Black Bullet - Volume 5 - Chapter 2.04

4

“Well, here’s the place. You can just toss the key back into the manager’s room once you’re done.”

The building manager used a bony hand to give Hotaru the key, distractedly using his other to adjust his reading glasses as he turned and left. Wasn’t the manager supposed to accompany them if someone besides the person renting the place came in? He didn’t act like he cared to, anyway.

Rentaro gave a look to his “sister” standing next to him. Once she was sure the manager was gone, Hotaru wiped the smile from her face and returned to her usual dour expression. “You got a problem with something?” she asked emotionlessly, once she noticed Rentaro staring at her. “It’s almost night. I’d like to get this over with by the end of today.”

The yellow sunlight streaming in through a west-facing window felt warm against his skin. They were finally about to be freed from the blazing fire of the afternoon.

They were in the hallway of a high-rise apartment complex. Rentaro looked around. The floor was comprised of two parallel corridors linked by a landing that offered two elevators, an emergency staircase, and another one for regular use. There was also an external stairwell with a ramp. Ever since the Plaza Hotel, Rentaro was in the habit of scoping out the floor plan and potential escape routes wherever he went.

Looking at the nameplate, they saw 1203—AYAME SURUMI written on a faded piece of paper. They had already rung the doorbell several times before visiting the manager’s room, but they tried it again once more with a sliver of hope. The artificial chime went ding-dong, ding-dong twice, but there was no response from within.

At his feet, Rentaro noticed a dead cicada on the floor, frozen and exposing its grotesque-looking stomach to them. A small army of ants was already on the scene, ready to feast on the meal.

“I don’t know if she’s holed up in there or she’s gone somewhere else,” Hotaru said, “but hopefully we can find something about Black Swan.”

“Holed up? ‘Gone’ somewhere? You really think it’s gonna be that easy for her?”

“Huh?”

“Hotaru, have you ever seen a dead body before?”

Hotaru looked startled for a moment.

“I’ll go in first.”

Rentaro unlocked the door and opened it a crack. Then he shivered. Through the crevice, he could feel an unnervingly strong chill—along with the light scent of something rotting.

Pulling the breechblock on the weapon at his hip to ensure he could fire it at any time, he silently went inside.

Immediately to his left was the kitchen, equipped with a semi-circular dining table. Some vegetables lay shriveled on the kitchen counter, and a half-eaten piece of cake was currently serving as an all-inclusive resort for a clan of black ants. She might have been in the midst of preparing a meal—there was a bowl of sliced-up vegetables soaking in water—although the surface was now entirely covered in black mold.

They knew from before that all the apartments in the building contained two rooms and a kitchen. Keeping his guard up and his gun cocked, Rentaro brought a hand to another doorknob and slowly pulled it. He couldn’t see inside at first—some curtains had been drawn—but it was her bedroom, as well as the site of her home computer. There was also an air conditioner chugging away as it spat cold air into the room. It sounded unnaturally loud in the otherwise completely silent apartment.

Despite being occupied, the apartment was almost bare of decoration, its colors uniformly beige. There wasn’t so much as a poster on the wall, although one shelf rack contained a digital picture frame.

The final room lay beyond. Drumming up all the willpower he had, Rentaro pulled the door open.

There was dust all over the closets and dresser, as well as the large desk that sat next to a bookshelf that occupied an entire wall. But there wasn’t any sign of a corpse. The rotting smell was already fading away.

So where did that come from…?

Just as he thought about it, Rentaro heard a sound that made him gasp nervously. He ran back to the kitchen, only to find Hotaru frozen like a statue, her eyes focused on a singular point. He realized that, from her position, she could see the bathroom door. Below it, a very dark red liquid was oozing out.

“Get back,” Rentaro said, biting his lip to keep his voice from shaking. Taking a moment to compose himself, he gently pushed the door open.

The body was kneeling on the floor, face still under the surface of the water in the bathtub. It was naked, the skin pale and bereft of blood. The long hair from its head floated on the water like algae. The water itself was black in color. On the floor, near the drain, was a pool of coagulated blood.

