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Reigen had been driving long enough to watch the sun creep up on the horizon and splatter grey-orange light on the dashboard of the used car.
The car rattled under his feet as it went over another bump in the road. Reigen drummed his fingers on the steering wheel and flicked his eyes to his rearview mirror for the hundredth time. The road stretched out empty and endless behind him, but the nerves that grabbed at him refused to relax their hold. He had to pull off soon. As soon as he hit a gas station.
As soon as the thought formed, a fluorescent sign popped up over the horizon with gas prices printed in large characters. Reigen bit at his nails and pulled in. He opened the door to climb out, but stopped and hastily shucked off the lab coat he was still wearing. After flinging it and the ID still clipped to the coat’s lapel into the passenger seat, he got out.
He filled the tank and then went inside to pay and peruse the array of gas station food. Eventually, he settled on two energy drinks, a pack of cigarettes, a bag of sugary looking pastries that he didn’t stop to analyze the exact contents of, and a milk carton. A bored cashier rang him up while Reigen avoided the blinking eye of the security camera. He paid in cash, then pushed back out again into the early morning.
The clouds were beginning to turn a violent red. Reigen ducked his head and walked quickly to his car, climbing into the driver’s seat. He dumped the bag on top of the lab coat and snapped the door shut.
Taking a deep breath, Reigen pressed his long fingers into his face. Then he said, “oi, Mob. Wake up, I got food.”
In the rearview mirror, a pale face topped with short black hair appeared. Mob blinked slowly. From his face, Reigen doubted he had slept at all, just laid still and silent on the floorboard of the car like he had been told to do.
-
The job offer came unexpectedly, in the wake of Reigen’s self inflicted disgrace via academic paper.
Reigen found it while shuffling through a mass of letters from former professors, classmates, and coworkers, all of which contained mostly the same content- just retract your paper, and you can have your old job back. You know parapsychology isn’t a real science, don’t you? Don’t waste your future. Reigen had gotten tired of reading the same three points after the fifteenth letter, so he had taken to just throwing them in a growing pile next to the trashcan.
This letter almost met the same fate, until the unfamiliar logo caught his eye. Reigen pulled it out of the stack and the flung the rest aside. Leaning against the counter, he slid his thumb along the edge until the envelope opened. He pulled free crisp white paper from the envelope and shook it until it unfolded.
The same logo was printed neatly on the top corner- a small red triangle with a character inside. CLAW Foundation. It was, Reigen decided, an unnecessarily ominous acronym. He skimmed the contents until the word ‘position’ registered, then went back to the top.
Dear Dr. Reigen,
My name is Dr. Suzuki Touichirou, and I am reaching out to you concerning your recent paper concerning extrasensory perception and a possible methodology for strengthening it. I know from experience that you have probably received a fair amount of backlash from this paper, but I assure you that I am not a naysayer.
CLAW Foundation is a government division focused on the study of parapsychology, and we found your research to be extremely interesting. We are willing to offer you a position studying subjects similar to the one in your paper. I believe you’ll find the work we do here to be quite intriguing.
I’ve included ways to contact our organization. If you are interested, please come to Seasoning City for a tour of one of our facility.
Dr. Suzuki Touichirou
CLAW Foundation Director
It was a letter designed to stroke Reigen’s ego- he wasn’t really a doctor, for starters. Reigen was far too young to have a PhD. But the fact that this foundation apparently liked the paper enough to try to flatter Reigen was interesting. And at the moment, Reigen had no funding, no job, and no prospects. He flipped the page to find more details.
The projected salary printed on the job description made him reach for his phone.
-
“You know,” Reigen said, twitching the steering wheel to recenter the car in the road, “I’m risking a lot for this whole rescue mission. Professionally, I mean. I’m definitely going to lose my job over this. You could at least say thank you.”
The only response was the rustle of plastic as Mob carefully removed a pastry from its wrapper. He stared at it in apparent fascination before beginning to meticulously take it apart. Its interior revealed a red filling. He sniffed it.
“You’re supposed to eat it, not dissect it,” Reigen muttered. “Ah, shit.” He swerved around a rock in the road. The movement flung Mob along the backseat, and he ended up pressed against the window. “Wear your seatbelt.”
Mob gradually pushed away from the window, but any interest in obeying Reigen’s command was quickly forgotten due to the existence of outside. He pressed his nose against the window again, eyes round as he watched the green countryside speed past. Reigen forced his attention on the road, away from the reminder of why he was doing this.
-
Reigen ended up taking the job. In a way, it was almost disappointing- he had expected himself to go out in a dramatic blaze of glory as his colleagues watched his professional suicide. Instead he ended up with a much better better paying job in a strange new city. But the result was almost the same- Reigen simply vanished from his old life into a new one.
He spent most of his days tracking brain patterns of would-be psychic volunteers with graphs and diagrams and dodging the scrutiny of his coworkers. It was a carousel of bizarre characters- Dr. Sakurai, intense and apparently displeased with Reigen’s general existence, Dr. Terada, ingratiating and obviously scheming at all times, Dr. Ishiguro, his bizarre superior… The list went on and on. Reigen did his best to keep his head down. The opportunity to fill the holes in his social life was obvious, but more obvious was that this probably wasn’t the best place to start.
Overall, though, it was disappointing. Reigen would have thought that with its government funding, the foundation, dedicated to the study of psychics- or espers, as they chose to call them- would have turned up something. A few of the volunteers could almost pick up the thoughts of others, or predict what card was hidden with unusual accuracy- but nothing was the astonishing phenomena that Reigen had always wanted.
He didn’t get it until three months into the job, when he met Director Suzuki.
-
They drove for another few hours as the sun continued to climb in the sky. Reigen watched the road streak by, faster and faster but still not fast enough. But impossibly, the high noise of police sirens began to whine behind him.
“Shh-” Reigen tensed and glanced over his shoulder, to see the police car behind him and no one else. The air pressure in the car increased in warning. He said quickly, “it’s okay. Just a police officer.”
Mob stared wide eyed at him, hair beginning to shift around his head in tendrils. Reigen turned on his lights and forced his body language into relaxation, hoping that Mob would mirror it. “I just got a little startled, it’s nothing to worry about, probably a routine traffic stop. Just keep quiet and I’ll get us out of this.”
Quiet wouldn’t be a problem, at least. Mob pressed his lips together and gradually, the pressure lessened in the car. Reigen eyed him and the police car in his rearview mirror, trying to see him through the eyes of someone who knew nothing about him. Just a plain looking kid in a bright red jacket, yellow t shirt and overalls that were too short for his beginning to be lanky legs, and no shoes- Reigen had not been able to convince him to wear shoes. He turned the car off and, too late, remembered the lab coat still visible on the passenger seat. The police officer knocked on the window. Reigen plastered an amicable, vaguely puzzled expression on his face, and rolled down the window.
The police officer looked about as tired as Reigen felt. He scrubbed at his eye with the back of his hand and said, “do you know why I pulled you over?”
Reigen did. “No, sir,” he said brightly.
Suppressing a yawn, the officer said, “you were up in the nineties in a eighty kilometer speed limit area.” He flicked a piece of paper on his notepad and began writing. “Can I get your documents?”
“Sure thing,” Reigen said. “I’ll get them out of the glove compartment.” He leaned across the seat, casually pushing his lab coat to the floor as he opened the compartment.
It was while he was pawing through the glove compartment that he heard the officer say, “oh- hello.”
Reigen managed to keep from freezing immediately, instead pulling the proper documents out. He turned again to see, as he had feared, the officer staring at Mob gone stiff in the backseat. “Ah, don’t mind him,” Reigen said, painfully aware that his voice was too loud, “my nephew. He’s a nervous type. Good kid, though.” He offered the documents to the officer, pulse pounding in his wrist.
After a few distracted moments, the officer took them. “Where are you two off to, then?” He asked, skimming the contents of the papers.
