She followed Harold’s instructions and placed the thumb-sized camera in the pocket of her nylon jacket. The Amicus didn’t walk away. The thought crossed her mind that she needed to say something. Not about their argument or his malfunction, but something else that would draw the right line in the sand.
The resolve crawled as far up as her throat, but it took a few seconds to actually escape her lips.
“…Aide Lucraft.”
“I’m an investigation support Amicus now.”
“Right.” Echika recoiled a little. “I, um… I hope we can both do a good job from here on out. As coworkers.”
She was shocked by how trite and shallow her words felt, yet at the same time, deep inside her heart, the emotions she’d stuffed into that glass jar throbbed.
Why won’t everything go back to normal already?
“Yes.” Harold smiled with his usual composure. “Let’s do our best, both of us.”
For a second, Echika was flooded with an inexplicable feeling of unrest. Something was wrong. The way Harold had just acted felt off. If she had to say how, it was like the way a mass-produced Amicus acted. A perfectly friendly smile, delivered at a perfectly calculated angle. A paper-thin facade, detached of free will or real emotion.
He wasn’t acting like an RF Model. His expressions were supposed to be more human, surprisingly subtle but rich.
A question left her lips before she could stop herself. “So is this malfunction part of your act?”
“What do you mean?” Harold looked at her quizzically. “I’m not sure what you’re talking about.”
“No, I mean…”
“Miss Hieda, Chief Totoki is calling for you,” a nearby officer, Investigator Lin, told her.
She was part of the Lyon branch’s Special Investigations Unit, a Chinese-American with black braided hair. Echika had crossed paths with her occasionally back when she’d worked at the Brain Diving Division in headquarters, but they’d rarely spoken.
Echika shifted her gaze and saw that Totoki was indeed standing outside the tent, looking her way.
“She didn’t bring Ganache along on this expedition,” Lin explained. “She’s on edge, so you should probably hurry.”
“I’ll be right there,” Echika said briefly, moving her eyes back to Harold. “Um, see you.”
“I look forward to seeing how you perform, Investigator Hieda.”
Echika hurried along, and Harold saw her off with a mechanical smile. She walked toward Totoki with quick steps, her insides boiling with self-loathing.
Why did you ask him that?
Even if Echika did find out Harold’s malfunction was all part of an act, what was the point? He wasn’t her Belayer or her partner anymore. They were just coworkers, and if they were going to keep their distance from each other, she should refrain from asking questions like that. Yet she’d still let that question slip, mostly out of habit.
She gritted her teeth. It looked to her like Harold was executing the task of keeping his distance from her without any trouble. And after facing him online during the meeting, Echika had thought she was fine, too—but in the end, she was still human to a fault, and couldn’t make that distinction as easily as an Amicus.
She had to clamp down on her emotions. To firmly, decisively draw that line in the sand.
“Hieda, I ordered your group to investigate the residential block, right?” Totoki said, right off the cuff, as soon as Echika approached.
Totoki, too, was dressed in a nylon jacket, and she was loading a cartridge into her automatic pistol. Her long hair was tied into a bun on the back of her head.
“Yes. Has there been a change in assignment?” Echika asked back.
“No, there hasn’t. I’ll just be joining your group on the scene.”
Echika blinked in surprise at this unexpected development. “How come?”
“The more hands on deck, the better. And personally, I want to see what goes on inside their turf,” Totoki said concisely as she stuffed the gun into her shoulder holster. “I’ll be commanding from the scene, so can I count on you to lend a hand as things develop?”
Echika looked up at her superior, surprise clear on her face. The pressure Director Schlosser had put on Totoki in Philadelphia must have really gotten to her. Now that the investigation into the investors had fizzled out, the connection between the TFC and the Alliance was the only lead they had left. They couldn’t afford to fail here.
Once again, Echika realized just how important the mission they were on was.
“Got it. But does that mean we’ll be leaving Investigator Gardener in charge of the communications center?”
“It should be fine. He used to work in the Online Monitoring Department.” Totoki pulled up her zipper. “It’s almost time to set out. It goes without saying, but keep your own safety in mind. Understood?”
Echika nodded gravely, shaking off what bit of emotionality still lingered. She had no choice but to get over this.
The streets of Al Bahah were silent and decaying. Echika and the members of the Special Investigations Unit blended in with the NGO workers and got on several vans, which safely crossed the checkpoints. Like Fokine said, the inspections were mostly a formality, and they entered the TFC’s turf without much incident, along with a few small trucks loaded with aid supplies. They drove as a convoy for a while, but once they reached a parting in the roads, the trucks all went their separate ways and headed for their respective destinations.
The van carrying Echika, Fokine, and Totoki drove north along the Sarawat Mountains, moving toward a local residential area. The worn-out cityscape sailed by through the dirty window of the van—dead shopping malls stood in stasis, their faded signs frozen in time.
Every so often, they would see a TFC operative patrolling the streets, rifle in hand. Most of the passersby were locals, but there were also immigrants. They were few and far between, but still noticeable. The civilians’ attire was by no means clean or neat, but there was an air of mellow, peaceful daily life here, without any conflict to speak of.
“The immigrants are cynics who share the TFC’s ideals,” Totoki told Echika from the seat next to hers. “Since they want a device to substitute the Your Forma, this place is like a utopia for them.”
“Even so, I can’t imagine why anyone would want to move to a place controlled by terrorists…”
Still, she’d been expecting the turf of a terrorist organization to look a little more imposing. If one ignored the armed operatives walking around, the place looked no different from any other poor rural town. Yet according to Cook, the buildings were being used to manufacture weapons.