“Tap twice if you can hear me,” said YF.

Two thumps on the microphone came in response followed by the loud swishing noises of Erika’s shirt rubbing against the device. The audio filtering on YF’s end dampened some of the noise but not all of it, causing him to grimace every time the noise got too loud. He turned on the video feed. From the hidden camera embedded in Erika’s hair clip, YF could see her approaching the compound gate behind a long line of entrants. It was less laggy than YF had anticipated, but there was still some delay between the two feeds, the audio being much more reliable. The two of them had agreed to conduct surface transmissions only, as any transmission upward could be intercepted by a patrol drone. Erika would transmit to YF’s drone, and the drone had an amplifier that could then be sent to the terminal where he sat on top of an abandoned building

“Please step forward,” YF could hear in the middle of all the swishing.

The first scanner beep was followed by the sound of swishing, then a second beep, then more swishing, and a third beep. From the camera, YF could see that the computer was taking a moment to read the results. In the meantime, the man at the gate examined Erika suspiciously.

“Are you a forty niner? I don’t recognize—” the man started.

“Complete.”

The scan results interrupted the question. He turned around and squinted at the screen while Erika stood silently.

The man jerked around and bowed once. “Sorry, please proceed.”

“Thank you,” said Erika.

YF raised an eyebrow. “Is the ID high ranked?” he asked.

There was silence while Erika continued up the road. She then turned into a smaller street. Two taps in response. “Yes.”

YF tried to slow his breathing. “Where did she get an ID like that? Was it the ID of a Deputy? The Incense Master? Some Enforcer?”

“How—” he started.

Three taps. “Shut up.”

YF switched to his next task, which was to scan the ground for potential tunnels. Both him and Erika had agreed that Double Phoenix Sect was probably not keeping Reina in their headquarters, though Erika would make her way toward there first just in case. The plan was that she would not enter the headquarters unless absolutely necessary, as the probability of her cover being blown was much higher. Nojuku Yonchome was large enough that it would take her about forty minutes to get to the building, hopefully enough time for him to find the tunnels.

YF waited until the alley between where the drone landed and the next building was clear before carefully lifting it off and lowering it toward the ground. When the drone landed, he folded the rotors and activated its wheels, moving it along the ground as he scanned.

YF could see Erika disappear behind a building in the opposite alley, at which point he turned on the camera recording for her hair clip. “Good luck,” he thought.

He then continued to drive the drone, though the scanners did not turn up anything in that alley. YF decided to attempt following Erika on the ground to avoid the patrol drones flying overhead. He moved at a slow pace, parking the drone behind trash cans and other objects when he thought that someone was passing by. Thankfully the people who passed did not seem to notice. After what seemed like an eternity, YF finally brought the drone to where Erika had disappeared. She was not there upon turning the corner, as he had expected.

YF played back the recording of Erika’s movements, following as fast as he could through the alleys. Five minutes later, he arrived where Erika was waiting.

“Thirty minutes forward to headquarters. Follow?”

One tap. “No.”

“Then I’m going to check closer to the entrance.”

Two taps. “Yes.”

“The delay may get worse.”

Two taps.

“Are you going to wait? Or are you going to enter the building?”

Silence.

“Are you going to wait?”

One tap.

YF waited a few seconds to reply, trying to push thoughts of the danger Erika would be in out of his head. “See you soon.”

Erika continued on to the headquarters, while YF circled back to the unexplored alleys near the entrance. Without the pressure of having to keep up with Erika, she could move faster while he could move more carefully. YF continued at a slow pace to scan the roads, now finding a few short maintenance shafts near the buildings that probably did not serve any other purpose. In truth, he was more focused on the feed from Erika’s camera which became more delayed and spotty the further she went. When Erika arrived at the headquarters building, YF stopped completely to listen to the feed — by now, only audio.

“Ikeda Kanoe. The Ikeda Kanoe?”

“Good morning,” said Erika.

“I-I will need to ping the Mountain Master and tell him the good news—”

“That won’t be necessary. I will go see him personally after I check in to The Department.”

“Yes ma’am!”

YF heard her moving slowly at first and then gathering pace. At some point there was the sound of a toilet flushing. The feed then cut off.

***

“Commander’s been angsty after the operation,” Erika heard through the bathroom door.

“There were no witnesses. It’s not like we were the only ones after her anyway.”

“Hey!”

Erika could hear the first woman slap the shoulder of the other. Then the bathroom grew silent, though the two women did not leave. Erika, who had been recording the conversation on her receiver, swiped a few times to look for a specific file and then pressed it carefully so her nail would not scratch the surface of the receiver. A fart followed by a defecating sound resounded through her stall followed by a urinating sound. Erika instinctively tapped on the flush button to add noise.

“But you know what happens when he gets stressed,” Erika could hear through the door.

“I wouldn’t want to be roaming Domon-doori right now…” she heard as they exited the bathroom.

Confined in the bathroom, there was no way for her to send a surface transmission. Erika stopped the recording and flushed one more time, exiting the bathroom stall. When she came out, she saw a crowd of people gathered in the lobby with the entrance blocked off.

