Less Than Human

by Maxine McArthur

  Eleanor tried to smile back. She felt sick, and her heart wouldn’t stop racing. “What’s Operation Debug?” she said brightly.

  “We leave here and regroup,” said Akita. He leaned back, comfortable to let Samael and Fujinaka do the work. Fujinaka had gone into the kitchen and was talking to his phone. Eleanor could hear isolated words such as “transport,” “detonator,” “masks,” and “synchronize,” that didn’t make her feel better. What did Ishihara say … that the group could be dangerous if pushed too far?

  “Are you taking the interface hardware?” she asked. “That’s a delicate job. Shall I help?”

  “No,” said Samael sharply. He was tapping a message on his own phone. “You will go in the first van.” He snapped the phone shut and bent down to the briefcase, behind her.

  “It’s not that we don’t want your help.” Akita leaned forward. “We must keep our destination a secret, that’s all.”

  Despite what she knew about him by then, she wasn’t frightened by his nearness. His bloodshot eyes were desperately sincere, and his rather petulant mouth twisted in another emotion, she couldn’t quite tell what. It certainly wasn’t sexual attraction—looked more like guilt.

  He looked up at something above her head, then lunged forward, grabbing both her arms at the elbow, his knee across her thighs so she couldn’t move her legs.

  The attack was so sudden that Eleanor had barely sucked in bream to scream when she felt a hand on her neck and a sharp pain in the muscle of her shoulder. The scream came out as “Ow!”

  Samael chuckled behind her.

  Akita let her go. “My apologies, McGuire-san. I will show you the wonders of the Macrocosm, but not tonight.”

  Eleanor scrambled off the couch and pushed past him, but her knees gave way, and she dropped to all fours on the carpet, then slumped on her face as her knees and elbows gave way as well. The bastards had drugged her.

  She could see the pattern on the carpet—a brown fleck interwoven into a cream ground—and hear the men’s voices, but she couldn’t move at all. She didn’t even know if she was breathing or not. Perhaps she was dead, and that was what Akita meant by “wonders of the Macrocosm.” If she was dead, though, she should be able to see something more than this damn carpet and hear something more than the three voices …

  “Where’s the hand?” said Fujinaka.

  “In the verandah freezer.” Akita sounded unconcerned.

  “… set the recording for the cops.” Fujinaka’s voice, coming from a different room.

  “I’ll take Adam-sama and the equipment.” Samael.

  The door swished open. A babble of voices, male and female, just out of hearing. The carpet blurred, darkened. All sounds faded away.

  I shihara expected McGuire’s husband to be a Westernized scholarly gentleman. Instead, a stocky figure in T-shirt and jeans smacked a hand like a farmer’s onto the reception desk and demanded Ishihara find his wife. The only scholarly feature about the man was his thick glasses, which continuously slid to one side of his nose and had to be pushed straight again.

  “Whatever trouble she’s in, it’s your fault.” Tanaka glared at Ishihara and Beppu impartially.

  “When did you hear from her last?” Ishihara led him to an interview room, away from the desk clerk and the curious stares of a couple of teenagers thumbing their phones while they waited on the benches.

  The room had three chairs and a desk. Ishihara pulled up one chair and Beppu sank into another. Tanaka paced up and down.

  “She called at about five-thirty and said she’d be home at eight or nine. I heard the message when I got home at seven.”

  He glanced at Beppu, who was jotting times in his notebook, and waited before continuing.

  “She said she was going to see an old friend. She didn’t call and her phone is turned off, but lately she’s been out at all hours on police business”—a pointed look—“so I thought maybe something had come up. But now you say she’s not here, and she’s not at work.”

  “Where was she meeting the friend?” said Beppu.

  “She didn’t say.”

  “I haven’t seen McGuire-san since …” Ishihara took a moment to remember. “Since this morning. I went to Tomita to pick up some evidence.”

  Tanaka frowned. “And what’s all this about the Silver Angels? Eleanor’s got nothing to do with them. It’s my niece who may be involved with the group.”

