by Shouji Gatou
2: The View Below the Water
23 April, 1732 Hours (Japan Standard Time)
South Entrance, Keio Line Chofu Station, Chofu, Tokyo Suburbs
Kaname and her friends sat in a burger joint under a department store. They munched on fries, talked, and messed around.
Sousuke had followed them. He was currently sitting in a corner in the back, pretending to read a Tokyo Sports paper he’d picked up three days ago in the station. But all the while, he remained acutely focused on his surroundings.
There was a figure in his field of vision that concerned him: a man in his late twenties with a medium height and build, sitting behind Kaname at one of the counter seats. He wore a gray beret low over his eyes and had a black attaché case at his feet. He kept checking his watch, as if very conscious of the time.
That attaché case... could it be...? Sousuke wondered. It looked a lot like one he’d seen in a War Against Terror weapons catalog. It had a built-in machine gun, and you could press a button to switch it to firing mode.
The man finished off his hamburger and stood up, tray in hand. Is he making his move? Sousuke stood up. But the man just threw his trash away, placed his tray in the return, then hurried out.
Or not, he thought. No, wait... The man had left the attaché case behind. Could it be— Damn!
Sousuke had heard about this MO from an acquaintance who’d fought terror in Italy—blowing up an entire business to take out an assassination target. But... weren’t they trying to abduct her? Sousuke thought. But then, circumstances might have changed... Yes, he didn’t have time to question it!
Sousuke broke into run. He turned over a table and shoved a customer out of the way to snatch up the attaché case. It felt heavy in his hands.
Just then, Kaname turned around. “S-Sagara-kun?”
“Get down!” He knocked over a few more customers as he charged out of the shop. Somewhere free of people... He looked around. It was a shopping district in early evening, so the sidewalks were packed. But across the street was a parking lot. That might just—
“Out of my way!” Sousuke dashed out into the road. There was a blare of a horn. He turned to see a kei-truck bearing down on him. The driver failed to brake in time; Sousuke was hit and sent flying into a bicycle rack.
Out of time... The world was spinning around him. His consciousness fading, he forced himself to his feet. Throw it... throw the case. Throw the case somewhere safe...
“Hey, you okay?” Suddenly, the man from before was standing in front of him. He took the attaché case from Sousuke, opened it and looked inside. “Oh thank goodness, my manuscript’s okay... Thanks for trying to bring it to me.”
Sousuke just stood there, stunned, as the man clapped him on the shoulder and walked swiftly away.
A dozen people were staring at Sousuke—the truck driver, Kaname, and her friends among them—their faces a mixture of awe, confusion, and concern.
“Sagara-kun... What are you doing?” Kyoko, standing beside Kaname, asked him.
“I thought it was a bomb...” he said. And with that, he collapsed.
23 April, 1920 Hours (Japan Standard Time)
Room 505, Tigers Mansion, Chofu, Tokyo
“You’re gonna get yourself killed before the week is out.” Kurz said as he bandaged Sousuke’s head. “We haven’t seen one sign of an enemy so far, but you keep taking yourself out like this. Can’t you just chill out?”
“I’m trying,” Sousuke moaned.
That incident at the hamburger shop had been just one of many. It had been four days since his mission started, but Sousuke was still floundering at school. Every day he seemed to lose his cool, make trouble, destroy public property, disrupt class—he’d been yelled at both by Kagurazaka Eri and by Kaname, herself.
His injuries were constant. He’d never suffered like this on a mission before. What’s more, most of his injuries—falling down stairs, busting through glass, being crushed by library books, getting beaten by busts in the art room—were the result of things he had brought on himself.
He knew that he was just off his rhythm. But that didn’t mean he could stop it. Kurz was right: he might die at that school, possibly very soon.
“You can’t keep this up. Just tap out for tomorrow—Mao and I will stand watch outside the school.”
“What if the kidnapper is inside the school?” Sousuke demanded.
“They won’t be. Honestly, we still don’t know if they’re after her,” Kurz breezed.
