Baccano! - Volume 6 - Chapter Pr1

Prologue Eight Years Ago Little Brother

September 1925 The wharf

Thick clouds covered the night sky. The stars were hidden, and not even moonlight made its presence felt.

That said, it wasn’t stormy, and the surrounding darkness was shrouded in silence.

Neither the neon light from the city streets nor the noise from the people in the speakeasies reached this place. Looking down at the river that flowed through the gloom, a boy murmured quietly:

“The world really is big.”

The water’s surface reflected no light.

Turning, he gazed up at the starless sky.

The void completely filled his vision. His face still expressionless, he went on:

“It looks like it’s going to swallow me. No, I’m sure it already has.”

I know.

I know Dad’s planning to sell my brother tomorrow.

I know he’s planning to sell him to those mafia brothers—the Gandors, or whatever their name is—for a measly two thousand dollars.

And I know he’s planning to run and take me with him. Or, no, if it comes down to it…he’s going to sell me to that Camorra group, the Martillos, for a much, much larger sum than my brother.

Apparently, I’m fairly bright.

It’s not arrogance; I’m not full of myself. From what I hear, viewed subjectively, that’s just what I am.

They called me a prodigy. I understood all my subjects at school before the teachers said anything, just from reading the textbooks. I even managed to figure out things that weren’t written in those textbooks on my own.

However, as far as I was concerned, there wasn’t much value in that.

No matter how much talent I’ve got, if I can’t get what I want, there’s no point.

I just want to live happily, but…

Since our previous dad died, I haven’t felt happy even once.

Our mom married our current dad—that good-for-nothing clock maker—and Tick and I moved to this new town. A new way of life, new encounters, new atmosphere.

The bonds of a new family formed between us and our new father, and I felt a new happiness.

…Or that’s what should have happened.

But this city, New York, was far too big.

It was just too big.

Before I got used to New York, Mom died of tuberculosis.

Our current dad didn’t feel anything for me and my brother. We were just his stepsons, and he even seemed to see us as nuisances.

However, when he heard the rumors about me, his attitude changed real fast. He probably concluded that I’d be a moneymaker in the future. That’s not the sort of family bond I want, however.

I hate the dad I have now. Money’s all he thinks about. I don’t love him, and he doesn’t love me, either.

Still, Tick sees the man as family.

That said, Dad only sees Tick as a tool.

The same. It’s exactly the same.

It doesn’t matter whether we try to love our dad or not: Our bonds with him only go one way.

I really hate Tick, too.

My brother’s an innocent person. Too innocent. That’s what makes him so hard to deal with.

That white rat I kept as a pet.

My precious, precious white rat Jimmy. Tick killed him.

He took those sinister scissors he carries in both hands and stuck them into that snowy-white back.

I don’t know why he did it.

I don’t even want to know.

Ever since that day, I haven’t spoken to Tick once, and I don’t plan to forgive him.

Only…I wonder what Tick thinks of me. I know he acknowledges Dad as family. I’m just not sure what he thinks about me.

Tick acts that way with everybody, so there’s no way to know.

Even so—although I won’t forgive him, I did want to believe that there were family ties, the bonds of brotherhood, between Tick and me. And so, even though I do hate him, I thought I’d keep on being his family.

But that ends today, too.

Dad’s planning to use Tick as a sacrificial pawn and make a break for it tomorrow night. I don’t want to live with a dad like that; don’t want to spend my life as the goose that lays the golden eggs.

This isn’t empty conceit. At the very least, I’m confident that I can earn more money than the kind of father who goes to underground casinos and runs up the sort of debts he’d have to sell the shop to settle. Even if what I had to do was illegal.

If I’m with my current dad, though, it won’t work. No matter how much money I earn, I’ll never be happy.

Just like deriving a new equation from the answers in my textbook, the futures I might have if I lived with that man well up inside my head, one after another.

Every future I can foresee is worthless. I’m pretty sure they’re all the right answer, too.

That’s why I ran away.

I won’t say I did it to find happiness or anything trite like that.

This is an experiment.

Using only my own strength, how long can I keep running from the things I don’t want, from the unhappiness that’s sure to come? It’s an experiment, with myself as the guinea pig.

