Love and Justice Ch. 19

"What's going on?" Hana asked as they tore down the road towards the coast.

"A couple of archeologists were trying a new deep sea submarine and something went wrong. They're sinking straight towards a trench that's too deep for anyone to get to them without being crushed. We may already be too late," Dekkado told her.

When they arrived there was already a news van and a reporter on one of the docks.

"How did the news crew get out here before us?" Hana asked as she got out and Dekkado transformed.

"They were already hear, Ayako mentioned it this morning, said she was going to try to get down here too, something about there being an interesting story behind how they got the funding to buy the sub," Dumpson told her.

"I've got us patched into the ships radio so we can communicate with them and the sub, but we've got a problem," Dekkado said, leaving the radio connection on a speaker so Hana could here what was going on too.

"What's that?" McCrane asked.

"They're already too deep for us to reach them and the other sub is still a good fifteen minutes away, by the time it get's here they'll be to deep for even it to reach them. We can send Super Build Tiger to fly it in, but even then it will probably take too long for it to descend to catch up with the other sub before it's to deep to handle the pressure,"

"We'll at least try, where is the other sub?" McCrane asked before they combined into Super Build Tiger.

The people on the ship gave them the coordinates for the sub.

A moment later a woman came on the radio and said, "Contact the Brave Police,"

"We just arrived ma'am, I'm officer Dekkado, we're trying to find a way to get you out of there," Dekkado replied, his heart breaking for the woman who sounded as if she had already resigned herself to the fact that she would die down there.

"Is Shadow Maru with you?" she asked.

"Yes," Dekkado replied, surprised that she knew their names or would be more concerned with who was there than getting rescued.

"I need to talk to him, he knows my sister and I'd like him to give her a message if I don't get out of this alive," she told him.

"Okay," Dekkado replied.

From the horrified look on Shadow Maru's face it was obvious that he knew who was on the radio as soon as he had been asked for and a second later he had cut off Dekkado's connection to listen in on their conversation.

A few minutes later Hana noticed what looked like another robot flying towards the ship, "Who is that?" she asked.

"It can't be, it looks like Kagerou," Dekkado said as the robot landed on the ship and grabbed the cable that they had planned to attach to the broken sub to bring it up.

"I thought you said he was dead," Hana said as she watched the robot hesitate for a split second before he dove into the water.

As soon as he dove into the water any doubts about who it was were wiped out as Shadow Maru yelled, "Kagerou what the hell do you think you're doing?"

"Apparently he's not," Dekkado said.

A few minutes later Hana was really wishing she could hear what Shadow Maru was hearing over his radio because he was suddenly so stunned by something that his mouth was hanging open.

"Can you hear what's going on?" Hana asked Dekkado.

"No, he's on a private frequency, I have no idea what's going on," Dekkado replied.

"Remind me to learn how to hack into Shadow Maru's radio, this is driving me crazy," Gun Max said as they continued to watch Shadow Maru.

A few minutes later Shadow Maru dropped to his knees, a look of complete devastation on his face, "I've lost him, again," Shadow Maru said quietly.

Dekkado rested a comforting hand on his shoulder, a moment later Shadow Maru's head shot up and he switched back to the ships radio frequency that everyone could here, "The cable is attached, get that sub up here now!" he told the people on the ship.

"You knew Kagerou was alive, didn't you?" Dekkado asked Shadow Maru.

"Yes," Shadow Maru replied before flying off to wait on the ship.

"And he's not going to give us any more information than that," Gun Max said.

"I guess we'll just have to wait to find out," Dekkado said then called the Build Team to come back.

After a long wait the sub finally reached the surface and Dekkado combined into J-Decker then carried Hana out to the ship to check on the people inside of the sub after he helped Super Build Tiger lift it onto the ship then carefully moved Kagerou's badly crushed body off of it.

Shadow Maru was instantly at his side, a scanner sliding down over his eye as he started running scans on him.

The sub opened and a woman with long dark red hair jumped out and ran over to where Shadow Maru and Kagerou were.

Hana helped the man out of the sub and made sure he was alright before turning her attention back to the others. She was just in time to see Super Build Tiger head towards Kagerou and the woman who had been in the sub suddenly took up a very defensive looking position between them and Kagerou.

