INTERLUDE 01 THE RETRIEVER

For what must have been the hundredth time today, Minoru heard a sigh from the small headset attached to his left ear.

“Ugh…why are we stuck coming to a place like this when it’s almost New Year’s Eve?”

Before he could respond, the voice spoke up again.

“I still have to do my homework from winter break, and I haven’t even bought anything to cook for New Year’s yet.” Another sigh, then another complaint: “I haven’t even done a big end-of-the-year cleaning of my own room yet! So don’t you think it’s ridiculous for me to have to help someone else clean their home?”

As this last complaint came in the form of a question, Minoru Utsugi was finally able to reply. “Erm… I don’t know if cleaning is the best word for the job we’re doing here…”

The girl who was standing by his side, Yumiko Azu, aimed a kick at a piece of the rubble that was scattered at their feet. “We’re taking something dirty and making it clean again, right? What else would you call it?”

“Technically, I guess you’re not wrong, but still…”

Both of them looked up at once, gazing at the enormous structure that loomed some distance away. Rectangular in shape, it stood about fifty meters tall and thirty-five meters wide. There was not a single window anywhere on the ashen gray surface. At first glance, it seemed to be nothing more than smooth masses of concrete, but just looking at it with the naked eye brought on a feeling of suffocation.

Why? Because it housed the nuclear reactor at the Tokyo Bay Nuclear Power Plant.

And why was Minoru using a headset to communicate with Yumiko when she was right next to him? That would be because they were both wearing protective anti-radiation suits that were enclosed in sheets of tungsten.

The Tokyo Bay Nuclear Power Plant was built on the reclaimed land of the coastal area Uchibo. Utilizing a third-generation boiling-water reactor, the latest model at the time, and located right next to the coastline, it was hoped that the plant could be used as an alternative to thermal power stations. However, eight years ago in the summer of 2011, the magnitude 7.8 “Uraga water supply earthquake” caused a serious incident to occur there.

Flooding due to the land subsidence and tsunamis caused the nuclear reactor to lose power, and with the emergency reactor core cooling system not functioning, a meltdown occurred. Fortunately, the concrete structure did not sustain major damage, but the interior and the surrounding grounds were polluted by the radioactive material, and now in 2019 the nuclear decommissioning process was still barely making progress.

Atomic fuel debris had most likely melted through the bottom of the containment vessel and fallen below, but more details about the situation would be needed before the deadlock could be broken. Therefore, the previous week, the Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency and the Eastern Electric Power Company had deployed a new weapon: a completely autonomous probe robot able to operate without any human control through the use of both wired and wireless communication.

Manufactured on an astronomical budget, the robot was able to arrive at the underside of the damaged containment vessel. However, the signal was somehow lost at that point, so the robot was unable to return. The only way to recover it would be to build a second robot; however, fearful that a similar incident would occur, the committee refused to approve the budget. And so the organization Minoru belonged to received an unusual, desperate, and highly confidential proposal from the Ministry of Health, Labor, and Welfare.

Of course, Minoru didn’t know the exact wording that had been used, but he could guess at the contents. Most likely, some bureaucrat or politician was trying to use the Ministry of Health, Labor, and Welfare Industrial Safety and Health Department Specialized Forces Division as a pawn in a power struggle and had promised in some fancy restaurant near Akasaka that “my department’s SFD can definitely get the robot back for just one little favor!”

Then, someone way up at the top of the ministry gave orders to Chief Himi, the head of the department; their commander, Professor Riri, reluctantly agreed; and now, on Saturday, December 28, 2019, here were Minoru and Yumiko paying a visit to the Tokyo Bay Nuclear Power Plant.

“…Really, though, I thought I had prepared myself for wearing this thing, but it’s even worse than I thought!”

Yumiko tugged at the gray material of the protective suit as she resumed her grumbling. “It’s so stiff and crinkly, it’s sweltering hot, the mask is way too tight, it stinks of rubber, and it’s just not cute at all!”

Under his mask, Minoru couldn’t help but smile—in all her complaints, she had somehow left out the immense weight of the suits. Unlike regular anti-radiation clothing, which can block out only a lower level of radioactivity, these suits weighed about 150 pounds. The two were still able to move in them, since the Third Eye parasites raised their strength to several times that of an average human, but they could certainly still feel the extra weight… Compared to that, the suit’s stiffness or smell seemed like trivial concerns.

Forgetting to complain about the biggest issue, despite finding fault with almost everything else, seemed to indicate that Yumiko, too, was feeling the gravity of their current mission. Eight years after the earthquake, the nuclear accident had become an ordinary fact of life, but it was still one of the most difficult ordeals this country had ever gone through. It could even rank on the same level as the bizarre calamity that had rained down from outer space, the Third Eye.

“Hey, what are you smiling about?”

Caught off guard by the question that suddenly rang out in his earpiece, Minoru hastily shook his head. “…I’m not smiling.”

“Oh? Well, that’s fine, then… Still, they’re awfully late, aren’t they? We were told to wait here and they’d send a car to pick us up, but it’s been at least five minutes already!”

“That’s true…”

Once again, Minoru surveyed his surroundings through the lead glass of his goggles.

The two of them stood at the front entrance of the anti-seismic building that served as the control room of the repair work. As it stood some distance away from the structure that housed the nuclear reactor, the radioactivity levels in the air were fairly low; the wrist communicator installed on the left side of the suit (which, despite the name, was essentially just a waterproof smartphone affixed to a wristband) displayed the microsievert levels every five minutes and at the moment read “no effect on health at present level.” The protective suit would absorb the majority of the radiation anyway, but still, it was difficult to feel at ease in such a place.

“Um…I know I said this earlier, Yumiko, but it’s okay if you just want to wait here,” Minoru said as he lowered his left hand, knowing full well what her response would be.

“Yeah, right! What would be the point of my coming in the first place, then?”

“But I’m going to have to go into the building by myself in the end…”

“Yeah, but we have no idea what it’s like in there! If anything happens to you, who do you think is going to have to save you?”

She was right: The weight of both suits plus Minoru’s body weight added up to almost 204 kilograms, which only someone with a Third Eye like Yumiko’s could carry. Still, hearing her words, Minoru couldn’t help but feel like a princess whose knight was coming to her rescue. He cleared his throat uncomfortably.

“Hey… Come on, I was just stating the facts.” Yumiko nudged Minoru as she spoke, the tungsten lining on her elbow digging into his right arm.

It had been more than three weeks since Minoru had met Yumiko, but he still had no idea how to respond to her at times like these. Luckily, just as he was searching for the right words to say, the sound of an engine came roaring from the direction of the parking lot.

“Oh, good, the car is finally…here…” Minoru trailed off as the car came into view. Instead of the Ministry of Health, Labor, and Welfare minivan that had brought them here from Tokyo, an enormous olive-green off-roader pulled up in front of them.

