Patlabor Fan Fiction ❯ Personal Files ❯ Episode 17 ( Chapter 4 )

[ P - Pre-Teen ]

Patlabor: Personal Files

An Episodic Patlabor Fanfic by David A. Tatum

Disclaimer: Insert legal junk here...



Episode 17: A Most Unusual Retirement

March 17, 2000



"Hurry, Asuma!" Noa cried. "I want to get back to Alphonse as quickly
as possible!"



There was a reason Noa was so anxious to return to the side of her
labor- for the first time in a long time, she was medically cleared to
pilot it again. With that in mind, Asuma had been speeding (or nearly
speeding) the entire journey from the hospital.



Noa had been afraid she wasn't going to pass those tests six days
beforehand. Her back was killing her then, and she was dreading the
possibility that she'd reinjured it. What was even worse was the fear
that her relationship with Asuma was falling apart, as he'd been
distancing himself from her for about a week beforehand.



Oddly, Noa's back quit being so stiff shortly after Asuma told her he
loved her those six days ago. Well, part of that might have been that
she'd invited him to give her a massage when they got back to the onsen-
his hands fumbled frequently as he tried to release the tension with his
fingers, and the encounter didn't go any further than the gentle massage
she'd asked for, but Noa had definitely thought about LETTING him go
further, if he'd wanted to.



The massage really did little to relieve the stiffness, though- it was
mostly gone when they'd gotten there, and Asuma was so nervous about it
that he was more likely to have ADDED to any pains than taken away from
them. Still, it had quickly disappeared after his confession.



Asuma finally moved into the parking lot, and Noa nearly leapt out of
the car while it was still running. Quickly double-checking to make
certain that the doors were locked, he followed her path into the SV2
hanger as soon as he could.



By the time he caught up with her, she was already suited up and heading
right for Alphonse's cockpit. She stopped long enough to smile at him
and say a few words.



"Shige's going to watch the shakedown run," she explained. "He's going
to be taking the command position to put Alphonse through a few tests."



Asuma nodded. During Noa's incapacitation, the mechanics had taken the
opportunity to make a number of modifications to her labor-
modifications which would push its mechanics nearly up to the
performance level of the Peacemakers- which hopefully would keep it from
becoming technologically obsolete for another year or so. At any rate,
the modifications were so great that a serious shakedown run had to be
made before it would be safe to use Alphonse on calls. Since Asuma wasn
't aware of exactly what tests were required, he knew someone else would
have command for a little while.



"I'll be watching with him. Have fun," he said.



Noa nodded, resuming her dash for Alphonse with an expression of pure
glee on her face. He followed, smiling slightly. He wasn't sure he was
completely over his jealousy of the labor, despite their little talk,
but he couldn't help but like it when she was THAT happy.



Still grinning, he made his way over to where Shige was adjusting the
radio headset. "Need any help?" Asuma asked.



"Nah," Shige replied. "This shakedown run shouldn't be too difficult."



"You'll let Noa have some fun with him, right?"



"Of course."



Asuma watched as Shige put Noa through the drills. It appeared quite
similar to the standard shakedown run that any labor in Shinohara Heavy
Industries was put through, and Alphonse was passing with flying colors.



Sakaki approached the pair watching the tests about half-way through, a
barely restrained emotion that niether of them could identify on his
face. "Shige," he said softly. "Hand the command over to Asuma and let
him finish the tests. I need to speak with you for a moment."



Shige blinked, surprised by Sakaki's odd tone of voice. "I, uh... okay.
Noa, Asuma's going to take over for a bit- Chief needs to talk to me."
With that, he ripped off the headset and handed it to Asuma. Turning
briskly, he followed Sakaki towards his office.



Asuma replaced the radio on his head, adjusted the microphone, and said,
"Noa, can you read me?"



Noa's voice cheerily answered him, "Loud and clear, Asuma! What's going
on?"



"Dunno. Sakaki was acting strangely," he said, thinking. "Hmm... seems
to me Alphonse tests just fine when it comes to strength and
manueverability, right?"



"Check," Noa agreed. "He's tuned up well and good. Sakaki does a good
job with him."



"How 'bout checking some of his sensors for a while, instead? Ya
know... maybe, say, try focusing in on a certain conversation to see if
the audio recording devices are able to pick up everything they're
supposed to?"



Noa didn't respond for a second. "Asuma... are you asking me to do what
I think you're asking me to do?"