At Rentaro’s feet were three or so fingernails, appearing to have been pulled from the corpse. Torture must have been involved. Judging by how it only took three nails, they must have extracted the information they wanted from her in relatively short order.

Rentaro gave the body a quick once-over, then turned around and opened the closet, finding a large picnic blanket that he then placed the body on. He wondered if altering the crime scene was such a great idea, but he and Hotaru had already been seen together, and besides, the police could figure out when she died and realize soon enough that Rentaro couldn’t have been involved.

Somewhere in the midst of this, Hotaru came up next to him. He thought she’d be frozen in fear. He was wrong.

“That’s a real pity. We could have gotten a lot from her alive. Guess they beat us to the punch.”

Rentaro was shocked. “A real pity? Beat us to the punch? Is that all you have to say? You knew her, right?”

“So?”

Hotaru steeled her gaze at him, a little annoyed. Rentaro balled his hands into fists, the anger welling to the surface as he shook his head.

“You’re making no sense to me at all…!”

“Why do I need to?” She turned her back to him, then rotated herself halfway back. “You’re free to drop out of this, if you insist.”

“Like hell I am.”

“Oh?” she said, blithely walking into the bathroom to check out the body. “You know, given the time, she’s been decomposing pretty slowly. I guess that’s because of the AC running.”

Rentaro took a deep breath, bottling up his irritation. This girl was deeply involved with the whole case. Being with her got him closer to the truth; being alone kept him firmly away from it. It was theoretically far more efficient than attempting all of this solo. He had to make the best of it.

—Even if my partner’s somebody I absolutely cannot respect as a person.

It was also very clear now that their foes had no problem rubbing out anyone who got too close to the truth. They definitely weren’t out of the shark tank yet.

“All right. Let’s split up and search the place. We might find something.”

Hotaru walked off in apparent agreement. Watching her go, Rentaro went back into the bedroom. Having a dead body in the bathroom made him all the more reluctant to continue, but continue he did.

The first thing he noticed was the digital frame beyond the door. It was cycling through some pictures with the main university building in the background, presumably from her undergraduate days. It must have been fun for her. She was smiling in each and every one of them. A lot of them also included a man, perhaps a love interest.

Rentaro recalled something Dr. Kakujo told him: “Surumi conducted a Gastrea autopsy about a month ago, but the electronic version of her report’s disappeared from our database for some reason. I know Surumi printed out a paper version for our records right beforehand, so she might still have it kicking around somewhere.”

Suibara and Dr. Surumi were connected by that Gastrea. It seemed natural to think that autopsy report had something to do with all this.

Sidling into the next room, Rentaro noticed that someone had broken the lock on a drawer in the desk and rummaged around inside. He groaned. Whoever tortured and killed Dr. Surumi must have asked her about that report. A day late and a dollar short, yet again. Their foes thought of everything.

But not even the enemy could be perfect. As long as they weren’t machines, they had to make some kind of human error. There must be something. Praying to himself, he methodically took each book off the bookshelf and paged through it. Then he noticed something on the ground in the tight crevice between the desk and the wall. Carefully pulling it out and blowing the dust off, he realized it was a printed-out photograph.

The moment he looked at it, Rentaro’s eyebrows arched downward.

The photo depicted a Gastrea in mid-autopsy. The stomach had been cut open, with a mark engraved on the translucent, mucusy organs, like the insides of a squid. Looking closer, he could tell the mark was a five-pointed star, a delicately designed feather on one of the points.

“Hotaru, come over here.” He showed her the photograph. “Does this look familiar to you?”

“The claws you see on the side of the photo… They look kind of like the ones on the Gastrea from a month ago I told you about. I don’t know what that star’s for, though.”

“Oh…”

“You think this is what Dr. Kakujo was talking about?”

“Probably. I don’t think she had a picture as grotesque as this one sitting around for decoration.”