“What is this…? The Self-Defense Forces?” Just as Yumiko muttered these words, the driver-side window rolled down to reveal a man whose clothing confirmed her speculation.

He was wearing a suit and mask like the two of them, but he also wore a helmet, and most of his equipment was in a camouflage pattern, which in this country could only mean a member of the Japan Self-Defense Forces.

The driver gave a crisp salute with his right hand, then used the same hand to motion her toward the back of the truck. Minoru and Yumiko exchanged glances before reluctantly complying, heading around the large HMV and opening the double doors on the back, then hoisting themselves inside.

The interior of the HMV had benches lining either side, almost like a train car. As soon as the pair sat down, the diesel engine noisily roared into action, and they were on the move. Perhaps because they had been used by so many working vehicles in the past, the roads were full of cracks and holes, each one sending a jolt through the seats in the HMV as its tires rolled over the gaps.

There was not a single bush or tree to be seen among the dreary mortar grounds of the power plant, and since it was nearly New Year’s, there were no workers around, either. Minoru had seen images of the contaminated water tanks lined up along the right side of the road, on TV and online, but in person their size was truly overwhelming. In this surreal landscape under the ashen winter sky, the HMV traveled slowly onward.

Suddenly, a quiet electronic buzz sounded in Minoru’s headset. Looking at his wrist communicator, he saw a message requesting a new connection, so both he and Yumiko pressed the Yes button. Immediately, a voice just as noisy as the engine came blasting through the earpiece.

“Sorry to keep you kids waiting! It took ages to get this thing on!”

The speaker seemed to be the person in the passenger seat, not the driver. Since they were wearing camouflage from head to toe, it was impossible to see anyone’s face, but judging by the speaker’s physique and (more importantly) that voice, they were probably—no, definitely—a woman. Of course, there were plenty of female members of the Self-Defense Forces, but this one’s manner of speech seemed rather unbefitting of a soldier.

As Minoru sat dumbfounded, Yumiko responded in a rather sharp voice, “We arrived right on schedule, so you should have had plenty of time to prepare… But more importantly, who are you people?”

“Ah-ha-ha, yikes! You’re scarin’ me!”

Pop.

That was the sound of Yumiko’s anger meter going up a level. Minoru hurriedly cut into the pair’s conversation. “Erm… We’re from the Ministry of Health, Labor, and Welfare Industrial Safety and Health Department, Specialized Forces Division, code names Isolator and Accelerator. Would you mind telling us your affiliation?”

“Ooh, you’re just as stuffy as the rumors said!”

Minoru was beginning to get the sense that she was deliberately trying to annoy them, but he couldn’t think of any reason why a Self-Defense Forces member would want to do that. As he tilted his head in puzzlement underneath his protective suit, Yumiko half rose from the seat next to him. A short, sharp gasp came in through the headset, followed by an increasingly hard voice.

“Don’t tell me… Are you people…red…?”

“Huh…?”

Stunned, Minoru stared back and forth between Yumiko and the Self-Defense Forces member in the passenger’s seat.

The slang term red could refer to only one thing. When the spheres had come down from outer space and affixed themselves to people as “Third Eyes,” some of those life-forms were red, and they instilled in their human hosts an overwhelming urge to attack other humans. These violent individuals were known as “Ruby Eyes.”

Minoru and Yumiko, on the other hand, were known as “Jet Eyes,” who were infected by black spheres and destined to do battle with the Ruby Eyes. Normally, the easiest way for them to detect a Ruby Eye was with their sense of smell. The violent, carnivorous Ruby Eyes had a distinctively strong and savage scent; it was strongest when they used their powers but would certainly be detectable if they were in the very same vehicle.

Quickly, Minoru inhaled deeply through his nose, but all he could smell was the acrid stench of fresh rubber from his protective mask. Was the mask’s charcoal filter absorbing even the Ruby Eye scent, or was Yumiko just jumping to false conclusions?

All at once, a childish giggle broke through the tension in the air. “You’re a sharp one, aren’t you, little Miss Accelerator?”

Immediately, Yumiko started to unzip the front of her protective suit with her left hand and reached inside with her right. But before she could take anything out—Minoru was expecting a high-power Taser or an automatic pistol—another voice broke in.

“We are members of the Japan Self-Defense Force Ground Staff Office Operational Support Intelligence Department Special Task Squad.” This speaker must be the driver who was grasping the large steering wheel. Without turning his head, he continued in a low, husky voice, “My name is Nishikida, and this is Kakinari. We may not have code names, but we are allies of the SFD.”

Yumiko’s right hand stopped moving immediately, but she didn’t let go of whatever it was holding inside her suit as she responded tersely, “Allies…? What do you mean exactly?”

“Heh, isn’t it obvious? This, of course!” Replying in an easy drawl, the passenger whose name was apparently Kakinari bent around her seat to face them and unzipped her suit as Yumiko had; however, instead of drawing something out, she pulled the front wide open with both hands.

Underneath her suit she wore only a close-fitting olive-green tank top, revealing her considerable bust. Yumiko was speechless, and Minoru hastily moved to avert his eyes; however, when he noticed something shining out from her cleavage, his eyes widened.

Right beneath the silver dog tag that hung from her neck, embedded in her slightly tanned skin, was a jet-black sphere. Bearing a strong resemblance to a living eye, it was unmistakably a black Third Eye, just like Yumiko and Minoru each had.

“…Are you both…Jet Eyes…?”

“Yup, you betcha!”

With that casual confirmation, Kakinari languidly withdrew back to her seat.

Slowly, Yumiko brought her empty right hand out of her suit and zipped it back up. As if he had been waiting for her to do so, Nishikida spoke up again. “You can call us the STS, since you two are from the SFD. We’ll be your escorts today, so I hope our short time together will be a pleasant one.”

“Th…thank you, it’s a pleasure to meet you.”

As he gave this reflexive response, Minoru was mentally repeating the organization name the man had given a short time ago. Japan Self-Defense Force, Ground Staff Office, Operational Support, Intelligence Department, Special Task Squad. An even longer name than the organization Minoru was affiliated with, the Ministry of Health, Labor, and Welfare Industrial Safety and Health Department, Specialized Forces Division. Did a longer name mean a more prestigious organization? Not necessarily, but the news that a group of Jet Eyes like the SFD existed within the Self-Defense Forces was still a significant shock to Minoru. Quietly, he leaned over toward his partner.

“Um, Yu— I mean, Accelerator. Did you know about this? A group of Jet Eyes in the Self-Defense Forces…”

After a moment’s pause, a bemused voice responded through the headset. “You know, Isolator, there’s not much point in whispering when we’re communicating via radio.”

She was absolutely right, of course. Kakinari let out a little snort through the headset, and Yumiko huffed irritably, pressing a few buttons on her wrist communicator.

There was another little buzz in Minoru’s ear, this one indicating that the previous communication channel had been temporarily disconnected. After a moment, Yumiko’s voice came through, more serious than before.

