As they descended the stairs to transfer to the monorail platform, they were met by an extraordinary sight.
People poured out of the train from the Zecom Betta. Many of them were dressed in pajamas. Crying children clutched toys, and women held babies. All the faces were twisted in fear.
A siren began to whoop and a voice called over the station’s PA system,
“Please proceed out of the station in an orderly way via the exit stairs. Do not run. There is no danger. Please obey police and station staff directions. Do not go to the fast train platform.”
The message repeated itself. The authoritative voice calmed the crowd a little, but the siren didn’t help. Ambulance and fire engine sirens outside the station added to the hubbub. The three detectives tried to force their way along the platform against the flow of the crowd. A station attendant blocked their way.
“Only emergency services authorized on the train,” he yelled.
Ishihara showed his badge. “What’s going on?”
“They’re evacuating the Betta. Gas or something.”
Ishihara exchanged a look with Beppu, whose normally red face had gone pale. Inoue must have brought the rescopal here.
A constable ran along the edge of the crowd, followed by ten paramedics carrying bags. The constable carried gas masks. He gave one to the station attendant, who snatched it in relief.
Ishihara showed his badge to the constable. “Is Inspector Mikuni here?”
“At the Betta.” The constable passed the detectives a gas mask each. “You can go on this train.”
They got onto the empty train with the paramedics. Another, full train pulled in beside it at the opposite platform. The doors half closed, then wheezed open again as farther down the carriage three people tried to maneuver cameras and recording equipment through the closing doors and onto the train. A woman was talking to a hidden microphone.
Ishihara cursed the media. He motioned Fujita to stay put and ran down the carriage with Beppu. The constable and the station attendant ran down the platform.
“Come out of that.” The constable grabbed one of the camera crew before he could get in the train. The woman kept talking into her mike as Ishihara pushed her back onto the platform. Beppu took the other man by surprise and shoved him out, too, and hurled the camera equipment after him. The man bent over the stuff and yelled a curse at Ishihara.
Ishihara waved to the station attendant, and the doors closed. “Bloody ghouls.”
Beppu wiped sweat off his upper lip. “Too stupid to realize they’re in the way.”
The paramedics got out at the first stop, Betta East. A few people tried to got in from the crowd on the platform but most of them waited obediently as the doors closed.
More people waited at the second stop. Ishihara only just managed to squeeze out as they all rushed in. Like old-time Tokyo rush hour, he thought. The siren blared, and the PA system urged everyone to stay calm. The train would reverse and take them to safety.
The constables on this platform wore their gas masks. Ishihara couldn’t smell anything like the distinctive rotting-petal perfume of rescopal, but he put on his own mask. Beppu and Fujita did the same. Then he had to take it off to yell a question.
“Which way to system management?”
The constable pointed to an exit, jabbed his thumb downward, and held up two fingers. Two floors down.
Ishihara adjusted his mask as they jogged to the exit, dodging people running for the train. He hadn’t worn a gas mask for years. The way this model sat over his nose and mouth was different from the old ones, and he struggled to get the strap tight.
“Stay calm and walk to the neatest exit,” said the PA in a deep, reassuring male voice. “If you can, wrap a damp cloth over your nose and mouth. Do not crawl along the floor. Carry children as high as possible.”
Beyond the exit door was a long corridor. More people running. A man in a blue tracksuit tripped and sprawled headlong. Something moved on the floor as he scrambled up. A cleanbot, turning in small, aimless circles. Other cleanbots, similarly disabled, hugged the walls. Ishihara wondered about the building’s automatic protection functions. Would the air circulation shut down to prevent the gas spreading? Could people be trapped inside apartments if the doors wouldn’t open automatically? He wished he had read his own Betta’s emergency rules more carefully.
“Stairs over there.” Fujita lifted his mask to shout and pointed to the emergency exit signs at the end of the corridor. The crowd flowed toward those stairs. All their faces were terrified, but they made surprisingly little noise. A door next to the main exit said ACCESS STAIRS NO ADMITTANCE. Ishihara put out his hand to open it and at the same moment a fireman pulled it open from the other way. They both jumped in surprise.
