“Ah...” the suit next to him groaned sleepily.
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Up all night?
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There were lines under the man’s eyes. Shinpei could tell the man suffered from a chronic lack of sleep. He also dosed himself with vitamin drinks before leaving the house every morning. Shinpei could divulge a lot from people’s faces.
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Hes got an ulcer. Bowels’re a mess. His only saving grace is that his liver’s still working. But if he keeps living like this it won’t be long before that goes out, too.
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He was an ordinary man. Shinpei shifted his attention elsewhere.
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He looked at each of the passengers in the same way, careful not to let them notice his scrutiny. One was a thirtysomething office lady who, despite her plain features, appeared to have several different sexual partners. Another was an elderly clerk who was probably embezzling funds or something equally illicit. He looked ready to keel over from the stress.
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There were all kinds of people.
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Shinpei took a different route to work every day. It took more time than simply taking the shortest route, but he didn’t have to worry about being late.
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Two more trains and a bus later, he arrived at the Kuroda Detective Agency. It was located in the corner of a building with extremely cheap rent.
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“Oh, Kuroda-san. You’re in the office today?”
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the building superintendent asked, grinning. This man was ordinary. He did not know who Shinpei really was.
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“Yeah, just hoping someone hires me soon,” Shinpei said, shrugging. “This recession’s killing me.”
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“But there’s always work for detectives.”
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“There are plenty of jobs...but not any that pay.”
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They chatted for a moment longer, and at last Shinpei was in his office.
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There were two doors, one of which had no look.
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It served as the entrance to a waiting room for clients who dropped in while he was out. The second was the door to his private office.
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Unlocking this second door, he found a person waiting for him inside.
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“Yo, Scarecrow,” she said, waving her hand. She looked like a girl of about seventeen, dressed casually in jeans and a denim jacket.
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However, this girl had entered a locked office without leaving any signs of entry, and until he was in the room he had not been able to detect her presence.
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She was like Shinpei.
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“Hello, Pigeon,” he sighed, taking off his hat and coat.
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“I’ve got work for you. They want you to check up on Teratsuki Kyoichiro.”
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“Again? This is the fifth time.”
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The girl called Pigeon shrugged. “Axis has their eye on him. He’s too successful.”
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“Maybe he’s just that good. I can’t see why having a knack for economics should be interpreted as preparation for betrayal.”
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As they talked, Shinpei filled the kettle at the sink and placed it on the gas burner. It was much hotter than was strictly legal. The pot was boiling in no time.
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“You rig that yourself? That could get you evict-ed,” the girl said, eying the burner with a grin.
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“I hate waiting for it to boil. It’s the aesthetics of it,” he said, quickly setting up some coffee to drip.
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“I’ll take a Mandarin.”
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“Do I look like I’m running a café, here? No re-quests,” he said, making her a cup of coffee as well, and taking the two cups over to the reception table.
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She joined him there, took a sip of coffee, and hummed appreciatively.
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“Always look forward to this when I come here.
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Scarecrow, you could do this for a living.”
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“Everyone knows detectives are picky with their coffee. Part of my camouflage.”
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“Ha ha ha, how thorough.”
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“So? Details?”
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Her expression became serious. “The Towa Organization has raised its observation status of Teratsuki Kyoichiro to Level A.”
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“Eliminate at any sign of suspicious activity? That is serious,” Shinpei said, gravely.
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“For the duration of this duty you can set aside your primary mission. Not like you’ve found any MPLS around here anyway.”
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“Doesn’t the Towa Organization prefer it that way?”
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“Yeah. Nothing wrong with not having en-
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emies.”
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Even so, while he was busy someone else would probably take over his regular duties. Since that person was just another pawn, Shinpei would not be told who’d be covering for him.
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“Makes you wonder why they’re working so hard to find enemies within,” he muttered.
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“I don’t like it any more than you do, but his company is getting much too big.”
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“I doubt he wanted it to expand so much, but the investors insist that profits must always be better than they were the year before.”
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“You’re defending him? Go ahead...that’s fine with me. But you aren’t getting out of the job. No matter what.”
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Once the Towa Organization made a decision,
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they never changed their minds.
