“Investigator Gardener, send their coordinates over to my Your Forma.”
“I’ll have it in a second, just give me some time.”
Their trailer in the NGO’s compound, which was more modest and unadorned than a hotel room, had a portable flexible screen set on its wall. The screen displayed windows with all the operatives’ video feeds streamed in real time. But at the moment, Bigga’s eyes were fixed solely on Echika’s and Totoki’s windows.
“Why?!” She couldn’t help but ask. “How do the TFC know about Miss Hieda?! Wasn’t the local residential block supposed to be safe…?!”
“Look, I’m sorry, but could you be quiet?” Gardener cut her off.
He was sitting on the sofa, leaning in as he busily operated a laptop. Harold stood in front of the screen where he was adjusting the audio. The Amicus hadn’t spoken a word for some time now, and his expression was calm and collected. The volume of the camera was amplified, and the earsplitting crackle of static noise filled the room.
Gardener’s hands stopped moving. “I sent it over, Investigator Fokine. The chief’s probably injured.”
“I’ll be right there. What about Hieda?”
Just as he asked that, Echika’s camera feed on the screen went dark. Totoki’s camera was still online, which implied the terrorists had torn off Echika’s jacket. The men forced Echika to hang her head and checked the back of her neck.
“It’s her, all right. Take her to the boss.”
She really will be taken captive, at this rate.
“No, we have to do something!” Bigga said, forgetting that she’d been told to keep quiet. “Ivan, hurry, the terrorists are taking Miss Hieda…!”
“Bigga, calm down,” Totoki whispered. “Investigator Gardener, Hieda’s…”
“What are you doing?!”
A dull thud followed, and Totoki’s screen went black. They could hear her coughing violently. Bigga was pale in the face at this point. Had the terrorists knocked her down? What was going on? Harold wordlessly raised the camera’s volume further. The static noise tore into their ears. The feed remained black, but they could hear Echika and the terrorists talking in the distance.
“I did what you said! Why did you hit her?!”
“She was trying to pull a gun on us. Consider yourselves lucky we didn’t kill her.”
“I get it, okay?! Just stop. She dropped her weapon, so promise you won’t do anything—”
Then they heard Echika groan and the heavy sound of fabric rustling.
Bigga shuddered. No more.
“Leave this woman here. We don’t need her.”
“We need to call the NGO people here.”
“The boss hasn’t given any instructions yet.”
They heard the TFC fighters’ concise exchange. The noise got much harsher. The blackness covering Echika’s camera was torn off, and light filled the footage. They saw one of the assailants look right into the camera.
“They hid a camera in the jacket—”
The footage cut off with a crack. The camera had either been switched off or destroyed. The trailer went quiet, a low buzzing hanging in the air. Only the sound of their hearts beating fast surged up from the depths of stillness. They went still as statues, their every sense numbed and distant.
What now? What would they do?
“All members, retreat. Let the NGO know we’re pulling out.” Totoki’s choked orders spurred the frozen room back to life. “Investigator Gardener, they put Hieda into a van. I can’t stop them from here.”
“I’m tracking Investigator Hieda’s GPS coordinates.” Gardener peered into the laptop, his face pale from stress.
“Share it with me. I’ll go after them,” Fokine’s voice ordered. “Can someone pick up Chief Totoki?”
“I’m on it,” Investigator Lin replied. “Investigator Fokine, you handle Miss Hieda.”
“Stop deciding what to do on your own!” Totoki snapped at them in an uncharacteristic display of emotion. “We need to prioritize saving Hieda right now. I’ll get back on my own. Besides, if the TFC has taken her hostage, they might make demands of the bureau—”
The officers trying to take control of the hectic situation started talking over one another. Bigga could only freeze up, her eyes swimming in disbelief. Was there anything they could do to help? But then she spotted Harold move away from the screen and walk straight across the living room. Bigga reflexively took off after him.
“Harold, where are you going?!”
