Upside Down

He nods at me and says, "Yes, they are the other officers that are supposed to help. I thought undercover would be better than raising questions with the neighbors."

"Ah, okay. Makes sense to me. I kind of wondered how you were going to get around Mr. and Mrs. Katou. They keep a close eye on the neighboring houses, but since you"ve got these marked as a cleaning service they should ignore it."

As we arrive at the door, I place my hand on the reader and we hear the snick of the lock. I push open the door and turn on the lights. Taking the few steps to the bas.e.m.e.nt door in the back of the hallway, I see a small red light on at the top of the door handle. When I grasp the handle, the light turns green and I pull the door open. I look around for something to prop the door open with and notice a doorstop beside the entry table we always kept stuff on.

"Dad, would you grab the doorstop by the entry table for me please?"

Dad tells me, "Sure" and brings it over. I use it to prop open the door and then start feeling around for the light switch. When I feel the light switch, I flip it on then carefully make my way down the stairs and turn on the lights in the lab too.

Okay, first things first. Let"s see if we can find the camera records for the house. Looking around the well organized lab, I shake my head when I remember just how messy my parents usually were when it came to the house, then I hit upon a computer with a storage tower in the corner of the room. I walk over to it and wake it up.

"What did you find there Sora?" Dad asks me.

I turn to look at him and reply, "I"m not sure yet, but this computer is off by itself here in the corner, while the other two are readily accessible from the lab benches. It might have the records from the security cameras. The drive tower is certainly big enough to hold them. It says it"s 2500 zettabytes."

Lt. Aoki walks over to me and looks over my shoulder as I turn back to the computer. Perusing the desktop screen, I see an icon that says "cameras" and tap on it. It opens a screen sorted by date. The top line of which shows as today"s date.

Let"s see. This happened in August of 2051, but when exactly? I know it was close to the first of the month and it was a Friday because a show my Mother liked came on that day at 7. That show was what we were watching when Akiyama came over. I tap on the date and scroll it back to the month and year. The first Friday of August was the 4th. Okay, easy enough. Bring the recording list back to the forefront and scroll to the date. I bring up the record from then and fast forward to the time and slow it down to 2x speed until Akiyama shows up at the front door. Wow. First try and here I thought I would be digging through several records until I found it. Lucky. I stop the recording there and press play.

The next thing I know, my back is to the computer screen and Dad lightly shaking me while calling my name.

"Huh? What happened?"

"Sora are you alright?" Dad asked me worriedly.

"I"m fine. What happened?" I ask confused because the last thing I remember I had just started the recording.

"You found the record and pressed play. A moment later you would have fallen out of your seat had Mitty not caught you. You were out of it for several seconds. Sora, if you are tired, you can go back home and rest, you don"t need to stay here."

"I"m wide awake Dad. I wonder what happened. Uh, thank you for catching me Lt. Aoki." I say and turn my head back to the screen when Akiyama starts screaming. I come to in Dad"s arms. What"s going on here?

"Dad, I"m fine can you put me down?"

"No Sora, you"re not fine. If you were fine whatever it was that just occurred wouldn"t keep happening." He tells me with a very concerned expression.

"Dad, please put me down. My dress is too short for the way you are holding me, everyone can see my panties."

Lt. Aoki chuckles while Dad shakes his head, smiles slightly, and shifts me from a princess carry to me basically sitting on his forearm and I wrap my arms around his neck to stabilize myself.

"Dad, please don"t make me go home. I don"t know why it happened either, but I really do feel fine. Hmm… It only happened when I started to watch the recording. I was fine otherwise until I looked back at the screen again. So, it probably has something to do with that. If I promise not to look at the recording again, will you let me stay?"

He looks at me intently for a few moments while he thinks and finally tells me, "Fine Sora. You can stay, but if it happens again, you are going home. No arguments, understand?"

"I understand Dad. Thank you." I reply and hug his neck for a moment in thanks before he sets me down.