Gastrea may not be your typical wildlife, but they were still the creations of nature. They wouldn’t naturally be sporting pentagrams on their stomachs.

As he thought this over, a shrill sound made Rentaro’s heart leap. It was the phone ringing from the bedroom. He slipped inside—first his head, then his entire body—and stood gingerly in front of the noise source. It was a landline phone—a rarity, given how smartphones and satellite phones dominated the market.

Rentaro gave Hotaru a silent nod, then slowly picked up the receiver and put it to his ear.

“Hey, this is Satomi, right?”

The heavy, overwrought voice was hard to make out over the nonhuman pitch. It was someone using a voice changer to disguise his or her real one. Rentaro stared at the receiver for a moment.

“Who…are you?”

“The enemy’s about to head your way. Code name Hummingbird. A soldier from the New World Creation Project.”

“What’re you talking about? The enemy? Hummingbird?”

“You’re free to think I’m lying. But maybe it’ll make sense to you when I say this: That’s the one who killed Kenji Houbara, ex–New Humanity.”

“Wha—?”

This was all beyond his understanding, but at least one thing was clear. This was no prank, no pack of lies—the voice on the other end of the line was warning Rentaro about a real, and impending, danger.

“Lemme tell you what Hummingbird can do. You should probably use the time to devise a strategy with that li’l lady you got there with you.”

Rentaro fell silent, waiting for him to continue.

“You there? With Hummingbird, you got—”

Then, with a click, the call ended.

“Hey, what happened? Hey!”

“—Lemme have it.”

A hand reached out from the side to snatch the receiver away. Hotaru fought with the phone a little bit, but then shook her head and put the receiver down.

“I’m not even getting static. Someone’s cut the phone lines, haven’t they?”

Hotaru fumbled around her pocket for her cell phone, looked at it, then pointed it at Rentaro. NO SERVICE, it read.

He felt another shiver run down his spine. He knew they had service when they entered the apartment. The room, absent any other activity, was silent.

“Our enemy’s here,” Hotaru said. “In this building. They’re already inside.”

The sound of a propeller slicing through the air echoed throughout the cargo room.

Rika Kurume opened the sliding door. The wind blew against her body, the cold air flapping her dress around and almost knocking her straw hat off.

The evening sun, half-hidden behind the Monolith to the west, was bright enough that she had to squint.

She was in the cargo room of a transport plane one thousand meters in the air. It was clear out, with no stratus or nimbostratus clouds blocking her view. The cityscape beneath her looked like an elaborate miniature; there were no people or even cars visible. She could smell a cool clearness in the air.

“Hummingbird—jumping out.”

Rika took a step away from the cargo room, then fell backward, leaving her body to the air. She pointed her head down, her long hair forming a comet’s tail as she plunged straight toward the ground. The whole time, she was performing a mental countdown. That, plus her experience, told her when she was at the 500-meter point. Then she twisted her body around, spreading her limbs wide like a flying squirrel and pulling the cord on her Ram-Air parachute. It opened, the tremendous feeling of deceleration jarring her body from the harness on her back downward.

It didn’t last long. Opening her eyes and looking down below, she saw her feet beat against thin air. Craning her neck back upward, she watched her open parachute grow, bathed in the orange-red of the setting sun.

Making one final check of the city below her, she waved her right arm to the side. A point of light appeared on the roof of one of the many buildings down below, an arrow labeled TARGET marking it out in her vision alongside its vertical and horizontal range. It was being implanted on her retinas by the augmented-reality contact lenses she put on before the drop began.

Rika used her control lines to carefully make fine-tuned adjustments as she descended. Before long, her targeted apartment building loomed large in her sights, both feet pointed at the dead-center point.

No matter how many times she dropped, the force of the impact always tended to make her fall forward. Today was no exception. The parachute settled down on top of Rika soon afterward. Removing the belt and escaping the tangled chute, she put on the straw hat she had stuck between her dress and the harness and hugged her favorite teddy bear against her arm as she patted the debris off her skirt. Then she took a cell phone out from one of her spandex socks and called a certain number.