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“1 know. I won’t let sympathy color my investigation or my reports.”
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“Look out for yourself, ‘kay?” She took another sip of coffee. “It smells so good...”
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“The sort of smell that makes you want to keep on living?”
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“Exactly. We aren’t human, and we couldn’t live without the Towa Organization.”
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"...I know.”
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“We both have to do what we have to do...and we have to work together on this. Right? As friends.”
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“A Scarecrow and a Pigeon? Not the best couple,”
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Shinpei chuckled.
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“It’s crows that can’t stand scarecrows, not pi-geons,” the girl giggled.
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The bell on the outer door rang.
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“Come in! It’s not locked,” Shinpei said, standing up to greet his client.
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A woman came in. She looked like a housewife in her late thirties, and she was very nervous. Probably here to find out if her husband is cheating.
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“Uh, um,” she stammered.
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“Please, sit down,” Shinpei said, motioning her to the sofa. There was no need to worry about the room’s previous occupant: the girl had already vanished without a trace, along with the cup of coffee she’d been drinking.
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They moved among ordinary people, always
✦ ✦ ✦
careful to reveal nothing of their true selves.
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That was the world they lived in.
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2.
✦ ✦ ✦
The Towa Organization was a group...no, they were too large to be called a group. They were a conglomerate that spanned the globe, monitoring and experimenting.
✦ ✦ ✦
They performed research on evolution. The
✦ ✦ ✦
Organization was driven to divine the source of human intelligence, to figure out what would come next, and ultimately to control the process that would get mankind there. More accurately, they were focused on keeping as much of humanity as possible in whatever that next step was. They saw it as a fight for survival. For them, it was an ongoing battle to ensure mankind would win the inevitable evolutionary war.
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Their primary tools in the struggle consisted of a great number of composite humans. These soldiers were created by the most advanced genetic research humanity had to offer. The basis of the research was a mystery...top secret even among the members of the Towa Organization. Kuroda Shinpei privately wondered if the source was something that had already out-evolved mankind. Of course, he never voiced his suspicion to anyone. If it was known that he was curious about it, he would have been disposed of immediately.
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But...and this was also Shinpei’s private theory...if that source was not the future, but simply an individual mutation, a freak, then what the Towa Organization was participating in was a farce of epic proportions.
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And that might be perfectly appropriate for us...
✦ ✦ ✦
Shinpei was walking through town, wearing
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his hat and dark gray coat, as always. He almost looked like a priest in the outfit. Children would occasionally point at him as he walked by, but for the most part his clothes did not stand out much in a crowd. The look was ideal for lurking undetected in dark places.
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He started by taking care of his detective work. It wasn’t hard. He went directly to the cheating husband, and said, “Your wife knows you’re cheating. Are you going to stop?”
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The man promised to break it off immediately.
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Satisfied, Shinpei took several photographs as proof of the man’s “innocence,” faking the times, and wrote a report claiming he had uncovered no suspicious activity.
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Affairs could be smoothed over when they
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weren’t serious. He usually did the same thing if the woman was cheating. Unless, of course, his client had hired him to help win a divorce settlement.
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When he’d wrapped up the case, he hung an “on vacation” sign on the door of his office and went to work.
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Teratsuki Kyoichiro...even Shinpei did not know the man’s real name.
✦ ✦ ✦
However, he was one of the Towa Organization’s terminals, and like Shinpei, he was probably inhuman.
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Kyoichiro’s mission was to create an environment that would allow the Towa Organization to experiment with various methods of economic distribution.
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He had been very successful, and his company, MCE, was one of the most powerful in the country.
✦ ✦ ✦
That, naturally, put the Organization on their guard.
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He was too successful.
✦ ✦ ✦
Ironic...
✦ ✦ ✦
Using ordinary investigative techniques, Shinpei made his rounds, checking up on MCE’s reputation.
✦ ✦ ✦
“Eh? Investigation? Ha ha ha, that’s a waste of time.”
✦ ✦ ✦
“Poke ‘em all you like...you’ll get nothing out of it.”
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“Can’t think of a single doubt I might have about them...”