Loups-Garous (62 page)

The smoke gradually drifted to the floor, leaving a rug of white clouds coating it.

Rey Mao stood there with a pained expression.

With her left hand she held one man by his collar. Her right hand dug into his throat.

His neck broke. Rey Mao let go. With his head nearly completely turned around, the man slipped onto the floor, sinking into the smoke.

The other man…

The other man's head was crammed into the readout screen of an electric gauge. After shaking a few moments, his body stopped moving.

The man on the operating table was on his side, quivering. There was a large operating knife in his chest. One of the other men had been wielding it. He must have been caught in the crossfire. The red stain on his white coat kept spreading. It streamed over the side of the countertop, a thread of red liquid pouring into the white smoke. The man turned his eyes toward his own blood and, with his eyes still wide open, stopped moving.

He'd been killed with an operating knife on the very operating table where he'd vivisected so many humans before.

“I killed him,” Rey Mao said. “I knew from experience.”

“Rey Mao…”

“It's just like she said,” Rey Mao said and looked at her hands. “I knew that if I dug in at that angle, with that pressure, I could break his neck. I knew that my hands were lethal weapons. But at that moment, I could think of nothing else.”

Nothing except killing a human being.

“So this is what it's like,” Rey Mao said. “He had a life. He probably had feelings and dreams too. And it was so easy to—”

“Easy to
get
killed too, Cat,” Mio said. “If you hadn't done it, we would have ended up like them. The real crime is throwing a bunch of girls into a ‘kill or be killed' scenario. We didn't walk into this situation on purpose. Listen, Rey Mao, this isn't just your responsibility. We're culpable too. We're also all responsible for the guy who was here alone at first doing who knows what. We'll redeem ourselves after it's all over. If we survive, that is.”

“You're not bothered,” Rey Mao said with a dark expression on her face.

Hazuki closed her eyes, but it wasn't as though she didn't want to face the reality.

She understood Ayumi's feelings, Rey Mao's feelings, Mio's words.

She was angry too. She didn't know why, but she felt like fighting back.

Hazuki thought it would be exhilarating to take all the bad people in the world and obliterate them.

But…

She also thought it sounded horrible. She thought it was mean.

Animals eat other animals.

She thought that was sad.

But.

She wondered what life was.

And that was why she closed her eyes.

“This is no time for pondering,” Mio said. “If we dilly-dally we won't be able to think about either crimes or punishments.”

So she went into the room from which the men had appeared.

“Come,” Mio said.

Inside was a girl wearing an operating gown, sleeping.

She was held down by sturdy-looking restraints. There was something attached to her mouth.

Mio drew up some data with her goggles.

“Umm. This is Ritsuko Kisugi herself. Are you okay? You didn't get eaten yet, did you?”

Mio looked under the bed and found the release to the restraints.

“No, you haven't been eaten yet. I'm Tsuzuki. This is Makino. That's Rey Mao. Hey, are you all right?”

Ritsuko Kisugi sat up and pulled out the object in her mouth. “What's going on? What is it this time?”

“Nothing. We came to save you. We committed a major crime and came as quickly as we could. You were about to be eaten. Aren't you scared at all?”

“I-I know. I
am
scared. I thought it was all over for me. There's another one here. In there.”

There was a heavy-looking metal door with a large handle.

Rey Mao rushed over.

Inside that room was Hinako Sakura, seated.

“All right!” Mio said.

CHAPTER
028

SOMETHING PAINFUL CAME
up from the back of her throat.

It didn't matter how thoroughly one cleaned one's body, it was filled with germs. It was filthy.

Shizue brought her hand up to her mouth.

She started heaving, her stomach convulsing.

Kunugi was taken aback as well. He didn't have the words. It felt like a practical joke. A joke that had gone too far. But it wasn't a joke.

Little girls were being kidnapped and killed for their organs to be eaten.

On top of which the people behind it were in the police force.

It was absurd. Even the worst broadcast channels would never broadcast this kind of story. Not even a hundred years ago would such a ridiculous story ever be written.

There was no way this could be real.

