While Kogami rested in a middle row of the orchestra section, Akane assisted Yayoi with salvaging their surveillance equipment. From the snatches of conversation between the two women, Kogami could only surmise that their arsenal of pillbots, cameras, and terminals were in ruins, never to be resurrected, even with Kunizaka's considerable tech skills.

However, there was a glimmer of hope for a small tablet that had been spared the brunt of the electrical assault. As Kunizaka worked to resuscitate the tablet, Kogami was desperately trying to breathe life back into his lungs. His sinuses were fully clogged and ached from the severe congestion. This sensation was compounded by the throbbing in his head, which worsened whenever he tried to sniff or coughed. He longed for the scent of a cigarette, but knew better than to attempt smoking one.

Akane was wearing his suit jacket, which lung loosely over her slender frame and shoulders. She looked like a circus clown lost in the long sleeves, but fashion was not the aim. The jacket provided her with an additional layer of warmth. A chill had returned to the auditorium, only this time Kogami was not alone in experiencing the cold. For that he was grateful. Recent events had him questioning his fitness as an Enforcer and his sanity.

The main house lights came on and flickered twice before resuming their familiar brilliance. "Finally," Akane said. She handed Yayoi a tray of tools to continue working on the tablet.

Bothered by the illumination, Kogami closed his eyes. He shivered despite the warmth of his gray coat and pulled the furry collar tight about his neck. As he settled back into the chair, he felt the warmth wafting beneath his chin from the collar. While the terrible coughing had momentarily subsided, the fever and misery of swollen sinuses raged on. He leaned his head back against the seat and tried his best to get comfortable.

"Where do you go when you close your eyes?"

Kogami opened his eyes to find Kagari standing over him. "Why does everyone feel the need to keep asking me that question?"

"What? Ask how you're feeling?" Kagari shrugged and threw himself down into the seat next him. "I don't know. Maybe because they actually care. You really are a bugbear when you're sick. Here." He handed Kogami a soda can. "There were vending machines downstairs, and I got you a drink. You can thank me when you're in a better mood."

"I'm sorry," Kogami whispered, regretting his acerbic tone. "And thank you." He put the cold can against his face and rolled it gently across his inflamed sinuses. The cold brought instant, much appreciated relief.

"That actually sounded sincere."

"It was."

"Now I know you're really sick." Kagari popped the top of his soda and took a long drink. "How's the arm?"

"Can't tell," Kogami replied. "Everything below my forehead hurts. Should be fine until we get out of this place. Akane patched it up. She's getting pretty decent with her fist aid. Not much she can do for my back."

"You know, Kogami, there are better ways to do it. Girls are supposed to fall for you, not on you."

"Remember when I said I was sorry? I take it back."

"Figures, and I'm the one person who totally believes what you and Akane have been saying."

Kogami took the can from his forehead and sat up, staring at Kagari for a long moment. "You really believe us, despite what Ginoza says?"

"What does he know? I've done a lot of research on this kind of stuff." He drank from the can and put his arm behind his head.

"I would imagine ghost hunting is not conducive to regulating stress levels," Kogami said. "Any such literature or programming would have been banned or restricted."

"Video games are the last bastion of the aberrant mind. Because the scenarios aren't considered real, they aren't as heavily censored by the Sibyl System, which gives the devs the ability to provide content that might otherwise be banned in the mainstream."

"Your research came from a video game, Kagari?" Kogami rolled his eyes. Lying his head back against the seat, he held the cold can against his feverish forehead.

"Not just any video, the video game of year, Silent Redemption. You play a character who's been murdered, but you come back as a ghost to get your revenge on the ones responsible."

"Since when did ghosts hold grudges."

"Since recorded history, Ko," Kagari said intently. "This is about unfinished business. Business so important that the spirit would choose to remain earthbound, rather than going on to the afterlife. These incidents are no mere illusions. Akane may have experienced an actual encounter with an earthbound entity," Kagari whispered, "which is scary as hell by itself, but you...you experienced a past life event."

Kogami struggled to grasp the logic behind Kagari's argument but came up short. "Then answer this one question: why?"