Ishihara held up his badge, and yelled, “Police.” The fireman nodded and kept going. Three more firemen ran up the stairwell, playing out a huge, flat hose as they went. The detectives flattened themselves against the wall to keep out of the way and followed the hose down four flights to the bottom floor. The door was propped open.
The siren sounded fainter. Open ducts ran along the walls and ceilings, and the ceiling was lower than upstairs. A sweet smell permeated slowly through the mask.
They followed the sound of voices around a corner and saw a group of men in suits and some in uniform clustered in front of a double door. One of the men waved. Ishihara waved back and saw it was Inspector Mikuni. Several of the policemen held phones to their mouths. The firemen all wore masks with radio comm units built in.
Mikuni beckoned them closer and they all bent their heads to hear, like footballers before a scrum.
“Just as we arrived the alarms started,” Mikuni yelled. “The automatic environmental systems aren’t working properly. We can’t get into the main control room from the front, so they’re going to break in through the systems manager’s rooms. That’s here.” He pointed to the double door. “If this Akita is part of the group, he could have sabotaged the system so the gas was more effective.”
They’d never find any Silver Angels in the crowd, Ishihara thought disgustedly. All the criminals had to do was wear pajamas and walk out of the building with everyone else.
“No sign of your gaijin,” Mikuni went on. “It’s possible they’re still in there, but unless they have masks they’ll be in trouble.”
“Aren’t there any other entries?” shouted Beppu.
Mikuni shook his head. “The manager’s apartment is locked, too. The firemen are going to try breaking down doors from this side and from the apartment side. They’re trying to decide whether it’s safe to use cutters or not.”
Ishihara looked down. A yellowish miasma gathered along the floor.
Mikuni followed his gaze. “It’s heavier than air. They’re going to pump it out. Apparently it will lose potency in twenty-four hours or so.”
“Isn’t there a central control for all the Bettas?” said Fujita. “We could turn off the airflow from there.”
“No central control.” Behind the mask Ishihara could see Beppu grimace. “So we don’t get someone doing this in all the Bettas at the same time.”
Running footsteps pounded, and a squad of police in black flak jackets and helmets jogged into view—the anti-terrorist squad.
Their leader saluted. “Squad leader Ikoma. I’m authorized to secure this scene.” He barked the words so rapidly Ishihara had trouble understanding them.
“We think suspects in a murder case may still be in there,” Mikuni returned loudly. “And possibly a hostage.”
We’ll handle it. Clear the corridor, please.”
Mikuni hesitated, then nodded to his team. They all retreated slowly down the corridor, with many backward glances.
“If your damn cultists screw up my murder case …” Mikuni growled to Ishihara. “There could be evidence in there to back up Yui’s confession.”
Ishihara hoped McGuire was in the apartment and that the squad would get her out. But then again
, what if Akita had left her there without a mask? He felt sick, and not from the stuffy air. Death from rescopal poisoning was particularly unpleasant. He hated whoever had done this with desolate intensity.
The mist in the corridor looked thicker.
The firemen shouted, then everyone started running toward the exit. A clatter of boots behind them indicated the antiterrorist squad followed. A different, shrill alarm sounded above the siren.
“What is it?” Ishihara yelled to one of the firemen.
“Fire in the apartment,” he yelled back. “We need different hoses.”
Ishihara sent Beppu and Fujita to help Mikuni and emergency services, telling them to keep an eye out for Akita or Inoue. He went back to the monorail platform and helped the constable direct people onto the train, scanning the faces as he did so for … what? Inoue’s narrow cheeks and shaved head? Akita’s heavier-than-average frame? Any face that seemed wrong, out of place. Like a small, pale face below red hair.
Don’t get involved with your cases, that was the most basic rule of all. If you let yourself feel for individuals, you couldn’t do your job. The rule was a good one; it had proved itself to him many times. Like now—he couldn’t care less what happened to the case, if only McGuire wasn’t in that basement room.
