Platinum Storm

by N X Hunter

  The duty manager sighed, running his hand through his bright hair wearily.

  "Those kind of decisions aren't anything to do with me - I just manage what goes on with the people who are held here. From my perspective, I just followed the standard protocol and put Miss Montoya in a cell, and controlled her mental state with approved use of sedation when deemed necessary. The only other thing I had to do was inform the people who will try her, and arrange for you, as her representatives, to be able to interview her in a manner that fits with --"

  "The protocols. Yeah, your job is starting to sound a bit like mine... But, just between you and us, what would you think her chances are of becoming a... long term guest."

  "I don't want to see her sentenced any more than you do. She, and your team, are as important to me as they are to everyone else at Calibre, and I think there is something going on here that is deeper than it looks - I hope you'll be able to find out what it is. But, I have to be honest with you, we've never held someone for a crime as serious as a mahou shoujo refusing to fight before without it ending up in a life sentence. In fact, almost everyone we've held ends up staying, except for in a few rare cases where the person was completely innocent and someone made a mistake - which obviously isn't the case here as I saw her refuse with my own eyes, and we have that on camera. I don't want you to fail but, I wouldn't get your hopes up either. It's a very regrettable situation."

  "Fuck," said Rayna under her breath, balling up her fists. Soren patted her on the shoulder.

  "Well, thanks for being honest. You've been very helpful, even if it wasn't good news. Now, can you take us to meet with Klein?" James said, the image of polite professionalism, though there was a determination in his voice and posture that said he wasn't willing to accept this was a losing battle just yet.

  Chapter 20

  The room for the visits was surprisingly large - though it was impossible to tell how much space the prison occupied since it was underground and, from the presence of an elevator next to the door as they left the waiting room, it could well have been on several levels. There were doors off to the left as they walked to the room, but there was a sleek blackened glass wall stopping the group from seeing what was behind them. Cells, maybe, or just offices where the guards and administrators worked.

  The visiting room had a large digital window at the back showing a similar view to the one in the waiting room, which bathed the room in a sunny, coastal daylight. In the middle of the room was a wide, simple black table, and an arrangement of chairs. Sitting on one side of the table, smiling blandly, his wrists bound by steel cuffs with a small glowing blue LED on each side, was a man in his mid twenties with an unassuming physique, pale skin, light hazel eyes and sandy blonde hair that looked strangely immaculate for a prisoner. He was also clean shaven. Clearly the prison gave plenty of access to personal hygiene and grooming. He was wearing an indigo colored jumpsuit, with a five digit number on a white label at the chest, and repeated on the right sleeve.

  ."Well, I guess I'm popular today, Mel!" the man said genially, as the duty manager escorted the party into the room.

  Kitsuna noted the looks of contempt that made Soren and Rayna's faces match more than usual. Only James stayed pokerfaced, and she herself shrank meekly to the back of the group, the last one to take a seat. What use could she possibly be here? She didn't know this man, or Courtney, or much at all about the jail and its rules. She decided to just observe, unless anyone brought her into the conversation.

  Klein immediately brought her into the conversation, though.

  "Ah, you must be the girl who replaced lovely Jazz! Well, aren't you a delight! Definitely makes me wish I was still on the outside..."

  "Fuck you, Klein," Soren said through gritted teeth.

  The prisoner looked mock offended.

  "Soren! What have I ever done to you, guy? We used to have fun together, didn't we? Now it's all 'fuck you' just because I appreciate a pretty girl? You've changed, man."

  Rayna looked furious, but said nothing. Kitsuna inched her chair closer to James's without thinking. All the sympathy she'd wondered if she might have for the prisoner, given his situation, was absent. The guy was a creep, that was what every instinct in her body was telling her. And yet, she couldn't help but look at him. He was unremarkable looking, just as Rayna had said, and yet somehow his presence was sucking at her attention with the pull of a black hole. She didn't like how it felt making eye contact with him, but she couldn't look away.

  James cleared his throat.

  "We're not here to listen to your general nonsense, Klein. Just tell us what we came here for and we'll leave you to get back to whatever it is you do in here all day," he said.

  "I can't think what you can expect to get out of me. You have probably heard the full story from that nice duty manager already. I like Mel, he's a good guy, don't you think? Fair. Does things by the book. The perfect cog in the machine, but you know, likable with it. If he wasn't part of this whole fucking... dystopian nightmare you people have going on, he'd probably be out there in the normal world, doing something nice with his life, wouldn't he? A nice family, probably, little kids who dream of being just like their dad. They'd be the apples of his eye --"

  "You're trying my patience, Klein," James said.

  "No, let's hear him out," Kitsuna heard her own voice saying.

  She had no idea why, but she felt compelled to know what he was going to say. She felt as if it was important, as if anything he might come out with would be really significant. She scarcely noticed Soren eyeing her uneasily.

