The Trancer

by Reki Kawahara

  Farewell?

  At that moment, the concrete beneath his feet suddenly lost its solidity.

  Although he shouldn’t have been able to hear anything, Minoru felt as if he heard a sucking sound. In an instant, his body dropped straight downward, and darkness swallowed his feet, his chest, and finally up to his face, closing out any light overhead.

  5

  Ultimately, what we call “heat” is really the kinetic energy of molecules.

  When an object is hot, its internal components are intensely vibrating. Conversely, in a cold object, the molecules are in repose.

  In other words, cold and stillness are essentially the same thing. As the temperature goes down, the world is wrapped in peace. Most likely, if an enormous amount of liquid helium were poured over the Earth, within moments all man-made noise would cease.

  It wasn’t liquid helium by any means, but the place where Mikawa was currently lying was certainly very cold—negative thirty degrees Celsius.

  All around him, the piles of boxes stacked to the ceiling were frozen white. The pipes and ducts that crept around the room were covered in thick layers of frost. In the air, tiny ice crystals sparkled and danced.

  Mikawa had been lying on the floor for almost eight hours now, after sneaking into one of the cold-storage warehouses that lined the Tokyo harbor. Of course, even with the enhancement of a Third Eye, there was no way he could simply sleep in these conditions wearing only synthetic jeans and a jacket without freezing to death. Instead, Mikawa was continuously changing the phases of the moisture clinging to his clothes, producing the minimum amount of heat necessary to preserve his body temperature.

  However, deep in his heart, Mikawa knew there was a lurking desire to allow himself to freeze here. It wasn’t that he wanted to die. He just wanted to…freeze. He wanted to know what it felt like. He wanted to feel that sense of peace throughout his entire body.

  Really, living things were so frail.

  On the macro level, they needed the phase transitions of water to live—and yet, on the micro level, they couldn’t survive at water’s freezing or boiling points.

  Without moving from his prone position, Mikawa directed a long sigh up toward the ceiling, which crystallized instantly in the air. He watched it glitter as his mind wandered.

  The male Jet Eye in the spirit photography that Liquidizer had shown him yesterday…the one who could create an invisible barrier…would that person be able to get closer to peaceful silence than Mikawa was able to? Could he go into some university’s ultralow-temperature lab and experience that stillness for himself?

  …No.

  Mikawa quickly rejected that thought. Sealed up inside a barrier, he wouldn’t be able to experience the real power of water’s phase transitions even if he went to the North Pole. The only way to truly understand it was by feeling the low temperatures with your own unprotected flesh. Of course, it would cost you your life, but as the blood froze in your body, as your breath slowed and your brain cells were destroyed…surely you’d be able to feel it. Perfect stillness, perfect silence, in a moment that would last for eternity.

  My friend must have gotten to that level, way back when…

  Suddenly, there was a tiny bloom of heat—of movement—in his breast pocket.

  Mikawa frowned and reached in to locate the source: a small machine that was vibrating continuously. Cupping it with both hands, he pressed the talk button.

  “Hello? This is Trancer.”

  “It’s me, boy.”

  “…Like I said, please stop calling me that.”

  Mikawa breathed a small sigh, watching it turn white in the air. “What’s this about? It’s been a while since you’ve called me like this, Liquidizer.”

  “That should tell you just how important this is, then. I need you to come to the safe house in Gotanda at once.”

  At this, Mikawa’s frown deepened. “Gotanda? Not South Aoyama like usual?”

  “Don’t go anywhere near that location. It may have been infiltrated by the black hunters.”

  “What?!”

  Mikawa sat upright in surprise, the frozen gears of his mind beginning to move again.

  “…What do you mean, ‘may have been’?”

  “I went there earlier to change clothes, but my instincts told me…something was off. And they do have someone with the ability to turn invisible on their side, don’t they? So I laid a trap in an empty room and left. But there’s no way of knowing whether it was activated or not without going back to take a look.”

