Lonely Thieves

Act II, Part IX

Norah's Side (April 9, 10:30pm)

Norah and Daryl sat in silence as they drove through the Lunar district. Since Norah had abandoned her car once they entered the Lunar district, the two of them were using a rental car that Ingrid Hayasaka had provided to them. Norah grumbled idly as she fiddled with the dashboard while the car cruised on auto-drive.

"Damn," she muttered irritably. "The wireless in this car is messed up."

It may not have been all that important, but Norah was trying to distract herself from the fact that the two of them were not the only people in this car. Physically, that was correct, but both of them currently had not only trackers, but listening devices placed on their persons by Ingrid Hayasaka, who was now listening to their every word. They were unable to even cough without the security captain hearing them, so they were wary about saying anything too incriminating.

"This is a pretty old model," Daryl observed idly. "The system might be broken from overuse."

"Well, that sucks," Norah grumbled. "Can't believe they gave us this dump of a car."

That was a rather pointed complaint directed straight at Ingrid. The two of them continued to drive through the district until they arrived at the warehouse zone where Kolya's safehouse was located. Norah parked the car by the curb and walked past rows of storage containers and lockers until they arrived at the locker in question. Norah nervously walked up to one of the storage lockers and rapped on the door.

"Password?" demanded a young voice from behind the door.

"Morning glory," Norah whispered back. The door rattled for a second before springing open to reveal a young man, who seemed surprised to see the two of them standing there.

"Who are you?" he asked warily.

"We're friends," Norah answered. "Kolya sent us here to help out."

Megumi glanced up from her seat to see the new guests. "Oh, it's you guys."

The two of them walked into the room and marveled at the safehouse Kolya had set up.

"This place is pretty well-built," Daryl observed. "But is it gonna be able to house all of us like this?"

"It's a little cramped, but it should be fine," the young man replied. "Some people will have to sleep on the floor, but we have sleeping bags. My name's Hikaru, by the way."

"Hikaru? I'm Daryl, and this is Norah. How'd you get mixed up in all of this?"

"I'm a friend of Megumi. Don't worry, you can trust me. I wouldn't do anything that'd get Megumi in trouble."

The group continued to make idle chat as Norah examined the safehouse warily. Unconsciously, she felt herself fingering the tracker attached to the lining of her coat pocket. Thanks to them, this safehouse was now exposed to Hayasaka Security, and they could be captured at any time.

However, Hayasaka Security would not make any such moves. While recovering the necklace was important, their main goal was uncovering the client who had posted the Night Hunt in the first place. Raiding the safehouse now and securing the necklace would help, but it would kill their only lead towards finding the client.

Of course, Norah had no idea as to how they were going to do that. They told them nothing about their plan, only to stay close to the thief with the necklace. They did, however, make it clear that they would be watching to make sure they didn't try to escape. Any funny moves, and the brunt of Hayasaka Security's forces would move in on them in an instant. It sort of sounded like a bluff, but Norah really didn't want to risk calling it.

"Do you still have the emerald necklace, Megumi?" Daryl asked innocently. Norah wondered about Daryl's intentions. He mentioned that he wasn't planning on cooperating with the people from Hayasaka, but what did he plan on doing? He was a rank amateur who lucked into helping out Megumi, and he didn't seem to have any plan in mind either. Still, that also made him unpredictable. She had no idea what he could end up doing, and that made her wary of him.

Megumi answered Daryl's question by meekly lifting the necklace out of her jacket pocket. Daryl nodded and scratched his chin for a moment. "Are you still planning on trying to turn the necklace into the client?"

Megumi didn't answer, and her expression clearly showed that she was conflicted. That was interesting, considering she was pretty adamant about turning it in before. Did something change since they were gone?

"What's wrong?" Daryl asked. "Did something happen?"

"It's a little complicated," explained Hikaru. "You guys will probably want to take a seat."

Norah and Daryl did as he said, and Hikaru spent some time explaining what they had learned since they had separated from Megumi. He began with how the two had met Kolya, and how they came to live at this safehouse. After that, he explained that they had learned that the secret behind the necklace was evidence that could ruin all three of the Great Families. Norah was stunned to learn that the necklace was merely camouflage for a flash drive, let alone that it contained that kind of information. No wonder Tom Hayasaka was so desperate to get this necklace back.

"That's a pretty shocking revelation," Daryl muttered aloud. "I knew that the necklace was probably hiding something crazy, but nothing like this."

"Can we really turn in such a dangerous thing?" Norah asked nervously. "I mean, who the hell knows what this guy plans to do with it, right?"

"That's what we're worried about," Hikaru replied. "I mean, we're really sitting on a massive bombshell here."

