Totoki’s replacement, the new chief Ruben Smith, was a hardheaded American man.
“I really have to question Chief Totoki’s judgment. Why would she let a defective Amicus participate in investigations?”
The Electrocrime Investigations Bureau’s Lyon headquarters—Smith had quickly taken over the Brain Diving Division chief’s office from Totoki. The cat posters lining the walls had been torn off, replaced with fake green flowerpots that had a deodorization effect.
“Harold, I called Novae Robotics Inc. to ask about your condition, but they insisted you already went through maintenance.” Sitting behind his desk, Smith scanned over his PC monitor with his neurotic gaze. “Anyway, once the rest of the investigators head back to the Saint Petersburg branch, I’ll have them take you along. Stay put until then.”
Harold stood with his back straight, carefully gauging Smith’s every gesture. He looked to be in his midthirties, and as far as he could tell, the man was a machine denier. Apparently, he had two children but was divorced. He was aiming for a raise to help with his child support, so when Schlosser had asked him to fill in for Totoki suddenly, he’d gladly accepted.
“But assisting with investigations is my job,” Harold said, trying to maintain an earnest attitude. “I may be malfunctioning at the moment, yes, but that doesn’t get in the way of tasks that don’t require advanced data processing.”
“Don’t you understand? I’m saying that unlike Totoki, I’m not going to let you handle any tasks. Make a careless mistake, and it’ll be my responsibility.”
“What am I supposed to do here, then?”
“Handle the cleaning, for all I care. Speaking of, I noticed the pantry’s fridge was getting dirty this morning.”
Smith shooed Harold away with a wave of the hand, silently telling him to get out. Harold found it unpleasant to be around the man, so he obediently left the office. He made his way to the pantry, as told, when he ran into Investigator Fokine, who was leaving the meeting room that served as the Special Investigations Unit’s office. As he closed the door behind him, Harold caught a glimpse of Investigator Lin and her partner.
“Chief Totoki wouldn’t do that.”
“Well, Chief Smith is the boss around here now.”
Fokine wordlessly shook his head at their exchange and walked alongside Harold.
“So how did it go?”
He asked him this as they entered the pantry, refusing to meet his gaze. Fokine faced the espresso machine and started pouring coffee into a paper cup nonchalantly. He was being cautious—there was no door to the pantry, so anyone walking down the hall could see them.
At this point, there was no telling where the Alliance’s mole could be watching them. When Harold told him about the possibility of the mole, Fokine had gotten very high-strung.
Two days had passed since Totoki’s dismissal. Director Schlosser quickly handled the change in personnel, and Smith was appointed to department head and chief of the Special Investigations Unit the day after. Now that the investigation was effectively back to square one, his first order was to restart the investigation into the Farasha Island investors, as well as to look into Paul Samuel Lloyd’s villa, which they hadn’t been able to search yet.
“I’d say Chief Smith is gray,” Harold whispered back. “Given his position, it’s possible that he’s an insider for the Alliance. But it seems likely to me he’s the kind of man who tends to prioritize his own safety above all else.”
“Is your malfunction the reason you can’t directly read into him?”
“No, it’s simply because I don’t know what criteria would indicate he’s related to the Alliance. It would go faster if this was like a bad movie where all the members of the secret society had a tattoo or something.”
Saying this, Harold opened the fridge door. Sure enough, it didn’t look very sanitary and needed cleaning. Some sausages someone had brought over were on the verge of decaying. I need to dispose of them before they rot, he thought.
“How about you strip Smith and check for a tattoo, then?” Fokine joked, maintaining a straight face.
“We can’t say for sure if there’s only one insider to begin with.”
“Either way, this new chief is clearly problematic.” Fokine picked up his paper cup of coffee, his expression uncharacteristically angry. “Hieda mentioned that Kai guy had offered her a deal in Al Bahah. I proposed to Smith that she should contact Kai again while using her old man’s software as bait.”
“That’s a bit too risky.”
“But we’re stuck for better alternatives. We’ve got nothing to lose, right? But you know what he said? ‘Since Totoki planted Kai’s USB, there’s no evidence to support that Kai himself is related to the Alliance.’ And along the way, he insisted that the existence of biological weapons and the replacement device in Al Bahah was ‘verified by the NSA through a reliable source,’ despite the fact we never found them.”
Fokine was absolutely livid at Smith. Much like him and Investigator Lin, most of their coworkers were outraged at Totoki’s dismissal. And honestly, Smith was by no means a good chief, although he was absolutely who you wanted if your metric was sticking to bureau regulations and following the top brass’s orders to the letter.
It was only now that they were realizing how much Totoki respected each of her investigators and their work.
“So what are you working on at the moment, Investigator Fokine?”
“I look at Farasha Island’s investor list and call them one by one. ‘Hello, this is the Electrocrime Investigations Bureau, may I ask why you invested in the island?’ Apparently, asking that should make me somehow magically notice if there’s anything suspicious.”
“That sounds lovely. Like you’re doing sales.”
“Chief Totoki’s dismissal was unfair to begin with. I feel like if we don’t do something about it, we’ll just be playing into their hands.”
Fokine took a long, annoyed sip of coffee. He was right that just letting the insider roam free in the bureau would only make things worse in the long run. The director said he’d begin an investigation into the USB matter, but not only did it seem like Totoki’s innocence would not be proved, it also was looking like the whole investigation into the Alliance was going to be swept under the rug.
Harold gave a silent artificial sigh. From his perspective, Smith was preferable to Totoki for the purpose of resigning from the bureau. But honestly, he didn’t like this development much.
“It’s a pity, but I think the prospects of Chief Totoki’s reinstatement are slim. We need to act carefully, too.”
It was clear that they were seen as nuisances for getting too close to the truth about the Alliance. That was especially true of Totoki, who believed in the existence of the thought manipulation system and had the authority to mobilize the Special Investigations Unit, hence why she had been the first to be stripped of her position. In a sense, she was a warning.