Tsuruya and T vanished like the two angels on the Thoth tarot card for The Sun, and the clubroom was once again filled with silence and the sounds of athletes practicing.
Koizumi sat down next to me, diligently bundling the three episodes together and reading them again from the top.
Feeling like our chief was being weirdly quiet, I looked her way, and she seemed sort of out of it, staring at nothing, calmly sipping the dregs of her tea.
It was like a scene from an art movie, a shot of someone savoring the warmth of daily life with an eerie sort of calm.
Placid Haruhi was rather unnerving. Maybe that just meant she had me thoroughly trained.
While I was wrestling with that notion, our eyes met.
She furrowed her brows, and she glared at me a moment, then glanced away, focusing on her computer screen.
Not sure what to do with my hands, I pointlessly stared at the bottom of my mug, and our club maid came over to me.
“Would you like another cup?”
I looked up at her glorious, smiling visage, saw the teapot in her hands, and said I’d be delighted. And while I was at it, I asked another question.
“Asahina, when you were reading Episode Three, you were staring at one spot like you were trying to put a hole in the page. What was bugging you?”
She was a third-year now but still never felt like she was any older than me.
Pouring tea into my mug, she replied, “Oh, that? I, uh, got hung up on the phrase DNA computing.”
“Can I ask why?”
She just smiled at me. We stared at each other for a while, then I hung my head.
Does that mean it’s classified?
I asked that question with a glance, and the eternally in-training maid just broadened her smile, putting a finger to her lips. Then her apron skirts fluttered as she shuffled back toward the kettle, like the human embodiment of a tea-making fairy.
DNA computing. I didn’t know how that worked or even have foggiest idea of the basic concept, but did they go inside your body? I remembered something Asahina the Elder had said.
It exists within our minds in an abstract form.
My mind took a leap.
I’d only realized we were being bugged because Nagato moved her chair to look directly at T’s face.
What if she wasn’t looking at the hairpin but at T herself?
What if there was a listening system embedded inside T’s body? If the hairpin was merely a dummy, and the actual bug was inside her…
“No way.”
That was clearly too out there. I dunno how futuristic the tech would have to be to make that possible.
Still…
…what about location trackers?
In the answer e-mail for second episode, she’d said, “For all I know, there’s one on me right now!” No matter how carefully she washed herself, it stayed put. An unknown GPS tracker invisible to the naked eye.
What if these miniscule micromachines really were implanted inside Tsuruya’s and T’s bodies?
And Nagato had been staring at T, and Tsuruya in turn, with spooky intensity not just because she’d noticed this but because she was destroying, disabling, or eliminating them? It was eminently possible that a wave of panic was spreading through the Tsuruya and the Whatevergartner staff right about now.
There was only one reason why Nagato would do that; they’d provided her with an entertaining mystery game, and she was simply returning the favor. For as little as she’d participated, she must have enjoyed it in her own way. Or known the answer from the start and elected to remain an observer.
But all this was just in my mind. Pure speculation.
I glanced at Nagato’s profile. No expression on her face, attention fully on her own book, not moving a muscle.
But for a fleeting second, I could have sworn the corners of her lips were tracing a gentle upward curve, one so subtle that it was beyond my ability to confirm with my eyes.
I took a sip of tea and savored the sensation of the hot liquid as it cooled off in my mouth. I turned my gaze to the window. The green leaves of the cherry trees were waving in the breeze from the mountains.
Summer was almost here.