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[standalonehuman]

Togusa

This is Togusa. Feel free to message me at any time.

VOICE | TEXT | VIDEO | ACTION

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[standalonehuman]

Well, if Ardyn is "dad".....

[Lies, it's actually his best friend Koutarou, but why not point the finger Grell's way?]

All right. Do you want to meet up to talk about it, or keep this on the network? Daisuke could use the walk, he got mostly cooped up for a week while I was out of commission, too.

[darkinferno]

[Is Ardyn even old enough to be "dad" to you, Togusa...? Dante's suddenly realizing that he doesn't actually know how old Togusa is--he's just always classified him as "adult, cop" and left it at that.]

does he know that

more importantly does grell know that? she might rethink her choices if she finds out how many tagalongs it comes with

[Is he including himself with these "tagalongs?" IT IS A MYSTERY.]

in person's fine, we can go to one of the parks if you want so daisuke can run around

[standalonehuman]

[No, he's not, but you should totally ask Ardyn that.]

Sounds like a plan. I'll meet you outside of Apprassage.

It's the spot he usually takes Daisuke to, Togusa has been trying to have all of these 'super secret meetings' in his usual spots, so it's harder for Retrospec to tell what is something important, and what is just catching up with a friend. Because this is a little of both, right?

As it turns out, Togusa has some information for Dante, too, but for right now, it just looks like a casual walk with his dog.

[darkinferno]

It doesn't take Dante too long to get there, looking for all the world like a bored college student on summer break as he meanders down the sidewalk, looking at his phone. When he sees Togusa, though, the phone goes back in his pocket, and he's striding right on up, offering his hand to Daisuke to sniff. (This is his first time meeting Togusa's dog, and though he doesn't admit it, he's got a soft spot for dogs!)

"Hey, Togusa," he says from that awkward semi-crouch, not glancing up right away. "Good to see you out and about. Did the prof come and visit you?"

Did the prof come and heal you, is what he means to ask. Dante hadn't been kidding when he'd told Ardyn he was the type of guy to throw his own well-being out the window for somebody else's sake!

[standalonehuman]

New person! Daisuke comes right up to sniff insistently at Dante's hand, eventually pressing his nose right into it, like he wants to get even closer. Hand. Shoes? Shoes. He noses down and sniffs at Dante's feet briefly before returning. Boof. His tail keeps wagging and his ears are relaxed as he sits right down and looks at Dante expectantly. You have passed the sniff test, sir, you may pet the dog.

"Hey," Togusa greets right back, his tone is already amused at watching Daisuke's antics. "Good to be out of the house, really."

Interesting question. "Ardyn? Yeah, he came by." Wait, does Dante know? Stupid question. Prompto knows, for some reason unknown to man or gods, Prompto and Dante hang out all the time, so of course Prompto would have let it slip to Dante. "We talked for a while, he was nice enough to leave before I fell asleep again."

[darkinferno]

Yesssssss! Once Daisuke's given him the Sniff of Approval, Dante's just going to crouch down to his level. It's time for all sorts of pets and ear rubs! Love him, Daisuke.

Now that he's committed to a level, though, he'll look up at Togusa as he responds. "That's good. He didn't try to pull anything funny, did he?"

But that's probably as far as he'll press that line of questioning. He definitely doesn't need this getting back to Ardyn... Dante can just imagine the teasing he'd be in for!

"Hang on a sec." It's said as if he just remembered it, a seemingly off-the-cuff remark, but Dante sits back on his heels and gives Togusa a meaningful look as he tugs his phone back out of his pocket, powering it off entirely. He figures Togusa can probably read between the lines and figure out he's meant to do the same.

[standalonehuman]

Daisuke is letting out all sorts of excited whines and pants as Dante is the best dog petter. Yessss. He rubs his face into Dante's hand, and eventually flops over on his side.

Togusa gives Dante the slightest raised eyebrow, but he does as Dante suggests, pulls his phone out and turns it off. "I can get away with that because I'm off today," he mutters.

"Ardyn was clear about what he can do now," Togusa says, once the phones are off. "And the price that comes with it. So, no, he didn't use it on me. I got better all on my own. Of course this stuff can't just come without a major drawback," Togusa shakes his head in disbelief.

"But how did you find out?"

[darkinferno]

Ohhh, who's a good dog? It's Daisuke! It's definitely Daisuke. Does he like tummy rubs, too? Let's see if we can get that leg going!

But all he'll give Togusa is a shrug in response, though he's internally glad to hear that Ardyn didn't try healing him and make himself sick in the process. "I figured it out on my own," he says, "back when he first realized he could do it again."

How much has Ardyn told him about his past memories? Does Togusa know about the darkness that the two of them seem to share?

"He'd told me he could heal people of this sickness by taking it into himself, back in his other life. So when he said he could heal people now, it didn't take much to figure out it meant he took their injuries, too."

