3
Saint Petersburg’s index case, Clara Lee, had been absent from the ballet
academy on the day she was infected. Based on the Your Forma’s records, Lee
was an eighteen-year-old Norwegian girl, hailing from Kirkenes in Finnmark
county.
She had joined Saint Petersburg’s ballet academy as an exchange student and
lived in the student dorms. Lee had no criminal record and, much
like Washington’s and Paris’s index cases, was an upstanding but otherwise
ordinary civilian.
But for some reason, she had disappeared somewhere.
“As far as I can see, she’s nothing but a victim. So why would she need to
run?” Echika mused.
“Guilt at infecting her friends, perhaps,” Harold replied. “I’m looking through
Lee’s social media accounts right now.”
Echika and Harold were currently sitting in the Niva. It had been two hours
since they left Saint Petersburg, and the border checkpoint for entering Finland
from Russia was coming into view.
After inquiring about her at the academy, they learned that Lee took time off
from her studies due to her grandfather’s funeral. But according to the
database, her grandfather had passed away several years ago. In other words, Lee lied.
By cross-referencing Saint Petersburg’s security drones, they found out Lee
rented a car from the closest parking lot to the dorms. After following its route,
they confirmed Lee had taken it to the city of Kautokeino, which was some four
hundred kilometers away from her hometown.
They didn’t know why she went there, but they were at least able to confirm
her current location, which made things quick.
However, her infected Your Forma’s signal seemed to have shut down, leaving
Echika with no choice but to track her by foot, the old-fashioned way, which
was why they were driving to Kautokeino now. Being crammed into a car with
an Amicus for hours on end did leave her rather dejected, though.
“Look at this, Investigator. A perfect dance,” Harold told her, holding up a
holo-browser window. Inside was a video of Lee, clad in a tutu and engaged in a
flexible, graceful performance. Harold probably found it somewhere on her
social media. “It’s a variation on Flames of Paris, but she doesn’t so much as
tremble on tiptoe. Her technique puts some pros to shame.”
“She might be talented, but I don’t see how that has any bearing on the case.”
Echika placed her hands on the steering wheel to distract herself from the
cold. The car was currently in automatic-driving mode. Harold was in the
passenger seat, fiddling with his wristwatch-model wearable information
terminal to browse through Lee’s social media. Amicus were always online, but
that connection was limited to IoT (Internet of Things) purposes. They still
needed information terminals to browse the web.
“How about this, then? Don’t you think it’s a weird way of drinking coffee?”
He showed her a picture of a mug of coffee with a generous amount of
cheese in it. It was accompanied by a caption reading, “my favorite.” Echika
had seen a glimpse of it earlier in the Mnemosynes. She had the Your Forma
analyze the image, and it only took a moment for it to look up the answer.
“Coffee with goat cheese… That’s part of the indigenous Sami people’s
culinary traditions,” she remarked, as additional information flowed into her
field of vision. “And apparently, Kautokeino, the city Lee is in right now, has
many Sami residents.”
“That area is a technologically restricted zone populated by luddites, who
object to the use of machinery. And the Sami also make a living off reindeer
husbandry, but some of them work as back-alley doctors behind the scenes.”
“Yes, that’s a pretty famous anecdote back in the office. But to be exact,
they’re not back-alley doctors; they’re bio-hackers.”
Bio-hackers were those paid to use cyborg technology to modify, or bio-hack,
their clients’ bodies. To accomplish this, they utilized illicit drugs and musclecontrol
chips, which was why they were sometimes referred to as back-alley physicians.
Many bio-hackers were minority people hired by underworld organizations.
Their struggles to maintain their culture drove them to poverty, and so there
were many observed cases of such bio-hackers working for large sums of money.
Needless to say, this was all highly illegal.
“So Lee went to a bio-hacker to have her infected Your Forma removed…?”
Echika asked, puzzled. “But wait, why not just go to a normal hospital for that?
Why take that risk?”