"Because the dead need the living to sort out that unfinished business. They can't do it themselves. In the game, you force the living to relive key moments of your life to give them clues as to what really happened."

"You learned all of this from a video game?"

"To make the game more interesting there were Easter eggs throughout the storyline," Kagari said. "If you found them, they contained files on actual ghost hunting techniques. Check this out." He leaned toward Kogami and activated his wristcom. "This is a floor plan of the theater that Kunizaka sent to us before the rehearsal. I'll add a filter for temperature radiants. See anything out of the ordinary?"

Opening one eye to look at the holo, Kogami shook his head. "Not from those scans."

"This is from a reading taken just before our surveillance equipment got torched." He added the temperature filter. "Notice anything now?"

Kogami sat up and scrutinized the holographic map, but could hardly believe his eyes. He examined the previous map to compare the two. Manipulating the hologram, he created an overlay of the two. The results were undeniable. A large mass of significantly warmer air was swarming in a hurricane pattern inside the main auditorium. In the back of the house area, there was a concentrated, but smaller mass of cold air moving along an outer wall.

"That's Nagano's office," Kogami said. "He keeps a sword in there that once belonged to Kurnan Kazuya. It woke me because it was shaking against the glass inside the case. Time stamp shows this was just before Akane was attacked."

"My guess is there are two separate entities in this building, actually three if you count this one." Kagari changed the floor plan to include the second level of the theater. "Here's the third one," he said, pointing to an area of cold. "I was talking to one of the tech crew, a red-head with the thinnest waistline and biggest—"

"Kagari!"

"Oh yeah, right, anyway. She said that after the fire, the theater was rebuilt based on plans from the original playhouse, including the inn rooms on the second floor, which would have been above the taproom. The renovations built around these areas to preserve them, expanding the theater upward and out, but keeping much of the original intact."

"The three entities," Kogami mouthed the words with skepticism, "Kazuya, Asura Rai, and the blacksmith?"

"Makes perfect sense, Ko. A suicide can trap a soul between worlds. We know that Gorou committed suicide right above that stage." He pointed to the stage itself. "A violent death can do the exact same thing. Asura Rai committed suicide to warn her lover. Kazuya was later gunned down on the road outside. They never got to see each other again: unfinished business."

"Alright," Ginoza said, emerging from backstage. Staring at an image on his wristcom, he walked to centerstage. The sound of his shoes echoed through the elaborate set of a Japanese village. "Report in."

Kagari stood up and drank the last of his soda. "Those side exits to the north that you asked me to check? We're not getting out of there. Security gates are down in both corridors."

"Same on the south side," Masaoka said. With soda cans in his hands, he came around the stage's left side and handed the cans to Akane and Yayoi. "Unless we can find a way to get into that security system, we're stuck in here until morning when Director Nagano returns."

"Kunizaka?" Ginoza barely looked up from the holo before him. Absently, he brushed aside a heavy cord hanging from the hidden catwalk above the stage floor.

"One tablet survived, but barely," she answered. "Getting into the theater's security system will be problematic. The power supply was completely drained. It's also damaged, which means that charging will take twice as long."

"How long?" he asked, annoyance in his voice. As if swatting at a bothersome fly, he moved away from the cable dangling about his neck and shoulders.

"An hour to fully reboot the tablet's operating system. Another hour to bring our surveillance program back online. An hour to scan the security system and logs." Yayoi shrugged, arms crossed in front of her. "That's only if the data wasn't lost. And another hour or less to access a data entry point and hack the system."

"Four hours? You have three," Ginoza said, "unless Kogami's phantom objects to our—"

A thick cable coiled itself aroun Ginoza's neck three times and stifled the words in his throat. Panicked by the sudden pressure crushing his windpipe, the MWPSB Inspector grasped at his neck. His frantic motions knocked the glasses from his face, and he desperately clawed at the wire constricting his airway. Gasping for help, Ginoza's feet kicked wildly in the air as he was yanked from the stage floor and swung back and forth above the floor.

"Shit!" Kogami swore under his breath.

"Oh no, Ginoza!" Akane screamed. "It's killing him." With Masaoka right on her heels, she sprinted up the choral risers to the stage and grabbed one of Ginoza's legs to prop him up. Masaoka grabbed the other leg to offer what little support he could to the strangling Inspector.

