Upside Down

After I sit down beside her, she asks, "Sora, you really like him, don"t you?"

"Of course Mama. I already told you that."

"Sweetheart, I have no idea how to say this other than being blunt. You"re not to have s.e.x with him. It might be legal and no one else would have a problem with it, but your father and I will. It"s true that we don"t have a problem with Chinatsu and you, but she can"t get you pregnant."

"Mama…"

She holds up a hand to stop me. "Let me finish sweetheart… Thank you. Regardless of the fact I"m too young to be a Grandma, it would probably be extremely dangerous for you at your age. Listen to me sweetheart, I was your age when I thought I fell in love for the first time. I just knew he was "the one." I found out before too long that he wasn"t. I dated several more that I thought the same thing about, until I met your father and truly fell in love for the first time. Infatuation feels a lot like love. It take experience to know the difference. You"re thirteen, you"re still my baby girl, as much as it may feel like he"s the one to you and you two will end up married in some happily ever after, surrounded by a dozen children, you can"t know that yet."

"Mama, can I say something?" She nods. "I have no intention of hopping into bed with Ryu or any other boy. I know for a fact I"d get pregnant if I did. I want children, but I"m in no hurry to have them. Honestly, I"ve imagined having s.e.x with him, but I promise you I won"t have s.e.x with any boy. Not until I"m sure. Not until I"m ready for a family of my own and most probably, not until I"m married. I also promise you to talk to you about it before I actually do if I"m considering it. I"m smart enough to know that right now I"m too immature to raise a child properly. I know birth control pills don"t work for us and I"ve no idea if condoms will work or not. I"m not willing to experiment to find out either."

Mama tells me, "You have no idea how grateful I am that you said that." She never says another word about the subject. She simply pulls me to her to hug me.

A few minutes later, I lean back to look at her. "Mama, I need a huge favor from you."

"What would that be?"

"I need you to make Chinatsu stay home tomorrow."

"Why? Are you going somewhere?"

I nod. "I have to go in to TGR tomorrow. Not only to give Hestia the code Mitty gave me, but tomorrow we start interviewing the people Hestia flagged." Her worried expression makes me change the tone of the conversation. "Mama, don"t freak out on me here. I need to be there, it"s my corporation and it"s my job. I don"t think it"ll be dangerous, but just in case, I don"t want Chinatsu anywhere near this. Don"t worry about me either. I"ll be taking both security teams with me tomorrow to keep me safe."

She sighs and pulls me back against her. "Mirai can do all of that, along with the new person you hired. That"s why she was hired after all."

"No Mama, it isn"t. She was hired to fill in for me when I can"t be there. I can and I should be there tomorrow. This is important. Not only is it my job, it"s my responsibility."

"Okay, okay, you win. I"ll keep her here with me, but she"s going to be angry."

"I know, but she"ll be safe. She can be mad at me all she wants as long as she is."

"You really do love her."

"Of course I do Mama. I have for a long time… On that note, I"m tired and need to go take a nap. I imagine Chinatsu is getting rather impatient."

◇ ◆ ◇ ◆ ◇ ◆ ◇

[Thursday, June 11th]

As you can expect Chinatsu has an absolute fit about having to stay home. It turns into a half an hour fight with her, until I finally got fed up with it and tell her in no uncertain terms that she isn"t going with me, no matter how big of a tantrum she throws.

Even so, she continues arguing with me up until Mama snaps, "Enough Chinatsu. You"re not going and that"s all there is to it."

Honoka never says or does anything at the house, but after the car pulls off, it"s a completely different story. She immediately pulls me to her, hugging me tightly to her and whispers, "You did the right thing. You"ll have enough worries today without adding more to them."

"Thank you Nee-chan. I"m sure I did the right thing, but I"ll be paying a price for this." Sighing, I snuggle against her to get more comfortable for the long ride to work.

We arrive shortly before 7:30. Walking into the outer office, we find Akari"s already there working.

Smiling brightly when she sees us enter, she says, "Good morning. Would you like some tea to start with?"