Sousuke just scowled. “It’s dangerous to be too optimistic,” he warned. “We should consider all situations as possible—”
“And that’s the thinking that gets you hit by a truck,” Kurz told him. “You ever hear the term ‘solo sumo’?”
“Solo sumo?”
“Yeah, solo sumo. Swinging yourself around by your own mawashi?”
“Mawashi?”
“You don’t know that either? How are you even Japanese? There we go...” Kurz finished the wrapping and went back to the window. “But here’s one thing I don’t get.”
“What?”
“Kaname. She seems totally normal. I mean sure, she’s pretty, but not ‘marry the king of Monaco’ pretty. Nothing weird in her background, either... Well, compared to you and me, anyway.”
“True... I suppose you’re right.” It was only these last few days that Sousuke had realized how different his upbringing was from most of his peers.
“So why would the KGB be after her?” Kurz wondered. “Same with the girl we found last week... I heard she was a totally normal student before they took her. What the hell do they get from kidnapping some foreign girl in high school and drugging the life out of her?”
“I wouldn’t know,” Sousuke told him.
“Right? Same here. What the hell is the major hiding from us...”
23 April, 2121 Hours (West Pacific Standard Time)
KGB Branch Office, Khabarovsk, Soviet Union
“When are you going to get it done already?” the colonel barked into the receiver. He had ordered the kidnapping three days ago.
“Soon,” Gauron responded apathetically from the other end of the phone. The terrorist (nationality unknown) was currently staying in the Soviet embassy in Tokyo. According to reports from the embassy staff, Gauron had mostly stayed inside since his arrival, making only a few brief contacts with his men. “I’m currently laying groundwork. I need to do a lot of preparation to abduct the target safely.”
“Preparation? Just break in in the middle of the night, grab her, and drive her to Niigata. What groundwork could you need for such a simple plan?”
“You need to stop being so impatient.”
“What did you say?” the colonel fumed.
“Mithril will have prepared for such a straightforward operation,” Gauron predicted.
“You think they have eyes on this ‘Chai-dory Kanamm’?”
Gauron chuckled at the colonel’s crude pronunciation of ‘Chidori Kaname.’ “It seems that way. So I need to act carefully to avoid their notice.”
“What for?” the colonel demanded. “If they try to stop you, just eliminate them.”
“Not possible. Even if I sent all of my skilled men at the problem, we’d just end up dead for our troubles.”
“What do you mean by that?”
“I mean that they have an AS,” Gauron explained. “It’s staking out the target with an ECS on invisibility mode.”
“Invisibility? Full invisibility? There’s no way those devices are out of preliminary—”
Gauron interrupted him condescendingly. “Didn’t I tell you their technology was ten years ahead? Forcing a fight will just invite trouble. They’ve likely put elite agents on the case.”
“But...”
“Just leave it all to me. I’m preparing a method that will eliminate all chance of interference. You just be careful that you aren’t sent to an internment camp.”
With that, the man hung up on him.
; 24 April, 1438 Hours (Japan Standard Time)
Classroom 2-4, Jindai High School, Tokyo
“Aaaanyway...” Kaname said, her back to the blackboard. It was afternoon homeroom. “Time to get off our butts and pick duty assignments for the field trip, okay? It’s only four or five days away, now.” She looked around the classroom. Some students were chatting with their neighbors, some were napping, some were reading the day’s manga release... “Hey, are you guys listening?”
There were a few scattered responses.
“We’re listening.”
“Figure it out so we can go already.”
Kaname sighed. “You guys... I never should’ve agreed to do the class rep thing... But I figured this would happen, so I made a list in advance. All I need you guys to do is approve it.”
“You rock, Chidori!” one of the boys cried.
Kaname flashed a smug V-sign. “No problem. Okay, here they are.” She pulled out her notebook and started writing names and roles up on the blackboard. Clack, clack, clack—the white chalk rang out through the room. “Food duty: Onda-kun and Sanematsu-san. Luggage duty: Aiyama-kun and Omura-san. Communications duty: Kazama-kun and Fujii-san. Event duty: Onodera-kun and Suzuki-san. And trash duty... since there were no volunteers: Sagara-kun.”