"Burning—" Ginoza gasped. "Fire—"

Tongues of smoke rolled off his suit as if his entire body were engulfed in flames. The unseen flames left a sooty trail over his flailing hands and dulled the shine of his meticulously polished shoes.

"Yayoi! There's a control panel for the light rigging just off stage," Akane said. "Bring that light bar down. Kogami, get to the catwalk and release the wire. Get him down from up there if you can!"

Kogami sprinted toward the stage and took the choral risers two at time. Glancing from left and then to the right, he saw the narrow stairway leading to the catwalk and quickly made his way up to the area above the stage. Narrowly missing a row of toolboxes, he made his way onto the catwalk.

The entangled bundle of wires strangling Ginoza slithered over the safety railing like copulating snakes in a riverbed. It was impossible to tell one cable from another. He tried to grasp one, but it writhed beneath his fingers, moving so swiftly that it left a painful brush burn across his palms and fingertips.

"The controls are not responding!" Yayoi yelled. "Kogami, cut him down!"

Kogami ran back to the toolboxes and found a utility knife. He cut frantically through the coiling wires, occasionally looking down to see if Ginoza was free. The wire he needed was elusive and remained hidden, wrapped in a sheath of other cables. "Son of a bitch! There's too many wires!"

"Ko!" Kagari yelled. "Watch your six! The temperature's rising again!"

The air above the stage grew insufferably hot, and the stench of brimstone descended from the shadows above Kogami. He coughed violently as the sulphuric smell and swarm of heated ash assailed him.

"Kagari!" Yayoi shouted. "Use your Dominator."

"To shoot a ghost?" He took a knee beside Masaoka and pointed his Dominator into the air above Ginoza's head.

"Crime coefficient 235. Target is a registered Enforcer. Status: Enforce at will. Trigger safety is now released. Aim carefully and subdue the target."

"What am I looking for, Kunizaka?" Kagari yelled. "The Dominator's picking up Ko."

"Then you've got the wrong target." She pulled the Dominator from the holster at her back and pointed just below Kogami.

"Crime Coefficient over 500. Enforcement action required. Lethal Elimin— Standby: unable to scan due to obstructions...trigger is now locked."

"Kogami," Yayoi shouted, "you're in the way!"

There was no time to gamble. Ginoza's eyes were rolling into the back of his head, and his lips were turning blue. Ignoring Yayoi's warning, Kogami climbed over the safety railing and down onto the wire. Furiously cutting through all the wires as they slid and undulated beneath his hand. "Stand back!" He cut through the final cords and felt his body go weightless as gravity pulled him and Ginoza to the stage floor.

Landing on his back, Kogami hit the hard, wooden floor just after Ginoza. He saw stars dancing above him and realized it was simply the blurry reflection of the stage lighting above him. The fall knocked the wind out of him and further aggravated his back injuries. As all the members of Division 1 descended on Ginoza, Kagari came to help him sit up.

Gasping for breath, Ginoza thrashed on the floor. He wheezed desperately to get air into his lungs. Fingers curled under like claws, his hands were bright red and trembled from the painful burns raised across his skin. Wincing at the Inspector's suffering, Kogami narrowed his eyes. While Ginoza could be unpleasant, even sardonic at times, he didn't deserve this.

"Yayoi, get the first aid kit," Akane said. "See if there's some burn cream."

Kogami got to his feet stiffly with Kagari's help and limped down the risers. He arced his back to alleviate a spasm and then slumped into a seat in the front row. Legs spread, he perched his elbows on his thighs and peered up from the fold of his hands to watch the misery unfolding on the stage. "This is insane," he whispered.

"Tell me about it." Kagari sat down beside him."But, he did bring this on himself, you know? By asking the phantom to tap him on the shoulder and make an introduction." Running a hand through his orange hair, he then tugged anxiously at his lower lip. "Makes me wonder what the phantoms have in store for the rest of us."

# # #

Looking miserable, Ginoza sat hunched over in a metal, folding chair with a blanket draped over his shoulders. Swollen, purple bruises stood out against the pale skin of his neck. His hands were wrapped in medicated gauze to cover the burns that he had suffered in the supernatural assault.

