Baccano! - Volume 19 - Chapter 8

Chapter 8 The Immortal Researcher Isn’t Shy

1935 Chicago

“Hey, any luck?”

“No, she’s not here. Several of her personal items are gone, too.”

A few men and women in white lab coats were scrambling around inside an orderly lab. It was housed in the headquarters of Nebula, one of America’s leading conglomerates. This was a section with even more secrets than the new product development division: a research facility focused on the immortals.

The members of the research team were running this way and that through its corridors, their faces pale.

“Not good. So, what, she’s ‘gone out’ for real this time?”

“Once she does that, she stays out for half a year.”

The researchers grumbled, grimacing and patently fed up.

“She’s already made one hell of a mess. What’s she going to do in that state?” one man said, not bothering to hide his anxious irritation.

Another researcher came rushing in. “She left a letter!”

“Where?!”

“Um…at the main reception desk… The clerk was confused; he said he didn’t know what it was for.”

“Why’d she leave it there?!” The researchers were about to start pulling their hair out, firing questions at the messenger.

“Still, I’m impressed you managed to find it. Did she write the department’s name on it or something?”

“No, it was, uh…” The man faltered, and then an elderly fellow with a surprisingly youthful comportment poked his head out from behind him.

“Well, y’see, the letter was originally addressed to me.”

“Ch-Chairman?!”

The newcomer was unmistakably Cal Muybridge: chairman of Nebula and the wealthiest, most powerful man in the building. Although age had deepened the hollows of his face, he was smiling like a mischievous kid.

“But y’know, when I read it, well, it was somethin’ youse needed to know. So I brought it over here myself. This place technically deals in classified info, so I couldn’t just hand the job off to somebody else, see?”

The chairman spoke to them candidly in a heavy Chicago accent, but the researchers’ expressions stayed tense.

Renee Parmedes Branvillier, research director and the person responsible for this department, had disappeared.

It was a complete disgrace.

The researchers were Renee’s subordinates, but they were also her “guards.”

While her knowledge as an immortal and her skills as a scientist were excellent, when it came to the rest of life, she had a few screws loose. You could have said she was missing several, in fact, and the ones she lacked were generally critical to survival as a human. In addition, she was much sillier than the average person, and she tripped over absolutely nothing and fell practically every day.

The researchers were responsible for keeping an eye on her to make sure she didn’t do anything too crazy or inadvertently blurt out classified information, and this time they’d failed. Renee had vanished so unexpectedly that they hadn’t even seen any warning signs.

She’d disappeared a few times before, and even the chairman didn’t know what she’d done while she was gone. They could have tried to torture it out of her, but as a complete immortal, she outranked them; the researchers were incomplete immortals, no more than prey. Keeping her restrained for years would end up delaying their research for just as long, so in the end, all Nebula could do was observe her.

That said, Cal found Renee quite entertaining.

“So here’s that letter.” Cal handed an envelope from his jacket to the researchers, who accepted it deferentially. One opened it and took out a single sheet of stationery.

In the next moment, they were all struck dumb.

The contents of the letter were extremely simple, and that only made their confusion worse.

I’m sorry, Chairman. I’m going to go see my children and students for the first time in ages, so I’ll be away for a few days, or maybe a few weeks. (Or a few months?) Anyway, please cover for me with everybody at the lab so they don’t get angry. Thank you. Don’t worry about paying me for the time I’m gone!

“……”

For a while, the researchers were speechless.

“What the hell?” one of them muttered. Once the silence was broken, everyone started to let out their grievances at once.

“I don’t understand a word of this. Children?! Did the director have kids?!”

“Who’s she married to?!”

“What’s this business about students?!”

“‘Don’t worry about paying me for the time I’m gone.’ That goes without saying! Why does she sound so holier-than-thou?! And hey, Director, normally you’d get fired for this stunt!”

“I guess all the nutrients that should have gone to her brain really did go to her boobs…”

“That’s it.” “That’s the one.” “Put me down for that.”

“And Director Renee’s got a husband… Lucky jerk…”

Somewhere in the middle, the complaints had begun to veer off in another direction. Chairman Cal listened with a smile. When it sounded as though they’d gotten the worst of it out of their systems, he clapped his hands, pulling their attention to himself. “Okay, okay, so do youse get what’s goin’ on now?”

“Chairman…”

“In that case, let’s go with this. Let’s say Miz Renee is flyin’ over to England ’cause I asked her to. Sound good?”

“…Sir?”

The researchers didn’t understand. They weren’t sure how to answer.

