The attendant looked dismayed. There was nothing in her manual about this kind of situation.
“Just wait, please, Ms. Fuwaâ¦Hello, calling Counselor 458321.”
The entrance gate opened. The monitor screen blinked off.
Kunugi started running.
Kunugi passed the building at exactly the same time the monitor screen reilluminated.
“You may not leave the building. Wait right there.”
“Go.”
She pushed Ayumi out.
“Miss Fuwa, you may
not
leave the building.”
“Run, fast.”
“I'm closing the gate, per instructions from the director.”
The reinforced glass gate started to close.
“Both of us have to go.” Ayumi yanked Shizue's arm from the other side of the entrance.
“Ms. Fuwa!” Shizue tripped forward from the impact of Ayumi's pull.
Ayumi embraced her.
The gate closed.
Shizue, collapsed, took in a deep breath of the scent of Ayumi's arm that now held her up.
It was the smell of a beast.
HAZUKI HEARD BACK
from her father not thirty minutes after sending her message.
At the moment Hazuki sent her message, her foster father was in a meeting with an influential personâthe president of some big corporation Hazuki didn't recognize.
She was sure he would be surprised, since she'd never sent a message to her father before, and though her foster father was in this big important meeting, he read her message nonetheless.
Perhaps because the message reached him in the midst of work, his reply was curt. And yet it was clear he was worried. It was different from the kind of message Hazuki would sendâdirect language meant to avoid any misinterpretation.
Hazuki was sure she'd understood exactly how her father felt, but conversely it was
his
interpretation of what Hazuki was going through that was now uncertain.
Her foster father was not so much concerned with whether the intruder Hazuki had identified turned out to be the latest murder victim in this killing spree, but that there had been an intruder at his house so shortly after he'd just come in to check on his daughter. Normally in a situation like that the guardian would be alerted directly. He was not only going to send a message of complaint to the security company for not having received any notice, but he would also ask for a detailed account of what took place.
He'd sent a message, received a message, made a vocal communication, and his communication duties were completed.
That should about do it.
It wasn't as if he needed to be apprised of the situation in detail.
Besides, what her father was doing or thinking were all the assumptions of a child, from a child's point of view. It'd be impossible to conjecture. Hazuki herself hadn't grasped the circumstances she'd been put in. What the problem was, or how to resolve it, were practically unknowable for her. She just couldn't relax. Her feelings wouldn't settle.
She was probably sad.
This was probably what it was like to be sad.
She'd done something out of the ordinary, so it followed that she'd feel out of the ordinary.
If this was what happened when one dealt with other people, she did not want to interact with people anymore, or so Hazuki, for a moment, thought.
She faced her terminal and started to do homework as a matter of habit.
As long as she was studying she wouldn't think about Yuko or Ayumi or Mio.
It was nice to be moving automatically.
Not even nice. It was a state of no feelings at all.
An hour later she received a vocal prompt.
“Are you studying?”
It was her foster father on the monitor.
“How did you know?” Hazuki asked.
“Because you answered so quickly. You must have already been facing your monitor. Besides, you are always studying at this hour.”
“Yeah, but⦔
He was like a dog. Animals only knew how to recognize patterns, Mio had said. Hazuki didn't like that.
“I went ahead and asked D&S about it. I mean, the security company. The meeting I just came out of just happened to be with the new president of the company.”
“Oh. Is that right?” She didn't voice any opinion on the matter.
Should she have found that a relief?
“So I was able to confirm right there,” her foster father said.
“You mean you confirmed that she was⦔
“A different person.”
“Different? What was different?”
“The girl who was caught climbing onto our property and that groupmate who met her untimelyâ¦I'm sorry, she wasn't a groupmate, was she? She wasn't even your age. According to their report the girl was an eighteen-year-old life preservationist. One of those who believe even antiseptic cleaners used to kill bacteria are inhumane. Actually she'd been harping for antiseptics to be called floracides.”
Who
cares
?
“She just wanted politicians to acknowledge that it is living beings we kill when we approve antibacterials,” he said. “One of these people who believed we have to be aware of all the murder we commit in order to lead healthy lives. Anyway, the girl who tried to break into our house was in one of these organizations. She was there to petition something.”
What planet was he on?
“Normally they're supposed to make appointments to see me and make
real contact
, but you know, those guys are impetuous.”
“Those guys⦔
I don't know those guys
, Hazuki thought.
“You're lying.”
“I'm not lying,” her foster father said politely.
If this wasn't a lie, then it was Hazuki's story that was a lie.
“I have it on record, so it can't be a lie,” her foster father said. “They even showed me the record themselves, and just to be extra sure they let me talk to the security personnel that apprehended her, along with the area patrol that accompanied him. I confirmed their patrol car ID and everything.”
Car ID. Hazuki didn't remember it, but she knew Mio would. She thought about asking for it but realized it would seem unnatural and was probably a waste of time at this point. Mio had said that the patrol record was erased.
In which case all of this was bullshit.
“As for why I didn't get notice of this myself, D&S is not to blame. They are doing their sincere best to fulfill their duties. You weren't harmed, were you?”
“No, I wasn't,” Hazuki said.
Should I have been?
“Well, I know it was probably unpleasant, but nothing happened. They even responded to your call inside the time they guarantee. They were apparently just held up in processing the data from the night's report.”
Hazuki didn't doubt that. The data was being rewritten.
