Less Than Human (37 page)

Ishihara’s jaw set stubbornly. “Yui didn’t say anything about her.”

“Yui didn’t know about the Silver Angels.”

“You’re wasting time suspecting her.”

Funo opened her mourn, probably to remind him who decided what was a waste of time, but shut it again. She sighed, and her
voice was kinder.

“McGuire links it all together, you know. The Zecom case, that accident you investigated in Minato Ward, the Silver Angels.
And where is she now?”

Ishihara found the idea of McGuire as a criminal mastermind so preposterous that he was genuinely lost for words. Funo took
this as resignation.

“Concentrate on reviewing the information we have. Correlate it again with the national database. I’m sure we’ll find McGuire
when we find the Silver Angels.”

I know that, thought Ishihara as he shut the office door. I’d prefer to find her alive, that’s all.

T
he Silver Angel Iroel stopped in a swish of robes opposite the alcove with the stairs. Eleanor found that she knew now that
the stairs led upstairs into a two-story building. In the interface she must have seen the layout of the place. The basement
consisted of a rectangular block of rooms surrounded by corridors on three sides. There was no exit except for the stairs.

She could hear the murmur of voices in the rooms, but there was nobody else in the corridor.

“Where is this place?” she said.

“It’s an old factory.” Iroel looked uneasily over his shoulder. “You should have seen it when we arrived. Machines and junk
all over the place.”

She thought of the covered equipment in Akita’s room. It must be pretty obsolete to have been left behind. And how could the
Angels get an old factory livelined? That required money and official permission.

“Kneel down,” said Iroel

“Why? You said you’d take me to see my niece.”

His forehead wrinkled further with concern. “There are cameras. I’m trying to help you,” he whispered when she didn’t move.

She sighed and bent stiffly to the concrete. What now?

Iroel stuck one hand out over her head, palm upward, and half closed his eyes.

“I have a proposition for you, McGuire-san,” he said softly, then intoned louder, “Myo-ho-ren-ge-kyo-ny-orai …”

“That’s the Lotus Sutra,” muttered Eleanor to the floor.

“I know, it sounds good … ji-ga-toku-butsu-rai …”

Two acolytes rounded the corner and skittered past, their eyes down. Iroel waited until they went in one of the doors.

“If you help me, I will help you and your niece get out of here,” he said softly.

Eleanor looked up sharply. His face, scored with downward lines like a worried bloodhound, seemed quite sane. “How can I help
you?”

“You can enter the Macrocosm. We want you to bring us some information. My partner and I have readied a download point.”

She didn’t think she could do anything so specific. “What data?”

“All the classified information on the Tokyo Stock Exchange.”

“Where’s the download point?”

“A personal mail address.”

Eleanor hesitated, unsure if this were not a trick by Akita to test her loyalty. “But if you get rid of things like the stock
exchange in your new society, what use will that data be to you?”

Iroel sucked his teeth, as if doubting her also.

“You don’t believe Adam’s plan will work, do you?” Eleanor kept her voice as low as she could.

“I think there will be … a disturbance,” he said finally. “But things will return to normal. Then a shrewd businessman may
acquire opportunities.” He bent over her, his breath hot on her bare head, and thrust his left hand down so she could see
the biometal pieces on two of his fingertips. “I was going to try in the Macrocosm. But I’m not good enough. I get lost. I
can just about navigate around a Betta.”

“Who’s your partner?”

“I can’t tell you.”

“How can I trust you then?”

Silence. A door slammed around the corner.

Iroel’s face folded around his frown. He sighed, and the sour smell drifted past her cheek. “It’s Melan.”

Another Angel. How many of them were disloyal? “How will you get me out? I think you’ll take the data and run.”

Iroel waved his hand in a placatory manner. “We’ve got a car parked in a garage across the road. There’s an old tunnel entry
in the outer wall. One of us will put you through the tunnel, the other will go out as normal. We are Angels, you know,” he
added meaningfully. “Nobody will question us.”

He might be telling the truth. She couldn’t see the tunnel on her mental map, but the map probably came from an official plan
that wouldn’t include the tunnel. “I don’t trust you. Get Mari out first.”

“We can’t, at least not until it starts.”

“Until what starts?”

“Everyone will be praying … look, do you want help or not?”

“All right,” she said. “But I’ll need to know Mari is out before I download anything.”

He frowned, his face drooping. “I’ll turn off one of the building systems. The antisurveillance field.”

“Fine.” The biometal on her hand gleamed whitely through the bruised flesh around it, like bones.

“And the download point?”

“[email protected].”

“If you lie to me, remember I’ll be in the Macrocosm. I can see you anywhere.”

He twitched a bit at that, even though he didn’t believe Akita’s mysticism. “Na-mu-amida-butsu,” he intoned, and pulled her
to her feet.

They stopped at the first door around the corner “Your niece is in here,” he said, and bounced back up the corridor, his elbows
flapping.

Mari didn’t want to leave.

Eleanor sat with her on a thin mat in the “meditation room” in front of a rickety wooden bookcase holding a television screen.
The screen showed a recording of Akita, distinct in his gold ruffles, conducting some kind of prayer meeting. He stood before
a huge screen on which background colors swirled hypnotically, reciting a monotonous chant echoed by about thirty people prostrate
on the floor in front of him. Eleanor tried muting the sound, but the volume controls had been disabled.

Mari insisted that she felt more at home with her friends there than she’d ever felt anywhere before. She and Taka were part
of a real family. They might have a few problems because ordinary people didn’t understand, but Adam and the Angels (sounds
like an ancient pop group, thought Eleanor subversively) were working for the good of all humanity, and if Eleanor couldn’t
understand that, she was no better than Mari’s parents, who never understood anything …

How to reach the child? Eleanor almost cried with frustration. Her head ached, every part of her body ached, her hand throbbed
and sent waves of pain through her shoulders and neck, and she had the feeling that she’d forgotten something important. It
was right at the edge of her mind, but she couldn’t put words to it, a feeling that she’d had often after her accident and
it terrified her, because she never remembered.