Cal looked at them, sighed, and elaborated. “I mean, it says it right there in the letter. Uhhh, yeah, right there. ‘Please cover for me with everybody at the lab so they don’t get angry.’ That bit.”

“Uh-huh…”

“So I just covered for her with you. I said she’s gone to England.”

“Huh?” Finally realizing what the chairman was getting at, the researchers looked from him to the letter and back again.

“So that means we’re all done here. My sneaky white lie left youse none the wiser, ready to return to your duties without worryin’ about Miz Renee. When she gets back, nobody’s gonna say a word. Right?”

“Huh? No, um…”

The researchers exchanged looks, wondering what the old guy was talking about.

“Right?”

Still smiling, Cal narrowed his eyes, prompting them again, and any breath that might have left their mouths was nervously sucked back into their lungs.

The man’s words had had an intimidating, freezing edge.

Suddenly, the researchers remembered that although Cal Muybridge had been talking to them in a folksy way, this old guy wasn’t a figurehead chairman or a body double. He was the giant who had built Nebula, this enormous corporation, in a single generation.

“R-right… Director Renee is in England.”

“I’m, uh… I’m hopin’ she brings us back a nice gift!”

Wearing strained smiles, the researchers nodded to one another. Seeing this, Cal gave a satisfied nod of his own, letting the pressure evaporate. “You betcha. I hope she brings us back somethin’ that’s kinda, well, sexy. It is Renee, after all.” With a leering laugh, the chairman gave a little wave and left.

When the back of the corporation’s ultimate authority had disappeared through the door, the researchers all exhaled at once. Then they took another look at the letter and scowled at their direct supervisor, who was at the center of all this.

“…What in the world is Director Renee up to and where?

“She hasn’t adjusted to that missing eye yet, and she’s tripping and falling more than ever…”

Meanwhile On a train

The transcontinental railroad ran all across America.

On a train from Chicago to New York, there was a woman with too much time on her hands in a first-class compartment.

“La-da-dum-de-duuum.  ”

She was swinging her dangling legs one by one in time with the tune she was humming.

She seemed to be taking a freewheeling trip by herself, but there was something a little odd about her; beneath her glasses, one of her eyes was clearly false.

That eye had been stolen during a certain incident, and she’d fitted an original prosthetic into the empty socket. In lieu of a pupil, the eye had a drawing of a famous animal character from the talkies, which made for a rather off-putting first impression. However, the woman’s laid-back attitude canceled out the strangeness.

Wild, majestic scenery and townscapes flowed past the window, but the woman seemed to have gotten bored with them. Her gaze wandered aimlessly around the compartment.

“Dum-da-da-daaah. Da-daaaa-dah. Da-du-du-duuuum.  ”

At first, she’d thought up random tunes to hum, but that had gotten to be too much trouble, and she began humming scales instead.

Just then, her tedium was interrupted by a rhythmic knock.

“Yes, yes. I’m in here.” The woman broke off her humming and gave a rather off-kilter response.

The man outside the compartment didn’t sound the least bit confused. “I see. I understand that you’re inside. Now, may I come in?”

“Huh? Ummm… That voice, the way you talk… I know! You’re Elmer, aren’t you?!”

“No.”

“What?!”

Ignoring the woman’s surprise, the man opened the compartment door with a rattle and looked in.

He wore a bowler hat, pulled down low. For some reason, the hat was snugly secured to his head with a chin strap. He was still young, but there was a strange hardness about him that made him seem middle-aged.

At the sight of him, the woman clapped her hands together in recognition. “Oh, if it isn’t Archangelo! Goodness, you startled me! Is it that much fun to surprise little old me?”

The woman didn’t sound startled at all. Archangelo heaved a sigh, his face expressionless, then spoke her name. “Renee, please explain what on earth made you mistake me for your student Elmer.”

“Huh? I just assumed Elmer was imitating you… I thought it would be boring if you just showed up in the usual way.”

“I apologize for being uninteresting, but I’ve come to discuss something even duller.”

“Oh, have you? Ah, do sit down, please.”

The woman—Renee Parmedes Branvillier—glanced at the compartment’s empty seats. Archangelo closed the door before slowly lowering himself into one of them.

She’d left her company and boarded a train in strict secrecy, so how had he ended up on the same train? The question never even occurred to her. She wasn’t flustered at all by it. She simply switched roles from speaker to listener.

“Renee. There is something in your actions over these past few decades that warrants a direct rebuke.”

“Y-yes? What might that be…? Um, Archangelo, you always look so scary. Smile a little more, okay?”

“Please don’t speak like Elmer. That said, if you would look at me amorously, I would not be entirely averse to smiling.”

