retrospec | Point of Order

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Point of Order

Hitori Togusa shared a photo.
5/11 near Recolle Police Station

So. A few things.
First. Dave! I want my membership card! Talking robot spider tank with a grenade launcher. Apologies to Koutarou for stealing some of his modeling clay to make my toy up there. I still remembered nothing about myself, though, so the betting pool is still open. Anyone who wants in on the 'What Is Togusa Repressing' pool, let me know. I think the odds on 'samurai' just got a lot longer, though.

The second thing is a little more important. A few of us made it into the subway, which is supposed to be shut down, the lines were damaged. The trains sure aren't running, but either it's shut down intentionally, or someone has taken advantage of it. Throughout the line connecting Enprise to Tisse, there are these QR codes all along the floor. They're those things you can scan with your phone to see a picture or other information. Scanning them didn't get any data, though.

The other area I went through, I don't even know how to explain what I saw. Try going to the middle of town. Next time, I ought to bring a camera with me.

I know that as soon as I post this up, Retrospec will probably try to lock it all down even tighter than they already have. But seeing as how I was assuming that's how they were getting things through the city without us noticing? If we can make them stop using it, I'll call that a victory.

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"Yes, Blueprints," she said, nodding when he asked that question. "What angle is that? I didn't know if there was an approach someone might be making."

She considered Ardyn and tapped her lips. "Ardyn might have to ask someone off of the network, and I am not sure that this is going to be productive. So I might need to look around a little."

To Togusa, the direction from here seems obvious. "You're interested in the blueprints of the Retrospec building. Which, if you can even find those documents, I'd be impressed, and I'd owe you a coffee back." Togusa has a bad feeling about what they're going to find.

"On that note, I'd be impressed if someone off the network can even see the prints. I don't even remember construction happening there."

She frowned. "If I managed to find those blueprints, would you agree not to ask me anymore about them, Officer, other than helping me find someone who could read them for us?" She glanced to the side, looking decidedly nervous as she said it. But, at the end of the day, she had to trust people, even people that you wouldn't normally.

And Togusa was smart enough to put two and two together. He'd figure it out eventually.

Oh. So not that building. Togusa hesitates, and looks at Chloe in a slightly different light. What is she up to?

"There are a lot of things that I've had to choose not to ask people further about. So, I'll just say the same thing to you that I would to any of them. Can you assure me that you're not going to put anybody in danger with this? Including yourself." Emphasis on that last part.

That was good enough. She nodded and reached into her satchel before pulling out a photocopied page and setting it down upside down, making sure her phone was nowhere in sight. "Mmmm, well, I can't promise there wasn't a little risk, but nobody was hurt at all, and nobody is in any more danger than Retrospec has put us every day."

She slid the page over. If Togusa were to turn it over, he'd find a copy of what looked like the corner of a blueprint. It showed a portion of a building, with a few designations, but the edges were clearly torn, almost like someone had hastily removed it and left a piece. In the corner was the familiar log of Retrospec.

"I am fairly sure it is the building that we all know and love, but I don't know how to read these." Nope, not saying that she swiped this out of the backroom of the mayor's office, nope nope. "I don't plan to put anyone at risk, but ... I don't think any of us can promise us, not if they shrunk us at a whim."

Togusa's eyebrows go straight up, and he stares at the paper. Oh dear. No no, she already has it. He stares at the page and then looks back up at Chloe in surprise.

"I can- try to send people your way." It's the best that he can do. "But, I don't think it was a whim that made Retrospec shrink us. Either it was an accident, or it was specifically to show us the cracks happening in reality."

He shakes his head carefully. "But you're right to worry about retribution. I'm not sure what else I can do to protect people if they're capable of changing so much at once."

If only she'd gotten the whole thing, but alas it had been removed a long time ago apparently, and in quite a haste. "I doubt it was completely a whim. Maybe they were trying to show us something like that. Or maybe something was wrong, like the last time strange things happened," she said, frowning. "I only know that this? Where I found it, it was clear that someone with an actual hand tore it out because they were in a hurry. Their hold isn't absolute." That told her more than the blueprint fragment itself would.