“Just a day trip out to the country,” Reigen said. “My sister wants him out of the house and away from the tv.” The fiction was believable, at least- Mob fit the profile of a recluse easily, with his sun-starved skin and endless silence.
“Coming from Seasoning City?”
There wasn’t any other plausible answer, so after a too long pause, Reigen said, “yep.” He kept his fingers from tightening on the steering wheel, but he could feel in his bones the sickening pressure radiating out from the backseat.
The officer hummed and nodded. “I’ll just run these through, then. Shouldn’t take long.” He turned his attention to Mob once more, and said, in the irritating tone that adults that didn’t know anything about children used, “You and your uncle will be out of here in no time- no worries, sport.” He hovered for a moment, waiting for a response. Mob stared mutely at him. Nervously, he broke eye contact, then shuffled back to his car.
Reigen waited, then said quietly, “this sort of thing happens all the time, Mob. No reason to worry.”
He could hear it- the nigh unnoticeable whine from the car speakers, caused by the beginning of a meltdown. Maybe this was too much, too fast. But there wasn’t a better way to do it. Reigen tapped his foot, the only sign of agitation he afforded himself. The officer was taking too long. No, it was just Reigen’s paranoia. But he was taking too long.
-
“Dr. Reigen,” Suzuki said, “you must be bored of all this.”
It was not the response Reigen had been expecting from his presentation- he stalled mid word and turned back to look at his slide comparing the brain activity of two test subjects. “I,” he began, torn between not wanting to contradict his boss and not wanting to tell his boss that his job was boring. “What makes you think that?” A deflection would at least give him time to measure what Suzuki wanted.
“I certainly know I would be,” Suzuki said, resting his head his tented fingers. “Comparing brain scans of a subject who can’t much to a subject who can’t do anything.” His iron gaze focused entirely on Reigen, blocking out the other scientists who were beginning to shift in their seats.
Reigen managed to keep from wiping his now sweating palms on his pants. His first impression with the foundation’s director was going poorly- Suzuki had dropped in unannounced early that morning. It had thrown the whole facility into a panic. Reigen had been surprised, though, when Suzuki had made a point of wanting to see his research. “Well, brain activity has always been an interest of mine,” Reigen said, “so perhaps it’s not quite as dull to me as it is to you. I apologize for not making my presentation more, ah, lively.”
“You misunderstand, Dr. Reigen. I’m not blaming you for this.” He gestured to the slide projected on the far side of the room. “I simply regret that you haven’t been given sufficient access to test subjects.”
No one had anything to say to that. Reigen scanned the faces of the scientists in the room, who were all very specifically not looking at Reigen or Suzuki.
“Dr. Ishiguro,” Suzuki said abruptly. “What clearance level has Dr. Reigen been given?”
Ishiguro coughed from behind his mask- something Reigen had never been sure was medical or not. “C Clearance, sir.”
“I’m taking him to A Clearance,” Suzuki said. This had quite the effect- half the room erupted into murmurs that were quickly swallowed down. Ishiguro immediately had a coughing fit. Sakurai had no visible reaction, besides his hand on the desk tightening into a white knuckled fist. Suzuki stood. “Nothing interesting is happening in this meeting. Dr. Reigen, come with me.”
-
In his peripheral vision, Reigen watched the police officer walk up to his window again. He looked much more awake now. That was probably a bad sign.
“Are you aware, Dr. Reigen,” he said, which was a very bad sign, “that there’s a warrant out for your arrest?”
The speaker’s whine was now much more audible. Reigen forced a laugh. It sounded too nervous for his liking. “Sorry, what? That can’t be right.”
“Wanted for theft,” the officer said, obviously repeating the exact words of the warrant, “of a highly hazardous experiment from a government facility. Does that sound more correct?"
Even though in this moment it was ludicrous, Reigen still felt the knee-jerk anger at the officer’s words. Of course, theft of an experiment. It must have flickered across his face, because the officer’s frown deepened. “I’m going to need you to step out of the car,” he said.
Reigen didn’t even have time to formulate a response, because at that moment the car exploded.
Time slowed around him, and he saw the metal around him rupture and peel apart, before flying out from around them. The driver car door slammed into the officer, sending him across of the road, and the force of the door’s sudden absence sent Reigen flat on his back. He narrowly avoided cracking his skull on the armrest.
A small hand seized his arm, and Reigen said, “I’m okay,” even though he wasn’t certain that was the case. His ears were ringing from the noise of the car being ripped to pieces, but he still sat up. The interior of the car was mostly intact, but the frame had been shucked free of its metal, scattered in pieces on the road around him.
His gaze focused on Mob, who was wild eyed and barely shaking. Telltale signs that he was traveling far away from reality. Reigen placed his hands on his shoulders in a careful movement. “You’re all right, okay, Mob? It’s fine. We’re both fine. Take a deep breath.” He demonstrated, and after a few moments, Mob’s chest rose as well.
After determining that Mob wasn’t going to destroy the rest of the car and then the world, Reigen climbed out of the wreckage, steadying himself on a stray piece of metal framing. He crossed the road to where the police officer was pinned under the door. The asphalt had cracked in a spiderweb underneath him. After steeling himself, Reigen bent to check his pulse. Still alive. There was that, at least.
“Mob,” he said. “The car. Really? We needed that.”
“Sorry, Dr. Reigen,” Mob said, quiet and embarrassed. The atmosphere still buzzed and sang with psychic energy.
-
Reigen followed Suzuki out of the room- as soon as the door slammed shut behind him, he could hear the explosion of chatter behind the door. “Director Suzuki,” he said, hurrying to keep up with his long stride, “where are we going?”
“To the only thing worthwhile in this division,” Suzuki said. “It’s what I wanted you working on in the first place. No one I’ve put on it has made any breakthroughs.” He huffed a short, irritated breath. “But I suppose the only way to make people do what I want is to come down here myself.”
Reigen wondered if after extended absences, Suzuki grew less terrifying- it was the only way Reigen could ever dream of contradicting him. He followed Suzuki silently through door after door, into corridors Reigen hadn’t known existed. Suzuki waved his ID over card reader after card reader, until they finally walked through the entrance of an observation room.
Inside was one of the scientists that Suzuki had brought with him- a large, nervous looking man with thick curly hair and an unshaven face, standing near the glass that they always watched the experiments through. Reigen remembered him because he had immediately identified that he sweated just as much as Reigen did. “Ah, Dr. Suzuki,” he said, straightening out at the sight of him. “And uh-“ at the sight of Reigen, a fresh sheen of sweat broke out on his forehead. “Um-“
“Dr. Serizawa,” Suzuki said, “is experiment 100 here?”
“Y-yes,” Serizawa said, stepping aside as Suzuki approached the window. Reigen trailed behind as Serizawa continued to babble. “He’s been waiting for your arrival. We set up the trial- all the equipment’s in place-"
Reigen looked through the glass. There was a small boy with short black hair and an untroubled face, dressed in a thin hospital gown with pants. Wires coated him, stretching out in a spiderweb on the floor. He sat, unnervingly still, in a plain metal chair that was positioned behind what appeared to be a giant slab of concrete. Reigen couldn’t begin to hazard what it weighed, but it was taller than he was and twice as wide.
“100,” Suzuki said, thumb pressed down on an intercom button. The boy inside lifted his head a fraction. “Can you hear me?” Reigen watched as he nodded. “Good. Without touching it, lift the object in front of you.”
Reigen opened his mouth in protest, but shut it again when Suzuki looked at him out of the corner of his eye. The boy slipped off the chair and blinked slowly at the concrete. Then he raised his hand, and the concrete lifted off the floor. For a second before it was obscured, Reigen saw the number 100 tattooed on the palm of his hand.
“Good,” Suzuki said, ignoring the noise of surprise that Reigen was unable to suppress. “Now destroy it.”