But…

The man in charge, Ishida, apprised them, candidly.

His stomach turned. The fluids in his stomach coursed the wrong way.

He couldn't breathe.

He didn't want to share the air this man breathed.

“My great-grandfather, Yutaro Suzuki…not even I know the full extent of his influence on the world today.”

Kunugi didn't want to know any of this. He didn't want to hear Ishida's voice.

“He started with nothing and built himself up. I'm sure there are two sides to his story. But as a result, the core systems of this country have been hugely influenced by him. My great-grandfather's power went beyond just nation-building.”

“That's why he's allowed to
eat
human beings?” Kunugi's parched voice finally put an end to Ishida's talking. “Important people get to eat humans?”

“As I said before, we have to do everything in our power to keep him alive and happy.”

“I can't see why. You're deluded. I don't even believe he's really alive.”

“But of course he is. Though he's withdrawn himself from politics and the like.”

“What do you mean, politics?”

“Oh, various things. But staying registered was not good for keeping him alive.”

“You idiot!” Kunugi was stammering. He had nothing to add. Not even Shizue could think of an appropriate response to the unreal things coming out of Ishida's mouth. There was no vocabulary for it.

“He's in great health,” Ishida said. “He loves watching old historical films. His mind works perfectly and he still remembers everything. His vision hasn't deteriorated, and he hasn't lost the power of speech. Unfortunately his muscles have atrophied, so he is bedridden.”

“Of course he is,” Kunugi said. “Life expectancy has gone up, and so has the population of seniors, but it's only one small percentage of them that are actually healthy. Ninety percent of them have learned to live again after overcoming some kind of disease. A 115-year-old man walking around would have to be some kind of monster. I take that back, he
is
a monster.”

“Take that back,” Ishida said. “Did you hear this, Miss Fuwa? He just used discriminatory terminology. Right? There's nothing to indicate he is infirm, but just because he's old, he's discriminating against my great-grandfather. Isn't it a person's right to be whatever age he can, to eat what he wants? Those things shouldn't affect our judgment of an individual's character. To call him a monster is outrageous.”

“The kind of person who kills humans in order to eat them doesn't deserve that right,” Kunugi yelled.

“That's a problematic statement.”

“Damn right it is. It's derogatory, yes. I don't care. It's my own private opinion. Are you going to sue me or something? Oh but wait, none of your surveillance equipment is working. I can say whatever I want and there won't be any proof of it.”

Ishida shot him a cold look.

Kunugi rubbed his bad arm.

“There's no record of you attacking me either. There's no data, so it's like none of this happened.”

“Didn't I already mention I create the data?”

“Gah!” Kunugi yelled. “Didn't I tell you I'm stupid? I've been trying to understand this unusual situation for a while now, and I still don't get it.”

Ishida turned just his face toward Kunugi.

“I mean because your great-grandfather's firm produces synthetic meat, right? It's just like the real thing. But is that just no match for the real thing either? Are you putting one over on everyone because our tastes have deteriorated?”

“SVC's food products have been widely acclaimed the world over. Humanity's past food culture couldn't sustain itself. No company could keep providing the raw ingredients of cuisine forever. Various industries agreed on this point and made a joint statement. Even you should know that.”

“It's because I know it that I'm asking, why this?”

“Why what?”

“Don't kill animals. Protect the earth. There's not enough food for everyone. I understand all that. It's all true. If we can concoct meat or fish with vitamins and chemicals, then do it. I get it. But—”

“Yes…it's all true. I understand what you are saying, Kunugi. In fact Yutaro Suzuki was quite instrumental in the movement for preservation of all life, right? In fact he was an honorary trustee of the International Endangered Animal Protection Foundation, and he founded the Marine Life Ecology Restoration Project.”

“In his lifetime,” Shizue said. She swallowed hard.

She didn't know Yutaro Suzuki so much as the spearhead of the bioengineering revolution, but rather for those acts—the preservation of life. An antiquated sense of love for animals; a champion of the cause who had a profound influence on the movement.

