Explanations and Explorations

[saitoh_hajime]

Date: February 6, 2060
Time: Late Afternoon - Early Evening
Location: New Meiji Department of Justice (Police Wing, Armory, Shooting Range)
Characters, NPC, Saitoh, Tokio

“YOU HAVE ACCESSED THE NEW MEIJI POLICE DEPARTMENT ANSWERING SYSTEM.  PLEASE LISTEN TO THE FOLLOWING OPTIONS BEFORE MAKING YOUR SELECTION.”

Saitoh took an impatient drag on his cigarette and listened.  

“TO CHANGE YOUR PERSONAL GREETING, PLEASE PRESS 1. TO LISTEN TO YOUR PERSONAL GREETING, PLEASE PRESS 2. TO FORWARD CALLS, PLEASE PRESS 3. TO ACCEPT FORWARDED CALLS, PLEASE PRESS 4. TO FORWARD A CALL TO A FORWARDED NUMBER, PLEASE PRESS 5.”

Saitoh swore, and tried to resist the urge to throw his office phone out the window, wishing that they would stop changing the options every few weeks.

“TO CHANGE YOUR RINGTONE, PLEASE PRESS 6, TO LISTEN TO AVAILABLE RING TONES, PLEASE PRESS 7. TO REQUEST A CUSTOM RING TONE FOR ALL FORWARDED CALLS PLEASE PRESS 8”

Exhaling smoke out of his nostrils in a murderous sounding snort, Saitoh slammed the phone down onto the charger with enough force that his terminal and desk shook.

“Yorimoto!”

Saitoh’s new secretary jumped in his seat, knocked over a picture of his mother and her passel of pugs, and then tried to give his commanding officer a smart, manly sort of salute. “Yes, Saitoh-sama!” Newly promoted from the office accounting pool, Yorimoto Katsume  was a twitchy little ferret of a man, one whom Saitoh suspected had an unholy fixation with fountain pens. “How may I provide you with assistance, Sir!”

(Holy freaking hell…) Saitoh gave his newest secretary a long measured look.  “What is the prompt on the automated phone system so I can listen to my messages?”

“That’s easy, Sir! It’s option 18. Would you like me to assist you in button pressing, Saitoh-sama?” Yorimoto said hopefully, eager to prove his worth.

“No.” Saitoh pinched the bridge of his narrow nose and prayed for patience, since his preferred course of action, that being strangling his secretary and shoving the body where the sun didn’t shine was generally speaking, frowned upon.

“Oh,” Yorimoto’s face fell. “Well, if you have any trouble, please know that you can safely rely on me to provide you with timely assistance.”

Saitoh pinched harder, reminding himself that slaying evil instantly was not applicable to the mentally deficient, no matter how annoying they might be, “I will keep that in mind.”

“Oh, and if you are wondering about that voicemail you received fifteen minutes ago, the transcript is on your desk.” 

Saitoh glanced down at his desk and saw that there was in fact, a memo near his cigarette ash covered keyboard. (Unlike most people, he preferred typing rather than relying on voice recognition software) He frowned (due mostly to the smiley face stamp that was by Yorimoto’s name) and began reading.

MEMO:

To: Captain H. Saitoh

From: Office Secretary K. Yorimoto (recently promoted)

Subject: Voicemail from O. Murakami, DOJ (13:35:05)

Dear Captain Saitoh-sama,

Here is the transcript of a voicemail you received from one O. Murakami. Please review and let me know if you need any further assistance in this, or any other matter.

With the most profound respect that you could ever imagine,

K. Yorimoto   ^__^

Start Message

“Hello, this is a message for Captain Saitoh-san. This is Oharu Murakami. I’m not sure if you remember me, but I was the secretary to the late Fujita Hiroshi? Yes, well… I am now working for Takagi Tokio, Assistant Prosecuting Attorney. She asked me to call and let you know that she will be stopping by your office to return an item that you lent her the other day and that you should anticipate her arrival no later than 15:30….

Saitoh-san, I heard about your injuries sustained in the line of duty. I hope that you will make a speedy recovery and that your boys, bless their hearts, are safe and well. If you have any questions, or can’t speak with Takagi-san during this time, please call me directly or send an email so that I can reschedule.

Warmest Regards,

O. Murakami”

End Message.

.

Comments

[tokio_takagi]

“Let me know when you’re ready.”

It was time to focus on the task at hand, target practice. It was time to let go of unfinished business from the past and leave it for later.

After donning their protective headgear and loading live amo, the Captain quickly typed some commands into the console, and two separate digital displays flickered to life. Clearing her mind of everything except what Saitoh, and her father had told her about firing a side arm, she took her stance, her body remembering the now automatic pull pattern of the trigger, the one imprinted in her mind by the in unison pulls of the trigger when his hand covered hers. He turned to her and nodded. With a slight nod of her forehead towards him, she then took the first shot, commencing her practice session.

The attorney had never done any shooting with such realistic target simulations. The captain wasn’t kidding when he said they would be anything but static. The digital scenarios perfectly mimicked what an officer would find in the field, even going so far as to have a child pop up and run in front of the intended target just as he was about to be shot. Tokio managed to redirect her gun to miss the kid, but barely, it had been too close for her taste. She would need to concentrate a little harder the next time. She knew that there were many distractions in real life situations, such as the one at the diner yesterday. At the moment there was just one distraction in the room with her. The targets paled in the face of having to concentrate when images of him kept popping up and unnerving her.

When the attorney finished her own simulation --she only scored 91%, not bad she thought for a first try with a new high caliber weapon-- she removed her protective headgear and silently watched the man beside her finish his course. Tokio was awestruck. His moves were so smooth, yet precise and swift. It was like watching quicksilver in motion. He never missed a beat, defeating one challenge after another, deftly maneuvering around any innocent bystander the program injected into the action. When he finished, the shooting simulation screen went blank a moment before flashing a perfect score of 100%. She was not surprised in the least. The man was lethal. Woe to anyone who got in his way. She was sure that he would quickly meet out justice to any type of evil that crossed his path, or threatened those he’d taken an oath to protect.

She suddenly was aware of her hands, and the wafer-thin medi-burn gloves that covered them. They were supposed to come off tonight; it took two hands to remove them. There was no one at home to help her. She considered stopping by Bakufu Burgers to see if Tae could take them off for her, but if she couldn’t contact the woman by phone, she wouldn’t know which of the restaurants her friend would be working at tonight.