daemonized | RECOLLE IC CONTACT.

[Good thing that his responsibilities at uni don't stop just because it's summer. He's there on occasion still, and he does often make it a point to check his inbox.

Today, there's certainly something of interest waiting for him.

A text to Togusa, soon after.]

Care for another face-to-face chat?

[Even if it might be a moot point.]

Always. I can come to you, unless you want an excuse to come back out in the sun.

[Are we letting Ardyn live this one down? Ever? No.]</small?

[How dare you, Togusa. You don't understand his plight against the sun.]

I'll meet you halfway. The little bench just outside the law building, the one with the massive shade tree looming above it. You can find me there.

At least when they're in the same place, Togusa will keep the jokes to a minimum. Maybe. No guarantees. He raises a hand in a wave as he approaches, but his arm goes quickly back to his side. That tick is back, keeping a protective watch over his right side.

"Afternoon." He smiles wryly when he sits down. "Been a busy week, where should we even start?"

"Afternoon," he echoes back, adjusting the hat on his head. Ardyn is leaning back against the bench rather casually, though he always finds these little meet-ups amusing in the sense that he feels like a clandestine operative of some sort. Especially when he reaches into his coat pocket to pull out the photograph that Togusa had left him in his inbox. He waves it lightly in the man's direction.

"How about we start with this? You did a little investigating, you said?"

Edited 2017-07-17 19:26 (UTC)

"That was our attempt to reproduce something that we haven't been able to duplicate yet. But. Hang on to that. Even if it doesn't seem relevant now."

How to explain what he saw on that video? Togusa steeples his fingers and leans forwards a little. "Somebody gained access to the city's CCTV, traffic cameras. You take a look through that system at a certain block in Tisse, and you see an empty lot." He breathes out a sigh and holds up one hand. "So I had this idea that maybe the building doesn't show up all the time, not every way you look at it. Didn't get us anywhere. Yet."

He nods, slipping the photograph into his pocket for now. Listening to what Togusa has to tell him, he can't say that really answers any questions at all; if anything, it only brings up the question of how a building can only show up some of the time. More impossible happenings, surrounding them daily.

"And the information about Maurice?"

Oh, that, Togusa feels better about, so he perks up. "We got inside that same building again, and found an office space. Notes inside pointed to our new friend Maurice working for Retrospec for course credit. Got to be a grad student. Maybe an undergrad. There were also a lot of college-level textbooks in there as reference material."

"Even if we can't find Maurice, himself, which I'm going to try for anyway. But if he doesn't turn up, Retrospec is doing recruiting on campus. Somehow. Somebody had to find out about this to get that job posting."

"If Retrospec is recruiting on campus, someone would have noticed," he says. There's very little in the way of recruiting, in an official capacity or not, that flies under the radar in any real way that's hard to pin down. At least, that's what Ardyn would like to believe.

Still, he's not so blind as to think it's impossible. There's just something about the idea of Retrospec having slithered somehow onto campus, where he works, that sets him a little on edge.

"...At least, I would hope so. I can do a bit of digging, if you like. Poke my nose around, see if I find anything that seems odd or otherwise suspicious."

Togusa nods slightly. "It's one reason I came specifically to you with this. You'll probably make better progress than I'd be able to."

"Everything we were seeing in that office, there was a lot of biology information, genetics, things on animals that humans have done selective breeding on." Togusa frowns sharply. "And then right next to it is a bunch of comic books and monster movies. Things that six months ago I would have brushed off as coincidental. But Dante's convinced it's also research and I don't have a counter-argument for him." Togusa spreads his hands out to the sides. This whole investigation has gotten ridiculous.

Ardyn will make it a point to look into the goings-on, then. The goal is filed neatly in his head, marked brightly with a "priority" flag. He'll ask around with other faculty first, in the vaguest terms available to him, and see where it may lead from there.

"I'll let you know what I find, if anything."

But then Togusa goes on about biology, genetics, selective breeding. Research, coupled with something as fantastical as comic book and movie monsters. The reality of one and the implausibility of the other combine to make him feel uneasy once more. (Improbability, comes the word, when Ardyn has memories of monsters -- no, "daemons" -- of his own. Perhaps not so improbable at all.)

"Research to what end? It sounds like the makings of a mad scientist."

"I'm sure we'll find out," which Togusa doesn't sound happy at all about. "It just reminded me of the chocobos. And I'm not sure if it's related at all. But they replaced horses with the chocobos, and the world didn't notice, mostly because you still had all these uses and cultural significance of horses that chocobos could just turn into." He shrugs. "If they're bringing in something else next? They want to figure out how it'll work first. And the best models they have to go off of in this world are fiction. It's the only thing that makes any sense."

"But with everything that has just kept piling on this month, I don't have the bandwidth for it. Detective Gabranth is out of the loop. So that leaves only one officer more senior than me on the Network. And he just got back from administrative leave for-" and stopping how he was going to finish that sentence, "...same incident your brother was involved in." Because surely Ardyn already knows.

"Yes, but chocobos -- while still unusual when they first arrived in Recolle -- are a different matter altogether, compared to when we start putting monsters into the equation. One is an equal exchange, in a way; function for function. The other? Monsters are merely dangerous, for the sake of doing little more than sewing chaos. It sounds malicious, more than anything we've experienced thus far."

Assuming that Retrospec has any plans of the mad scientist sort. Setting monsters free into the city -- worse case scenario, of course, but difficult to not worry about.