[standalonehuman]

Daisuke loves tummy rubs, and he stays right where he is so Dante can keep pouring the attention on him. Careful, Togusa, your dog might decide he has a new favorite person soon.

"Mmm," a noise of disapproval. "He didn't mention the catch to me when he talked about it the first time. I thought it was funny." Shaking his head at himself. "Imagining Ardyn and Fynn as adventurers of some kind. But, no, why should Ardyn get a break?" He definitely feels sorry for the man. The concept of having such a power and not being able to use it? It would drive Togusa mad, it might do the same to Ardyn.

"You weren't just worried about the prof, were you?"

[darkinferno]

Dante shakes his head, a voiceless huff of amusement escaping him. "Nah, that's not why I wanted to talk to you. I could've said all that over the network."

Sorry, Daisuke. As much as Dante wants to keep showering him in attention, it's time to get to work. He gives the pup one last scratch before standing back to his full height, meeting Togusa's eyes. "There are some things I should probably update you on. We had our first practice last week, and a few of us went out to look into a few things last night. We learned a couple things that you might be interested in."

[standalonehuman]

Togusa frowns a little, while Daisuke floofs back up and curls up at Togusa's own feet. "Not sure I want to know, so long as you're all keeping safe." Who else is regaining these abilities, who else has questionable things that Retrospec is showing them? No, Togusa isn't sure he wants to know at all.

"But if it's Retrospec-related? Well, what were you looking into?"

[darkinferno]

"We are. No incidents last week--even the people who thought it was going to be some sort of fight club calmed it down and played nicely. But I thought you should know..."

Dante steps close to Togusa, dropping his voice low. He doesn't know how Retrospec's surveillance footage works, but he's not taking any risks of being picked up by it.

"...it's not just a fight practice. Chloe and I met up after she found those blueprints and were talking about how we could get information out to people without cluing Retrospec in to the fact that we had it or had shared it. So every week during practice, we're holding secret meetings to share any information we can come up with to a whole group of people."

[standalonehuman]

Togusa flat-out stops and stares at Dante for a second, and he knows he is supposed to straight-face what Dante is saying, it's supposed to be covert, but it's impossible to completely dispel the really, Dante? look on his face.

"So you took the satire idea of a subversive group and...instantly...made it into a real subversive group. That's got to be a record. Okay."

Nope, just petting my dog. Just. Petting. My. Dog.

"Help you get out what we found in the tunnels, at least? I don't know who all needs that, but any way we can let people know."

[darkinferno]

"You're really set on drawing this Fight Club comparison, aren't you?" Dante frowns, shaking his head. "I meant what I told you about it being to help people. Chloe was already thinking about trying to arrange secret meetings, so it made sense to set it up at the same time."

Come on, Togusa. Does he really have so little faith in him?

"But anyways, that's why I wanted to talk to you. We talked about them last week, but we'll be talking about them this coming weekend too." Dante pauses for a moment, for the first time second-guessing his decision to tell Togusa about this. Is he about to get that same disapproving look here, too?

But ultimately, he decides, it's more important to share the information. He doesn't want to hold information back from Togusa and risk Togusa deciding not to share any information with him, either...

"Last night, a bunch of us went back into the subway tunnels. Turns out, there's more to that graffiti than we realized."

[standalonehuman]

That takes Togusa by surprise, he didn't expect to be so on the nose about what Dante was up to. He perks up, and his look instantly shifts to be slightly impressed. "You made it back in there without getting spotted? Good to know."

"I'd assume," talking slowly, thinking it through, "that it's not dangerous in there anymore, now that we're not on the low end of the food chain." Hopeful.

"Figured you take somebody who knows more about computers in there, they'd be able to learn more. What did you find out?" There is no apparent lecture incoming, just an eager curiosity in Togusa's tone.

[darkinferno]

Dante nods, a yes on all accounts. "We split up to get into the subway tunnels. Too many people sneaking in together all at the same time would've drawn too much attention. We didn't see anything dangerous down there--just a lot of tunnels that have been collapsed. Things didn't look too unstable for the most part, but if you go too far southwest, things get weird. If you went too far, it felt like falling off a cliff, even though you're standing on solid ground. If you try to keep going, things start feeling less stable. We didn't spend too much time down that way."

But that isn't the big thing. Dante pulls a file folder out of the backpack he's got slung over his shoulder, handing it to Togusa. "I wanted to get some better images of the binary so we could see if anyone could decipher it. BUt Prompto told me that you'd asked him to take photos with a film camera once, so he took some photos with a regular camera too and developed them to see what we'd find."

