Silence In Numbers: File One (42 page)

“Yeah, we know.” Reno spun the screen’s camera to face the house. “They all went in there.” He spun it back to himself and leaned back in the chair. “Communications won’t go through. Law went in after them to help from the inside. I think everything else is fine, though; we just have no contact.”

Ayane sighed, sitting back. “I knew something was going to go wrong. No one should have gone in at all. This is some sort of trap.”

Reno shrugged. “Maybe so, but I’ve learned to trust Katsumi anyway. We’ve walked into traps knowingly before. She’s got a knack for turning a trap back on those who set it up.”

“I… You’re right. I’m just a worrying person.”

“Ha, don’t worry about that, so is my Lenora.”

Ayane smiled. “So I’ve heard. And now she worries about my sister, too, and I worry about you.”

Reno chuckled. “Great, a crossfire of fear. Always good. You don’t have to worry about me, though. I’m just sitting out here.”

“They left you alone?”

“Yep. Alone.” He looked up at the house. “Outside, at night, in front of a terrifying house of violent nightmares full of screaming hell-children.”

Ayane laughed. “Sounds like fun.”

“This is my life,” he said dryly. “Mind keeping me company?”

Ayane smiled at him. “Of course not! I mean, it’s either that or sit here bored, staring at the ceiling and worrying about Sumi.”

“Good to know I’m a better option than that.” He swung his chair around a bit, spinning from side to side. “I’ve been meaning to mention, ‘Sumi’ seems like a pretty cutesy nickname for the boss.”

Ayane smiled, leaning back against the wall behind her. “When I was little I had trouble with hard consonants like the sharp ‘k’ sound, so I couldn’t say ‘Katsumi’. I just called her ‘Sumi’ and it just kind of… stuck.”

“She seems to like it.”

Ayane tilted her head, looking distant. “I think it reminds her of a much more innocent time. Katsumi and I are partners, but she’s also always going to see me as her little sister. I want to reinforce that because it’s important.”

“You like that role?”

Ayane nodded. “We have a perfect relationship. It evolves, but it doesn’t change.” She smiled.

“And I’ll keep calling her ‘Sumi’ because she’ll always be my big sister.”

“Siblings never really lose that feeling of relative age, I think.”

“Do you have any siblings?”

Reno nodded. “Yep, two. I have an older sister named Sage and a younger sister named Luna.”

Ayane blinked. “Sage, Reno and Luna?”

He grinned. “My parents are kind of into the whole ‘hippie’ type thing.”

“That explains your hair and fashion sense.”

“Don’t it, though?” He spun around in his chair once, looking at the sky. “We plan to have another kid pretty soon. Lianne’s five and she already really wants a sibling.”

“Oh, you should!” Ayane leaned forward. “Especially with parents like you, it’d be perfect.”

Reno looked back at her. “Remember it might not be a sister, might be a brother.”

Ayane shrugged. “That’s great, too! Law is basically a big brother to me.”

“He definitely cares about you two enough.”

Ayane smiled. “Sumi and I have been pretty lucky in this part of our lives. We have a lot of people who care about us; even if she doesn’t show it, she appreciates it as much as I do.”

“Not enough to keep her from jumping out windows, though.”

Ayane grinned. “That has nothing to do with appreciation. That’s just Katsumi.”

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

As soon as Law stepped into the house the door slammed shut behind him. Pausing to try it he found it wouldn’t open, which explained Sano’s face when he sprinted into the entrance hall and appeared on a balcony above Law. “Is it open?! Oh, shit… You’re stuck in here now, too?”

Law looked up at him. “Stuck, huh?”

“Yeah, the door won’t open from in here.”

“So, trap was right, then.”

“Seems like it. That or the house is planning to eat us.”

“I’m not fond of either situation.”

Katsumi walked back into the entryway with Rufus, blinking at him. “Sam?”

“No use sittin’ out there,” Law said as he walked further in, setting his large weapon case on his shoulder. “Not when we can’t communicate. Figured I might as well come in an’ help.”

Katsumi folded her arms, smiling at him. “I’m glad you did, we’ve a better chance with you here. Did you… talk to Aya and tell her what happened?”

“Reno’s talkin’ to her right now. They’re keepin’ each other company.”

She gave a sigh. “That’s a relief. I hope she doesn’t worry too much. Anyway, we’ve been exploring this house; it doesn’t seem nearly as old on the inside as it does on the outside. Or if it is, it’s in incredible shape.”

“The house out of time, huh?”

Rufus smirked. “Please don’t give the house ideas; we don’t need a Lovecraftian nightmare driving us all mad.”

