Fractured Souls
Chapter Four: A Not-So-Lucky Break
Gohan's mind was preoccupied the entire walk to school, coming up with questions to be answered and exuses to be made. He wouldn't apologize, not now or ever, because there was absolutely nothing he had to be sorry for. A slight smile crossed his face before he went through the wrought iron school gates.
"I want to help you," Yuji said as soon as both feet were on the grounds. He had been leaning against the brick column by the entrance and startled Gohan with his sudden speech. "We all do."
"Who's "we"? The Society?"
He nodded. "Hai. We take care of our own."
"You're dividing everyone into groups, Yuji. This was how the entire thing began. It's not the recusants versus the conformists, "us" against "them". We're all here together so we should make the world a better place together."
Yuji gave him a sad smile. "Ideals look wonderful on paper and sound great in spoken form but the fact is, they never work out in real life. It has always been "us" against "them" and so shall it remain forever."
"Gohan!" Videl shouted while jumping around and waving her arms from the steps. He didn't have any clue why she was doing all that and apparently neither did anyone else. She didn't wait for them to join her but instead ran over and began to speak rapidly about something.
"Take breaths between your words," Yuji advised. She glared at him but did make an effort to slow down her speech.
"I have a friend named Satomi," she started over. "She's very close to me and I know everything about her family."
Videl was interrupted by an impatient Yuji. "What does that have to do with anything?"
"I'm getting to the point! Anyway, she told me once that her father was an evil man. I didn't really believe her at the time because all kids generally disagree with their parents but Satomi is right." She pulled a crumpled flyer from her backpack. "This is for a local group of bakas who get together once a week and discuss how immoral and wrong everyone else is. Their main opposition is ERGAL; the Equal Rights for Gays and Lesbians group."
Gohan could, at last, see how her story was relevant to his problem. Sort of. "Aizawa-sensei was a homophobe, Videl."
She smiled, pleased with what she had uncovered. "He was also a member of CAMI or Citizens Against the Morally Incorrect. The two groups have had three confrontations that nearly came to bloodshed only last week. He was present at all three."
"Good job!" Yuji said with a grin. "I knew you could do it!"
"Shut up, Harada." She went off with one last smile to Gohan.
"When you divide people into "us" and "them" that's what you get," Gohan said. "Only hatred and violence. Why do people do it in the first place?"
Neither boy could answer that question so nothing was said.
***
Gohan went to the library during gym to use the computers. They weren't as fast as his own at home but they were still useable. After making sure that the librarian was as far away as possible, he went straight to where the city's records were kept and entered the archives very easily.
"Aizawa," he said with the barest of sound. "First name: Akira."
The computer began to work and after thirty seconds the results were posted.
Akira Aizawa, born July 19, 1966, single. No known medical data. No known financial data. No known criminal record.
"Must have been a pretty large fee to have someone alter his records." He dug deeper and came up with some of the hidden data.
Three contributions to CAMI in the amounts of ¥500,000; ¥100,000; and ¥250,000. One-hundred-three weekly deposits of ¥101,045 from September 13, 2007 to August 29, 2009. One-hundred-three weekly withdraws of ¥21,652. One electronic transfer to Unknown for ¥43,305. Total available balance: ¥7,048,695.
He requested a trace on 'unknown' and a name turned up. Joseph Jackson, a California born computer professional, had received a large sum of money for unknown reasons. Gohan would bet a large amount that he was the record alterer.
"Hacking is a federal crime, do you know that?"
Gohan jumped, truly terrified. He hadn't heard anyone come up behind him, he was usually very good about things like that. The first that came to mind was to throw himself at the computer screen hide what he had been doing.
So that's what he did.
Videl sat down next to him, arms full of books. "I'm not a cop, you know."
"Don't scare me like that!" he said as he willed his heart rate back to normal. He returned to his chair and proceeded to track down the address of Mr. Jackson. "I'm going to find this man and interrogate him. Can you make up an excuse for my teachers?"
"Sure, why not? If you're going to go AWOL the least I can do is cover for you." She studied him in silence for a moment. "Be careful Gohan. Please? I don't want you to get hurt."
Her obvious concern made him feel good inside. "I'll try not to. The last thing I want is a repeat visit to the hospital."
She smiled. "Great! I'll see you tomorrow, okay? Bye Gohan!"
