Baccano! - Volume 9 - Chapter 2

CHAPTER 2

MISDIRECTED HYSTERIA

1934 One day in December

Chicago Nebula headquarters building

It was in the heart of Chicago, amid a forest of towering skyscrapers.

The group of tall buildings hadn’t been built at random but in planned, calculated rows. If you’d only heard about them, you would have pictured crude high-rise structures, but each building was the polished product of an architect’s design, interesting and impressive to all who saw them.

From the center of the broad avenue, a vast winter sky was visible through the gaps between the buildings, and it harmonized surprisingly well with the rebar structures.

The company was located in the midst of those skyscrapers, in a business district that had been developed beside the Chicago River.

A short distance from the Wrigley Building and its beautiful, iconic clock tower, a building with pale-white walls soared into the sky.

It was the headquarters of the Nebula conglomerate.

Mist Wall, its branch office in New York, also had a distinctive white exterior, but this building was even paler. It seemed to fade in the sunlight, creating the illusion that it really was a tower of mist.

The Nebula Corporation had been established by Cal Muybridge just a few decades earlier. Originally, they had been something not unlike a band of showmen, a subsidiary that manufactured equipment for amusement parks and planned a wide variety of events.

However, Cal had wits as well as capital. He’d successfully bought up various companies and invested in stocks, and in an astonishingly short period of time, his company had become a conglomerate with nationwide renown.

Its range of industries was truly diverse. They continued to operate amusement parks and host events as they’d originally done, but on a much grander scale. They also had hands in the grocery business, chemical engineering, the iron industry, and insurance, and they had recently ventured into publishing. There were rumors that they’d even gotten involved in the development of firearms, although, as one part of a huge corporation, the small scale of the operation made it a bit like a hobby.

It was said that, provided you had the ability, it was possible to become president of one of the internal companies in ten years. Due to the influence of the Great Depression, things were, unsurprisingly, quieter now than they had been in the past. But even in these times, they were an object of envy for entrepreneurs who dreamed of becoming an overnight success in the big city.

It was the American dream through and through.

In front of that symbolic building, a young girl was clutching a camera excitedly.

“Incredible… This is incredible, Vice President! Every single one of the window frames has a different carving! The bronze statue in front of the building is awfully keen, too!”

Before she’d arrived, the girl had painstakingly read up on the Nebula Corporation, but the moment she actually saw the towering work of art, everything she’d learned flew clean out of her head.

“I have heard that the building was constructed by Nebula’s internal general contractors, based on the consolidated ideas of multiple architects. Granted, opinions regarding the decision not to hire an individual architect are mixed. Incidentally, that bronze statue was designed and cast by the German artist Carnald Strassburg himself.”

As he responded to the girl with the camera, a sharp-eyed man with a monocle stepped into the building.

“Aaah! Wait, Vice President, please! Let me just take one photo looking up at the building…”

“We already have a photograph from three months ago at headquarters. As it has not changed significantly in the meantime, there is no need to photograph it again. In addition, if you take one without permission, we might receive complaints afterward. Be careful.”

“C-complaints?!”

Imagining a herd of lawyers descending on her with documents and seals, Carol—the girl with the camera—gave an involuntary yelp.

In answer, the vice president kept walking and lectured the girl, his attitude resolute.

“That isn’t all. In this world, there’s no telling what may happen, or when. Film must not be wasted. Knowledge regarding photography should be learned indoors, while technique is best acquired in the field.”

“Ngh, I’m sorry…”

“Hmm… That said, this is my personal opinion. There may be others whose thoughts run entirely counter to it. A journalist worth her salt should hear as many opinions as she can and decide for herself. No matter how much the article changes due to external pressure, company policy, or your own convictions…hearing many opinions is beneficial in and of itself, by and large.”

The vice president’s speech was stiff and formal, but Carol nodded eagerly with a “Yes, sir!” and trotted after him, still holding her camera.

The two of them were on the staff of the DD newspaper, a small publisher in New York.

It was a humble company that issued the Daily Days, a local paper that didn’t circulate outside New York City. That said, it also had another face as a distinguished information brokerage, and in that capacity, it enjoyed a covert fame outside its home state.

