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lightnovel-2048

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"Yup," Aikawa nodded. "Others seem to be on the case─Public Security and troubleshooters─but frankly, I don't know who. Sadly, I don't have a lot of horizontal ties. Anyway, my job this time around is to stop the murdering, disassembling maniac from claiming more victims."

"Did Sasaki hire you?"

"Can't tell you that. What do you call it again? Confidentiality? Professional ethics? Trade secrets?" Aikawa spread her arms jestingly and laughed. "Still, it seems a lot more worthy of my time than that crazy fiasco on Wet Crow's Feather Island ever was."

Worthy of her time. That's what she had to say about a grisly murderer who'd chopped up twelve people. The idea of taking on an unknown serial killer didn't frighten her in the least. On the contrary, she was so laidback you'd think she was sashaying on her way to a picnic.

Suddenly, I realized anew what a menace this crimson contractor was.

And how said menace was encroaching on me presently.

"Now, Kunagisa told me that you know something. Surely you wouldn't mind sharing it with big sis, whom you adore?" purred Aikawa, ready to pet my face. I didn't mind the voice, but the speaker was either a tiger or a panther and too much for a tabby like me.

Dammit, Kunagisa.

What happened to complementing each other, blue-haired chick?

Selling me out without the slightest hesitation...

"What's this?" pressed Aikawa. "Why are you clamming up and looking away? You're being awfully uncooperative. Don't tell me you're not going to tell me. Are you breaking your agreement? You promised, didn't you, in exchange for what's in that envelope?"

"No, but, see, I said I felt like time had stopped. "Are we really still going to be together then?" he asked.

"Is it so strange for a person to have a long-term relationship with a machine?" Lacia shot back.

It was a strange feeling, thinking of their future and considering how much their relationship had already changed since they met. "Are we really going to be together ten years from now?" he asked.

Lacia didn't answer. She couldn't, he realized, since the answer to that question hinged on whether or not he would wait that long. "So it'll happen if I decide to keep you by my side for ten years, huh," he murmured.

As he said it Arato realized, with a sudden stab of fear, that he couldn't figure out when or why the thought had popped into his head. The blood pumping to his brain felt so hot that it felt as though he was about to be boiled alive. Everything seemed to be zooming away from him, going to a place where he couldn't reach it, including his almost obsessive feelings toward Lacia. When he thought about them, they seemed so real that his thoughts would slam into them like a wall.

"Arato, do you believe these special feelings you have for me, a machine, are being caused by analog hacking?" Lacia asked. Her clear, soulless voice pierced mercilessly through his heart. At that moment, Arato was using her as a tool. Nothing more than a receptacle for his affection. But, when pushed onto an inhuman machine such as herself, there was nothing romantic about it. She was just pornography; one-sided satisfaction for his libido.

His admittedly juvenile sense of ethics was yelling at him that an owner telling a girl who couldn't refuse that he liked her was the height of cowardice. He could probably power through it if he just allowed himself to accept a little immorality, but he just couldn't. Regret and shame that his seventeen-year-old mind couldn't quite understand had him tearing up before he even realized what was happening. A storm had brewed in his heart, and it didn't show any sign of letting up.

Even after Arato went to bed, he couldn't get to sleep. So, when he awoke, his head still felt heavy, and he decided to down an anti-drowsiness medicine that they kept around. If you drank too much, it had the nasty side effect of backing up your intestines, but a normal dose would free you from sleepiness for about three hours.

This was the day that Arato would go to the No. 1 Landfill Island at noon for the show they had met about the day before. In the world of hIE models, as soon as it was decided something would happen, it happened quick.

After taking the Urayasu Line to Shin-Urayasu, he transferred to the Keiyo Line, then the Rinkai Line which finally took him to Tokyo Teleport Station, near where they were doing the shoot. Lacia had gone in an automatic car, sent by Fabion MG to pick her up. Arato was still feeling weird about her from the night before, though, and couldn't bear to ride with her.

"They talk about this whole 'boy meets girl' thing like it's easy," he grumbled without thinking, and then quickly looked around to see if anyone had heard him. After all, the only people there with him were Fabion MG staff involved with the show.

He was standing on the inside of a metal fence around one piece of the No. 1 Landfill Island, on the site of the old National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology. Debris could be seen scattered here and there, under the grass around the building. During the Hazard, the nearby International Exhibition Center had exploded and sent fragments flying all the way there.

The set for the shoot was taking advantage of the places where the building was missing its roof to create an open-air scene. The heliport that used to be on the roof had fallen down sometime during the last century, apparently.

The six chairs from the previous day's display were there. Old decor and new were mixed together, as though special attention had been paid to the feeling of time on the set.

Four candle chandeliers had been attached to the ceiling of the set. The bare concrete floor was spiderwebbed with cracks, showing its decades of neglect. 3D projectors had been integrated with the material of the walls, so they did not unnaturally catch the eye.

Shafts of sun shone down through the open skylight in the ceiling, onto the high-backed chair where Lacia would sit.

The closest of the chairs was already filled. HRP-4C Mimu, who couldn't walk well on uneven ground, was already on standby. The other five humanoid robots would enter through one of three doors in the room and approach the set from the front of the stage.

