Upon returning home, Ryuuji looked over all the information received from the informant. There was something that tugged at his heartstrings, but he didn’t know what it was.
He wasn’t caught up by the appearance of things. He admonished himself, read the data over again, thought a bit, drank the rest of his Wild Turkey, thought some more, drank another Wild Turkey, drank even more, then went to bed.
The next morning it was still raining. The kind of rain so heavy that it makes you think it’ll never stop raining.
“Have you been drinking again?” Lilie said with a frown after breakfast.
She was caught up by the appearance of things. She still hadn’t had enough practice.
“Mental labor is difficult to measure.”
“Wash your cup, okay?”
“Okay.”
After getting Lilie to put on a raincoat and seeing her off to school, Ryuuji called David on the phone. He talked about the exchanges at ALGOS and explained that he would be receiving information from the Sophia Squad’s Urania.
“Did that bomber lady become your friend?” asked David in amazement on the other side of the phone.
“That’s such a strange story. Rather I should say, you’ve persuaded me.”
“Let’s leave things to her in the game for the time being. She’s more reliable than the Pied Piper of Hamelin,” said Ryuuji.
“How about you, David? Did you find out anything?”
“On my side, I made arrangements to speak with the person in charge of last year’s electronic prison incident last year. It’s later this afternoon. What will you do?”
Ryuuji finally spoke after taking a while to think.
“I’ll leave that to you, David. Actually, I can’t read the informant’s data yet. I’ll join in on your arrangement.”
“Really? I don’t even know if the talk will delve into the finer details of NAB or if things will go smoothly,” said David.
“Oh, that’s right. The analysis results for the log left by Travis Bond arrived. I will forward it to you.”
“Did you learn anything?”
“I feel from reading briefly that there were no major exchanges. Honestly, all I saw was that it indicated that Seto was trying to investigate the @HOME’s functions.”
“The @HOME’s functions?”
“Yeah. Stuff like weapon training, expanding the facilities, and upgrading the @HOME. Maybe he intended to do something with cheats.”
“Pet Shop Chims was a site for rat experiments,” said Ryuuji.
“A facility for Yuri Seto to learn to control his abilities. He abducted regular PCs who came into the shop as customers and tested the power of the flash.”
“Hmm, it’s like an online version of a psycho house.”
“However, I don’t quite understand the so-called @HOME cheats. He was tinkering with the house and not the rats. Why do that?”
“He likely did it for breeding and raising the rats,” answered David promptly.
That certainly seemed logical. An @HOME is an optimal place for concealing rats in increasing numbers. By using cheats and hacks on the room, one could increase the @HOME’s size and hold as many rats as desired.
Yet, what was KK saying? That masked man, who puts absolute trust in the ALGOS monitoring system, boasted by saying something along the lines of “even if he’s lurking in the shadow of an object, we can photograph through it” as an explanation of the surveillance system.
Would ALGOS overlook Yuri Seto’s PC body and the rats hidden in the @HOME?
Ryuuji thought that something was still missing. He felt that the cards for closing in on Yuri Seto’s scheme were not yet in hand.
“There may be a lot of clues in Travis’ chat log,” said David who seemed to notice Ryuuji’s hesitation.
“How’s his condition?”
“No changes. He’s been admitted to a new hospital in a coma. We can’t ask him directly,” David murmured as though purring.
“I’ll read the log again.”
“I’ll give it a look-over too,” said Ryuuji.
While sitting on the living room sofa, Ryuuji deployed his mobile terminal and palm PC, and returned to the previous night’s work. It took over three hours to focus and read the data he’d obtained.
There was the data handed over from Veronica Bain.
Data from David.
Data received from the informant.
He looked through all the various data he’d gotten so far. He didn’t realize what he was asking of himself. However, it felt as though there were serious clues dangling right in front of him, but he just couldn’t see them.
Just before noon, the telephone rang.
“Hello, have I reached Mr. Ryuuji Sogabe?”
It was a young woman’s voice.
“Yes, that’s right.”
“My name is Miki Tazawa and I’m a part of CyberConnect Corporation’s debug team.”
