They were now at the end of Shidao University grounds, an ornate cast-iron gate in the red brick wall that surrounded the area marking the front entrance. There, Rentaro noticed a security camera positioned overhead, watching the thin stream of students going in and out. He kept his head down as he passed by, but for a single moment, he couldn’t help but look at it out of the corner of his eye. The moment his eyes met the lens illuminated within the domed shell, he felt a chill run down his spine. He hurried his way out of the school.
“I found him!”
The tension across the control room was palpable as the operator shrieked out.
“Where?” shrieked Hitsuma, trying to contain his excitement. Instead of replying, the operator put up an image of a gate somewhere in the city on the gigantic main holopanel.
“Where’s this?”
“The front gate of the Shidao University Hospital in District 6.”
Tadashima watched on, agape. “You’re kidding me… So he didn’t flee to the Outer Districts? He’s been walking around inland the whole time?”
The operator tapped at her panel, highlighting a section of the image. This wasn’t the grainy footage of a generation or two ago, too fuzzy to be admissible as court evidence. The video transmitted to the server was clear as day. Nobody had to strain their eyes to decipher the scene before them as, for a single moment, a downward-facing man in black clothing peered at the camera. It was apparently just enough time for the face-recognition program to do its work.
Next, the operator stopped the video and zoomed in on the figure’s face. There was no mistaking it. It was Rentaro Satomi.
Hitsuma turned his head left and right, scanning the control room for a certain face. Soon finding it, he sidled up to Yuga. The boy’s hands were in his pockets, but the look on his face made it seem like he was about to break into song.
“What is the meaning of this?” Hitsuma said, his voice low enough that only Yuga could hear. “You told me your sniper bullet made a clean hit on him. And now he’s up and walking around!”
Yuga shrugged. “Guess it wasn’t so clean after all. But what’s the problem? This just makes things more fun.”
“Fun? You find this fun…?”
Having Rentaro alive would not only make the police the laughingstock of Tokyo Area—it’d also instill a sense of hope in Kisara Tendo, right when Hitsuma thought he had her tamed and obedient.
Before Hitsuma could explode in rage, Yuga used his right hand to point out a section of the holopanel.
“Mr. Hitsuma, that girl there was Kihachi Suibara’s Initiator, right?”
He was pointing at the quiet, demure girl with the bobbed haircut walking next to Rentaro. He had seen the face several times in the evidence sheets. There was no mistaking this, either.
“Hotaru Kouro…?”
Kihachi Suibara’s Initiator. They had ordered Nest to conduct an undercover investigation, but they had no idea she was working in tandem with this fugitive.
Tadashima approached Hitsuma, saluting. “I’ll take a car over to headquarters to request support. In the meantime, sir, I want you to stay in contact with me on the radio and tell me where the suspect is headed.” He then briskly walked out of the control room.
Hitsuma watched him go, stony-faced until he was sure the inspector was gone. Then he took out his phone and made a call, his mind running in circles as he listened to the ringing. He couldn’t afford to have the police catch Rentaro. He wasn’t sure how close this civsec was to the truth, but he’d already caused this much trouble for them—it would take a lot more than the status quo to take care of him. He couldn’t afford another mistake.
The phone picked up.
“Nest? Can you create a traffic jam for me? I’ve got a police car that I need to have delayed. Also, he’s still alive. Get me Hummingbird. We’re gonna crush him.”
The up-to-now composed Yuga blanched at this.
“Wait a minute, Mr. Hitsuma! Why Hummingbird? Rentaro Satomi’s my prey. I’m gonna head out.”
“People have seen your face.”
“My body was specifically designed to be capable of suppressing Rentaro Satomi! Who could possibly be more qualified than I am?”
“Hummingbird’s good enough.”
“But…!”
“Enough!”
Yuga’s mouth stayed open, still hoping to get a final word or two in, but he thought better of it. He left the control room, gnashing his teeth the whole way.
