Lonely Thieves

Act III, Part IV

Daryl's Side (April 11, 9:00 am)

Daryl twitched reflexively as the rays of sunlight hit his face. Through squinted eyes, he glanced at the wall clock across the room. It was 9:00 am, meaning he had been sleeping for quite a bit. He forced himself awake and sat up on the drawer that he was forced to use as a makeshift bed. He glanced at the room, which was filled with punks, runaways, and other outcasts that Angelique had offered a place to stay for the night. He looked for a place to step and gingerly stepped on the floor, trying his best not to disturb those who were still sleeping. After a few precarious steps, Daryl was out of the room.

He went downstairs and greeted Angelique, who was already awake and wiping down the counter. The bar was closed at this hour, so nobody else was there. Daryl sat down at the counter and put some cash down on the counter. "Could I get some breakfast, Angelique? It doesn't have to be right away."

"Oh, honey, you don't have to pay me for that. You're a guest!"

"I've already been imposing for a while now. I don't want to be a burden."

"Nonsense! You just sit right there."

Angelique walked off to make breakfast as Daryl turned his attention to the large monitor on the wall. It was playing the morning news; supposedly something crazy was happening in the Sunshine district. As he watched while absentmindedly sipping at some water, Hikaru came into the bar from outside.

"Hey, you're back," Daryl said with some surprise. "Were you out all night?"

"Yeah," Hikaru answered. "I was looking for information on Megumi's current location. Give me a moment and I'll summarize what I've found."

Hikaru sat down at the bar and placed three things on the counter: a flash drive, an adapter, and a note. The note read, "Upload this to your phone." Daryl glanced at Hikaru, who simply gave him a knowing nod.

Immediately, Daryl understood the situation. Previously, Daryl had asked Hikaru to help him get rid of the tracking devices that were placed on him by the Hayasaka family. Whatever was on this flash drive was clearly the solution to his problems.

Daryl picked up the flash drive and connected it to his phone via the adapter. As the flash drive copied its contents to the phone, Daryl continued the conversation they were having. "So, are you ready? I'd like to find her as soon as possible."

"I'd like to find her too, you know. She's my friend, after all."

"I know. So? What have you found?"

"Not much," Hikaru sighed. "Megumi's really good at hiding when she wants to, so it was hard to get info on her."

"But you did find info on her, yeah?"

"I did," Hikaru confirmed. "I can't say how legit this information is, though."

As they continued to chat idly, Daryl's phone finished installing whatever was on the flash drive. Daryl silently scrolled through his phone and discovered what was installed: a mysterious unnamed app. Daryl glanced at Hikaru, who simply gave him a silent nod. Daryl tapped on the app, which then began to run automatically.

Suddenly, a large squeal emitted from Daryl's phone, and a wave of static suddenly burst through the entire area. The lights in the bar went out, eliciting a shocked gasp from Angelique. Outside, the people on the street soon reacted to their electronics shorting out, and chaos soon started to unfold as people tried to figure out what happened.

"What was that?!" Daryl whispered as he glanced at the commotion occurring outside.

"A short-range high frequency EMP I got off the black market," Hikaru explained. "I didn't expect it to be that powerful, but it was sort of necessary. Your phone will be fine, but any tracker or listening device on your person is dead for certain."

"If that's the truth, then we need to get the hell out of here," Daryl said worriedly. "The moment they realize that the tracker is dead, they're going to come after me. We can't stay here."

The two of them said their farewells to Angelique and immediately got in their car and drove off as the effects of the EMP began to wear off. The car was still struggling with some of the effects of being hit with an EMP, but since it wasn't running, the damage was fairly minimal.

"Where should we go?" Daryl asked. "Did you actually get any real info on Megumi?"

"Not at all," Hikaru grumbled. "Like I said, if she hides herself, she can't be found."

"You can't call her phone?"

"She must have turned it off. She might have run out of battery."

"Is she some kind of ninja or something?" Daryl remarked sarcastically. The two of them drove for a while, but they sorely needed to make a plan, otherwise they were just wandering aimlessly.

"Should we just lay low for a while?" Hikaru suggested.

"How long can we do that for?" Daryl argued. "We're better off doing something than nothing. The question is what?"

"I haven't seen Kolya in a while... I wonder where he is."

Daryl wasn't sure how much he could trust Kolya. He only knew him through Norah, and he never met him in person. He seemed like he was a pretty experienced guy, but he didn't know anything else. That made him a risky choice, especially when his motivations were unclear.

"Let's keep trying to look for Megumi," Daryl declared. "If she gets captured or arrested, it's all over, right?"

"But we don't know where she is," Hikaru repeated. "I thought wandering around aimlessly would be bad."

"Then we won't do that," Daryl remarked. "Norah told me that before Megumi ran off, they were in the Horizon district. We'll head there first."

"That's fine, but the Horizon district is huge. Even if we go there, we're not gonna find her right away."

"No problem. If we're even a little bit closer to her, it'll help."

Daryl used his phone to navigate to the Horizon district, then changed lanes in order to head north. There wasn't much to go on, but he needed to try whatever he could.