  "You know what I think? I think Courtney just finally saw that I was right all along. Nothing good comes from what you people are doing. You keep the monsters at bay, or so you think, but you don't even know what will happen if they get through some day, and you won't let people be prepared for that. You want to play God, deciding people's fates for them and making sure they never stray from your path. You let them run around oblivious to what is really there, playing with their children, doing their jobs, thinking that they are happy. Because you think you'll be able to keep this up forever, to maintain the society out there by hiding things from it. You think it's worth taking people's lives and twisting them, taking away any freedom they had to choose. Imprisoning them if they don't agree that yours is the right solution for this fucked up world. All I wanted to do was give everyone their power back. Give the magical girls or mahou shoujo or whatever fancy Asian term you want to use for your child soldiers their chance to choose. Give the people out there the chance to make their own plans with the truth of what is out there in their minds."

  James was shaking his head as if he couldn't tolerate another word, and Soren and Rayna shared expressions that were plain murderous, but Kitsuna found herself leaning forward, his words engaging her. Was this what she'd thought too, deep down? Was this man right?

  "Don't you think people would live their lives differently if they knew? Don't you think countries would forget their petty wars and dick measuring contests, and cooperate? And the people, don't you think they'd abandon all the stupid crap that doesn't matter, and get along better if they knew that in very real terms, there was an enemy of the entire human race out there, waiting to invade? All the stupid drama people distract themselves with, it'd fall away. People would love more, they'd forgive more, they'd --"

  "Win people's trust, betray them, knock up their best friend, and expect to be forgiven because hey, at least you didn't destroy humanity? Sounds like this is all just a way to defend your own sociopathic way of thinking. To make a world that suits people like you, where everyone else just puts up with your asshole antisocial behavior because there are worse things out there to worry about. Or is it chaos you want? You think you can get something out of destabilizing basically the whole of the world's population... What exactly is it you want, you piece of shit?" Rayna said, standing up and pounding her fists down on the table, visibly shaking with rage.

  "No!" Kitsuna shoute
d, standing up too and walking around James's chair to stand behind Rayna, who spun around to face her in angry confusion.

  There was a loud ringing in her ears, and adrenaline coursed through her.

  Why don't I feel afraid of Rayna? Rayna can kick my ass. Why am I doing this? Rayna's my friend... But this has to happen... Doesn't it?

  "He's right. The world needs to change. The people need to know! It'll be hard at first of course, but we will be free, then! We won't have to lie or answer to all of these rules, and I'm sure once the world knows about what we do, people will want to help us! Or maybe someone will come up with a better plan to protect the world than using mahou shoujo? Just because it was the best way some ancient empress and her witch friends could come up with, doesn't mean it actually is the best, does it? We have all kinds of weapons and technology that they wouldn't have thought of back then. He's right, why can't you see it? We have to make a stand. Nobody else will, nobody else has ever had the opportunity we do here today!"

  She heard herself speaking as if she was listening from far away, barely recognizing the impassioned, feverish voice as her own, yet knowing 100% that she believed in every word.

  "Kitsuna, what are you..." Soren asked, his eyes afraid and his words failing him.

  Klein sat back in his chair, his cuffed hands behind his head, watching with that same placid smile.

  Rayna lurched forward as if she was going to try and slap Kitsuna, but suddenly, James was standing and gripping her wrist, stopping her. Rayna tried to snatch her hand away from his grasp.

  "Don't you hear what she's saying? That's not her! That's him! We're probably seeing first hand whatever he did to Courtney - I gotta knock her brain back into place. Percussive fuckin' maintenance!"

  But James ignored her, and the next thing Kitsuna knew, she was in his arms, his hand holding her hair as he kissed her deeply.

  The ringing in her ears stopped, and a flush of warmth, part arousal, part happiness, spread through her chest, redirecting the passion she had been feeling about Klein’s cause into something more personal and intimate. She kissed him back, moaning slightly and reaching up his chest as if to find the buttons of his shirt, before her mind cleared and she remembered where she was. Who she was. She pulled away, her cheeks burning with embarrassment, both at kissing him like that in front of such an audience and at her outburst.

  "I'm sorry... for a minute there, I lost myself."

  "Why didn't I think of that?" Soren mumbled.

  "Well, I guess that's another way of doing it," Rayna said, shrugging and sitting back down.

  "How are you doing it, Klein? It's obvious you have some kind of mind control thing going on. You did something to Kitsuna just then, and that's what you did to Courtney too," James said, straightening his collar, back to his professional tone as if he hadn't just made out with a girl in the middle of an interrogation.

  Kitsuna sat in her own seat, her heart still pounding. She didn't want to listen to anything this man said now, or even look at him. He had stirred something up in her there, something that had taken on a mind of its own. She may have held some doubts about the organization, but she knew she didn't really want the anarchy that would come with the organization being exposed.

  I am for change, maybe, but not like that. He did something that twisted my mind. But how? He's an outsider, he doesn't have any magic powers. And we're in the insulated prison, so what would even work here?

  "I didn't do anything at all, my friend. You saw. I just sat here and said some words. How could that have caused any kind of effect on someone as powerful as a mahou shoujo? Your girls are probably just less stable than you think. Or less faithful to your ideals."

  "Ugh, of course he's not going to admit anything - he confesses to messing with people's heads and explains how he did it, and Mel has recorded evidence that Courtney is innocent. He doesn't want that. But the question is, why? Is Courtney some kind of complicated hostage for you?"