Hitsuma, his breathing accelerated, glared at the close-up of the boy in the holopanel. If he’s pouncing upon us, trying to take us down with him…then it’s time to prove to him that dead men really don’t tell tales.
4
“Well, here’s the place. You can just toss the key back into the manager’s room once you’re done.”
The building manager used a bony hand to give Hotaru the key, distractedly using his other to adjust his reading glasses as he turned and left. Wasn’t the manager supposed to accompany them if someone besides the person renting the place came in? He didn’t act like he cared to, anyway.
Rentaro gave a look to his “sister” standing next to him. Once she was sure the manager was gone, Hotaru wiped the smile from her face and returned to her usual dour expression. “You got a problem with something?” she asked emotionlessly, once she noticed Rentaro staring at her. “It’s almost night. I’d like to get this over with by the end of today.”
The yellow sunlight streaming in through a west-facing window felt warm against his skin. They were finally about to be freed from the blazing fire of the afternoon.
They were in the hallway of a high-rise apartment complex. Rentaro looked around. The floor was comprised of two parallel corridors linked by a landing that offered two elevators, an emergency staircase, and another one for regular use. There was also an external stairwell with a ramp. Ever since the Plaza Hotel, Rentaro was in the habit of scoping out the floor plan and potential escape routes wherever he went.
Looking at the nameplate, they saw 1203—AYAME SURUMI written on a faded piece of paper. They had already rung the doorbell several times before visiting the manager’s room, but they tried it again once more with a sliver of hope. The artificial chime went ding-dong, ding-dong twice, but there was no response from within.
At his feet, Rentaro noticed a dead cicada on the floor, frozen and exposing its grotesque-looking stomach to them. A small army of ants was already on the scene, ready to feast on the meal.
“I don’t know if she’s holed up in there or she’s gone somewhere else,” Hotaru said, “but hopefully we can find something about Black Swan.”
“Holed up? ‘Gone’ somewhere? You really think it’s gonna be that easy for her?”
“Huh?”
“Hotaru, have you ever seen a dead body before?”
Hotaru looked startled for a moment.
“I’ll go in first.”
Rentaro unlocked the door and opened it a crack. Then he shivered. Through the crevice, he could feel an unnervingly strong chill—along with the light scent of something rotting.
Pulling the breechblock on the weapon at his hip to ensure he could fire it at any time, he silently went inside.
Immediately to his left was the kitchen, equipped with a semi-circular dining table. Some vegetables lay shriveled on the kitchen counter, and a half-eaten piece of cake was currently serving as an all-inclusive resort for a clan of black ants. She might have been in the midst of preparing a meal—there was a bowl of sliced-up vegetables soaking in water—although the surface was now entirely covered in black mold.
They knew from before that all the apartments in the building contained two rooms and a kitchen. Keeping his guard up and his gun cocked, Rentaro brought a hand to another doorknob and slowly pulled it. He couldn’t see inside at first—some curtains had been drawn—but it was her bedroom, as well as the site of her home computer. There was also an air conditioner chugging away as it spat cold air into the room. It
sounded unnaturally loud in the otherwise completely silent apartment.
Despite being occupied, the apartment was almost bare of decoration, its colors uniformly beige. There wasn’t so much as a poster on the wall, although one shelf rack contained a digital picture frame.
The final room lay beyond. Drumming up all the willpower he had, Rentaro pulled the door open.
There was dust all over the closets and dresser, as well as the large desk that sat next to a bookshelf that occupied an entire wall. But there wasn’t any sign of a corpse. The rotting smell was already fading away.
So where did that come from…?
Just as he thought about it, Rentaro heard a sound that made him gasp nervously. He ran back to the kitchen, only to find Hotaru frozen like a statue, her eyes focused on a singular point. He realized that, from her position, she could see the bathroom door. Below it, a very dark red liquid was oozing out.