For that reason, no matter what results I get, I’ll have no regrets. Then, next time, I’ll change my methods and run the experiment again. Until I get the results I want.

Only…just a little bit.

There’s something I’m hoping for, too, a very tiny bit.

It’s been two hours since I left the house, and I think, just maybe, my brother might come to look for me.

Somebody might call my name, in the distance.

It’s self-centered, but I’m interested in that as well.

Do family ties really exist?

Are they…the sort of things that will smile even on scum like me, who’s shrewdly attempting to test their existence?

And so I’m hoping, just a little.

Hoping that, behind me, someone will call my name, and my experiment will come to an abrupt end.

If that happens, I’m planning on running away with him.

I hate Tick, but at the very least, between him and our current dad, he’s much, much, much—

Just then: A voice spoke to the boy.

“Tock Jefferson. Age twelve, single.”

Naturally, however, it wasn’t his big brother’s voice. It wasn’t his father’s voice, either.

“—! Who’s there?!”

When he looked back from the dark sky to the earth, he saw a dim light.

“Whoops… I suppose it’s only natural that you’d be unmarried. No, let me inquire, anyway. After all, there isn’t a single phenomenon in this world that can be tidied away with the words only natural.”

A human figure stood at the center of the dim, wavering light.

“…‘Let me,’ hmm? Come to think of it, I wonder what Nile’s up to… Ah, I’m merely talking to myself; pay no attention.”

The light was coming from a round object the figure held in its hand, but the thing didn’t look like any lantern Tock had ever seen.

It was about the size of a human head. It was shaped like a moth cocoon, a slightly elongated sphere, and its surface was covered with a type of stiff white paper. On closer inspection, there seemed to be a spring-shaped framework in its interior, with several thin ribs running up its sides in layers.

Light flickered in the object’s interior. From the looks of it, there was probably a lamp or a candle or something inside.

Tock analyzed that much from one glance. He knew this wasn’t really the time for that sort of thing, but a sudden fear had left him unable to immediately look at the face of the figure who held the lantern.

“For that reason, I’ll ask you once again: Are you single?”

Paying no attention to the boy, who’d broken out in a cold sweat, the person asked his question quietly.

When he heard the query, the kid finally shifted his gaze upward.

The candlelight that shone through the paper illuminated…an even-featured face, a face that could have belonged to an angel in a painting.

It’s a man… At least, I think it is.

Tock had based his conclusion on the way the figure spoke. The voice itself was androgynous, and if he’d seen only that face, he might have decided that the figure was a woman. The expression on the face was mature, but there was something childlike about the modeling of its physical features.

The man’s clothes were mostly white, and they reflected the light in his hand, creating the illusion that his whole body was shining.

“I suppose it’s troublesome to be confronted with a question like that out of nowhere. I’m sorry… Oh, does this light interest you? It’s called a paper lantern. I heard stories about them from an old friend of mine who came from Japan, and I tried cobbling one together myself. I’ve never seen a real one, merely heard of them, so I’m not sure how accurate it is.”

The man spoke slowly, then smiled kindly at the boy, as if to reassure him.

Tock tried to ask a question, but he couldn’t put it into words. He felt a strange pressure from the man in front of him, and it made him hesitant to speak to him.

Seeing that Tock was opening and shutting his mouth uselessly, the man took a step closer to him. He was still smiling.

“The first thing I must tell you is this: Our meeting is no coincidence.”

“Huh…?”

Tock didn’t understand what the man was getting at. In spite of himself, he took a step back.

He didn’t feel like carelessly approaching him. That said, he didn’t feel like running away, either. The atmosphere that coiled around the man, something that could have been either pressure or magnetism, simply kept him where he was.

“Not a coincidence: I think that’s very important. Yes, I was waiting for you to come. I was aware of the circumstances surrounding your family, and I anticipated that you would probably leave home today. While I did feel slightly bad about doing so, I’ve been observing your movements for the past month… I analyzed them, and as a result, here we are.”

What in the world is this man saying?

Even as Tock desperately tried to get his head around the situation, the man kept speaking.

It seemed more as if he were confirming his reasons for being there rather than addressing Tock.