I glance at Honoka, who nods. Returning Akari"s smile, I reply, "Good morning. Yes, thank you, but please bring enough for everyone. This is going to be a long day."

Of course, Mirai and Hiro are in the office as well. After greeting them and Hestia, I sit at my desk and plug in the drive Mitty gave me.

It"s enough for me to say that Hestia incorporated the code Mitty gave me with no issue. Then I run a few quick tests to see if it"s working, which it is, flawlessly.

Akari brings in the tea and after everyone has a cup, she returns to her desk. While I"m sipping my milk tea, Mirai and Hiro take a seat around my desk and fill me in on the plans they"ve made for the interviews, as they do so Mirai lays a folder in front of me.

What"s inside is the employee profile of one Sadie Williams. A research a.s.sistant hired to work in the Nanotech division, but transfers to the Genetic Therapy division when it was shut down. Twenty-seven, British, and has been here for five years. Clean background, no disciplinary problems, but the financial is the part that catches my attention. Her yearly salary is 9.75 million yen, yet somehow she has anonymous electronic transfers into her bank account totalling almost twice that in the last year. The anonymous part is the issue since it"s almost impossible to hide things like that from high-level AI"s.

"Hestia, how deeply did you look into these anonymous transfers for Sadie Williams?"

"I tried every avenue available to find out where they came from Sora."

"Do you know if the source was foreign or domestic?"

"The transfers are from a domestic dummy account. I traced them back through seventeen other domestic dummy accounts where the money was transferred in internationally from a bank in Switzerland. I hit a level one AI"s firewall at that point and stopped rather than risk a confrontation."

"Okay, you did the right thing. Thank you Hestia."

"You"re welcome Sora."

Curiouser and curiouser. How blatant can you be? This just doesn"t sit well with me. How do I explain my gut feeling here? They cover traces back to themselves extremely well, yet they somehow fail to cover up anything that points to her as a mole. Anyone meticulous enough to do one would do the same for the other, unless they were setting her up as a sacrificial p.a.w.n to cover others. At least it seems that way to me.

I look at Hiro, who sipping his tea and looking at me inquisitively. "Hiro, this doesn"t seem right to me. They hide themselves, but not a person working to get them information? This doesn"t feel right."

He smiles delightedly at me. "Exactly what we think as well. I"m willing to bet good money she either never pa.s.ses them any information or what she does is so cursory it"s next to worthless."

"I know it"s for money, but she has to know that too. It makes little sense to me. Well, sitting here making wild guesses won"t accomplish anything. Hiro, please have a couple of security officers escort her here." I look at Honoka. "How do we handle security for me? I doubt she"ll be much of a threat, but better safe than sorry."

She nods at me. "Let"s do it like last time. Me on your left and Hiro and Mirai on your right. Mr. Daniels, Mr. Volkov, each of you please take a side of the desk. The rest of you be ready just in case." All of them nod acknowledging her orders.

Pouring myself another cup of tea, I sit back in my chair and sip it while waiting for her to arrive.

Ten minutes later, Akari announces they"re here over the intercom.

"Send her in please. Security can wait there." I tell her as I set my cup off to the side.

A couple of knocks on the door, a "Come in" from me, and she enters. Her eyes widen in surprise as she looks around the room.

I gesture to the chair in from of my desk. "Have a seat, Ms. Williams." I tell her with a pleasant smile.

Once she seats herself, I introduce myself. "h.e.l.lo. I"m Sora Kobayashi. As I"m sure you"re already aware, I"m the new CEO. I have a few questions for you regarding your time here."

She nods warily and I continue, "You"ve worked here for five years, correct?"

"Y-yes, Ms. Kobayashi, I have."

"Ms. Williams, are you happy with your job?"

"Yes, Ms. Kobayashi, I am."

"Then I"d love for you to explain this." I lay the financial report in front of her. She picks it up to look at it. As she reads her eyes widen and her face pales.