Law chuckled. “You don’t wanna test yourself ‘gainst an Outer God?”

“Not particularly.”

Sano hopped down over the rail, walking over to the others. “Well whatever’s going on in here is bad either way. This screams ‘trap’, but where’s the part where two dozen guys with machine guns pop out?”

“Well,” Katsumi said thoughtfully, looking around. “This might just be a paranormal event. The last time we-“ she was cut off as the house began shaking. All of them moved to grab the handrail on the stairs as everything shook, causing the chandelier to swing wildly and making all of the lights flicker.

“Okay,” Sano shouted over the rising sound, “Is this part of the trap or part of the paranormal stuff?!”

“We ain’t goin’ anywhere,” Law replied to him, “So we’ll have to wait an’ see.”

Cracks appeared across the floor and the walls of the house seemed to warp; everything around them seemed to be warping or twisting in some way. Suddenly, with a massive, grinding and tearing sound, the walls began rushing upwards past them. Faster and faster they went as if they were in a rapidly-dropping elevator. The feeling of being lifted up soon hit them and everything shook harder, warped further and moved faster until finally, the world shattered, and then everything stopped moving and fell silent. All of them stood slowly, looking around in shock and confusion.

They were in a twisted version of a skyscraper, surrounded by clean, shining metal and glass. The others looked at each other but Katsumi walked between them. Their eyes followed her as she moved to the windows, and then they all moved silently after her until they stood in a line looking through the glass. Outside was an odd wasteland of purple and red rock in unearthly formations. The rocky plain stretched forever into the distance, and the skies above were a maelstrom of terrifying storms filled with purple clouds and constantly arching lines of red lightning. The storm outside surrounded the skyscraper they were in as if it was in the eye of an otherworldly hurricane.

Katsumi carefully set a hand on the window and leaned forward to look down, counting the distance and judging them to be on the 6th floor. She pressed against the glass to look up, noticing that the skyscraper seemed to go ten times higher than their current height. She stepped away from the window and turned to the others, all of whom were looking to her for answers; she had none. She shook her head, looking back over her shoulder at the hellish landscape outside. Wherever they were, whatever this was… She had no idea. They were trapped on another plane or world, and suddenly the chances of getting out seemed much smaller. Her team looked to her for leadership and she walked past them as if she knew what she was doing, but when it came down to it…

She had no idea if any of them would make it out of this place.

Katsumi led her team through what was basically a corrupted office building, using stairs to get to the 7th floor. An old elevator plate let them know that the building had 66 floors, but the elevators weren’t working and she had no idea where to go anyway.

“Do you have any idea what this is?” Sano whispered to Rufus, who shook his head.

“I’ve never seen anything like this. We’re in another place entirely, maybe even another plane.”

“Why don’t you tell them, Major?” The team whipped around to see a screen on the wall that had come to life and now showed Sigma’s grinning face. “Well? Go ahead!” Katsumi remained silent as the others glanced at her, continuing to direct a wordless stare at Sigma. His grin seemed to widen. “You can’t, can you? Because you have no idea. Now you’ve gotten your team into quite a situation.”

“I’m not here to play games,” Katsumi said harshly, fighting her rising anger.

“Yes, you are,” he corrected, spinning away from the camera to be fully visible in the shot. “Whether you want to or not, that is what you’re here to do! And I am Sigma, your game master for the evening. You see, what you funny little mortals have done now is stumbled into a Demon Tower.”

Katsumi blinked. “A… Demon Tower?”

“Yes! It’s quite an impressive bit of construction, don’t you think? Let me tell you a bit about your situation.” He sounded nearly giddy as he disappeared and the screen switched to a three-dimensional wireframe model of the skyscraper. The image zoomed in and the seventh floor began flashing. “This is your current location…” The image flew up dozens of floors to finally stop at the top, where the top floor flashed. “And this is the 66th floor… your destination!”

“What are we climbing this tower for?”

“Ah, yes, we have location and destination, well, here’s your motivation!” The screen flipped back to Sigma, but this time he was standing to the side. In the background was the demon Belphegor, a towering and intimidating presence even through a screen. This wasn’t the shade they had encountered before; this was the true demon, an Ancient One in his physical form. He held similarities to his shade, but where once had been smoke and color was now an ash-grey body with scorched and scarred hide; he had a thick grey beard, bent horns and long, sharp nails that looked able to rend stone. The twenty foot demon had massive wings stretched out behind him and hovered several feet above the ground, appearing as if he was waiting. Nearby they could see Hitomi chained to a wall, pressed against it to get as far away from the demon as she could. “She is unharmed… for now,” Sigma continued, popping back into frame.
“But should you take too long to get here, we’ll be sacrificing her to our demonic friend, so don’t tarry!” He let out a crazed laugh as he floated back from the camera, spinning a staff in his hand. “Let the game begin!”