I still wonder why that happened though. It"s just too weird and makes no sense to me. It"s not as if I don"t remember this incident, so why does trying to watch the recording make me zone out or whatever you want to call it?

"Lt. these two systems are protected, we can"t get past the boot screen." One of the officers says.

"Do you mind if I take a look?" I ask looking at Lt. Aoki.

"No, go right ahead." He replies.

I walk over and look. Okay pa.s.sword protected. Well, I could try the pa.s.sword they used for the other house computers. I reach over to type in "" and hit enter. The boot screen disappears and the system finishes booting. Ha, my parents never changed the pa.s.swords on anything, ever. My birth month, name, day, followed by the @, and the year is all they ever used. At least they made this easy. I go over to the other system and do the same thing, it boots up as well.

Out of the corner of my eye, I see one of the officers reaching for the refrigerator door. "Stop! There are nanites in there and you aren"t wearing anything to protect yourself!" I yell. He stops and turns pale.

Lt. Aoki turns around to look at them and scowls while telling them gruffly, "What did I tell you before we even came out here gentlemen? Not to touch anything unless you were wearing protective gear. There are things here that could quite easily kill you. I suggest you take that to heart and think before you do anything."

"Yes sir." They reply.

I blow out my breath and return my attention to the computer. "Let"s see, research notes, research notes." I tell myself while opening the doc.u.ments folder. Okay they go by batch numbers? I walk over to the refrigerator and look at the flask I drank from. "GCN125Y" is printed along the bottom. I close the refrigerator and I head back to the computer as an officer seats himself in front of it.

"Excuse me please, I still need to use that for right now." I tell him with a smile.

He looks at me disdainfully and tells me, "Little girls should be at home playing with dolls."

"Excuse me! If it weren"t for this little girl, as you so rudely called me, you would neither have gotten into the bas.e.m.e.nt, nor would you have access to that system!"

"Officer Abe, you will apologize to Sora for your rude remark and then you will go wait with the vans. We will talk about this further when we get back to headquarters." Lt. Aoki tells him.

Abe glances at Lt. Aoki, then back to me with a sour look. He stands up and turns to walk out of the bas.e.m.e.nt.

"Officer Abe, You are good with computers, but your interpersonal skills need some serious work. I suspect you are good at your job or you wouldn"t be here, but if you leave this bas.e.m.e.nt without apologizing to Sora you will find you don"t have a job tomorrow morning. I guarantee you that if that happens you will find out future employers frown on this kind of behavior. You will have real problems finding more than a low paying job after I have you fired."

Abe blanches and asks, "You would do that to a fellow officer over a child?"

"I would do that to any officer who would talk to someone that way regardless of their age."

Abe turns back to me with a thunderous expression while clenching his fists and Dad steps in between us.

"Officer, I suggest you unclench your fists and not look at my daughter as if you were going to kill her. You brought this on yourself." He looks at Lt. Aoki. "I can"t believe Tokyo Police would hire someone with so little control over himself."

"Well Eiji, that wasn"t my decision, but the decision on what happens right now is his."

"I apologize Ms. Kobayashi." Abe snarls at me and stomps out of the room. I see Lt. Aoki shake his head.

"I apologize for his behavior Sora."

"You have nothing to apologize for, you did nothing wrong. That man appears to need counseling very badly. You said his name was Abe? I wonder if he"s a relative of Hiroaki Abe."

One of the other officers jumps in to say, "That"s his younger brother."

"Oh wonderful, as if I didn"t have enough problems already. I"m in the same grade as that idiot." I say rolling my eyes.

The officer that told me that he was his brother chuckles. "You seem to know him pretty well to describe him that way. Not that I blame you, all the boys in that family are idiots."

"Unfortunately, you could say I know him all too well officer." I shrug my shoulders and return my attention to the computer to look for the GCN125Y entry.

Finding the entry I touch it to open the entry. Once the folder is open, I scroll down looking for the summary and open it as well.

I begin reading the summary and the more I read, the wider my eyes become.