Chapter 001

At least that was what Hazuki Makino thought as she looked at Ayumi Kono’s back, though why she was thinking about it in the first place was a mystery. It had nothing to do with anything. One minute she was just thinking how uncomfortable her school uniform was—the fabric too thick, making it hard to move around. Then, wolves.

Ayumi’s short black hair was very garçon manqué; running long from her hairline to the collar of an off-white shirt, her crisp white nape.

Hazuki had first seen her at the area center’s summer session, but later Ayumi became a common sight.

“Aren’t you ever gonna grow your hair out?” she’d called out, and then, “Hey, I’m talking to you,” before Ayumi finally turned around.

Her eyes, tinted green, pierced through long eyelashes like a young doe.

“Smells feral.”

Ayumi ignored the question and kept her arms around her knees as she turned away from Hazuki.

“Feral?”

“Yeah. It’s gross,” Ayumi said into her knees, tucking her head into the crook of her crossed arms. Hazuki, still seated, inched closer.

“What’s that mean? I don’t think I’ve ever smelled an…animal before.”

“Me neither, dude.” Ayumi guffawed. Then how do you know you’re smelling it? Hazuki asked. Ayumi thrust out her right arm.

It was white. It was thin. It was smooth like alabaster. Hazuki wasn’t sure but it looked like the arm of a girl. Not a beast.

Hazuki lowered her nose to Ayumi’s arm.

“It doesn’t smell like anything. Just your shower gel, maybe.”

“Yeah?”

Ayumi put her arm back around her knees. She was looking far off into the distance. Hazuki scooted farther up so she was sitting diagonally right behind Ayumi. She had clean-cut features and a dignified profile—God, what a lame way to describe it.

“What do you mean by feral?”

“I’m not sure. It’s just the thought that came to me.”

Ayumi lowered her eyes. Hazuki looked to where Ayumi’s gaze had just been fixed—a cityscape of no distinction that promised no futures. Buildings stood like CGI creations.

Utterly. Boring.

No movement. What was she looking at? Probably just staring off into the distance. Nothing, technically. Just the distance between them and the view itself. You couldn’t measure distance in a computer monitor.

After a long silence she saw it—the air, the wind, or something.

Hazuki and Ayumi always came here after their communication session ended. They’d sit at this spot and stare at the view in silence. They were supposed to go straight home after classes, but who ever did? If you were already used to going out on your own you weren’t going to stop now, and if you weren’t, this weekly class was the perfect opportunity to do so. Since the kids were forced to go out once a week anyway, it made sense to take advantage of the situation. The counselors stayed out after sessions too. It being a weekly encounter group on communication, it could be argued that one would actually be remiss not to learn how to interact with society; to go into town.

Still. It wasn’t as if there were much else to do besides wander.

The town was vacant. What real boutiques existed only sold luxury and collector’s items. These things weren’t inherently interesting to the girls and were totally unaffordable for children. They didn’t appreciate being under constant surveillance at the restaurants and coffee shops, and it cost money just to sit there anyway. Some of the kids went to the “amusement areas,” but it essentially amounted to camping before a bigger monitor screening the same “entertainment” you could get at home. Besides, half the time there were more adults than children. Not very fun. Mostly, the kids went to the park and pretended to play sports; they sat around and made idle conversation with each other. A useless endeavor that benefited no one. One would have to wait till nightfall to do anything more out of the ordinary, so there was no sense in using your weekly trip to summer school as an excuse to commit mischief, even something as innocent as detouring on your way home.

The communication sessions could get pretty long, depending on your district. Hazuki’s was full of children sans legal guardians or who had other qualifying “special circumstances.” This meant the classes were easy and ended early. Of course, they said it was because public safety in the area was so well maintained. It was to continue keeping order, discipline. This was why group had always been able to end at 3:00 pm on the dot.

They had so much free time they couldn’t stand it.

However, Hazuki was just as bored sitting around making idle conversation. There was no story. It wasn’t as if they were staring into their monitors, so it seemed ridiculous to be talking about schoolwork. If she wanted the news she could get that at home. There was absolutely no reason why children had to face each other to talk.