A long crack clawed up the side of the concrete, and then it exploded. The pieces hung suspended in air around the boy, face still smooth as glass. Below Reigen’s fingers, the monitors beeped and charted in wild patterns, unlike anything he had ever seen before.
Suzuki removed his hand from the intercom and turned to Reigen. “Interesting enough for you?”
-
With Reigen’s direction, Mob cleared the debris from the road. After some internal debate, Reigen had him move the police officer to the side of the road- still visible, so that when someone eventually came along he could get help. Then he pulled the police officer’s keys out of his pocket and shuffled Mob into the cop car, along with the suitcases Reigen had crammed in the backseat.
Static crackled, and before the dispatcher could get a word out, Reigen turned off the communicator. “We have to get away from here fast as possible,” Reigen said. “If he told dispatch where he was, they’ll be coming here to find us.” He twisted the key in the ignition of the car. “Not far from our first stop, okay, Mob?”
This wasn’t exactly true, but Reigen wasn’t going to go speeding merrily through the countryside with a stolen cop car. After some analysis of the map he’d printed out, he changed the itinerary to include a small town close by.
Mob became quickly absorbed in the police car’s interior- his usual self discipline managed to keep him from touching anything, but he stared so searchingly at the buttons at the dashboard he might as well have hit them all. It kept him occupied, at least. Reigen drove for two hours before they got close to the town. Then he pulled the cop car off until it was far enough off the road to be hidden.
“Well, Mob, we’re going to walk from here,” Reigen announced as he climbed out of the car. “Which means, unless you want to tear up your feet, you’re going to have to put on shoes.”
Mob, who had climbed out on the opposite side, snapped around to look at him. He was frowning so intently Reigen had to bite back a laugh. “Come on, you see me wearing them, don’t you?” Reigen said, sticking a foot out and wiggling it. “They’re not so bad, I promise.”
After a few more minutes of cajoling, Mob was persuaded to put on the chunky white sneakers. Reigen was privately relieved when they fit. Before Mob could hesitate over the laces, he stooped to tie them for him. “You remember the rules I told you?” He asked. “For when we get into town?”
“Don’t talk to people,” Mob said, working through the words carefully. “Stay with you. Don’t use my powers.”
“Good,” Reigen said, standing up again. “Let’s get going.”
-
EXPERIMENT #100 CASE FILE
Reigen squinted at the thick manila folder, then threw it down on his desk with a noise of disgust.
The file that he had pulled, was, indeed, about the boy who Reigen had seen do the impossible. And it was full of information- descriptions of abilities far beyond what Reigen had dared to dream was possible, past experiments, growth charts, treatment plans. His twelve years of life had been carefully dissected and put on display in this file. But it still hadn’t answered most of Reigen’s questions.
Like, for example, what the kid’s name was.
Reigen pinched the bridge of his nose, trying to dismiss his growing unease as a headache. Then he scraped the file back together and pushed his chair back. He pushed out his office door and past a collection of volunteers, recognizable by the black outfits they were all given. Reigen did his best not to make eye contact. Taking long steps, he followed the labyrinthine paths of hallways to the facilities that his new ID gave him access to. The file had done one helpful thing, at least- told him where his new subject of study was.
After waving his ID in front of a series of readers, Reigen came to a final door. It was surprisingly unassuming- just another black door with a small plaque on the wall beside it. EXPERIMENT 100 was printed in neat white characters, stark against the black sign. Reigen swiped his ID again. The reader beeped green, and the lock clicked. Reigen fumbled briefly with the card, then turned the door’s handle.
He didn’t know what he had expected, but the blindingly plain white room was somehow unsurprising and very wrong at the same time. Blinking in the fluorescent lights, Reigen took in the space. All he could really process was the padded walls and narrow bed that looked like it belonged in a hospital, with the kid perched on the flat mattress. His knees were brought up to his chest. His face was still blank, but his fingers tightened their hold on himself.
“Don’t worry,” Reigen said, “I’m just here to introduce myself. Not to make you do another boring experiment.” He offered a hand, and the boy leaned back, frowning at the outstretched fingers. It hung there limply for a moment, before Reigen pushed on. “Dr. Reigen,” he said. “I’ve just been assigned to work with you, so I figured I’d learn a bit more about you.” He dropped his hand to his side casually.
The kid said nothing, which Reigen hadn’t been prepared for. Most children he had encountered took the opportunity to talk about themselves without reservation. He shuffled on his feet. “So- tell me about yourself. You know, I don’t even know your name?"
There was still no response. Reigen stuck his hands in his lab coat pockets and flicked his gaze around the room. Its bareness was beginning to make his stomach twist. “What do you do in here all day?” He murmured. “Do you… Do you live here?”
The boy’s coal black eyes went flat. The room’s neither cold nor hot air was beginning to feel somehow suffocating. Reigen was almost relieved when behind him, the door opened. He turned to see Serizawa filling the frame. “Ah- Dr. Reigen!” Serizawa’s hand was tight on the door handle. He brought a new nervous energy to the room- the fluorescent light above Reigen throbbed, and suddenly Reigen couldn’t get the image of smashed concrete out of his mind.
“Dr. Serizawa,” Reigen said, like this was normal. “I was just introducing myself to this fine young man. Does he have something scheduled right now?”
“I- that is-” Serizawa stuttered over fragments of sentences.
“I’ll get out your way,” Reigen said, cutting him off. He waved at the boy. “I’ll see you later, then?”
Without waiting for the response that obviously wasn’t coming, he edged around Serizawa, and found two nervous orderlies and the perpetually bored Minegishi- another one of Suzuki’s associates he couldn’t get a read on. “What’s all this, then?” Reigen asked, as the orderlies shuffled past him into the room.
“Brat needs a checkup,” Minegishi said dully. “And the director sent me looking for you. Something about your latest report.” He waved Reigen along with him as he walked away.
Reigen spared a glance over his shoulder for the room, but found that the door had been closed again. He hurried after Minegishi, relaxing his stride when he caught up with him. “How did you know I was here?”
“Just a feeling,” he said.
Reigen hummed. “Ah.” He always felt the urge to fill the space that Minegishi always provided, but it never helped the awkwardness that Minegishi either didn’t notice or didn’t care about.
“Minegishi,” he said abruptly. “That kid… Where did he…” He stopped, unable to word the question so that it really asked what he wanted to know.
“100 is a ward of the government,” Minegishi said, in a way that didn’t encourage further discussion.
Reigen flicked his gaze along the walls, testing the words in his head. “So he lives there?”
He kept the tone casual, free of implication, but Minegishi still stopped. Reigen carried past him for a few steps before turning back around to look at him. His expression hadn’t changed, but Reigen still felt like he was being examined.
Finally, Minegishi said, “I wouldn’t ask questions you don’t want to know the answers to, Dr. Reigen.”
-
They arrived into town without attracting unwanted attention. Reigen led Mob through the streets until he found the train station- deserted except for the attendant who had obviously picked now as his nap time. The automatic ticket vendor was broken, so Reigen rapped on the window until he woke up.
“Hn- what?” He frowned at them, and then at the time.
“When’s the next train?” Reigen asked. “We need to be on it.”
The attendant blinked at them, obviously confused by the unfamiliar faces. “Uh- a couple hours, I think. Sometimes tourists stop here to take photos of cows.” He leaned forward to squint down at Mob, who was tucked behind Reigen’s back. “What are you two doing out here? You’re out of towners.”
“We were driving to visit family,” Reigen said, focusing on the bills he was counting out, “but our car broke down. So we walked here.”
He slid the yen through the ticket booth window. The attendant’s fingers hovered over them, eyebrows arched at the lack of a card, but he took them all the same and printed the tickets. “It’ll be a while, but you can wait on the benches over there, or go get something to eat in town,” he said. “Do you need someone to call for a tow?”
Reigen jammed his hands in his pockets and sighed. “No, already handled it. Just got to get a move on, you know?”