A debug team. It was the Cobalt Knights.
“I heard that you are being investigated in relation to the incident that occurred four days ago,” she said in a breathy voice.
“I received instructions from upper management to tell you everything you want to know.”
“That’s very helpful. I’d like to know everything as soon as possible. What time is convenient for you?”
They decided to take time that afternoon. He was glad he declined NAB’s chat. They set up an appointment to meet at a coffee shop in Odaiba at 12:30 in the afternoon.
He interrupted the data checks that were still unfinished, went outside in the falling rain and started the car. Although it was noon, the sky was gloomy.
He quickly found the arranged shop. Inside, the shop was almost full, but the woman Ryuuji was to meet had already secured a table in the corner. When Ryuuji approached, she took notice and stood up.
“Ms. Tazawa, was it?”
Having been addressed, she awkwardly nodded her head and answered ‘yes’. She had a bob haircut, was wearing a suit, and looked very young. She could easily pass for a university student, but she should have graduated from school this spring at least. She then joined CC Corp as a new graduate, was assigned to the debug team the Cobalt Knights and immediately encountered the megdisaster that was Yuri Seto. Well, she did not encounter him alone. It was a narrow escape. So, they were safe here. The same couldn’t be said for other members.
Ryuuji handed over his business card, finished his greeting and sat down opposite her.
“Umm, what would you like to talk about?” she asked. She looked around the shop. There were dark circles under her eyes.
“Please tell me everything you can about that day.”
“Everything?”
She blinked as though confused.
“Yeah. Actually, I don’t really know what I should inquire about. I have no idea what information I need or how useful it is. I’ll use anything I can get my hands on.”
Ryuuji scratched his head.
“Ms. Tazawa, you are a valuable witness who nearly escaped the man who annihilated the Cobalt Knights. I would like you to tell me everything you experienced that day. There may be some important clues in your story.”
The Cobalt Knights are an excellent debug team owned by CyberConnect Japan. There’s not one benefit to someone like Yuri Seto picking a fight with them. So why did Seto attack them? Even when there was a possibility of being counterattacked.
She talked about herself as she looked back at that situation.
That day, she was engaged in debugging work with the team as usual.
It was already past regular working hours and night had fallen.
She had made a mistake, was reprimanded by the Chief Knight and was logged out.
However, they had forgotten the location of the data required to correct the mistake, but as they were about to get angry again, she logged in again.
It had been less than thirty minutes since she had been away from The World. The situation had changed completely within that short time. It went from a typical day to extraordinary.
The knights were having an argument with an unknown man. While she was watching from a distance, the man suddenly tore the Deputy Chief Knight in two. Then something dark swallowed up the knights one after another. From a distance it looked like a mass of tar, but on closer inspection, it was a swarm of rats.
Finally, the Chief Knight tried to use a technique against the strange man, but it was countered and the next moment he was swarmed by the rats.
Eventually she saw the man trying to head to the chaos gates and she quickly logged out.
Back in the real world, she discovered all the members except her had lost consciousness.
The story ended there.
The content of her story, which she told only to Ryuuji, was detailed and fresh. However, it only served to support the explanation that Ryuuji received from Veronica Bain.
“Did you notice anything else?” asked Ryuuji.
“For example, did you notice anything about the man’s appearance that caught your eye?”
“No, nothing in particular.”
“Anything about his facial expressions or his gestures? Any information is great, even if it seems insignificant.”
She lowered her eyes and lightly bit her lip, but after a while she lifted her gaze.
“I’m sorry. I can’t think of anything.”
Ryuuji asked a few further questions, but her reaction did not change.
Ryuuji closed the Palm PC he had opened.
He wouldn’t hear any more stories. Unfortunately this seemed to be a waste of time.
Ryuuji started to stand up.
Sudden, Ms. Tazawa spoke as though muttering to herself.
“That man was staring at a woman.”
Ryuuji stopped moving. A woman?
“As in a female member of the Cobalt Knights?”
“What? No, that’s not it.”
“Please wait, Ms. Tazawa, umm…”
Ryuuji sat down again.