On the other hand, one could reason, they’d gone out of their way to come to school anyway, so it would be pointless not to take advantage of the opportunity to make the detour. If it was going to be pointless, it should really be pointless, was another way of looking at it.

And that was how the two girls got to coming here—looking out into the city, their arms wrapped around their knees.

Ayumi used to come out here alone in the beginning. Hazuki happened to see her one day on her way back from school and found it curious. Ayumi had just transferred to the area four years ago. They were assigned to the same room, so she knew at least her name. Before that, it was as if she didn’t exist. Hazuki was terribly curious about this new girl and started researching Ayumi’s profile. They were the same age because they were in the same group—she knew that much. But the students in each group had different learning-level assignments. Theirs were identical.

The next week they were in group together, Hazuki tried to sit close to Ayumi. Not to make conversation or anything. Just to be near her. They’d stayed that close after warming up to each other.

It wasn’t as if Hazuki was trying to be like Ayumi or become best friends with her. It being a group setting, this was the perfect place for Hazuki to behave totally pointlessly. And that was the reason itself for her actions. Since Ayumi never complained, Hazuki never left.

Ayumi put her nose to her arm once again, then opened her right hand wide. Staring into the empty space inside her palm, she suddenly clenched her fingers into a hard fist.

“What kind of smell?”

“I dunno. Maybe human.”

“You just said it was an animal smell.”

“Fine. I meant living being.”

“Then that’s your own smell.”

“Yeah, but…”

Ayumi was a beautiful young woman. Her hair was very short and her style plain, but, Hazuki thought, she was still more feminine than her own self, long-haired and accessory-laden. Why can’t I pull off short hair? But as she started to mouth the next words out loud, Ayumi abruptly stood up and turned around. Hazuki turned her head.

Leaning against the handrail of the staircase was Mio Tsuzuki.

“You’re going to get in trouble,” Mio said. “They told us to hurry home today.”

“What about you?” Ayumi responded. Mio grinned and leapt over the handrail to Ayumi’s side.

“I’m bored.”

Her eyes were feline, her face compact.

Mio Tsuzuki was in the same class as Hazuki and Ayumi. But while they were the same age, she was far higher in level placement. It would be more accurate to say there was no other objective correlation between them than to claim one smarter than the other two. According to public records, Mio had completed her compulsory groups at the age of nine and finished her secondary groups in an astonishing two years. In following with the line of college curricula she’d completed, she was ten years ahead of her age group. Her learning speed was the best bar none. She’s what we used to call a genius, adults would say.

Still. A fourteen-year-old was always a fourteen-year-old.

And in that respect, they were all the same.

“There’s nothing to do,” Mio said.

“Why don’t you go study?”

“I’m tired of it.” Mio sounded as uninterested as she claimed to be with life, and turned her back.

“Does that mean you’ve learned it all?”

Hazuki compared Mio’s back to Ayumi’s face.

She thought it unusual.

Mio was hard to like at first. Hazuki had transferred to this neighborhood ten years ago, but until today she had not once had a normal conversation with Mio. They knew nothing about her personal life, and Mio didn’t seem to have anything in common with them anyway. There was clearly nothing to ask about, so naturally, there was nothing to talk about.

But it wasn’t just Mio Tsuzuki. Hazuki and Ayumi were hardly in a position to have mundane social interactions, so they knew next to nothing about any of their classmates. In terms of the personal information you could gather on someone, excluding the public data everyone was legally obliged to provide for public consumption, there was no way of knowing if the arbitrary information people gave about themselves was true or not. Of course everyone agreed on this point. Besides all of which, the groupmates only saw each other for a few hours a week— conversations wouldn’t last much more than five minutes if they happened at all. Hazuki always thought it strange that people could sit in front of a monitor for five hours without a problem.

As for the weekly group format, more and more kids were having difficulty with normative human interaction, or would be soon. The groups were utterly useless. People already able to communicate effectively with others didn’t need this group, and the kids who couldn’t communicate would never learn anyway.

