“You’re finally back, Investigator Gardener…”
The Electrocrime Investigations Bureau’s London branch. The time was eleven PM, and there were several police investigators from the Special Investigations Unit sitting at their desks, just barely awake. Bigga, too, was sleepily rubbing her eyes as she called out to Gardener, who’d just gotten back.
“Bigga?” He turned to her sluggishly. “Why are you here? I thought you went back to the academy in Saint Petersburg…”
“I had an evening flight, but you never replied to me, so I had to miss it!” Bigga said, half venting at him. If he had taken just half an hour longer to get here, she would have already been sleeping on the guest sofa. “Did you see the report on Lloyd’s villa? If there’s any problem, we’ll have to rewrite it.”
“Oh, yeah, I saw it. It was perfect, thanks.”
“Then you could have just sent me a reply earlier…” Bigga wound herself up to give him an earful, but then noticed his face was terribly pale.
He looked ill—he was clearly absentminded as he walked over to his desk, like he was trying to get away from her. If she recalled correctly, he’d gone with Echika to Robin Flutter’s building earlier in the day.
“Are you sick?”
“I’m fine.” Gardener said feebly. “You should hurry back to the hotel.”
“Well, I will, but…” He didn’t look fine to her, but it wasn’t like the two of them were particularly close, so she wasn’t sure what to do. “How did it go with the drone? You and Ms. Hieda went to check up on that bee thing, right?”
“We found nothing. I guess her theory was wrong.”
“Really…?” Bigga didn’t hide her disappointment. That must have left Echika dejected. “Is Ms. Hieda back, too?”
Gardener couldn’t manage a reply after this. Though unsatisfied with how nonresponsive he was, Bigga had no choice but to pull up her shoulder bag and leave the office. Echika was nowhere to be found in the corridor. Bigga was scheduled to return to the academy, so it wasn’t her place to stick her neck into this any longer. As she walked down the dim hallway, the pangs of her broken heart, which she’d been able to bury under work so far, rose to the surface once more. It still hurt, but she was starting to calm down a little.
If nothing else, she wasn’t going to fruitlessly break into tears anymore. Maybe she was just too concerned about everything else to wallow right now.
It being late at night, the elevator hall was silent. Looking at the indicator, Bigga saw that the elevator was on the first floor, but she felt too tired to take the stairs, so she tapped on the panel to call it.
<New message from Hansa>
She jolted, unintentionally tensing up. The last time she’d messaged her childhood friend, Hansa, was when she’d been cooped up in bed at the Lyon hotel. She’d sent him a brief message asking for help and requesting that he let her know if he found anything out. They hadn’t spoken since.
But looking back on it now, she had no idea what she’d been thinking. She’d acted impulsively after Harold had turned her down. She wouldn’t have suspected Echika otherwise.
“…I should have thought that through,” Bigga grumbled to herself in self-loathing.
Besides, it had been insensitive of her to call Hansa without touching on his confession. The truth was, there was no way Bigga could have feelings for someone she’d known for most of her childhood. At best, she saw him as a younger brother to dote on, and she didn’t think that would change.
She would be better off telling him this sooner rather than later, so maybe now would be a good chance to talk to him about this. She’d have to pick her words carefully, so things wouldn’t continue to be shaky between them in the future.
Bigga opened the message, feeling pessimistic as to what she might find there. Her mind was already occupied with how to turn him down—which was why it took her a moment to actually read what his message said.
<I got the HSB and plugged it into a tablet to check its contents. It’s exactly like you thought>
Huh?
For a second, the words didn’t register in her scrambled mind. A loud, inappropriate chiming rang out, marking the elevator’s arrival. Bigga reflexively looked up—and what she saw there blew the message from her mind. Someone who shouldn’t have been there stepped out of the elevator, his dark hair in a wavy perm—Investigator Fokine.
“Ivan?” she exclaimed, despite herself. “What are you doing here?”
He’d gotten himself suspended on purpose to free himself up to investigate the Alliance. After that, he should have gotten in touch with Totoki. However, Fokine was in civilian clothes, and his expression was uncharacteristically grave. He must have sprinted through the parking lot, because his jacket was wet with snow.
“Bigga? I thought you went back to the academy… But this is actually good timing. Are you all right?”
“Huh?” She didn’t understand. “Er, I’m fine. But what are you doing in London?”
“I’ll explain later. Where’s Investigator Gardener?”
“In the office.” This was getting even more confusing. “Ah, wait!”
Leaving her to gape in confusion, Fokine took off down the hall. Bigga had no idea what had gotten into him. She looked between him and the elevator. For the time being, she closed Hansa’s message and followed Fokine. She had no idea what was going on, but whatever it was, it was serious.