Before he could answer, Reigen moved away from the counter, dragging Mob along with him. He picked a seat on the wooden benches where he could keep an eye on the attendant, then flopped down, trying to look as bored and unsuspicious as possible. Mob climbed up next to him, running his hands over the bench’s grainy wood as he scanned the train station. “Careful, you’ll get a splinter,” Reigen said.
“Splinter?” Mob stopped to blink up at Reigen.
Reigen held up his fingers a few millimeters apart in demonstration. “A little piece of wood. Breaks off and gets in your skin.”
Mob pulled his arms away from the now traitorous bench. Dropping his hand so he could rest his chin on it, Reigen watched as the attendant dozed off again. When he was sure he was actually asleep, Reigen pulled the burner phone he’d purchased a few days ago and dialed a number. It took five agonizing rings before there was an answer.
“It’s me,” Reigen said before anyone could say anything. “I’ve got him, but. There’s been some problems.” He rubbed at his eye, trying to keep himself awake.
“Define problem,” the voice on the other end of the line said. His superior tone always made Reigen want to grind his teeth.
“They’ve already alerted the police about it,” Reigen said, glancing over at the ticket counter again. “They’re saying I stole an experiment. We had to ditch the car. I’m taking the train, but… There’s going to be a delay.”
He made a noise of disgust. “I thought you said that you could do this without the police catching on.”
“Yeah, well, I didn’t think they’d want them tied up in it,” Reigen said, voice growing acerbic in spite of himself. “Listen, I’ll make it tomorrow for sure. I’ll call you tonight to let you know if we’re on track. Just… be ready.”
“I already was,” the man said. “I just hope this thing is as big a deal as you say it is.”
Reigen’s eyes went to Mob. He was watching clouds drift by in a pale patchwork against the sky. “Trust me,” he said. “He is.”
-
One day, in the middle of Reigen’s usually solitary lunch break, a short, ludicrously red headed child plopped himself down on the table and began helping himself to Reigen’s fries.
“Um,” Reigen said, as most of his lunch disappeared in an alarmingly small number of seconds.
“Hey!” The word was barely understandable through his full mouth. Reigen was spared attempting to decipher any more nonsense when the kid swallowed. “You’re the new guy,” he said, high voice loud in the employee cafeteria. He placed his dirty white sneakers on the plastic tabletop and leaned back onto his elbows, apparently unconcerned with the thousands of etiquette laws he had smashed in the thirty seconds since his arrival.
Reigen blinked, then pulled his lunch away from the fry stealer. “I mean, I’ve worked here for about half a year now, so I wouldn’t characterize myself as the new guy. Who are you, exactly?” The more he processed this new creature, the weirder it got- he wasn’t wearing anything indicating he was part of the facility in any way, but no one seemed to concerned by his presence.
The kid made a loud pshaw, flapping a hand. “No, I don’t mean at the facility. I meant the new guy with Mob.” He leaned forward towards Reigen, grin spreading wide across his face. “Suzuki Shou. Pleased to meet ya.”
“M-” Reigen blinked slowly. The last name was absurdly common, but it combined with the general arrangement of Shou’s features made him connect the two. “As in, Director Suzuki?”
“Yep,” Shou chirped. “Shithead with weird eyebrows is my dad.”
He said the expletive with such glee Reigen decided not to give him the reaction to it he obviously craved. However, Reigen did move his arm so Shou had access to his lunch again. “Good to know,” Reigen said. “Dr. Reigen, but you seem to already know who I am. What do you mean by…” Reigen paused, trying to remember the word Shou had used. “Mob?”
“Oh, yeah,” Shou waved a hand. “you don’t know. 100.” He made an attempt at a monotone expression, but there was too much constant mania in him for it to be a good impression of Reigen’s new test subject.
Reigen’s eyebrows rose. “His name’s Mob?”
“He doesn’t have a name,” Shou scoffed. “I just call him Mob, because 100 takes forever to say.” He grinned again, leaning back on nothing but still not falling. “It’s because he’s so plain looking. Get it?”
Reigen did get it, but more to the point, he got what Shou was actually trying to say to him. “I get it,” he said. “You… talk to him?” More importantly, Reigen supposed- did he talk back?
Shou crossed his eyes and stuck his tongue out. “Yeah. He’s pretty boring, but there’s no one else to talk to around this joint. Hate it when Pops takes me to work.” In a flurry of erratic movement, Shou jumped to his feet, still on top of the table. “Hey, sorry about eating your lunch,” he said. “Have this.” He dropped a half eaten candy bar still in its wrapper on Reigen’s tray. In the space it took for Reigen to blink, he was gone.
After taking a moment to recenter, Reigen picked up the candy bar and nudged aside the wrapper. FOR MOB was written in a chunky marker on the plastic. Stomach churning, Reigen folded the wrapper close and forced himself to finish his lunch. Then he stood to make the journey to the room where 100 was held.
This time, the kid was lying on his side, arms hooked around his chest. He made no motion when Reigen entered. Reigen swallowed, then held up the candy bar in offering. “Oi, I brought this for you, Mob.”
Mob’s eyes went wide, and the lights swelled impossibly bright above Reigen’s head.
-
The train, after a too long time, did arrive. A few people spilled out onto the platform. Reigen determined quickly that they were tourists like the station attendant had said. This specific group he hazarded as being somewhere from Europe- his English was limited at best, but their accents definitely weren’t American. Reigen quickly steered Mob into the train after feeding their tickets into the machine, fortunately avoiding the scrutiny of some over curious tourists. Mob, in fact, stared more than they did.
“Foreigners,” Reigen said by way of explanation when the train doors shut. “Not from Japan.”
It was one of those moments where he could only wonder how wide the gaps in Mob’s knowledge were. If he didn’t understand, he didn’t indicate so, merely peered around the empty train car as Reigen threw their luggage in the overhead compartment. He jumped when the train began to move, then hurriedly climbed into a seat next to Reigen.
“Holding up okay?” Reigen asked. “I know it’s a lot for you. Things will stop changing so much once we get through this first bit.”
Mob nodded slowly, watching the outside speed past as the train began to pick up speed. “Yes,” he said, finally.
“We’ll eat when we stop,” Reigen said, “then get a hotel room and onto our meeting with the guy who’s gonna help us.” He shifted idly in his seat. “Like it better than the lab?”
The small grip Mob had on Reigen’s arm tightened. He hadn’t even known his hand was there in the first place. “Yes,” he said again, with more feeling than Reigen had ever heard Mob put into anything.
-
“I have to applaud your strategy,” Suzuki said, voice even and impassive as Reigen shook with anger. “Becoming indispensable by making sure 100 won’t work with anyone but you, and then start asking questions.” He leaned back in his chair. The distance across his desk seemed impossibly vast.
Reigen pressed his palms flat against his side to keep himself from clenching them into fists. “I don’t know what you mean,” he said. “As I study 100 more, I find myself needing more information-”
“You don’t need to know where 100 came from to study him.” When Suzuki spoke, it didn’t feel like an interruption. More that Reigen’s allowed time to speak had come to an end. “You’re curious, Dr. Reigen.”
“Director Suzuki,” Reigen said, “I’m not curious. I’m concerned about the ethics.”
Suzuki laughed. It was cold, but not devoid of humor. Suzuki obviously thought Reigen’s concerns were quite funny.
“You just- have this kid,” Reigen said, voice growing louder despite himself. “All right? Ward of the government, fine, but he just sits in this bare room all day, only brought out to- to smash up concrete, or burn things with his mind so we can see what it does on a chart. He doesn’t have a name. He doesn’t know what parents are, or-”
“Dr. Reigen,” Suzuki said, “your mistake is in thinking of 100 as a child.”
Reigen’s silver tongue failed him in the face of this impossible comment. “I- my mistake-”
“100 is not a child,” Suzuki said coolly. “He is an experiment. Children can’t move things without touching them, or kill people with their minds.”