She crossed through the door, leading to the trailer’s entrance area, which was integrated with a kitchenette. Harold was opening the door. He turned to look at Bigga, like he’d just come to his senses. Save for the fact that he wasn’t blinking, he looked absolutely calm.
“No.” The Amicus backed away from the door, seemingly realizing how odd his actions looked. “Pardon me, I’m not going anywhere.”
“Please, calm down,” Bigga managed to say, the words partially directed at herself. “I want to rush to Miss Hieda’s aid, too, but acting recklessly is dangerous.”
“Yes… I think I had a problem in my system processing. I’m sorry.”
He touched his temples, like a human suffering a headache. Unsure of how to proceed, Bigga returned to the living room for lack of anything else to do.
“Do you want me to call Novae Robotics Inc.? If it gets too bad, I can—”
“Thank you, but no. My auto-repair can handle this much.”
Harold approached the kitchen in what seemed like self-contemplation. He looked down at his own reflection in the sink. It was painfully obvious what was pressuring his system.
“I’m sure Miss Hieda will be fine. Investigator Fokine will save her soon.”
“My system is okay.” Harold didn’t raise his head. “I’m not particularly worried about the investigator.”
Bigga couldn’t believe what he’d just said. His curt choice of words was wholly uncharacteristic. Maybe it was his malfunction’s influence on him, or maybe it was the auto-repair, but whatever the case, his processing wasn’t keeping up.
Or maybe…he was just wording things inconsiderately because of how shaky his relationship with Echika had been recently? Even if that was it…
“I—I think saying things like that in this situation is… It’s not right,” Bigga said, letting her unstable emotions take over. “I’ve been meaning to ask this for a while now, but—”
“Don’t ask. Please.”
“What happened between you and Miss Hieda?!”
Bigga drew closer to Harold, ignoring his rejection. When they’d dined together in Enontekiö, she’d kept that question bottled up, and now honestly wasn’t the time to fix this issue. But she couldn’t keep quiet about it any longer. She didn’t want to see Harold and Echika change any more… Or rather, she didn’t want to see Harold change any more.
“This is just speculation on my side, but…” She couldn’t keep her voice from trembling. “Did your fight with Miss Hieda cause your malfunction? Did something bad happen between you two, and the shock made your processing…?”
She couldn’t finish the rest of her statement. The words popped like bubbles. Harold looked up, his eyes fixed straight on her—the blond lashes bordering his eyes looked the same as ever. They were still every bit the signpost they had been that night. But this time, all the warmth she’d felt in his eyes was missing.
“I don’t want you to intrude on this, Bigga.”
The blankness of his features wasn’t the same uniform, standard Amicus sort of non-expression she’d seen him make recently. No, it was different from any face she’d ever seen him make. His face was like glass, like cold pottery, and it possessed an artificiality that made him seem like a collection of lifeless machine parts that had been cobbled together.
She hated having to put it like this, but he felt…mechanical. She didn’t know he was capable of making this kind of face. The realization filled her with instinctual dread that surged up from the core of her body.
“I know…” Bigga clenched her fingers to drive the fear away. “I know I’m sticking my nose into things, but—”
“I thought you’d be happy to see me and Investigator Hieda have a falling out?” he asked, in a voice that was as calm and serene as ever. “Humans are envious creatures. It would make sense for you to resent her if you really loved me. So why?”
For a second, Bigga couldn’t process what he’d said. But as the meaning fully sank in, her vision warped. She realized, of course, that he had some inkling about how she felt. She knew that she didn’t really try to hide it, and that her paired Amicus on Farasha Island had confessed her feelings to Harold not too long ago, which he’d tacitly ignored at the time.
She didn’t mind the fact that he knew at this point. But…
“Are you…trying to make me angry on purpose?” Bigga asked in a low voice. The anger she felt was intense, but she wasn’t sure how to lash out at him. “Both you and Miss Hieda mean a lot to me. I can’t just watch the two of you drift apart when I don’t even know why, and not say something… It hurts! Why won’t you understand that?!”