Late that night, after performing his seven surgeries, Stephen Bluefield was sitting at his desk in the clinic, all alone.
No matter how many lives he saved in a day, a doctor’s work was never done. Tomorrow—no, at this very moment—throngs of patients all over the world wanted his incredible skills. He didn’t have time to sleep. He barely needed sleep anyway; his body had already adapted to not getting much.
And also…Doctor Bluefield had one more face. He was the Inventor, one of the twelve Tuners who protected the world. The Tuner system had practically ceased to function after the Great Cataclysm, but the Inventor still had one big job left to do.
It was raining outside. In the dark exam room, at a desk illuminated only by a small light, Stephen stared at a plan of a certain town. The place looked like a diorama being constructed on a continent of ice. He knew what it really was, though. Not a town—but a ship.
“Project Noah.”
The project had been carried out in secret, in preparation for the eventual end of the world. They would abandon this planet and cross dimensions to reach Another Eden. The Inventor had been the sole Tuner involved in this grand project.
However, when the reboot erased the world’s records, Stephen had lost all his memories of Project Noah. The Federation Government had been the driving force behind it and the fewer people who knew the secret, the easier it would be to control. So the Inventor had simply been removed from the project.
“Who’d have thought I’d remember it a whole year later?”
Needless to say, the trigger had been the deceased Information Broker, Bruno Belmondo. Just before dying, he’d reached the truth of the Great Cataclysm—or rather, it had still been an unproven theory then. Still, Stephen had followed it and retrieved his memories of Project Noah.
“This won’t go the way you want it to, Federation Government.”
Stephen had already decided to reveal information about the project to the Singularity and Ace Detective. However, he wasn’t doing it as retaliation against the government for betraying him. He’d planned to entrust the decision of whether or not to implement this project to the Singularity all along.
The Inventor’s job was simply to research technological singularities that could prevent great future crises. Beyond that, all he could do was entrust the matter to the real Singularity. It would all happen today, beginning at dawn. The two of them had found the truth of the Great Cataclysm and made it this far, making them qualified to know the truth about the project.
“……”
There was one point of concern about Project Noah, though it wasn’t a problem with the Ark itself. It was that in Another Eden, the ship’s planned destination, was…
All of a sudden, a loud crash came from the front entrance.
It was well before the time he’d planned to meet the Singularity and Ace Detective, meaning it must be an intruder—and there was no way it could be just an ordinary thief. He’d had Men in Black stationed near the clinic’s entrance as guards.
“Stephen Bluefield. The Inventor, if I’m not mistaken.”
The intruder was already right here in front of him. The voice was female, but her figure was only a silhouette near the door. It was still dark, so he couldn’t see her face.
“Who are you?” Stephen asked.
“Let’s just say we’re in the same line of work.”
The “same line of work.” Stephen had two faces: doctor and Tuner. However, the woman clearly meant the latter.
Stephen’s thoughts raced. Was there a woman like this among the Tuners? …No. The only one whose face he hadn’t seen was the Revolutionary, and this voice didn’t belong to her. Was this woman a former Tuner, then, or a thirteenth candidate?
“You’re a Tuner who’s come from Another Eden, aren’t you?”
It was intuition. Either that or having created a false one at the Ritual of Sacred Return had made him aware that he was connecting with the real thing for the first time. Regardless, this woman was…
“That’s right. I had them send me over here before you people came to us.”
The woman’s voice was low and cold. Stephen’s prediction had been correct. At the same time, a certain sense that something was off reared its head. He’d never met this woman, but he was struck by the feeling that she wasn’t a complete stranger, either.
“What have you come to this Earth to do?” Another Eden had sent messages several times before, but they’d never made direct contact like this.
“Regarding the Great Cataclysm, we’re still watching to see how it plays out,” the woman replied. She still hadn’t moved from that spot. “At this point, having this world remain stable would be convenient for us as well. Achieving our objective comes after that.”
“‘We,’ huh? Do you have companions nearby?”
That question seemed to hit too close to home. The woman fell silent for a moment, then quickly changed topics. “Who would have ever thought a Tuner, one of the world’s saviors, would be working as a common doctor in a backwater like this? You seem extremely attached to your job.”
“What are you trying to say? I’m busy. If you’re only here to see the sights and enjoy yourself, I’d appreciate it if you left at once.”
“Oh, you know. I only asked out of curiosity. I thought maybe you were still working as a doctor as a way to atone for killing your son.”