When Bigga returned to the office, Fokine was already at Gardener’s desk. But what she saw there took her breath away—Gardener had drawn his pistol and was pointing it at Fokine.
What’s going on?
The other investigators in the office rose from their seats, murmuring in surprise.
“Someone, I need handcuffs!” Gardener said, looking even paler than before. “What did you do with my dad, you kidnapper…?!”
“Investigator Gardener, calm down.” Fokine raised his hands but refused to back away. “Greg is fine, I just want to talk. We have to get out of here and go into hiding this instant.”
“I’m telling you right now, my father is innocent, and he has nothing to do with the Alliance. Right, we’ve got nothing to do with this. So why, why did the chief…?”
“The chief?” Fokine focused on that word. “You talked to him?”
“Either way, my dad is innocent!” Gardener shouted in desperation. “I know everything, so—!”
But then Gardener crumpled where he stood, like someone had just pulled the plug on him. It happened so quickly, Bigga couldn’t follow what was going on—in the blink of an eye, Gardener’s upper body slammed against the desk and slid down to the floor. His pistol slipped from his fingers, rolled over the desk, and fell at Fokine’s feet.
An unbearable silence descended on the office. What had just happened?
As Bigga watched in stunned amazement, the office instantly exploded with shouts. The other investigators hurried over to Gardener, throwing instructions to call an ambulance. Fokine, however, pulled away the people flocking over to Gardener, knelt beside him, and placed a hand on his neck, checking for a pulse. He instantly shook his head.
That can’t be.
A chill went through Bigga, and everything grew distant. Fokine walked away from Gardener and instantly walked over to her, silently grabbing her arm and pulling her out of the office. The other investigators were occupied with frantically trying to apply first aid, so no one called out for them to stop.
As they strode through the hall, Bigga realized that she’d been trembling ever since this started. She looked at her arm as Fokine pulled it. His hold on it was terribly tight, but oddly enough, it didn’t hurt.
It couldn’t be. She’d been talking to Gardener normally just minutes ago. Admittedly, he had looked a little ill—
He’d looked ill.
No…
Fokine took off the isolation unit hidden under his turtleneck and placed an audio call.
“Chief Totoki? Yes… I’m there, but it’s too late. The hornet got to him.”
She felt dizzy.
“Yes, that’s right. The Alliance killed Investigator Gardener.”
Echika and Harold got to Ashford around midnight.
“I’m sure the recording I just showed you makes it clear, but F was definitely Professor Lexie.”
The share car they picked up in downtown London drove nonstop straight ahead, despite the intermittent snowfall. The wipers earnestly tried to clear the windshield. Echika gripped the steering wheel with her eyes fixed on them. They were mere minutes away from the penitentiary.
“Yes, so it seems. I’m don’t know what to say…,” Harold said from the passenger’s seat as he closed the holo-browser on his wearable terminal.
He’d just finished watching the footage of the Alliance’s meeting. His expression was understandably severe. He’d all but discarded the facade of a mass-produced Amicus’s pleasant, indifferent smile.
Echika herself had a hard time believing the revelation.
“And if their talk is anything to go by, she’s involved with their thought manipulation system, too.”
“Still, her field of expertise is robotics. Why would they have her working on improving the thought manipulation system?”
“Even so, we’ll be in even bigger trouble if they manage to modify the system so it can control people who have high data-processing abilities, like me.” If the Alliance got their hands on a perfected thought manipulation system, Echika and the others wouldn’t be able to even take them by surprise anymore. “Either way, we have to meet her and get her to talk.”
“But visiting hours at the penitentiary are over, and we don’t have a rearrest warrant.”
“We’ll manage.” Echika checked there were no other vehicles driving by and stepped on the pedal again. “What about you, though? We had to stop the maintenance halfway through.”
“I’m fine. Department Head Angus can only tune my ‘outer shell’ anyway.”
After the meeting, Echika had knocked on the maintenance door and told Angus there was an emergency before taking Harold away. Angus was dumbfounded by this, so she made a note to apologize to him—but with the situation being what it was, they were very much racing against time.
Echika touched the isolation unit plugged into the back of her neck.
We have to hurry, before the Alliance cuts us off.
The private penitentiary soon came into view, sitting atop a hill overlooking the area. It was a gloomy building, surrounded by fences built around the foot of the hill. It was covered in snow at the moment, so it was mostly blurred out.
Echika could hear a faint sigh over the rumble of the car’s engine. She turned to Harold, who was digging his fingers into his forehead. Nothing she could have said would comfort him.