Mio Tsuzuki would never learn. At least that was what Hazuki thought.

On the one hand, Ayumi went totally unnoticed. She, like Mio, had no outstanding characteristics worth digging up from public records. If you didn’t know any better, you’d think Ayumi was the superior learner. The fact that these two were having a normal conversation was hard for Hazuki to swallow.

Mio dropped her purse on the ground and squatted down. Her eyes were huge. Her glare was piercing. Hazuki wasn’t used to being looked at. She felt like a monitor herself when people looked at her. It wouldn’t matter the query you input, she would not be able to respond. Mio kept staring at Hazuki and said, “You from the ranch, was it?”

“The ranch, yeah.”

“Your dad’s the politician, right?”

“Step-dad.”

“You’re adopted?”

“I see my dad maybe once a month.”

“That’s nothing. I see mine less than once a year.”

“Hmph.”

The conversation was going nowhere.

“Why aren’t you staying after group today?”

Ayumi’s voice came from above her. “Yeah, aren’t you teaching our proctors physics or something?”

“She’s teaching the proctors?”

Hazuki looked at Mio’s eyes for confirmation. Mio smiled. That she couldn’t deny it probably meant it was true. It was entirely possible. It didn’t occur to Hazuki, but if Ayumi had this information, it was probably common knowledge.

Mio looked up at Ayumi and said, “It’s not the proctors I’m teaching. It’s the counselor, Ms. Fuwa. And it’s not physics, it’s statistics.”

Ayumi kept staring at Mio. She didn’t respond. Mio continued.

“She told me to go home. The proctors told us all to hurry home.”

“They always do.”

“Today’s different. They said it’s dangerous.”

“Dangerous?”

“They’re saying someone might get murdered tonight.”

“Murdered? You mean that…”

Yes. People were being murdered. The body count was at four so far. They were all fourteen to fifteen-year-old girls. It didn’t matter where you were logged on, the public news bulletins announced the murders every hour, and it was all anyone would talk about on the TV tabloids. Even online, anonymous tips and news items ran alongside each other in a barrage. Hazuki hadn’t been reading any of it, but she’d heard they’d started a bunch of conferences. Still…

“It’s not news, you know.”

Every year there was some serial killer on the loose. One who somehow evaded capture. Just last summer, six people had been killed, and the culprit was never arrested. There were probably several killers living in plain sight, leading normal lives. Nothing to get all freaked out about now. The only reason anyone was talking about it now was because the victims were all minors.

“It’s all happening nearby,” Mio spoke up.

“You mean in neighboring areas,” Hazuki said. In other words, it was always someone else.

The murders had all taken place in adjacent areas. No one had been killed in Hazuki’s neighborhood. Public safety was the one thing the town had going for it.

“It’s not just nearby,” Mio said importantly, clasping her hands behind her and looking up at the sky.

“It could happen to us, you know. The neighborhood associations and our local police are all freaking out.”

“Why—someone die?”

Hazuki tried to think. Had anyone been missing in group today? She hadn’t gotten the impression anything was amiss at the session. But it could just be that Hazuki hadn’t been paying attention.

Wait. There was something…

“Someone was absent today.”

What was her name?

“Yabe.”

“It was Yabe!”

And just as quickly as the name came to her did she think she knew her well. But Hazuki hardly knew the names of half her groupmates.

Ayumi, still standing, said, “It wasn’t her.”

“She’s not dead.”

“She’s not dead?”

What a weird conversation, Hazuki thought.

“It was someone else who died,” Mio said.

“They found the body this morning.”

Ayumi shot a look at Mio. The sun shone in her eyes, making Mio’s face impossible to see.

“Under the Central North-South Line overpass. Right at our district borderline.”

“But I haven’t…”

Seen anything. Heard anything.

“There’s nothing in the news yet. The local police, prefectural police, and sheriff are all investigating it now.”

“Investigating?”

