TRIGGER: CH 17

Chapter 17

Morning comes earlier than he had expected - an urgent call had come in in the early hours of the day. It struck him as strange at first, it's rare for his unit to have more than one cases in a row considering his unit only handles special cases. He stepped into the office that morning and was greeted by the rare sight of his teammates already in with high alert.

As always, they gathered inside the meeting room facing Rian as she prepares the materials.

"Since everyone is here so I'll get started on our latest issue." A few taps on the laptop and the desktop is projected onto the screen behind her. "Earlier this morning we received a strange e-mail from a mysterious figure simply signed as 'X'." Quickly, she pulls up the offending email onto the projected screen. "And as all of you notice, it is referring to the event that will be held later this month."

 

He didn’t know what he expected to hear the first thing in the urgent morning meeting, but it’s probably not this. The content of the e-mail surprised him quite a bit – not because of its nature, but rather the specific content. He was keen in not taking what he said without prior check (though following the first case, at least he knows the man wasn’t just messing around with him). He did hint at this exact thing some nights ago.

 

 

"Are you still up?"

"..Yeah, barely." After that, he almost got knocked out and he thought the last time was already bad enough. And this man has the audacity to ask that question. Thank goodness he has a long weekend ahead.

Heavy silence follows. The room is dark as always save for the bed lights illuminating the place in dim, warm colour. Ryuga glances to the man sitting beside him, trying to gauge his expression in the dim lit environment. Seconds later those eyes land on him.

"What?"

Ryuga blinks, similarly trying to make sense of what is going on in his own brain. "Nothing." A lie. There is something, but he can't make it out yet. His current thoughts feels ridiculous enough to him that he ought to ignore it altogether.

The man leans down to partially hover above him. "Why? Not enough?" A suggestive smirk follows the question.

Breaking the eye contact, Ryuga looks off to the other side, sighing. "You are really insatiable. Don't you think of anything else?" Taxes maybe. He probably ignores those things, considering how shady his primary business is.

"I try not to when you're around."

Sighing again, this man is really a lost cause. Ryuga decides to drop the argument there. He's already too exhausted to deal with anything else more complicated than breathing. The vague pressure above him gradually disappears as the man returns to his previous position.

 

"Say, do you know anything about the convention at the end of this month?"

Convention?  "No. Well, nothing more than what they advertised. Why?"

Jinga hums in reply. The pause takes longer than needed and it grates on his nerves quite a bit.

"I see. Okay then." The man opted to grab his phone from the stand next to him, checking it. The bright screen light illuminates his features. Ryuga frowns lightly when he caught a slight change in the other's expression.

"You might be getting some news later on that."

"News? What do you mean?"

The man simply glanced his way and smirked. "You'll know."

 

Though he wished that the man could be more specific about it.

 

But how did he know?

 

"An international event later this month, is it the international technological convention?"

"It is. And look at this-" She moved the cursor to highlight some point in the string of text. "Here it says - 'The event is merely a surface, a mask. It is suspected to be covering an illegal weapon trading fair.'"

"Hey, aren't that a little too wild? What level of accusations is that?" Takeru exclaimed. Ryuga silently agrees with him, it does sounds outrageous. "You sure this ain't just a prank or something?"

"That's what I thought too at first,-" Aguri spoke from the side. He himself had been busy on his laptop throughout the discussion. "-Until I tried tracing the e-mail."

"What happened?"

"Each and every time, it will lead me back to a dead address. Each attempt yields a different one, but they're all useless. As if someone is doing this on purpose and is trying to avoid being traced at all cost."

Rian picked back after him, "It certainly sounds like a prank message, but I don't think anyone would go that far just for one. Not to mention the message itself was encrypted and was sent directly to our private e-mail address."

So, too over the top to be real and too complicated to be considered a joke. "So, what should we do?"

Rian takes on a thoughtful expression over his question. "It's too risky to dive in without any knowledge, but it doesn't feel wise to let it be too. So far, I don't think the Main Division knows anything about this."

"Who's on duty for the convention? Surely they'd need security for such a huge event."

Aguri replies while scrolling through his phone to confirm. "The Main Division, naturally. And they won't call for us unless the situation worsens somehow."

Of course. Ryuga almost scoffed at that. They always leave the troubles to them. "Should we sneak in then? They wouldn't notice."

"Hah! They sure won't suspect a thing at all. I can do it." Takeru readily offers himself for the job, excitement clear on his features.

"Wait, it's too dangerous on your own. We don't know what to expect, anything can happen while you're out there."

"Then I'll go with him." His members attention shifted to him at his words. "There shouldn't be much to worry if it's the two of us together." Between the two of them, they can take anyone down.

Rian still seem unsure with worry lining her expression. Nevertheless, she decided to go through with it. "Fine, I'll take that. We should keep close contact with each other. Aguri, can you tap into their security system?"

"I'll try. Give me some time for it, I'll get to you once I'm in."

"Ok. Just keep in mind that this is not an official mission so if anything bad goes down, we might not get any help. Please, be very careful"

The rest of the team nodded in agreement, each of them wearing a grim expression. What they're trying to do is dangerous. However, they have no choice but to rely only on themselves. And for reasons they silently agreed on keeping this to themselves. By right they should report this kind of thing to the Main Division. But, after their last case, they collectively have lost their trust in the Main Division. For now it’s too dangerous to trust them.

 

One thing after another.

 

The rest of the day had continued in silence; the serious mood they started the day with never truly dissipate after that. Even when they're off to report to their original posts, they were unable to take their mind off the matter.

The rest of the team went of on their separate ways later then, but since he doesn’t have anywhere else he need to be, he end up going back to the office. This part of the place had always been rather quite (and dare he say, deserted) even though it’s not yet that late into the day.

(Seeing as the privacy of his house has more or less breached since then, this is just about the only place left for him to mull over things alone.)

He does have an inkling that the man holds an extensive communication network across the country (and perhaps out of it too). Nonetheless, it was spot on. Too spot on.

What else is he not telling him?

Speaking of the convention - it is an international event held every few years intending to showcase new inventions and technology. It's mostly a harmless event, that is as far as he knows; attracting many inventors and curious onlookers from both in and out of the country at the same time. Never before had anything strange were heard about it. So, to accuse of it being an illegal weapons trading ground is definitely a heavy one.

Illegal weapons. Hearing about it again makes him restless, just like with the raid that time. Then it ends up with him in his current predicament - affair - with that man. Now he's sure they aren't related at all, at least not in the way the Main Division assumed (but he knows that the man knows something more about it).

The long since unfinished case of illegal weapons ring was the original purpose and reason to why the unit is brought back. Since it’s closure, he had been silently chasing after it alone. It took him years to reactivate the old unit and bring his team together.

(Even to this day, he still can see that look on Burai’s face; a look of stern warning, with a hint of melancholy.)

For long nothing much ever came out of it. A block at each turn. It was frustrating. But something seems to be getting in motion since that day.

 

Looking back, it feels awfully convenient. Like it was pre-arranged.

 

Was it possibly a setup? A trap?

 

If so then, for who?