“K-” Reigen felt his mental picture of Mob tilt slightly as it fell into a new alignment. Kill?”
“A scientist, a few years ago,” the director said dismissively. “Back before we had the containment procedures tightened up. It won’t happen again.”
Reigen’s head dipped slowly, unable to form any kind of elegant response as his teeth clenched together. Suzuki humphed in disappointment. “My point is this.” He raised a hand, blunt fingers forming a wedge. “Treating him as an ordinary boy is an obvious mistake. He is not one.”
“He’s not an animal, either,” Reigen burst out finally. “I’m going- I’m going to put a stop to this.”
Suzuki’s stare was unending. “Really.”
“Yes,” Reigen said with more confidence than he felt.
“How?” Suzuki inquired. “Go to the government? They’re funding this experiment. And they certainly don’t want it going public, either. They have ways to keep people quiet.”
Reigen bit down on his tongue hard enough to draw blood. Its metallic taste swirled around in his mouth. “Are you threatening me?” He asked, even though this was obviously the case.
“Well, more specifically,” Suzuki said, “you and those you care about. I know you’re a lonely man, Reigen, but everyone has somebody.”
Even though it hurt, Reigen was glad he had bit his tongue- the pain was the only thing reminding him this conversation was totally, impossibly real. He staggered where he stood, barely able to keep himself upright.
“Dr. Reigen,” he heard Suzuki say. Reigen raised his eyes to see Suzuki considering him. “Take the rest of the day off to think about this. I’m sure you’ll come around to our way of thinking.”
Reigen wanted to laugh, or maybe cry. Instead, he wiped his mouth, leaving an impressive streak of blood on his lab coat. “Thank you, Director Suzuki,” he said through strained syllables. He turned and left the office before he could do anything else.
That night, Reigen called his mother, and let her talk to him about nothing while he stared out the window. Then he stayed up till sunrise, smoking cigarette after cigarette while unable to think of anything at all.
When his alarm went off, he threw on a fresh suit and went to work.
-
The sky was turning orange when they finally arrived at their stop. Reigen rubbed at his eyes as the people that had gradually been added to the train on their ride began to stir around him. Then he nudged Mob, who had fallen asleep against his shoulder. “Oi, Mob. Wake up. Time to go.”
The recording was loudly reciting stop numbers over the bubble of people beginning to move. Mob slowly woke up, brow creasing as he awoke. He pressed a hand to his head. “Something the matter?” Reigen asked, pressing his own palm to Mob’s cool forehead.
“Head hurts,” Mob mumbled.
Reigen frowned. He supposed it could just be an ordinary headache, but Reigen had witnessed too many psychic induced migraines to be optimistic about that. “Come on,” he said, taking Mob’s hand and guiding him from the chair.
As soon as he got out onto the platform, Reigen realized his mistake. The swell of people was immediate and overwhelming even to Reigen. He crushed Mob to his side and began pushing his way through, towards the door leading out to the surface. He stalled, however, when he saw a mass of police officers loitering near the entrance. “Shit,” he muttered. Someone shoved past him and he was nearly knocked to the ground. He staggered, then grabbed at Mob again. “All right, Mob?” He asked, barely audible over the din of people and roaring trains.
“It’s loud, Dr. Reigen,” Mob said. He gripped at his head, eyes squeezed shut to block out the fluorescent lights.
“The train station’s too loud for me even when I’m in a good mood,” Reigen agreed. “Listen, I’m going to carry you, all right?”
After a second, Mob nodded. “All right, up we go,” Reigen said. He hooked his arms around Mob’s waist and lifted, wincing. Mob might be a skinny fourteen year old, but he was still a fourteen year old- Reigen absently wondered when you were supposed to stop carrying your kids. Mob rested his head against his shoulder, instinctively wrapping his arms around his neck. Reigen licked his lips than began pushing towards the exit, staggering a little with his luggage under one arm.
“Excuse me, sir,” a police officer said, like Reigen had expected him to. “We’re going to need you to stop for a moment.”
Reigen stopped and made a tching noise, trying to channel the thousands of irate parents he had seen clog up lines in the past. “Really? Can’t you see I’m in a hurry?” He shuffled Mob a little further up his hip.
“We’re all in a hurry, sir,” the officer said. “This won’t take but a few moments.”
“My son is sick,” Reigen said, voice growing in an angry crescendo. “I’m having to carry him out of this train station, and trust me, I’m not doing this for fun. He’s heavy. And you want me to stop so you can, what, do your random screening? Do it to someone else, pal.” The police officer looked sufficiently mollified, So Reigen began to shuffle away as he spoke.
However, before he could make any real progress, an officer with much more obvious seniority came up behind the first. “Sorry, sir, but you’re not going anywhere,” he said. “We’re looking for someone specific, and you fit the profile. So we can’t let you go.”
Reigen’s heart began to jackhammer in his chest. “What, I look like a criminal? Come on,” he said. Mob’s fingers were curling into the fabric of his jacket, deep enough to dig into his skin. A few other officers were attempting to be subtle as they came up on either side of Reigen.
“Just let us look at your ID,” the officer said, “and the two of you will be on your way.”
After casting his eyes around, Reigen harrumphed loudly. “Ridiculous,” he said. He lowered Mob to the ground, waiting until he was sure that his feet were steady until releasing his hold. Then unceremoniously he dropped his luggage on the ground with a bang that Mob flinched along with. “I hope you’re happy,” Reigen said, pawing through his pockets, “that you’re holding up a man and his son after a very long day. What am I supposed to say to his mother? Sorry we weren’t home in time for dinner, the police thought I was a criminal.”
“Dr. Reigen,” Mob whispered, hands digging into his face.
Reigen rested a steadying hand on his shoulder and glowered at the cop who was drawing nearer. “If he’s sick all over the floor,” Reigen snapped, “it’s your fault.” He settled his hand on the pocket where his wallet was, moved it past onto a pocket he hadn’t examined yet.
But eventually, he exhausted all his pockets, or places where there conceivably could be a pocket. He couldn’t think of anything to do. All the stalling in the world wasn’t going to get him out of this. He pulled his wallet out and shook it open, wishing again he had had the forethought to purchase a fake ID.
Behind Reigen, a train screamed as it entered the station. Mob pressed his hands against his ears and howled.
The lights overhead burst, sending shards of glass down on all of their heads as everything went dark. The noise in the station exploded along with it. Reigen didn’t stop to let everyone get over their surprise. He scooped his luggage off the floor and grabbed Mob’s wrist, dragging him past the police officers out onto the street, and then into the depths of the city.
-
Reigen continued to go to work. There wasn’t any way out that he could see. Sometimes, he typed up a dramatic resignation letter that he deleted immediately after completing it, but it was only an avenue to express his frustration. The idea of abandoning Mob to scientists who really didn’t care about him at all was all that kept him there. If Reigen couldn’t save Mob, he could at least make this place more livable.
He dragged in books, toys, anything to make his room not feel like a hospital room. Reigen worried, briefly, over his ability to select things appropriate for Mob’s age, but this was quickly allayed when he realized that Mob’s reading and writing ability was astonishingly below average. After forcing the anger over that down, Reigen threw himself into a new project of being responsible for Mob’s tutelage. Any objections he received along the way he was able to quickly dismiss by saying it was simply part of an experiment he was planning. Never mind that he didn’t have any kind of official documentation. His higher ups seemed content to let him do what he wanted, so long as he continued with the usual regimen of experiments and continued his research.
Unsurprisingly, Reigen could never get clearance to take Mob outside the facility. No matter how many safety measures he proposed, the answer was always an immediate shut down. He stubbornly persisted until one day he came into Mob’s room to find that everything he had added had been cleared out, with Mob curled up under the bed. It took months for Mob to talk to him again after the apparent betrayal. Reintroducing things didn’t get them taken away, but Reigen got the message that had been delivered through Mob. Don’t tug on the leash, or we'll shorten it.