“Get back,” Rentaro said, biting his lip to keep his voice from shaking. Taking a moment to compose himself, he gently pushed the door open.
The body was kneeling on the floor, face still under the surface of the water in the bathtub. It was naked, the skin pale and bereft of blood. The long hair from its head floated on the water like algae. The water itself was black in color. On the floor, near the drain, was a pool of coagulated blood.
At Rentaro’s feet were three or so fingernails, appearing to have been pulled from the corpse. Torture must have been involved. Judging by how it only took three nails, they must have extracted the information they wanted from her in relatively short order.
Rentaro gave the body a quick once-over, then turned around and opened the closet, finding a large picnic blanket that he then placed the body on. He wondered if altering the crime scene was such a great idea, but he and Hotaru had already been seen together, and besides, the police could figure out when she died and realize soon enough that Rentaro couldn’t have been involved.
Somewhere in the midst of this, Hotaru came up next to him. He thought she’d be frozen in fear. He was wrong.
“That’s a real pity. We could have gotten a lot from her alive. Guess they beat us to the punch.”
Rentaro was shocked. “A real pity? Beat us to the punch? Is that all you have to say? You knew her, right?”
“So?”
Hotaru steeled her gaze at him, a little annoyed. Rentaro balled his hands into fists, the anger welling to the surface as he shook his head.
“You’re making no sense to me at all…!”
“Why do I need to?” She turned her back to him, then rotated herself halfway back. “You’re free to drop out of this, if you insist.”
“Like hell I am.”
“Oh?” she said, blithely walking into the bathroom to check out the body. “You know, given the time, she’s been decomposing pretty slowly. I guess that’s because of the AC running.”
Rentaro took a deep breath, bottling up his irritation. This girl was deeply involved with the whole case. Being with her got him closer to the truth; being alone kept him firmly away from it. It was theoretically far more efficient than attempting all of this solo. He had to make the best of it.
—Even if my partner’s somebody I absolutely cannot respect as a person.
It was also very clear now that their foes had no problem rubbing out anyone who got too close to the truth. They definitely weren’t out of the shark tank yet.
“All right. Let’s split up and search the place. We might find something.”
Hotaru walked off in apparent agreement. Watching her go, Rentaro went back into the bedroom. Having a dead body in the bathroom made him all the more reluctant to continue, but continue he did.
The first thing he noticed was the digital frame beyond the door. It was cycling through some pictures with the main university building in the background, presumably from her undergraduate days. It must have been fun for her. She was smiling in each and every one of them. A lot of them also included a man, perhaps a love interest.
Rentaro recalled something Dr. Kakujo told him: “Surumi conducted a Gastrea autopsy about a month ago, but the electronic version of her report’s disappeared from our database for some reason. I know Surumi printed out a paper version for our records right beforehand, so she might still have it kicking around somewhere.”
Suibara and Dr. Surumi were connected by that Gastrea. It seemed natural to think that autopsy report had something to do with all this.
Sidling into the next room, Rentaro noticed that someone had broken the lock on a drawer in the desk and rummaged around inside. He groaned. Whoever tortured and killed Dr. Surumi must have asked her about that report. A day late and a dollar short, yet again. Their foes thought of everything.
But not even the enemy could be perfect. As long as they weren’t machines, they had to make some kind of human error. There must be something. Praying to himself, he methodically took each book off the bookshelf and paged through it. Then he noticed something on the ground in the tight crevice between the desk and the wall. Carefully pulling it out and blowing the dust off, he realized it was a printed-out photograph.
The moment he looked at it, Rentaro’s eyebrows arched downward.
The photo depicted a Gastrea in mid-autopsy. The stomach had been cut open, with a mark engraved on the translucent, mucusy organs, like the insides of a squid. Looking closer, he could tell the mark was a five-pointed star, a delicately designed feather on one of the points.
“Hotaru, come over here.” He showed her the photograph. “Does this look familiar to you?”