Eleanor hadn’t had this bad a hangover in years. The pounding in her head spread from a point on her left temple and echoed through her whole body. She shifted her legs, and all her joints and muscles protested. She must have done something stupid while she was drunk. Run a marathon, by the feel of it Her throat was so dry she couldn’t swallow, and the inside of her mouth tasted like she’d eaten rotten eggs.
She kept still, her eyes closed. If she moved or saw the room sway, she’d throw up. Masao must have turned the air conditioner down because everything was very quiet. Maybe if she kept completely still she’d fall back to sleep …
A door hinge squeaked. Bare feet slapped on floor. A voice said softly, “Aunt Eleanor?”
Mari’s voice. She must be at the Tanakas. God, she might have embarrassed herself in front of them. Why didn’t Masao stop her?
But why was Mari here anyway? Mari had gone away to stay somewhere in Osaka while she was at university …
The whole situation opened like a trapdoor in her memory. She plunged into it, no handholds.
“Oh, shit.” Her voice sounded thick and croaky. What had Akita done to her, and where was she now?
She opened her eyes but they were swollen and gummy. Everything blurred.
“Here.” Mari put a hot towel in her hand.
Eleanor wiped her face. Her left hand felt as though she was wearing a glove. It was bandaged but didn’t hurt. The medical patches on her inner arm were probably painkillers. She flexed her left fingers clumsily, and streaks of pain ran across her shoulder and neck.
Mari folded her right hand around a cool glass, and Eleanor gulped the water, splashing some down her neck in her haste.
“Aunt Eleanor, what are you doing here?”
She drew breath sharply and focused on Mari. It gave her a fright; Mari’s head was bald again. She looked like a young monk. A worried young monk.
Her own head felt cold… her fingers touched smooth skin, the long scar of her old injury, a bump on the back where Taka pushed her and, where the headache was centered, the rounded biometal of an implant like Mari’s. It had taken a long time to grow her hair to cover that scar … What the hell did Akita think he was doing? How dare he do these things without her knowledge or consent? She pushed herself to a sitting position, using her right elbow. The pain in her neck and shoulder was worse sitting up, but she didn’t feel as queasy.
“Where are we?”
Mari took the glass. “We’re in the second meditation room at the retreat. They haven’t told us where that is.”
Eleanor was sitting on one of six tatami mats laid in a rectangle on a concrete floor, Mari crouched beside her. One strong lightbulb hung from a cord in the center of the ceiling. A sheet lay crumpled beside her. She was wearing the same clothes as Mari—a short-sleeved kimono-style shirt and simple pants, both in rough white cotton.
“What time is it?”
“Just before early prayer. That’s about five in the morning.” Mari’s voice was low and urgent. “Aunt Eleanor, what’s going on? Taka said they brought you in the back of a van.”
Van … the word illuminated a series of images in Eleanor’s memory. Bright lights alternating with heavy blackness, a stuffy enclosed space. More lights, someone in a green coat, an IV line dangling. Akita must have put her in a van at …
Zecom. She knew she’d forgotten something.
“Mari, Aki … Adam was planning to do something bad at the Zecom Betta. Did they go through with it?”
The girl shook her head. “I don’t know. We’re not supposed to watch outside news. I was told to go and see if the new Angel was awake and, if so, to bring her to see Adam-sama. Then when I get in here, the new Angel is you!”
Eleanor pressed her eyes, trying to push away the headache that kept getting in the way of thought. Did Akita really still think she had decided to join him? If so, he was completely deluded.
“I haven’t joined the group. They kidnapped me. But Adam thinks I’ve joined.” Oh-oh, she thought suddenly. Can I trust this girl? She’s been with these people for months now.
Mari rocked back on her heels, appalled. “They wouldn’t do that! It must be an honest mistake.”
“Mari-chan, they did this to me”—she thrust her bandaged hand in Mari’s face—“without m … my permission.”