  "There's nothing to admit to. But as for whether it benefits my cause having Courtney on my side, well, naturally, it does. I'm not the only person beginning to unravel what is really going on, and soon, someone will get the evidence needed to bring you people into the light. The more people asking questions, the better. Now, you have your ways of firefighting, as I am more aware than anyone, but how will you manage when your local team is coming apart at the seams? I think Kitsuna here just gave quite the demonstration of how unstable her commitment to your organization is, and you lost Jazz, you lost Courtney... And you, Rayna, you'll be retiring soon, I expect. With a team of poor, frightened rookies it will only be a matter of time before you slip up, and Calibre Academy is exposed. It may not be by me, but I'll have done my bit. And, when this place falls, well, my life sentence won't be worth the paper it probably isn't written on."

  Rayna looked like she was about to rail at him, but then clearly changed her mind, and sat hugging herself, quietly seething.

  She's not going to tell him she could have retired already, but has chosen to stay. If his plan is to leave this region with a team of inexperienced girls likely to make mistakes, she's the only thing standing in the way of that actually happening, and he doesn't know it. But does that mean he got Jacinta pregnant on purpose, so she'd retire? That doesn't bear thinking about...

  James clapped his hands together decisively.

  "Well, we're not getting anywhere here. But it doesn't matter, from what we've been told, getting Courtney out will be barely an inconvenience. Whatever you tried to pull here, Klein, it's not going to matter in the least. Come on, let's go and wait for Courtney to wake up and then we'll sign her out of custody."

  Klein narrowed his eyes, appearing fazed for the first time in the meeting. But he said nothing, as James stood to leave, followed by the other three rising in unison, taking their cue to look as confident as the professor was pretending to be.

  "Trying to play mind games with Klein? Seriously, those are some balls," Rayna said in a low voice as they made their way back to the holding area at the entrance of the prison.

  Chapter 21

  Back in James's office, there was a somber mood as they waited for word from the prison that Courtney was in a fit state to see visitors. There wasn't much likelihood of it being before morning, but Kitsuna was too wired to sleep, and she could tell that everyone else felt the same.

  "Do you really think that what that Mel guy said was true - that it's that unlikely that we'll be able to get Courtney out?" she asked, as James looked at something on his laptop screen and Rayna and Soren fiddled with a drinks machine in the corner, trying to get it to dispense quadruple espressos for all of them.

  "He seemed to be on our side, as much as anyone down there could be expected to be, so I don't see any reason why he wouldn't be being honest with us, unfortunately. And, to be fair, I've never heard of anyone getting out of a life sentence either. And this is a pretty big crime..." James replied, looking away from his computer and into her eyes.

  "But it wasn't her fault! I felt so strange back there - I mean, I even wanted to fight Rayna, for fuck's sake. You know I don't have a death wish, so that had to be proof enough of mind control."

  "I don't doubt for a second that he's got some kind of psychological manipulation ability - hypnosis, maybe, or something else, it's hard to think of anything supernatural that would work in the prison, but then, we're not used to anyone but mahou shoujo having supernatural abilities at all, so who can say? Maybe it's not even supernatural, just some powerful form of suggestion, but I was replaying what he said in my head and it didn't seem like there was anything in his words that was chosen to specifically affect you... I just can't get my head around it at all. And if we don't know what he did or how he did it, we have no case at all except for our word and Courtney's against his. They filmed everything, but all that proves outright is that Courtney refused to leave, and that he didn't threaten her or say anything that, on the face of it at least, was out of line."


  "So if we can't think of a way to prove what he did, or even understand exactly what it was, then the chances of getting Courtney out are... not good at all."

  "No, and worse still, they will want to push for a quick trial. The longer this goes unresolved, the longer it will be before Courtney would be officially retired from duty. Until she is, another girl probably won't transform to replace her. There is a chance one might, given you are a three girl team, and at times, this team has had four members, so it is possible that a girl might transform even without Courtney being permanently taken out of our pool of mahou shoujo, but since we don't really understand how any of that stuff works, and since it is more usual that a new girl transforms only when an official replacement is needed, the people in charge won't want to risk our home team being down to two for long. Especially with one being a rookie."

  "So we won't have long to figure it out and prove it either..."

  Rayna put down squat little biodegradable plastic cups of black coffee in front of James and her own seat, and Soren put one down in front of Kitsuna, before pulling up a chair to sit next to her across from James at his desk.

  "I take it you've seen the files on the untransformed girls in the region?" Soren asked James.

  "Of course. And I assume you've come to the same conclusion as I have about that... Even the oldest one is only 13."

  "Really? So it'll be a kid, if we have to replace Courts? Man, this is a mess. I wasn't expecting to lose Jacinta, obviously - it was meant to be me leaving next, and even then we knew Kitsuna would be most likely to transform and she's an adult, so it wasn't such a bad situation... I've never been on a team with a kid that young before. I was the kid that young..."

  "I've never spent much time with people younger than me either, not having much by way of a family and all that... I don't think I'd know what to say to a girl that age going through what I'm going through, finding all this out..." Kitsuna added.