“You see, you’re far more brilliant than either you or the people around you think you are. I came to this town because I’d heard rumors of a boy genius named Claire Stanfield, but apparently, he’s already left the city… And then, as if in exchange, I learned about you. You may be even more talented than young Claire, you know.”

The man came another step closer to the spot where Tock stood.

They were still several yards apart, but the man’s voice coiled around the boy’s heart as if he were whispering right in his ear.

“Your moderately unhappy situation is truly excellent. I also admire the way you’ve discarded the life you lived up to this point with no hesitation, before you saw despair. You’re quite an intriguing subject.”

“Who…are you, mister?”

Screwing up his courage, Tock finally managed to ask that question.

Once he’d spoken, the words welled up as if he’d been released from something. If he had that sort of leeway, it might have been better to run away, but Tock’s curiosity about the mysterious young man in front of him outweighed his concern for his own safety.

“Oh, me?”

Without changing his expression in the slightest, the man collapsed the lantern’s outer framework, exposing the large candle inside—and held his finger over it.

“I am—a monster.”

The man’s right hand supported the base of the lantern, and, with no hesitation, his left wandered in the candle flame.

If that had been all, Tock would have assumed it was an elementary magic trick: He’d cooled his hand with ice or something and was using the layer of moisture and air to temporarily block the heat.

However, the man’s hand had actually started to scorch and peel.

And then—the skin he was sure had burned began to regenerate at a speed he could see.

The man’s skin was still burning. However, it never burned away.

At the sight of the regeneration unfolding in the light of the flame, the boy gulped and, with calm eyes, began analyzing the situation.

“A trick…? No, but…”

After giving it a little thought, Tock used the simplest method of getting an explanation for the phenomenon.

In other words, he asked.

“I’m going to ask you one more time: What…are you?”

“Oho. If you can be that calm under these circumstances, you really are impressive. Most of the subjects who’ve met me grew emotionally disturbed. Even a fellow like Goose was startled more spectacularly… Although, with him, instead of using a lukewarm method like this one, I cut my carotid artery.”

The man had completely derailed the conversation, but as he spoke, he actually sounded happy.

“It would have been fine if you’d decided I was something eldritch and run away. That is within the predicted range of actions for human subjects, so I wouldn’t have been particularly discouraged—and in any case, I didn’t intend to let you escape.”

At that, the man shot a glance behind Tock.

As if he were being controlled, Tock turned to look behind him and saw a new figure standing there.

It was a girl about his own age, dressed in black.

Golden eyes shone from below her black bangs, and she was gazing at Tock from barely a meter away.

The girl watched Tock with emotionless, doll-like eyes.

“Chané. It looks as if he doesn’t intend to run. Go back ahead of us.”

Responding to the man’s words with a quiet nod, the girl ran off into the darkness on soundless feet.

Silence filled the area as if no one had ever been there, and in the light of the lantern, only Tock’s shadow remained in the place where the girl had been standing.

Am I dreaming?

The unrelenting abnormality of the situation had begun to give Tock the illusion that everything occurring around him was fake. He was losing his sense of reality, and it didn’t just apply to his surroundings: He felt as though even his own body were made of thin paper.

Ironically, what pulled him back was the voice of the man who seemed to be the least real thing there.

“Now then, let’s resume our introductions. My goal is to discover the limits of humans. To that end, I’m gathering a variety of subjects. Like you, for example—”

When he’d said that much, the man broke off, as if he’d remembered something.

By the time Tock turned back, both the man’s hand and the paper lantern had returned to their original states, and it seemed as though the events of a few moments ago really might have been a dream.

“That won’t do. I’d forgotten something vital.”

The man’s smile had vanished, and he was shaking his head with an expression that clearly said, I’ve blown it.

When it came to fostering a feeling of closeness in the other person, the gesture was much too perfect, and the action seemed to be entirely calculated.

“Huey. That’s my… I mean, my name is Huey Laforet.”

In addition to finally giving his name, the man stated his objective with extreme simplicity.

Just as if the useless exchange up until that point really had been a dream.

“I came from that world of happiness, the one you seek…to pick you up.”