All The Way Here

Los Angeles was warm. The street itself felt like a suntrap, roasting Matt inside his striped shirt. The Japanese police officers had been inside the building opposite for several hours and now the van, behind which Matt had been hiding all of that time, had just driven off. He surveyed his vantage points, but there weren't many. His better bet would be to be indoors, watching from a window, as they had in New York. Matt's attention was again drawn to the boarded up building directly opposite their headquarters.



A small carpark, pit-holed and gravelled, lay to the rear. Matt tried various doors, but they were all padlocked. Peering in through grimy windows, all he could see was dust and darkness. A steel staircase led up, fading red paint and huge patches of rust. At the summit was a door, again in that faded red, paint bubbling with age upon it. Glancing around him, Matt gripped his gun and tested his weight on the structure. It seemed sound enough, so he ran up the stairs. This door wasn't padlocked and the lock seemed ordinary enough. Matt pulled the chain of his key-ring, until he held the bunch of them in his hand. Selecting a short, stout rod, he carefully picked the lock.



Inside was the musty smell of a building unused for a good while. It just felt empty and no-one ran to stop him. No-one was around. Matt smiled, testing the lightswitches. The electricity had been disconnected. That wouldn't be a problem.



The redhead crept out into a corridor, testing doors and finding offices and storerooms, all wearing that same sad, abandoned air. This hadn't been a sudden closing down. There was nothing of personal belongings here and even the filing cabinets held no papers. There were desks but no seats. A solitary plant stood dead in a pot on the windowsill. Matt walked around, onto wide, open landing. Dustsheets covered pallets stacked up against the wall, but they continued nothing at all. Peering through the low windows there, he smiled. "Bingo."



"Ok, I'm in the building opposite their headquarters." Matt told Mello over the telephone. Delight sprang in his tone. "It's an old arcade! The games are pretty beaten up though."



There was a sigh on the other end of the line. "You have to remember why you're there, Matt. Please?"



"Credit me with a bit of sense." Matt scrowled into the receiver. "I've found a loft, which has a good view of the building. The cameras can be set up and anytime you want, I can send you a feed. But there's no furniture up there, so I'm salvaging things from down here." He leaned on the plastic seat of an old racing game. "You want me to just..."



"Ok." Mello stopped him mid-rant. "I know you'll be brilliant as always. Just do what you have to."



Their conversation thereon petered to a close and Matt shone his torch into the room. Most of the equipment was too battered for use, but he did find the seat off an old space invader game that would do as a makeshift, if uncomfortable, settee. He dragged it into the service lift and left it there for taking up later, while he explored the rest of the shop floor. There was evidence of mice, in gnawing and droppings, but nothing much else except for the broken machines. He rode the lift back up and dragged the seat across the tiles, glancing out of the window. Nothing had happened. Nothing obvious anyway.



Slight resentment at Mello stabbed again. Until now, he had been watching the Japanese model, following her on shopping trips and into bright places. While she had seemed downright vacuous and insignificant, it was at least far more interesting than hanging around LA streets watching unchanging buildings. Something had altered in Mello's thinking, but far be it from him to share. Suddenly they had swopped and Matt wasn't sure whether to be annoyed or flattered over his suspicion that that Mello's change of plan followed Matt's comment that the girl was cute.



It felt good to be moving again. Matt returned the way he'd come, through the fire escape, carefully closing it behind him and securing it with a brick. He just had to pick up some supplies and he would be back. He smiled, this was much more like an adventure than hanging around outside. It was almost exciting. He collected laptops and cameras from their storage and filled a carrier bag with food at a shop, then was back in the old arcade, setting up his own headquarters. The electricity supply was more difficult to reinstate than he'd imagined, but before night fell, he had the technology working. Pleased with himself, he sat back and watched.



It was dark and Matt woke on hard tiles, freezing, despite the clammy night. Tears fell from his eyes and he swiped them away before reaching for his goggles again. Now a cigarette, calming, and breathe. He sat still telling himself that it was only a dream. He'd only dreamt it. But he could still hear the pounding in his head. Hands on metal, calling his name. An old dream. He hadn't had it in years.



That was a lie. Matt stood, fiddling with cameras though they were just fine. He lit another cigarette from the first and bent to the laptop. This was now. This was right here. This was finding Kira, right here. Helping Mello. Matt whipped up his telephone and, despite the hour, nearly called Mello. To get this out of his head. But Mello would kill him. Mello would take him in his bare hands and strangle the living lights out of him.



Matt sat down heavily on the tiles, hands over his ears, rocking with his head banging on the side of the plastic chair. He had to stop thinking. He was doing this to himself. If he couldn't stop thinking, then he'd just have to skip to the aftermath. Standing in there on the white tiles, dripping blood and hearing that heated discussion about whether he should be cleaned up. Then the door opening and the old foreign gentleman coming in, crouching to his level and saying, "You were a really clever boy. What you did back there." Matt's memory skipped. He was staring up at The Wammy House for the first time, holding the hand of the old man. Watari.



Matt stopped rocking and lowered his hands. The cigarette that had been threatening to singe his hair now travelled back to his mouth. His vision took in the white tiles all around him. That was all it was. White tiles, a bad dream and a panic attack. He blinked through the goggles and touched the cool ceramic beneath his hand. For an instant it seemed as though he could still feel the blood there and he forced himself to look. It was just spilled fizzy pop, still spreading. He must have kicked it over when he woke. He pushed the laptop out of the way with his foot, but didn't mop up the mess.



He took up his game and switched it on. A tiny, controlled world sparked up, filling his vision. Here, he had all of the tools, all of the knowledge. Here he could make things happen with just a click of a button; little people collecting points and winning. A fanfare for his triumph and fireworks pixelating into a new banner, a new level. Over the road, nothing continued to happen.