Kei's Freedom
The bandaged man became the most clicked article on our site. I didn’t write it myself, but the details of the bandaged man gave people a strange interest in it.
It’s not because it's an anomaly, but the descriptions we wrote in the article. The readers think we found an alien who was planning to disguise himself as a humanoid. Investigation shows he was made of silicon more than carbon and even with our fleshcrafting techniques of the era. It’s impossible for them to do this.
One of the guys in Redmond, a transmutation specialist came out and told us the anomaly itself isn’t alien. It shows that it transformed whatever it inhabited into this creature.
One thing about anomalies is they are called an anomaly because they deviate from what is standard and expected. So when something is attached with labels. It no longer is an anomaly. Just another ‘anom’ that got labeled to be identifiable. Even the creeping shadows we saw are now just some shadows that appear when someone is extremely distressed.
I had a discussion with a few of the Mages and after labeling the records, obviously with Kei and Sato’s permission. We manage to categorize them.
Anom. Is a normal anomaly that has not yet shown anything beyond normal. They can be the bandaged man, the concrete guy.
Warped Creatures are those who have acquired serious abilities that are borderline reality warping. For example, the semi-unlimited spaces and the creatures who can toss into an unknown space. And the most extreme case is going to be called the ‘Malformed’.
These are creatures who go beyond common understanding. Malformed into these kinds of monsters who can make the lives of people into a living hell.
I’d say the manmade God we saw on Vultan is one of the Malformed. We opted for a Distortion, but it was already used by the OB for other purposes.
So we had to make do with our labels. The Anom, the Warped, and the Malformed. We had to inform Kei about it and after she got the okay from Sato and his contact with the Redmonds.
We are able to identify them based on their classifications. Our info-site was also accepting requests. Inquiries about possible anomalies sighted.
When we opened the function. It got flooded with spam bots and ads. Thankfully, the gearhead Sato employed shut the whole thing down and made a filter.
We had interns under the oath now going through them and once in a while Kei would send text files. Aidan, our newest advisor, had recommended Kei to change apartments. But since she liked her apartment, she opted for Sato to procure it. Sato already had his eyes on the building and with how business was. He started acquiring the lot. I don’t know how. But he got it. He also filled the damn place with 7S’s associates whose part-time job is to watch over the place. I did seriously think about moving, but I liked my place in lotus lane.
Anyway, Aidan made moves to the gangsters around. He also made contact with the Kurogane Brotherhood to make non-aggression pacts. Aidan has fame. He was usually lowkey and didn’t go out much, but with his new associations with the Shichinin No Ken, the Redmonds, and the Kurogane. He walked out of the shadows and let the others know the fuck he was.
It was in the best interest to have a strong security and with Aidan around. It’s because of his presence that people under our office aren't threatened by the gangsters in Nyota, Asobe, and Lotus Lane.
Not that we are showing them how strong he was. But these types usually try not to fuck with associates of big orgs like the Shichinin No Ken and the Redmonds. They know we aren’t stupid to put our databases here so they’ll gain nothing here. It’s simply more useful if they do business with us than antagonize us and some of them are smart enough to understand how beneficial it is to have access to information like ours.
You might think that surely there isn’t much use for this info. But CHANGYE is large. And we aren’t limiting ourselves to just Changye. We sell the data to others who are curious and although there are other places now who are trying to get some good pay from our data.
It doesn’t bother Sato usually unless they earn too much. I can't even understand how much we are earning money through information breaking. Kei did tell me that most of the funds are coming from various organizations who are very interested in the footage we are selling. Kei sells the information by parts and if you want more. You’ll have to buy it through the premium service Sato made himself.
The emails we got also say a lot. They want the information. Of course, we’re also in cahoots with a Tech-lich who became first in the list when the Redmonds started testing the wisp-batteries they made. I also suspect that the gearhead Sato hired is Matt. But I don’t have evidence to support that statement so I just keep quiet about it.
Anyway, it was baffling how much interest they have on what we sell. Hell, the only one who seems worried about it is Kei herself. Kei is smart, she is cool and composed, but when things go too well. She gets into this state of paranoia.
It was during a meal over at a ramen shop that she told me about her concerns. We were eating beef noodles. I was eating my meal when she told me she had invested some of the funds we got to this tech company introduced by Matt.
“We’re burning too brightly, Akun. I’m not usually superstitious, but I have a feeling we should put our money in places we can earn. We are earning a lot, sure. But it will be more crowded in the future. The market will saturate.”
So she bought some assets. Bought gold and silver she keeps stored somewhere. I wanted to get on it so I bought myself some gold as well and have her store it to a non-disclosed location.
Anyway, I am having this thought while listening to Aidan talk with the Enforcer of the Ji Ceng syndicate. In front of me is Fu Ming, the guy that Eta fought when one of their thugs tried to cheat us.