He watched her check out her books and leave, wondering at what he was feeling. Didn't he love Colby? Wasn't he supposed to be the one for him?
"Maybe I'm bi," he whispered to himself. "Why does life have to be so confusing?"
***
Public transportation was nothing but a giant hassle. First he had to get on a bus that would take him to the terminal downtown, then he had to transfer to another bus that would take him across town. Of course he then had to walk six blocks to yet another bus that would take him to Mr. Jackson's apartment. It was well before three o'clock so the bus he would have to take from the terminal didn't turn down Hiroshima Boulevard; it went straight instead.
He stood there with the rest of a very large crowd, waiting. There were plenty of small children with their parents, senior citizens, and couples who had no qualms about showing their affection in a public place (both gay and straight) but there were no other kids his age in sight. He seriously hoped no one found that odd and decided to call security. His parents would kill him if they knew he was skipping school.
Gohan was glad to get off the bus when his stop finally came up, he had been squished between a *very* large woman and a cross dressing man in a tight red dress and too much makeup. They both scared him a little but he was really freaked out by the guy. The entire trip he continuously asked him if he wanted some candy.
"*Never* take candy from a stranger, Gohan." His father had said over and over again when he was a small child. "It's not safe."
He stuck to it then and he was sticking to it now. Just how naïve did he look?
Joseph Jackson lived in a pretty crappy apartment building for someone who took large payments from customers on the wrong side of the law. The building was in a state of disrepair, probably a fire hazard, and grafiti covered the brown stone walls. A few toddlers were playing on the sidewalk in front of it and received suspicious looks from them as he went by. Gohan had never in his life seen children look that way. Their eyes were dull and lifeless, as if their hearts and souls held no more life within them. He edged around the three of them and went through the broken front door into the dimly lit lobby.
The smell hit him as soon as he stepped over the threshold. It was a combination of dirty floors and stale urine. He held his hand over his nose to block out the odor and climbed the creaking stairs to the second level. Apartment 2E was at the end of the hallway and he passed apartments filled with loud music, shouting, and the loud crying of a child before he reached it.
Gohan raised his hand to knock on the door and realized that it was slightly ajar. It was odd, he knew that, but still he went inside.
"Hello? Jackson-san? Are you in here?" He thought that someone had broken into his apartment, it wasn't like it was difficult to do so. There was no answer and no one in the living room. Gohan decided to take a quick look around to make sure that there was nothing wrong.
There was a light on in a room and he knocked on the door before going inside. Everything looked okay and he turned to exit. That's when he saw the handprint on the wall. It was crimson and several rivulets had slid down the wall to pool onto a small wooden table beneath. Gohan knew beyond a doubt that it was blood and he also knew who it belonged to. That's when he took a good look at the bedroom and saw the large lump underneath the quilt that covered the bed.
He didn't think before he quickly pulled back the bedclothes and it took a while for the horror to sink in.
The.... thing lying on the matress used to be a man once. He knew it deep inside. The corpse had a gaping wound where its abdomen had once been and its eyes and hands were no were to be found. Joseph Jackson had been eviscerated and nearly hacked to pieces.
Gohan backed away slowly, his hands covering his mouth. It was one thing to see murder victims on television or read about them in books but you never truly experience horror until you see the grisly remains in real life.
He ran. It was the only thing he could think of to do at the moment.
The streets passed by without his notice until he found a phone booth four blocks away. He ran into it and closed the door, inserting his money, and dialing Cody's phone number with shaking hands. The phone was on its second ring when he realized that his friend was probably still in school.
"Damn!" he cursed just as the phone was picked up.
"Gohan, is that you? Is everything okay?"
He slid down the glass slowly and collapsed to his knees. "Nothing's okay, Colby. I shouldn't have ran. Now they're going to think I killed him too." He started to sob quietly, not caring who saw. "I'm never going to see you or anybody again because I'm going to be convicted of murder and sent to prison for the rest of my life!"
"Where are you?" He could hear his voice shaking slightly.
"Across the street from the bakery on Grove." He realized that Cody's aunt lived only three blocks away. "I need you, Colby. I'm so scared."
It took him less than five minutes to get there because he ran the entire way. Gohan had regained his composure and was sitting on a bench, staring blankly across the street. Colby sat down next to him and grabbed his hand.