Carol, an apprentice at that company, very obviously seemed young enough that she should have been in school by law, but she hadn’t told any of the people around her how old she actually was. Meanwhile, the age of the vice president—Gustav St. Germain—was even less clear than Carol’s. However, due to their appearances, most people took them for father and daughter.

Unlike the company president, who specialized in deskbound work, the vice president of the DD newspaper was a firm believer in the hands-on approach. He actively zipped around the country, and sometimes around foreign countries, and he was rarely in the office for more than ten days a year.

His current journey had two objectives: to train the new photographer, and to visit and greet the DD newspaper personnel and informants scattered around every major city.

You never know when you’re going to need film.

Carol’s own experience underscored the vice president’s advice, and it resonated with her strongly.

Ten days earlier, when they’d first arrived in this city, they’d wound up in the middle of a train robbery.

In the end, they’d made it through thanks to the vice president’s quick thinking, but Carol had simply panicked and been no help at all, and she was ashamed of herself.

If I keep that up, I’ll never be a proper journalist. I’ll never, ever panic a…gain… aaaaAAaaAAh?!

“AAaaAAh?! Vice President! Vice President!”

“Compose yourself, Carol.”

Carol was panicking, her gaze swimming, but the vice president admonished her in his dignified way.

“B-but… Just now— The man we just passed in the entrance…”

“Yes. Senator Manfred Beriam, I believe.”

Carol turned back to check again and again, but the senator was already hidden at the center of his group of bodyguards, and she wasn’t able to make out his back.

“Why do you sound so calm? Sir, that’s…”

“It isn’t as if we encountered the nation’s president. There’s no sense in losing your head over a senator or two.”

As she looked at the profile of the unflappable vice president, Carol was reminded once again that her respect for her superior was more than justified.

Wow. The vice president never loses his head.

Feeling genuine adoration as a newspaper reporter, Carol calmed herself and changed the subject.

“Still, I’m impressed you have an acquaintance at such a big company. You really are amazing, Vice President!”

“The size of a company has no bearing on anything. No matter who the other party may be, they are a valuable business partner of the DD newspaper. Therefore, we must always treat them with the greatest respect, but as our equals. Never show subservience.”

“Yes, sir!”

As she imagined what her superior’s friend might be like, Carol stepped into the elevator with the vice president, feeling thrilled.

The elevator began to rise straight up without stopping.

It went past the floors with conference rooms and reception rooms.

Up and up and up—toward the very top floor.

Thirty minutes later The first-floor entrance hall

“Goodness… In terms of name recognition, Senator Beriam is more famous. If this is how things stand, I would say that you’re still at a mere three hundred and twenty-five points.”

“…’tta how many…?”

Instead of answering the question, the vice president only shook his head wearily and sat the stunned Carol down on a bench in the hall.

Carol’s pupils had shrunk to points, her knees had given out on her, and her mouth was flapping like a goldfish’s.

“Calm yourself. What about the presence of such a genial person could possibly provoke such a display of nerves?”

“I thidn’t dink… I—I mean, I didn’t think the pry, pruy…the president…would byuh…be…”

“He is not the president. Mr. Muybridge is the chairman. In addition, I know I have instructed you to call me St. Germain rather than ‘Vice President’ when we are in mixed company, and yet you repeatedly said ‘Vice President, Vice President…’ What if we had been conversing with the vice president of the other company?”

Gustav was telling Carol all this in a matter-of-fact way, but almost none of it got through to her.

The man Carol had seen in the simple rooftop garden (a lawn with benches) beyond the top floor was none other than one of the greatest success stories in the country, perhaps even the world: the chairman of Nebula himself.

She remembered everything up to the vice president’s candid exchange of pleasantries, but after the other man’s name had been mentioned, her memory was practically blank. Even Chairman Muybridge’s face had blurred and vanished.

On the other hand, when she saw the vice president wasn’t showing the slightest hint of nerves, Carol shook her head, white-faced.

Seriously, what is he…? As a trace of fear crept into her adoration, the vice president said he was going to “go buy some sort of beverage” and walked off.