They heard of the business and since their superiors wanted to talk it out. They sent Chu Chen and Fu Ming to discuss it. I remained mostly silent while Aidan talked. Fu Ming however seems like he has some thoughts.
“Heard Eta croaked.”
“Yeah.”
“Was it a glorious one?”
He asked sincerely. Voice full of respect to a former foe. Guys like Fu Ming ain’t petty. They have a crude honor and once you fight with them. They acknowledge you one way or another. Wasn’t surprised he asked, actually.
“As glorious as it can be.”
“A shame. She was a good woman. Good fighter too.”
Fu Ming leans forward and speaks quietly.
“Mister Aidan ain’t bad either. But she was something else.”
“Yeah, she was.”
Fu Ming crosses his arms and nods. We aren’t children. What happened a long time ago did cause us trouble, but in Changye, it’s common for old foes to become friends and allies.
It’s all business. It might have been different if we killed folks he considered family. But since he’s speaking to me without grievances, then it means he’s over it.
“Then we can do business.”
Aidan shakes Chu Chen’s hand. We exchanged pleasantries and they left in a hurry. Chu Chen called someone and cursed him. Aidan watches them and snorts.
“Those guys are shameless, but they know how to do business here. Are you sure Kei’s not Sato’s daughter or something?”
He really means what he’s asking. I raised a brow and asked why.
“Why think that?”
“Just a wild thought. But he really likes Kei. I think he’s grooming her into becoming his successor. Take on his role once he’s done with this life.”
“Maybe. His support really is strange if you think about it. No one usually does this without getting something.”
But the 7S is profiting more than us. They have more funds coming in and with the Bureau telling them to keep what happened in Vultan a secret. I can’t imagine what benefits they are getting to keep the Shichinin no Ken silent.
“Well, that’s the Kurogane and the Ji Ceng. Other than the small-time gangsters hanging around their block. We don’t have to worry about anyone trying to hustle our people.”
Aidan lights his cigar and slides out of the booth.
“Anyway, I have to talk with our newest recruits. Sato wants them checked and trained. What about you? Going to hang around here?”
“No. I’ll leave and find Kei. I think she needs me to report.”
“Good luck.”
Aidan leaves. I finished my food in the restaurant. I left after 1 PM and got back to the office where Kei was smoking by herself.
“Akun. Done with your business?”
“Mostly. How are things here?”
“Pretty good. Well, that’s most of the drama. By the way, I got Sato to agree about finding more anomalies.”
She seems happy about it. She did have personal interest with the anomalies.
“Good. So no more reports and meetings and writings?”
“Still need to do that. I had a talk with Sato about how we’re burning too much. He agreed with me so we’re going to take time in releasing some of the articles we prepared. Build up interest and see how far we can go without a new one.”
“If that’s how you want to play it.”
I’m not so sure about the business-side of our work most of the time. Kei’s more knowledge within that area and all the tactics she employs seem odd at times, but they do work. It also helps she knows how to market our data and also knows people who can do far better than her.
“That’s how I want to play it. We’re an actual business now. An office with partnerships, but it doesn’t mean we’ll abandon investigating personally. Do you know why I made it so that others can take off the minor stuff?”
“Enlighten me.”
She smiled and then crossed her arms and legs.
“Because we don’t need the distraction. We can put more focus on more interesting anomalies. We can do the legwork while Aidan and his freelancers can do the work on processing our previous data.”
“So you aren’t planning to sit and be comfy.”
She shrugs.
“We can do that when there’s no interesting work. Think of it as the backbone of our office. We need financial freedom. And I’d rather not starve or lack resources while we investigate.”
The office is earning money. But personally we weren’t earning much. Sure, there’s a lot going on, but most of the funds are going to maintenance and cost. Sure, I’m earning enough to not starve, but not enough to live freely.
Kei’s office only exists because of Sato's support and what we can bring to the table that allows us to be around to do our activities. Kei knows this and uses her expertise in anomalies to be the leading girl to which they can rely on.
So even if the 7S loses interest and all funding is pulled. She’ll be able to operate normally with or without Sato’s help as Detective Kei, the person you go to when talking about an anomaly.
“Lot of work to have that kind of title.”
“It’s a must do in this business. With this, Sato should be glad that he allowed me to have my own office.”
“No wonder you were motivated to do all this, Boss.”
Kei smiles and shakes her head.
“Sato sent us to Vultan, Akun. We lost Marv and Eta because of his request. I respect him, I really do. But after that, I don’t think I want to be in a position where he can freely order us to be in that kind of position. And even if he does complain, we've contributed enough to let us do our work in peace without him hovering behind our backs.”
And then puzzles fitted in.