“This is Hummingbird. I’m safe at the target point.”

“Copy that. I’m sending target faces to you now.”

In just a few moments, the file was sent over and floating in the air on her holodisplay. There were two photos—a boy slightly older than she was, and a girl slightly younger, captioned RENTARO SATOMI and HOTARU KOURO, respectively.

“Hang on, Nest,” Rika said in her high, resentful voice. “Don’t you think you’re overworking me a little? I just killed some weird old guy a few days ago. You’re not giving me much free time between jobs.”

The voice on the other end of the line seemed unfazed. “This is your mission,” it said. “Stop complaining about it. I’ve electronically shut off the building from the rest of the world for thirty minutes, just like you asked me to. If you lose that window, we’re gonna lose them again, too.”

Rika rolled her eyes, then pointed at the photo of Rentaro with a finger. She gave a light, pity-laden laugh.

“Dark Stalker couldn’t kill this target, right? Talk about pathetic.”

“Yeah. Dark Stalker actually had a message for you. He said, ‘Don’t underestimate Rentaro Satomi, or else you might be the one regretting it.’”

Now Rika’s laugh was indifferent and haughty. “Oh, what is he, stupid? He screwed up, and now he’s making excuses for it? Laaaame… Whatever, though. I’ll make this quick.”

As Rika spoke, two smaller parachutes settled down on the building roof behind her. They looked like regular old tires at first—each about the size of a flying disc with beveled edges used for high-speed, long-distance throws in disc golf—but there was nothing typical about them.

Rika’s brain was implanted with a brain-machine interface (BMI) chip that allowed her to move and operate objects linked to her mind by thought alone. These tires were the “interface” her mind worked with.

“All right, Necropolis Striders—it’s time to get up, my beloved familiars.”

She brought her palms together. The compact motors within each tire began to whir, and they stood up as if operating by themselves, whirling in a tight circle around Rika. As they did, she reviewed her map of the apartment building, finding the phone line running behind the basement switchboard. It seemed to her that disabling the alarm system would be a good idea, too.

“Right. Let’s make sure nothing gets in my way first. Offensive Enchant: Thorn!”

There was the sound of metal piercing rubber as the tires suddenly grew large blades across their entire external surface. In an instant, they had both become sharp, lethal stabbing weapons, cutting grooves on the floor as they continued to wheel their way around Rika.

The assassin pointed at the rooftop door, then sent her Striders away.

“Go!”

On her signal, the shockwave engines installed on each Strider revved into action, propelling them at high speed. They smashed into the steel door, their “thorns” seeking to cut through its weak points like a buzz saw. The sound, and the sparks, were terrific. But before long, the latch and deadbolt were cut clean off, the disabled door slamming inward to the floor.

The Striders, not particularly moved by this sight, used their shockwave engines to pinball their way down the floor, the ceiling, the walls—on their way into the landing, leaving deep ruts wherever their rampage took them.

Soon, Rika could hear screaming and the sound of shredding flesh from a floor below.

The Striders would never stop until Rentaro Satomi and Hotaru Kouro were dead. Whenever Rika activated them, she made sure no one was breathing afterward. Hence the “Necropolis” part. Wherever they went, a city of death reigned.

Before long, Strider 1 sent a signal to Rika indicating it had cut the targeted phone line. Strider 2 was keeping watch at the front door, ensuring no one tried to flee outside. Enjoying the carnage playing out in her mind, Rika adjusted her grip on the plush bear and sang to herself as she walked downstairs.

“Overrr the raaaainbow… ”

With their phone call cut off, Rentaro and Hotaru found themselves having to come up with a new plan of action. Fast.

“This is bad,” Rentaro said. “The guy on the phone suggested he knew you were here, too.”

Hotaru tried to present a façade of coolness as she thought over the situation. It was difficult given the adrenaline coursing through her, urging her on toward revenge. This was the perfect chance. She never even dreamed she’d have an opportunity to swing the iron hammer of justice so quickly.