“In the case of an intrusion, after the target has been secured, the security company is contractually obligated to contact the police as well as the security client within twenty-four hours with a detailed report. In this case, myself and you should both be receiving a report.”
Hazuki didn't want that report.
That wasn't the problem. There was no point in announcing that the person apprehended was Yuko Yabe. There was no point. She was dead.
On top of which, being told this story about some girl she'd never seen or heard of was only confusing.
“This time, they were apparently having difficulty identifying the intruder. She didn't have an ID card or portable monitor on her. That was probably to protect accomplices who helped her get on our property.”
Lies. This was all made up.
“Furthermore, they were having a hard time processing the data. They don't know why, but the information chain got stopped up somewhere. I own three properties in just this area alone and many more in the whole prefecture. It could be because of that. The security in this entire prefecture is managed by D&S alone, so you can imagine it gets confusing. Still, they've apologized,” her foster father said.
“They assured your safety but didn't protect you after all. The president, the CEO, and our security liaison all expressed great regret. They wanted to come and apologize to you personally at the home, but I figured that would be a nuisance for you.”
Nuisance was right. There was no reason to come visit the home.
“Usually I'd announce this publicly and make it a problem, but I've decided to leave them alone since they did inspect the system so expeditiously and assured resolution of the problem. Oh, but of course if this isn't enough for you, I will definitely take punitive measures against them.”
“It's not that it's not enough, it's just⦔
It was all wrong. Someone was fabricating the truth.
The past was being tampered with. Hazuki's experience had been negated.
“Do you know the name of this girl?”
A made-up girl like that couldn't possibly have a name
, Hazuki thought. It was a lie, after all.
But her foster father uttered a name.
“It was technically illegal entry, but she didn't get past the front gate, so we can't really sue her. It's not a criminal case, so there's no police report to file. But if you're still feeling scared, that's reason enough to place a fine on her. Do you want me to do that?”
That would be pointless.
This woman was probably not real. A girl who existed only in a terminal, only as a fragment of data. Since data was truth, and what was in the terminal was evidence of truth, then this person probably existed. But if this girl existed, that made Hazuki the phantom.
Hazuki was the lie.
“I don't want a lawsuit.”
“You're right,” her father said. “Taking this to court would be difficult. But if you don't think D&S adequately looked into the bug or demonstrated sufficient good faith, I will turn this incident into a worldwide spectacle and demand proper resolution. Fortunately nothing bad happened this time, but there must be times this kind of thing yields much worse outcomes, so I can certainly take extreme measures. This is a precarious situation to be put in for anyone living in this prefecture, no, in this country. In a more serious situation this would have to be dealt with by central. This might force a reassessment of everything from the relationship between the area patrol and security companies to system license standards.”
These words meant nothing to Hazuki.
He was probably exactly correct.
Words so exacting that other adults who spoke this way would understand easily
, she thought. She thought, but she knew the words and the reality were disjointed.
“Anyway, I'm glad you brought this to my attention,” her foster father said. “To be honest, I was really surprised, then worried, when I received your message, but actually I was also glad. This is the first time I've heard from you in a while.”
Glad?
Hazuki didn't understand why receiving a communication from her would make him happy.
“Oh, and as for the murder case, well the victim count has gone up, but this incident doesn't help solve the case at all. It truly pains me not to be able to be there with you, honestly. Unfortunately I just can't. But I've requested a special patrol tour of the premises. A patrol officer will be regularly checking in on the house, so please don't worry.”
That wasâ¦
“Father.” It was the first time Hazuki had called him that. She didn't know why.
Maybe because she was feeling so desolate. Her foster father made a seemingly happy, seemingly sad, difficult-to-interpret facial expression and said, “It's going to be all right.”
The monitor went blank.
All right
.
Would it be all right?
“Dad⦔
Her body was sunk, but her mood was floating. Her body and mind were not in sync. It made her uncomfortable.
Was she scared?
Yes, scared.
What was she scared of? She'd never felt this way before.
Hazuki took the disc out of its case and put it in the desktop computer on her table.
Recorded on that disc, per the workings of Mio, was another truth that had been pulled and copied from the house's main terminal data bank.
But it was actually not a fact anymore. It was a lie.
She ran the recording.
It displayed the time.
A girl appears before the gate and collapses.
It displays the fact that a security transmission is sent.
Five minutes later the screen freezes.
Then the patrol officer and security representative arrive.
Voice.
We've apprehended the intruder.
Could you please verify?
Her face appears on the screen.
That sullen face.
Hazuki's voice.
I don't know her.
Their voices.
Really?
Could that have really been someone she did not know? She said she didn't know who it was, and that was what was on record; that was now the truth. The past could only be verified by records like this.
No.
The girl she didn't know that appeared on her monitor smiles faintly.
It was Yuko. It was definitely Yuko Yabe.
Hazuki froze the image of Yuko smiling, because it was the only frame in which Hazuki was certain it was her. A girl she'd never seen or known before wouldn't smile like that. Would never smile
for her
like that.
Then she slumped, got serious. Hazuki remembered the warmth of the touch of flesh. The
feel
of a human.
The smell.
That was the unrecorded memory of Yuko Yabe.
Those things were not recorded on this disc. Therefore, this disc would not be able to prove anything. This so-called life preservationist girl probably had a face very similar to Yuko's. No way to distinguish them from just a grainy monitor image.
If there were no record of Yuko, there was definitely going to be problems.