Page 63 of Pandion

“It’s him,” Yajima said and gestured at Kagesawa. “I’m here to observe out of curiosity.” Evidently, even Yajima looked like the more suitable candidate.

Kagesawa fell back to his usual apologetic smile and tried to ignore Hase-sensei’s apparent disappointment and disbelief. Satoru had probably wanted to make a good impression, but Kagesawa could only do so much to make himself more presentable or admirable.

“Oh? W-Well, that’s… that’s great.” Hase-sensei struggled to even get the words out. “What brings you by?”

“I was hoping you could get us access to the research department. We have an unusual situation going on with the link.” The way Satoru spoke to the sensei suggested they were on closer terms than Kagesawa had anticipated. Promising.

“That’s going to be tricky. What sort of situation?”

“If you can do a full analysis of him, it’s probably going to be more informative than any explanation I could give you.”

“The lab is in use until lunch. We have an hour to catch up before then. I’d love to hear what you’ve been doing since graduation. With everything that’s been going on, I’ve been trying to get a hold of the old club members to check on them, but…” Hase-sensei turned to Yajima to explain, “I was involved in the Japanese Archery Club up until recently.”

“Archery?” Kagesawa glanced at Satoru.

“I used to be in the archery club,” Satoru said. “Hase-sensei is being modest. He was the backbone of the club. We did have an instructor as well, but he was one of Hase-sensei’s former students. Skilled, of course, but sensei is heaps better.”

“You flatter me. My back injury has gotten worse these past few years. It’s unfortunate, but I’ve had to give it up. Have you been keeping at it?”

“No, I haven’t had the chance.”

Satoru had never mentioned anything about archery, at least as far as Kagesawa could recall. Then again, it wouldn’t have surprised him had it been mentioned and he’d missed it. Finding out like this did not feel particularly good.

“Busy with work, I presume? Did you find something interesting like you hoped?” The sensei’s follow-up questions made Kagesawa cringe—especially when the man proceeded to laud Satoru as one of his best students, expecting him to have found something significant.

“If this situation with the EA ever clears up, we might have an opening at the research department for someone like you. I’d offer it to you on the spot, but with the threat of a mass-evacuation looming over our heads, we don’t know if we’ll be here next week. It’s too bad.” The sensei paused. “This is classified information, so I trust that you won’t mention it to anyone, but we received an enormous stack of data from a benefactor recently, and it’s been indispensable at furthering a lot of our research. Years worth of advancements in mere weeks! It’s sad we’re having to deal with these issues right now when we’re making so much progress.”

The sensei’s words caused Yajima to smack his tongue, annoyed. “Yes, I wonder who that little piece of shit could have been.” He was probably still peeved about some of the past info dumps that could have made a lot of money way back when.

“I’ve given you plenty of opportunities for profit in the past. Can’t you let it go?” Kagesawa had enjoyed the process merely for the challenge. The risk of anyone tracing it back to him was always significantly lower if no money was involved, so he would usually decline payment and consider it charity.

“I shit you not, I was ready to murder you a while back when I found out you’d off-loaded the latest batch for free. I’d been sitting on a couple of stacks to get a good price, and then I heardthe fucking Osprey asshole had swooped in again and donated it for a ‘good cause’.”

“Pandion.”

“What?”

“Osprey was taken.”

“What? Where?”

“On the Tetris app. So I used Pandion.” Kagesawa could play dense for quite a while, but the poignant stares and heavy atmosphere were oppressive even for him. “Look, forget it. I’ll see if I can make it up to you somehow.” If his hobby had cost Yajima a sizable slice of income, he’d see if he could muster compensation. Having Yajima be mad at him and arguing about it was not worth it.

“Wait. Did I understand this correctly? You’re Pandion?” Hase-sensei finally managed to form the inquiry. “ThePandion?”

“No, of course not. Do I look like I could be anyone?” Despite his slip, Kagesawa wasn’t about to admit to it. The sensei’s reaction was predictable, but why was Satoru looking at him like that? Hadn’t they worked on that data stack together? This was not news. “What?” Kagesawa glanced at Satoru.

“You sent that off to the SEU research department?” Satoru asked as if realising it for the first ti— oh, right. The review had interrupted them before Kagesawa had had a chance to show what it had all been for.

“Yes, and a few other parties. It was a good stack.” It had been exceptionally juicy. Lots of easily replicated and reproduced data, ample sample sizes, better-than-average transparency considering where he’d lifted most of it, thorough analysis, well-drafted, useful conclusions with no obvious fallacies and a healthy selection of potential applications.

Kagesawa did not doubt there had been a lot of other people besides Yajima ‘sitting on that stack’ to profit from it. That waspart of the satisfaction when he’d handed it off to where it was most likely to benefit as many people as possible.

“He’s been sending stacks our way for years.” Hase-sensei was still in a daze but made a valiant effort to shake himself out of it.

“Someone has. I wouldn’t know anything about it.” Kagesawa shrugged. He knew it was useless to deny it, but he nevertheless felt better doing so. “Um, can we get to scanning my head? Isn’t it lunchtime yet?”

Hase-sensei had recruited a colleague, Fujitani-sensei, to help with the scan.

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