Psycho Pass: All Alone With You

Drift! Chapter 2

 Situated in a sequestered corner of the Los Angeles Police Department headquarters on the 33rd floor, a private conference room shared an adjoining corridor with the offices of LA's top cop: Chief Makaila Tomb. Chief Tomb sat at the head of an oblong marble table with her head bowed and resting in one hand. Shoulders slumped in resignation, she swung her glasses precariously between her fingers. "Six years. Six years and I can retire with my full pension. But at this rate, I'm going to meet my Lord and Savior in six weeks behind you two."

"Which two do you mean, Chief?" Rodriguez asked. "Me and Royce? Or me and Ko?" He cleared his throat with uncertainty and averted his gaze when she looked up to glare at him.

"Not another word, Officer Rodriguez," Tomb said. "I don't even want to hear your voice right now. After that stunt with the oil tanker on Monday and the heroin dealer on Tuesday. You're not just in the dog house, you're under it. Six feet under it! Are we clear?"

"Five by five, Chief."

Tomb's hair was majestically braided in a complex pattern of deep crimson and natural gray interwoven throughout the hairstyle. Kogami was fascinated by the intricacies of it and lost himself in the labyrinth of one interconnecting braid leading to another. Despite her high temper and curtness, there was a genuine quality of humanity that his superior, Chief Kasei, could not rival.

Still dressed in full uniform from the day's security detail, Royce and Rodriguez sat uncomfortably to Chief Tomb's left, while Akane and Kogami sat on the right side. The tension in the room was formidable and as cold as the chilled air being pumped through the air conditioning vents. Kogami found himself reminded of an evaluation meeting that might have sent him to an isolation cell for life. Hands folded in his lap, he took a deep breath and sat back in his chair trying to relax.

Rubbing her temples as if she was suffering a migraine, Chief Tomb sighed heavily. "Okay, you have my full attention. Officer Royce, talk to me."

"It's the McNeill case, ma'am," Royce pitched in earnest. "Rodriguez and I believe it's tied to four other murder cases in the last four months. Five murders, five street racers, all in the red and growing cold as we speak."

"Five murders that you've been trying to tie to tech mogul Travis McNeill, one of the wealthiest men in the valley," Tomb said. "The only link to him being the last words of a dying street racer, a petty criminal himself. Officer Royce, you can't expect me to authorize an undercover operation based on so thin a lead. These murders could be as simple as a beef over street cred."

"Chief, we initially thought this was just a rivalry thing, too," Rodriguez interjected. "But there's no street cred to be earned if your rivals are all dead."

"What did I tell you?" Tomb said to Rodriguez.

"Sorry, Chief." Beneath her fierce glare, the cop bowed his head and fell silent.

"If I'm going to risk my reputation to sign off anything, I need more than this." She threw her hands in the air in disgust. "I need more than your usual gut feeling. Royce, Rodriguez, you're rarely wrong. But this is big, boys. Bigger than anything you've ever run down before. I need another solid connection."

"What about the cars?" Kogami said. "In each case, the body of the driver was left behind, and their prized possessions, their cars, went missing."

"How do you know these street racers didn't kill the drivers and take the cars themselves?" Tomb countered. "In their world, they could scrub the vins, retitled the paperwork, and put those vehicles back out on the street or sell them for profit without any authority being the wiser."

"Because that would go against their code, Chief," Rodriguez said, risking her ferocity. "You could scrub every one of those missing vehicles, but you wouldn't dare put them back on the street. Not these streets. The racers would know."