“Yes,” Harold said, nodding. “I believe Lee is under the impression the
hallucinations she’s seeing are the result of some other machine malfunctioning
inside her body. Don’t you think that’s plausible?”
“What do you mean? The database says she’s healthy and has no chronic diseases.
She shouldn’t need any machines inside her body except for the Your Forma.”
“Incidentally, Investigator, have you ever watched ballet?”
Echika blinked. What’s this all of a sudden?
“Do I look like a dance fan? You’re the one who called me indifferent.”
“Allow me to apologize for that, even if it is belated. That wasn’t appropriate
to say to a lady,” he said, bowing his head.
“That’s not the issue.” She didn’t want him to treat her as anything but a
coworker anyway. “But what about ballet?”
“It’s just…” Harold hesitated for a moment. “Never mind. I’ll explain later.”
Following that, silence settled over the Niva. It was awkward. Feeling
uncomfortable, Echika lowered the window. The freezing wind cut into her
cheek, but she ignored it and placed the electronic cigarette between her lips.
Harold knew she hated Amicus. Things would be so much easier if he was like
Benno and openly expressed his feelings, but Harold wasn’t like that. He was
always calm and collected, which made it hard to tell what was on his mind.
Echika blew out a wisp of smoke outside the car’s window.
“How long have you been smoking, Investigator?” Harold suddenly asked,
making her jolt.
Leave me alone.
“I told you not to ask about my private life. If the cigarette’s bothering you, I’ll
turn it off.”
“I don’t mind. I like the scent of mint.”
“…Some people say it doesn’t taste much like a cigarette, though.”
“Well, you should tell those people that it’s much healthier than nicotine.”
As part of their Laws of Respect, Amicus always have to behave amicably
toward humans. He won’t act any different, no matter how much I try to close
my heart off to him. That’s how they slither their way into people’s hearts.
Like I’ll fall for that.
“Let me ask you about work,” Echika brought up curtly. “Did functioning as
my Belayer really not cause you any damage?”
“None at all. My abilities are verified as equivalent to yours. Can’t you believe
the numbers?”
It wasn’t so much that she couldn’t believe them as she didn’t want to. Much
as she hated to admit it, his data-processing speed was a startlingly close match
for hers, and to prove it, she’d experienced a countercurrent during the Brain
Diving earlier.
When their affinity with their Belayer was high, a Diver could sometimes
accidentally draw on their own Mnemosynes. Since she’d never worked with an
aide who matched her before, she’d experienced it for the first time in the
hospital just then.
“I had a countercurrent earlier… Did you see anything?”
“No. The Belayer only sees the Mnemosynes of the targets the Diver is
exploring. Even then, I only see it like a movie on fast-forward.”
“That much I know.” And when they can’t catch up to that quick current of
information, their brain fries over, like with Benno.
“When you slipped into your own Mnemosynes, the footage cut off, and all I
saw was static noise. In other words, I could tell you were going through a
countercurrent, but I couldn’t make out your Mnemosynes.”
“I see… Well, I’ll try to keep the countercurrents to a minimum.”
The fact that Harold couldn’t glimpse into her Mnemosynes was honestly a
relief. By contrast, the fact that she was so highly compatible with an Amicus of
all things was far less encouraging. Scratch that, it was terrible.
“You don’t have to act so fed up.”
“I’m not acting fed up.”
“It’ll take us thirteen hours to get to Kautokeino,” Harold said with a graceful smile.
“That’s enough time for you to overcome your aversion to Amicus and
get to know me.”
Echika grimaced. What is he thinking?
“I told you, we aren’t friends.”
“Because I’m an Amicus, right?”
“No, that would be true for anyone. I’m not going to go out of my way to play
nice.”
“Well, I, for one, would love to get to know you.”
“Well, good for you, but I refuse.”
What’s his damage?
If a human said no, an Amicus was supposed to respect that and keep their
distance. She’d felt this way since she met him, but there was something oddly
cheeky about Harold. It was like he had his own unique personality.
“What’s the point of us getting chummy? Letting our personal feelings get
involved in this will just make it harder to do our jobs.”
