Loups-Garous (38 page)

“No…” Ayumi said softly.

“According to what Mio said, there are old animation fans all around the world.”

“See, I told you!”

“So then let's say there are many others like Nakamura and Kawabata who are fanatics about this stuff. If there are, it's possible they're placed all over the world, right?” Ayumi said.

“I guess,” Mio said.

“Perversion doesn't have borders. So. If they are all over the world they could form a unit.”

“An organization that would eradicate from the world all those who blaspheme ancient animated illustrations? Huh?”

“I'm sure there are serial murders taking place all over the world at this moment, but I think this is the only part of the world where the murders are motivated by anime. You think that means the homicidal anime fans all live in this region? Or you think this area is full of the kind of people that would want to start a murdering club?”

“That's not what I meant,” Hazuki said.

“Then why are all the murders taking place only here?” Ayumi asked.

“Are you saying there's another motive?” Mio said.

“No.” Ayumi looked suspiciously at all the machines in the room, then glanced at Hazuki and faced Mio. “There are other murderers,” she said.

“Other…”

“Those two aren't the only killers.”

“You think there are others with motives to kill?”

“Motive doesn't matter, really,” Ayumi said expressionlessly. “
What do you mean
it doesn't matter?” Mio responded. “It can't not matter.”

“Well it doesn't. No matter how sophisticated the reason, a murder is a murder, and similarly, it doesn't matter how great the motive is, if you can't kill, you won't. But someone who can kill definitely will.”

“That may be, but…”

“There are killers nearby.”

“Nearby?” Mio spun around and did a once-over on her room and said, “No. There are not.” Then, “What are you talking about? Or wait…are you suggesting that that Rey Mao bitch is the other killer?”

Ayumi didn't say anything.

“What is it? Did you see something? Did Mao kill Kawabata?”

“No, not that. I've told you already, she took a punch and got knocked out. I'm saying—”

“
What is it?
What are you trying to say?” Mio pressed Ayumi.

“Just that we shouldn't single out Nakamura and Kawabata.”

“But we should. They killed people.”

“You don't have to be special to kill people.”

“That may be, but these guys are. I don't know if it was for anime or animism, but…What do they take humans for?” Mio kicked the steel legs on her chair. “What kind of monster values invented characters over real human beings? Even when people used to kill cows and pigs, they knew not to kill each other. People have been picketed and even punished for catching fish and killing sharks! These guys killed
humans
! Are humans less important than sharks? Less important than these damned illustrations?”

“Humans aren't more or less important.” Ayumi looked straight at Mio. Mio widened her eyes.

“What did you say?”

“We're not bigger or smaller or even better or worse. Humans and fish
are the same
,” she said, and took a deep breath.

“Neither of them has special value,” she said finally.

“No value?” Mio walked over the cables on the floor and raised a fist to Ayumi.

“Are you saying Yuko's life had no value?”

Ayumi lifted her face. “No. I'm saying that to crush a bug or to murder a human is all the same. You take life. If we can't kill people, we shouldn't be allowed to kill bugs. That's why today we no longer eat murdered animals.”

“Yeah, but…”

“I'm not saying Yabe's life had no value. Just that hers wasn't any more special than another's. There's no such thing as a life that's too big or too small. Our lives are perfectly suited for the bodies we inhabit.

And none of us has a more special life than the other.”

“And that makes it okay to murder people, Kono?”

“I never said that.”
I never said that
, she repeated, and clenched her thin white fingers into fists of her own. “It's probably not okay to kill.”

“Of course it's not! It's a serious crime. I mean,
this
is a drawing. It's not a fish or a turtle. It's a fucking drawing. They're suggesting the drawing is more valuable than a human life. I can't understand that. And this drawing…it has no value whatsoever.”

Click. Mio turned off another monitor.

A snapping sound reverberated through the walls and ceiling as she powered down the last monitor.

“Those guys didn't care one way or the other about human life, right?”

“I don't think so.”

“Then what was it?”

“Nakamura and Kawabata didn't view human life lightly. The animation that these guys cherished—I've watched some of it too—and the message was always that human life is incredibly valuable, that the human life force is weightier than the earth. The plot was always some humanistic mumbo jumbo. So there's no way they viewed human life lightly. I just think they didn't realize a human's life was as sacred as a fish's life. In fact they thought human life was infinitely more important than that of any other animal. However, they killed one person, and nothing happened. Then they knew even less the value of life.”

“How so?”

“They got away with killing one human, and nothing in the world changed,” Ayumi said. “It's different from the world in the monitor.”

Yes.
This was something even Hazuki understood.

If truth lay only in the monitor, then what lay outside it was all false. In that case not even murdering a human would be real. You murder, get caught, go to court, get sentenced to jail. Thus was born the
murder case
. Until all that happened a killing was just a fantasy.

But…

Ayumi glanced at Hazuki and said, “This is different from what you think, Makino. Killing people is real. Like eating food.”

“Eating.”

“Sure.” Ayumi looked at her palms again. “No matter how immersed we get in our world of numbers, no matter how deep we escape into our monitors, we still have to eat. Even if it isn't life that we're eating, we take something, put it in our mouths, chew, digest, and defecate. That is all real.”

“Okay, and…?”

“You can say you ate but still be hungry. That's because we're living beings. So that's real too. Similarly, they can record your death, but as long as you're alive, you are still living. The records can say you were born, but until you come out of the womb you are not human. Your Cat friend doesn't exist according to the government, but clearly she's no ghost. I've seen her with my eyes and even talked to her. She exists. Makino is supposedly at home, but she's not. She's right here.”

Right.

According to the record, Hazuki was not here.

But right now, Hazuki was right here.

“Right?” Ayumi said to Mio. “Am I looking at the ghost of Makino? A false Makino?”