Reaching for the pair of government handguns on her back holster, she closed her eyes as she felt the sensation of steel in her hands, praying for their salvation as she undid the safety on both.

Kihachi, I need your strength.

“We better focus on getting out of this building for now.”

“No. I’m taking them on. Now I can finally get revenge for Kihachi.”

“You’re crazy. We have no idea what kind of enemy we’re facing or what they’re capable of. They’ll kill you.”

Hotaru sneered at Rentaro out of the corner of her eye. This was exactly the kind of limp-wristed feebleness that got Kihachi killed in the first place.

“I told you. The only reason I’m working with you is so I could hunt down the enemies after your blood. You’ve been the best decoy I could ever have hoped for. If you think we’ve got some kind of partnership going on, let me assure you, it’s all in your head. I always hated you anyway.”

“Hotaru, this really isn’t a good time for this, all right? The enemy’s probably got you on their hit list by now. If we stand here and argue like this… That’s exactly what our enemy wants from us. We’ll waste whatever chance we have to win this.”

Rentaro extended a hand.

“You need to work with me, Hotaru. The enemy’s shut us off from the outside world. If they’re willing to do that, then worst-case scenario, they’re willing to massacre every man, woman, and child in this building. We need to get everyone evacuated—”

He was cut off by a dry, shrill slap. Hotaru, face full of sullen resentment, beat his hand away from her.

“If you’re so hell-bent on saving people’s lives, why didn’t you save Kihachi’s?”

Rentaro winced, unable to respond.

“Rentaro, are you really the hero? This guy who took all those demoralized civsecs in the Third Kanto Battle and drove them to defeat Aldebaran? Because you don’t look like it to me.”

He kept his eyes straight on her. “The dead don’t care about revenge, Hotaru.”

“I don’t care about you. I’m hunting them down, and I don’t need your help. Good-bye.”

“Hotaru!”

She headed for the door, Rentaro hot on her heels. Out in the hallway, she closed the door behind her and took a deep breath, focusing her mind’s eye on her navel. She could feel her limbs warm up, her five senses expanding themselves and releasing their powers.

Quietly, Hotaru opened her eyes. He’s wrong. I’ll be fine by myself. I’ll prove it by killing my enemy alone.

She scanned the hallway before her, ensuring nothing was amiss. The phone was dead, but the lights were still on.

Then, above her, she heard a scream and the sound of something being sawed through. She raced up the stairs, two steps at a time, and stormed through the thirteenth-floor doorway.

The smell of blood weighed heavily upon her nose. It was, as Rentaro put it just moments ago, a massacre. Dismembered corpses littered the hallway, dark-red blood tracing its way across the linoleum floor. The ceiling and walls had heavy ruts etched into them, as if a giant was swinging a long broadsword around the hall.

She crouched down to look at the body of a female victim. Her wounds appeared to have been made with a coarse, sawlike weapon. Looking closer, many of the bodies featured missing arms, legs, and heads, with others in a multitude of small pieces. It must have been hell for them. They must have come out of their apartments to investigate the noise and screaming.

Around the corner, she saw an open elevator car with a body preventing the doors from fully closing. Every time the doors attempted to close, they squished against the corpse in gruesome fashion, changing its position just a little each time before opening back up.

Rentaro was right. The enemy was killing indiscriminately. An enemy so completely free of morals like this— Can I really beat them?

Hearing a quiet motor nearby, Hotaru turned to find something on top of a body at the other end of the hallway. At first, she thought she was looking at a jaguar gnawing on the flesh of some kind of wild game. It took several moments for her to realize it was a small tire, the size of a flying disc. It was covered in serrated blades, and given that they didn’t seem to deflate the tire at all, she figured it must be filled with some kind of reinforced plastic or the like instead. Right now, it was spewing exhaust from two rear-facing pipes as its blades ground their way into the corpse.

Instinctively, she could tell this was it. She had no idea what made it tick, but this machine was the perpetrator of this massacre.