The four of them sat in silence for a while as they considered their options. Norah, of course, was considering another thing: whether or not she was going to betray them to Hayasaka Security. Like Daryl, she had never planned on being completely cooperative with them, but she wouldn't count it out. If working with the Hayasakas was the most beneficial option to her, then that would be what she was going to do.

What was the best option here, though? If she exposed whatever Tom Hayasaka was hiding, they might be too occupied to chase after her. Or alternatively, they would send as many people as they could to take her out in retribution for letting that information out. Actually, doing anything aside from handing the necklace over to the Hayasakas seemed entirely ill-advised. Sure, it might sound cathartic to take the Three Great Families down a peg, but was it really worth it to lose her peace of mind? She certainly couldn't stay in Twilight, that was for sure.

She glanced at Daryl. He was probably still thinking of trying to get out of this without letting Hayasaka Security get ahold of the emerald necklace. That was impossible. In the first place, Hayasaka Security had already found this safehouse, and even if they left, their presence alone would allow Ingrid to track them no matter where they went. Of course, Daryl could split off and attempt to lead them astray, but the moment he was figured out, he'd be arrested again. There was no way out for him, unless he somehow had a plan.

It didn't seem like that was the case, considering his troubled expression. She was sure he had his hands full just trying to wrap his head around the whole situation. It was no use arguing things. The best option was to cooperate with Hayasaka Security and track down the client. How should she do that, though?

As she was thinking about this, she heard a beeping sound emit from an old radio placed in the back of the room. Hikaru got up and went to check on it.

"What's that?" Norah asked Megumi.

"Apparently, this safehouse can block most radio signals," Megumi explained. "But that's a little inconvenient for us, since we can't receive calls or access the internet here. However, this radio still uses shortwave, meaning we can communicate without being visible on the grid. That's what Kolya said anyway."

Momentarily, Norah worried about Ingrid Hayasaka's reaction to her and Daryl's trackers disappearing. They might decide to abandon the plan and rush the location. No, they might have been able to tell by the conversation beforehand that they might have entered a place that cut off wireless signals. Well, there was nothing she could do about it now.

"It's a message from Kolya," Hikaru explained. "He's saying that we should probably leave the safehouse soon. Looks like there's trouble."

"But where to?" Daryl asked. "We don't have any other safehouses to go to."

"I couldn't tell you, either. It might be better to just leave for now, though."

"Alright."

The four of them quickly gathered their things and left the warehouse. They climbed into Norah's rental car and drove off.

"Is this safe?" Daryl wondered. "If Overman catches sight of us, we'll be easy to catch."

"What can we do, though?" Hikaru asked. "It's not like we have another car, right?"

"Actually, we do," Norah remarked. "My car that we had to abandon when running away from Overman Security should be nearby. If it hasn't been impounded, we can use that."

"Use it? How?"

"We'll split up. Two of us will go one way, and the other two will go another way. We don't know what the threat is, but if we're in smaller groups, we'll be harder to find."

Hikaru mused over the options in his head. "For now, let's go get Norah's car. We'll make the decision afterwards."

Norah nodded and drove off to the area where she remembered leaving the car. It took some searching, but eventually they found the car still parked against the curb.

"Now that I think about it, why did you get a rental car?" Megumi wondered. "I mean, couldn't you just come back here if you needed a car?"

"It was too dangerous, and at the time, we couldn't risk going back. The rental car is a waste, but it was the safest option at the time."

Megumi seemed to buy that lie. Norah's lying skills had definitely improved during her time as a private eye.

Norah took out her remote and unlocked the car. It still worked; looks like no one came by to tamper with the car or anything like that. She turned around and nodded. "We're good. Let's split up. Megumi, you should come with me."

"What? Why? I thought I'd go with Hikaru."

"Sorry, Megumi, but I don't have a license," Hikaru admitted. "And I'm not willing to try driving for the very first time while on the run."

"Looks like it's either me or Daryl. Who do you want to go with?"

"...Okay. Let's just go then."

Daryl seemed like he wanted to say something as he eyed her suspiciously. But it looked like he wasn't going to attempt to stop her either. Instead, he took the keys to the rental car and got back in with Hikaru. Megumi got into Norah's car and the two cars drove away. Norah eyed the Overman patrols on the street as she drove slowly to avoid suspicion.

"Looks like they're not as vigilant as they were last night," she observed. "Still, I've got no idea where we should go to hide. What about you?"

"The Horizon district."

"The Horizon district? Is there a place we can hide there?"

"Perhaps," Megumi answered. "The old orphanage I was raised in should still be there."