Mari’s mouth set in a stubborn line that reminded Eleanor of Yoshiko. “I still think it’s a mistake. Just tell Adam-sama. Or Gagiel-sama might be better,” she added doubtfully. “They always tell us we’re free to leave if we want to.”
“But nobody goes, right?”
Mari’s mouth set again but she didn’t answer. “You’re wrong about them.”
Eleanor crawled stiffly to the edge of the mats. “Okay, I might be wrong. But if you’re right, they won’t mind you showing me the way out.”
“But I’m supposed to take you to Adam-sama,” Mari protested. “I’ll get in trouble if I don’t. And the guards won’t let you out without permission, anyway.”
“That doesn’t sound like you’re free to go,” Eleanor said nastily.
“We’re free to get permission to go.” The concern in Mari’s eyes was replaced by defiance. “Come on, then.”
Cold from the concrete floor numbed Eleanor’s bare feet, which helped her ignore the other aches. Mari led the way down a corridor, lit at intervals with the same naked bulbs as the room. On the left they passed a door labeled MEDITATION ROOM ONE and another labeled NOVICE TRAINING, both written in ornate roman letters. The next door said Amenities in plain Japanese script and under it a handwritten scrawl, “no meditation!” All these doors were on the left. The right wall of the corridor was made up of uneven wooden panels. Some of them had warped to show a dirt wall beneath. Nothing looked like a door to the outside world. The end of the corridor behind them was flat concrete.
They turned a corner to the left. At about twelve paces, there was a gap in the concrete wall on their left, in which Eleanor glimpsed stairs inside a narrow alcove leading upward into darkness.
“It’s locked,” said Mari. “None of us have the key.”
Something whirred down the corridor toward them that seemed as out of place as she felt—a helpbot. It was older than the Betta models, a Yamazaki 1200 by the looks of it. A rectangular box on wheels with a round half sphere on top, its arms folded close to its sides instead of retracting like the newer models.
It wasn’t working properly. One of the arms trailed disconsolately on the floor, and it moved in a wavy zigzag, bumping off the walls.
“What’s that doing here?” Eleanor fought an urge to grab the robot and adjust its navigation controls.
Mari glanced at it, uninterested. “They use those
in training. The novices do, I mean. Here we are.”
They stopped at the first door on the left past the alcove. The right-hand wall was the same old panels. The door’s label said VESTIBULE, LEVEL THREE ADEPTS AND ABOVE ONLY. A different sign had been painted over underneath it. Eleanor could just make out the characters for machine.
“Wait,” she said. “Mari-chan, did you tell them I’m related to you?”
“How could I? I only just found out you’re here.”
“It might be a good idea if you don’t tell anyone yet.” She thought Akita quite capable of using Mari as leverage for whatever he wanted. What the hell did he want with her?
Mari knocked three times on the door and pushed it open. “You go in,” she whispered. “I’m not allowed.”
Eleanor took one last look at the robot, a connection with normality. It was now turning in uneven circles.
Inside the room, the first thing she noticed was the red carpet. It ran in a meter-wide swath between boxes and shapes covered with sheets, up three steps, and finished at the foot of a high-backed chair set on a dais. Akita sat in the chair, and behind him computer hardware occupied the whole of the back wall of the room. He wore a gold satin robe gathered in so many ornate folds that he looked like a gilt waterfall. In spite of the chair, he did not dominate the room—the screens and consoles did that.
She caught a glimpse of angled steel and wide bases under the sheets at the side of the room. Heavy machinery. This could be a factory storeroom.
Another man stood behind Akita with his back to her. She thought she recognized the dark undershirt and broad shoulders of Fujinaka, from the Zecom Betta. He wore loose trousers in silver satin.
“Lilith-san, you are awake!” Akita clapped his hands together once. “I have been waiting to show you your future.”
She stepped along the red carpet, annoyed that there was no room to avoid it. At least it wasn’t as cold as the concrete. “Akita, what do you think you’re doing?”
Less Than Human Page 25