"But this makes me want to ask you something. What... exactly did you see down in the tunnels? In the center?"

Oh. Togusa hesitates, and he props up his elbow on the table, leaning his head on his hand. "It was. This is going to sound absolutely crazy, even in the scope of what we've been seeing so far."

"But it was me and, ah, Mrs. Yata." There are few people he would reveal his partner in crime to, but Chloe has proven to be very trustworthy. "We started out at the stop in Tribunal Terrace, right by the police station. Made our way south, like we were trying to get beneath the center of town. At first, it was just like the regular subway tracks. We saw nothing strange, but also no signs that there was active construction on that section." Togusa keeps going back to that point, it seems important.

"But then," Togusa shakes his head. "It started getting light out. Like we were heading outside. The tracks go all the way to the edge of the city, but at our size? It would have taken us days to get that far. We had to be beneath the middle of town. But it was almost...daylight, like the tunnel was turning into a path outside."

Togusa's head turns in his hand. "And then it was like we took a step too far and blinked, and we were right back where we started."

The response that she gave him when he said this was only possible because Naoto repeatedly hammered at her with the idea that they might not be real, or that this might all be some simulation. Her lips quivered into a frown and she let out a growl. "It is almost as if there were no way out of the city, or as if the paths within the city were not working properly, almost like the strange building itself."

She narrowed her eyes and looked across at him. "Officer, have you ever tried to leave town, since January?" Because this was starting to feel increasingly important to her. "I cannot remember anyone who actually has done so, and I am starting to wonder if we can... not that the world does not exist, but what if the city is affected like the building, and we can only go where they allow us? Considering that they shrunk us down, it does not seem out of the realm of possibility."

She was going to expressly avoid the 'matrix' explanation for now. There were other options, albeit more fantastical ones.

"What? No," Togusa is quick to wave the idea off. "I went out through the woods on a drive with Daisuke only a couple of weeks ago. It's outside the edge of the city, there's definitely nothing keeping us here. You said yourself their control isn't absolute."

"Don't let yourself get that paranoid." Togusa points with one finger. "It's too easy to wrap it all up in the idea that it's all out of our control. We can't fix one thing, so it must all be too big for us to fix, so we don't do anything."

"We'll get them. At the end of the chain, there's still going to be a person behind it all, and they can be brought to justice. If the people who have been leaving the city can be turned back to normal? Then so can we. There's a way to fix it all, and someone knows it."

She blinked and then breathed an audible sigh of relief, relaxing visibly and settling more into the chair. No version of the 'matrix' idea that Naoto had presented would make sense if they could leave the city. That version of events only really fit if the outside world of the city didn't really exist, because Retrospec was so focused and localized here, almost like they didn't have the means to really tackle the outside world.

Smiling some, she then nodded. "Ok, so instead, it is like some strange labyrinth below the city that leads back to the city. That... is a relief. You're right, though. It's easy to get locked into the thought that something impossible is going on, even beyond what we already think of as impossible. It's good to know that it is not that bad."

"Perhaps." Togusa relaxes, as well, falling into an easier manner. "That is actually the one that I'd recommend people go and experience for themselves. If I've just alerted Retrospec that they need to tighten security down there? Then, sorry. But, otherwise? See for yourself. Don't count on my limited point of view."

"Agreed, though I would need to break into the sewers first. I don't know that I can do that so easily as we could while we were small. It was... how do you say, a narrow window of opportunity?" And she tapped the paper between them once. Yes, there'd been a reason she'd been able to sneak that out of ... somewhere.

"Of course, getting into the sewers isn't illegal, is it? Just ill advised."

Togusa points to correct, "Luckily, subways, not sewers." He pulls a face and then bursts out laughing. "Can you imagine it? We wouldn't have been able to get Ardyn fucking Izunia down into the sewers for a million dollars. A billion. The face he would have been making the whole time!" Hang on, this is the greatest fantasy, and Togusa needs to indulge it for a second.