The screen cut off and a roar filled the short silence that followed. The team looked over to see a horde of creatures moving through the twisted office building towards them. They looked like twisted humans with deadly limbs that shifted between massive hands, blades, spikes, and other dangerous shapes. Katsumi grimaced as they all readied their weapons, looking at her team.

“This isn’t going to be easy.”

“Easy isn’t our job,” Rufus said, loading a rifle.

Law cocked a shotgun. “If it was easy we’d have sent someone else to do it.”

Sano spun both pistols in his hands, grinning. “Let’s kick ass.”

Katsumi couldn’t help but smile at them, glad for the thousandth time that she had such an incredible team. She turned to face the oncoming demons and readied the pistol in her right hand, using her left to draw her katana from her back (which she’d brought at Ayane’s insistence, and thank God for that). The team yelled back at the demons, took two steps forward, and broke into an all-out charge.

Katsumi leapt and slid over a desk, firing three times through a demon’s head. She leaned back on the desk, going under a slicing blade-arm from another creature before coming up and hacking off the offending arm. The creature gave an eerie cry and brought its other arm around, shifting it into a heavy cudgel that it brought down on her. She leapt off the desk and over it, turning upside-down in the air as she went and firing into its head from behind before landing right behind Law.

The large man spun his shotgun around and bashed away one of the creatures before flipping the gun back around and blasting it away. He held out his left hand and Katsumi grabbed it, letting him fling her forward; she spun as she flew, her blade slicing through various limbs of the crowd she passed. Rufus slid underneath her as she went by, drawing two machine pistols and spinning in a circle to finish off the creatures she had wounded. He got to his feet and holstered the smaller weapons, kicking his rifle back up into his hand and firing at a creature directly in front of Sano.

Sano kicked the new corpse into an oncoming group of creatures, slowing them all down enough for him to gun them down. He pulled an explosive satchel charge from his belt and tossed it above a crowd of the creatures; Rufus followed its arc and shot it just as it was above them, causing an explosion that tore apart the closest ones and knocked down the ones further away. Law and Katsumi went for the fallen creatures, putting bullets in their heads, crushing them or cutting them off. Once the last one was finished, a large brute of a creature burst into the room and slammed a two-foot-wide fist into Katsumi. She went flying and Law caught her, sliding backwards and going down on one knee.

Rufus extended his rifle and powered it up, resting it on Law’s shoulder for stability and firing at the oncoming behemoth, putting a large hole in the thing’s chest and slowing it greatly, causing it to stumble. Sano came running at it from the side and Law released Katsumi, who took off running at it as well. Sano fired multiple times into the confused creature, running around it to cause it to spin around. Katsumi ran up its back, driving her blade into the base of its neck before leaping off and avoiding its wildly swiping arms. Rufus’ next shot hit the beast in the back of the knee, bringing it down onto its back, which only drove the blade in deeper. Law reached it then, gripping the hilt of the blade and setting a foot on the demon’s skull before using his impressive strength to yank the blade up and twist it around, cleaving the thing’s neck.

As it jerked and died he ripped the blade free and tossed it to Katsumi, who caught and sheathed it in one smooth movement. She began walking as Sano joined her; Law picked up his large case and Rufus collapsed his rifle, and the two joined the others as they headed for the next set of stairs to continue on to floor 8.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Reno laughed. “I’m sorry, it’s just hard to believe, you know?”

Ayane chuckled. “Why’s it so hard to believe?”

“I’m just now getting used to the fact that apparently the boss has a softer side. To me she’s always been, you know; ‘I chew steel and spit out bullets, I’m tough!’ I didn’t even know there was more.”

“Oh, there’s lots more!” Ayane held up her moogle in front of the camera. “She got me this, you know. I didn’t ask for it. She always gets me things like this, or flowers, or mushy cards.”

Reno leaned forward and stared. “You’re kidding. She picks out mushy cards?”

“Oh, no, she
hates
pre-made cards.” Ayane grinned. “She writes them herself.”

“She writes mushy cards.” Reno removed his glasses. “Ayane… Have I told you I love you?”

“I’m the best thing to ever happen to you, huh?”

“You have no idea.” He replaced the glasses. “You have to read me one of those cards. You
have
to.”

“I could
never
do that to Katsumi! She only trusts
me
with that stuff.” She smiled. “You’ll just have to imagine.”

