Less Than Human

by Maxine McArthur

  “I’d just like the owner to look at a photo for me,” he said loudly.

  “There’s no need to yell.” She found her glasses next to the till and hooked them on her ears. “I’m nearly blind, but not deaf.” She held out her hand for his ID and studied it in silence.

  “What kind of photo?” she said finally, handing back the ID.

  “It’s a photo of some young people who might have come shopping here these last couple of days. We’re trying to trace where they went.”

  “This isn’t to do with the gangs, is it?” She clambered onto a high stool set behind the till so she could stare straight at him.

  “No, nothing to do with gangs.”

  “Good. I don’t hold with gangs. You’d better show me the photo, young man, because I’m the only one who works here.”

  Ishihara wondered uneasily if her memory, or eyesight, would be reliable. He magnified the images as large as he could and passed her his phone.

  She studied the photographs of the four dead children.

  Ishihara knew them all by now. Lissa Takada, nineteen, female, studied English at Ohara Women’s College. Tsuneo Obayashi, twenty-one, male, mechanical engineering, Osaka Engineering University. Daichi Ikuta, twenty-one, male, same major as Obayashi. Tomoko Uesugi, nineteen, female, journalism major.

  He added in his head, as he always did, Junta Ishihara, nineteen, male. Economics major, missing since 2008.

  Junta was still alive, he knew it. Somewhere in Japan, maybe in another country if the gang of thugs that abducted him was still exporting its lies to a gullible world. He knew Junta wasn’t dead because he’d looked at files of every unidentified body the police had found in Japan over the past seven years. Junta was alive; he just didn’t want to talk to his parents.

  “I’ve seen this girl,” said the old woman, jerking him back to the present. She showed him Tomoko Uesugi’s plump, smiling face, taken from her university ID card. “She came in last Thursday.”

  “Are you sure?” said Ishihara. The owner of the apartment hadn’t gone away until Friday morning.

  She gave him an insulted look and lifted a large ledger onto the table by the till with a groan and a thump. “The girl bought … let me see …” She leafed through pages covered densely with handwriting. “Here we are. Thursday, August 13. Fine weather.” She ran her finger slowly down the page.

  Ishihara could see there were only four or five entries, but said nothing.

  “She bought ten packets of instant noodles, four large Cokes, and four Cook Home meals.” The old woman nodded, as if reflecting it had been a good day for the shop.

  “Thank you very much,” said Ishihara. “Your cooperation is most appreciated.” He bowed, then felt obliged to pick one of the sweet bars stacked in front of the till. “I’ll take this, please.”

  The old woman beamed at him. “Thank you very much.” She clanged the till on his five-hundred-yen coin with a flourish. As he left she bent over the ledger, recording the transaction.

  He called Beppu, who was still interviewing residents of the Betta.

  “This is interesting. The kids bought the food the day before the owner of the apartment left.”

  Beppu’s sweating face nodded at him, distorted in the cheap phone screen. “They knew the fellow was going away. I just talked to a ten-year-old who lives on the same floor. She recognized Daichi Ikuta because Ikuta had some kind of disc player implant, and the kid thought it was cool. She remembers it was Thursday because she’d just passed a difficult test at cram school. She wanted to ask her father to get her a player like that as a reward.”

  “The owner of the apartment swore he didn’t tell anyone he was going, except a couple of people at his company.”

  “That’s what he said.” Beppu’s voice was skeptical. “Mind you, so far there’s no connection between him, the people at his company who knew he was going away, and the four kids.”

  “We’ll find one,” said Ishihara with more confidence than he felt. “See you in a few minutes. I’ll do one final check of this area to see if I missed any other stores.” He put the phone back in his pocket.

  There would be some connection; they merely had to find it. Maybe in the kids’ families, although he doubted it. None of the parents had any suspicion their child had joined a quasi-religious group. All of the children lived away from home, either at a student dorm or, in the case of Takada, in an apartment rented for her by her parents.

  No evidence suggested any of them were close to the others before they joined the geography club, although the two girls might have taken the same classes. Obayashi and Ikuta were in the same prac group in their mechanical engineering class, so they must at least have known each other.

  How did they know the man would be away so they could use his apartment? Normally, the only people with access to personal details in the Betta records would be the general manager and the systems manager, who organized the self-cleaning functions of the block. If a resident was away, they might ask the systems manager for extra security on their apartment, or perhaps that it be fumigated while they were away.

  Beppu had investigated the manager’s background as well and found no connection with any of the dead children. Nor any personal connection with the apartment owner, for that matter.

  They were left with the unproved probability that the owner had let slip he would be away, and the children took advantage of that.

  How? For that was the other problem. Bettas were supposed to be secure. The apartment door showed no signs of forced entry. Indeed, to take the elevator to the sixth floor, the children needed security chips for that particular block of that particular Betta. Or temporary visitor chips. Which had not been issued, according to office records.

  Then, to get into the apartment, they would need the owner’s eyes or fingers. Most of the Bettas used retina or fingerprint scans in the security systems. To get around that, they’d have to have an accomplice within Betta system management. There must be a link, somewhere.