It continued this way for two years, until one day, Reigen was called to the director’s office.
Suzuki still disappeared and reappeared at intermittent periods, but his office was kept in the same state in his absence, so that when he swept in he could get to work. Reigen opened the door to find him holding a small stuffed bear, which he recognized as one of the things that had been taken away from Mob.
“Still playing with 100, I see,” Suzuki said, turning it idly to examine one of its button eyes.
Reigen stared at the bear’s fraying seams. “Is there a problem with how I do my research?” He asked, tapping his fingers on the file Suzuki had requested.
Suzuki dropped the bear on the desk. It flopped forward into an unnatural pose that Reigen instinctively wanted to straighten out. “I really don’t care what you do,” he said, turning back to face Reigen, “so long as it gets results. I just figured you would have gotten bored of playing parent by now.”
There was an obligatory photo on Suzuki’s desk, of Suzuki with a woman Reigen assumed was his wife and Shou, all pressed into formal wear. Shou looked bored and uncomfortable, and from the crease in between his mother’s eyes Reigen was willing to bet there was more than a few failed photos behind this one. Suzuki had the same expression he always had. Reigen peeled his eyes away from it after a moment, and said, “you requested this file, sir.” He dropped it on Suzuki’s desk and stepped back.
Moving the bear aside, Suzuki flipped the file open. “Ah, yes,” he said. “I remember this.” He dragged a thumb down the columns. “You hypothesized that extrasensory perception development occurs to response to stress.”
Reigen stared at the neatly typed report, completed near the beginning of his tenure at the facility. “Yes,” he said. “Stress releases cortisol, which causes changes in the brain. In some brains it triggers a much larger change that leads to ESP-based abilities.”
“Yes,” Suzuki said. “I just wanted to see it again. Thank you, Dr. Reigen.”
For a moment, Reigen hovered, waiting for something else. There was some significance in the moment, something he wasn’t understanding. But Suzuki didn’t offer any other clues. Reigen finally nodded, then left the office. All he could do was wait for the other shoe to drop.
-
Eventually, Reigen found a hotel a sufficient distance from the train station. He ran in from the outside, just as rain began to fall in gloomy sheets on the city. The hotel was obviously cheap, with carpet that looked like it was from the 80’s and overly yellow lighting. Muzak beeped out from tinny speakers, playing a song that sounded like it had been popular once, but was so distorted he couldn’t have ever guessed what it was. It looked like the sort of place that didn’t asked questions, which was frankly a good thing right now. Reigen breathed in deep, tried to look more normal, then walked casually up to the counter where the receptionist was tapping away on her computer.
“Crazy weather, huh?” He said, leaning on the counter. “I need a room for the night. Smm- nonsmoking. Two bed, please.”
She took in the two of them, then nodded. “Yes, sir,” she said, beginning to clack loudly again at the keyboard. “Just for the night, or would you like to make it a weekend stay?”
“The night,” Reigen said. “Got to get on the road again tomorrow.” He pulled his wallet from his pocket and began counting out bills. Mob leaned against him, and Reigen spared a glance down at him. He really did look pretty awful- his eyes were sliding shut, and the crease on his forehead deepened with each flicker of the overhead light. “We’ll be done soon, all right?” He murmured. “Just a little longer.”
“It’s always so nice,” the receptionist said. “Seeing a man take care of his son.” She beamed at him.
Reigen forced his face into a smile and gave her the yen. She blinked a little at the cash payment, but after ascertaining it was the correct amount she passed over a keycard. “Room 28,” she said, pointing down the hall. “Just take the stairs up to the second floor and follow the numbers.”
“Thanks,” Reigen said. He pocketed the key with a flourish, then pushed away from the receptionist desk.
He shuffled down the narrow hall until he got to the stairs. He leaned against the push door to open it, then stopped to look at Mob. He was swaying slightly on his feet, head slipping down his chest towards the ground. Reigen sighed, then knelt to pick Mob up again. “Can’t make a habit out of this, okay, Mob?” He said, taking the stairs in slow, methodical steps. “I’m not the strongest man in the world. You’ve got to learn to stand on your own two feet.”
Mob said nothing, only burrowed his face deeper into Reigen’s bony shoulder. Reigen swallowed past some emotion and mounted the final step.
His room was fortunately near the stairwell door. After some fumbling with the keycard, Reigen admitted himself into a dark room, mercifully quiet compared to the rest of the hotel. The door clicked shut behind them, and then the only sound was their breathing and rain beating against the roof. Reigen found a bed in the dark and sat Mob down on it. He considered for a moment, then peeled the puffy jacket off of him, then set to work removing his shoes.
“Once this is over,” he said quietly, “we’ll find your real family. Okay, Mob? Claw can’t have gotten rid of everything. There’s always some mistake.” He stopped to steady Mob, who was beginning to lull forward off the bed. “Or,” he straightened a lace in a nervous motion, “you can stay with me. Whatever you prefer, you know? We’ll figure something out.”
Mob hummed softly. “Sounds good,” he said.
Reigen didn’t dare ask which thing sounded good. He dropped the shoes on the floor and stood, pushing the blankets aside so Mob could lay down. In a matter of seconds, Mob was asleep.
In the darkness, Reigen listened to Mob’s breathing settle into an even keel. “Good night, Mob,” he whispered.
-
The other shoe dropped when a week later, Reigen walked into Mob’s room to find he wasn’t there.
Reigen checked Mob’s schedule to find an experiment neatly inserted that Reigen had not scheduled. After noting the room number, Reigen quickly began working his way through halls, trying to force a calm he didn’t feel. When he got near, a discordant scream echoed down the hall. Reigen broke into a run.
He found the experiment room door labelled SENSORY DEPRIVATION. A few security guards were flanking it. “Hey, sorry, we were told specifically not to let you through,” said one of them- a rosy cheeked man with a sardonic smile. “And the experiment’s already started, so-”
The lights flickered, and Reigen shoved past them to swipe his ID and hit the override. “Hey, hey- eh, fuck it,” he heard the guard say as the door slammed shut behind him.
Reigen had only been in this room once, the last time they had attempted this particular trial. Mob had had such an adverse reaction to the sensory deprivation tank he had immediately put a ban on any further experiments involving it. Even so, when Reigen forced the tank open Mob was inside, floating in salty water under dim lighting.
Black energy was coating him, something Reigen had never seen before. Looking at it made his stomach twist- it was wrong, wrong in a way that was different from whatever other oddities Mob possessed. His eyes sprang open, white hot and glowing, and an explosive force of psychic energy sent Reigen flying, slamming him against the fortunately padded walls. Reigen dropped against the ground after an unnaturally long time. He began pulling himself forward again.
Finally, Reigen dragged himself through the throb of psychic energy and settled a hand on Mob, fingers sinking past the black tendrils of energy. Immediately, he was yanked off the ground, and Reigen found himself suspended in air by impossible, painful pressure.
“Mob,” he forced out. “Mob, it’s me, okay? It’s me. Calm down, you’re all right. You’re-” the pressure increased again, and Reigen wheezed out air. “You’re hurting me, Mob.”
The black energy settled back down into Mob’s body, and suddenly, Reigen fell to the floor. He coughed, and blood came up. When he lifted his head, Mob was looking at him with wild, frightened eyes, much closer to his face than he had been before. Reigen drew him into a shaky hug, trying to keep his own fear tamped down. Mob didn't relax, but the pulse of energy in the air settled again, down to a controllable level.
“Dr. Reigen, do you know it’s generally considered rude to interfere with other people’s work?”
The voice, crackling over the speaker, took a moment for Reigen to place- Shimazaki. The blind one, whose smile always felt unnaturally cruel. “I would ask the same of you,” Reigen said, turning to speak to the speaker. “M- 100 is my charge. I’ve been in charge of his experiments for two years.”