Possibly false
, Hazuki thought. But.

I'm right here.

“You see, humans are made of these squiggly innards that they stuff with food and turn to mud, which they then excrete and regenerate. They are born bloody and die bloodless. That can't be digitized. So killing humans is
real
.”

“But…”

Then why
…Hazuki thought.

“Reality is much more of this nothing than we think. Nakamura and Kawabata didn't understand that.”

“Nothing.
It's all nothing
,” Ayumi said. “If a player does something wrong in a game, he or she may lose and even risks being ejected from the game world. Game over. In real life there is no game over. The world doesn't end. Even if you kill someone, even if you do something you're absolutely not supposed to do, it's not like you won't be able to use your server anymore or that information will no longer be transmitted. The world will not end if you kill someone. Yabe was killed, Kawabata was killed, and tomorrow still came. So…

“They were
confused
,” Ayumi finished.

“Confused, eh? If they were killed for being confused then I can't stand for it,” Mio said quietly.

Ayumi passed a look straight through Mio's profile.

It was incredibly natural.

“Tsuzuki…you're a regular do-gooder.”

“Don't tease. Whether anyone dies or gets killed is not my business. It's someone else's problem. But I'm just frustrated. I'm pissed off because I don't know what's going on. What
is
going on? I wanted to observe everything taking place in the world. That's why I built these special monitors. But some guy I don't know has squirreled his way around the system and killed Yabe. I don't get it.”

“You're amazingly straightforward, Tsuzuki.” Ayumi sighed and walked toward the door that wouldn't open.

“Are you expecting someone?”

“No. Why?”

“Nothing…”

BAM!
From the hallway. Like someone had kicked at one of the doors leading to Mio's room.

Then the door in the middle and finally the door that could open, did.

“Mao…”

With straight long hair and her Chinese clothing, Rey Mao stood there. Rey Mao stood silently, then entered the room with a serious air and grabbed Mio by the collar and pulled her up from her seat.

“
What the hell what the hell?!
” Mio tried to scramble away.

“What the fuck did you do?”

“What the…Were you injured?”

“
Shut up!
” Rey Mao barked. Mao's clothing was torn and dirtied. There was blood on her face. The black clump by the side of her mouth also looked to be dried blood.

“What kind of arrangement was that?”

“It wasn't an a-arrangement! Cat, you're choking me.”

“Don't you dare call me that!” Rey Mao dropped Mio.

Mio fell hard onto the chair and then onto the floor.

“I knew it. You killed them. You're here to kill us now too.”

“Me, the killer? Then it
was
you who sold me out. For a second there I…”

Rey Mao went quiet and shook her shoulders.

“What do you mean for a second? What do you mean sold you out?”

“Stop fucking with me.”

Rey Mao raised her arm.

Mio craned her neck.

“We don't like it when we're betrayed. We hate it more than anything.”

Hazuki had been curled up, and now she was being pushed back to the corner. Ayumi proceeded forward and took Rey Mao by the arm.

“That's enough. If you hurt her…Your strength is a deadly weapon.”

Rey Mao looked at Ayumi.

“You…”

“What's this about?”

“It's about that night. You told the police about me.”

“We didn't.”

“Then why did they snoop around, looking for me?”

“I don't know anything about that,” Ayumi said.

Rey Mao shook off Ayumi's hand from her arm.

“You want to go at it?”

“No. I've told you before I don't know how to fight. I hate getting hit.”

“Stop talking nonsense.”

Rey Mao grabbed Ayumi this time. Mio flew up from behind her.

“Stop it, Cat.”

“Let go.” Rey Mao released her arm. The three of them fell against the wall. The case Ayumi was sitting on fell onto its side with a thud.

“You can't do that. It's dangerous!” Mio said loudly, throwing her body over the case. “You morons! W-what do you guys think this is?

This thing could blast us a kilometer into the earth!”

“Blast us?”

“It's the turtle I was telling you about, the turtle. My second attempt at it, anyway.”

“You mean your plasma weapon. That movie with the turtle—”

“I'm not planning on using it on anything…or anyone.” Mio shrank and sat back on the floor. She looked up at Rey Mao. “Just because you aren't documented doesn't mean you can do whatever the hell you want.
That really hurt
,” she said, rubbing her arms.

Rey Mao stood in a coil of cables set up by the wall, tense all the way down to her fingertips. Ayumi was leaning against the wall just a few paces from her and shifted her eyes from Rey Mao's arms to her face and said calmly,

“This weird girl did not sell you out. Not even I am interested enough to cause you trouble. If I'd reported you, I'd be questioned too.”

Rey Mao's look at Mio relaxed a little, and then she turned her face to Hazuki.

“You're that politician's daughter, aren't you?”

“I'm…”

“She has nothing to do with this either.”

“How do you know? She's on the side of the authorities.”

“So are Tsuzuki and I, then. What did you call it again?
Caged?
We're all caged.”

“Well then…”

Rey Mao picked up a cable and let go of it angrily. She said to Hazuki, “Why'd you send Yuko away?”

“She wasn't sent away. She was killed.” Mio stood up abruptly.

“See, this is why you need to get connected. Yabe is dead.”

“Dead…” Rey Mao slumped into the wall. “She died?”

“She's wrecked.”

“You
… weren't you there
?” Ayumi said.

“When?”

“We thought maybe when the area patrol came to pick up Yuko, you chased after them.”

Rey Mao didn't respond and instead looked sternly at Ayumi.

“Hey, were you there or not, Cat?” Mio asked angrily. “Why were you hiding from us then? Help us out! You seem good at physical labor. And Makino, if you knew she was there, why didn't you tell us?”

“I didn't know. I just…thought I did,” Hazuki said.