  “I’m not sure why the inspector wanted to talk to McGuire-san,” said Ishihara. He knew Funo thought McGuire had gone to ground with the rest of the Silver Angels. But Ishihara was sure McGuire wasn’t part of the cult. If she was in trouble, he might need Tanaka’s help to find her.

  “We think the Silver Angels may be about to attack the public,” he said. “Most of their known members have disappeared.”

  He glanced at Beppu, who tilted his head as if to say It’s your call if you want to tell him anything.

  Ishihara continued. “Do you think it’s possible your wife went looking for your niece and got dragged into something?”

  Tanaka frowned again and pushed his glasses up hard against his forehead. “She didn’t say anything about it. If it was family business she usually told me.”

  “What about this friend?” put in Beppu. “Did you try to contact him, or her?”

  “I don’t have a number for him and he’s not listed,” said Tanaka.

  “What’s his name?” said Ishihara. “We’ll see if we can track him down here.”

  “Akita … I think his first name is Nobuyuki or Nobutaka, something like that. He used to work for Tomita years ago, when Eleanor first joined them.”

  “I’ll get onto that.” Beppu left.

  “Assistant Inspector,” said Tanaka thoughtfully, “have the Silver Angels given you any demands?”

  “No.”

  “No declaration or communication of any kind?”

  “No, why?”

  “I’m not an expert on this kind of group,” Tanaka said. “But if they shift into a mode of public activity, I’d say either they want something from the rest of society, or they’re trying to demonstrate something.”

  “Such as?” said Ishihara.

  “It depends on the group. The action might be something relatively harmless, like beating drums in the street and telling the emperor that their god would grant him an interview.”

  Tanaka smiled at Ishihara’s puzzled expression. The smile softened his blunt features. “A much earlier case. Or the action might be violent, like Soum deciding it’s time to release all our deluded souls by flooding the subway with sarin so we can ascend to heaven.”

  “Don’t tell Beppu that,” said Ishihara. “He was a rookie in Tokyo in 1995. It still gives him the creeps.”

  “The reason I’m asking is that if they contact you, at least we could tell what they want, however strange it seems to us. And it might give us an idea how likely they are to become violent.”

  “There’s been one violent incident we know of,” said Ishihara.

  “The kids from Mari’s university? That sounded like an internal problem to me.”

  Ishihara stood up. Maybe the incident room upstairs could use another expert.

  “You’d better stay here until we find out this Akita’s number or address,” he said. “That’s our best lead.” He hesitated. “I should warn you that our boss might think your wife is part of the cult.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous,” Tanaka snapped.

  “We’ll find her,” said Ishihara, with as much decisiveness as he could manage.

  “I hope so.” Tanaka folded his arms defiantly. “You got her into this in the first place.”

  Ishihara had the uncomfortable feeling he was right.

  Mikuni called him an hour later. He looked much brighter than before, in spite of the time.

  “We’ve had a breakthrough here, you’ll be glad to know.”

  Ishihara eh-really’ed encouragingly, but kept one eye on the other desk monitor.
It showed the updated list of suspected Silver Angel members and their details from the NDN. The Zecom murder case seemed a long time ago and a lot less urgent now.

  “We took out a search warrant on Yui,” said Mikuni. “I tell you, I was pissing myself in case we didn’t find anything. We went to his house. His wife wasn’t too happy but she stuck to his story. We asked her where the clothes were that Yui was wearing Monday night. She seemed genuinely surprised. Said she sent the shirts and trousers to the dry cleaners today. Usually she sends them on Saturday, but he brought all his washing back from overseas. And she remembered that one of the shirts had a stain that he’d tried to wash himself. She thinks it was red wine.”

  Ishihara whistled appreciatively. If they found Nakamura’s blood on Yui’s shirt …

  Mikuni grinned. “To cut a long story short we went to the dry cleaners—it’s in the Betta shopping center—and they’d started on Yui’s stuff. We only just got the shirt in time.” He sat back in his chair. “The stain’s being analyzed now. I hope to hell it doesn’t turn out to be wine after all.”