Arato was watching the preparations from an open space on the set. "Man, this is fancy," he said.

"We actually got a spacial artist specialist to do it," Asuna said, clearly excited. "We're thinking of opening it up to the public after we're done. This place has been off-limits for over forty years since the Hazard, but obviously they're going to want to reclaim it and turn it into empty lots that people can use again. So, before that happens, I thought it would be nice to make this a place where folks could come to experience the history of humanoid robots for a bit."

"Wait, they're going to tear this place down?" Arato asked.

A woman with her long hair held back by a clip that caught the light turned to him and gave a light, nasal laugh. "Haven't you heard? They're going to redevelop the whole Odaiba area," she said. The woman had a choker at her neck, under which the elastic neckline of her shirt dove quite low. A smartly fastened mini-skirt finished the look. Her legs were so long, and her body so sleek, that Arato knew at first glance that she was a model.

Seeing his confusion and inability to ask who she was with her right there by him, Asuna sighed and gave him a hand. "Oh, come on, Arato, you don't know Oriza Ayabe?" she asked.

"There's going to be human models in today's show?" Arato asked, surprised.

Oriza looked at him, narrowing her wide, bright eyes. "At next year's International Inter-Fashion Biennale they're going to allow human and hIE models to appear together," she said. "By the way, who are you?"

She inspected his clothes from head to toe. "For a model, your casual clothes sure need some work," she commented.

He was about to introduce himself, but Asuna silenced him with a finger to her lips. The fact that he was Lacia's owner wasn't public knowledge.

"Whatever, doesn't matter," Oriza dismissed him, biting the paper cup in her hand. "Seriously, I don't get how these hIEs get to be models just because they've got some good looks. All they know how to do is copy. Monkey see, monkey do," she muttered.

Lacia, whose own wardrobe preparations had been completed, was performing a test run on the stage. Wrapped in a thin spring dress, she was practicing her walking, over and over.

As if to avoid any further communication with Oriza, Asuna spoke to Arato. "The stuff she has on now looks pretty different from the summer clothes she was wearing in Shibuya, right? Were you surprised?" she asked. "The spring outfit she's in now won't come into real demand for another three to six months after the show, but this is just an image shoot, so it's not a problem. You've got to prepare properly in the fashion world if you want to get folks to spend big money on clothes that will only last one season."

Arato opened his mouth to interject that he still wasn't sure about this whole 'boy meets girl' thing, but Oriza beat him to the punch.

"You guys shouldn't be worrying about this," she said dismissively. "I'm sure you'll do something for next year's event. I know you're in a big rush to promote hIEs, but everyone in the industry knows that clothes go in seasons. The stuff you're pitching now won't be selling until next year."

For an instant, Asuna lost her composure and showed how annoyed she was with Oriza. The reason behind her annoyance was clear the next time Oriza opened her mouth.

"Why do people buy expensive clothes for hIEs anyway?" she asked. "It's not like it makes them happy. You'd be better off giving them to a normal human girl."

Obviously, it wasn't the kind of thing an hIE model manager could let slide. "There are users who are happier living with hIEs, so why shouldn't they have nice clothes for them?" Asuna snapped.

"They can't even wear silk or anything thin without tearing it up from the inside. What a waste. They should all just wear jerseys," Oriza said. It was clear to Arato that she was only pretending to talk to him so she could badmouth hIEs in front of Asuna, and he was impressed by how nasty her personality was.

She wasn't wrong about the silk, though. After the kidnapping, he had to throw away the outfit the guy had put on Lacia. It had burns and some tears from the fight with Kouka, of course, but Lacia herself fun.

"Waaah! Someone save meeeee!"

Maki's doubts, however, were quickly answered when she caught a glimpse of a massive, pink snowball barreling down the hill. It cut a beautiful course right after Koutarou, Theia, and Shizuka almost like it was a homing missile. It was obvious now that the three of them were going so fast to try to get away from it.

"Don't come over here, Yurika!"

"I caaan't stooooop!"

"Oh no..."

Crash!

There weren't skis fast enough to escape the out-of-control snowball, and Koutarou was directly in its path. The snowball plowed over him without mercy—and Maki and the other girls had a front row seat for the whole thing.

Harumi's careful, patient lessons had all been for naught. Nearly as soon as she set foot on the slope, Yurika fell and tumbled into a snowball that picked up momentum as it picked up size. Koutarou and the others unfortunately happened to pass by at just the wrong time.

On the bright side, however, Koutarou wasn't seriously hurt when the pink snowball plowed over him. The snow Yurika had accumulated actually helped cushion the blow and distribute the impact, though Koutarou ended up covered head to toe in the stuff. He acted like it was no big deal at first and immediately went back to playing with the girls, but developed a fever over the course of the afternoon. By that evening, they could all tell at a glance that he was getting sick.

"You really are foolish, Satomi Koutarou."

"Can you blame me? I don't get that many chances to go skiing."

Currently, Koutarou was resting in his hotel room. Kiriha couldn't help smiling as she dipped a towel in some cool water for him and placed it on his forehead. Koutarou was always incredibly reliable in an emergency, but at times like this, he was almost childish. Of course, Kiriha didn't really think he was as foolish as she made him out to be. She knew that this was part of how he depended on them too, so it actually made her happy.