“I’ve heard rumors about it, yes. People said that there was another team in the government like ours, anyway… But I didn’t know it was in the Self-Defense Forces.”

“…Then…do you think the Special Task Squad is made up of only Self-Defense Forces personnel who were infected by black Third Eyes…?”

“I wonder about that. There may be over 250,000 people in the Self-Defense Forces, but that’s still much less than even the population of Shinjuku alone. Considering that we scraped up only eight SFD members from the Tokyo metropolitan area, I doubt there would be enough Third Eye hosts in the Self-Defense Forces to put together a functional team. I wouldn’t be surprised if most of their members were recruited from outside the organization, just like us.”

“I see…”

If most of the STS’s members had been recruited like Minoru, it would certainly explain Kakinari’s laid-back personality. Nonetheless, he found it reassuring to think they’d have battle-trained professionals from the Self-Defense Forces fighting alongside.

As he reached this conclusion, Minoru abruptly realized the meaning of a phrase Nishikida had used some time before. Hurriedly restoring the communication channel, he impulsively posed a question.

“Um, excuse me, Mr. Nishikida… You said you would be our ‘escorts’ today, right? Does that mean Ruby Eyes might try to interfere with our mission?”

“We haven’t received any concrete information to indicate that. This is simply part of our duties here,” Nishikida responded, his tone much stiffer than Kakinari’s. “The Tokyo Bay Nuclear Power Plant is an obvious target for the Ruby Eyes who want to wage war on humanity, so it is closely guarded by the STS. If they were to destroy the containment building before the nuclear-decommissioning process is complete, all of Tokyo could be contaminated with radioactive materials, and we would effectively lose our capital city… We cannot allow any such attempts.”

Nishikida’s words held such firm resolve that Minoru felt himself automatically thinking, No, never! in response.

The two Ruby Eyes he had fought, Biter and Igniter, had both been driven by personal motives, using the powers given to them by their Third Eyes to kill for pleasure. If they had turned their abilities on the nuclear power plant, they could have thrown Tokyo—no, all of Japan—into chaos, but their own everyday lives would be ruined as well. Surely they wouldn’t go that far… But before he could voice his thoughts, Yumiko cut in with another huff.

“Those are fine words, Mr. Nishikida, but I can see right through them to your real objective.”

“And what would that be, Miss Accelerator?”

“I’m sure that part of your duties today includes spying on us, right?”

“…!”

This thought hadn’t occurred to Minoru, and he listened for Nishikida’s response with bated breath. Instead, though, Kakinari chose this moment to break her silence.

“Ah-ha-ha, you’re something else, Accelerator! Must be tough on your boyfriend, huh? You better not cheat on her, Isolator!”

“Wh…” Yumiko’s voice cracked with rage, and Minoru attempted to stammer out an answer instead.

“I…I wouldn’t! I mean, wait—I’m not her boyfriend!”

At that moment, Nishikida slowed the vehicle to a halt.

“Here we are, you two.”

Yumiko looked for a moment as if she was struggling to decide whether to say anything more, but in the end she stood up in silence, opened the back doors, and hopped out of the truck, Minoru following shortly behind her. When he closed the doors and looked up, a smooth gray tower loomed before his eyes.

Tokyo Bay Nuclear Power Plant, No. 1. Built in 2001 with the latest technology of the time, it had now been sitting in disuse for several decades, simply waiting to be decommissioned.

At the base of the enormous gravestone-like structure was an air lock with double doors, though of course they were no longer in use. Two large radiation shields loomed on either side of the door, giving the impression that the place was the ancient ruins of some bygone era.

Getting out of the car and walking up to stand next to Minoru, Nishikida pointed at the air lock.

“Go in through those doors and you’ll find the entrance to the containment vessel about eighteen meters down the hall. This is as far as Kakinari and I can accompany you…”

“Ah, that’s all right, thank you. We received a map of the building and such.”

Minoru pulled up the map on the fifteen-centimeter LCD screen of his wrist communicator. Bending down to look at it, Nishikida tapped near the entrance.

“Once you get inside, the radioactivity levels in this immediate area will be around three millisieverts per hour. In front of the doors to the containment vessel, it’ll rise to ten, and inside the vessel, it could be anywhere from several thousand to ten thousand millisieverts. At those levels, even Third Eye hosts like us wouldn’t be able to survive if exposed unprotected… Are you sure this is all right with you?”

Whatever orders he might have been under, the concern in Nishikida’s voice was undoubtedly genuine. Minoru looked up at him through his mask and nodded.

“Yes. I’ll be fine.”

“This kid’s not talkin’ about his suit, is he? Do you have some kinda Jet Eye power that’ll protect you from all that radioactive junk, Isolator?” Kakinari once again muscled into the conversation, but her question was intercepted by Yumiko.

“That is highly confidential SFD information!”

“Aww, gimme a break!”

“Kakinari, please refrain from engaging in idle chatter before an important mission,” Nishikida reprimanded his colleague, then turned back to Minoru’s wrist communicator, scrolling across the map with a rough gloved finger. Zooming in on the round containment vessel, he tapped part of the interior.

“This is where we lost contact with the probe robot, Muser. Your job is to open the double doors, enter the room, and locate and retrieve Muser. Of course, there are no lights inside the containment vessel, the heat and humidity levels are considerably high, and the room will be completely clouded with steam. It won’t be an easy mission…”

“Yes, I know… I’ve already been lectured extensively about it. But it’s all right… I think I can do it.”

Giving another nod to the tall Self-Defense Forces personnel, Minoru looked at the clock in the top right of the LCD screen. Ten fifty-five a.m. The mission was set to start at eleven, so there were only five minutes… No, there were still five minutes left. Though the response he’d given Nishikida had been brimming with confidence, it wasn’t as if Minoru wasn’t nervous. He was eager to get in and out as quickly as possible and get the mission over with.

As he stared intently at the painfully slow progression of the clock, Yumiko, standing next to him, clapped him on the back. Once again disconnecting their communication channel from the STS members, she brought her mask in close to his.

“…Utsugi. We’ve already seen in countless SFD experiments that your protective shell can completely block out radiation like alpha, beta, gamma, and X-rays. But on the other hand, that also means that if you drop that shell for even a second, you’ll be exposed to lethal levels of radiation. You know that, right? If anything goes wrong… No, if anything even seems like it might go wrong, turn back immediately. That’s an order.”

“Right…understood.”

As he responded, Minoru glanced at Yumiko’s face, which he could just barely make out through the thick lead glass of his mask. Her beautiful features, normally set into a cold and distant expression, were currently so full of concern that Minoru unwittingly held his breath.

It had been only three weeks since he’d first met Yumiko Azu, a Jet Eye and member of the Special Defense Forces with the code name Accelerator.

