"We're gonna get caught."

The premonition was uttered blandly by Mello as he stood leaning with his arms crossed against the doorframe of Roger's office.  He didn't really care if they got caught (it's not like they were doing anything all that bad anyway), but for some reason, the words just sort of rolled lazily off his tongue.

"Would you relax?"  Matt stood slightly bent at the waist, his fingers clacking away on the laptop keyboard.  His one hand moved to rest against the edge of the desk, shoving his shoulder upward as his other hand slid the mouse around and clicked a few times. 

Mello sighed and looked down the hallway again.

Clear.  Same as when he checked two seconds ago.

Matt made a low growl in his throat, and his fingers moved to type again.  The toothpick in his mouth moved back and forth as his teal-green eyes flitted with a focused brow over the lines of code on the screen.  "Come on, come on, come onnn... AH!"  A mischievous and toothy grin formed beneath the dusting of freckles on his cheekbones and nose.  The toothpick flicked to the other side of his mouth.  "...there you are."

"Did you get it?"

"Uh huh."  The redheaded teenager pressed his palms into the desktop and cracked his elbows before standing upright. 

"He's gonna notice it."  Mello tipped his head forward a bit with raised eyebrows, indicating the mini USB flash drive plugged into one of the laptop ports.

Matt snorted.  "He's not gonna notice it, Mels.  Ol' Roger wouldn't know an ethernet from an extension cord."

Mello rolled his eyes and looked away again, shifting his shoulder blades against the doorframe a bit.

"Right, SO."  Matt snapped two finger guns at the computer.  "Next time Roger enters his password to the gradebooks, the keylogger will record it on the USB.  Then we can look at our grades whenever we want!  And YOU can stop pacing the floor after every assignment wondering if you've beaten Near."  He grinned, feeling rather pleased with himself. 

Mello shoved off his leaning stance, arms still crossed.  "Great.  Let's get out of here.  This room gives me the creeps."

Chewing rather triumphantly on the end of the little wooden stick, Matt leaned forward again to close out of the program, and the monitor once again displayed Roger's boring default desktop background.  He moved the mouse to put the computer back in sleep mode, but a window popped up just as he clicked.

"Uh--" 

"What?  What'd you do?"  Mello's tone was suddenly demanding.

Matt's live image came up in the window through the webcam, and the words "Connecting Video" blinked over top of it.

"OH SH--!"  Matt practically dove under the desk.

"WHAT--??" 

Mello abruptly silenced his voice at Matt's ridiculously frantic arm flailing and head shaking.  The computer made a little blip-blip-bloop sound to indicate that the call had connected, and Mello beckoned wildly for Matt to come on.  Matt nodded, wide-eyed, and began crawling around the desk when a familiar small voice came from the laptop speakers.

"...hello??"

Matt furrowed his brow and turned his head, straining his neck to see the screen.  All at once, his countenance brightened, and his head popped up into view of the webcam.  "It's Bean!!"  He scrambled to his feet and waved with a big, lopsided smile to the grainy footage of the little boy in the red hoodie.

"Matt!!"  Bean sat up higher on his knees.

"Hey-eyy, what's up, shorty??"  Matt peered over the monitor and beckoned with one hand as he bobbed his head with raised eyebrows.

Mello hesitated and glanced down the hallway again before walking over to the other side of the desk.

"Mello!!" Bean squealed.

"Heyy, buddy."  The yellow-haired boy couldn't help but smile.  "How's Japan?"

"It's cool."  Bean tipped his head as he settled back down on his knees, his fingers bringing an aiglet to his teeth.  "Why was Matt on the floor?"

Matt opened his mouth to answer, but Mello interjected.  "That's an excellent question, given that he could have just, y'know... MOVED."  Looking at Matt, he jutted his face out and demonstrated by stepping to the side in a dramatically smooth motion.

Matt rolled his eyes, then leaned in toward the laptop, bringing the side of his right hand to the left of his mouth.  "We're not supposed to be in Roger's office!" he whispered loudly.

Bean wrinkled his nose and snickered, moving his knees to swivel the chair back and forth a little.  "Well..."  He sat up with his forearms on the desk, coming in too close to the camera with only his hair and one eye and half his nose in the frame.  "...I'm not supposed to be on the webcam," he confided in a hushed tone with a wry little smile.  He sat back again, impishly chewing on the end of his hoodie string.

"Uh oh."  Matt grinned, leaning with one palm on the edge of the desk.  "Don't get in trouble!" he chided, as if he had any room whatsoever to talk.

"Where's L?" Mello asked casually, his hands on his hips.

Bennett looked over to where L was speaking with the Task Force... something about a missing woman.  The Chief was not in attendance, as he was still in the hospital recovering from his heart attack. 

"He's busy," Bean answered simply, looking back to the screen.  His long, little fingers held the end of the drawstring as he stimmed on it.  Then he sighed.  A soft, childish sigh.  "I miss you guys," he said, tipping his hooded head as he looked downward.