  “Bet it isn’t,” said Ishihara. “You always were a lucky bastard. Don’t forget to find out where he got the research from,” he added, thinking of McGuire.

  “Yeah, talk to you later.” Mikuni cut the connection.

  In the incident room, sighting reports of Silver Angels suspects and tip-offs of any suspicious activity poured in from all over the country, none of which had been confirmed. Arrest warrants had been issued for Inoue/Samael and Harada—they were the only names the police had— but all stations were authorized to make emergency arrests of any suspected Silver Angel members, including McGuire.

  The only bright spot of the evening had been the look of scorn Tanaka gave Inspector Funo when she asked him about McGuire’s involvement with the Angels. Apparently McGuire had made a call that afternoon from her office that the police couldn’t trace. It was diverted through some kind of interference. All her other calls were routine, and Ishihara had to admit that Funo was right to regard this diverted call as suspicious. It must be the call she made to arrange to meet Akita, whoever he was. But that didn’t necessarily mean she knew the call was shielded.

  When Tanaka was told their apartment would be searched, Ishihara thought he would spit in Funo’s eye. But all he said was, “I suppose this is under the Internal Security Law.” They found nothing incriminating in McGuire’s apartment, of course, and Tanaka returned to the station with them. He was now helping the profilers put information about the Silver Angels into order.

  There was a growing air of exhausted frustration in the main incident room. Detectives hunched over computers or argued on phones. Cigarette smoke hung in a blue haze on the ceiling despite the background moan of air conditioners.

  Beppu beckoned to him from a desk across the room.

  “I think we’ve found Akita,” he said, when Ishihara was looking over his shoulder. “And Funo needs to know.” He pointed at the screen, which displayed multiple windows of matches. One of them was flashing red.

  “Inoue formed a software company with Nobuyuki Akita in 2012,” read Ishihara. “Shit.” Too much of a coincidence. Akita must be involved with the Angels, too. And McGuire was with him. “The company declared bankruptcy earlier this year.” Which didn’t necessarily mean it was in trouble. Directors of small companies who got sick of the struggle to survive often exploited the bankruptcy option.

  The software company was based in Tokyo, but Akita’s address was given as a small town in the northeast. They’d have to ask the local police to check it out. Inoue’s address was in Shikoku, where the police had already found an empty apartment.

  Akita had worked at Tomita Electronics after leaving university, as Tanaka said. He spent only three years there, then moved to Zecom. The familiar name prodded Ishihara’s intuition. But Akita left Zecom after five years, then didn’t appear to have worked anywhere until 2012, when he teamed up with Inoue. More likely he did casual or illegal work that wasn’t linked with the main employment database. He had no police record or anything else suspicious, not even tax evasion. He also carried no credit cards, bankcards of any description, and his health card hadn’t been used for ten years.

  The last visual record of Akita was from 2008, the year he left Zecom, when, he renewed his driver’s license. Ishihara sighed. Digital technology was supposed to improve things like license photos, not produce a blurred likeness of what appeared to be a surprised gorilla. The only useful information was that Akita was tall and heavily built, which might help him to stand out in a crowd.

  Inoue was only thirty—he’d taken the elite course of top high school—top university—top company. He’d been in the same company since 2007. No police record, but he did have credit cards, a couple of bank loans, and the other trappings of a normal life.

  “That’s a good lead,” Inspector Funo said, taking Beppu’s place at the desk. She had removed her suit jacket and a couple of hairs were out of place in her neat bob. It didn’t make her any more approachable. “We’ll see if the local police can find anything at Akita’s address. Possibly McGuire and Akita are meeting Inoue somewhere.”

  “She said she’d be home by eight or nine,” grunted Beppu. “Can’t be too far away.”

  Funo looked at him pityingly. “You believe what she said?”

  “Her husband does.”

  “We have to consider that she might be a prisoner,” said Ishihara. “As a possibility,” he added, with an eye on Funo’s frown.

  “Agreed.” Funo stood up again. “But try and keep an open mind, you two. The women are often the worst in these groups.”

  Even Beppu didn’t have an answer for that.