"Gabranth has forgotten?" he asks, sounding surprised. The rest perhaps does not surprise him as much as one might expect. Yes, Ardyn knows. The level of concern he feels for his own family members continues to rise as the months pass. "Your manpower was already lacking to begin with, when it came to those aware of Retrospec. Now? You're a skeleton crew."

Togusa can only nod along. Ardyn is bringing up the exact worries Togusa has been trying not to think about. What could Retrospec be planning? What possible benefit is there for this? Even to them?

But he can hinge on their staffing problems, so to speak. "I'm long past realizing we can't fix this whole problem on our own. But now the stuff that is bleeding over into legal territory alone is getting to be too much." Togusa snorts, and he looks away. "Take 200 people, hand out weapons, and start cramming potentially traumatic memories into their heads in a random order. What did they think was going to happen?"

"I keep saying that I'm not going to advocate watching us on the Network more closely. Not everybody deserves it. But this whole thing? This month? Was just Retrospec warming up. Testing our limits to see what lines we're willing to cross for those memories."

Ardyn exhales, agreeing wholeheartedly with how dangerous it all sounds, forcing memories onto people, to only be followed through with dangerous weapons and abilities. A tug pulls at his features, but he turns his head to look at his ex-student properly when he mentions testing limits.

"If they're testing our limits, they're finding rather inane way of doing so." An arch of his brow. "I had to create an outfit made of scarves this month. I was part of a human pyramid. I did yoga in a fast food place. It all seems rather... childish to me."

Despite the seriousness of their conversation, Togusa snickers quickly before covering it up at the image of Ardyn in a full outfit of scarves. "I'm sorry I missed that," Togusa mutters.

"Which." He holds up a hand. "And that's why some of the other stuff snuck under the radar. Even with something so childish, they found lines I was unwilling to cross. Stealing someone else's property, clearly. Especially since nine times out of ten your choice is a weapon." He points with one finger. "I could have smacked Dante upside the head at any point this month for a free bingo square. Wasn't going to. That was too far. And I think Retrospec is trying to get us to move those lines."

"You could've just given him a light little tap on the cheek, and it would've counted," he's quick to correct, because that's exactly how Ardyn chose to approach the situation.

"So you think next month might be more serious than this one? And the month after? And the one after that? What are they trying to achieve by doing so?"

"Not worth the cost," Togusa counters. "Not coming from me. It's still doing harm to somebody else in order to get what you want out of Retrospec, even if just symbolically." And while he isn't harboring any grudges, despite his front row seat to what people were willing to do to others for this prize, it's something Togusa won't just let pass without comment.

"They want something out of us. That much has been clear all along. But we have yet to find out what it is. Use the app, keep talking to each other, all of it has been to drive us at each other in various ways." But Togusa shrugs helplessly. "No idea why."

He tilts his head at Togusa curiously. He understands the man's point, which basically boiled down to "it's the principle of the thing". And while he can certainly accept that, he can't help but explore this stance further.

"You did involve yourself in a couple of bingo activities yourself, didn't you? Such as our little outing to the beach."

This was why Togusa wanted to bring this up in front of Ardyn. If he is truly out of line on this, Ardyn would be the person who could deconstruct the argument. "Right. Because, the line isn't playing along with Retrospec. I probably wouldn't have bothered at all outside of helping other people, if that center square hadn't shown a code just like what we found in the subway."

"But it's whether you're willing to do something that drags somebody else down to get that reward."

"In the most general sense, I can agree with you there. But circumstances are not always as straightforward as we'd like for them to be."

He rubs at the stubble on his chin, trying to think of an example. Or at least, a set-up to one.

"Would you be willing to help others if it was a detriment to yourself? Even if it was only slight?"

Edited 2017-07-24 19:18 (UTC)

All right, Togusa actually smiles a little when he sees that this is going straight into a thought experiment.

"Of course," Togusa's answer is too immediate. "Despite the fact that I was the easy target for that 'prank an authority figure' square, I didn't really mind if it helped other people." With. One notable exception. But Togusa straight-faces the sentence. Nothing wrong at all.

If there's something else to be read in that straight-faced admission, Ardyn chooses to not latch onto it for now.

"In that case, wouldn't say that Dante was doing the same? He even had a stand set up, encouraging others to slap him. Granted, it was for ten dollars -- highway robbery, I know -- but the intent was there regardless."

A shrug of his shoulders.

"Skewed as it might be, he was offering to play victim for the sake of others. Just as you didn't mind being pranked for the same reasons. What makes it unacceptable to utilize this help, but inverse is fine?"

Ten bucks? ~~What a jerk.~~

"Pull out all the specifics, and sure, you're absolutely right. In theory it's totally balanced. Altruistic, even. But we can't lose track of who I am versus who Dante is. Drop the power dynamic back in there, and it all falls apart."

Togusa gestures to himself. "Even off the clock, I can't entirely shed my association with the city. Period. And everything I do gets filtered back through that lens. Gives me an authority I'm not okay with abusing." Although he is being self-critical, Togusa is quite enjoying this discussion.

~~Told you. Highway robbery.~~

"So it's a matter of your position in conjunction with the city?" the grin on his face betrays that Ardyn is quite enjoying this discussion as well. Togusa never fails to entertain him with them; sometimes he misses having him as student for this reason alone, even if that was years ago.

"What about when you brought us into the subway? Was that different?"

Sure, they volunteered, but the argument could also be made that as an authority figure, maybe taking two civilians down into the subway where they almost got eaten by spiders was an even greater misstep.

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