“I’m shocked,” he said, widening his eyes in deliberate surprise. “You were
thinking of getting that close to me?”
“Huh?” What is this bucket of bolts saying?
“I mean, personal feelings that would get in the way of doing our jobs refers
to a very particular kind, right?”
She mentally gave herself a weary pat on the back for not knocking the
Amicus down on the ground for that one.
“Aide Lucraft… Can you see what’s strapped to my leg?”
“Yes, it’s a Flamma 15, the Electrocrime Investigations Bureau’s standardissue
automatic pistol.”
“Correct. And being an Amicus, you’re forbidden from possessing weapons. In
other words, you’re defenseless.”
“It was just a joke; you don’t need to get worked up,” Harold said, placing his
hand on the window frame with a composed smile. “You’re a pretty interesting
person. I’m sure we’ll get along swimmingly.”
As she contemplated the pros and cons of pumping a round into him, Echika
angrily switched off her electronic cigarette, closed the window, and grumpily
turned on the heating.
“It’s been five minutes, so it’s my turn to warm up.”
“Yes, I’ll put up with it for five minutes, then.”
Harold preferred the cold, while Echika had a normal human body
temperature, so they’d decided to alternate between switching the heating on
and off every five minutes as a compromise. Folding to a damn machine’s
demand was humiliating, though.
“Listen to me, okay? Stop teasing humans.”
“I wasn’t teasing. I really do want to get to know you.”
“Say one more weird thing, and I’ll be claiming the right to keep the heating
on for three hours.”
“I’ve been meaning to ask, but if you’re so cold, why wear tights instead of
something thicker?
“These fibers produce heat and are easy to move in. They’re warm, but
they’re far from perfect.”
“So you’re just sensitive to the cold.”
“No, you’re the weird one here. You’d have to not be human to be fine when
it’s below freezing.”
“How well-informed of you.”
“…That’s not what I meant.”
What a pest!
Their destination, Kautokeino, turned out to be a rather deserted rural
settlement. Its buildings weren’t even built densely enough to really be called a
town. The main road was paved in the middle of the snowy field, the residential
houses looked like nostalgic mountain shacks, and a church, a post office, and a
school dotted the area.
Technologically restricted areas like this one were populated by luddite
minorities, who’d rejected all manner of technological devices during the era of
the pandemic, including thread devices. These segregated communities
spanned the globe.
The pair had arrived during polar night, so the sun wouldn’t be rising even at
nine AM. The sky just barely lit overhead, the Niva pulled into a parking lot
adjacent to the only supermarket in town.
“We can’t do anything,” Echika bemoaned, seated at the driver’s seat as she
sucked on a jelly pouch. “Without any surveillance drones in the area, we don’t
have any way of tracking Lee down.”
The most dependable method of locating targets who Your Forma couldn’t
detect was to rely on surveillance cameras or drones set up around a city. That
hadn’t changed in years. But much to her displeasure, Echika realized that
Kautokeino had neither cameras nor drones. Even deliveries had to be made by
hand. Some restricted zones still had surveillance cameras set up, strictly to
maintain the public order, but this section wasn’t one of them.
“This town is simply sticking to the principles of a restricted zone,” Harold
said, tearing a jelly pouch open. “Why don’t we enjoy this serene scenery a
while longer?”
“What’s so interesting about looking at a town from the Stone Age?”
“Oh, no, this is Bronze Age at worst.”
“You really meant that, didn’t you?”
“Let’s stay on the lookout here,” Harold said, glancing at the supermarket.
“This place is the only food source in the city. And without any drones flying
around, I doubt e-commerce sites deliver to the area, so if anyone needs to
shop for food, they’d have to come here. There’s a high probability Lee will
show up.”
Something that convenient couldn’t possibly happen. To begin with, Lee had
only gotten out of the rental car in Kautokeino, so they didn’t know for sure if
she was even staying in its limits.
