Less Than Human (46 page)

Beside her, Akita groaned and jerked his body tight against the straps.

“What the …” Fujinaka/Gagiel vaulted onto the dais. He stared at Eleanor, then bent over Akita, looking into his face anxiously.

Akita’s eyes opened and he roared with rage. His face became suffused, spittle sprayed from his lips, and he wrenched his
artificial hand from the console with a squelch.

“Master, what is the matter?” Gagiel hurried to release the straps.

“You.” Akita’s shoulders rolled free, and he swung on Eleanor with such venom that she tumbled backward out of her chair in
her hurry to escape. Her legs wouldn’t work properly and the room kept swinging in and out of focus.

A couple of the acolytes, sensing something wrong, looked up from their prayers, and the smooth rhythm faltered. Gagiel looked
up from where he was fumbling with Akita’s leg straps long enough to signal to Samael,
keep going.

“You betrayed us,” Akita growled. “I would have let you rule with me. I would have given you everything. Bind her,” he snarled
at Gagiel.

Gagiel’s long eyes narrowed as he advanced on Eleanor. She scrambled to her feet and nearly fell over the edge of the dais.

“No!” called a clear voice from the back of the room. A white-clad figure stood up and stumbled over the people in front of
her. It was Mari.

“Let her go,” she yelled.

The hum of prayer disintegrated as people looked up. Several people in front of Mari cried out with pain as she clambered
over them in her haste to reach the dais. Samael cursed and strode after Mari.

Gagiel grabbed Eleanor’s right arm and twisted it behind her. She sagged downward, overcome with the pressure of sensory input
and the headache that drilled into her skull.

A sweet smell burrowed into her sinuses. She could hear Akita raving about what he would do to her, but his words were slurred,
and everyone else seemed to be shouting as well. Someone was running down the corridor. No, lots of people were running down
the corridor. The smell was choking her sinuses until she had to sneeze …

Akita’s red face filled her vision. “Get rid of her
now.
”

T
he antiterror squad’s boots thudded down the wooden stairs. The men ran left and right out of the alcove, following Ishihara’s
map.

The corridors seemed narrower, the ceilings lower than when he was here a couple of hours before. He followed the squad’s
broad backs to the door of what McGuire said was the computer room. Voices cried and yelled in confusion. He edged past a
scrum of black, white, blue, and green figures in the doorway. One silver-clothed man writhed in the grip of three policemen.
Ishihara caught a glimpse of the thin face snarling defiance. Samael/Inoue.

People dressed in white sneezed and coughed on the floor. At the end of the room was a raised platform and a bank of computers
against the wall. Three of the squad were mounting the steps to the platform where a figure in gold raised his hands to cover
his face and a figure in silver, coughing, tried to jump off but was tripped by a smaller person in white. McGuire, it had
to be.

He shoved his way past the sneezing acolytes to the dais. The Angel half fell off the dais and was caught by one of the squad.
The figure in white doubled over. He reached up, saw McGuire’s long, foreign features and thrust the mask into her hands.

“Put it on!” he yelled over the din.

She slapped it onto her face automatically then her streaming eyes met his. He caught a glimpse of her smile before she doubled
over again. “…Mari.” She pointed behind him.

He found Mari curled up beside the dais. As he bent to put the mask on her face, someone shrieked so loudly they all jumped.

Two of the antiterrorist squad were trying to get Adam away from the computers but he held grimly to the chair, which must
have been bolted to the dais. His features were crumpled, eyes half-shut from the gas; tears and mucus spattered as he shook
his head violently.

“No, no, you can’t make me go. I can’t leave it. You can’t make me leave it, it’s not fair…” His voice rose in a scream of
real desperation. “I don’t want to die!”

They wrenched him away from the chair. The feelers on his artificial hand writhed in the air as he reached out piteously to
Eleanor.

“Help me!” he shrieked. “I’m going to die …”

McGuire’s mouth twisted, and she raised her hand as if she was going to touch his. Then she let her hand drop. Her eyes met
Ishihara’s.

“We all die sometime,” she said.

Paramedics had set up an emergency treatment station in the main building next to the factory. The police were working from
vans parked in the factory grounds and in the surrounding streets. McGuire wouldn’t let the paramedics do anything but give
her painkillers and the antidote for the gas. She refused to go to hospital. Ishihara left Funo to interview her and went
outside for a break.

He did remember to ask one of the detectives to ring Prefectural HQ and tell McGuire’s husband she was here, but he couldn’t
think of anything else he should do. He couldn’t think at all.

Outside, sunlight touched the top of the buildings. He sat down on a concrete block in the shade of the wall, dropped his
mask on the ground, and let the top of his head float away.

Someone closed his hand around a warm cylinder. The aroma of coffee filled his nostrils.

“’Morning,” said Beppu. He crouched and looked anxiously into Ishihara’s face. “Drink.”

Ishihara swigged from the tin of coffee. His hand shook and spilled drops down his chin. After a few minutes he felt like
a smoke.

“Super’s frantic.” Beppu lit a cigarette for him. “The NDN’s down. Phones are down. Computers are down. Electricity’s been
diverted to essential services. Trains are still running, though.”

So Adam had succeeded.

Beppu caught his expression. “Not your fault. You did well to find them. That foreigner said she tried to stop them from inside
the thing they used.”

“Is she all right?”

