moment I let myself forget where I am. The city breathes around me. The fountain keeps its rhythm.

I haven't felt this still in a year.

Then light cuts through my eyelids.

I open them. A holographic billboard across the plaza has shifted—blue-white, sharp-edged, impossible to ignore. The face that fills it is young, composed, almost delicate. Nova Tsukuyomi. Head of Sumeragi's Defense Unit.

"—uncontrolled Septima manifestations remain a threat to public order. The Adept Registration Act is not about restriction. It is about protection. For all of us."

His voice is calm. Reasonable. That's what makes it stick.

Adepts. Supernaturally empowered humans. Their emergence fractured borders, economies, old certainties. The world adapted, badly. Now it's trying to control what it doesn't understand.

Or rather: Sumeragi is.

I don't care about politics. I care about what they're hiding behind them.

A chime. My HUD pulses at the edge of my vision. A familiar face appears in my artificial eye—crimson hair, sharp grin, the posture of someone who has never left her chair and never intends to.

"Qaz. You're slacking."

Aisle. My operator. Three years. Leader of White Fang, the only network operating under this city that Sumeragi hasn't crushed. Yet.

"I hear you," I say.

She leans back, yawns theatrically. "It's unfair, you know. You get to wander. I'm stuck here babysitting." A pause. "But honestly? Better here. I don't have to move. Heh."

Says the woman who's probably worn the same hoodie for a week.

I don't say the rest. Without her brain—without the maps she draws, the patterns she sees, the routes she carves through Sumeragi's firewalls—I wouldn't have made it past year one.

"Nova's getting louder," I say instead.

"I noticed that." Her tone shifts. Still light, but the playfulness sharpens. "He's not just talking to the public. Internal chatter's spiking. Sumeragi's moving something. I don't know what yet, but—"

A pause. Keys clicking.

"—I'll find it."

The fountain keeps running. The city keeps breathing. I watch Nova's face fade from the billboard, replaced by an ad for instant ramen.

"Don't take too long," I say.

"When have I ever?"

I don't answer. I'm already standing.

---

get up. Stretch. Roll my shoulders.

Aisle. Moving.

"Be careful out there."

She waves at the camera. The call ends.

I walk.

The crowd swallows me. I move behind them, between them, close enough to read the tension in their shoulders but never close enough to be read myself. My gaze flicks from face to face. Retinas scanned. Identities cross-referenced. Employment history. Known associates. Any thread that might lead back to Sumeragi.

It feels invasive. It used to. Now it's just breathing.

Then my HUD pulses.

A match.

I look up.

She's standing three meters away, facing the opposite direction, unaware. Lab coat, slightly too large. Brown hair past her shoulders, caught in the wind. Bangs half-cover her eyes—blue, I notice, when she blinks. Around her neck: an ID badge on a worn lanyard.

Postdoctoral Researcher, S-FIT
Dr. Yashiro Fujikawa

S-FIT.

Sumeragi Future Institute of Technology. The crown. Where Septima research outpaces ethics boards and national laws. Protected by barrier technology that's supposed to be impenetrable.

Supposed to be.

"Aisle."

No response. She's offline. Fine. I don't need her for this.

I watch Dr. Fujikawa shift her weight, check her phone, tuck a strand of hair behind her ear. She looks tired. Young for a postdoc. Maybe thirty. Her badge photo is two years old—she's thinner now, shadows under her eyes.

I file it all.

Connection to Sumeragi. Clearance level. Field of study. Physical routines. Weak points.

The wind shifts. Her hair moves again. For a moment she glances in my direction, but her gaze passes through me like I'm part of the architecture.

Then she turns and walks toward the station.

I follow.

Not close enough to touch. Close enough to know where she sleeps. 

She slowly descends from the escalator,I’m just standing one step from her trying to not look suspicious. At this time not many people were in the station,strange.. This place was usually almost filled with most people and workers. Something ain't right I can feel.

“Qaz? Are you there?” Aisle speaks.

“Yeah I’m here, I'm following a person that might be what we are looking for.” I speak very low, only my ear and Aisle can listen.

“I know, I received a notification from your HUD as well. Hmmm, it looks like she is just a normal researcher from S-FIT. Aaaare you sure it's worth trying to gather some information from her?” she asked me while holding her right hand holding a cup of coffee.

“It's better than nothing,maybe she can provide us with some information about Sumeragi's next project. But the real deal is how do I confront her?” I get off the escalator and look at her passing through the special gate scanning it using her lanyard. Looks like the gate leads to the special coach of the train. 

“Have any idea what that coach is for?” I ask Aisle as she sips a coffee from the cup.

Aisle put down the cup “It’s a special coach made for scientists and researchers that works for the Sumeragi group. Highly secure, there's no way you can get in there really easily. Buuuut if you choose something extreme and risky.maybe you could take down those guards.”

 Looking at the guards she mentioned,they are highly armed with weapons made by Sumeragi tech… it’s just going causing much more chaos or worse they send the reinforcement.