"I'm going to have you ride back to the station with Shadow Maru, the woman seems to be quite attached to Kagerou and will probably want to stay with him as much as possible, I can fly her back to the station," Dekkado told Hana, then added, "Maybe you can get some more information out of him on the way back,"

"That's fine," Hana said watching as the woman reluctantly let them take Kagerou.

A moment later they had taken off and Hana walked over to Shadow Maru, "Dekkado said you get to take me back to the station," she told him.

He didn't say anything, just kept watching as the others flew away, but held out a hand for her then flew to the shore before transforming and driving them back to the station, never saying a word during the whole drive.


---------

They walked into the repair bay just in time to hear the woman introducing herself.

"Kate McFerran. I found his AI chip a little over a year ago." she told Syunsuke.

The way she watched everything Syunsuke was doing to Kagerou it was obvious she didn't trust him.

"Over a year ago?" he asked then glanced up at Shadow Maru, "And I suppose you knew about this?"

"Only since Christmas, Rachel is Kate's sister, it was completely by accident that I found out about him when she decided to introduce me to Kate," Shadow Maru replied.

"So where did he get the body from?" Syunsuke asked.

"My computer, stove and some pop cans," Kate replied.

"What?" Syunsuke asked looking shocked.

"When I found the AI chip I had set it on my computer, somehow he absorbed it to create a body and then the other things to get it to the size it is now," Kate told him then asked, "Is he going to be alright?"

"I won't know until I can get to his AI chip and I can't find the release latch for his helmet, it's different from the way he was originally built," Syunsuke told her.

Kate reached out and carefully pressed seemingly invisible release buttons on his helmet, it took a couple of tries before they finally released.

"How on earth did you know where those were? I saw you release them and still can't tell where they are," Syunsuke asked as he carefully started to remove his helmet.

"I've used them enough to know exactly where they are," Kate replied.

"Why would he let you do that, he never liked people getting that close to his AI chip," he said then let out a frustrated sigh when he found nothing but smooth metal under the helmet instead of it being open to the internal workings of his head like it was on the others.

"One because even without the helmet his AI is still protected," Kate replied running her fingers across Kagerou's head, "two because I'm his wife, he trusts me," she said as she finally found the release for the piece of metal that covered his AI chip.

"His wife?!" the other Brave Police all said in shock, except for Shadow Maru. Hana on the other hand wasn't that surprised, she had suspected there was some romantic involvement between the two since she had seen how concerned Kate was about Kagerou back on the ship.

"Yes," Kate replied glancing back at everyone standing behind her.

"This isn't good," Syunsuke said drawing everyone's attention back to Kagerou.

"What's wrong?" Kate asked sounding on the verge of panicking.

"The AI chip is cracked, the metal around it put too much pressure on it," he told her.

"But he's still alive right? You said there's still brain activity right?" Kate asked desperately, turning to Shadow Maru.

"Yes, there is. I think he is still somewhat aware of what's going on, the activity changes and increases when ever you speak," Shadow Maru replied.

"But that still leaves us helpless to do anything, there's no way to fix an AI chip, not a sentient one at least," Syunsuke said.

"Could it heal? If he's still alive, then isn't there a chance it could heal on it's own?" Kate asked.

"I honestly don't know, I've never seen an injury like this before, all we can do is wait and see," Syunsuke told her.

"I don't think he likes that idea, brain activity is increasing like he's getting angry or frustrated about something," Shadow Maru told them.

All of a sudden there was a flash of sparks as electricity rippled across the surface of the AI chip.

"What is he doing?" Syunsuke asked.

"I think he wants something and is trying to communicate, but I'm not sure what he wants," Shadow Maru said.

"Oh Kage, I wish we could figure out what you wanted," Kate said running her hand over his dented and crushed shoulder.

Suddenly the waves of electricity switched direction, shifting around a few times before retuning to the direction they had been going earlier and forming what looked like an arrow.

Kate leaned in to get a closer look at the end of the AI chip the waves were pointing to then asked, "What's that wire for?" as soon as she did the electricity flickered brightly then stopped.

Syunsuke looked at it for a moment then said, "It's the main connection line from his AI chip to the rest of his body. Unfortunately I can't possibly repair it without removing the AI chip and with it broken there won't be any energy supply to his AI chip and that could kill him before it can heal."