Kei's Freedom
The bandaged man became the most clicked article on our site. I didn’t write it myself, but the details of the bandaged man gave people a strange interest in it.
It’s not because it's an anomaly, but the descriptions we wrote in the article. The readers think we found an alien who was planning to disguise himself as a humanoid. Investigation shows he was made of silicon more than carbon and even with our fleshcrafting techniques of the era. It’s impossible for them to do this.
One of the guys in Redmond, a transmutation specialist came out and told us the anomaly itself isn’t alien. It shows that it transformed whatever it inhabited into this creature.
One thing about anomalies is they are called an anomaly because they deviate from what is standard and expected. So when something is attached with labels. It no longer is an anomaly. Just another ‘anom’ that got labeled to be identifiable. Even the creeping shadows we saw are now just some shadows that appear when someone is extremely distressed.
I had a discussion with a few of the Mages and after labeling the records, obviously with Kei and Sato’s permission. We manage to categorize them.
Anom. Is a normal anomaly that has not yet shown anything beyond normal. They can be the bandaged man, the concrete guy.
Warped Creatures are those who have acquired serious abilities that are borderline reality warping. For example, the semi-unlimited spaces and the creatures who can toss into an unknown space. And the most extreme case is going to be called the ‘Malformed’.
These are creatures who go beyond common understanding. Malformed into these kinds of monsters who can make the lives of people into a living hell.
I’d say the manmade God we saw on Vultan is one of the Malformed. We opted for a Distortion, but it was already used by the OB for other purposes.
So we had to make do with our labels. The Anom, the Warped, and the Malformed. We had to inform Kei about it and after she got the okay from Sato and his contact with the Redmonds.
We are able to identify them based on their classifications. Our info-site was also accepting requests. Inquiries about possible anomalies sighted.
When we opened the function. It got flooded with spam bots and ads. Thankfully, the gearhead Sato employed shut the whole thing down and made a filter.
We had interns under the oath now going through them and once in a while Kei would send text files. Aidan, our newest advisor, had recommended Kei to change apartments. But since she liked her apartment, she opted for Sato to procure it. Sato already had his eyes on the building and with how business was. He started acquiring the lot. I don’t know how. But he got it. He also filled the damn place with 7S’s associates whose part-time job is to watch over the place. I did seriously think about moving, but I liked my place in lotus lane.
Anyway, Aidan made moves to the gangsters around. He also made contact with the Kurogane Brotherhood to make non-aggression pacts. Aidan has fame. He was usually lowkey and didn’t go out much, but with his new associations with the Shichinin No Ken, the Redmonds, and the Kurogane. He walked out of the shadows and let the others know the fuck he was.
It was in the best interest to have a strong security and with Aidan around. It’s because of his presence that people under our office aren't threatened by the gangsters in Nyota, Asobe, and Lotus Lane.
Not that we are showing them how strong he was. But these types usually try not to fuck with associates of big orgs like the Shichinin No Ken and the Redmonds. They know we aren’t stupid to put our databases here so they’ll gain nothing here. It’s simply more useful if they do business with us than antagonize us and some of them are smart enough to understand how beneficial it is to have access to information like ours.
You might think that surely there isn’t much use for this info. But CHANGYE is large. And we aren’t limiting ourselves to just Changye. We sell the data to others who are curious and although there are other places now who are trying to get some good pay from our data.
It doesn’t bother Sato usually unless they earn too much. I can't even understand how much we are earning money through information breaking. Kei did tell me that most of the funds are coming from various organizations who are very interested in the footage we are selling. Kei sells the information by parts and if you want more. You’ll have to buy it through the premium service Sato made himself.
The emails we got also say a lot. They want the information. Of course, we’re also in cahoots with a Tech-lich who became first in the list when the Redmonds started testing the wisp-batteries they made. I also suspect that the gearhead Sato hired is Matt. But I don’t have evidence to support that statement so I just keep quiet about it.
Anyway, it was baffling how much interest they have on what we sell. Hell, the only one who seems worried about it is Kei herself. Kei is smart, she is cool and composed, but when things go too well. She gets into this state of paranoia.
It was during a meal over at a ramen shop that she told me about her concerns. We were eating beef noodles. I was eating my meal when she told me she had invested some of the funds we got to this tech company introduced by Matt.
“We’re burning too brightly, Akun. I’m not usually superstitious, but I have a feeling we should put our money in places we can earn. We are earning a lot, sure. But it will be more crowded in the future. The market will saturate.”
So she bought some assets. Bought gold and silver she keeps stored somewhere. I wanted to get on it so I bought myself some gold as well and have her store it to a non-disclosed location.
Anyway, I am having this thought while listening to Aidan talk with the Enforcer of the Ji Ceng syndicate. In front of me is Fu Ming, the guy that Eta fought when one of their thugs tried to cheat us.