That being said, the fifteen-hour drive had been exhausting. Echika’s body felt
like mud as she leaned against the car seat. She glanced at Harold, who was
sucking on his jelly pouch. Much like humans, Amicus could ingest food, but
their energy source was a power-generation system based on liquid circulation,
so it wasn’t like they converted what they ate into energy.
Eating was simply an option for them, included for the sake of making them
look and feel more human, and their artificial stomachs simply broke down and
disposed of anything they consumed.
“When we get back, I’d like to have some hot borscht,” he remarked. “This
jelly is just nasty.”
“Nasty?” Echika asked indifferently. “It’s got all five major nutrients included,
and you can finish it in no time. It’s convenient.”
Harold knit his brow in a clear gesture of disappointment.
“Are you sure you’re not hiding a charging port somewhere under those
clothes, Investigator? Like some of the early Amicus models.”
“Huh? If anything, why are you going on about whether food tastes good or
not? Act more like a machine.”
In all the time she’d spent with him on the way here, Echika had come to a
single conclusion—she’d never get along with this robot. That would be true for
any Amicus, but in his case, he was her polar opposite.
Either way, Echika pulled herself together. She’d need to come up with her
next move. Using her Your Forma to deploy her data on this case, she
scavenged for any clues she might have overlooked. Meanwhile, Harold
continued observing the customers entering and leaving the market. Did he
have some basis to believe Lee might pass through? Echika hoped so but
couldn’t bring herself to expect much.
Time ticked by, and the cold air seeping in through the window sapped the
warmth from her fingertips little by little. The sky brightened slowly before
gradually fading away. Then the lights of the settlement flicked on.
Echika had already thrown in the towel and started to doze off when it happened.
“Investigator, wake up.”
“Nn, no… Nothing’s getting me out of bed today… Nng…”
“You’re half asleep, aren’t you? I found Lee.”
What?!
Echika awoke at once. Peering through the Niva’s windshield, she saw a blue
jeep parked near the entrance of the market. The door of the driver’s seat had
just slammed shut, and she couldn’t make out who had settled into the car.
“It’s that jeep. To be exact, it’s not Lee herself but a Sami who’s sheltering her.”
“What are you talking about?” That didn’t make any sense. “We didn’t get
any information on someone sheltering her …”
“No, there’s no mistaking it. You know about my eyesight, right? Trust me.”
How could she trust him? Was she really supposed to believe he could
discern, just by glancing at someone, not only their ethnicity but also if they
were sheltering Lee in their house?
That couldn’t be, but she was too groggy to piece together a logical argument.
As they spoke, the jeep’s taillights flickered red, and the vehicle began driving away.
“Tail her, please. And you should probably wipe your chin off as soon as you
can. You’re drooling.”
“I’m not. I wasn’t sleeping that deeply! Besides, even if I was, I wouldn’t drool!”
“Investigator, the jeep is getting away.”
“Ugh, fine!”
If this is just a wild-goose chase, you’ll never hear the end of it!
Switching the Niva to manual, Echika stomped down on the accelerator. She
pulled out of the parking lot, sliding onto the main road in pursuit of the jeep.
But there were no other cars around, and visibility was too good.
“We’re in plain sight. How is this tailing them…?”
“Well, there aren’t many streets the residents can take, so it’s not that suspicious.”
“Like you can say that with such an obviously Russian vehicle,” Echika noted, exasperated.
After driving roughly five kilometers, the jeep suddenly decelerated, cutting a
left turn without turning on its blinkers before entering the premises of a
residential dwelling, where it parked.
Echika passed the residence and stopped the Niva at the shoulder of the road
a few meters ahead.
“She got out of the car,” Harold whispered, using his superior Amicus eyesight
to observe the house. “See, she didn’t notice us.”
Echika reached for a pair of binoculars sitting on the dashboard and stared at
the jeep. Thanks to the night-vision scope outfitted to the binoculars, she could
see clearly even amid the darkness.
The jeep’s driver was a relatively young girl, about the same age as Echika.