  The report on Akita’s address came in an hour late from the local police. The apartment building had been pulled down the year before, and nobody of that name lived in the new building. The police were interviewing all residents, but so far nobody resembling Akita had been found.

  “It’s a fake,” said Ishihara. “The bastard’s somewhere else entirely.”

  “I thought you couldn’t do that with the NDN. It crosschecks, doesn’t it?” Beppu yawned. He sat on a cot in the downstairs incident room. They were supposed to be getting a few hours’ sleep.

  Ishihara smoked morosely at one of the desks. He had a bad feeling about this.

  “We don’t have any more leads where he might go. He’s probably using a fake name here in Osaka.”

  “Can’t do that, either,” Beppu lay down with a groan.

  Can’t do this, can’t do that. The NDN, the Bettas, and other post-Quake networks were supposed to be tamper-free. Something about the liveline cables protecting the information. But if somebody invented those things, he believed somebody else would eventually come up with a way to get into them.

  He accessed the information about Akita and Inoue and ran through it again, sipping lukewarm coffee in a plastic cup with a soapy smell. There was no new information from the system about either man, and nothing fresh suggested itself from the screen. He placed Inoue’s license photo beside the one he’d touched up for the witness, so that Inoue had no hair or glasses. He looked believable enough as a fanatic. Akita, on the other hand …

  Ishihara dragged Akita’s photo beside the others and told the computer to make it clearer. Akita looked more like a motor mechanic or a plumber. A totally ordinary face except perhaps for the intensity in the deep-set eyes. You might guess at a drinking problem, too, from the high color and bulbous nose. Even doctoring the photo to remove his hair didn’t make him look much different.

  Akita might have helped the four dead kids get into the Betta where they died. Was it possible to use specialized knowledge of one Betta to get into another?

  Beppu snored.

  If McGuire suspected Akita was anything to do with the Silver Angels, she wouldn’t have gone to meet him. Her contrition at not calling the police to her niece’s apartment on Wednesday had been genuine, he would swear. McGuire
always called her husband if she was going to be late. She hadn’t called, so she must have walked into a trap.

  He rubbed his face, suddenly tired and stupid. Better take the rest while it was offered. He pulled the cotton blanket off Beppu and made a pillow on the desk. It felt as soft as goose down.

  “Ishihara.” Funo’s voice in his ear. He sat up, his eyes smarting, but the voice came over the interoffice phone, which functioned as an intercom.

  He fumbled the return switch. “Yes, I’m here.”

  Beppu stirred behind him.

  “Get up here.”

  He groaned and went to the hand basin, where he sloshed water on his face and wiped it off with a paper towel. It was nearly five.

  “Get up.” He poked Beppu as he passed and took the elevator upstairs.

  There were tired smudges around Funo’s eyes but she moved as briskly as ever. “Take Beppu and Fujita and meet the local police in Okayama. Your mate Mikuni thinks they’ve found Akita.”

  Yui had confessed to Nakamura’s murder and given them the information to reduce his sentence. He said that he’d got the research data from Akita, who was working as systems manager at the Zecom Betta under another name. Mikuni, knowing Osaka police were looking for information about Akita, called immediately.

  “We checked McGuire’s e-mail, too,” said Funo. “She’s been communicating with Akita for months.”

  “About what?” Ishihara still didn’t believe McGuire was guilty.

  “Technical stuff only,” Funo admitted. “Oh, and an e-mail to you yesterday, asking why we’re tracing her calls. How did she know that?”

  Ishihara cursed himself for not checking his e-mail last night. Not that it would have made any difference.

  “I think if you find Akita, you’ll find McGuire there, too,” she said.

  “It’s possible Inoue is there, as well,” he said gloomily. “And the rescopal.”

  The shadows around Funo’s eyes deepened. “I know. We’ve told emergency services to stand by.”

  * * *

  Ishihara, Beppu, and Fujita, a young detective with an eye for detail and a permanently blocked nose, got out at the Zecom stop before Okayama City. It was a new station with high ceilings and streamlined passageways, like being inside a translucent, metal-pyloned box. Ishihara preferred solid concrete.