"Depends, what do you think I'm asking you to do?" he replied, smirking.



The sigh could be heard even through the headphones. "You know, one of
these stunts you keep getting us into is going to get us thrown out of
the SV2, someday. When we get kicked out, I'm going to get awfully mad
at you." There was a pause. "Testing auditory detection system.
Relaying results to you..."



The sound of Sakaki's somewhat distorted gravelly voice kicked in.
"...ber that as chief mechanic, your job won't just be assigning people
to the right job and keeping track of how progress is, but also
maintaining discipline among the unit. If you recall..." A spurt of
interference garbled his next few words.



"Hmm... there's some distortion and interference. Check the
callibration for the reciever," Asuma ordered.



"Acknowledged," Noa replied, somewhat relieved. It didn't sound like
they were eavesdropping on anything important, and her conscience was
greatly relieved.



The sound cleared up just as Shige started talking. "Chief, this is all
stuff you've said a million times before. What's the point of all
this?" he said.



Sakaki paused. "Shige... I got a memo, today, letting me know that,
since I passed fifty-five years of age earlier this month, I'm going to
have to retire on the 31st. You are about to become 'Chief' Shige."



The silence that followed was palpable. "Noa," Asuma said softly. "I
think that's enough testing for today."



* * * * *



March 31, 2000



For a party, it was remarkably somber. The catered food was of the best
quality and variety, the live band was playing cheery toons, and
everyone attending knew everybody else. The reason for the party,
however, was enough to sadden most of those attendees.



A few people had made an attempt to have fun. Natsume had cornered both
Joudo and Shige for dances, Gotoh had attempted the same with Shinobu
(to be shot down, as usual), Koichi Miyagi was telling- and laughing at-
a number of bad jokes, and a number of those who were not part of the
SV2- largely relatives and senior officers- were either dancing or
chatting about nothing in particular.



Asuma, somewhat half-heartedly, had asked Noa to dance. Noa, however,
wasn't in the mood to dance, either. Almost no-one, in fact, felt up to
much celebrating.



It was the last day of Mechanics Section Chief Sakaki's career, and the
demoralizing effect of his retirement was palpable. No-one, it seemed,
wanted the old man to go.



Shige had been in almost constant conference with Sakaki since finding
out about his impending departure. The dance with Natsume, in fact, was
his first waking moment out of earshot of the retiring chief.
Thankfully, he was finally excused from having to hear the same lecture
for the umpteenth time, and so he was one of the few in a good mood. It
was still tempered, however, by the knowledge he'd never be able to go
to the Chief for a piece of advice if things got out of his control.
Vaguely, he recalled the infamous Seven Days that he had been partially
responsible for sending the SV2 Mechanics into near civil war, and hoped
he was up to the task of command.



Sakaki, himself, had a grim expression on his face. Gotoh, in concern,
approached him cautiously. "What do you think of all this?" the captain
asked the soon-to-be-civilian.



"No-one's enjoying themselves," Sakaki answered simply.



"They don't want you to leave."



"I don't want to leave, either. But I'd like to enjoy myself at my own
retirement party."



Gotoh shrugged. "They're trying, they just can't do it." He paused.
"I have a proposal for you, if you don't want to give this up,
entirely."



"Oh?" Sakaki asked, his voice quirking in curiousity.



"I wouldn't be surprised if your services are needed from time to time
in the future. Shige's never been in sole command of anything for any
length of time, and if things spin out of control I'd like to be able to
call you to help clean up the mess."



"Not a good idea," Sakaki noted. "Shige would quickly get too dependant
on me."



Gotoh nodded. "Just one time, perhaps?"



"Well... perhaps once. We'll see."



Gotoh nodded. "Good. Say, have you seen the incident reports we've
recently been getting?"



Sakaki frowned. "Yes," he admitted hesitantly.



"Good. I suspect there'll be something left on your property after your
retirement that'll allow you to keep from getting too rusty in the
mechanics field. I trust you'll keep in practice well enough to keep a
number of labors in tip-top shape while you're retired."



For a moment, Sakaki wasn't sure he understood. Then, however, he got
it. "Of course, Captain. I think I know what you mean perfectly." He
smirked. "I don't suppose I'll be allowed to read those incident
reports any more, will I?"



Gotoh nodded. "Not unless some of them accidentally show up at your
house, every week."