She was petite, and her chestnut-colored hair was tied into adorable braids. She
was just barely carrying a hefty paper bag. All things considered, she resembled
a perfectly ordinary girl, and nothing seemed to imply she was sheltering Lee, of
course.
“So why do you think she’s the one? Did you find a picture of her on Lee’s socials?”
“No, let me explain. Look at her closely,” Harold instructed, and Echika
reluctantly obeyed. “See that jewelry on her wrist? That’s a Duodji bracelet,
made of reindeer horns, tendon, and skin weaved together with pewter. It’s a
traditional Sami handicraft.”
“So she’s Sami. But you can’t assume they’re all bio-hackers. It’s jumping to
conclusions to presume she’s sheltering Lee just because of the bracelet.”
“But she bought a lot of instant food, and she was the only customer I saw
who was doing that. Maybe she avoided buying perishables to minimize the
number of times she has to go grocery shopping? What if, for instance, she had
a reason to avoid going outside and being seen?”
“Wait… How can you tell all she bought is instant food?”
“Based on the way her bag is swollen, I’m sure of it.”
Just as she was about to tell him this was absurd, she saw the girl trip and spill
the contents of her bag—packages of instant food—onto the snow. Echika
clicked her tongue quietly. She’d felt this way since she’d met him, but this
Amicus definitely had some kind of X-ray vision feature.
“But what stood out to me most was the way she acted in the parking lot. She
kept looking around and had her hand on her neck. Touching one’s neck is a
nonverbal gesture for trying to calm nerves, but why would she be so stressed
by visiting the local supermarket?”
“I don’t know… Did something else catch your eye?”
“Yes, she was acting suspicious. It was especially striking when she loaded the
bag into her car after she finished shopping. She stood at an oddly open stance,
and one of her legs was always turned to the entrance of the parking lot. It was
like she was mentally priming herself to bolt at any moment. Why would she
want to run, then?”
Beats me.
“If nothing else, she didn’t shoplift. It’s a small town, so the clerks probably
know her personally,” Echika stated.
“Exactly. So she was wary of someone realizing that she was sheltering Lee.”
“You’re jumping to conclusions. We don’t even know if Lee came to a biohacker
for help—”
“You said you’ve never watched ballet before, right, Investigator?” Harold cut
her off. “Lee’s dancing was perfect. Too perfect, actually. The way she danced
didn’t fit her musculature… Need I say anything else?”
Echika put down her binoculars. Finally, she arrived at the answer to the
question that had been weighing on her mind for a while now.
“So you’re saying Lee was using bio-hacking to cheat from the start?”
“Indeed. And that girl right there operated on her. That’s why she’s sheltering Lee.”
That did make for a coherent explanation. From the very beginning, Lee had
modified her body to become a ballet student. Bio-hacking was judged as
harshly as doping, and it was heavily restricted in the sporting world. So if
Harold was correct, Lee had mistaken the viral infection for a malfunction in her
bio-hacking, hence why she went back to her Sami bio-hacker instead of going
to a hospital.
But they didn’t have any decisive proof yet. Absurdly arrogant as she was,
Echika refused to acknowledge that an Amicus was this capable.
“But what about this?” Echika countered, forcibly coming up with another
hypothesis. “Something bad happened to the Sami girl recently. Like, she was
bullied or something, and that made her dread contact with people. It makes
her so anxious that she can’t even go to her local supermarket. She’s too
depressed to bring herself to cook, so she bought instant foods that last and
take little effort to prepare… Hey, are you listening to me?”
“I am. That’s a possibility, yes,” Harold acknowledged, peering into the
rearview mirror and fixing his hair. Why this all of a sudden? “I thought I should
make sure I look right before we go confirm the truth.”
“Uh, sure.” Like a machine needs to worry about appearances. “Well, the hair
on the back of your head is standing up, though,” Echika pointed out
venomously.
After blinking a couple of times, Harold smiled.
“That’s intentional. Leaving a few flaws in my appearance makes me come
across as likable.”
God help me, I want to sock him in the face.
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