"Layous-sama, would you like something to eat? I could feed you if you'd like."

"Thanks, but everyone kind of ended up feeding me earlier. I could use a drink, though."

"Coming right up."

In addition to Kiriha, Elfaria was helping to take care of Koutarou. She was the oldest of the group and their leader on paper, so it was only natural for her to stay behind and lend Kiriha—their actual leader—a hand. As for how exactly she planned on helping...

Sssip!

"Mmm..."

"Hey! What are you doing?"

"Gulp... Well, I was thinking of trying to give you some juice mouth-to-mouth."

Sip!

"Mmm!"

Whack!

"Mm—Ouch! Jeez, you don't have to be so shy, Layous-sama. Not with the kind of relationship we have."

"Oh yeah? And what kind of relationship is that?"

"That of a beautiful mother and her son-in-law."

"You idiot."

From Koutarou's point of view, it didn't seem like Elfaria had stayed behind out of a sense of responsibility. Far from it—she'd simply stayed because she wanted to.

She might say it was twenty years ago, but emotions aren't so simple. Especially in Her Majesty's case where it wasn't anyone's fault they met... or had to say goodbye.

Elfaria always wore a mask of humor around Theia and the other girls to play her relationship with Koutarou off as a joke. But Kiriha suspected that there was a genuine longing underneath that mask and all the jokes. She herself knew the pain of unrequited love, after all.

Once Koutarou fell asleep, Kiriha and Elfaria took their leave to have dinner. On their way back to the room afterward, the hotel arcade happened to catch Kiriha's eye. Since guests couldn't go skiing when the weather turned bad, the resort hotel made sure to put a little extra flair and thought into its top-notch indoor entertainment.

"Hmm, if we use this..."

After taking a cursory survey of the available games, Kiriha flashed a small smile. She then turned to Elfaria, who was walking next to her.

"Your Majesty, would you care to learn a bit about the games of Earth?"

"Games? But Layous-sama is sleeping, so..."

Elfaria appeared to be far more concerned about Koutarou's wellbeing, and anxiously glanced over at the elevator back up to his room.

"He is indeed asleep, so it should be all right if we dally for just a bit. Besides, Koutarou would be very disappointed to learn you spent your entire vacation caring for him."

"That may be true, but..."

"So I was thinking that perhaps we could have a little competition. The loser has to take care of Koutarou and the winner is free to do whatever they like. What do you say?" Kiriha suggested with a bright smile.

Koutarou wasn't so ill that he needed two people to care for him. Kiriha thought she could use a game to divide up the duty and halve the burden on both her and Elfaria. Or, at least, that was the pretense.

"...In that case, I won't lose, Kiriha-san."

"Please show me what you're made of, Your Majesty."

Kiriha had a very specific goal in mind, and she saw this little competition as the perfect opportunity to accomplish it.

Now I just need to defeat Her Majesty... A most difficult foe...

Kiriha wanted to give Elfaria and Koutarou some alone time together—something Elfaria wouldn't dare ask for herself out of deference for Theia and the other girls. So, just like she had with Theia and the ski lift earlier, Kiriha came up with a plan specifically designed to give Elfaria what she wanted but couldn't ask for. Kiriha would make sure Elfaria had no choice but to stay with Koutarou.

Granted, Elfaria wasn't stupid. She was extremely wise and, because of her position, highly skilled in tactics and negotiation. It was foolish to assume that she didn't already have some clue what Kiriha was up to at this point. That meant there was no reason for Kiriha to make concessions; Elfaria would be playing to win, and beating her would be no easy task when she put her mind to it... not even for Kiriha.

The game Kiriha chose for their competition was a simple roulette she'd spotted in the token section of the arcade. Participants would place bets on where they thought the ball would land and win a payout accordingly. This particular roulette was completely digital, but the rules were otherwise the same as the analogue version.

As for their game, Kiriha and Elfaria each started with twenty tokens. The winner would simply be whoever had the most tokens after five rounds. If they'd agreed to go until one of them ran out, it would have been a long, drawn-out game of reserved plays and safe bets. But the limited timeframe changed the tactics of the game dramatically. Not betting anything whatsoever and holding on to the same twenty tokens was allowed, but so was betting all of them in the first round. The winner would be whoever had the most tokens at the end of five turns, regardless of the strategy they used.

With these rules, losing the initiative would be bad. I'll need to stay one step ahead of Her Majesty...

Kiriha's plan was to take the offensive. If Elfaria took a lead in the first round, she could just bet the same way Kiriha did every turn thereafter, effectively preventing her from making a comeback. That said, Kiriha couldn't risk being overly aggressive and losing too much in the first round either. She had to win, but she had to do it prudently.

"I see. So the first move is going to be the hardest..."

"Yes. We can both see how much the other is betting and what they're betting on, after all."

For their game, they'd agreed on a minute hold between each round. During that time, they were free to bet on as many spaces as they liked—but their opponent could see them do it. There was a certain strategy to waiting until the last second to bet.