  The Residents Association had convened an extraordinary meeting yesterday and demanded an explanation from the company that ran Betta security. Beppu went along with one of the Prefectural Office detectives and reported back that the discussion had been “heated.”

  Ishihara grinned to himself. I bet it was heated. All those people thinking they’re secure from the outside world, then some kids just waltz into an empty apartment.

  He stood in the shade of a doorway—Polar Bear Dry Cleaning—and lit a cigarette. Nicotine always helped him to think.

  At West Station they’d seen no mention of the terrorist suspicion that Inspector Funo had let slip at their first meeting in the Betta. Ishihara’s superintendent had received a file that morning from Prefectural Office about the Silver Angels. He passed it on with a grunt to Ishihara and Beppu, commenting merely that they would do well to leave this one to the Prefs.

  Ishihara could see why the Prefs were having trouble deciding whose jurisdiction the Silver Angels should fall under.

  The group was merely a number of self-declared devotees who followed the instruction of a guru who called himself Adam, real identity unknown. They had not declared themselves a religious organization for tax purposes, nor did they seem interested in recruiting from the general public. Most of the known members were students. The rest were young professionals. There might be many more undeclared members. They didn’t have a Web site or a known mailing list at any of the major servers, so it was difficult to eavesdrop on their communications. All the police could do was link the personal information of all of the known members on the National Data Network and hope to make some connections.

  It might work. The NDN was the world’s most advanced collection of personal data on a national scale. Since the introduction of Citizen Cards in 2005, every significant database in the country had gradually linked up, from government departments to banks, the stock exchange, medical records, everything including your local server usage records.
r />   Most of the information held by the police in the Silver Angels file had come from student informants. The group didn’t actually call itself Silver Angels, but participants in several chat rooms had used the phrase, so the police took it as a handy label. Ishihara didn’t think this was a good idea—he’d prefer to know what they called themselves. Informants said the Silver Angels people were very close to each other, and close-mouthed. The only thing they let outsiders know was that computers were the key. And rebirth, connected in some way with computers. Literally connected, thought Ishihara.

  One student informant said the Angels were up with the latest technology, including implant equipment. That meant money, either stolen or from parents, for none of them worked. None of them were interested in the usual student things—clothes, games, movies, or sex. They all had reasonable, but not good grades.

  Ishihara ground his cigarette stub under his shoe and started walking again.

  Why did Osaka Prefectural Police regard the Silver Angels as more than a few crackpots? They must have information they weren’t sharing. Or they wanted the group classified as a “terrorist threat” so they could use the Defense Access Act to allow police to observe the known members.

  A white dog wandered along the opposite side of the street, winding between parked cars and rubbish bins to keep pace with a shambling drunk. As a car backed out of an alley the drunk got in the way, then abused the driver with much shaking of fists and slurred curses. The dog waited patiently.

  You and me both, mate, thought Ishihara. Waiting for someone to make the next move.

  The phone buzzed and somebody called, “It’s for you, Chief.”

  Eleanor stepped over to the wall, chafing at the interruption. She and her team were finalizing adjustments to Sam for their project demonstration the next day. It was after seven-thirty in the evening. She’d called Masao earlier to say she’d be late—who could it be?

  It was her ex-colleague Nakamura, calling from Zecom. He was on visual, although the space around him was blurred.

  “Nakamura-san.”

  “It’s hot, isn’t it?” Nakamura looked exactly as she remembered him. Short, round, with an air of grimy pathos in his badly ironed shirts and ill-cut hair.

  “Yes, and it’s damn humid as well. Why are you calling?”

  He eh-hemmed several times. “I thought you’d like to know, I’ve got the report from our industrial maintenance department. There is nothing wrong with our welder from Kawanishi.”

  Eleanor sighed inwardly. Probably the best thing, since she’d handed in her report that afternoon. “Thanks anyway.”

  “I called back because I realized there’s something I forgot to talk to you about before.”

  “About the welder?” Her attention sharpened.

  “Yes, and other things.” Nakamura’s language was polite enough, but his face was tight with tension, and his voice held a note of something she couldn’t quite place.

  “But you said there was nothing wrong with it.”

  “Not technically wrong …” He let the sentence hang mysteriously.

  Eleanor rerouted the call to the empty lab next door. “I’ll be back in a minute,” she said to the other members of her team.

  They nodded, all intent on their tasks.

  Nakamura’s image had a vertical tremor. She fiddled with the adjustment pads, then realized it was because he was jiggling his foot, as he used to do in meetings.

  “Did you find anything wrong with the welder’s ID code?” she said. “Or perhaps an unusual attachment near the network port?”

  Silence. Had she given away important information?

  “McGuire-san, this is not something we should discuss over the phone.”

  “This is a secure line. I presume your end is okay, too.”

  He shifted uneasily, one hand smoothing his shirtfront. “Can’t you come here?”

  Eleanor snorted. “You’re joking. Do you know what time it is?”

  “It only takes thirty minutes on the fast train,” Nakamura whined. “You could be here before nine. I’m going to be here until about eleven.”

  “I’m incredibly busy right now. And why should I go all that way?”

