Totoki took something out of her pocket and placed it on the table. Bigga gritted her teeth and stared—it was a nitro-case necklace. It was a bit dirty, but it looked familiar. When they’d first met, it had always been around Echika’s neck, but she’d stopped wearing it recently.
“It came off when the terrorists took Echika. Give it back to her.”
“All right. Um… Miss Hieda will be coming back unharmed, right?” Bigga asked, giving in to her anxiety. The worst possible outcome kept filling her mind, but she hung her head and dismissed the thought. Her emotions were all over the place, and it felt like her head might burst.
“Bigga.”
She jolted with a start, feeling Totoki gently touch her shoulder. Looking up, she saw her own frightened expression in her dignified superior’s eyes.
“If you’re going to be an investigator, you have to be stouthearted.”
Totoki tapped her on the shoulder, and Bigga straightened her back. She tried to take a deep breath—Totoki was right. Panicking and sobbing would accomplish nothing. Yes. Fokine and the others will save her, for sure.
She had to believe that, even if she was forcing herself to do so…
Totoki told Bigga to stay put and wait, then stumbled out of the trailer with unsteady steps. Now by herself, Bigga reached for Echika’s necklace so as to not lose it. But the moment she picked it up, the lid of the nitro case came undone, and its contents spilled out on the table. Bigga hurriedly picked it up.
It was a small HSB cartridge, the size of a pinky nail. It must have belonged to Echika, but Bigga didn’t see a stock number printed on it. The device was completely indistinguishable from any other HSB cartridge… But Bigga knew from her time as a bio-hacker that HSB cartridges without serial numbers were illegally modified and circulated on the black market.
Why would Echika have something like this?
“Bigga, can you help me out for a second?!” Gardener called out to her from the living room. Bigga quickly stuffed the HSB cartridge and nitro case into her pocket. For now, they needed to focus on saving Echika as soon as possible.
She could spend the night crying over her broken heart after everything was settled.
The moment she came to, a dull pain spread over her stomach. Echika opened her heavy eyelids and found that she was lying in the back seat of a parked van. Still in a daze, she brought her hand to her chest out of habit; the nylon jacket she’d been forced to take off was missing, and so was her fake ID. Her holster was empty. And also—
Her mind went blank.
It’s gone.
She couldn’t feel the nitro case she always wore under her clothes. She nearly sat up out of reflex, but before she could, the door of the van opened, filling the inside with light. Blinded before the glow, she forced her eyes shut on instinct, and someone grabbed her by the arm and dragged her out of the vehicle.
“What did the boss say?”
“To take her to his room.”
“Come on, hurry up!”
The men restrained both her arms and forced Echika to stand. Dull pain shot through her punched stomach, but it was bearable. As they pushed her forward, she looked around—they were on top of a hill overlooking Al Bahah. She could see several cottages, but the benches on their porches were all cracked, and their lawns were wilted from neglect. There were no people in sight. The plot of land was completely surrounded by a fence that was too high to scale.
Did Totoki make it back to their communications center? Feeling nauseated from the stress, Echika checked her Your Forma carefully, so the men wouldn’t notice. Surprisingly, she was online. They hadn’t used an isolation unit on her. To her relief, she saw that Totoki had sent her dozens of messages, which meant she was alive. Apparently, they had her GPS coordinates, and Fokine was heading over to save her.
This meant she needed to stall for time and figure out why the TFC had brought her here.
The men led Echika to the most intact cottage in the back of the plot. As they passed through the front door, its joints creaked loudly, and the rough smell of dust filled her nostrils. Past a dark corridor was the living room. The TFC fighters shoved Echika inside. Unable to keep her footing, she fell to her knees atop the faded carpet.
“We brought Hieda over, Boss.”
Echika managed to lift her head. There was a TV board in front of her, with an old-styled CRT monitor set in it. To her right was a large sliding window and a wooden desk. Sitting on it was an ashtray stuffed with cigarette butts and a paperback faded from overexposure to sunlight. The man sitting by the desk silently rose to his feet.
“Step outside. Keep watch.”
He was white, which was quite unusual, given the region. His overgrown blond hair was tied into a ponytail, he wore Wellington sunglasses, and his cheeks were covered in stubble, which made his features difficult to discern.
She couldn’t tell how old he was, but if she had to guess, he looked to be in his forties. His personal data wasn’t popping up—it made sense that a TFC member didn’t have a Your Forma, though. Apparently, this man was the boss of the Al Bahah region.
The TFC operatives left, and the man shamelessly stared at Echika. She couldn’t see his eyes, but she didn’t feel any malice from him. Still, seeing as the hem of his shirt wasn’t tucked in, it was clear he had a gun hidden under his clothes.