"Well, if any show up around my place, I'd know what to do with them."



Gotoh smiled. "Good. Now, why don't we see if we can't get this party
of yours going, eh?"



* * * * *



April 12, 2000



Shige rubbed his eyes in exhaustion. It had been a tiring month- first,
all of the last minute instruction from Sakaki before his retirement had
taken up his every waking moment. The day that he was finally gone, he
had begun to realize just WHY so much last minute instruction was
needed.



When he became the chief of the mechanics squad himself, he was
overwhelmed by the sheer amount of paperwork he had to go through.
True, he had some paperwork before his promotion to Chief, but nothing
like the workload he was getting after Sakaki left- especially since,
until they found a replacement, he was now doing BOTH their jobs. And
there was a LOT more to the added responsibilities than the paperwork-
he had to supervise a number of jobs, and found frequently that he wasn'
t able to give nearly the attention to detail that he had before.



What was even worse was that no-one acted like he was really in charge.
Oh, sure, they did what he assigned them to do, but he wasn't able to
instill any form of discipline in them at all. At times, he used to
think that the crew could be as undisciplined as they wanted and it
wouldn't effect their work, but now he was almost ready to bring back
the code of rules which had initiated the seven days of infamy, as they
were now doing things like using spare parts for the command cars to
build freeze-drying equipment for their fishing industry.



It didn't help that they were having one of their busiest periods in
months. The criminal element was acting up somewhat more than it
usually did, but even worse were the heavy rains which caused
significant strains not just on the labors, but on the command cars and
transports as well. In fact, there had been a number of minor accidents
involving wet roads and high speed driving.



Shige wasn't sure he could take much more of it. Resolved, he started
to Section Chief Fukushima's office- because, for once, the highest
ranking officer in Special Vehicles Second Section was where he was
supposed to be. Maybe there was a chance he could request a
replacement, and no longer have to worry about all of the duties of
leadership.



Just as he was about to knock on the door, it opened in front of him and
Gotoh stepped out, carrying a file. "Ah, Shige!" he said.



"Captain Gotoh, sir!" Shige said, snapping to attention.



Gotoh smirked. "I'm not 'sir' any more, remember? Technically, you're
MY superior, now."



"Oh, right...."



"Can you come with me for a minute? There's something I wanted to talk
to you about."



Shige paused, looking past him to see Fukushima sitting in his office.
"Well, I was hoping to talk to the Section Chief."



"He's promised he'll be here for another week, at least. This is
something I really want to get done today."



"Well, I'm VERY busy, and-"



"All I want you to do is run a minor errand for me, off base. It's
something I think you would enjoy doing, anyway...."



* * * * *



Shige knocked on the door, holding the package he had been asked to
deliver under his arm. He was a little surprised- he knew that, among a
few letters, there were a few (probably stolen) obsolete labor parts, a
copy of the week's incident reports, and a classified file that Gotoh
had just recieved from Fukushima. If the delivery had been to any other
person, he would have refused and reported it immediately, but in this
case... well, he was just hoping he wasn't caught by anyone.



A young woman opened the door. She was rather plump, but was otherwise
just an ordinary looking teenager. "Oh, hello," the girl said. "Uncle
Sake said he was expecting you."



Shige blinked. "Uncle Sake?"



The girl blushed and giggled. "Sorry- that's what my brother called him
when Uncle drunk him under the table, and it's kinda stuck. You know
him as just 'Chief Sakaki.'"



Shige still wasn't able to comprehend that one. "Uncle SAKE?!"



Sakaki walked into the room, noticed both his former subordinate and his
niece, and growled. "Get out of here, Megumi, or I'll tell him about
the pork bun incident."



Her eyes widened. "Um... no need for you to do that, Uncle... I think I
just remembered a homework assignment I forgot to do. See you later..."
With the utmost haste, she ran out of the room, almost damaging the door
as she left.



"Kids," Sakaki snorted. "Come on, Shige, I'll get you something to
drink. And, retired or not, I swear that if you repeat that nickname to
ANYONE, I'll throw you into the sea!"



"Right, chief," Shige replied, looking adequately cowed.



Together, they passed through a section of the immense (by Tokyo
standards) mansion that Sakaki and his family lived in, until they
reached a small courtyard. It was when they were in the courtyard that
Shige realized what the labor parts in the package were for.