  “Your instincts, huh…? Was this ‘trap’ the pitfall you mentioned before?”

  “Yes, that’s why I filled up the entire first floor with concrete. This seemed like the perfect time to use it… At any rate, the worst-case scenario is that they may have escaped with vital information. In that case, we would have to shut down all the locations connected to that one. However…if they gained information but were then caught in our trap, that would be an excellent opportunity for us.”

  “…An ‘opportunity’? How so?”

  “There’s not a Third Eye alive who could escape my pitfall. Whether black or red, all Third Eye users need to be able to breathe deeply in order to use their abilities. And sealed in three meters of concrete, they won’t have enough air for a single breath. They’d die within moments… But unlike us, those Jet Eyes will invariably come to rescue their comrades even if they know it’s futile.”

  “…You have a point.” Finally realizing what Liquidizer was trying to say, Mikawa smiled. “If that’s the case, I bet he’ll show up, too…”

  “Aren’t you tired of playing with that samurai, boy? Just kill him already… Incidentally, have you seen the sky lately? The weather report said there was an eighty percent chance of snow today.”

  “Oh, is that so?” Forgetting that he’d been interrupted while meditating, Mikawa’s smile broadened.

  “But there’s no guarantee he’ll come alone, is there?”

  “If there are any extras, I’ll be happy to play with them. There’s a perfect spot right near the Aoyama safe house, an abandoned factory. I’ll send you a map, so make sure you take a look.”

  “Understood. I’ll head out now.”

  Ending the call, Mikawa stood up lightly. A thin shell of ice fluttered down from his body, collapsing quietly on the floor. Looking over his shoulder into the dim light much farther down the passageway, he whispered to the other part of him that slept there.

  “…I’ll come back soon. Until then, sleep well…”

  As he sank down into the murky liquid and darkness obscured his vision, Minoru instinctively tried to spread his arms and swim to the surface.

  But it was impossible. Once Minoru and Suu had been swallowed up into it, the liquid remained a liquid for only a matter of seconds. As he tried to stretch out his arms, they suddenly came up against an overwhelmingly hard surface that stopped them from moving any farther. In fact, his head, feet, and entire body were completely fixed in place, unable to budge in the slightest.

  The only thing that stopped Minoru from flying into a complete panic was the body heat on his back. Focusing on breathing for a moment, he was able to calm down enough to speak up hoarsely.

  “…S-Suu, are you all right?”

  Her response was immediate. “Yes, about as much as you are.”

  “…Y-yeah, I guess that’s true…” Since she was inside his protective shell, Suu would be fine as long as Minoru was. His stiff limbs somehow felt tired as he spoke again.

  “So this…is our enemy’s ability, huh?”

  “Without a doubt. The concrete in the floor liquefied, submerging us inside. Which can only mean that that woman was Liquidizer herself…an executive from the Syndicate. If I had realized that before, we could have attacked her preemptively…”

  Despite their trapped situation, Minoru couldn’t help but smile drily at Suu’s bitter words. “If I’d known that…I probably wouldn’t have been able to move a centimeter. But if
this is her ability, that means she was able to activate it from so far away that she couldn’t even see the target…”

  “I’d imagine she either set up a delayed activation of her ability or some sort of trigger that activated it.”

  “…Her abilities are that advanced?” Minoru found himself feeling a bit glad that they hadn’t had to fight her directly, until he remembered that their current situation wasn’t exactly anything to be happy about.

  Minoru very carefully grasped the small LED light, which was fortunately strapped to his left pinkie finger. If he was to drop it, there was no way he would be able to pick it up again when he could move only his fingers and mouth. Pushing the switch with his fingertip, he shone the pure white light above them, keeping the darkness at bay.

  Separated by just the three centimeters of the barrier was what could only be described as a concrete gray wall. But though concrete was theoretically a combination of gravel and cement, the surface was so smooth that Minoru couldn’t see a single grain of sand.