Kagerou's AI chip flashed with electricity again, "What is it Kage?" Kate asked.

After a moment the electricity began to form shapes and then letters, "C. A. N. S. R. K. What the heck does that mean? It makes no sense and it's using too much energy for him to be communicating like this," Syunsuke said.

"You said something about him absorbing cans when his body was being regenerated, but what does the R.K. mean?" Shadow Maru asked.

Kate thought for a minute, "Recycle king!" she said excitedly, a short burst of electricity running across Kagerou's AI in response.

"What the heck is that supposed to mean?" Syunsuke asked.

"When his body was being restored I made fun of him for walking around with cans stuck to him and said I was going to call him recycle king and eventually held cans to the top of his head until they were absorbed enough to stay there. I think he's trying to say if we hold the wire in place it'll reattach on it's own," Kate explained, earning another flash from Kagerou's AI.

Kate pulled a chair over next to where Kagerou was laying.

"What are you doing?" Syunsuke asked.

"Getting that wire reattached. Like you said he doesn't like anyone messing with his head and no offence, but I'm not going to let anyone who was involved in trying to kill him years ago do something like this," Kate replied as she sat down then very carefully got a hold of the wire and gently pressed it to the spot it had broken off of.

After that everyone, but Shadow Maru headed back to the main office, "Well this has been an interesting day," Dumpson said as they all sat down at their desks.

"Yeah, I never would have imagined Kagerou was still around," Power Joe said.

"I'm more surprised that not only is he still around, but he's married, it does explain why he was willing to give his own life to save to save her," McCrane said.

"I'm just worried about what's going to happen now, you know Azuma isn't going to be happy about this," Dekkado said.

----

About half an hour later Hana headed back down to the repair bay, "Can I get anything for you?" she asked as she walked into the room.

"No, thanks, I'm fine," Kate replied.

"You can get her something to drink Hana, preferably juice, something good and healthy," Shadow Maru told the woman.

"I said I was fine," Kate told him.

"You need to keep you're strength up, you know that," he replied his eyes locking with hers for a moment.

Hana could tell there was something else going on the way he was looking at Kate, but gave up trying to figure it out when she couldn't come up with any logical explanations or even remotely possible ones.

"Yeah, I guess he is right, some juice would be good," Kate said.

"Okay, I'll be right back," Hana told her before leaving the room.

A little while Hana returned, gave Kate the juice then headed back to the office just in time to hear Saejima telling everyone that Azuma was going to be coming in about an hour.

"What do you think he's going to do? I mean if Kagerou has been around long enough to have fallen in love and gotten married and we're just now finding out about it he's obviously not been causing any trouble," Hana pointed out.

"I don't know, but we won't let him do anything too drastic," Saejima told her.

The next half hour was spent filling out reports on that mornings events until Dekkado told Hana that Shadow Maru had asked for her to come to the repair bay.

When she got there she said, "Dekkado said you wanted me,"

"Yes, could you please take Kate down to the cafeteria and make sure she gets something healthy to eat?" Shadow Maru asked.

"Of course," Hana replied.

Kate glared at Shadow Maru for a moment clearly not wanting to leave Kagerou's side, although he was fully conscious now.

Kagerou rested his hand on Kate's stomach, "Go on, I'll be fine, you have more important people to worry about than me," he said quietly, although Hana was just barely able to make out what he had said.

"Alright, I'll be right back," Kate relented, gently kissing Kagerou's forehead before reluctantly following as Hana led her out of the room.

Kate was completely silent as she followed Hana down the halls, nervously fiddled with a necklace she was wearing.

As they stepped into an elevator Hana smiled reassuringly at Kate, having a pretty good idea of what was worrying her, "If you're worried about how we're going to take you're being married to Kagerou don't," she told her.

"You don't think I'm completely crazy or something?" Kate asked.

"Of course not, of the eight sentient robots working for the Brave Police two are married to human women, three are dating and one is engaged. And I happen to be dating Dekkado, so I can certainly understand your choosing to spend your life with one of them. I also know what I go through any time Dekkado get's hurt, so we'll get you something to eat and then get you back to Kagerou's side as quickly as possible," Hana told her.

"Thank you," Kate said, seeming to relaxing a little.