Sousuke, seated in the back and half-listening, suddenly sat up, startled.
“What’s wrong, Sagara-kun?” Kaname asked.
“I don’t recall consenting to that,” he frowned.
“Oh, it’s a rule at this school: all transfer students are required to perform trash duty.”
A stifled laugh rippled through the class, but Sousuke didn’t understand what it meant. “I see. Very well.”
“We appreciate your understanding,” Kaname told him brightly. “I’ll explain your duties later. Now, let’s vote!”
And so, in a unanimous vote, elite Mithril mercenary, Sagara Sousuke, was appointed to trash duty.
24 April, 1113 Hours (Greenwich Mean Time)
Central Control Room, Tuatha de Danaan, 50 Meter Depth, Sea of Japan
Teletha Testarossa sat in the captain’s chair of the dimly lit control room. “A... field trip?” She tilted her head.
Major Kalinin, who had come by to file his regular report, opened his folder and handed her a document and a pen.
“Yes, it starts next week. We need you to approve a new secure channel so that we can maintain contact while he travels.”
Tessa signed the document. “It’s a strange school, taking a field trip at this time of year... Where are they going?”
“Okinawa.”
“I see.” Tessa turned her eyes to the military data map at the center of the screen ahead of her. Then, her eyes falling on Okinawa in the corner, she said, “Did I ever tell you that I lived there for a while?”
“No, ma’am,” the major answered.
“My father wanted me to go to a Japanese elementary school. But the children there kept me at arm’s length, so I was eventually moved to a school on the base.” The nearby executive officer of the de Danaan, Commander Mardukas, cleared his throat. Tessa broke from her trance and looked back at the document. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have brought that up here...”
“Not at all...” the fussy-looking XO Mardukas said. But apparently disinclined to weigh in further, he just went back to his work.
Kalinin politely ignored the exchange and resumed his report. “I also have new information regarding the broader issue,” he said, bringing things back to the original subject.
“The Whispered?” Tessa clarified.
“Yes. They’re doing the research at the Khabarovsk facility. Look at this.” He handed her a bundle of documents. It was a long list of chemical substances, some circled in red here and there. “That’s a list of rare drugs circulating in the USSR. According to the intelligence department’s analysis...” Kalinin continued his explanation, handing her one new document after another. Tessa took it all in, quickly scanning through each page she received.
“Is the Khabarovsk facility the only one involved?” she asked.
“That’s what the intelligence department reports.”
“That seems unlikely. Tell them to continue their investigation.”
“Yes, ma’am.” In fact, Kalinin had already given them that order, but he opted not to say it.
“Now, can the Khabarovsk facility’s computer be hacked?” Tessa inquired. It would make things easier if it could be—they could just access it using their computer here. The computer system of the Tuatha de Danaan could perform functions far beyond a standard warship’s control system. Its complexity was on par with a large mammal’s central nervous system, and its processing power put even the communication systems of the US Armed Forces to shame. It would be a trivial matter for a system like theirs to infiltrate a Soviet computer.
But Kalinin rejected that possibility. “The laboratory’s computer doesn’t have an outside line. We’ll need to stomp out their research through physical means.”
“I see... A cruise missile, then?” They didn’t need ASes to take out their target wholesale.
“Yes. A G-type Tomahawk should be enough. One strike from an FAE warhead should devastate the facility.”
“You have my permission,” Tessa told him, “but try to do it late at night on a weekend.” She hoped that would reduce the possibility of casualties; the researchers’ lodging houses were about a kilometer away from the lab itself. “Use Sting to collect the latest pictures,” she continued, referring to their observation satellite. “Find out as much as you can about who goes there, when, where, and in what numbers.”
“Understood. Now, regarding the Arbalest...” Kalinin handed her another document. Just then, the mountain of papers Tessa had cradled in her arms spilled out onto the floor.
