Baccano! - Volume 2 - Chapter Pr

EPILOGUE I

December 31, 1931Evening

As he gazed at the corpse that lay beside the tracks, a man muttered, sounding as if he couldn’t be bothered:

“Aah… If they’d at least left ’em all in one place for us, this would’ve been easier.”

“That’s disrespectful.”

In the midst of a light snowfall, two men conversed.

Bill Sullivan and Edward Noah: agents employed by the United States Bureau of Investigation. The two men were cleaning up after a certain strange incident that had occurred at the end of the year.

Although it was clean-up work, they were naturally investigating as well. Many police officers were separately carrying out their duties in front of the corpses that lay scattered along the tracks. While they’d used the term scattered, the intervals between the remains ranged from several hundred yards to several dozen miles. However, there was no doubt that all the bodies were all from the same incident.

The corpses all seemed to belong to people who had been on the same train.

“Nn… Don’t be so stuffy.”

“Never mind that. There’s something I want to ask you.”

Bill scratched his head. Edward, his face serious, put forward his question:

“Why did they summon us here together? This would generally be a job for men from another post, wouldn’t it?”

Edward and Bill worked for a rather unique branch within the Bureau of Investigation. Although it wasn’t independent as far as structure was concerned, there was a tacit understanding at the Bureau that it held several men who were to be given special jobs intermittantly with their regular work. Bill and Edward were among those who took these special missions.

“Uh… Well, to be frank… They were on the passenger list. They spotted it at Chicago Station.”

“‘They’… You mean immortals?”

Immortals. Here, as they were collecting corpses from the tracks, it was the most unsuitable word imaginable. If the medical examiners working beside them had overheard, it wouldn’t have been at all strange for them to bust out laughing.

No, it wasn’t just the medical examiners: It would have been normal for any ordinary person to laugh after hearing that. After all, big, important agents were talking, straight-faced, about fairy tales like “immortals.”

However, these two knew it wasn’t make-believe.

More than two hundred years ago, alchemists who’d crossed to this continent had summoned a demon during their voyage and had managed to acquire indestructible bodies. Stories that clichéd were rare, even among fairy tales, but it was the truth, so there was no help for it. The greatest proof was that their direct superior was one of them.

In other words, they were in charge of monitoring—and guarding—the immortals who were scattered across America. Of course, the existence of immortals wasn’t officially acknowledged. Moreover, they absolutely could not allow it to be acknowledged.

“Erm… Do you remember the characteristics of immortals?”

“Yes. One: ‘They don’t age, and no matter how badly their bodies are injured, they will completely regenerate, with a focus on their heads.’ Two: ‘The single exception occurs when immortals fight to the death. In this case, if one puts his right hand on his opponent’s head and wishes to eat them, the other will be absorbed into that right hand and die.’ Three: ‘The one who absorbed the other is able to make all the other’s knowledge his own.’ Four: ‘Immortals are unable to give false names to each other or to register them publicly.’ End list.”

“Aah… You don’t have to recite the document verbatim like that. Well, so, that means they’re forced to give their real names on passenger lists… You see?”

Mildly disgusted, Bill continued speaking. Edward peppered him with even more questions.

“And? What about those immortals? Were they involved in this mess?”

“Nn… Donald’s currently checking to see whether they arrived intact. Since detection was delayed, we lost the initiative.”

Even as they continued their conversation, another body bag joined the ones behind them.

Seeing this, Edward clenched his fists.

What in the world had happened here?

The Flying Pussyfoot, a transcontinental limited express bound for New York via Chicago.

Just what sort of tragedy had transpired on that train…?