"Can you tell me what happened?" he asked softly, worried about the look on his face. He had sounded so frightened on the phone. Gohan explained what he had discovered at the library and what he saw in the apartment. A shocked expression came over Colby's face and he halted Gohan's clinically detached description of the body. "I'm so sorry you had to see that."
He broke down, he couldn't help it. "I don't know what to do! My fingerprints are probably all over the place in there!" He raised his head from where it was buried in Colby's shoulder and looked at the phone booth. "Do you think I should call the police and explain things?"
"It won't help." Colby sighed. "They're going to believe forensic evidence over any statement that you make. We can always run away together, they can't get you if you're in another country."
"I'll look guilty if I run." He took a deep breath and went over things in his head. "Jackson-san was killed by the same person who killed Aizawa-sensei. They may have made the murders look different but that's only to throw the cops off the trail."
"C'mon." He pulled Gohan to his feet. "I'm going to take you home." He put his arm around his waist and guided him down the street.
"I can't tell my tousan or Vegeta because they'll worry."
"If you don't tell them then they can't stop you from doing something stupid." He couldn't stand the thought of Gohan being killed because of his dedication to solving a murder that the police could not. "I'll follow you everywhere, Gohan. I'm not going to let you die because of this."
He smiled very slightly. "Arigatou. It means a lot to me that you care."
They didn't have enough money for bus fares and transfers for each of them so they decided to walk. Gohan's home was four miles away but together they could make the time pass by very fast. They talked about school, both the classes and the students, and the world in general. By accident, during a statement about society's expectations, Gohan told Colby about how they treated him at school.
He had no idea that his friend was going to react so violently.
"I'm going to kill all those who touched you in an unfriendly way," he growled. "Those who called you out of your name I'm going just hurt very badly."
"Calm down!" Gohan said, putting his hands on his shoulders. "I'm fine and time has moved on."
Tears gathered in his eyes. "They hurt you. You don't deserve to be hurt, Gohan."
"No one deserves it but nothing is ever going to change."
The trip took them longer than they thought and Vegeta was pulling into the parking lot of their apartment building as they were coming up the sidewalk. He was obviously worried but there was an undercurrent of annoyance there as well.
"You were supposed to pick the boys up from school today, remember?" he said as he sent Trunks and Goten upstairs with the keys. "Goten's sensei called me at work before she left for home."
"It's bad Vegeta-san," Colby told him. He and Gohan explained what had gone on that day as they went up to the apartment and Vegeta couldn't stop himself from hugging his son when he realized how close he could have come to death.
"The murderer could have still been there when you went inside!"
He sat down on the couch and said with a bland expression, "Since they're obviously trying to get me convicted of a high crime I don't see that happening."
Vegeta slowly counted to get his emotions under control. Gohan was probably in shock, that's why he was being so intolerable. "Colby, call Goku. The number's by the phone in the kitchen."
"What's wrong with him?" he asked fearfully.
"Shock," he grabbed a blanket from a closet and forced Gohan to lie down before he covered him with it. "I'm going to do all that I can now but a trip to the hospital has to be avoided."
"I guess I am in shock," Gohan mumbled. "I don't feel anything at all, now." He looked up with a serious expression. "You do know that this can be fatal, don't you?"
"Hai, I do." He kneeled beside him. "You are not going to die."
"You can't be sure. No one can." And with those words he fainted.
Colby and Vegeta panicked until Goku got there and checked him out. The two of them alternated between looking out of a window and checking on Gohan's breathing. After discovering that he was going to be just fine, they were faced with a task that neither wanted to undertake.
Telling Goku about his son's brush with the dead.
He was silent for a moment after they alternated with the details, choosing to think a little before speaking. Goku knew that if he had responded directly after hearing what happened that he would have yelled. "Thank Kami that he's alright."
Vegeta was surprised. "That's all you're going to say?"
Goku stood and went slowly off to his bedroom. "I have more but I think it's best that Colby didn't hear it." The sound of the door shutting was audible and just shy of being considered a slam.
"I'll take you home, Colby. Domo arigatou for seeing him home." He called Trunks and Goten in to watch their sleeping brother.
"Can you promise me that you talk him out of doing anything else dangerous and stupid?" Colby asked, his eyes silently pleading. "If he dies, I die."
He uncharacteristically tried to comfort him by patting his hand. "I understand. Believe me, I understand."