But in that short time, they had paired up to defeat two terrifying enemies, the Ruby Eyes Biter and Igniter. And Yumiko had been the one to come up with Minoru’s code name, Isolator. Minoru could still barely wrap his mind around the idea that he was a member of a secret organization that protected humanity, but he knew one thing: The reason he had been able to carry out his duties so far was because his partner, Yumiko, had been there, urging him on.

But this time, he would have to take on this difficult mission without Yumiko there to back him up. Even with the 150-pound protective suit, she wouldn’t be able to withstand the radiation inside the containment vessel, which far exceeded the sievert levels that a normal human being could survive for even a short period of time. Professor Riri had mentioned the possibility that a Third Eye might be able to restore DNA damaged by radiation, but that hypothesis was still being investigated and could hardly justify jumping into a nuclear reactor containment vessel.

But it’s all right—I can do it by myself. Professor Riri and Chief Himi both told me I could decline if I wanted to, but I said I would do it.

As Minoru took deep breaths and said this to himself repeatedly, Yumiko lightly slapped him on the back again, then sighed loudly and made a remark that caught him by surprise. “Honestly, Utsugi. If you had been able to pull it off in that last experiment, I would’ve been able to come, too.”

“Wh…what?! It wasn’t my fault that experiment failed…”

“Hmph! Are you saying it was mine?!” As she responded in a disgruntled voice, Yumiko nevertheless pressed her goggles up against Minoru’s mask.

“I-I think it was half your fault, at least!”

As he pushed back against her, he recalled the events that she was referring to: Christmas Eve, just four days earlier.

2

“Hey, don’t touch me in weird places!”

Minoru was perplexed by Yumiko’s sharp words, unsure of how he was supposed to judge which places were weird and how to avoid touching them.

After all, the entire front of his body, from head to toe and even to his fingertips, was currently pressed up against Yumiko. More specifically, she was standing upright with her arms spread wide, and he stood directly behind her in the same position, with virtually no space in between them. It was therefore completely unreasonable to ask him to somehow not touch her, but nonetheless, Minoru automatically leaned his hips away from her. Immediately, another voice chimed in from nearby.

“Don’t move apart, Mikkun! Your desire to put distance between yourself and Yukko is going to cause this experiment to fail!”

“A-all right…”

Minoru nodded, and the tip of his nose brushed against Yumiko’s hair, so that he caught a slight whiff of the sweet smell of her shampoo. Instinctively, he bent his head away this time.

“You’re doing it again!”

The Professor—Riri Isa, an elementary school girl who also happened to be the commander of the SFD—shook her head with a sigh, her pigtails swaying back and forth. “Hrmph…the ability to do the same thing over and over with very little show of improvement is one of our species’ special gifts. According to my research, a young man your age should be thrilled to press his body up against a girl of the same generation as his…”

“Don’t say creepy things like that, Professor!” Yumiko exclaimed before Minoru could get a word in.

The Professor’s retort was immediate.

“It’s not creepy! That’s how normal high school girls and boys are. And you’re to blame, too, Yukko! Mikkun wouldn’t want to get away from you if you weren’t being so crabby! You’re his senior in this organization, so you should be leading by example!”

“……I don’t think I like your tone…,” Yumiko grumbled, but she leaned into Minoru anyway as if out of spite. “See, Utsugi? I’m not rejecting you one bit. So make sure this next attempt works, got it?”

Sure you’re not, Minoru thought to himself, nodding nonetheless.

“All right…here goes.”

“Okay! This is attempt number twenty. Recording now… Whenever you’re ready!” The Professor pressed a button on the video camera and stepped aside.

Minoru took a deep breath, closed his eyes, and focused.

Accept her.

This person is not an intruder who needs to be rejected. This is a friend who has fought alongside me, who I can trust with my life. And I’ve done this once before. It was only a week ago that I managed to bring her into my protective shell to keep her safe from the shock wave of a hydrogen explosion. I just have to remember what I did that time…

Minoru pressed himself tighter against Yumiko’s body, and with his eyes still closed, he brought out his protective shell.

His sense of sound, temperature, and finally touch all vanished.

Cautiously, he cracked open one eye. The sight before him was bathed in pale-blue light: Yumiko in front of him, moving farther away in a straight line. Flailing her arms wildly, the Accelerator crashed into the polyurethane-padded wall of the small room and stuck there.

Two minutes later…

In the center of the large room on the fifth floor of a musty old apartment building in Toyama Park, Shinjuku, Tokyo, which served as the secret base of the SFD, Yumiko sat on the couch and glared at Minoru out of the corner of her eye.

“So, basically, the fact that you were able to accept me in the battle against Igniter was a total fluke, right? If you hadn’t happened to get lucky, then I’d either be dead or at least covered in burns and compound fractures. Delightful.”

“Erm… Well…I wonder…” Minoru placed a cup of black tea down on the glass table in front of Yumiko and gave a small shrug.

Glancing at the experiment space in the room’s west corner, he noted sheepishly that the faint outline of a sprawled-out human body could still be seen in the padding on the wall. Privately, he felt it was a little unfair to think it was entirely his fault, but considering that Yumiko had now been launched into the wall and stuck there twenty times in a row, he couldn’t exactly say so.

Instead he silently handed the Professor her drink of choice, a café au lait that was mostly just milk, which she blew on a few times as she spoke.

“No, no, it’s not necessarily all Mikkun’s fault, Yukko. If you are mentally rejecting him, it’s entirely possible that…”

“No, it’s not!”

In a flash, Yumiko took a big gulp of her milk- and sugar-filled tea, then shook her head furiously. “When it happened that time, I didn’t even know Utsugi was nearby until I was pulled into his shell! Doesn’t that mean my will has nothing to do with whether it works or not? If anyone’s rejecting somebody, it must be Utsugi!”

“No, that’s… I’m not rejecting you or anything…” Minoru made a reserved attempt to object as he sat down across from Yumiko, dropping a lemon slice into his own cup of black tea.

“I’m very well aware that I’ll be much more useful in the next fight against a Ruby Eye if I learn to control my ability at will. And I know I have to put my duties above my emotions. So I think in the end, the fact that Yumiko didn’t notice me might have been a big reason it worked that time…”

Through the steam rising from his tea, Minoru saw Yumiko throw another glare in his direction.

“Now wait just a minute. Is it just me, or did that phrasing sound a lot like ‘I personally don’t want to, but if it’s for the sake of the mission, I’ll just have to bear it’?”

“I-I didn’t say that at all! Aren’t you just looking for reasons to reject me now?!”

“And while we’re at it, don’t you think you should stop acting so stiff and formal around me? It’s so obvious that you want there to be distance between us!”

“I can’t help it if you’re going to be so scary all the time!”

The pair’s back-and-forth argument was interrupted by a loud sigh from the Professor.

“Ugh…listen, you two. From where I’m standing… Ugh, how do I say this…? Could you just start dating already, please?”

Like clockwork, they both sprang back, widening their eyes and protesting in unison:

“N-no thank you!”

