“Did you need me?” I said, again in English.
“It seems you’re not rusty,” he replied.
“Show me your ID card.”
“It’s me. Have you forgotten me?”
“You could be in disguise or have gotten plastic surgery. Hurry up,” I said, not letting my guard down. The man put his hand into his pocket. From the way he was walking, he didn’t seem to have a gun in there, but I gripped the ballpoint pen harder.
I watched his movement carefully. The man took out a black leather pass case. It had a card with a portrait on it to help identify its bearer. When I saw it, I relaxed my grip on the pen.
The man turned around slowly towards me. “It’s been a long time,” he said, this time in fluent Japanese. It was someone I knew. I’d worked for him when I was in America.
The ID said “FBI” in large letters. The official name was Federal Bureau of Investigation. It was, of course, an American police organization. It was also my old workplace. I’d changed my citizenship to American in order to work there, so right now I technically wasn’t Japanese, but American.
“Oliver, fancy running into you in Japan.”
“It’s no coincidence. I came to Japan specifically to see you.”
“Is there some rule that says if you want to see someone who quit, you have to tail them?”
Oliver Roseland. Thirty-seven years old. My former boss. To be honest, he wasn’t a man I wanted to see outside of work. Other people’s opinions might differ, though.
“That outfit looks good on you. It’s what they call ‘Japanese Kawaii,’ right? Have you managed to fit in at a Japanese school?”
“You don’t have to ask questions when you’re not interested in the answers.”
“It’s a shame you left the bureau. You were good at your job.”
“Thanks.” I didn’t believe him. I knew him too well for that.
“How’s your mother’s illness?”
“Her Alzheimer’s is getting worse,” I said, as expressionlessly as I could. “She doesn’t even remember that she had a daughter at all, let alone who I am.”
“I see. Does your psychometry still work?”
“Well enough.” I felt like I was undergoing an interview. It didn’t feel like he was here to catch up on old times.
Psychometry. That power was what had let me get a job at the FBI at my age, and it was what had let me keep it.
In my case, I would go into a mental space that looked like a movie theater and watch the memories of an object appear on a screen. I was often told it was an overly elaborate way of doing things, and I agreed. But it was something I needed to do if I wanted to separate my memories from those of other people. “Fusion” always followed “synchronization.”
When you read somebody’s memories, you would become them, and then not only would your memories mix, but so would your personality. It was a common problem for people with this power, I’d heard.
When I was little, I’d often get very confused after using my powers. That’s why I created that mental movie theater: as a way to protect my mind.
“What do you want? You haven’t come here just to see how I’m doing.”
“I want you to use your power to help me.”
“You came all the way from America to Japan to call me back?”
“That’s right.”
“Did you forget why I quit?”
“I’m not going to tell you to come back to America.”
“What?”
“I want you to take over the work of an agent who was working in Japan.”
I wasn’t expecting that, so I let my confusion show on my face. “An agent, working in Japan?”
“Agent Moritsuka.”
Moritsuka?!
Shun Moritsuka. A man who always looked like an idiot but was as clever as they came. His powers of observation and intuition exceeded anyone else I knew.
I’d known Moritsuka since he’d come to Japan to work on a certain case. Since we were both Japanese, he’d often come to chat with me for five or ten minutes about nothing in particular and then leave. He was a weird guy. Moritsuka wasn’t with the FBI very long, but from the way everyone around him acted, I could tell he excelled at his job.
“He came back to the FBI?”
“No. But he was working with us on this case.”
Why would they need me to take over a case Moritsuka was on?
“They got Moritsuka.”
What?! What did he just say? Moritsuka? They got him? They got him... Did that mean...
He was dead?
“You heard about the 256 bodies they found in Inokashira Park, right? One of them was Moritsuka’s.”
“What?!”
How? Suicide? An accident? Or murder?
If it was murder, then who...?
Calm down. Remember the training you got when you joined the FBI. I tensed my limbs and focused my mind to calm my anxiety. I closed my eyes and took a quick breath.
I didn’t know for sure that Moritsuka was dead yet. It was possible that Oliver was bluffing, or that his information was bad. I needed to stay calm.
“Are you sure about this?”
“The information came from the Musashino police, the place where Moritsuka was working. His co-workers ID’ed the body. They’re sure.”
“What was he working on?”
“He was looking into an NGO that belonged to a certain organization, but it’s not clear if they were behind it. All we know is that he’s gone.”
From the way he was talking, “murder” was the safe assumption. I repeated the meaning of this in my mind and bit my lip. “So you’re saying that all 256 were murders, not suicides?”
“Moritsuka had no reason to kill himself. Thus, we think it was murder. There’s no other evidence besides that.”
In other words, they barely knew anything.
“HQ is in an uproar. Agent Moritsuka was extremely useful in any case that involved the supernatural. Losing him is going to hurt.”
“Moritsuka...” I’d had no idea he’d died in the Inokashira incident. I hadn’t realized it, but Moritsuka was in Kichijoji, too. Maybe I’d passed him on the street. “And you want me to take over his work?”
“You want revenge for him too, right?”