“Please make a single file line for a retina scan!” the guards at the main entrance shouted over the din.

The crowd responded in a louder murmur, but Erika could pick out bits of conversation about suspicious identification being swiped through the gate. A scanner drone hovered at the choke point to the exit, scanning the retina of everyone who came through. Erika had only seen such machines in TV programs. With the advent of embedded wrist identification and the prohibitive cost of retina scan machines, only the national police were supposed to have those. And yet, an outskirt sect like Double Phoenix somehow had one. Erika controlled her breathing and turned to face two guards standing in front of an office wing.

“I need to get something,” said Erika.

“Ma’am, we have orders to make sure everyone gets scanned.”

Erika turned and motioned with her head to the bathroom. “I just came out. Can’t I get my bag?”

The two guards looked at each other. “Go ahead,” said the man who had addressed her.

They opened the door wide to reveal another set of guards at the exit to the other end. Erika smiled at them to calm her nerves and then turned into the third cubicle near where she had entered the wing. She shut the door. Thinking fast, she grabbed a pair of scissors, a nail gun, two stacks of sticky notes, a pack of cigarettes, and a lighter, shoving them into various pockets. Erika found a plastic bag with the original occupant’s lunch in it and emptied the contents, standing on a chair and wrapping the bag over the smoke detector. She then used the sticky notes to hold it in place.

She shoved two cigarettes into her mouth and lit them, her anxiety melting away with the smoke. Erika took two long puffs. Real tobacco. Illegal for generations but still could be had at a premium, which this sect could obviously afford. Erika took both the cigarettes in her index and middle finger of her left hand, massaging her temple with her right. She needed a plan. Her first thought was to cause a diversion by burning down the office, but with two sets of guards having seen her, that was not going to work.

"Ma'am! We've been ordered to empty the building. Please come out." She could hear in the hallway.

Erika cursed and took a few more puffs of the cigarettes, dumping them on the ground and stomping on them. Spotting the original occupant’s purse, she emptied it onto the table and shoved the office supplies into them, heading out into the hall. Outside, the amount of people had swelled to the point that the line was backed two flights of stairs up to the third floor where she was. Erika bit her lip, thinking of the next step.

***

YF continued along the alleys near the entrance, finishing up on the last one very close to the gate. Suddenly, his camera flashed red as a laser passed over the drone. YF hovered his thumbs over the controller, the drone coming to a halt. When the light did not return, he proceeded as close to the wall as he could without dragging the drone’s armor against the metal. He reached an area he had not yet scanned, hesitated a few seconds, and then activated the scanner.

“Halt!” a robotic voice called out. “Transmit network MAC address!”

YF knew he was not going to do that. He pressed down on the accelerator button and steered the drone as fast as he could further to the edge of the compound, the sectarian drone following close behind in the rear camera.

“I will respond with live fire in five seconds!”

YF pressed harder on the controller but his drone would not move any faster.

“...three...two...one!”

***

Multiple alarms from the headquarters building joined in the blaring from outside, throwing everyone inside into a panic. People started pushing to get through, with the guards waving their batons to push people back.

A large man at the front of the lobby shoved a guard out of the way. "Don't you see we're under attack? Get out of the fucking way!"

Another guard pulled out his pistol, pointing it at the large man. "Mountain Master's orders. I'm sorry."

“You’re going to point your gun at a senior?” the large man demanded.

“Brother, if it’s orders from the oyabun, then yes.”

The building then went dark, causing Erika to take a step back. Then, a burst of machine gun fire could be heard in the nearby area outside. The sound broke any last strand of order remaining among the sectarians, the large man and those behind him shoving the guards to the ground and charging through the front door. Erika grabbed the nail gun — which looked like an enforcer’s standard issue weapon — from the purse and used it to point to the offices she had just emerged from. "Come on brothers! Time to give the bastards some lead!"

"Huuahhh!!"

All those gathered on the third floor followed her through the office and out to the exterior exits where the confused guards immediately stepped aside to let them through. Once outside, Erika shoved the bag into her coat in case the owner was nearby. She then took out her receiver and sent the recording along with a short message as a surface transmission to YF.

***

YF received the transmission. “Check on Domon-doori. I will make it there eventually,” it said.

The drone that had followed YF’s had been downed by some sort of enemy fire, something that alarmed him but that he did not have time to think about. YF typed in “Domon-doori” to the navigation and then drove toward there as fast as he could, at this point not worried about who or what could spot him. The path took him to the very edge of the ward; the further he went, the more the shouts and sounds of gunfire faded. When he arrived, the street had an eerie red glow coming from the windows. YF turned on the scanner, which detected a long underground path that led to the edge of the scanner range. As he drove forward, the scanner kept indicating that there was more to the tunnel.

It was only then that he started to notice in the rear camera that all of the windows had kneeling cushions and tea tables in them. All of them were devoid of mannequins or other props that were typical for shop display decorations. After passing more of the windows, YF came to a realization on what sort of place it was.

“This...this is a block for working girls.”