“The claws you see on the side of the photo… They look kind of like the ones on the Gastrea from a month ago I told you about. I don’t know what that star’s for, though.”
“Oh…”
“You think this is what Dr. Kakujo was talking about?”
“Probably. I don’t think she had a picture as grotesque as this one sitting around for decoration.”
Gastrea may not be your typical wildlife, but they were still the creations of nature. They wouldn’t naturally be sporting pentagrams on their stomachs.
As he thought this over, a shrill sound made Rentaro’s heart leap. It was the phone ringing from the bedroom. He slipped inside—first his head, then his entire body—and stood gingerly in front of the noise source. It was a landline phone—a rarity, given how smartphones and satellite phones dominated the market.
Rentaro gave Hotaru a silent nod, then slowly picked up the receiver and put it to his ear.
“Hey, this is Satomi, right?”
The heavy, overwrought voice was hard to make out over the nonhuman pitch. It was someone using a voice changer to disguise his or her real one. Rentaro stared at the receiver for a moment.
“Who…are you?”
“The enemy’s about to head your way. Code name Hummingbird. A soldier from the New World Creation Project.”
“What’re you talking about? The enemy? Hummingbird?”
“You’re free to think I’m lying. But maybe it’ll make sense to you when I say this: That’s the one who killed Kenji Houbara, ex–New Humanity.”
“Wha—?”
This was all beyond his understanding, but at least one thing was clear. This was no prank, no pack of lies—the voice on the other end of the line was warning Rentaro about a real, and impending, danger.
“Lemme tell you what Hummingbird can do. You should probably use the time to devise a strategy with that li’l lady you got there with you.”
Rentaro fell silent, waiting for him to continue.
“You there? With Hummingbird, you got—”
Then, with a click, the call ended.
“Hey, what happened? Hey!”
“—Lemme have it.”
A hand reached out from the side to snatch the receiver away. Hotaru fought with the phone a little bit, but then shook her head and put the receiver down.
“I’m not even getting static. Someone’s cut the phone lines, haven’t they?”
Hotaru fumbled around her pocket for her cell phone, looked at it, then pointed it at Rentaro. NO SERVICE, it read.
He felt another shiver run down his spine. He knew they had service when they entered the apartment. The room, absent any other activity, was silent.
“Our enemy’s here,” Hotaru said. “In this building. They’re already inside.”
The sound of a propeller slicing through the air echoed throughout the cargo room.
Rika Kurume opened the sliding door. The wind blew against her body, the cold air flapping her dress around and almost knocking her straw hat off.
The evening sun, half-hidden behind the Monolith to the west, was bright enough that she had to squint.
She was in the cargo room of a transport plane one thousand meters in the air. It was clear out, with no stratus or nimbostratus clouds blocking her view. The cityscape beneath her looked like an elaborate miniature; there were no people or even cars visible. She could smell a cool clearness in the air.
“Hummingbird—jumping out.”
Rika took a step away from the cargo room, then fell backward, leaving her body to the air. She pointed her head down, her long hair forming a comet’s tail as she plunged straight toward the ground. The whole time, she was performing a mental countdown. That, plus her experience, told her when she was at the 500-meter point. Then she twisted her body around, spreading her limbs wide like a flying squirrel and pulling the cord on her Ram-Air parachute. It opened, the tremendous feeling of deceleration jarring her body from the harness on her back downward.
It didn’t last long. Opening her eyes and looking down below, she saw her feet beat against thin air. Craning her neck back upward, she watched her open parachute grow, bathed in the orange-red of the setting sun.
Making one final check of the city below her, she waved her right arm to the side. A point of light appeared on the roof of one of the many buildings down below, an arrow labeled TARGET marking it out in her vision alongside its vertical and horizontal range. It was being implanted on her retinas by the augmented-reality contact lenses she put on before the drop began.
Rentaro Satomi, Fugitive Page 18