"Awww, we miss you too, shorty."  Matt smiled around the toothpick, then he glanced over as Mello elbowed him.  The blond boy gave him a Look with a jerky tip of his head.  "Yeah yeah," Matt nodded.  "Hey Bean?  We gotta go, kiddo."

Bennett chewed on the hoodie string.  "Okay," he said quietly.

"We can talk again soon," Mello told him, eyeing the doorway.

The little boy smiled.  "Okay," he said again, nodding.  His hair flopped up and down a little over his eyes, and he brushed it aside.

"Later, gator."  Matt grinned and stuck his tongue out through his teeth as he flashed a peace sign with his fingers, and Mello just flicked his hand in a parting wave.

"For awhile, crocodile."  Bean said back, and he waved right into the camera.

And then the video feed disappeared.

Out in the living room, Watari was telling L to turn on Sakura TV.  A live broadcast was claiming that the network had received a series of tapes from Kira along with instructions to air them at exactly 5:59 pm, which was only moments away.

Bean heard the television turn on, and he figured L was finished with his meeting.  He climbed down from the computer chair and walked soundlessly into the living room area where everyone was listening intently to the broadcast.  No one seemed to notice him as he crawled underneath L's chair.

The screen went white then, displaying some gothic-style black letters that spelled out "KIRA," and a deep, synthetically-altered voice began to speak ominously.

"I am Kira."

An unsettling aura began to seep into the air like mist through ventilation as the mysterious Kira claimant disclosed that, as proof of their power, news anchors from two other channels would die of heart attacks at exactly 6:00 pm.

Switching to said channels proved this to be a horrifying reality.

Bean's eyes widened.  But he stayed perfectly still and silent.

Back on Sakura TV, the dark voice continued.  "Now that you've seen proof of my powers, you should have no trouble believing that I am Kira..."

Suddenly, L sat straight up.  "Stop this broadcast!" he shouted, and Bean startled from under the chair.  "We can't let him finish!"  L's voice was urgent.

The room was all at once chaos as the Task Force tried and failed to reach the network by phone.

"None of my contacts at the station have their phones on!" Aizawa growled, his cell phone to his ear.

Matsuda looked up quickly, holding a landline receiver.  "Nobody's picking up at reception either!"

Ukita suddenly bolted out the door.  "I'll stop this broadcast myself, if that's what it takes!" he declared in earnest, and then he was gone.

Bennett shrank into a tighter ball, pulling his legs in closer to himself.  He wasn't sure what exactly was going on, but if his Papa was scared, and the Task Force was scared, then so was he.

As Ukita's police car sped screaming down the highway, a nation tuned in to the alleged voice of Kira imploring the world to accept them as Justice and as God.  They vowed to spare the lives of the compliant and to punish all who would oppose them.

In the middle of the broadcast, the program was suddenly interrupted and switched to live footage of the entrance to the Sakura TV building.  There on the sidewalk was Ukita... still and lifeless.

L felt his stomach knot as the room was overcome with gasps of horror.  First the FBI agents... then Naomi Misora... and now this.

The tension only grew as L and the two remaining Task Force members began to disagree over what to do next.  Aizawa was shouting, Matsuda was too, and L was firmly directing everyone to stay put lest they all meet the same fate as poor Ukita.

Aizawa's fists were clenched at his sides.  "How could this happen??!!" he bellowed.

"What are we gonna DO, L??" cried Matsuda.

Bean shut his eyes and covered his ears with his hands.

"All I know for sure," L said tightly, "is that Kira is either in that TV station, or he's somewhere close by."

Aizawa flung his arms outward angrily.  "If Kira is in the area, isn't that WHY we should get down there??!!"

"For all we know, he could have just placed surveillance cameras in the area," L argued.  "If we rush down there unprepared, all of us will be--" 

A hand suddenly grabbed L's shoulder, and he felt his chest flip and lurch.  Instantly, every nerve in his body was on edge, and he went completely rigid.

"Wasn't it YOU who said we'd have to risk our lives to catch Kira??!!" Aizawa hollered bitterly.

"I meant what I said," L answered stiffly, his voice wavering.  "...but... risking my life to catch Kira and doing something that I know will cost me my life are two entirely different things..."  The words nearly choked him.  His heart was pounding. 

Aizawa's gritted retort silenced abruptly when he saw that L was visibly shaking, and another morbid stillness fell over the room like a weighted blanket.

Slowly, Bennett's hands parted from his ears.  Trembling beneath the chair with his knees pulled up to his chest, he lifted red and teary eyes toward where L sat above him.

"Please control yourself," L pleaded softly.  "We've lost Ukita.  I understand you want to go there, but if something were to happen to you as well..."

His voice trailed off, the emptiness of his unfinished sentence leaving behind a powerful and solemn void.

Stepping back, Aizawa released his grip.