“Aww, come on, I wouldn’t tell her!” Ayane simply gave him a look. “Okay, I would, but I wouldn’t tell her you told me!”

“No one else could have!”

“Well yeah, obviously she’d
know
, but I wouldn’t
tell
her is the point I’m making.”

“How does that help keep her from killing me?”

“Oh, am I supposed to be helping you? That might take more thought.”

Ayane laughed, but her mood seemed to fall as a voice spoke off-screen. She then sighed and looked back at the screen. “Hold on, it’s time for my medicine.”

“Hey, I hear you’ll soon be taking that at home, so it’ll get better!”

She smiled. “You’re right. Anyway, this should only take a few minutes. When I get back we can discuss how selfish you are.”

“Or how you ruin my fun!” Ayane just grinned and his screen paused, leaving him in silence. He checked the other screens’ readouts but determined he could still do nothing useful. He tried contacting the team inside again, but it still wasn’t working. So, he just sat back and looked at the creepy house. “Could’ve joined any other team,” he said to himself. “But no, I had to join the one where I sit outside of a haunted house alone. Great idea, Reno!” After a few minutes of quiet he heard a sound behind him and nearly fell out of his chair turning around, only to see an older man with light brown, slightly graying hair and beard and wearing a long trench coat, a few meters behind him. Reno sighed and sat back. “You nearly gave me a heart attack, man.”

Joseph walked forward to stand beside the man he recognized from Sigma’s files as Reno, looking up at the ancient house. “I apologize. What is going on?”

Reno adjusted his glasses and looked back at the house as well, unable to see the saber on Joseph’s left hip or the way his fingers rested on it, ready to draw it. “You live around here? We’ve received a few reports about this place, but we’ve got people inside right now.”

“Is Captain Samakura inside?”

“Oh, are you with us? You one of the Directors maybe? She’s a Major now, you know; not Captain.”

“Is she inside?”

Reno was a little put off by the man’s cold attitude; he was definitely the type of person who could be on the Aegis board. “Yeah, but I wouldn’t go in there, we’ve been having some communication problems.”

“You won’t be going in there.”

Reno was about to say something about how obvious it was that
he
wouldn’t go in because
he
wasn’t insane, but that moment happened to be the exact one Ayane chose to return. “Sorry it took so long! I tried to tell them I’m feeling better, but they-… Father!”

“Fa-“ To his credit, Reno reacted with speed he should’ve been proud of, drawing his pistol and trying to stand. But Joseph was inhuman; his blade whipped up and hacked Reno through the computer equipment, sending him sailing as Ayane shouted his name. He bounced and skidded across the yard before hitting the side of the house and falling limp.

With another slash Joseph destroyed the rest of the blood-spattered equipment, then flicked his blade clean and sheathed it as he headed towards the house and stepped through the front door after his eldest daughter.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Katsumi grit her teeth and twisted her sword before yanking it out of a demon’s skull and letting it fall; their tenth floor was finished, only forty-nine to go. Katsumi allowed herself to catch her breath as she looked around, making sure the rest of the team was alright. All of them were covered in blood; mostly demons’ blood, some their own. They were beginning to look weathered, but constant fighting did that. Every floor seemed to have more enemies than the last and it was beginning to frustrate them. Eventually one of them might make a mistake, and Katsumi didn’t look forward to losing someone in here. She called for a break and they all took a seat somewhere, drinking water or just staring at the ceiling. They didn’t have any real supplies as none of them had expected to be trapped inside, so that was one more reason they had to finish this tonight. Katsumi finished cleaning her sword and checking her guns, deciding to not even bother with her hair or clothing and instead looking at the other members of her team.

Sano had his head in his hands but was tapping his foot at a quick pace; Katsumi noticed the headphone in one ear and realized he was listening to music to get himself ready for the next
room. Whatever he had to do was fine with her; she was proud of the way he was handling this, especially with how close he had gotten to Hitomi prior to this incident. Despite that personal connection he was remaining a true professional and following every order, not letting his emotions get the better of him. Sano was more emotionally-involved in things than the rest of the team and that could make things hard for him, but it also gave him a determination and personal drive that Katsumi hoped he would never lose.

Law looked as cool as he always did. The giant of a man was cleaning one of the massive weapons he had brought, and Katsumi was happy he’d had the foresight to bring the case full of them and ammunition. In general she was glad that he had come after them himself, because she knew they would need him to get through this, and having her oldest and closest friend outside of her sister with her gave her a lot more confidence. He was a wall, a tank, that drove his way through their enemies and gave them a fighting chance. Katsumi had always considered Sano the moral anchor of the team, and Law the cornerstone that kept them strong.