“Look. The local government and the head office on the case will differ on whether it’s part of the serial killings or if it’s just a singular incident. If the events have spread out across areas and prefectures, the case becomes a wider concern. The methods change, the system changes— historically it’s how the country’s been run. Of course, the initial investigation is always a failure, so there are tons of holes in the case later.”

Mio spoke like an adult.

“How do you know all this?”

“I nosed around. infiltrated.”

“Hacking into computers again? You’re going to get caught one of these days.”

“I’m never getting caught.” Mio was still looking up at the sky as she dismissed Hazuki. Perhaps Hazuki had Mio all wrong. Something about her was off. Hazuki looked back up at Ayumi but couldn’t see her face.

“The victim supposedly had the same eyes and mouth as the others. Face and throat were slit.”

Still looking up. Kill the victim and then slash her with a sharp knife— that was the serial killer’s pattern. One person, one move.

“Thing is…”

“They say the victim’s a boy.” Mio slid down and kept looking up. Hazuki turned her head up too. The sky looked weird unframed, so she immediately looked away.

“A boy…and from our neighborhood?”

“Yeah. We probably met him during that coed session last week, right? Not that I care or anything. I didn’t look at his data profile, so I don’t even remember his name. But he’s from around here.”

“That may be…but still.”

Hazuki looked at Ayumi again. It was too bright to see.

“And…” Ayumi started.

“What are you doing here?”

“Like I said. I’m bored. They say go straight home, but that’s where I’m most likely to get killed because then I’d be alone. And all these victims have been attacked on their way home from school, so if they tell us to go straight home, I’m saying, at least escort us back. Right?” Mio was still lying on her side looking up at the sky without expression.

She really had a way with words.

“They aren’t escorting anyone, eh? Not even important geniuses like you.”

“They’re having a conference.”

“Conference?”

“When you talk to a group of people face-to-face. Adults like to meet in person and talk to each other. Such a waste of time.”

Mio went on importantly about how meeting each other in person and talking face-to-face isn’t going to catch the killer, then sat up straight. Dried grass was stuck all over her backside and hair. She started clapping it off her shoulders, then shook her bob haircut furiously. The grass stuck to everything it touched and wouldn’t fall.

“This is stupid.”

“Everyone’s freaking out though.”

“No one is freaking out. It’s always like this.”

“They don’t usually clamp down like this though.”

Mio stuck an index finger into her collar and wrung the neckline as if to open up a little space. “Sounds like you know what you’re talking about, Kono.”

“I don’t.” Ayumi looked down.

“You really like pestering people, don’t you, Tsuzuki.”

“It’s fun.” Mio laughed.

“What is?”

“I can’t stop wondering.”

She never knew how people would react…probably.

Ayumi stared blankly at Mio’s feet and said without thinking,

“You mean you don’t know what stupid people think?”

Mio’s eyes widened.

“If we think at all. I bet it’s hard figuring us out. Or is that what we’re learning in this communications group?”

“You’re such a model participant,” Ayumi threw in.

“Whaaat?” Mio’s voice went up several octaves.

“That’s a pretty boring comeback.”

“Unfortunately, I’m no comedian,” Ayumi said, looking back at Hazuki. “Am I?”

Their gazes moved on as Hazuki lowered her head, unresponsive. The weeds snapped at her calves.

“What I’m saying is…it’s not cool for you to be investigating us.” Investigating. Mio furrowed her face.

“I’m doing no such thing.”

“You were just staring at us, weren’t you?”

“I can’t talk to you unless I see you.”

“You can’t even look at me.”

It was true. Ayumi had never actually looked at Mio.

In fact.

Ayumi had never faced anyone. Not even Hazuki.

She suddenly came back at Mio and gawped.

“What?”

Mio shifted her sight line past Ayumi’s temple.

“See. You can’t even maintain eye contact. You don’t want to be looked at either.” Mio made a bored expression.

“Jerk.”

“Yep.”

“That’s why I choose to be alone,” Ayumi said as she sat back down and looked at the stick building far away. The gesture was like a curtain call declaring an end to the conversation.

It was true.

Ayumi was vetoing.

Mio raised both her eyebrows at Ayumi’s still back and let out a sigh.