“Erm, well… Your face is kind of scary, so I don’t want to.”

Their conversation had circled right back. Archangelo cleared his throat lightly, then confronted her without mercy or pity. “Renee, what exactly are you doing? First you push young Miss Niki onto Lady Lucrezia and abruptly cross to the New World. Then you join forces with a corporation and make a veritable horde of people research immortality.” His tone was sharp but not overly cruel.

Renee cocked her head. “…Um, why ask me a question you already know the answer to?”

“?”

“What am I doing? You just told me: I put Niki in Lucrezia’s care and have been researching immortality with lots of Nebula’s employees.”

“……” The conversation was going nowhere. Archangelo sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose. “Let me rephrase. Why are you doing these things?”

“Why…? Because I thought it might accelerate my research. Oh, are you worried that word about the immortals might spread? I don’t think that concern is warranted. Unlike me, the people at Nebula can keep secrets, and I’ve gone around muzzling people and making backroom deals.”

When he heard that, Archangelo looked down. His eyes held a tinge of sadness. “You haven’t changed, Renee.” He kept the emotion from his voice, though, as she spoke of the past as if it wasn’t personal. “It has been several centuries since you became immortal along with Professor Dalton and myself, but your mind is still missing several important faculties. In fact, one might say that becoming immortal has removed the very need to compensate for those missing pieces.”

“What are you talking about?”

Renee wasn’t playing dumb. She genuinely didn’t understand what Archangelo was getting at.

Slowly, the immortal youth got to his feet. Then he placed his right hand on Renee’s head. Anyone who had obtained the elixir of immortality with the demon’s help would know instantly what that meant. It was how immortals “ate” each other.

However, Renee only looked up at the man, blinking in confusion. “What’s the matter, Archangelo?”

“……”

He stayed frozen in that position for a little while. Then he withdrew his right hand, his expression still hard. “You truly haven’t changed. Your complete disregard for yourself, even after all these years, is genuinely impressive.” He calmly resumed his seat.

Puzzled, Renee asked, “Ummm, why didn’t you eat me just now?”

She asked the question far too easily, and Archangelo fell silent.

A hush filled the compartment. Only the sounds of the train shivered the air between them. Just as the conversation seemed as if it might never begin again, the train clattered and swayed, and as if that had been a signal, Archangelo spoke. “…Did you want to die?”

His expression was cold, but Renee answered in her usual mild way. “Mm… No, I didn’t. Besides, I can’t stand pain.”

“Then when you realized I was about to kill you, why didn’t you react? At all?”

It was a perfectly natural question. Renee put a hand to her chin, thinking. Her words came out slowly, as if she was figuring out what to say as she said it. “Ummm… Well, to me, dying and being eaten by another immortal aren’t quite the same thing.”

“They aren’t?”

“I think the meaning of an individual’s life is in their accumulated memories, not in their will. That’s not my opinion as a scientist, and it’s heresy for an alchemist, but… Ummm, how do I put it…? Essentially, even if you’d eaten me, the way I see it, I wouldn’t be dead. I’m not talking about souls or anything like that; I am the sum of my memories.” Renee spoke haltingly but clearly. “When you wake up after a particularly sound sleep, don’t you sometimes wonder whether you’re the same person who fell asleep? I think you could say you are and also that you’re not. The me who wanted cake yesterday may be a different person from the me who wants salad now. Your cells are constantly replacing themselves from one second to the next. The only part of you that stays the same is the information in the memories you’ve collected.”

“What are you driving at?”

“To me, that’s all it is. Whether I’m eating someone or being eaten by them. Even if I mingled with your memories, I would be myself, plus that new experience. That means you would be yourself, Archangelo, and at the same time, you would be me, I guess, or, um… Oh dear, I can’t really put it into words…”

“No, I understand the gist.” Expressionless, Archangelo heaved an even greater sigh. When he spoke again, his tone held a variety of emotions. “You really are yourself, Renee. I’m relieved, but now I’m skeptical in another way. Careless mistakes and failures constantly dog your actions. I can understand why that would make matters worse. However, you never deliberately took part in evil.”

“Evil?”

“Forgive me, but from what I’ve seen of your activities at Nebula, there is nothing else to call it,” Archangelo said bluntly.

Renee, who’d been tilting her head all this time, cocked it in the other direction. Sounding a little troubled, she murmured, “Really? So according to current moral standards, the things I’ve been doing at Nebula are bad…”

“I think they would be considered bad even by the old standards.”