“Not for much longer if you don’t do anything good with him,” Shimazaki said, amusement clear. “Director Suzuki is getting bored with your insistence on the status quo. You make interesting discoveries-" Reigen's grip tightened on Mob- "and then don't do anything interesting with them. Either do something good, or he’ll give him to me.”
The door opened and the security guards shuffled in along with some pale faced orderlies. They peeled Mob out of Reigen’s grasp, prying fingers off of him in careful steps. Mob didn’t fight back, just held rigid as they pulled him loose.
He didn't get to see what happened to him after that. Reigen was swiftly dragged off the floor and escorted from the room, and then down several halls until he found himself back in his office. They said something to him, about not doing that again, about how really, he'd been lucky to not have lost his life in that room. And then they were gone.
Reigen stared at the ceiling. "Cortisol," he said finally, breaking the silence he had had with himself. "This was- this is all my fault." He leaned against his desk, wondering what kind of coward was willing to watch a child suffer, be complicit in that suffering, and let himself believe he was doing the best he could. Reigen dug his nail into his lab coat, twisting the fabric between his fingers.
He took a slow, fortifying breath. Then, before Reigen could think about what he was doing, he strode out of the office.
Shou was predictable in his unpredictability, so after checking the places where he usually wasn’t, Reigen found him on the facility’s roof, breaking open peanut shells and flinging the broken shards onto the ground below. Birds pecked at the dropped contents at his feet, but flew away as soon as Reigen emerged onto the roof.
“My dad’s allergic to peanuts,” Shou told Reigen, dusting his hands off on his pants.
“So are you,” Reigen said, wondering why Shou still bothered saying the things that he used to get a reaction out of others to Reigen. Maybe the lack of a reaction was as entertaining as one.
Shou shrugged. “Yeah, well. Nothing’s perfect.”
Reigen watched him watching the facility’s lot. He could hear a truck full of supplies pulling through the gate, after experiencing rounds and rounds of clearance. After a moment to pray that he got this, pray that he had understood Shou correctly all this time, he said, “Shou, how would you like to help me piss off your dad?”
Shou’s face lit up brighter than the sun shining overhead. “Oh, fuck yes.”
-
“I really have to thank you again, Dr. Shoudou,” Reigen said. “I know we didn’t part on the friendliest of terms, but-”
“That’s putting it lightly,” Shoudou said sourly. “You insulted me and my company in that ridiculous paper, and then just vanished without a trace.”
Reigen winced as Mob blinked at him in mild confusion. Being in Shoudou Kirin’s office was a decidedly different experience than being in the director’s- there were wide windows showing the street below, letting sunlight splash across the couch where Reigen and Mob sat, and the whole room was bigger, more welcoming- but Shoudou’s disposition gave him the same uncomfortable feeling. “I know,” he said, raising his hands. “And I am sorry about that. But this is more important than that ordeal.”
Shoudou placed his cup of tea on the table between them and leaned back to consider Reigen. Then he picked up a small remote on the table and clicked a button. Metal shutters drew tight across the window. Mob started next to Reigen, and Reigen had to hold in his own alarm. “All right,” he said. “This experiment. You’ve been vague so far. Tell me what it’s about.”
After a moment of consideration, Reigen nudged Mob. “Mob, get me some tea,” he said. “The ah, way I told you not to. Just this once.”
Mob frowned slightly, but he raised his palm. The teapot tilted of it’s own accord, splashing some of the hot tea into a cup. The cup lifted off the table and floated over to Reigen’s hand. He took it and the saucer from air, then settled back into his chair. Shoudou went unbelievably tense, staring rigidly at Mob.
“Human experimentation,” Reigen said. “It’s incredible, but what they’ve done to achieve these results…” He shuddered. “Dr. Shoudou, before I got him out of there, Mob had never been outside before. He- he was just kept pinned up like a lab rat. And there’s probably more kids like him that I don’t even know about.”
“And you have documentation of this?” Shoudou asked, still staring at Mob.
“Yes,” Reigen said, nudging the briefcase he had placed on the ground with his foot. “Dr. Shoudou, I know this puts you all in a precarious position, but this line of work interests you. And you have ties to the press. If we can get word to them that this is what the government is doing with taxpayer money-”
“I already told you I’d help you, didn’t I?” Shoudou said irritably. “Wait here.” He stood and walked to his desk, finding an intercom button Reigen couldn’t see. “Yes, send them up,” he said.
Mob’s head tilted up towards Reigen’s hopefully. Reigen offered a small thumbs up, then took a sip. He choked on the heat of it, but managed to keep from spitting all over Shoudou’s table.
“It really is fascinating,” Shoudou said. “Young man, would you like some tea?” He poured a cup and offered it to Mob. After a moments hesitation, Mob took it. He blew steam off the top carefully, then breathed in. His eyes widened in shock.
Reigen felt like years of tension were loosening from his body. “Yes,” Reigen said, “but I just… Couldn’t condone what they were doing. Couldn’t be a part of it for a moment longer.” He took another sip, but before he could put the cup safely down it slid from his fingers. It shattered on the hardwood tile. “Ah, shit,” Reigen said. The word sounded oddly slurred. Was the exhaustion from yesterday catching up from him?
“Dr. Reigen,” Mob whispered, clenching his knee. The feeling brought him back to reality. “The tea-”
“Yeah, I know, I’m a real klutz all of the sudden,” Reigen said, rubbing at his eye. “Mob, do you-”
“It smells,” Mob said, urgency breaking through into his tone. “Dr. Reigen, it smells like my medicine.”
For a crystalline moment, Reigen didn’t understand. Then, an invisible glass shattered, and he tried to lunge to his feet. “Shoudou, you fucker-” he snarled. His legs wouldn’t obey him, and he fell back into the too comfortable chair as they trembled. He had to stay awake, to get up, to get moving-
“It’s too bad,” Shoudou said. “If I had known that the experiment had actual power, maybe I would have tried to secure him for myself. But regardless, Claw will be here in a few moments. Reigen, why on earth did you think I would help you?”
“You- you-”
Reigen was unable to process his anger any further when Mob’s voice pierced through the confusion induced by the drug. “You promised,” he said, panic bare as an exposed nerve, “you promised we wouldn’t go back. You promised.”
Guilt slammed into him in heavy, drowning waves. “Mob, run, okay?” Reigen said, trying to center himself. “Just, forget about me. Go. Go.” Reigen couldn’t let his eyes close. If he did, that was it for him.
“You can’t actually expect,” Shoudou began, but before he could get any further, the door slid open and a wall of police officers in riot gear poured into the office. Mob’s eyes went wild again, and the invincible metal shutters crumpled, revealing the windows once more. He tugged at Reigen, and distantly, Reigen heard a police officer shouting.
A gun fired. Reigen felt his body tremble with the impact, but not the pain. He blinked up into Mob’s face, whose eyes were growing wider and more terrible with every second. “Run,” Reigen said. His voice sounded too wet. “Mob, please, run.”
The windows around Reigen shattered, just as he succumbed to the sedative.
-
After a solid week of planning, Reigen worked late on a Friday night. At the planned time, he signed out, then walked around the eyes of the security camera until he found the spot Shou had agreed to let him in at. A window into someone’s office that Shou had obviously forced open. Reigen climbed through and followed Shou silently down the halls.
He had never been in the facility this late, especially not on the end of the week- the only thing operating at full power seemed to be the security cameras that littered every corner. Reigen didn’t stop to analyze how they were getting past them without being seen, only trusted that Shou was fulfilling his side of the promise.
It wasn’t until they got to one that Shou had apparently forgotten that he got the answer. Shou breathed in, sharp, then raised a hand. The security camera rattled for a second, then the light went out.
“You can’t tell anyone,” Shou said, finally, and for the first time Reigen heard an emotion that didn’t reflect the mania that had characterized Shou for as long as he’d known him. “I’ve…” He stopped, turning his head back and forth to examine the hall. “I’ve hidden it from pops long enough.”