Is that Hummingbird? She shook her head. No. This isn’t even human.

The killing machine changed position—it had noticed her. By the time Hotaru realized the danger, it was already too late. With a scream wholly different from anything a gasoline engine could produce, it blazed a trail straight for her.

Witnessing the saw blades proceeding toward her at worrying speed, Hotaru crossed her guns together in self-defense. The tire hit them, sending her reeling back as it spun against her defensive shield, sparks flying. She gritted her teeth, attempting to push back with her strength. The distance between them grew, just enough for her to take aim and blaze away with both triggers.

Then Hotaru found herself gazing in wonder again.

Running a zigzag across the hall, the tire dodged every one of her .45-caliber shots, jumping off the floor and latching itself onto the wall. It ran along, not letting gravity affect its joyride as it crossed over to the ceiling and carved out a track for itself, advancing upon Hotaru again.

Hotaru, her aim upset by this unexpected move, instantly leapt to the side. A moment later, the murder machine’s claws had sunk into the floor where she was.

She gave a kick, knowing that it could cost her her leg. One of the knives stabbed her in the knee. A groan of pain leaked out from between her gritted teeth.

But her enemy paid the price, too. The tire, taking the full brunt of an Initiator’s kick, was sent against the wall, smashing into and almost through it before falling to the floor, twitching in its final death throes.

Hotaru jumped with one foot, healing her right leg instantaneously in the air as she sank both of her heels into the wheel portion of the tire. She landed on it, took out both guns, and fired a flurry of shots at point-blank range. She experienced it all—the noise, the eye-watering flashes, the recoil kicking at her arms, the spent cases bouncing off the walls and floor.

The results pulverized the spokes and smashed into the shockwave engine installed in the hub. At the same time, the slide stop on both guns popped up, indicating she was out of ammo.

There was a moment of silence, the smell of smoke invading Hotaru’s nostrils. She resented the heavy panting she heard, only to realize it was coming from her. She wiped the sweat from her brow. The mystery machine was dead. Somehow or other, she had won. If she had her way, she’d prefer this to be the only enemy she had to face.

“Help me!”

Turning toward the sudden shout, she realized a girl was running toward her.

She had all but told Rentaro that she didn’t care about survivors. Yet the sight of someone actually making it through this disaster alive still felt like a relief to her.

The girl bounded right up to Hotaru, hugging her as she did.

With a jnnk sound, Hotaru convulsed as a shockwave spread across her body.

“Huh?”

Slowly, her eyes fell upon her chest.

The girl, clad in a straw hat and carrying a teddy bear, had removed a knife she had hidden in her stuffed toy. And now the edge of it was—

The girl brought her lips to Hotaru’s ear.

“You dummy.”

“Ahh…hhh…”

The blade, easily making its way through her tank top, had gone right through her left lung. It was long, black, and over halfway inside her. Varanium, without a doubt.

“Well? Can you feel it? Can you see? How does it feel to be dying?”

“N-no…”

Was this the girl—?

“Good-bye, my splendid princess.”

She wrested the knife away from her body. Then, the next point she struck was the heart.

Hotaru’s body convulsed as if struck by lightning, while she coughed up copious amounts of blood. The girl took a step back to dodge the stream. The Initiator’s vision blurred as she fell to her knees. Her fingertips felt cold. Her blurred eyesight looked up at her enemy. The girl in the dress grinned as she looked back down at her.

The ground approached. Before her face even hit the linoleum, Hotaru’s consciousness was torn apart, as she embraced the end of her life.

Hotaru’s assailant picked up the fallen girl’s hand, ensuring there was no pulse. She checked her pupils, too, just in case. Listening for a heartbeat as well seemed like overkill, so she skipped that step.

Something about the sight of the body struck Rika as funny. She trampled on Hotaru’s fixed expression, stamping on it with her sole.

“Just onnnnnne leeefffft!”

Rika turned around and helped herself to the stairway, seeking her final enemy.