Aaaah, not having him here is nerve-racking, too…

Realizing that she was hugging her camera, the novice reporter began to worry about what would happen if she was to encounter a thief under these circumstances. Her legs still weren’t working properly, so she wasn’t able to get up and run after the vice president, and she wound up all alone in the vast hall.

She figured there couldn’t possibly be thieves in a building like this one, but she wasn’t plucky enough to conduct herself confidently in an unfamiliar place.

Nnnnngh…

Carol’s pale face was turning even paler, but then—

All of a sudden, there was someone standing in front of her.

A doctor?

The first thing she saw was a bright white lab coat, and she thought she’d encountered some kind of physician.

Then, on noticing the distinctive contours of her body, she corrected her mistake with another one.

A lady doctor?

In the 1800s, America had produced Elizabeth Blackwell, a female doctor who had established a dispensary in New York in 1853 that was staffed entirely by women.

Due to that history, female doctors certainly weren’t a rarity in this day and age. However, to Carol—who hadn’t been in the care of doctors very often—they were relatively unusual.

Could the vice president have brought her out of consideration for Carol, since she seemed indisposed?

She regretted it if so, and she hastily pulled herself together.

“U-um! I’m all right! I’m sorry! I’m sorry!”

Her shout didn’t make it clear what she was sorry for, but Carol was still confused and didn’t stop.

It seemed to startle the other woman, who began vigorously apologizing right back at Carol, almost mimicking her.

“Huh?! U-um! I—I beg your pardon! I-I’m sorry! I’m sorry!”

That was when Carol regained her composure, and she examined the distracted woman in white in front of her.

Above the lab coat, she wore black-rimmed glasses and a distracted expression, and long bangs hung loosely over her forehead. In contrast, the white coat encased a figure whose curves were rather too extreme, the sort that should have earned her the label of “model” or—in a different era—“Playmate.”

Every time she bowed her head, her bosom—which asserted itself in spite of her drab clothes—came into view. Noticing, Carol nonchalantly thought, Hmm. Those look like they’d be a pain. I’d rather mine didn’t get that big.

“Um, erm… I’m sorry. If you were sleeping, I didn’t mean to wake you! It’s just that you looked a little unwell, so I thought to myself, ‘I wonder if she’s all right’ and came over, but then you suddenly jumped up and apologized, so I thought maybe I’d accidentally bumped your foot, and um, ummm…”

The woman in the lab coat apologized, her eyes darting behind her glasses. Sensing that they might be cut from the same cloth, Carol smiled and waved the apology away.

“Oh, no, that wasn’t it! Um. I was just woolgathering, that’s all; please don’t worry about it! Really, I should be apologizing: I’m sorry!”

“Oh, is that what it was! I’m sorry; it looks like I worried more than I should have…”

“No, I should be saying that to you. I’m sorry.”

“No, it was my fault…”

After they’d run through similar exchanges about a dozen times, Carol realized she wasn’t tense anymore and laughed a little, in spite of herself.

“Ah-ha-ha! All we’ve been doing is apologizing. Um, thanks to you, I feel better somehow! Thank you very much!”

“Huh? You do?”

At Carol’s unexpected gratitude, the bespectacled woman in the lab coat stared blankly back for a moment, but then…

“Well, you do look as if you’ve cheered up. That’s wonderful!”

The woman smiled, almost as if she was the one who’d been encouraged. Carol’s tension dissolved completely, and she adopted a more childlike manner as she introduced herself.

“I’m Carol. I work as an assistant for a newspaper journalist, and we’re collecting information about the company. Are you a doctor who works out of this building, miss?”

“Huh? Um… Hmm, well, I do make medicines, but I’m not a doctor. Probably.”

Is she a pharmacist, then?

Come to think of it, one of Nebula’s companies did develop pharmaceuticals.

Carol was easily starstruck and curious by nature, and that was probably why she was about to ask more prying questions when—

“What are you doing?”

A dignified voice abruptly broke into their conversation. Both Carol and the woman in the lab coat froze up at the same time, then glanced in the direction of the speaker.

The vice president was standing there, holding a bottle of cola in one hand. His eyes, sharp as usual, were trained on the woman in the lab coat.