“Not like I’ll have anyone to tell, after this,” Reigen said. He still laid a hand on Shou’s shoulder. Shou shrugged it off, but his face relaxed by degrees. They pressed on down the hall.
Eventually, they got to Mob’s room. Reigen punched in the code, rather than his ID. It sprung open, and Reigen walked in to find Mob asleep on the bed. He hadn’t seen the kid in a week- hadn’t been able to bring himself to face him after what he had allowed to happen. Reigen shook him awake.
“We’re getting out of here,” Reigen told him, as soon as he was alert. “For good. No coming back, okay?”
Mob’s eyes went round in the dark. Reigen was not sure he fully understood, still, but he nodded and whispered, “okay.”
-
Reigen woke up to the sound of monitors beeping and a pain in his lower side.
He creased his brow, trying to get a sense of where he was without opening his eyes. Hospital, presumably. But that described a wide, wide range of establishments of various desirability. Reigen opened his eyes and was surprised to find the lights were pleasantly dim.
“I have to admit,” Suzuki’s voice said, “you made it a lot further than I was expecting you to.”
Any good feeling Reigen might have had about the situation drained away. He shut his eyes again. “Were you just waiting for me to wake up so you could monologue at me?” He asked.
Suzuki ignored him. “Parts of your plan were rather ingenious- getting Shou to help, for example. Quite clever. Other parts? Very stupid. Why on earth did you think trusting Shoudou Kirin was a good idea?”
“I didn’t have a lot of options,” Reigen mumbled, then howled when Suzuki prodded his side with two fingers and casual cruelty. Starbursts of pain exploded through the painkillers. Reigen squeezed his eyes tight, feeling a traitorous hot tear slide down his face.
“Your gunshot wound is healing up rather nicely, at least,” Suzuki said. “This would have been a waste of time if it hadn’t.”
Reigen breathed out slowly through his nose, much more awake than he had been before. “Where is Mob?” He asked.
“What?”
“You know who I mean,” Reigen snapped, opening his eyes to glare up at Suzuki. “100. Does that make you happy?”
Suzuki shrugged. “I actually don’t know. 100 got away. But, well, I’m sure as long as you’re here, the subject will turn up sooner or later. And if he doesn’t, you’re still useful.”
“I’m not working for you anymore,” Reigen muttered, his eyes sliding away again. Staring up into Suzuki’s face as he towered over him was beginning to grow unnerving.
“Oh, I know that,” Suzuki said. “I wouldn’t want you working for me anyway.” He stepped away from the hospital bed, arms folded impassively behind his back. Reigen was beginning to think that in his free time, Suzuki practiced looking like a supervillain. “You know, Dr. Reigen, we were just about to start experimenting on adult test subjects. See if your hypothesis regarding cortisol holds any water after certain points. And you were very easy to make disappear.”
Suzuki let the door to the room slam shut behind him. Reigen stared at the ceiling, letting sweat collect in slick beads on the back of his neck. Then, he tugged his hand into his line of sight.
In violet ink, the number 104 had been neatly tattooed onto his palm.
That night, Reigen was awoken by the click of his door. He sat up slightly, blinking off the fog of sleep to see a small black figure sitting on the foot of his bed.
Yelping in fear, Reigen yanked back before the pain in his side and the restraints kept him from moving any further.
“Be quiet,” the figure said in irritation. “Shou said we couldn’t leave without you, not that I know why.”
Reigen blinked. For a moment, the creature looked like Mob- something about the way shadows fell on his face. Then the last of his grogginess cleared, and he recognized that instead that this was an entirely different creepy black haired boy in hospital clothes. “Uh, what?” He said.
The kid sighed and raised a hand. Reigen spotted the number 101 on his palm before the bonds holding Reigen to the bed sprung open. “Come on,” he said, hopping to the floor. “We don’t have much time.”
Reigen climbed out of bed shakily, hissing as the pain in his side flared. Still, he followed the kid outside the room. “I found him,” the boy whispered into the dark.
“Thank fuck,” Shou’s voice echoed down the hall. “Now we can get out of this creepy hellhole.”
He emerged from the dark, and Reigen was surprised to see that he was dressed in the same clothes of all the test subjects- as was Reigen, he supposed. “Shou?” He asked.
Shou shrugged. The gesture was vacant of his usual bravado. “Pops found out,” he said. He raised one hand, and Reigen saw the number 103 on his palm.
“I’m sorry,” Reigen said. It wasn’t a sufficient response, but it was the only one Reigen had.
“Not your fault,” Shou said. “I mean, I decided to help you and Mob out, after all.” He turned his attention to the new boy. “Where’s the other guy?”
“I searched the other halls,” a voice said, much too close to Reigen’s side for him to not jump. “And I couldn’t find him, so I deduce that-” he stopped. “Oh, you found him.” Reigen’s eyes tracked down to yet a third kid who had abruptly appeared next to him, this one with blonde hair. He wondered what number he had.
“No thanks to you,” the first one muttered. “Come on, let’s go.”
“Um.”
The four collectively whirled around to face the man who had cleared his throat behind them. Reigen froze at the sight of Dr. Serizawa, looking as nervous as ever. His eyes tracked around the four faces staring back at him.
“Shit,” Shou said. “I didn’t want to fight anyone.” The lie was so ludicrous Reigen barely kept from laughing.
“We can take him,” the black haired one said in ominous monotone. Serizawa shuffled nervously back.
“Wait, wait,” Reigen said, raising his hands. If he didn't have to be complicit in a bunch of almost teenagers trouncing his former coworker, he wouldn't. “Dr. Serizawa. You- you’re a good man. You know this isn’t right. These are children.”
“Dr. Reigen,” Serizawa began.
“I know that- I know you’re loyal to the director,” Reigen said, changing tack mid sentence. “But please, think about what he’s doing. Shou is his son. If he’s willing to throw him aside to do whatever it is that he’s after, what else?”
Shou’s nose wrinkled in silent objection to being used as an object lesson, but the tension was thick enough to feel. Reigen wondered if their energy felt different from Mob's, and that this new feeling in the air was simply the beginning crescendo of psychic energy.
Serizawa swallowed slowly. “How very odd,” he said, voice much louder than the rest of them. “There’s no one here. I could have sworn I heard someone.” He forced his eyes to focus on some point behind Reigen’s head.
“S-” Reigen breathed in as the realization settled. “Serizawa, thank you.”
“If someone was here,” Serizawa continued as he walked by, pen bouncing in a nervous jitter in his hand, “it would be a shame if they took the first left and walked straight, then climbed out through the window. It would just be really too easy for them to get out. I know Dr. Hatori’s working on the security oversight, but…” He shrugged as he continued down the hall, past all of them until he was out of sight.
“Okay,” Shou said, finally. “You heard him. Let’s go.”
The window wasn’t as easy as Serizawa implied, but with some assistance from the three espers, Reigen landed on the soft dirt outside. He had never imagined that night air could smell so sweet. “Well, what now?” He asked.
The two boys were now just as round eyed as Mob had been when he had walked into the outside for the first time. Shou was pretending to be unaffected by it all. “We’ll find Mob,” he said, stretching his arms up high above his head. “And blow the lid off on pops and his shitty foundation.”
It was even worse than Reigen’s original plan, but he shrugged. Beggars couldn’t be choosers, after all. “All right,” he said. “On the road again.”
Shou whooped, then was immediately hushed by the black haired boy. The blonde laughed softly at their impassioned argument, but Reigen wasn’t listening to the intricacies of their conversation. He tilted his head to look up at the sky, cold and black and infinite as ever. Mob was somewhere, under that sky. Not in the walls of a facility. Reigen might not know where, but he was going to count that as a success.
“Well, what are we waiting for?” He asked, loud enough to get the attention of the three. “Let’s get going.”