“Looks like it. She’s still talking to Funo. They’re getting along quite well.” Beppu jerked his chin at the building behind
them. Across the road, the antiterrorism squad vans were gone from the parking lot. Two police cars had taken their place.
Uniformed constables dissuaded curious people from loitering near the tape barriers along the road in front of the factory.

“The techos are going wild over the computers down there,” said Beppu. “McGuire won’t tell them anything about it now. She
says she’ll come and see them tomorrow.”

The sun shone full on the road. Men in ties and women in skirts and stockings hurried past the barriers to work. Two high
school girls rode past on bicycles, giggling. Wasn’t anyone worried? Perhaps they thought the power would be on by the time
they reached their destinations.

“What’s the time?” said Ishihara.

“About seven,” said Beppu. “Funo wants your report, but she said they’re so flat out it can wait till tomorrow. I’m going
to drive you home.”

“Generous of her to spare you.”

“She didn’t want to.”

“Why couldn’t I call you earlier?” Ishihara said. “I did try.”

Beppu chuckled. “You’re lucky Funo asked the same question. Turns out they had some kind of anti-interference field in the
factory. Can’t use phones in there.”

“Did they find out where the other Angels from the vans went?”

“Yeah, the bloke you chased out here talked,” said Beppu. “We found them, but they had no computers or weapons. We booked
Adam and three others. The rest of them are in custody pending investigation.”

“The kids in white didn’t know much. The ones in blue and green were more involved.” Ishihara thought of the novice who’d
strung him up. “Some more than others.”

“Yeah, well we got Inoue,” said Beppu with heavy satisfaction. He looked over Ishihara’s shoulder. “Here they are. We’re letting
the girl go home on the condition McGuire brings her in tomorrow.”

“Assistant Inspector?” McGuire and her niece still wore the white clothes, but both had wrapped scarves around their heads
and wore cheap slip-ons on their feet. Mari’s face was merely pale from the gas, but McGuire looked like she’d been scraped
off the footpath after a five-day binge.

“We’re leaving now.” Her set mouth and dark-circled eyes were unreadable.

Ishihara stood up awkwardly. He wanted to say something, but couldn’t mink what.

“Thank you for your help,” was all he could manage.

A bubble of silence surrounded them, against which the sounds of the street beat unheard. McGuire looked straight at him.
He remembered her gray eyes upside down in the hanging room, and was glad he had trusted them.

She started to say something, stopped, and bowed carefully, as though her back hurt. “Thank you for finding us.”

Ishihara returned the bow. “My pleasure.”

Mari had no such reservations. She threw her arms around his neck and squeezed hard. “Thank you. Thank you,” she said, tears
choking her voice. “This is for the others, too. They don’t even know that you saved them.”

When she took her arms away she took something else away—the tight knot of anger he’d felt for so many years at Junta. We
can’t make our children’s choices for them.

“You’re welcome,” he grunted.

Silence.

“Ah, Inspector?” Mari twisted her hands together worriedly. “What will happen to Adam?”

“He’ll be sent for a psychiatric evaluation,” Ishihara said. “Then we decide whether to charge him and with what.”

“I don’t think he wanted to hurt anyone…” she began, but stopped. “That doesn’t make it better though, does it?”

Beppu cleared his throat noisily, then made a face as though he wished he hadn’t. “Do you need a lift anywhere?”

McGuire’s face relaxed into a sunny gaijin smile. “No thanks. We’re going home.”

She bowed again. The two women linked arms and walked up the street, their slip-ons clopping on the sidewalk.

Beppu sighed. “I’m bloody glad that turned out all right.”

Ishihara slapped him on the shoulder. “Never any doubt.”

They walked to Beppu’s car.

“How are we supposed to make a proper report without a computer?” Beppu grumbled. “No supporting material, no photographs
…?”

“Use a pen.” Ishihara looked around them at the pitted concrete and drooping tiled roofs. In one garden a man in singlet and
shorts fanned a wood fire under an iron plate.
Bring the kettle out,
he yelled into his house.

The Bettas would be in chaos, and Beppu didn’t have his computer, but life went on in the gaps between the spokes of the wheel.

“Tell me about that house on the coast,” said Ishihara.

T
he street seemed different, although Eleanor didn’t understand why. The grimy asphalt was the same. The jungle of wires festooned
from poles to rooftops were the same. They still had to wind their way between cars parked all along the sides of the street
and scraps spilled from a plasbag somebody had put out in defiance of the correct rubbish pickup day. But Eleanor felt as
though she was seeing all these things for the first time.

Fragments of the Macrocosm blurred in her mind. Back in the real world, those colors, sounds, and images ran together like
a watercolor painting left outside in the rain. Moments of memory not her own lurked at the edges of consciousness.

“Can you hear that?” she asked Mari. “Cicadas.”

Mari listened, then shook her head. “I can’t hear anything.”

Cicadas lived only in memories. Like the one shaken to death in a water bottle to gratify cruel children.

“What will they do with Adam’s equipment and all that stuff?” Mari said.

“Keep it as exhibit for the prosecution, probably.” Eleanor found herself wishing the police would simply decide to destroy
the consoles. She wanted nothing more to do with the interface, and if the police wanted her to demonstrate it for them, too
bad for them.

Not that she wasn’t grateful to the police—to Ishihara in particular—for arriving in time to save her from Samael. She had
no doubt he would have been the one to carry out Akita’s order to kill her.