“No thanks! Who would want to…… Wait.”

Midsentence, Yumiko stopped and turned slowly and deliberately toward Minoru, a dangerous glint in her eyes.

“Just a moment. Hold it right there, Utsugi.”

“…Y-yes?”

“Did you just say ‘No thank you’? You did, didn’t you? You said ‘No thank you’ without a moment’s hesitation, did you not?”

“…But, w-well, you said it, too, didn’t you?”

“Of course I did! Oh, forget it already. I’ve had quite enough of being paired up with you! It’s obvious what happened that time was just a fluke, end of story!”

With that, Yumiko threw back the rest of her tea in one gulp, slammed the cup back onto the saucer, stood up brusquely, and stomped toward the elevator.

However, she stopped partway across the room and looked over her shoulder with a toss of her long hair.

“You’d better be making a nice Christmas dinner tonight to make up for your rudeness today! I expect a cheesy seafood gratin and a nice meaty beef stew, got it?”

Then, with a dramatic flourish, she used her accelerating abilities to propel herself to the elevator in a single step, jabbed the down button, and disappeared into the elevator.

Minoru, incredulous, watched her leave and then sank back onto the sofa, muttering into his lemon tea:

“…It’s impossible… I can barely pair up with her as a team, never mind as a couple…”

“Ugh…well, I guess that’s it for today, then.” The Professor shook her head. “I’m still not giving up, though. The combination of your protective shell and her acceleration powers has incredible potential, after all. If you could master it, you’d have an attack that would be almost impossible to counter or defend against.”

“Ah… Well, that may be true, but…”

One week ago, in the battle against the Ruby Eye who could manipulate oxygen molecules freely, Igniter, Minoru had somehow absorbed Yumiko into his protective shell in order to defend her from the hydrogen explosions she had rushed into. Still inside the shell, Yumiko had used her accelerator powers to slam them into Igniter, knocking him out in a single blow. If they could use this same tactic at will, they would essentially have nothing to fear from any future Ruby Eye attacks. Between Minoru’s protective shell, which was harder than any known substance on Earth, and Yumiko’s ultrahigh speed, they would practically be invincible.

Therefore, one week after the battle with Igniter, Professor Riri Isa had ordered a series of tests in an attempt to re-create that situation. However, Minoru had failed to envelop Yumiko in his protective shell every time he produced it, instead sending her flying into the polyurethane wall, which still showed the vague outline of her repeated impact.

But I tried my best…

Minoru was wrapped up in his thoughts when the Professor’s voice reached him again. “By the way…”

“Y-yes?”

“Have you given any thought to what we talked about before?”

Minoru knew right away what she was talking about, but he still looked down, unable to give an immediate reply. Feeling her eyes on him as she intently awaited his response, he answered haltingly, searching for the right words.

“…Yes…I understand that it would be best if I proceed as you suggested, Professor. But to be honest…I’m not sure if I can do it. Moving away…transferring to a new school…”

“Nonetheless, Mikkun…” Still holding her café au lait, the Professor spoke in a voice that was at once quite serious and adorable. “Your request in exchange for joining the SFD was for Chief Himi to use his abilities to ‘erase any memories of you from existence,’ wasn’t it? If that day comes, won’t you have to move and change schools, anyway? Maybe you can think of this as practice for all that.”

“…That’s true, but…”

The Professor’s reasons for suggesting that Minoru move to SFD Headquarters were twofold: so that he would be more immediately available to fight against the Ruby Eyes and to prevent them from targeting his stepsister, Norie Yoshimizu. Ruby Eyes and Jet Eyes like Minoru and the others could detect the use of one another’s abilities from a fair distance away, so if Minoru were ever to activate his protective shell at home, there was a strong possibility that a Ruby Eye would figure out where he lived and attack Norie.

No, there was more than a possibility—the first Ruby Eye Minoru had fought, the Biter, had already used just such a tactic. He’d saved Norie that time, but he couldn’t afford to let that happen again.

But…

At the school he currently attended, Yoshiki High School in Saitama, Minoru had gone to great pains to ensure that his presence was barely noticed by the other students. To Minoru, who feared above all else the creation of more painful memories, the very thought of going into a new and unknown environment was unbearable. Just picturing himself transferring into a new school and standing in front of a class of strangers made him break into a cold sweat.

Minoru sank into silence and faintly heard the Professor heave another sigh.

“Well…having you transfer schools is mostly just a matter of convenience, so that there won’t be any holes in your academic records. You don’t necessarily have to go every day, but you can’t exactly skip all the time, either. Take that into consideration and get back to me soon, okay? Well, anyway… I’d like to have some chocolate cake tonight, Mikkun.”

“…Yes, ma’am.”

Giving her a meek nod, Minoru roused himself, rose from the couch, and headed toward the kitchen, which stood across from the experiment space.

3

“…Well, it is too bad that the experiment didn’t work, but even if it had, in the end I’d still be going in alone today.”

Awakening from his brief reverie, Minoru voiced this thought aloud, and Yumiko responded without removing her face mask from his.

“…Why?”

“I mean, if something happened inside and my protective shell vanished, both of us would go down at once. It’s better to minimize our losses, right?”

“I don’t like the way you said that one bit.”

With one more irritated huff, Yumiko pulled away.

At last, the clock display ticked up to 10:00 a.m. Restoring their connection to the STS channel, Yumiko spoke now in a much more composed, businesslike voice. “Well then, let’s begin the operation. Isolator, please proceed to the air lock of nuclear reactor containment vessel number one.”

“R…roger that.”

Taking a deep breath, Minoru stepped forward with his right foot.

He walked slowly and deliberately, mindful of the radiation screens that stood to his left and right. Along the way, he checked the screen of his wrist communicator, but the radiation levels in the air hadn’t risen much just yet. In a little over a minute, he halted, having reached the first checkpoint.

“I’ve arrived in front of the air lock.”

“Radioactivity level report?”

“Um…currently 9.3 microsieverts per hour.”

“Roger. Now please begin the locking mechanism release procedure.”

“Roger,” Minoru responded, glancing over his shoulder. Yumiko and the two Self-Defense Forces personnel stood motionless next to the parked vehicle, watching him from about twenty-one meters away. Kakinari waved at him vigorously, and he quickly turned back before the urge to wave overcame him.

Up close, he could see that the wall of the containment vessel was cracked and stained, the damage unchanged from the incident eight long years ago. The paint on the steel doors of the air lock was peeling away in places, too, with brown specks of rust blooming here and there along its surface.

Above the door handle, a red light indicated that the lock was currently closed.

On the other side of this door was a death trap, full of lethal levels of radioactivity. In fact, since they had measured the radioactivity levels in SFD Headquarters to be about 0.03 microsieverts per hour, the radioactivity levels out here were already three hundred times that of the Tokyo metropolitan area.