“He was also a big part of the ban on commercial fishing and helped found the national nature preservation department.”

“Those are all my great-grandfather's accomplishments, Miss Fuwa,” Ishida said.

“Why does a person like that eat humans?”

“That's why he went into the business of making synthetic meats in the first place,” Ishida said.

“I don't understand.”

“My great-grandfather fought in that ridiculous war and met a truly horrible fate. He died there. But what brought him back to life was human meat,” Ishida said.

“H-human meat?!”

“His troops had been decimated, and my great-grandfather, mortally wounded and about to die, was saved by a commissioned officer. The food that this officer gave my great-grandfather, to revive him, was human flesh.” Shizue felt nauseated again.

“He came back from the dead. However, the whole time he was recuperating he had no idea what he had eaten that day. Then one day, he learned the truth. And then astonished and disappointed, he lost all hope.”

“Of course he did. I would have gone insane. But who knows, maybe I'd be okay with it,” said the injured policeman, his voice drifting.

“He became religious. He sought mercy from various belief systems. No one would absolve him.”

Ishida let his chair fall over and walked over to the wall.

“The fact that he ate it was out of his control. He tried to pretend it didn't happen. He hadn't set out to do that. But he couldn't escape it. He felt worse and worse about it.”

“Obviously,” Shizue said after taking several short breaths. “It wouldn't be normal if he didn't feel some guilt. Cannibalism is truly an aberration.”

“You can't say that.” Ishida turned his chair around.

“Why not?”

“You're a counselor. You can't make such a generalized accusation. Listen, my great-grandfather felt guilty about eating human flesh. Continues to feel guilt about it. He thinks about it every chance he gets and
can't forget the taste
,” Ishida said.

“Then…oh God…”

Ishida nodded.

“The guilt over not being able to forget the taste of human meat is different from the guilt experienced from the mere fact of eating it. The difference being that he now
wants
to eat it.”

He wants to eat it.

“My great-grandfather fears the self that wants to eat it. He feared he'd end up eating it. He knew that even if he really wanted to consume human flesh, it was still the one thing he could not eat. He had no choice but to kill and eat another human being. To quell his desire he had to commit this ultimate crime against humanity. That is the nature of a forbidden penchant.”

“You're supposed to resist that kind of temptation,” Kunugi said.

“We've earned our careers arresting people who can't, you know,” said Ishida.

“My great-grandfather
did
resist. He's a law-abiding citizen. He resisted for a long time. Then he realized something. He could create something like it out of different ingredients. In order to satisfy his desire legally, there was only that.”

“That's why he developed synthetic food products?”

The food Shizue had been eating for so long was born from this motive.

“When the war ended, there was something called ‘substitute foods,' what with countries defeated in war typically descending into poverty. My great-grandfather made that the basis of his initiative. He wanted to process the game meat he could obtain and make synthetic human meat according to how he remembered it tasting. The idea to create food without killing live animals was all born in this moment. All other food materials were a by-product.

“That's how he's managed to live so long,” Ishida said, circling the table with his fingertip. “Eventually, Yutaro Suzuki acquired the wonderful technology and tremendous wealth that would have a huge impact on society. He left many a legacy. SVC technology has raised nutritional standards the world over. Yet despite all this, he was still unable to capture the flavor of human meat.”

“You're saying it's beyond technology.”

“We weren't able to communicate this to technicians properly. The expressive power of language surrounding taste and fragrance is tremendously attenuated,” Ishida said, tapping his desk. “There were millions upon billions of different configurations for compound structure and homogenization of every flavor. We were slowly but surely advancing, but we categorically failed at the nuances of seasoning. It was the same with beef and pork. SVC's synthetic meats were a lot closer to the taste of the real thing than cultivated clones. In fact it wasn't just close, it
was
the real thing. SVC doesn't make replicas. It rediscovered originals. Cultivated meat and living meat are so different. The reason other companies have failed to do what we have done isn't just that they can't master the manufacturing process or because the elements of their ingredients are different. It's because the designs are too complicated and detailed. But the one thing we've failed at is human meat.”