“What about those girls who died?” she said at last. “Weren’t they your friends?”

Mari’s eyes filled with tears and she looked down. “You know they were. But that was an accident.”

I don’t have any proof it wasn’t, Eleanor thought. Without access to the outside world, I don’t know what they did at Zecom,
either. She looked at her hand, still part of her and yet changed. What would she become if she kept on using the interface?
What would they all become if Akita had his way—some kind of cyborg? Speaking of cyborgs …

“I got your copy of
Journey to Life,
” she said wearily. “We mixed them up at the apartment. You must have taken mine.”

Mari wiped her tears with the back of her hand. “So that’s what happened. I thought I’d bought the wrong volume.”

They sat in silence for a minute, Eleanor trying to gather enough energy to go and get a drink from the pitcher on a low table
near the door. Mari picked obsessively at the edge of her thumbnail.

Mari looked up. “I was reading the final episode, the one you bought. Don’t you think it’s a strange title? I mean, the story’s
about Sam Number Five trying to become able to die.”

“I think …” Eleanor gathered her thoughts with an effort. “The writer is saying that being alive means you have to die. You
can’t have one without the other and be human.”

“Adam says we can.”

That brought Eleanor up short. I suppose Akita wants to live forever, she thought. Eventually he’ll want us to live without
our bodies, inside the network. It may happen that way, but we won’t be human anymore.

“Why does Sam Number Five want to be mortal?” she said.

Mari started on the other thumbnail, thinking. “Because he wants to be reborn,” she said finally. “Without rebirth, you don’t
get a chance to escape the wheel of suffering. But Adam says …”

“That you can escape, I know. By not needing a body, in the Macrocosm. Or by using bodies that don’t decay, like machines.”
She ran her right forefinger over the bio-metal on her left hand. “I can’t help you decide. Part of it depends on whether
you want to be your present self for all eternity. Or whether you want to escape all your selves eventually. Just be careful
that you don’t get caught, like Sam Number Five, in a body that won’t let you die even if you want to.”

The door opened. Fujinaka/Gagiel stood there, running his narrow eyes over both of them. He had changed his undershirt for
a silver vest.

“Adam-sama is waiting. It is time.”

Eleanor unfolded her knees and creaked to her feet, grabbing Mari as her head whirled briefly.

“Remember, find Iroel,” she whispered in Mari’s ear. “He’ll get you out.”

Eleanor let her eyes run along the old wooden wall as they walked, but could see nothing like an entry to the tunnel Iroel
spoke of. A couple of flimsy wooden cupboards were shoved against the wall—perhaps they concealed a passageway?

In the “throne room,” as Eleanor called it in her mind, several people in silver robes were gathered around Akita. Two novices
in blue clothes stood motionless on each side of the door, staring straight ahead like soldiers on duty. One of them glanced
at her with a gleam of recognition—it was Taka, Mari’s boyfriend. He looked as scornful of Eleanor as he had on that day in
Mari’s apartment. No respect for “Lilith-sama” there.

Samael, slim and cold, exchanged a glance above her head with Fujinaka/Gagiel as they walked down the red carpet.

The other man in silver was gangly Iroel, who carefully avoided her gaze. Beside him, a heavy-busted woman with thick-lensed
glasses stared curiously at her. That would be Melan.

On the wall behind the throne, above the interface consoles, a video screen sprang into focus. A solemn-voiced NHK announcer
said, “… and in response to this communication, we have a message for the group from the Head of the National Police Authority.”

Akita’s mouth open and shut indignantly. “But I told them the prime minister,” he sputtered. “Not some two-bit bureaucrat.”

The NPA chief, a stony-faced gray-haired man in plain clothes, shuffled his hard-copy props and stared into midair as he began
reading from the prompt.

“To the perpetrators of the recent gas attack at a facility in Okayama. We received your communication, and we take your demands
seriously, as you can see by the fact that we are communicating through national television, as you directed.”

He paused, waiting for the prompt with his eyes narrowed slightly. “We are experiencing difficulty accommodating some of your
requests …”

“Not requests, orders,” snapped Samael.

“… and we would like to communicate with you further. Please contact us again. I repeat, we need you to contact us.”

The image was replaced by the NHK announcer, who began to give a précis of the incident.

“They’re stalling.” Samael folded his arms. “They’re trying to divert us from choosing a new target.”

“I agree,” said Melan. She had a fluting voice at odds with her heavy frame and fat-looped arms.

They all began talking at once, with Akita in the middle looking angrier by the moment.

Eleanor stared in horror at the screen, forgotten behind them. It showed the Zecom Betta from the air, an L-shaped box out
of which people streamed like ants from a nest. They converged around the edges, then trickled away in lines. Fire engines
and ambulances gathered around the exits. Some people on the roof were being directed down the outside fire escapes. She listened
in a daze to what she could hear of the commentary.

“… shocking awakening … first time a problem of this kind … police refuse to confirm a terrorist attack …”

“Maybe they do need more information.” Iroel’s hesitant voice cut across the commentary.

“They’re playing for time while they look for us,” Melan piped scornfully. “You didn’t leave any traces, I hope?” This to
Samael.

Samael looked at her with his head on one side, like a bird. “Only the traces we meant to leave.”

“He means the hand,” said Akita. He flexed his artificial hand menacingly. “That was a necessary sacrifice.”

“They don’t have any idea where we are. That’s why the others took the vans,” Fujinaka said. His flat face was expressionless.