Haddler didn't say a word the whole way back to the Argus Directorates Post. Not even on the Sub-Train.
⠀
That was what scared Mori more than anything else. Haddler always had something to say, even when it was stupid, even when nobody asked. He just kept his eyes on the floor and his hands in his pockets and led the four of them down a hallway that suddenly felt way too long.
⠀
"Haddler," Mori said. "What's going on?"
⠀
Haddler didn't answer. He pushed open the dining hall doors and stepped aside to let them through.
⠀
The last time Mori had been in this room, there'd been a cake taller than himself and about a hundred candles on it. Now the long table was shoved against the wall, empty, and a row of plain wooden chairs sat in the middle of the floor, facing the door like they'd been set up for a job interview.
⠀
Or a trial.
⠀
Valentia, Suzette, and Pallas stood in a line off to the side, and none of them looked up. Valentia's hat was pulled low. Suzette folded her hands in front of her like she was at a funeral. Pallas stood the stiffest of the three, staring at a spot on the floor, unfaltering.
⠀
In the center of the room, behind the chairs, stood a man Mori had never seen before.
⠀
He wore a grey three-piece suit, pressed so sharp it looked like it could cut somebody, and his grey hair was combed flat against his skull. He wore gloves. Even indoors. Even now. A gold pocket watch hung from a chain at his waist, and his hands stayed folded behind his back.
⠀
Antollio stood beside him. He wasn't smiling.
⠀
"Sit," the grey man said.
⠀
Nobody moved.
⠀
"Sit," he said again, no louder, and somehow that was worse than if he'd shouted it.
⠀
They sat.
⠀
"My name is Vance," the man said. "You don't know me, and that's fine. You will."
⠀
"Vance," Yuhuan repeated, low. "The Grey Death."
⠀
Something in Vance's face didn't change at all, which was its own kind of answer.
⠀
"I'm the man Antollio answers to," Vance said. "Which means I'm the man you answer to as well. But that seems to be changing." He pulled the pocket watch free, checked it, and snapped it shut. "Let's not waste each other's time."
⠀
He unfolded a single sheet of paper.
⠀
"Unit D," Vance said. "Mori Ryunosuke. Yuhuan Lau. Saoirse Farrelly. Roby Reichelt. You are formally charged, as of this hour, with the following."
⠀
"Charged?" Roby said. "With what? We just got outta that damn facility! We didn't do nothin' wrong!"
⠀
"Quiet," Vance bellowed, and Roby, to his own visible surprise, went quiet.
⠀
"One," Vance said, raising his index finger. "In-fighting between licensed Fixers of the same Post, resulting in bodily harm."
⠀
Nobody argued that one. Mori felt his stomach drop anyway. He hadn't thought anyone outside that hallway would ever know about it.
⠀
"That's true..." Yuhuan said.
⠀
"Two," Vance went on, raising his middle finger. "Unauthorized entry into a sealed DaeSyndicate research site."
⠀
"We had clearance," Pallas said, the first thing he'd said since they walked in. "I authorized it myself, and Kopf Dirigent, Office Leader of Scrapyard Heap, granted us passage."
⠀
Vance's head snapped to Pallas, almost as if telling him indirectly to shut up.
⠀
"An Office Leader's clearance," Vance said, "isn't the same as the Ring's clearance. You should know that better than most, Pallas."
⠀
Pallas's jaw tightened, and he staggered back into line. He didn't say anything else.
⠀
"Three," Vance said, raising his ring finger. "Possession of unregistered high-resonance ARCH contracts."
⠀
The room went very still.
⠀
"What's that mean?" Mori asked.
⠀
"It means the Gun contract living inside you was never filed with any registry in the Ring," Vance said. "Neither was whatever's currently on Yuhuan Lau's wrist. Both of those should have been reported and reviewed the moment they formed. Neither was."
⠀
"Nobody told us we had to—" Mori started.
⠀
Vance slammed his cane down.
⠀
"I'm aware," Vance said. "That's not the part I care about."
⠀
Pallas made a sound like he'd been hit. Mori looked over and saw something break behind the man's eyes.
⠀
"That's on me," Pallas said. "I was the closest thing to a researcher in that unit. I should have flagged it the moment I understood what he was carrying... I didn't. I was too busy being grateful somebody survived that place at all."
⠀
He stepped out of the line. Vance didn't stop him. Pallas crossed to Mori, reached into his coat, and pulled out his DaeSyndicate badge, scratched and faded, with a photo of a much younger Pallas on it.
⠀
"I don't have anything else worth giving you," Pallas said, pressing it into Mori's hand. "Keep it. This is the only way I can apologize for this mess."
⠀
He stepped back into line. Vance watched the whole thing without a flicker of expression.
⠀
"Four," Vance said, raising his pinky. Antollio spoke this time:
⠀
"Murder," Antollio said, "of a registered member of the Viscera."
⠀
For one second, his eyes went gold. Not the quick flash Mori had seen before, in training, in the field. This one held, just a beat too long, like he wasn't his usual self.
⠀
Valentia flinched, hard, and grabbed the edge of the table.
⠀
"That never happened!" Roby cried out. "We ain't killed nobody from the Viscera! Right, guys?!"
⠀
Saoirse was tense, but for once, silent. Antollio's eyes went back to normal. No one answered Roby.
⠀
"Five," Vance said, extending his thumb, moving on as if nothing had happened at all. "Impersonation of licensed investigators."
⠀
"When did we do that?" Yuhuan asked.
⠀
"Not yet," Vance said, and turned the page.
⠀
Antollio stepped forward this time and lifted a finger.