Stephen froze in the act of clearing away the materials on his desk.
“It was before you became a Tuner, wasn’t it? You were working as a member of a group of doctors whose activities ignored national borders, living near a war zone with your family. Public order was deteriorating, and you’d started to think about evacuating when a stray shell struck your house.”
Stephen was silent, but the woman kept talking as if she’d seen it happen. “Your wife died instantly. Your only son was in critical condition, and there was nothing that could be done for him. The only one who escaped unscathed was you, Dr. Bluefield, who’d been away at work. It must have been devastating to find your wife and son amidst the stream of dead and wounded brought to your hospital.”
This was a part of his past Stephen Bluefield had never told anyone about. So how did this woman know about it? He wanted to pressure her for answers, but his lips wouldn’t move. The next thing he knew, his mind was flooded with the sights from those memories.
“I guess you lived up to your reputation, though, Dr. Bluefield. You managed to calmly look at all those wounded people, judging which lives should and shouldn’t be saved. Your wife had already died—that was one thing—but you also gave up on your son, who was still technically alive. …Though you didn’t just give up. You transplanted his organs into a critically injured patient who still had a chance to survive.”
A loud crash filled the room as Stephen collapsed. Various objects fell from the desk to the floor, and the framed photo he’d been gazing at a moment ago cracked. The picture in the frame was of a boy: Stephen’s son, who’d been just eight years old.
“Stephen Bluefield. Were you trying to use the Akashic records to create a world in which the dead would come back to life?”
Driving rain beat at the windows of the clinic, while inside, a long silence fell.
“No.” Stephen returned the fallen papers and the plan of the Ark to the desk. Only the photo he gently shut away in a drawer. He got to his feet. “The dead don’t come back to life. I don’t ask for miracles that can’t be reproduced.”
If someone really did have a wish like that and actually made it come true, they would be forced to pay an unfathomable price—or to pay it continuously from then on. Making that argument to himself, Stephen looked at the woman squarely. She still hadn’t shown her face. “If I wanted the Akashic records, there was only one reason. I wanted to analyze the mechanism of unstable will, use the System to output it, and create weapons that were adapted to it…in preparation for an attack from Another Eden.”
This time, it was the woman’s turn to go silent for a moment.
“That doesn’t sound like something a doctor would say.”
“As a doctor, I save the patient in front of me. At the same time, as a Tuner, I save the hundred million lives on the other side of the world.”
An appendage like a metal arm extended from Stephen’s right shoulder.
“Are you sure you want to see us as enemies?” the woman asked.
“I’ve always been concerned about Another Eden.”
Up until now, this woman and her people had had unilateral access, but Stephen had picked up on a dangerous signal regarding Another Eden. He and the Federation Government had been in communication about the matter before the Great Cataclysm.
As a result, they had exercised great caution even while moving forward with Project Noah. In the event that they ended up relying on Another Eden, they had several plans in place. One of those plans had been to use Kimihiko Kimizuka, the Singularity, but Stephen decided that he shouldn’t expand the bounds of their conversation that far right now.
“To the best of my knowledge, the Federation Government designated five people as ‘specific threats’ when it came to the implementation of Project Noah: Kimihiko Kimizuka the Singularity, Danny Bryant the former Ace Detective, Bruno Belmondo the Information Broker, Abel Arsene Schoenberg the Phantom Thief. The last one was A, or Alpha, the queen of Another Eden.”
Strangely enough, like Abel, the threat from Another Eden bore the marker “A.” Stephen was half-certain that this was the woman he was currently speaking with.
“I see. So you found out about me.” At last, the woman began to walk toward Stephen. “That’s fine, though. You’ll never tell anyone about tonight. You won’t be able to tell them anything about me.”
In her right hand, the woman held a spear-like weapon of a type Stephen had never seen.
Thunder rumbled, and lightning illuminated her face.
“Oh, I see. So it’s like that.”
Stephen had figured it out. A woman he hadn’t met but still felt as if he knew. This woman knew the other future, the path they hadn’t taken. And also—
“So when you said you were in ‘the same line of work,’ you were being literal.”
Since there was an Inventor in this world, there had been a good possibility that Another Eden had their own. Stephen knew this woman would be qualified.
“You look good…”
He wasn’t being sarcastic. Those were Stephen’s sincere feelings as he watched the spear bear down on him.
“Inventor of Another Eden—Alicia.”