Some Teacher

(2.3) Arrest time!

"First of all, Tsuyo-san, why?" Karasuma asked tiredly.

"You can call me Fumei, Agent Karasuma." Fumei was in an interrogation room at the Ministry Of Defense headquarters, handcuffed to a table. Karasuma stood on the other side of the table, her interrogator. "I like to think we're friends."

"Why, kid?" It had only been a few minutes, but he was already thoroughly done with her.

"I don't know, I mean I like you well enough, old man." Fumei shrugged. "you're not even near as lame and uptight as everyone says."

"No, I mean wasn't hacking in once enough for you?" he clarified seriously. "Why would you do it again? You're on thin ice as it is."

"Research for a school project?" she answered, though it sounded more like a question.

"What sort of teacher lets you hack into a government database for a school project?" Karasuma plopped down in the chair, he could tell this was going to take a while.

"Well, he didn't say not to." Fumei shrugged again. "Don't I get a phone call or something, I should let Aunt Mae know I'll be late for dinner."

"What's the number?" He went to a landline phone on the wall with a sigh, and she recited the number. Once it started dialing, he handed her the phone.

"Hey Aunt Mae," she said when the woman answered. "I'm staying at Akemi's place tonight. Sorry for the short notice... yeah, you too... see you soon." Then she hung up.

"Fumei, this is your third federal offense." Karasuma frowned at her. "You might not be seeing her very soon at all."

"Well..." Fumei squinted at the table in thought. They had taken her sunglasses along with the rest of her belongings, and the room was really bright. "What was the second one?"

"The first time you hacked in," he answered, without hesitation.

"Well then what was the first one?" Fumei insisted.

"The break in," he responded again with equal certainty.

"That was five years ago, does that even still count?" complained Fumei as if it were ridiculous.

"You broke into the nuclear launch room." He pressed a few fingers to his temple, attempting to fight off the headache sitting across the table from him.

"Well yeah, but I just wanted to see if it actually looked like it does in the movies." She sunk down in her seat. "I wasn't gonna do anything."

"No matter how stupid the reason, you're still listed as a threat." His voice was low and serious. "You were just a kid the first time, and I barely managed to get you out of it the second time, but you could be locked up for good this time. Three strikes, and you're out Fumei."

"Or..." Fumei suggested, lifting her eyebrows hopefully, "three strikes and I finally get that job I've been asking for." He continued to frown at her. "I never was all that good at basketball."

"That's a baseball metaphor," he stated humorlessly.

"Is that the one where you can't touch the ball with your hands?" she asked.

"I can't tell if you're joking or not." She cracked a smile, and he sighed. "We can't employ someone with a federal offense on their record, forget three. Not to mention you're a child."

"You had a whole class of middle-schoolers working for you once," she whined. "I'm older than they were."

"You're not supposed to know about that," he replied coldly. "And those were unusual circumstances."

"Aw, come on," she complained. "You know what they say: 'hacking into a database you thought was secure after you re-secured from the last time they hacked in is the greatest form of flattery.'"

"You make a compelling argument." He rolled his eyes.

"Wait!" Fumei shot forward in her seat, wide-eyed. "Did... did you just make a joke‽"

"Fumei, there's nothing I can do this time." Karasuma told her. "You're going to get put away."

"Woah, wait!" Fumei said, in a last-ditch effort. "How about a deal?"

"Depends on the deal." He eyed her, intrigued.

"I'll modify your database to be unhackable," she offered. "I'll sign a confidentiality agreement, and keep all your secrets. And in return, you let me go."

"You are one of exactly three people to hack in during the past ten years," Karasuma told her. "Another was Ritsu. And the third one took over two weeks to do what you did in, what, a day? You really think they'll let you protect their system from yourself."

"Well... maybe?" Karasuma sighed.

"I'll pitch it to the higher-ups, but I wouldn't count on that pulling through," he told her.

"Thank you, Agent Karasuma." He nodded, and left her alone in the room, handcuffed to the table.

—

A few hours later, when Karasuma returned, she was asleep. He slammed his hand down on the table and she woke abruptly. "They want to know how long it would take you."

"Hm, what?" she groaned rubbed her eyes, which was difficult with her hands bound. "What time is it?"

"About two a.m," he replied. "How long will it take you to fix the database."

"Uuuuhhhhh..." she thought for a moment, waiting for her brain to wake up. "Two months maybe."

"Two months‽" Karasuma sounded surprised, which with his vocal range was a feat all on its own. "How long did it take you to get in?"

"About nine hours," she said, doing the math in her head. "But hacking in isn't the same as building new security from the ground up. In order to get in this last time I had to virtually disintegrate your previous security. If you have a backup of it you can put it back in place, but if you don't, you've been pretty much the most hackable private database on earth."

"We reinstalled it," Karasuma confirmed.

"Good, if I can get a copy of that, I could probably be done in half the time," she said. With a nod, Karasuma left again, and Fumei went back to sleep.

—

"It took some talking but—" Karasuma announced as he entered the room once more, only to find Fumei passed out again. "Hey! Wake up!" She snapped her head up, eyes heavy with sleep. "It took some talking, but they've agreed to your suggestion. All you have to do is sign this contract."

He produced a nine-or-ten page document. It was an agreement that she would rebuild/improve their online security, and also that she would not discuss anything she had already learned, or anything that she would learn while working on the project. She read through the whole thing, taking careful note of each rule, and each loophole. Finally, she signed it.

"I have to go to school," she said when she handed it back. "And I need my stuff back, especially my laptop. Is that gonna happen, or nah?"

"Of course." Karasuma un-cuffed her, and led her down a hallway and into a huge garage. Fumei sat in a black van where her things were brought to her; included among them was a list of passwords so she could complete her work. Finally, she was driven off by a man who absolutely refused to speak to her, no matter how hard she tried to strike up a conversation.