“No, it's dangerous for me and a bunch of people down here… We must look for another way.” I looked around trying to find the way I can get in there.

“Aisle can you scan the entire floor of this station?”

“Sure!”

 Sounds clacking from Aisle’s keyboard when she scans the entire section of the station. It wasn't taking her long to do it and the entire plan of the station appears on my HUD.

“Hmmm, based on this plan… the entire station is well protected by Sumeragi’s guard. Geez, this sucks.” Aisle leans on her chair and feels frustrated.

I look closely at the plan. She's right, the entire station is well protected with Sumeragi’s guard. It looks like they don't give me a single chance. There is no other way than to use a normal coach. 

“Well,looks like I have to get in a normal coach then.”

 I walk to the normal gate and scan my phone on it. The gate slides open but as I make my way to the train coach, I can see her walking inside the special and looking around.. has she noticed my presence?

Anyway i got into the coach, inside there some people were around. Not too many and not much less of them; it's just the ideal amount of people.

The doors hiss closed. The train pulls away.

I stand near the doors, back to the wall. Standard position. Maximum visibility, minimum blind spots. The other passengers blur into background noise—a woman reading on her phone, an old man asleep with his mouth open, a teenager with headphones loud enough to bleed static.

My gaze drifts toward the sealed door at the end of the car. The one leading to the special coach. Reinforced steel. Biometric lock. Probably armored.

Probably.

"Qaz." Aisle's voice, quieter now. "I'm picking up something weird."

I don't move. Don't react. "Go ahead."

"The security feed from that coach. It's looping. Not hacked—just... deliberately bad. Like someone doesn't want a clear view of what's happening inside."

"Someone or something?"

"Not sure yet. Give me a few minutes."

The train rocks gently. Tunnels blur past the windows. I let my gaze drift across the passengers again, cataloging, dismissing—

The door at the end opens.

Dr. Fujikawa steps through.

She stops just inside the normal coach, one hand still on the door frame. Her eyes sweep the car once—quick, practiced, the way someone does when they're used to checking exits.

Then she sees me.

Just for a moment. Just a flicker. Her gaze catches on my face, holds for half a second longer than a stranger's should.

Then she looks away and takes a seat near the door. Three meters from me. Facing the window. Posture relaxed, but her reflection in the glass is watching the car behind her.

She knows.

"Qaz." Aisle's voice, tense now. "She accessed something on her phone. Encrypted. I can't—wait. She's broadcasting. Low frequency, short range. Almost like she's pinging someone."

"Pinging who?"

"I don't know. But it's not security. It's too subtle for that. It's more like..."

A pause.

"It's like she's leaving a trail. So someone can find her later."

I process this. File it. Adjust.

The train slows. Next station. A few passengers shuffle off, a few shuffle on. Dr. Fujikawa doesn't move. Neither do I.

The doors close. The train moves again.

Then she turns.

Full body. Facing me directly. Her blue eyes are tired but steady. No fear. No hesitation.

"You've been watching me since the plaza," she says.

Quiet. Calm. Not a question.

The teenager with headphones doesn't notice. The sleeping man doesn't stir. The woman reading glances up, senses nothing, looks down again.

I hold her gaze. "Yes."

"Why?"

I could lie. Deflect. Disappear into the crowd at the next stop.

Instead: "Because I want to know what Sumeragi is hiding."

Something shifts behind her eyes. Not surprising. Recognition.

She looks down at her hands. Her lanyard. The badge with her name and face.

"I have a train to catch," she says quietly. Repeats it like a reminder to herself.

"You already caught it."

A pause. Almost a smile. Almost.

She stands. Move to the door. The next station is coming up—I can feel the train slowing.

She doesn't look back.

"If you want to talk," she says, just loud enough for me to hear, "get off at the next stop. Walk south. There's a bookstore with a red awning. They sell terrible coffee and the owner doesn't ask questions."

The train stops. The doors open.

She steps out.

For a moment she's framed in the doorway—lab coat, tired eyes, brown hair catching the platform light.

Then the doors close.

The train pulls away.

I watch her recede through the window. Standing on the platform. Hands in her pockets. Watching me watch her.

"Qaz." Aisle's voice. "Tell me you got off that train."

I didn't.

"I'm asking you—" She stops. Listen to my silence. Swears. "You're not getting off, are you?"

"No."

"Why not? She just handed you an invitation!"

I watch the platform disappear into darkness. The tunnel swallows it.

"Because she handed it too easily."

Aisle goes quiet. Processing.

"You think it's a trap."

"I think she's scared. I think she's tired. I think she's been waiting for someone to notice her." I lean my head back against the wall. "But scared, tired people don't make the first move unless someone's pushing them."

"Or unless they've got nothing left to lose."

"Maybe."

The train speeds on. The lights flicker. Somewhere ahead, the city keeps breathing.

"Then what now?" Aisle asks.

I close my eyes. The fountain. The stillness. It feels like years ago.

"Now I find out who's pushing her."


[REPOST] The Untold Tale Of Lost Raconteur. Chapter 1: information.