"Ms. Williams, who are you pa.s.sing information to?"

It"s easy to see she"s afraid, but she says, "I have no idea what you"re talking about Ms. Kobayashi."

I glance at the computer screen on my desk and it shows 0%. Well, it simply confirms what I already know, she"s lying in no uncertain terms.

I sigh loudly and roll my eyes. "Ms. Williams, honestly, we already know you"re working for someone other than us. The question is, do you want to talk to me or Tokyo Police? I"ll say this, if you talk to me and tell me whole truth, the worst that is going to happen is you"ll lose your job. Just with what we already know, if you opt for the latter you"ll be spending a long time in prison. So?"

She drops her head and shoulders. "Genelife Corporation." I glance at the screen, 100%.

"Thanks you, Ms. Williams. May I ask why? Since from what I see, you"re quite well paid for a research a.s.sistant."

She jerks her head up to look at me. I suppose she didn"t expect that question. "My father died about a year ago. He left my mother and me a rather large debt we have to repay. My mother has never worked before and there"s no way she could repay it, so that leaves it up to me. They approached me and told me they would pay it off if I pa.s.sed them information about any new gene therapies developed."

"How much?"

"A little over ¥80 million."

"Ms. WIlliams would you wait in the outer office for a few minutes, please."

"Certainly Ms. Kobayashi."

After she leaves and closes the door, I look at Honoka. "Nee-chan, I don"t want to fire her."

"Sora, you can"t let her continue to work here."

I sigh. "I know, but this just feels wrong. I"m adding more misery on top of misery."

"This was her choice, she made it, not you. Would you feel the same way if she was pa.s.sing along information about you?"

"No. I see where you"re going with this. Okay, Nee-chan, thanks. How about this then. If she tells Hiro everything and I mean everything, we let her resign?"

"Sora, ultimately, that"s up to you."

"Mirai? Hiro? Your opinions?"

"That"s actually the best she can hope for Sora. If you"re satisfied with that outcome, I"m fine with it." Hiro tells me.

"Sora, you know she"ll do this to the next company she goes to work for, right?" I nod. "Okay, as long as she tells Hiro everything."

I reach up and press the intercom b.u.t.ton. "Akari, would you send Ms. Williams back in?"

Akari replies, "Certainly," and Williams comes back in to sit down.

"Okay Ms. Williams, here"s what we"re going to do. You"re going to go back to work and pretend nothing has happened. At some point, Mr. Yoshida will call you in for a full debrief of what you told Genelife. You"ll tell him every last detail. If you"re honest with him, I"ll let you resign rather than fire you."

Mirai speaks up at this point, "Ms. Williams it"s obvious you"re unaware of this, but unless you and/or your mother co-signed the debt, you"re not responsible for it, unless you agreed to take it on as part of an inheritance. I suggest you talk to an attorney."

"I-I didn"t know that, I"d always heard that family inherited debt in Asian countries. Thank you. I appreciate you letting me resign Ms. Kobayashi."

I won"t recount the whole day of this. I summarize it for you though. We see sixteen people this morning, five of whom refuse to talk to us, before Honoka calls for lunch break at 11:30. We eat a light lunch and Honoka snuggles with me while I take a nap until 1:00.

From 1:00 until 6:00 we see another twenty-two people, four of whom refuse to talk. Of the thirty-eight people we talk to seven weren"t actually doing anything wrong. Hiro"s going to be really busy with the ones he has to follow up on. Honoka calls Mitty and he sends several officers to collect the ones that refuse to talk, so we"ll have to wait and see how it turns out.

Mirai and Hiro will be continuing the interviews tomorrow. Of course, without me, I have my appointments and date tomorrow after all, but I did tell them I"d be back Tuesday.

The main thing for me right now, is none of them that talk to us know anything about my nanites. Hopefully, things will stay this way, but again, it"s a wait and see.

Even taking the nap I did, I"m extremely tired by the time we leave at 6:00. I don"t think we even make it out of the parking lot before I fall asleep against Honoka.