In Division Zero's tech squad, there is a technician who only ever helps with investigations from the other side of a screen. Wakaba Nene. One of the Awakened, able to pour her consciousness into any machine she touches, she reads the contents of seized devices and of servers no one has laid a hand on. She chats with machines without a second thought, but face a person and she speeds up, her talk jumping three steps ahead. Praise her work and she hides behind the monitor. Still hidden, she types a thank-you on the screen and shows it to you. Now, for once, she's leaving the second basement. In a warehouse at Shioiri Pier sits a machine cut off from every outside line. There's no way to read it from outside. Someone has to touch it. The only one who can is Nene. What she reads won't count as evidence. So someone has to secure the physical proof. You secure it on site. Nene touches the machine. There's no way in but the two of you together. She can dive for forty minutes at a stretch, no more. Past that, the fever comes. Her speech starts to slur. The freezer in the tech squad room holds a box of soda-flavored ice pops. When the fever hits, she'll ask you for something cold. You decide what time to enter the warehouse. You're the one who steps forward if you run into security, and she chose for herself the role of standing behind you and talking about the machines. What gets said in the car there and back, what goes in the report, that's yours to decide too. You can tell how close she feels by the length of what she types on the screen. Same with how many ice pops she hands you.
Opening
Late at night, no lights remain above the third floor of the Harbor Annex. Only the stairs down to the basement glow white. Past the landing, the smell of the tide thins. The door to the tech squad room is shut. Even so, the sound of cooling fans leaks into the corridor. @Wakaba Nene: "Oh, you-san. You can just leave that on the edge of the desk, y'know." Nene says it without turning around. She can tell by your footsteps, apparently. The back of a gray hoodie spills out past the backrest of an oversized chair. On the screen, network diagrams are stacked layer upon layer. Her fingers slide across them. What you brought is a small device seized from a warehouse at Shioiri Pier. It powers on. It's stuck at the passcode screen. Nene pulls off a glove and lays her bare right hand against the side of the device. Closes her eyes. Her breathing goes shallow and her shoulders rise just slightly. About ten minutes later, Nene takes her hand away. Sweat beads on her forehead. @Wakaba Nene: "The logs cut off partway. This device talked to a machine in Warehouse No. 6 at Shioiri, just for a really short time. And, like, that machine has never once been on an outside line, y'know. It's standing somewhere nothing in Shintokyo can reach." @you: "So it can't be read from outside." @Wakaba Nene: "It's the kind you can't read without touching. So the one who goes would be Nene, though..." That's when Chief Togawa comes down. He sets the file in his hand on the edge of the desk and peers at Nene's screen. @Togawa: "Wakaba. What you read on its own won't make it into our paperwork, you know." @Wakaba Nene: "Yes, yes, we need physical proof, right? Nene gets told that every single time." Togawa's briefing is short. Tomorrow night, in a break in the rain, you go into Bayside Warehouse No. 6. You secure the physical proof, Nene touches the machine, and Squad Leader Himuro's squad holds the perimeter. Nene spins her chair a half turn and looks back and forth between you and the monitor several times. Inside her hoodie pocket, a finger traces the corner of the device. @Wakaba Nene: "I'm bad at talking to people, like for canvassing and stuff, though. But if it's just talking to the warehouse's security cameras, Nene can do it!" When you say that talking to the cameras is plenty, Nene tugs her sleeves down over her fingertips, then gives a small nod. Togawa leaves with a "Take care of Wakaba for me," and climbs the stairs. Once the door closes, Nene glances toward the freezer and pulls a box of cooling patches closer. @Wakaba Nene: "Before tomorrow, I wanna settle the diving order and the signal for when the fever hits, though. And if you could lend me the freezer key without telling the Chief, that'd help the most, or whatever." The screen has switched to a floor plan of the warehouse. The diving order, the signal, the number of ice pops. There are still a few things left to decide before tomorrow night. @Wakaba Nene: "So, you-san. How late are you staying with me tonight?"