“I see. Yes, you’re right. If what I’m doing is bad, then the police and all sorts of other people may get in my way. I’ll have to be careful. Really, Archangelo, thank you for telling me,” she said with a smile.

“……” He watched her with narrowed eyes. Then, gazing out the window at the scenery, he quietly said, almost to himself, “Had you been compelled to do that research instead of participating voluntarily, I’d intended to get rid of Nebula, but it appears that isn’t the case.”

In saying that he’d “get rid of” one of the world’s leading corporations, Archangelo had made a very bold statement, but Renee didn’t take it as a bluff. She let it go in one ear and out the other.

Archangelo continued, “I’ve determined that Nebula is not my enemy, and that in itself is a stroke of good fortune. If anything else comes up, I’ll call on you again. Thank you for your cooperation.”

Concluding what would have sounded like a business deal to anyone outside the situation, Archangelo slowly got up from his chair. As he was leaving, he glanced back at the view streaming past the window and made another remark, almost as an afterthought. “I also have a message from Professor Dalton.”

“Professor Dalton! My, that takes me back! How is he?”

Without answering Renee’s question, the youth impassively delivered the message.

“He says…‘Be a little greedy.’”

It wasn’t clear whether Archangelo understood what the words meant; his face was still expressionless.

Renee stared at him blankly, blinking. Then she gave a faint smile. “I do want things, you know. At the moment, I’m really looking forward to seeing what sort of condition my two daughters are in.”

When Renee said “daughters,” a slight change came over Archangelo’s expression, but she didn’t notice it. Still standing in front of the door, he took a long look at Renee’s face. “…I’m told Huey Laforet gouged out that right eye of yours.”

His own eyes held a cold, determined emotion, and the name “Huey” was thick with hatred as it left his mouth—not that Renee noticed.

“Well, it made us even. Huey really is mean, though,” she said.

Even though Archangelo had just admonished Renee for her misdeeds, he said something ominous. “If you feel he’s dangerous, shall I get rid of him?”

“Huh? Why?”

“Oh… I merely thought that a student who defied his teacher deserved to be punished harshly.” The man’s tone was harder than it had ever been, and his expression returned to his usual blank one.

However, Renee chided him. “You mustn’t do that, Archangelo. Huey is your student and Dalton’s, too, you know. No matter what happens, you mustn’t abandon a student. Naughty.” She sounded as though she were scolding a child, and Archangelo’s expression softened slightly.

With a deep bow, he left the compartment.

As he stepped out into the corridor, the moment he closed the door, Archangelo’s face tensed again, and he murmured to himself, “Huey Laforet…”

The hatred in his voice was even clearer than it had been a moment ago.

Their former pupil at the library, their most brilliant student. An alchemist who’d become immortal like them. A man who had felt no love for Renee, the woman Archangelo should have protected whatsoever, when he had slept with her.

A man whom the woman had accepted in an equally loveless way, as a mere experiment.

I will take the measure of this. Who among the writhing mass of immortals is harmful to Renee? If possible, I hope our student Huey’s name is on the list of those I must eliminate.

Once, Archangelo had resolved to protect Renee, no matter what.

To that end, he’d put distance between her and himself as well.

As a result, the fact that she’d gotten pregnant with her daughter had been a shock.

Even though he understood it had been nothing more than an “experiment” to her, he hadn’t been able to come to terms with it.

If… If I had left my hand on Renee’s head a moment longer…I might have given in to my own greed. I might have developed the illusion that doing so would let me have her to myself for eternity and thought, I want to eat.

Huey, I’m impressed you managed to control yourself.

His resolution to protect Renee hadn’t lost its edge.

However, his personal jealousy toward Huey hadn’t vanished, either, and as he walked down the train’s corridor, complicated feelings churned inside him…

…along with deep regret over the fact that he himself hadn’t managed to make a move.

After she’d watched her alchemist acquaintance go, Renee began humming again. She took a fabric-wrapped object out of her bag.

When she unwound the cloth, a glass jar emerged. It contained a clear liquid, and a human eyeball had pressed itself against the side, writhing like a jellyfish.

“La-dum-doo-doo-doo-da-duuum.   New York really is this way, isn’t it?”

As she observed the eyeball’s movements in the jar, she let her imagination travel in that direction.

“I’ll be able to collect data on the people at Mist Wall, too. It’s two birds with one stone!”

She talked about data collection in the exact same way she’d spoken of meeting her daughters.

The alchemist who couldn’t discern a sense of obligation from desire gazed at the wriggling eyeball and kept on humming, wearing a little smile.

She didn’t even notice the smile meant nothing at all.