Though reddened and scalded, his fingers were left uncovered to give him the confidence of being mobile. And perhaps as a measure of confidence, so that he could get his finger on the trigger of his Dominator. There was a helpless, pained expression on his face that betrayed both a physical discomfort as well as his uncertainty about a situation that went beyond his control and understanding.

"Might be needing these," Kogami said. He handed the sullen Inspector his glasses.

"Thanks." Ginoza's voice was hoarse, his throat raw from the harrowing experience of nearly being hanged to death. Hands shaking, he put the glasses on and circumspectly pushed them up the bridge of his nose. "I guess you want to say I told you so."

"No. I'm having trouble understanding any of this myself."

"You and Inspector Tsunemori? Your experiences appear to be genuine." He gingerly rubbed at the swollen welts around his neck. Sighing heavily, Ginoza shook his head in defeat. "Attacked by an assailant I could neither see nor touch. How am I ever going to write that report?"

"Get a hold of yourself, Inspector," Masaoka said. "When the trail goes cold, you start looking for the clues that didn't seem as obvious the first time around. Let's review the investigation evidence. Both probable and improbable."

"Pops is right, but how about we start with how we can protect ourselves? Three of us have been attacked now," Kogami said. "Kunizaka, what makes you think our Dominators will have any effect on these phantoms?"

"Phantoms?" Ginoza asked. "You suspect there's more than one?"

"I've got proof." Kagari shared the floor-plan diagram and the temperature variations with the group.

"Nice work, Kagari," Masaoka said. "What made you think to filter the floor plan for temperature fluctuations?"

"Silent Redemption, a video game," Kagari replied proudly. "The extreme variations from hot to cold were too deliberate. A dead give away."

"Three perps that we can't see," Masaoka said. "That puts us at a distinct disadvantage."

Akane blew air into her hands to warm her fingers. "How do we tell who did the attacking?"

"My guess would be Gorou," Masaoka replied. "From the manner of his death and the intense heat we've been experiencing. He was a blacksmith after all." He glanced at Ginoza's burned hands. "It's clear they can harm us, but can we harm them?"

"That's where the Dominators come in," Yayoi said. She removed hers from its holster and held it up. "Ghosts are made of energy and emit a light source of their own, which is why they can be tracked by low frequency infrared. By their very nature, it is possible for these entities to severely effect temperatures and even the functionality of nearby electronics."

"That's how our equipment got fried," Kagari said.

"Yes, and why our Dominators were not effected at all."

Ginoza sighed, trying to hide the trembling in his hands. "The Dominators function on electromagnetic waves."

"That should allow us to not only detect the presence of an entity but to possibly harm it. Kagari's Dominator would not fire because it detected two targets: Kogami and the ghost."

"So from here on out, until this case is resolved, Dominators are out and in hand at all times," Ginoza said. "Kagari, if I understand correctly, we can tell when one of these phantoms is nearby?"

"Using deviations in temperature," Kagari replied, "yeah."

"Kunizaka, is there any way you can program our wristcoms to register sudden temperature changes?"

"Cut off from my HQ, our wristcoms are no better that internal intercoms. The fluctuations happen so suddenly, I doubt an alert would be helpful and might come when it's too late."

"What about mobile cymatic scans?"

"Constant scanning would consume too much power," Yayoi replied. "We'll have to rely on our senses and our Dominators."

"Can the Dominators destroy them?"

"Theoretically," Yayoi said, "yes."

"Rather than wait for another attack, we're going on the hunt. Floor by floor, but we stay together. No one goes alone. Kagari and Kogami, you'll be one team. Masaoka, you'll go with Inspector Tsunemori. And Kunizaka, you're with me. Be ready with your Dominators. The ghosts..." Ginoza hesitated over the use of the word, "...the ghosts can attack and cause physical harm. Keep that in mind." He loosened his tie and the collar of his shirt to avoid contact with the bruises beneath his chin. "We'll start on the third floor and work our way down. Any questions?" Seeing none, he added, "Wristcoms on open channel at all times. Be safe out there."