"The Ancient Warriors," he gasped, starring at the four antiquated
patlabors- two type 96s and two type 97s.



"Yep," Sakaki said, taking the package from him before he dropped it.



"Headquarters didn't try to reclaim them when you retired?"



Sakaki didn't say anything for a moment, instead concentrating on
finding a tool to help him break open the parcel's seal. "It's kind of
funny, really," he finally spoke after opening it, taking out a lone
piece out of the equipment and looking at it carefully, checking for any
imperfections which would render it unusable. "But the Quartermaster
Corps has a little known secret: Unlike the military, which keeps track
of every piece of equipment purchased since the dawn of time,
practically, if something has been on the general Police department's
inventory books for one year past its expected life span, they just
remove it from the record- it's easier to do that then process all of
the 'lost\expended' equipment forms we send them. Like these parts
here- because the labors they're designed for were supposed to have been
replaced three years ago, they just forgot about 'em. They've never
been used, though, and should work just fine." He paused. "The 96's
were off their record books way back before we even retired the 97s.
Headquarters never even knew we used one to replace Ohta's labor in Unit
3 when it went down. Turns out the 97s went off the record book right
after Unit 3 was formed, so as far as Quartermasters Corps is concerned,
these labors don't exist, despite the fact they cost hundreds of
millions when we purchased them. Don't let Ohta know that, though- if
he did, then he'd know we actually have enough extra ammo to let him
fire an extra hundred rounds a month."



Shige blinked. "Wow... these could easily be modified for construction
or something, and should still be worth a lot of money."



Sakaki nodded. "If I was a real corrupt bastard, I might consider doing
something like that. Instead, though, I plan on holding these babies in
reserve."



"In reserve? In reserve for what?"



Sakaki pulled out the classified file that Gotoh had sent him. Tapping
it with one finger, he said, "We aren't sure yet, but we know it's
something. That firebombing at the docks, a few month ago- the one
which totalled Ohta's 97 and covered up that theft of Babylon Project
equipment- and the raid on the Quartermasters Corp back in February...
we aren't sure how yet, but we think they, and some of the other odd
labor crimes lately, are connected. Not that the administration will
admit it, but something's happening out there. You'd better be keeping
those labors in tip top shape over there, Shige, or things might be out
of our hands, despite all of this."



Shige looked down, embarrassed. "Chief, I'm not sure that I... I..."



Sakaki looked him up and down. "Relax," he said. "I know it's hard at
first. It'll seem overwhelming for a while, but you'll get used to it.
I wouldn't have let you have the job if I didn't believe that."



"But the pressure!" Shige cried desperately. "I can't even get any
mechanical work done, I'm so flooded with paperwork, and the
supervision- I have to correct someone at least four times each job! It
just seems so impossible to keep up!"



"You'll manage," Sakaki said. "You learn a few things which cannot be
taught along the way to help out with the time situation- remember what
I said about Quartermasters Corps. never checking out the 'lost\expended
' forms we fill out? They only ever get seen if there's some kind of
internal investigation going on, so as long as you fill out the parts
likely to be audited okay, you can skip most of the technical stuff.
They don't need to know who was captain of which unit at the time, and
that sort of stuff... but be sensible about it. Don't forget to include
what the item is which we lost, for instance. That could get you into
SERIOUS trouble."



He paused, letting that sink in. It appeared as though Shige wasn't
going to say anything in response, either to continue the tirade against
his own prowess as a manager or to admit that Sakaki could be right.



The former chief sighed, putting a supporting hand on the younger man's
shoulder. "That's the sort of thing only experience teaches you, and
that's why I never said anything about it before. But you'll cope with
the difficulties, I'm sure of it. And if you need some advice, don't
hesitate to talk to Gotoh. I'll help out, too, if I feel like it, but
he's smart. Smarter than I am, and one tough cookie... he'll get you
out of messes worse than I ever had to deal with."



Shige smiled half-heartedly, encouraged by the pep talk. "Thanks,
Chief. I needed that." Desperately hoping to change the subject, he
returned his attention to the old labors standing proudly in the yard.
"So, headquarters just forgot about them, huh?"



Sakaki sighed, taking in the sight with him. "Yeah... headquarters
forgets about a lot of things. Ammo, labors, files... people. A lot of
things."



-------------------------

Next Episode: The SV2 in Osaka needs a replacement pilot. So, who from
our local Tokyo branch might be tapped to take the job?