  “…Despite supposedly being concrete, this smoothness is more like plaster…,” Minoru murmured a bit absently.

  “I think rather than turning dried concrete back into its raw state, she may have broken apart the bonds on a molecular level. That’s the only explanation I can think of for why we sank in so quickly.”

  “Then…does that mean she has the same ability as Oli-V?”

  “Theoretically, yes. But…” Suu trailed off, uncharacteristically hesitant.

  “But…?” Minoru prompted quickly.

  “…They’re on totally different levels. Divider can use his power only with a blade as an extension and can affect matter in only two dimensions, along the surface of his cuts… But Liquidizer can manipulate intermolecular forces in a three-dimensional space…”

  “…!”

  Minoru gasped sharply. Up until now, he had always thought that Olivier Saitou’s ability to cut through anything at will was virtually unbeatable in battle. Of all the Jet Eyes in the SFD, his power probably had the highest attack power. The Accelerator, Yumiko, and the Refractor, Suu, would also be high in these ranks, since their abilities could be applied to weapons like a knife or a Taser.

  But if Suu was saying that Liquidizer’s powers were above and beyond Olivier’s, then the SFD as it was now wouldn’t stand a chance against that woman.

  “Minoru,” Suu murmured, her voice increasingly strained. “We have to escape quickly. The Professor is probably going to send other members to rescue us. And Liquidizer will probably be expecting that. If a battle breaks out, she’ll be difficult to beat even three against one.”

  “…Right,” Minoru responded, his voice a low whisper. “But…it’s going to be pretty difficult to escape this situation… I’m kind of, um, unsure about how long we’re going to survive like this, actually…” The sense of imminent danger still hadn’t really sunk it, but looking at the situation objectively, this seemed to be the only conclusion. “Um…there should be enough oxygen for us in the shell, at least. But it’s not as though we can get food or water… And as far as breaking the concrete, I can’t even move a centimeter…”

  He trailed off, but Suu remained silent for a while. Hoping she was thinking up some kind of plan, Minoru waited quietly for the younger girl’s response. Finally, she spoke in an odd tone of voice.

  “…Wow, you’re right.”

  Mikawa reached out his gloved hands, catching the specks of snow that had begun gently falling from the sky. The hexagon-shaped crystals that landed on the fake black leather quickly melted into microscopic drops of water.

  As he looked up silently at the sky, countless shadows began to fall from the heavy lead-colored clouds hanging overhead. It looked as though the first snowfall of the year would be as intense as the forecast had predicted. Last winter, there hadn’t been a single heavy snowstorm; buzzwords like CO2 and global warming had been tossed around quite a bit. But apparently, some scientists were saying that the current activity of the sun could bring on another ice age. If that were the case, perhaps people would start using even more CO2 in order to warm the Earth.

  Mikawa chuckled as he walked quickly along the twilit road.

  An ice age would be wonderful. If humans were going to try to prevent that, then the Syndicate’s goal of eradicating humanity was a perfect fit for him.

  Truth be told, he hadn’t really been eager to fight any Jet Eyes when his wound from the other day had only just healed; with this weather, it was another story. Every one of these water molecules was both weapon and shield to Mikawa. And unlike rain, which disappeared into drains shortly after reaching the ground, snow would industriously stick to the ground and serve as his reinforcements.

  And on top of that, it seemed that Liquidizer was fairly serious about this battle as well. She had already been gone by the time he’d arrived at the Gotanda safe house, where he had just come from, but she’d left behind a present for him. The automatic nine-millimeter pistol, which was now tucked within his jacket’s inside pocket, was undoubtedly a signal that her jocular “Just kill him already” remark had, in fact, been quite serious.

  Unlike the black hunters, who often brought out handguns or sniper rifles at will, the Syndicate did not arm its lesser members so carelessly. This was the Syndicate executives’ way of showing that they didn’t have unconditional trust in even their most favored Ruby Eyes.