⠀
"Six—"
⠀
...Before Vance put his hand on Antollio's shoulder, shaking his head.
⠀
"That one's for later," Vance said, mostly to himself, and folded the paper before he'd finished reading it. He tucked it into his coat.
⠀
"What was six?!" Yuhuan asked.
⠀
"Something we'll discuss when it's relevant," Vance said. "Not today."
⠀
Saoirse's hand went up, slow, like she was in class. She started speaking shortly after, though, without anyone calling on her.
⠀
"So we did somethin' bad we don't even remember doin'?" she asked. Neither Stuffy nor Arnold had a joke ready for once.
⠀
Nobody answered her.
⠀
Valentia's mouth opened, and Suzette's hand shot out and closed around her wrist, quick and quiet. Valentia shut her mouth again. Neither of them looked at Unit D.
⠀
"Look," Roby said, forcing a grin that didn't sit right on his face, "can't we just, uh, talk this out over some Fun Cider? I know a great vendor! ...Huh?"
⠀
Nobody laughed. The silence that followed hit harder than if he'd bombed loud.
⠀
"Patches," Vance said.
⠀
"What?" Mori said.
⠀
"Your patches. The yellow ones on your sleeves. Give them here."
⠀
One by one, they peeled the faded Roman numeral IV off their sleeves and set them in Vance's gloved palm. Mori's came off last, the thread snapping with a small tearing sound, and he felt it more than he expected. Vance folded all four into his coat pocket without looking at any of them.
⠀
The doors banged open.
⠀
"WAIT!"
⠀
Mitchell stood in the doorway, doubled over, hands on his knees, breathing like he'd run the whole way from wherever he'd been. His nakiri was still holstered on his belt.
⠀
"Don't," Mitchell gasped. "Antollio. Don't you dare do this...!"
⠀
Antollio tilted his head, mild as ever.
⠀
"Do what?" Antollio asked.
⠀
Mitchell straightened up. He looked past Antollio, past Vance, and saw the empty patches of thread on four sleeves, and the badge in Mori's hand, and the way no one could bear to look at anybody.
⠀
His face went white, then red.
⠀
"You already did it," Mitchell said. "You son of a—!"
⠀
"Language," Antollio said gently.
⠀
Mitchell didn't even look at him. He crossed the room in three long strides and crouched down in front of Mori's chair.
⠀
"I'm sorry," Mitchell said. "I wasn't fast enough. I heard about this an hour ago, and I ran the whole way, and it wasn't fast enough..."
⠀
"It's fine, Mr. Mitchell," Mori said, even though it wasn't.
⠀
"It's not fine," Mitchell said. He looked at Yuhuan, at Saoirse, at Roby. "This isn't right! And everybody in this room knows it's not right! And most of 'em are too scared to say so out loud..." He stood back up, chest heaving, and turned toward Vance. "You're gonna hear from me about this..."
⠀
Vance checked his pocket watch.
⠀
Mitchell turned back to Unit D.
⠀
"We're gonna see each other again," he said. "Soon. And when we do, I'm helpin' you. However I can. That's a promise, not a maybe."
⠀
He gave them one last look, jaw tight, and walked out. The doors swung shut behind him.
⠀
The room was quiet for a moment. Then Antollio stepped forward, hands folded, and looked at the four of them with an expression Mori had never seen on him before. Not cruel. Not cold. Just tired, and a little bit sad.
⠀
"Your services," Antollio said, "are no longer necessary in our Post."
⠀
He let that sit for a second.
⠀
"Please leave."
⠀
Nobody moved right away. Then Yuhuan stood first, and the others followed, because there wasn't anything left to sit for.
⠀
Vance stepped in front of Mori before he reached the door. Up close, his eyes were pale grey, almost the same color as his suit, and they didn't hold any particular feeling at all.
⠀
"Ryunosuke," Vance said.
⠀
"...Yeah?"
⠀
"There's a fast way to get what you want in this world," Vance said, "and there's the long way. I've decided you're going to do this the long way. Consider that a kindness, if you're capable of it."
⠀
He didn't touch him. He just checked his pocket watch one last time, snapped it shut, and stepped past, out the door Mitchell had left open, without another word.
⠀
Nobody stopped Unit D from packing up their rooms. Nobody helped, either.
⠀
By the time they reached the front gate, the rain from the hospital had followed them all the way here, or maybe it had never stopped at all. It came down in a steady grey sheet over the Post's courtyard, running off the golden spade above the gate, the same symbol Mori had seen from the Sub-Train's window on his very first day.
⠀
They stood there a while, all four of them, soaked through, with nowhere in particular to be.
⠀
"So," Roby said, staring up at the rain. "Anybody got a plan?"
⠀
Nobody answered.
⠀
"Great," Roby said. "Great! Love that for us." His voice cracked a little on the last word, and he covered it with a laugh that didn't fool anybody.
⠀
Saoirse sniffled and raised Stuffy and Arnold over her head like a shield against the weather. Neither of them said anything either.
⠀
Yuhuan looked back once, at the building they'd called home for the last few months, its windows lit up warm and yellow against the grey afternoon, and then he looked away.
⠀
"Come on," he said. "Standing here won't fix anything."
⠀
Mori looked down at Pallas's badge in his hand, the photograph on it soft with age, and closed his fingers around it. Then he looked back up.
⠀
"—?!" Yuhuan tensed up at the sight of Mori's expression.
⠀
The light that was once in his eyes had faded completely, leaving only a well of deep blue that could be mistaken for a deep shade of black if one looked with only a glance. Yuhuan didn't bring it up.
⠀
The four of them walked out through the gate together, into District 7.