Her stomach did flips just thinking about it. Driven by anxiety, she turned around in the corridor and headed to the office. She decided that she would help Investigator Lin with her work until the analysis team finished. If nothing else, it would serve as a distraction. She passed the lounge, where the sparkling lights of Lyon resembled a massive painting, visible through a window that spanned the entire wall.
She stopped in her tracks.
Standing there, like a figure in that painting, was a single Amicus—Harold. He turned to her, looking exactly as he had in Al Bahah. Everything about his appearance was so perfectly human, from his unwrinkled jacket to his handsomely quaffed blond hair.
Well, everything except the look on his face.
“You’re back from the hospital, Investigator?”
Harold greeted her with the artificial smile of a machine. Echika was a bit surprised, since she hadn’t expected him to call out to her. But at the same time, it made her heart ache. She hated how her emotions wouldn’t act the way she wanted them to.
“Yeah, I just got here. I’ll be waiting in the office until the analysis team is done working.”
“How are your wounds? You’re moving somewhat stiffly. Does it still hurt?”
Echika had intended to walk away at this point but froze upon hearing his question. Why would he even ask that? Maybe he was just making simple small talk, but— Oh, God, just cut it out. If she let herself get riled up this easily, she wouldn’t last.
“It’s nothing serious. It’ll heal in no time,” Echika said. Then a thought occurred to her. Should she tell Harold about losing the Mnemosyne-modifying HSB? The matter did concern him, after all. “Also, um, there’s something I need to tell you…”
Echika looked around to confirm no one was listening and walked up to Harold, close enough to whisper. When she told him about how she’d lost the necklace, his smile did wane a little, but he didn’t seem too disturbed. When she finished explaining, he nodded a few times.
“That’s concerning, yes, but even if they looked inside, the HSB is the usual market standard. I doubt anyone would know it’s meant for modifying Mnemosynes.”
He’d said this with the same artificial smile any Amicus would make. And that was all. Echika wasn’t sure what she was expecting, but she instantly felt a strange sense of regret at having told him. Maybe she shouldn’t have spoken to Harold about this to begin with. Did she get the wrong idea and mistake how far apart the two of them had drifted? It made Echika want to run away right then and there.
“Investigator, there’s actually something else I’ve been meaning to talk to you about,” Harold said, his expression very serious. “I’m probably to blame for Bigga’s illness.”
“…What do you mean?”
It took Echika a moment to shift gears. Harold, however, spoke without a hitch.
“You see, when we were in Al Bahah, I revealed to Bigga that I took advantage of her feelings for me during the sensory crime incident. I did that because she noticed the rift in my relationship with you and was insisting on trying to get us to reconcile.”
“Hold on.” Echika cut him off. She could tell she looked confused. He was joking, right? “Why now? That’s way too sudden, and why did you even have to do that to her?”
“She’s observing me much too carefully, so it’ll only be a matter of time before she gets involved. I decided that it would be best if I told her the truth and trampled on her feelings for me.”
Echika thought back to how Bigga had acted during the Christmas market. She had indeed been worried about Echika and Harold and had seemed to want them to go back to their old relationship, but assuming she’d figure out the truth about the neuromimetic system based on that felt like a reach. Harold was smart—surely he’d figure that out on his own.
“Don’t you think that was a bit excessive?”
“I’d prefer to err on the side of being excessive. I did cause you trouble when I was careless with you.” Harold’s tone was gentle, but he was making it clear there was no room for argument. “Either way, I hope you can look after her.”
“What are you saying…?”
“Help Bigga recover. You’re human, so you can understand the pain of a broken heart. You’re a perfect fit for the job.”
The sheer arrogance of Harold’s statement left Echika stunned. Wasn’t Bigga someone he trusted? And not only had he effectively hurt her in what amounted to a surprise attack, but now he was trying to force mending the wound he’d created onto Echika.
And the way he worded it—“the pain of a broken heart.”
Echika bit the inside of her lip. What she felt wasn’t so much anger as it was a crushing sense of emptiness and guilt. She knew his malfunction was a deliberate performance, but even so, Harold had clearly changed. He was completely different from the Amicus she knew. And the knowledge that she only had herself to blame for provoking that change made her feel unworthy of touching on the issue.
“Let me tell you this. As a coworker.” She tried her hardest to remain composed. “If you really care about Bigga, you should have talked this out with her some other way. I know you—you could have come up with a thousand convincing excuses. You didn’t have to deliberately choose to hurt her.”
“The more I hurt her, the more likely she is to stay away from me.”
“I told you, you’re being too cautious!” Echika ended up raising her voice. “Bigga works with you, you know? Doing this is just going to make things complicated. It could impact your own work performance—”
“I’ll be going back to the Saint Petersburg police soon, so that won’t be an issue.”
…What did he just say?
Echika’s breath caught in her throat. All the color drained from her cheeks. His gaze sent a chill through her veins.
Harold was going back to the Saint Petersburg police?
“You mean…?” Her mouth went dry in a second. “You’re quitting the Electrocrime Investigations Bureau?”
“I’ve already stepped down as your aide, and I’m not of much use as an investigation assistant Amicus.” Echika knew he was intentionally passing himself off as useless but refrained from pointing that out. “I intend to have my malfunction get worse. Once I get the chance, I’ll create a situation that will force Chief Totoki to accept my resignation.”
How she envied his nature as a machine, his capacity to change his mind rapidly and be so utterly detached from any emotion that might drag him down. At least at times like these. Echika thought their decision to keep their distance from each other would just entail going back to being coworkers, but if Harold left the bureau, they’d never see each other again. They’d have no reason to be in each other’s lives, and they’d become unrelated strangers.
He would truly and utterly vanish from her life.
It felt like the ground beneath her feet was cracking and falling apart. She thought she’d closed it all in a glass bottle and corked it up—her emotions, her heart. Her weak, pathetic self.