“Oh well.” She stood up.

She’d apparently had the same thought as Hazuki.

“That was fun, guys.”

Was it? Ayumi glimpsed Hazuki, who continued to avoid eye contact. Mio shimmied over the railing and walked away. She was so different in person. Nothing like what the public data said, nothing like in the encounter group.

Ayumi, without so much as looking after Mio, repeated to the faraway that she had been staring at,

“I hate being watched.”

“Tsuzuki said it herself just now. There’s no point in talking face-to-face.”

“Yeah, but…”

Maybe I’m bothering her too, Hazuki said to herself in a small voice.

She certainly didn’t like being watched either. And yet, she couldn’t stop staring at Ayumi.

Couldn’t stop.

It was involuntary.

“Am I a bother?”

Her voice rose. She spoke doubtfully.

“You’re not bothering me,” Ayumi answered. “You weren’t saying anything, Makino.”

“Oh…really?”

I wasn’t trying to be quiet. She’d said a few words here and there.

Nothing useful, nothing important. Otherwise the two were just staring into the distance in the same direction. Except that…

Ayumi was always in Hazuki’s line of vision because of the way they sat. Hazuki created the landscape Ayumi had to be a part of.

So.

So Ayumi had no idea Hazuki had been staring at her.

Or did she? Impossible.

They’d not yet made eye contact, despite their having sat there side by side. Ayumi couldn’t have seen Hazuki watching her. There was no way Ayumi would know what Hazuki’s eyes said.

It was a comforting discomfiture.

I guess it’s only normal.

Hazuki reassured herself in an internal voice only she could hear, then stood up.

“I’m going home.”

“All right.”

“You’re not coming?”

“Huh?” Ayumi was distracted.

Now that she thought of it, Hazuki had never called back to Ayumi like that before. If she didn’t want to leave what was it to her? Think of all the times they’d parted ways without saying anything at all.

“I mean, it being dangerous and all,” Hazuki explained, though why she felt she had to justify her comment, she did not know.

“With the murderer…”

“I’ll be all right.”

Ayumi spun around and looked Hazuki straight in the eye.

Her eyes.

“I’m fine. The field’s…” Ayumi said.

“Dangerous, you think?”

“What do you mean?”

Without answering her question, Ayumi said she smelled water.

“Huh?”

“Look up.”

Ayumi’s mind was preoccupied upward, then the instinct hit Hazuki. She looked skyward as one cold, piercing drop of water crashed into her temple.

“Rain.”

She hadn’t brought an umbrella, and it didn’t look like Ayumi was going to budge. Hazuki held back despite herself. Ayumi interrupted Hazuki as she prepared to tell her she should get out of the rain.

“I’ll be fine.”

Hazuki didn’t understand what would be fine about it.

She turned around and started to head up the incline when she felt something against her foot. She prodded it with her toe and discovered under the grass a half-buried hard drive.

She picked it up and arched up to face Ayumi. It was definitely not hers.

“Is this…?”

Yours, Kono? Knowing full well it wasn’t.

Hazuki returned to Ayumi with the disc.

“I have no use for a drive with that much memory.”

It was quite large. If the number on the drive were any indication, Hazuki could put all the data she’d ever collected in there and still have plenty of room for more. The thought of that much memory made the object between her fingers heavier. It was uncanny. The drive shouldn’t weigh any more because it could hold more information.

Ayumi said, “Only someone like Tsuzuki would need that much disc space.”

“So it’s Tsuzuki’s.”

Could be. Mio had put down, no, dropped, her bag right around here.

“What do we do with it?”

“She’ll probably come back to get it, right?”

“I doubt she knows it’s here though.”

There was a lock on the drive, making it impossible for there not to be any content.

“If it’s important, she’s going to come looking for it. Just leave it where you found it.”

“But…”

Hazuki looked skyward.

The cold water droplets continued to pound her forehead. A giant frameless monitor screened two layers of dark gray sky mapping out a texture without cadence.

It was raining.

But it certainly didn’t smell like water.