Naturally, his adoptive stepsister and guardian, Norie, didn’t know anything about today’s mission. As a matter of fact, any time he had SFD business, he simply told her he was going to “a prep school in Tokyo.” Since he did occasionally study with Yumiko and the Professor at SFD Headquarters in their free time, it wasn’t a total lie, but that didn’t change the fact that he was deceiving his beloved stepsister.

However, in reality he had already committed the ultimate betrayal of Norie by joining the SFD in exchange for the promise of eventually being erased from the memories of everyone around him.

It wasn’t as though Minoru wanted to be separated from Norie. She was the only person with whom he could create new memories every day without fear. He would have liked to continue living with her…but doing so would mean tying the thirty-year-old to the role of being Minoru’s guardian indefinitely.

No, things would be better for her this way. In order to allow Norie to forget about her adopted brother and live for her own happiness, Minoru would continue to fulfill his duties with the SFD to the best of his abilities—even if it meant fighting more Ruby Eyes…or retrieving a probe robot from a nuclear power plant.

“…Releasing the lock now,” Minoru said into the headset, and he stepped up to the double doors to grip the locking mechanism with both hands. Just as he’d been instructed in a lecture earlier, he turned it to the left with all his might. It was difficult to budge at first—no doubt it hadn’t been opened very often, especially in recent years—but it was nothing his Third Eye–given strength couldn’t handle. After three full turns, there was the sound of the bolt creaking loose, and the indicator light turned bright green.

“Release complete.”

“Roger that,” Yumiko responded, her voice a bit tenser than before. “Commence opening the air lock.”

“Understood…” Minoru shifted both hands back to the handle and again grasped it tightly.

Though they hadn’t mentioned it to the Self-Defense Forces members, there was one more thing he had to do before opening these doors. Breathing in quietly through his mask, he filled his lungs with air and activated the small black sphere-shaped parasite that lived in his chest—his “Third Eye.”

Minoru’s body floated up slightly inside his protective suit, and all outside sound was cut off at once. His view of his surroundings through the lead glass of his mask was tinted blue. Even the pressure of the mask’s elastic band and the weight of the tungsten-lined suit disappeared.

This was Minoru’s power as a Jet Eye: the ability to create a colorless, transparent, and utterly indestructible protective shell that projected about three centimeters around his entire body. In other words, Minoru was currently encased in an insulated inner shell that fit to the contours of his body (and the small earpiece in his left ear), which in turn was protected by the tungsten suit.

As his colleagues had confirmed in experiments at SFD Headquarters, the shell could deflect not only physical attacks but also electromagnetic and radio waves. As a result, it had so far been impossible to communicate via radio once Minoru was inside the shell, but they had recently come up with a solution.

Between the headset in his left ear and the left side of his protective mask, there was a white LED light transmitter. The device was automatically activated when the protective shell cut off communications, at which point radio waves from Yumiko’s headset and the wrist communicator were now captured by the mask’s internal receiver, converted into light-wave communication in order to pass through the protective shell, and changed back into sound waves in Minoru’s earpiece. In the test run back at headquarters, it had permitted communication with no problems aside from a bit of time lag; DD, who designed and produced the device, had been extremely proud.

I hope it still works now that we’re in the field…

“I will now open the first door. Please be mindful of the radiation levels,” Minoru said hesitantly into the headset.

“Roger. Be careful on your end, too.”

Yumiko’s voice came through loud and clear, if with a little more white noise than before. Breathing a sigh of relief, Minoru checked that his connection with the wrist communicator was working as well, then grabbed hold of the door handle through the shield. Pushing against it hard, he slowly slid the door to the left.

The small microphone in his earpiece picked up the loud grating noise as the first door creaked along the rusted rail. When it had moved about fifteen centimeters open, Minoru let go momentarily to check his wrist communicator. Though the radiation levels had increased to fifteen microsieverts per hour, it was still not high enough to be a serious threat.

A second door awaited behind the first, visually identical to the first except that it had much less visible wear and tear. Since this door was already unlocked, he had only to grab on to the handle once again.

“Opening the second door.”

“Go ahead.”

After this brief exchange, Minoru pushed with about the same force as before.

Although the rail and wheels weren’t rusted, the second door put up much more resistance than the first. It was as though the building itself was refusing to be opened. Nonetheless, Minoru planted his feet firmly and pushed the door with all his weight.

The heavy steel door gave a mighty creak and moved about twenty centimeters. And then…

BREEEEEEE!! A high-pitched warning sound screeched through Minoru’s earpiece, and he caught his breath.

A glance at his wrist communicator showed that radiation levels had now reached 2.8 millisieverts—180 times higher than before he had opened the door. Of course, this was the level detected by the wrist communicator outside his shell; in theory, not one single beta ray would be reaching Minoru’s body. If any of the radiation did get through, a separate counter inside his headset should set off an alarm to let him know. Still, he felt a bead of sweat drip down his forehead.

“Th…the air lock is now open. Radiation levels at 2.8 millisieverts.”

“R…roger.” Yumiko’s voice sounded a bit ill at ease, too.

“Whoa, wait a sec! Two-point-eight?!” This voice was obviously Kakinari. “You’re seriously still fine at a level like that?!”

“Y…yes, it’s fine.”

It is fine, right?! Minoru sent a silent and emphatic plea toward the Third Eye in his chest.

“I’ll continue toward the nuclear reactor containment room now.”

“…At the first sign of danger, you are to retreat immediately, no matter what. You know that, right?”

“Roger that. I’m going in!”

This is part of my duties, too… A part that only I can do, as a matter of fact. Directing a silent encouragement toward himself this time, Minoru stepped over the rail and into the building.

In the dim light of the nuclear reactor containment building, dust particles danced silently in the rays of winter light shining through the door behind him. Since the reactor itself was kept in a vacuum-sealed vessel, there should be no danger of radioactive material leaking into this part of the building. Nonetheless it was probably best to keep the time that the air lock was open to a minimum.

Changing the wrist communicator’s display back to the map and switching on the LED lamp on the forehead of his protective mask, Minoru stepped into the wide passageway. He proceeded with caution, following the red navigation line displayed on his map.

Soon, he was able to see a bulky radiation blocker that had likely been installed after the incident. Since this would also interfere with the radio waves of his communicator, he reached into a pouch on the waist of his protective suit, pulled out a battery-operated repeater, and placed it next to the blocker.

“Repeater number one, installation complete.”

“Understood. Signal levels satisfactory.”

“Proceeding now.”

By the time he had traveled another five meters or so, Minoru’s surroundings were almost completely pitch-black. The radiation level on his wrist communicator now measured four millisieverts per hour, the air in the hallway polluted by radioactive elements scattered by the damaged containment vessel. Just standing in this hallway for fifteen minutes would bring your exposure level up to one millisievert, the maximum annual dosage deemed safe by the International Commission on Radiological Protection.