“Ah, I’m sorry. I’m sorry...” She quickly moved to pick them up. Kalinin and the XO helped. “I’m sorry to drag you into this, Mardukas-san...”
“Not at all.” XO Mardukas handed the collected documents to Kalinin and said with annoyance, “Major Kalinin... Would you kindly switch away from paper already?”
“I’ll try, sir.”
Rubbing his temples, the XO went back to work.
“So, is this the document?” Tessa asked. “The... ah, ‘The seven oaths of trash duty’?”
“...No, ma’am.” Kalinin said, and gently lifted away the report that Sousuke had sent.
25 April, 1635 Hours (Japan Standard Time)
Hachimoto-bound Local Express, Keio Line, Tokyo Suburbs
Kaname bookmarked her paperback and stood up. “All right, enough is enough.” She stomped through the train car to where Sousuke was sitting and planted her feet in front of him. As always, he was reading a newspaper. “What is your problem with me?” she said, enunciating every syllable.
“Chidori?” Sousuke feigned surprise. “What a coincidence.”
“Are you freaking kidding me?! You’re still pulling that?” Kaname snatched the paper out of his hand and looked it over. “‘Schwartzie Throws Hat into Governor’s Race.’ This is from days ago!”
“I can read an old paper if I want to.”
“That is so not the point!” she fumed. “Why do you keep following me?!”
“Me, following you?” Sousuke questioned. “I honestly don’t know what you’re talking about... You seem a bit self-involved.”
“I’d have to be more self-involved not to notice this harassment! You’ve been on me every day from dawn to dusk! If you want to say something to me, say it!”
“I told you, it’s a coincidence.”
There was a prolonged silence, filled only by the sounds of the train and a conductor’s announcement: “Next station, Kokuryo. This train stops at Kokuryo.”
Kaname tossed the paper aside, causing an elderly passenger nearby to frown at her. The trained stopped at Kokuryo Station, and the doors opened with a “fwish.”
“You’re saying it’s just a coincidence?” she
asked at last.
“Yes, it’s a coincidence.”
“Fine.” A split second before the doors closed, Kaname leaped out onto the platform.
Fwish.
Through the glass of the closed doors, Kaname could see Sousuke panic—she’d outsmarted him. She smiled triumphantly and waved. “Bye-bye, Mr. Pervert!”
The train began to move away, carrying Sousuke with it. Bag in hand, Kaname walked toward a bench to have a seat. Just then...
As the train was about to leave the station, Sousuke came hurtling out of the window. He fell back-first onto the concrete, bounced, rolled, and only stopped when he crashed into the fence at the edge of the platform. For a moment, she could only stare. “Are you for real?”
Sousuke’s body just lay there, silently.
Kaname ran up, knelt down next to him, and shook him. “Hey, are you okay?!”
Suddenly, he sat up as if nothing had happened, said, “I’m fine,” and proceeded to stand up and dust off his pants.
“Are you insane?!” she screamed. “What were you thinking?”
“I just realized that I had to get off at this station,” Sousuke explained innocently. “It has nothing to do with you.”
“I can’t believe you’re still trying that...”
“It’s a coincidence.”
“Uh-huh...” Kaname shook her head and sat down on a nearby bench. Sousuke sat down next to her, and resumed reading the paper he’d picked up intently.
“And it’s just a coincidence that you want to sit here, too?”
“Correct.”
“Boy, you are really something...” She propped her head up on her knees and gave Sousuke a side-eye.
For some strange reason, his presence wasn’t creeping her out. He’d transferred to their school, burst in on her while she was changing, and seemed to follow her every day. Most people would call that stalking—Kaname had, too, at first. But something about that didn’t add up.
There was nothing about Sagara Sousuke that suggested lecherous thoughts, or impure motives. There was too much dignity in his profile. What was the term... “the fire of will”? He radiated the single-minded focus of an athlete before a match; that look of perfect calm that came from focusing all of one’s efforts on one single goal.