  In other words, Liquidizer’s orders this time around were essentially a test to determine whether Mikawa was worthy of the upper ranks.

  Truthfully, Mikawa didn’t have any particular desire to get ahead in the Syndicate. But there were some things he wanted to know. The thickly veiled top executives, who never revealed their faces or names, what were they really thinking? Was there serious intent behind their lofty goal of wiping out humanity, despite the fact that the Syndicate in its current state would hardly stand a chance against the Japan Self-Defense Forces? He didn’t even really need to know what means they intended to use—just whether it was a real possibility. He wanted to know, whatever the answer might be.

  Lightly checking that the hardness of the steel weapon was still there through his jacket, Mikawa continued to walk lightly toward South Aoyama through the falling snow.

  “…Come to think of it…”

  Having recognized the severity of their predicament, Suu paused a few seconds before speaking again in the same emotionless tone as ever. It was both very startling and very typical of her.

  “…Where are we?”

  “Where…? Um, we’re inside some concrete, aren’t we?” Minoru responded, looking at the smooth gray wall illuminated by the LED light.

  “Well, yes. But this concrete is at least nine meters deep. Since we fell through the floor on the second story of the building, I’d imagine we’re now on the first floor.”

  “Ah…I see, that makes sense…” Minoru shone the light around, but the only thing he could see was the same gray all around them. If they were in some sort of pillar, he imagined they would be able to see reinforcing steel bars, so the fact that there were none could only mean that they were indeed inside a giant block of pure concrete.

  But a structure like that wouldn’t exist in an ordinary building. Someone must have gone out of their way to build it—or rather fill it in—for a specific purpose. Someone had poured wet concrete into the entire first floor, or at least a significant portion of it.

  “So that means…” Suu gave a small gasp, apparently coming to the same conclusion. “This is a large-scale trap designed to capture intruders. And it’s based on Liquidizer’s ability…”

  “B-but…” Unable to accept that conclusion so easily, Minoru shook his head as much as he could within the small confines of the barrier. “That would make sense if the building were made like this from the beginning, but how would you fill a completed room or floor with wet concrete? It would be impossible to pour it in directly with a concrete mixer truck, and how would you dry it…?”
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  “It wouldn’t need to be wet. They could’ve just carried concrete blocks to the second floor and then used Liquidizer’s ability to pour it into the room below.”

  “Ah…r-right…” Minoru breathed out slowly. “…That woman should give up being a murderer and become an artist or an architect instead. She could make as many stone statues as she wants without needing any money or tools,” he grumbled, then assumed a more serious tone. “At any rate, that means we’re surrounded by at least a meter of concrete in all directions. In order to escape, we’ll have to break through some of it somehow…”

  Suu spoke quietly from close to his ear. “Yes. And to do that…we’ll probably have to deactivate your shell.”

  Minoru nodded slowly. The shell would protect them from any threats, but since they couldn’t move, it was also preventing them from interacting with the outside world. In order to feel the concrete and determine its strength, he would have to deactivate it.

  But there was a problem. There was only about an inch between them and the concrete, which meant there could be very little oxygen. With both of them breathing, they would use it up in a matter of moments. Worse yet, they would probably then breathe in high concentrations of carbon dioxide. If they were to faint, it was highly unlikely they would ever wake up.

  “…Umm, it might be dangerous to breathe outside the barrier too much. We should take a deep breath and hold it before I deactivate the barrier. Then we can try and figure out as much information as possible in that time.”

  “Understood. On three, then.”

  Minoru nodded and breathed out all the air remaining in his lungs. With the last shred of breath, he whispered, “One, two, three, go,” then sucked in as much air as he could. Both of their chests expanded at the same time, but since they couldn’t move outward, they were pressed against each other, Suu pushing into his back in a way that almost made Minoru blow the air right back out of his lungs.

  Pulling himself together, Minoru deactivated the protective shell.