Since particle radiation from emitted alpha particles or photons could be blocked with even a sheet of plastic, they posed no threat to the suited-up Minoru except through internal exposure, but the real problem was electromagnetic radiation like gamma rays and X-rays. At least ten centimeters of lead would be required to block out gamma rays, meaning that the thin layer of tungsten inside Minoru’s suit would do little to protect him.

It was strange to think about. Gamma radiation was nothing but electromagnetic waves with a wavelength shorter than that of visible light, yet they could damage a living being’s DNA by inhibiting the repairing abilities of cells and, in the worst-case scenario, even lead to death. If the Earth’s atmosphere didn’t absorb the gamma rays that constantly rain down from outer space, all of humanity would have long since perished.

The survival of human beings is really based on a delicate, dangerous balance, Minoru thought. The shifting of tectonic plates, the eruption of volcanoes, a slight increase in the average temperature—any one of these things could cause that delicate balance to crumble. And Ruby Eyes could be a threat to that balance, too. What set them apart from the other disasters, though, was that they were beings with minds of their own.

He had been deeply alarmed when Nishikida had pointed out this possibility earlier, but thinking back now, he remembered that Igniter had intended to turn all the water in Tokyo into hydrogen and cause a massively destructive explosion. And it was entirely possible that another Ruby Eye could target this nuclear reactor in Tokyo Bay as a show of their power. In order to protect the peaceful lives of the people closest to him—his stepsister, Norie; his friend from the track and field club, Tomomi Minowa—he had to make sure this mission succeeded.

With these thoughts churning in his mind, Minoru continued his slow progress through the dark hallway.

The map on his wrist communicator indicated that the distance from the air lock to the containment vessel was only about eighteen meters, but to Minoru it felt ten times as long. Finally, a plain rectangular door appeared in the wall before him. Finding a label that read CONTAINMENT VESSEL AIR LOCK, Minoru took a short breath.

“I’ve arrived at the containment vessel door. Radiation levels, fifteen millisieverts per hour.”

“Roger……a bit farthe……od luck.”

Since it was now coming through three different repeaters, Yumiko’s response was choppy with noise. Nonetheless, encouraged by the sound of his partner’s voice, Minoru gave a loud “Right!” in response as he stepped up to the door.

Compared to the building entrance above, this set of double doors was much smaller. However, the first set of doors had nothing on the pressure of these off-white, steel-armored doors.

Since the incident in 2011, not a single human had been inside these doors. During his briefing, Minoru had seen the images collected by the probe robot before its signal was lost, but seeing up close how the doors had been ravaged by the radiation, he had a keen sense of just how terrifying the situation was inside the containment vessel. Just thinking about the fact that he was about to go inside was enough to make his heart leap into his throat, but he knew he couldn’t turn back now.

Through his protective shell and suit, Minoru touched his hand to his left cheek, where the Divider, SFD member Olivier Saitou, had punched him not long ago. Then he clenched his hand into a fist.

“I’m opening the containment vessel!” he shouted, half at himself. Reaching out and gingerly grasping the handle, he unlocked the door and pulled it open. He met with a great deal of resistance at first, but soon the stuck gaskets came loose, and the door creaked open for the first time in eight years.

Inside was a room only about a meter around, with another set of double doors. According to the information Minoru had received, an interlocking mechanism prevented the doors from being opened at the same time, so once he entered the room, the threshold would close back up.

With this, Minoru was now completely cut off from all contact with Yumiko. He would have to make decisions on his own from this point on. The agreement was that if more than twenty minutes passed without any communication from Minoru, Yumiko would assume that something had happened and come rushing in—so he couldn’t afford to let a single second go to waste.

Turning around, he shook off his fear of unlocking the next door and gave it a push. Once again, the door slowly came unstuck with a loud noise and began to move. Three centimeters…five centimeters…the opening widened ever so slowly.

Once again, the wrist communicator gave off a shrill alert. Minoru stopped pushing for a moment and looked with dread at the blinking number on the LED screen: 3.2 sieverts per hour. Or in the units of measurement they’d used back at SFD Headquarters, 3.2 million microsieverts.

…It reached that high a level just from opening the door five centimeters?

Minoru planted his right foot in the opening and, after double-checking that his protective shell was activated, pushed the door open with all his might.

The headlamp’s white light shone faintly into the gloomy darkness. He had been warned that the inside of the containment vessel would have very high heat and humidity, but there was even more steam than he’d expected. The goggles he was wearing were supposed to be fog-proof, but he still saw some white blooming at the edges of his vision.

“…So this is the inside of a nuclear reactor containment vessel…” In an effort to keep himself calm, Minoru commented out loud, but there was still a bit of an audible tremor in his voice. But he could still move his legs, and there was no numbness in his hands. So far, he didn’t feel any headache or stomach pains to indicate that anything was wrong with his body, either. Compared to the fight against Biter on the rooftop of the Saitama Super Arena, he was still pretty calm…at least he hoped so.

Moving on, he carefully scanned around the room with his headlamp. He could more or less make out the grating on the floor but wasn’t able to see the wall of the nuclear reactor pressure vessel that should be in the center of the room. A few bolts that had probably come loose in the aftershocks of phreatic explosions were rolling around on the floor, but there didn’t seem to be any serious damage.

Looking down between the gaps in the grating beneath his feet, he could see the light from his headlamp reflected in the water far below. Underneath that water, the atomic fuel that had melted through the containment vessel and the pressure vessel was most likely still radiating huge amounts of heat. He had been told that the most difficult part of the nuclear decommissioning process would be retrieving that debris, and indeed, Minoru had no idea how they would go about removing something that no human could get anywhere near.

According to Professor Riri Isa, the Ministry of Health, Labor, and Welfare had indeed expressed the opinion that, if he could retrieve the robot, Minoru might also be able to investigate the debris in the contaminated water below. However, apparently Chief Himi had firmly refused, even going so far as to threaten to remove the memories of this operation from everybody involved if the request was not retracted. Even then, he had bowed his head deeply to Minoru, apologizing for “asking him to do a job like this.”

True enough, this mission had nothing to do with eliminating Ruby Eyes, but Minoru’s bargain with Chief Himi was only that he would work as a member of the SFD in exchange for the use of the chief’s memory-altering abilities once the organization was dissolved. If this was part of his duties as an SFD member, Minoru would simply have to do it.

“…Now then, where are you, Mr. Robot…?” Since he wasn’t being recorded in order to protect the secret of his Third Eye, Minoru was free to mumble to himself as he slowly circled clockwise around the diaphragm floor, installed to protect the structure of the reactor from seismic activity.

The diameter of the room was about twenty-four meters, meaning the room’s outer circumference was a little over seventy-six meters. Minoru had seventeen minutes left to locate and retrieve the robot.

Fortunately, since the floor was relatively free of debris, it should be fairly easy to locate the large form of the robot. If he couldn’t find it, there was a high likelihood that it had fallen through some hole into the water below, so there would be no choice but to give up.

