“I’m sorry. I didn’t consider that.” He spoke with all the absence of emotion one would expect of someone reading out a form. “But if you won’t even envy her, can you call that love real?”
“What are you talking about?!”
“What would you say if I told you I guided you into developing feelings for me?”
Bigga looked into the Amicus’s handsome face in a daze. The memories of the day she’d first met Harold played in her mind. He’d noticed her conflicted feelings when her back was against the wall and had raised her up. This was what caused her to develop an interest in him, and what made her want to learn more about him.
Even if he’d only used his powers of deduction because it was necessary for the investigation, Harold had spoken those words out of genuine kindness. That’s how she felt, and even now, she wanted to believe it.
“The sensory crime was my first assignment as an investigator aide. I needed to resolve it, no matter what, so I used every tool at my disposal.” Harold’s tone was soft, but his every word prickled her skin like needles. “I realized you took a liking to me right away, and I used your feelings to ensure Lie wouldn’t get away.”
“You’re allowed to follow your heart.”
To Harold, those words were nothing more than a tool he’d used to ensure everything worked out in his favor. The way he’d touched her when she’d spilled coffee over him was intentional. He’d pulled the wool over her eyes, and Bigga, naive and clueless country girl that she was, had blindly fallen for it.
And yet.
“…They’re real.”
“We Amicus are designed to please humans, down to the smallest detail. The affection you’ve felt for me this whole time is the same as the affection one feels for a stuffed toy.”
“That’s not true!” No. Times like these made her want to start crying like a child. “Why are you…? Why do you keep telling me how I feel?! I really—”
“I can’t grant your wishes, Bigga. We can’t love you. All we can do is make you happy by acting like we do.”
Harold’s gaze didn’t waver. He looked at her so directly, it almost felt strange, like unbending steel. His unwavering gaze chiseled a crack into her heart—if everything he said was true, then Hansa was right after all.
Had she known this, somewhere deep down? If so, then what was this pain supposed to be?
“Even so,” she said through a throat that felt like it was in knots. “I think you really do have a heart. Because…if all that was just programming, you wouldn’t be admonishing me like this.”
Harold’s brow furrowed ever so slightly. “No. This is just what my system says is the ideal action right now.”
“Then that’s no different from what we humans do. You’re no different from us at all. So…”
Bigga looked for the end of that sentence, of these words that felt like a useless struggle, but it all sank into the quagmire, nowhere to be found.
The Amicus narrowed his eyes. “I’m sorry I hurt you, Bigga.”
His voice was full of suppressed emotion; it didn’t sound mechanical in the slightest. At this point, Bigga couldn’t tell if his apology was heartfelt. Did Harold even have a heart? What if this was all just programmed reactions? Or maybe all this cold behavior was because of his malfunction?
She couldn’t make sense of it anymore.
Harold walked by Bigga and returned to the living room. She could only listen to his receding footsteps, her mind a complete blank.
Why did this happen?
All she wanted was for Harold and Echika to make up. The only comfort, if she could call it that, was that the situation was too dire for her to linger on the shock.
Thirty minutes later, Totoki returned to the camping trailer.
“We called an ambulance. She lost a lot of blood, so we need to give her first aid.”
Investigator Lin—or rather, her large-framed partner, Aide Wood—carried Totoki over. They left her in the kitchen with Bigga and instantly went back outside. Bigga rushed to take out the first aid kit under the sink and brought it over to Totoki, who was sitting next to the table.
“I have to admit, this is humiliating.” Her nylon jacket, now covered in dirt, was draped over her shoulders, and her cheek was swollen from the blow she’d taken. The towel tied around her left thigh—better than nothing, but not by much—was discolored with red blood. “The bullet only skimmed me, and the bleeding’s mostly stopped.”
“That doesn’t mean this is good enough! We have to tie up the wound and put something cold on your cheek!”
Attempting to keep her emotions in check, Bigga busily applied an antiphlogistic patch to Totoki’s cheek, undid the towel on her leg, and wrapped a clean bandage around it. Investigator Gardener appeared from the living room and shared the information he had with Totoki. The TFC had maintained radio silence so far, and the bureau hadn’t received any demands from them in exchange for returning Echika.
“Investigator Fokine went after Hieda. For the time being, we’ll wait for an update from him,” Totoki instructed Gardener. “I’ll go to the trailer next door and talk to the NGO’s managers.”
“Huh?” Bigga exclaimed despite herself. “But there’s an ambulance on the way here.”
“Then, um, I’ll let you know if I hear anything,” said Gardener, quickly retreating back into the living room.
As soon as Bigga finished carefully tying the bandage around Totoki’s leg, the chief rose to her feet, holding up a hand to silence any protest.
“You need to stay put!” Bigga repeated. “If you move too much, your wound might—”
“That’s fine, just let me know when the ambulance gets here.” Totoki was as stoic-faced as ever, despite clearly being in pain. “And give Hieda this when she gets back.”