  “You won’t regret it.” He said this with such conviction that she almost wavered. “And I could give you a guided tour of the lab …”

  That would be worth the trip. Rumor had it that the Intelligent Systems Research Laboratory at Zecom wasn’t open to anyone except authorized research staff, not even to Zecom’s board of directors.

  “McGuire-san, I, um, need your advice. It is to do with the welder, but I can’t tell you how. I need to show you.” Nakamura actually bobbed his head in clumsy appeal.

  “I really can’t get away tonight. Why don’t I go later in the week?”

  “Too late.” That strange tone had crept back into his voice. “Please reconsider. I’ll be here until late.”

  “I’ll call you back tomorrow,” said Eleanor shortly, and cut the connection. Typical Nakamura, creating an arbitrary deadline to manipulate people into doing what he wanted. Well, she wasn’t falling for it this time.

  The security guard on the main gate at the Zecom complex seemed surprised to see her. She was a bit surprised to be there, herself. But the Sam project was as ready as it would ever be, and something in Nakamura’s face or voice had touched her intuition. She’d learned to trust that feeling.

  “To see Nakamura-san, did you say?” The guard, paunchy and graying, scrolled down the screen, one thick brown finger pressed against it.

  A list, she presumed, of employees, or maybe of approved guests. “That’s right. In the Intelligent Systems Lab.”

  On a television on the side wall a popular host tried to embarrass the guest of the week.

  “Don’t have your name here.” He stared openly at her, then flicked to a new screen. “But Nakamura-san is working late tonight.” He slid on the chair to the far end of the desk and pressed a phone switch. They waited, but nobody answered at the other end.

  Damn Nakamura. He brought her all this way and didn’t have the courtesy to register her as a guest.

  “Must’ve gone to the toilet,” grunted the guard. He glanced regretfully at the TV, then heaved himself out of the chair. He took his cap from a peg on the other side of the booth and disappeared out a door.

  Eleanor wondered if he’d gone to look for Nakamura or had simply given up on the whole thing, when he appeared again inside the gates. “Go round the side,” he called.

  A door opened beside the large double gates, and the guard let her through, grumbling under his breath the whole time. He rolled as he walked, like a sailor.

  Their feet scrunched on tiny pale gravel. Eleanor thought it was the overbright lights that made the gravel look pink, but when they entered the main lobby, she realized the gravel probably was pink. To match everything else.

  The walls were pale pink. Photographs adorning the walls showed model employees in jackets of a darker pink. The interior of the lift they took down was a tasteful apricot; even the visitor’s card the guard gave Eleanor was pink. It all clashed horribly with her hair.

  Aside from the color, it was standard Big Company style, Aseptic mode; no friendly notices about QC circles or volleyball practice on the walls, no tea-making niches with unhygienic clutter, or sickly potted plants huddled around ashtrays in little bays. Zecom obviously kept up with nonsmoking trends. She was reminded of the detective, Ishihara, wanting to smoke in the factory and the look of disgust he gave her when she objected.

  The vinyl floors were squeaky clean and the overhead lights clear. Whichever series of cleaner robot they used, it did a good job.

  To get in and out of the elevator the guard had to use his card key. He used it again at the entrance to the research lab, where two sets of doors formed a kind of air lock.

  Their footsteps echoed. “Doesn’t anyone work late here?” Eleanor wondered aloud.

  “Not unless they get permission,” s
aid the guard. “Zecom is committed to ensuring its employees have private lives as well as company lives.” This last was said in a rush, as if he didn’t want to forget it halfway through.

  Outside the elevator and at the start of the main corridor, a time clock and neatly labeled cards placed prominently on a table indicated that Zecom’s research staff were expected to maintain the same work hours as the factory. Nobody had yet invented a computerized system as tamperproof as the time clock.

  They walked through a large office space with desks arranged in neat rows. Each row had a larger desk at the end. Every desktop was clean and uncluttered, all the pale gray monitors and keyboards aligned at the same angle. There were no memos stuck carelessly to screens, no reference books left open at a particular page, no teacups or photographs or sweet wrappers or slippers under chairs, or any sign that human beings ever worked there at all.

  The only wall decoration was a single heavily framed message in square calligraphy exhorting Care, Quality Control, and Cost Efficiency.

  Was Nakamura happier here, in this atmosphere of rigid control? He’d always disapproved of the relaxed attitude at Tomita, especially in her department. But one of her section chiefs disapproved, too, and worked around it. Perhaps Nakamura needed the structure. Or perhaps he found himself stuck here with no way out. She could see why Akita hadn’t lasted long, though. He’d been far less of a team player than Nakamura.

  The guard led her through the office, down another corridor past rooms marked DEPARTMENT SUPERVISOR—he gets his own room here, thought Eleanor enviously—and DIVISION CHIEF, then used the card key to open another door marked NO ADMITTANCE AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY.

  The lab was a large room, divided into an open central area with small bays down both sides. Each bay contained a desk, computer stations, and chairs. The open central area held several assembly line mock-ups and a number of robots and machine tools.

  Most of the bays were dark, but strong lights illuminated the central area in the second half of the room. Only one of the bays was lit.