“Let me just confirm. Ah, was anyone else there?”
He reopened his palm PC.
“Besides the knights and the guy disguised as a system administrator, were there any third parties at the scene?”
“Umm, I’m sorry. My memory is fuzzy. No. There were no other people. There were some vagrant AI, though.”
After she had said this, she quickly put her hand over her mouth.
Ryuuji shook his head.
“Don’t worry if it’s classified information. I originally worked for CyberConnect. I have some sway in these circumstances.”
The existence of vagrant AI in The World is treated as classified information, but right now that wasn’t important. Ryuuji encouraged her to explain further.
“We, the debug team, were running vagrant AI deletion operations.”
She put her palms on her temples and wrapped her fingers over her head.
“I remember now. Back then, when I returned to town, there was a man who looked like a system administrator and he was talking casually to the Chief Knight. It looked as though they were conducting a business transaction. Then he left.”
“Who left? The man?”
“Yes. There was no trouble. After that, operations resumed. I missed my chance to go question the Chief Knight as I was standing in spot, trying to see the state of affairs.”
Ryuuji tapped the keyboard of his Palm PC and took notes.
“As I stood there, the knights caught a group of vagrant AIs and began to delete them. The last ones left were two of the vagrant AI I mentioned earlier.”
“Which vagrant AI were they?”
“They looked like a mother and her child. The mother was in her late twenties and the child looked to be about five years old. When the Chief Knight gathered them together and tried to pierce them with a spear, the man appeared again. Then, I think he exchanged some words with the Deputy Chief Knight.”
She paused for a moment and swallowed her saliva.
“After that, it went how I described at the beginning.”
When Ryuuji finished pondering the content of the story, he interlocked his fingers for a while.
Why did Yuri Seto, who ignored the knights, suddenly change his mind and come back to the plaza to begin a massacre. What was the purpose?
Ryuuji thought he had a grasp of the situation, but he needed ever more conclusive evidence.
He looked at Miki.
“Please tell me your impression of what you witnessed. Why do you think the man came back?”
“Now, when I think about it…”
She raised her pale face and looked back at Ryuuji.
“I think the man interrupted the Chief Knight for the two vagrant AI. Just like a parent trying to protect their child from the Knights.”
Before they knew it, a light rain started to fall.
Ryuuji returned to his car in the parking lot, took out a candy, peeled off the wrapper, and popped it in in his mouth. It was cocoa flavor. While he tasted its rich sweetness, Ryuuji contemplated the information he had just acquired.
In order to save the vagrant AI, the man annihilated the Cobalt Knights. That devil unlike any other. That terrorist who sent out rats to erase the network. It was an interesting joke. Ryuuji didn’t know if his notes would be useful anymore, but he would keep them on hand for a while.
Ryuuji opened the Palm PC on his knee and reread the notes he had input while in the shop. He opened several files at random, scrolled down the screen, closed the keyboard and placed the Palm PC on the passenger-side seat. He suddenly got a strange feeling and took the Palm PC in hand once again.
The data that was handed off from Veronica Bain when she officially accepted his request had been left open. It was a profile concerning Yuri Kasinsky Seto, also known as Yuri Seto, also known as Drain.
Suddenly, without warning, something struck a chord in his head.
Ryuuji slowly reread the material that he had read through many times already.
Yuri Seto, from Okinawa Prefecture. Born to a US Armed Forces father and Japanese mother.
Immediately after his birth, he immigrated to the US with his family due to his father’s reassignment.
When Seto was six years old, his father died in a training accident.
Seto returned to Japan with his mother, but two years later his mother died of natural causes.
He was taken care of by his mother’s relatives until he became a high school student.
It was around his first year of junior high that he started to dabble in hacking.
Later he went to Tokyo, enrolled in Chikuba University and joined the faculty of medicine. His major was neurosurgery. He advanced to graduate school, but dropped out just before graduating. The reason is unknown.
Then, at the age of twenty-seven, he caused the Deadly Flash incident.
Ryuuji laid down the Palm PC, reclined back in his seat and closed his eyes.
An important keyword was missing.