The meeting room was quiet, humming with low sensory input from distant screens and the AC kicking on every now and then.
Rick sat locked into his computer, typing like he was interrogating it.
777, lounging but watching him closely, finally asked,
"Okay, so… when are we actually gonna start searching?"
Rick didn't answer.
Then suddenly, mid-keystroke, Rick looked up.
"How many cameras can we access?"
"I thought you knew," 777 shrugged.
"Just answer."
"All government cams," 777 replied. "Even traffic ones."
Rick exhaled hard through his nose. "Yeah? Then why the hell do I still have zero footage of Tobey?"
He slammed the keyboard, the keys letting out a distorted clack.
777 didn't flinch.
"Let's just trace the shop where Tobey used your credit," he suggested.
Rick nodded. "Yeah. Let's go."
A weird silence settled again.
"Jennifer's… been fully silent," Rick muttered, half to himself.
777 heard him—but didn't feel like answering.
A beat passed.
"Where is that shop, by the way?" 777 finally asked, just to kill the silence.
"Southwest."
"Where exactly?"
Rick rubbed his eyes and leaned back. "Aya. Miyazaki. Just a random general store. Nothing sketchy."
777 frowned slightly. Something about all this did feel sketchy—but he didn't push.
Not yet.
"Okay, we're sitting up in the north," 777 muttered, pulling up a mental map, "and he's all the way down at the bottom."
"Yep," Rick replied.
"It's gonna take forever to reach there."
"Yep," Rick repeated. "But we need our tools."
He shut the laptop with a clean snap.
"Jennifer, load up a multipurpose van. Reference the list in S&D.txt."
Jennifer's voice buzzed back, ever-efficient:
"On it."
777 glanced at Rick. "What about that letter?"
Rick's expression didn't move. "Still processing."
Jennifer: "Van is ready."
Cut to:
The van cruising down an endless highway, surrounded by stretches of green and foggy hills. A light drizzle tapped against the windshield like it was trying to get in.
Inside the van, 777 sat in the passenger seat, legs up on the dashboard, flipping through a rugged tablet filled with encrypted map layers and surveillance logs.
Rick drove like he'd done it a thousand times—one hand on the wheel, the other occasionally adjusting something on the console wired into the van's dashboard.
They passed old vending machines in the middle of nowhere, towns with more crows than people, and misty rice fields that stretched for miles.
"This country hides ghosts well," 777 said under his breath.
Rick didn't respond, but the corner of his mouth twitched like he heard it.
Jennifer's voice cut in through the onboard speaker, soft but present:
"Estimated arrival in Aya: two hours, thirty-six minutes."
"Good," Rick said. "Get some rest if you want. This town's quiet, but I don't trust it."
777 stared out the window. "Yeah. Me neither."
The van rolled on, engine humming through the silence, toward whatever was waiting in Miyazaki.
The van rolled into Aya just past 5PM.
Golden hour made everything look warm and harmless—like a tourism ad trying too hard. Wooden homes with sliding doors, sleepy streets, cicadas starting their shift. It had that aesthetic calm where nothing seemed out of place… which made it worse.
777 stepped out of the van and stretched, eyes narrowing.
"This place is aggressively peaceful."
Rick adjusted his coat and popped the back of the van open. "Yeah. Like it's trying to lull us."
They made their way toward the general store marked on Jennifer's nav. A tiny thing, squeezed between a pottery shop and a café. One flickering sign. A bell above the door that rang with a little too much personality.
The store itself looked like time had forgotten it. Dim lighting. Wooden shelves stocked with snacks, notebooks, bug repellents, and a fridge humming with energy drinks and one lonely carton of milk.
No cashier.
Just a girl in a school uniform behind the counter, chewing gum and scrolling her phone like she lived there. She didn't look up.
Rick walked in first. 777 followed, eyes scanning for cameras or hidden panels. Nothing obvious. Nothing wrong.
Which, again—was wrong.
Rick grabbed a bottle of water, glanced back.
"This is the place. Tobey used the card here. Transaction time matches."
777 approached the counter. "Excuse me—"
The girl didn't flinch. "Yeah, I saw him. Tiny dude. Cute. Kinda feral."
777 blinked. "...Feral?"
"He bit the bottle of Ramune before paying for it," she said, deadpan. "Didn't even open it. Just. Bit it."
Rick muttered, "That's him."
"Where'd he go after?" 777 leaned in, tone tighter now.
She shrugged. "I dunno."
Right then, the bell above the door jingled again.
An old man stepped in—face like old bark, eyes that didn't bother with hello. He didn't glance at them. Just walked past and said, casual as rain:
"He headed into the woods."
Both turned, but the man had already snagged a pack of cigarettes and walked out like he hadn't dropped a lore bomb mid-vibe.
No one stopped him. No one even looked up.
Rick stared at the door swinging shut.
"Yeah. This town's too normal."
777 didn't blink. "Which means the real story's hiding underneath it."
Cut to: Inside the van. Trees blur past like smudges on glass. The road's too quiet. The kind of quiet that feels staged.
Rick leaned forward, fingers steepled. "Last time there was a base of lunatic scientists in the woods, we torched it. Hard."
777, arms crossed, eyes on the road. "Left it smoking. You think this is a repeat?"
Rick sighed. "I don't know. But if Tobey's out here, not in chains, that means he wasn't taken."
"Yeah," 777 said, "but that makes it weirder. If Suspect One could grab Shalit clean from Central Park, how the hell did Tobey tail her and not get caught?"
Rick frowned, voice tightening. "Only two options. Either she didn't notice him…"
"...or she did, and didn't care," 777 finished. "Maybe figured he was just a kid."
Rick shook his head. "She'd be stupid to think that. He's not just a kid. He's our kid. And he's been unpredictable since day one."
"True," 777 muttered. "Unpredictable's cute until it's survival-level stealth."
Rick leaned back, watching the trees flick past. "So she either underestimated him, or… she let him follow."
777 blinked. "Let him?"
"Think about it. What if it wasn't just oversight? What if it was bait?"
That shut 777 up.
The silence in the van got thick. Jennifer didn't say a word. Even the hum of the engine sounded muted, like it didn't want to interrupt.
777 finally spoke. "If this was a setup, it's one hell of a play."
Rick: "Yeah. And Tobey's right in the middle of it."
777: "Do you think he knows?"
Rick: "I think he's doing what he always does—acting first, thinking later."
"Which makes him a liability," 777 said.
Rick turned, voice low. "Which makes him our responsibility."
Another beat passed.
777 leaned back, arms still crossed. "You think that general store clerk knew more than she said?"
Rick: "She wasn't shocked. Not even a little. Just told us he bit a glass bottle like a raccoon. That's not a normal day for her, unless…"
"Unless weird stuff happens often," 777 said. "And no one talks about it."
Rick: "Yup. Whole town's too chill. It's performative normal."
777 grunted. "Fake peace. Real secrets."
The van hit a small bump, and Jennifer's voice cut in—flat, controlled, but somehow too precise:
"Approaching coordinates. ETA: six minutes. Activating thermal and auditory scans."
Rick muttered, "Let's hope we're not walking into a trap."
777: "If we are, we spring it loud."
Rick smirked faintly. "That's the spirit."