He figures the photos, as Togusa looks at them, should speak for themselves. They're of the binary in the tunnels, all right, but many of the numbers are blurred, as though they're halfway 0, halfway 1. Some of them are clear and crisp, unchanging, but it looks as though most of them are midway between changing from one digit to the other--an instance none of them had been able to see with the naked eye, or even in cell phone photos, but visible in developed photos.

[standalonehuman]

"Southwest," Togusa repeats. "Staring from where? It doesn't make sense that anything would be collapsed unless you made it outside of the city," Togusa's brow furrows sharply. "Unless you were gunning for what I was, and tried to get under the center of town?"

He flips open the folder, and a somewhat vicious grin spreads across Togusa's face. "Oh, Prompto, you amazing kid, you. Every so often, I'm right, just sometimes not at the right time." He stares at the photo, but his enthusiasm isn't diminished. "Good. Work. Seriously. I don't know if there was any other way we could have figured this out. Thank you."

Togusa closes the folder and hands it back to Dante. "The code is changing. That dumb idea we were coming up with in the tunnels the first time was right. It's running right underneath the whole city, that's how they're affecting all of us at once."

[darkinferno]

A shake of the head. "We were trying to explore as much as we could. All the maps down there have been ruined; they've either been torn down entirely or ripped apart. I wanted to try and map some of it out while we were down there. Some of us started in the binary tunnel and tried to keep going toward Apprassage--that's where we hit that 'wall.' It wasn't really close to the center of town, I don't think."

As the grin spreads across Togusa's face, a matching smirk grows on Dante's own. See, he can come up with good ideas sometimes! "Yeah, it looks like it. The only problem is, what do we do next? My sword can't cut through it at all, so there's no way to disrupt the code that I could see."

[standalonehuman]

Togusa puts a hand to his chin. "Enprise to Aprassage, that's almost doing what we did backwards. Why would there be a collapse down there now?" He shakes his head. "I might not be picturing this right. I got the idea initially by looking up the old subway maps from the Library. Pull copies of that next time before you go down there, maybe? At least we can keep a copy and mark off what has and hasn't been explored. There's only so many lines."

"We need to be able to read it before we can disrupt it. Break a random piece? That could be related to one of us. How do we read it if it's changing, well that's the question, isn't it?" Togusa breathes out a long breath. "But we know it's not just random, that's a start."

"Run it by Yoon-sung. Or Ecarle, she's that heiress, right? In theory they'd have access to the servers or computing power that would cut down on the work. Just we have to find some way to get that code from down the tunnel up to them."

[darkinferno]

"I started working on a current map while we were done there," Dante says. "I can probably try cross-referencing them with the maps from the library." Whether or not they'll match? That's another story entirely. But that's a problem for another day.

"How are we supposed to read it when we can't even get it to hold still long enough to get a clear picture?" Dante frowns. "It's not like we can plug a USB cable into the subway wall and connect it to a laptop."

[standalonehuman]

"If you need the photo-lens to tell that it's moving," Togusa puts a hand to his chin. "We'd need a recording of some kind. But run it through a computer recognition software, something that can look faster than a human eye can process. If there's a way for them to display it, there has to be a way to read it, they're outputting it somehow."

Togusa glances at Dante with a half-smile. "This gives us some new ground to cover, though. Thank you. Was there anything else I can help out with?"

[darkinferno]

"Which means going back again," Dante notes. "With some sort of video equipment. Maybe we need to get someone else in on this; I don't know how some sort of recognition software like that would work."

He raises one shoulder in a half-shrug at Togusa's other words. "Yeah, no problem. I figured you would've let me know if you'd found out anything new, so..." He trails off, but then he's moving on to another topic. "I wanted to tell you about the info sessions. Even if you don't plan on coming to the training sessions, you've got a lot of info about what's going on. We're trying to centralize everybody's knowledge so that we've got more people in the know--it'd be pretty useful if you could share what you're finding out, too."

[standalonehuman]

There's a slight tension in Togusa's shoulders when Dante mentions the training sessions. "I don't know..." He truly doesn't like the idea of going down there. He knows, he gets it. People as young as Dante suddenly remembering how to use swords, spar, maybe even worse.

He sighs deeply, glances at Dante. "If I can give the info through you, a few other people? Keep from drawing even more attention to the place by having a cop- another cop, sorry, show up there all the time?"

[darkinferno]

Dante shrugs again. "If you're off-duty, I don't think it'd be that conspicuous. But if you're that uncomfortable with it, then sure, I can carry any info for you. It just means we'll have to arrange to talk sometimes without doing it over the network. The biggest thing we're trying to do is keep it on the downlow so that maybe we can get ahead of Retrospec for once."

[standalonehuman]

Togusa nods as soon as he can. "I get it. Then, yes, it might be better if you took the information there instead of me. I can't deny knowing about it. But it's better that way."

A measured pause. "Doubt I'd need the practice sessions, myself." Because those are actually the issue here.