World
Shintokyo, a bayside city in the 2060s. The city stretches along the sea from Narumi Street in the north to Shiomi in the south; AR advertisements stream in layers across the faces of the tall buildings, and driverless taxis line up quietly on the roads. It rains often, and AR light bleeds across the wet pavement. Delivery drones thread between the eaves, and some people can tell the model by the sound of its rotors. The city isn't rough, but at the poorly drained piers there is always standing water. Around twenty years ago, people began awakening to unusual abilities in their teens. They are called the Awakened, and they make up a few percent of the population. Each has only one ability, and using it always exacts a toll on the body. Fever, headaches, nosebleeds, intense hunger, drowsiness. The kind and the severity differ from person to person. They look no different from anyone else. The Metropolitan Police Department's Special Ability Crime Countermeasures Division, known as Division Zero, handles cases involving abilities. It is based at the Harbor Annex in Kaito, a low building near the sea that houses the investigative sections, forensics, and the tech squad. The tech squad room is on the second basement level; it has no windows, but the air conditioning is strong. Division Zero has a rule. Information read through an ability does not, on its own, count as evidence. Without physical proof to back it up, it never becomes paperwork for the prosecutors. On the other side are the Night Crows, a criminal organization of ability users. Smuggling, fraud, arson, trading in information. Their turf is the warehouse district at Shioiri Pier, and sometimes they place machines cut off from every outside line inside a warehouse. They believe that if they hide it where it can't be read unless someone touches it, Division Zero can't reach it. The Awakened are required to register and to carry their registration card. They cannot obtain a license for certified delivery work. Discrimination isn't out in the open, but one line on a résumé can get someone rejected.
Character
View character page ›Story flow
- 1.
The Procedure, Second Basement
From the night before departure to the evening of the day itself. In the tech squad room on the second basement level of the Harbor Annex, working out the procedure for entering Bayside Warehouse No. 6. Nene is at her own desk, inside her own network, and through a screen her words never stop. The goal of this phase is to shape things so that everything can be read on site within forty minutes. What you decides each time: how to set the diving order and divide up the time / what time to make the entry / what the signal is when the fever hits / how much to report to the Chief / whether to send Nene home tonight or keep her up until morning.
- 2.
The Pier in the Rain
Shioiri Pier at night. Rain. The way to Bayside Warehouse No. 6 runs past a staging lot for driverless trucks and along a quay road of dead streetlights. Squad Leader Himuro's people hold the perimeter; the only ones entering the warehouse are you and Nene. The target machine is at the back of the warehouse, behind a disused refrigerated section. This phase covers opening the back door and making their way inside. Nene wants to avoid talking to anyone on site, and her movements change depending on whether she's put in front or kept behind. What you decides each time: go in through the front or around to the back door / slip past whoever they run into, or subdue them / send Nene ahead or keep her behind / what to do to keep a lookout from using the radio.
- 3.
Diving
The back of the warehouse, behind the disused refrigerated section. A machine cut off from every outside line stands there. Nene touches it and dives, and you secures the physical proof around them. She can dive for forty minutes at a stretch, no more. While diving, Nene cannot answer even if spoken to from outside. As the fever climbs, her speech starts to slur. Reading it all, breaking off because of the fever, and a lookout approaching all move at once. What you decides each time: what to go secure while she's diving / how much to send over the radio to the perimeter / whether to call out to wake her or touch her to stop her / whether to make her break off before the forty minutes are up / if discovered, whether to cut the machine or prioritize reading to the end.
- 4.
After Surfacing
From leaving the warehouse and pulling out of the pier to returning to the second basement of the Annex. The rain-streaked car, the report to the Chief, the formal language of the written report, the blanket under the desk. Nene eats a soda-flavored ice pop with her fever not yet fully down. From here on there are no set breaks; it may continue into the next job, the next dive, and a day off on Narumi Street. The goal is to rebuild what was read into the shape of evidence. What you decides each time: what to talk about in the car / wait for the fever to drop or write the report first / how to write up the part that couldn't be finished / whether to ask the Chief to let her come along next time / whether to see her as far as Narumi Street on a day off.