They heard of the business and since their superiors wanted to talk it out. They sent Chu Chen and Fu Ming to discuss it. I remained mostly silent while Aidan talked. Fu Ming however seems like he has some thoughts.
“Heard Eta croaked.”
“Yeah.”
“Was it a glorious one?”
He asked sincerely. Voice full of respect to a former foe. Guys like Fu Ming ain’t petty. They have a crude honor and once you fight with them. They acknowledge you one way or another. Wasn’t surprised he asked, actually.
“As glorious as it can be.”
“A shame. She was a good woman. Good fighter too.”
Fu Ming leans forward and speaks quietly.
“Mister Aidan ain’t bad either. But she was something else.”
“Yeah, she was.”
Fu Ming crosses his arms and nods. We aren’t children. What happened a long time ago did cause us trouble, but in Changye, it’s common for old foes to become friends and allies.
It’s all business. It might have been different if we killed folks he considered family. But since he’s speaking to me without grievances, then it means he’s over it.
“Then we can do business.”
Aidan shakes Chu Chen’s hand. We exchanged pleasantries and they left in a hurry. Chu Chen called someone and cursed him. Aidan watches them and snorts.
“Those guys are shameless, but they know how to do business here. Are you sure Kei’s not Sato’s daughter or something?”
He really means what he’s asking. I raised a brow and asked why.
“Why think that?”
“Just a wild thought. But he really likes Kei. I think he’s grooming her into becoming his successor. Take on his role once he’s done with this life.”
“Maybe. His support really is strange if you think about it. No one usually does this without getting something.”
But the 7S is profiting more than us. They have more funds coming in and with the Bureau telling them to keep what happened in Vultan a secret. I can’t imagine what benefits they are getting to keep the Shichinin no Ken silent.
“Well, that’s the Kurogane and the Ji Ceng. Other than the small-time gangsters hanging around their block. We don’t have to worry about anyone trying to hustle our people.”
Aidan lights his cigar and slides out of the booth.
“Anyway, I have to talk with our newest recruits. Sato wants them checked and trained. What about you? Going to hang around here?”
“No. I’ll leave and find Kei. I think she needs me to report.”
“Good luck.”
Aidan leaves. I finished my food in the restaurant. I left after 1 PM and got back to the office where Kei was smoking by herself.
“Akun. Done with your business?”
“Mostly. How are things here?”
“Pretty good. Well, that’s most of the drama. By the way, I got Sato to agree about finding more anomalies.”
She seems happy about it. She did have personal interest with the anomalies.
“Good. So no more reports and meetings and writings?”
“Still need to do that. I had a talk with Sato about how we’re burning too much. He agreed with me so we’re going to take time in releasing some of the articles we prepared. Build up interest and see how far we can go without a new one.”
“If that’s how you want to play it.”
I’m not so sure about the business-side of our work most of the time. Kei’s more knowledge within that area and all the tactics she employs seem odd at times, but they do work. It also helps she knows how to market our data and also knows people who can do far better than her.
“That’s how I want to play it. We’re an actual business now. An office with partnerships, but it doesn’t mean we’ll abandon investigating personally. Do you know why I made it so that others can take off the minor stuff?”
“Enlighten me.”
She smiled and then crossed her arms and legs.
“Because we don’t need the distraction. We can put more focus on more interesting anomalies. We can do the legwork while Aidan and his freelancers can do the work on processing our previous data.”
“So you aren’t planning to sit and be comfy.”
She shrugs.
“We can do that when there’s no interesting work. Think of it as the backbone of our office. We need financial freedom. And I’d rather not starve or lack resources while we investigate.”
The office is earning money. But personally we weren’t earning much. Sure, there’s a lot going on, but most of the funds are going to maintenance and cost. Sure, I’m earning enough to not starve, but not enough to live freely.
Kei’s office only exists because of Sato's support and what we can bring to the table that allows us to be around to do our activities. Kei knows this and uses her expertise in anomalies to be the leading girl to which they can rely on.
So even if the 7S loses interest and all funding is pulled. She’ll be able to operate normally with or without Sato’s help as Detective Kei, the person you go to when talking about an anomaly.
“Lot of work to have that kind of title.”
“It’s a must do in this business. With this, Sato should be glad that he allowed me to have my own office.”
“No wonder you were motivated to do all this, Boss.”
Kei smiles and shakes her head.
“Sato sent us to Vultan, Akun. We lost Marv and Eta because of his request. I respect him, I really do. But after that, I don’t think I want to be in a position where he can freely order us to be in that kind of position. And even if he does complain, we've contributed enough to let us do our work in peace without him hovering behind our backs.”
And then puzzles fitted in.