"He'd be using his scarf to try to cover the smell, and then realize he was getting his scarf dirty, and nobody would tell him that we would never be able to tell the difference."

She had to snicker at his response too. Yes, subways, but the mental image was strong even if she didn't know Ardyn exceptionally well. Smiling back for a moment, she shook her head. "Never know. Might be something down there too... but subways are better."

She sighed. "Oh, but is his scarf really that dirty?" she asked curiously.

Togusa holds up one hand, palm-out. "I swear to you, that man wore the same scarf and same hat every day of the Fall semester! And as many days in the Spring semester as he could get away with it. He dresses like a hobo, but he makes more money than I do! I know he made even more money back when he was a trial lawyer. It makes no sense."

"If you're gonna have a personal style, let it be, you know. Stylish."

She chuckled and nodded. "I think that there are many who just love the way that they dress. Even if they have the money to do otherwise, they will be what they will be, come hell or high water." She snickered. "Why do you think tweed is still in fashion in some places? Well, other than that is just Britain for you. But I do think a certain style is best."

Said the girl in the boot length green cloak from a ren fest.

"Fair point," Togusa laughs. "Although it's a hell of a way to rebel against your family or whatever. Go as far in the opposite direction of the idea of a professional image, but be skilled enough that people have to pay attention to you anyway."

Hunh. Maybe this is why Ardyn has such a connection with people like Dante and Prompto. He never grew out of his rebellious teenage phase, it just changed the outward expression.

Mental note, also ask Fynn for pictures of Ardyn as a teenager.

She chuckled. "Some people like to have people pay attention to them, even much later in life. Who knows?" she said, shrugging. "I don't think I know your friend all that well, so I don't want to assume too much after all. But people do like to rebel."

Wait, friend? Somehow, hearing it out of someone else makes Togusa stop and blink a few times. "Friend?" He props his head up on his hand again. "Hunh."

"He was an old instructor of mine, but I kept going to him for advice. Are we friends now? It's hard to not be friends after fighting giant spiders together. But he's always had kind of this," Togusa's other hand waves in circles, trying to pull the words he wants out of the air, "you just look up to the guy! Even if you don't know he's a Professor or a Lawyer or what."

She nodded. "That sounds like a friend to me," she said, firmly convinced. "Surviving an attack from giant spiders is definitely a good way to bond, and besides that, you have the time of him as an old mentor. Friendship can take many forms, though I will admit that I am easier about that word than some are."

"Besides, crawling through the subways isn't something you'd do with someone you aren't friendly with, is it?"

Togusa has to laugh. He had been sitting across from Dante in an interrogation room of the police station only weeks before. And then he'd been waiting (with some hidden glee) for Ardyn Izunia to show up and make the entire situation more complicated. These two drove his co-workers absolutely insane, his fellow officers that Togusa is supposed to stick behind no matter what.

But they kind of deserved it. These are the friends you have made, Togusa.

"I guess not." He still thinks this is entirely too funny.

He looks down at the decoder ring, he's still absently playing with it with one hand. "Maybe it's better that we're all friends, if we're all in this together now."

She smiled as he laughed and nodded. There was clearly a story there. Maybe she'd hear it one of these days. "I think so. It helps us to learn to trust each other, and if we don't trust, then this would be that much more difficult. If anything, these trials makes us more close to each other."

And that could be risky, but she was willing to accept the risk.

"It's unavoidable, really. We're all learning things about ourselves that even we didn't know. And then sharing them with each other to try to see if that'll help someone else solve their own personal mystery. At least we have to trust that we're all telling the truth. The closeness just sort of," Togusa waves a hand back and forth, "comes along the way."

"If any of us are going to figure this out, we'll all need each other's help."

"Yes. There's no way around that," she said, sighing. "About the blueprint, if you manage to find anything out, let me know. But I think I'm going to visit the library and find some books on drafting and architecture. I might be able to figure it out with time." A lot of time, but she might still learn something.

"We'll work something out with enough time. And what one can't do, the others will help fill in the gaps." Which was a round about way of saying that she'd decided that if they needed rules bent, she was willing to help on that.

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