Please be here…

Minoru pleaded silently as he walked, while the number on his wrist communicator continued to rocket upward, soon surpassing ten sieverts per hour. If for some reason Minoru were to drop his protective shell for even a moment, the tungsten suit and even the restorative powers of his Third Eye would almost certainly not be enough to keep him from dying of radiation exposure.

As Minoru continued forward, he imagined that he could see the high-energy radiation flying all around him as small, countless sparks.

Navigating around the pressure vessel, Minoru arrived at the opposite side of the room from the double doors he’d entered through. Then, at last, the white light of his headlamp illuminated a promising shape not far away.

It was a cylindrical object that lay curled on the grating of the floor, about a meter in length. Attached was a long series of metal rings, which he assumed expanded and contracted to move the robot like a snake. This part looked to be about ten centimeters thick and seventy-six centimeters long. On its head was a sensor comprised of several lenses, but it didn’t look to be functioning at the moment.

The reason the robot had stopped moving was obvious at a glance. A large gash in the center of its body had damaged three or so of the rings, exposing the mechanisms beneath. The mysterious cause of this damage was nowhere to be seen nearby, but Minoru’s job was only to retrieve the robot, not to determine what had happened to it in the first place. Reaching out with both hands, he gathered the little metal snake into his arms.

Suddenly, the indicator on the robot’s head blinked green, and at the same instant, a small beep from Minoru’s headset indicated a request for a new connection.

“Huh…?”

Without thinking, he automatically looked around the room, but of course, nobody was there.

Then the request must have come from the robot in his arms. Dubiously, he tapped the button on his wrist communicator to accept the request. The standard Bluetooth icon flashed, confirming that the connection was established, and in the next moment…

“WHAT IS YOUR NAME?”

Muddled with noise though it might have been, there was unquestionably Japanese speech flowing through Minoru’s earpiece. He blinked, startled, and looked around once again, but there was still nobody else in the room. Looking down at the metal snake in his arms, he spoke up timidly. “Was that you who said something just now?”

“I AM PROBE ROBOT MARK-22. MY NAME IS MUSER. WHAT IS YOUR NAME?”

On closer inspection, the indicator on the robot’s head was blinking erratically in time with the voice in the earpiece. It really is this little snake that’s talking to me.

Thinking back, Minoru had been told that the robot he was here to retrieve was completely autonomous, able to function without any human control needed. But he hadn’t expected it to have such an advanced AI system that he would have to tell it his name.

Minoru wondered for a moment if it was all right to ignore the robot’s query and simply carry out his mission. But after three seconds of silence had elapsed, the metal snake—Muser—spoke up again.

“YOU ARE NOT RECOGNIZED AS AN AUTHORIZED USER. FOR SECURITY PURPOSES, CONTROL CIRCUITS WILL NOW SELF-DESTRUCT.”

With some difficulty, Minoru tried to translate into words the noisy synthetic voice in his mind. “Not recognized as an authorized user”…“security purposes”…“self-destruct”?!

“COMMENCING COUNTDOWN. TEN… NINE… EIGHT… SEVEN…”

“Whoa, w-wait a minute!”

In a panic, Minoru leaned down to address the robot, pressing his goggles against its biggest lens. “I-I’m from the Ministry of Health, Labor, and Welfare Industrial Safety and Health Department, Specialized Forces Division…” After a second’s hesitation, he used his real name instead of his code name. “Minoru Utsugi. I came here to retrieve…to rescue you.”

“…TO RESCUE ME?”

Interrupting the self-destruct countdown, Muser’s indicator blinked rapidly and adjusted the focus on its lens. Despite being a robot, the uncertainty was palpable in its voice as it spoke. “THE RADIOACTIVITY LEVEL IN THIS ROOM SURPASSES THE MEDIAN LETHAL DOSAGE FOR A HUMAN. WHY HAVE YOU COME TO RESCUE ME?”

“The median lethal dosage…” That most likely meant the level of radiation that would kill at least half the humans exposed to it. If one thought about it logically, it did seem like there would be no reason for a human to risk death just to rescue a probe robot. Unless, of course, that human was capable of completely protecting himself from radiation. However, Minoru doubted that the robot’s AI would understand if he tried to explain about his protective shell.

“Umm, well, that’s…” He trailed off for a moment, trying to come up with a satisfactory answer. “Because…you are very important. We couldn’t afford to lose you here, so I came to rescue you.”

The robot’s indicator light flickered for a few moments before it responded in its artificial voice. “…YOU HAVE BEEN RECOGNIZED AS AN AUTHORIZED USER.”

Breathing a sigh of relief under his mask, Minoru checked the time. Twelve minutes had already passed since he first entered the containment vessel building; another eight, and Yumiko would come charging in to rescue him.

“All right, we’re going outside.”

Cradling Muser in his arms as carefully as if it were a wounded animal, Minoru returned to the set of double doors. In the opposite order from before, and with a little more difficulty, as he was using only one hand, he made his way back out. Turning the handle again and locking the outside door, he took a deep breath.

With the headset automatically having reconnected to the repeater, Minoru spoke into it loudly. “This is Isolator. I have successfully recovered the robot!”

Yumiko responded without a moment’s delay, as if she’d been awaiting the news with bated breath. “Roger that. The repeaters can be left where they are. Please make a speedy exit from the building.”

“All right, I’m on my—” Minoru started to respond but was quickly interrupted.

“WHO IS SPEAKING ON THIS CHANNEL? STATE YOUR NAME,” the robot in Minoru’s arms cut in abruptly. There were a few seconds of silence, and then Yumiko responded in something of a shriek:

“ME?! Who are you?! Utsu… I mean, Isolator, is there a girl in there?!”

“A…a girl?!”

Minoru sputtered, wondering why she had leaped straight to that conclusion, but he supposed that if anything the robot’s synthetic voice was somewhat high-pitched.

Muser responded to her question in a cautioning tone.

“YOU ARE NOT RECOGNIZED AS AN AUTHORIZED USER. FOR SECURITY PURPOSES, CONTROL CIRCUITS WILL NOW—”

“Wh-whaa—?! Both of you, please just wait a minute, I’ll explain as soon as we get outside!”

Minoru quickened his pace through the hallway. This time, it was Kakinari’s bemused voice that cut into the conversation.

“What in the heck is going on in there, kid?”

“I…I don’t know, either!!” Minoru wailed. Straight ahead of him, he saw the light of winter shining white through the open air-lock doors.

Thus, the probe robot recovery mission, Minoru’s first job for the SFD outside of fighting Ruby Eyes, ended more or less successfully.

The damaged robot Muser was returned to Eastern Electric Power Company, and its recordings from inside the nuclear reactor containment vessel before its signal was lost were uploaded to the Internet. However, there were no images of whatever caused the recording to be interrupted.

What was the cause of the damage “she” had sustained?

And what effect had her first contact with Minoru had on her AI?

It would be a little while longer until Minoru would find out.

Interlude I – End