“Miss Renee… What are you doing? That girl is my assistant.”

“Oh, Mr. Gustav! Um, well…! I wasn’t thinking of kidnapping her and turning her into a guinea pig or anything like that, not really.”

“Vice President! …Uh, huh? Um… Do you know each other?”

Carol had taken the business about guinea pigs as a joke, and she spoke to the vice president with a smile.

“Mm… Not personally. She’s an acquaintance of our company president.”

“Huh?! The president?! That’s so neat!”

When Carol thought of the DD company president, all she could picture was someone buried in a pile of documents. She’d never even seen his face.

She wasn’t sure he ever left the company at all. Who’d have thought he was acquainted with such a beautiful, shapely woman!

True to her rubbernecking habits, Carol had gotten all excited and opened her mouth to continue her personal information-gathering— But before she could, the vice president addressed the woman he’d called Renee in his usual way.

“First of all, I assume you aren’t in this entrance hall by accident.”

“That’s right. I heard that information brokers from the DD newspaper were here, so I thought I’d at least come and say hello! That startled me, though; I didn’t think you’d have such an adorable information broker with you!”

“A-adorable… Oh, gee, I’m not really…”

Maybe the attention and the soft smile had embarrassed her: Carol looked down, flushing bright red. The possibility that the woman might simply be calling her a child didn’t occur to her. She just broke into a genuine smile.

Setting a hand lightly on Carol’s head, the vice president coolly continued his conversation with Renee.

“Well, that aside. It looks as though Chairman Muybridge is still playing an active role. That’s splendid. And what have you been doing lately?”

“Ah-ha-ha, oh, the usual. Failing experiments and causing trouble for everybody else.”

“Were those twelve hundred individuals in New York a success or a failure?”

“Mm. I still can’t say. After all, that isn’t under my sole jurisdiction! We have to look at it comprehensively, and we’re having lots of trouble from other angles, too. Homer is taking care of some things in New York, and even I’m in danger these days, so the Russo—”

“Wouldn’t it be imprudent to reveal more than that to outsiders?”

The vice president had spoken sharply, and Renee gasped, hastily covering her mouth.

That’s the first time I ever saw someone actually cover their mouth with their hand.

The meaning of the recent conversation seemed to have escaped Carol entirely. She just watched the woman, thinking she was quite klutzy, and felt rather fond of her. Renee gave an embarrassed smile acknowledging her mistake and poked gently at Carol’s soft cheeks.

“Oh, honestly! That was close, wasn’t it, sweetheart? Why, if I’d slipped and said more than that, I would have had to shut you up permanently, wouldn’t I?!”

“Ah-ha-ha, yes, that was close.”

Carol laughed at Renee’s joke, the three of them made a little more small talk, and then they said their good-byes.

“All right, Miss Renee, do your best at work, okay?!”

“I will! You work hard, too, Car— Yeeeek?!”

Renee had been walking backward as she waved, until she tripped on a bench and fell over.

Scrambling to her feet, she waved again, red-faced, then scampered off at a trot.

From the lab coat and the glasses, you’d think she was an intellectual, but she’s actually a real scatterbrain. Carol watched her go, smiling, and then the two of them left as well. However…

The moment they stepped outside the building, the vice president murmured something odd.

“Did she truly do nothing to you?”

“Huh? What’s the matter, Vice President?”

“Hmm… Let me give you a word of advice: Be careful around her. Until you’ve acquired the expertise for how to interact with her, I would avoid being alone with her if I were you.”

“Huh? Why?”

Carol sounded mystified; she didn’t understand what he was trying to say.

However, the vice president walked awhile longer in silence. When they were in front of the Wrigley Building, near the bank of the Chicago River, he finally answered Carol, keeping his eyes focused ahead of him.

“Because when she said she would have had to shut us up permanently…it’s likely that she meant it.”

A few minutes earlier The Chicago River In front of the Wrigley Building

The building with the distinctive clock tower was the pride of one of America’s leading chewing gum manufacturers. When you passed between this structure—the Wrigley Building—and the headquarters of the Chicago Tribune, you came out onto a bridge that spanned the Chicago River.

The bridge sat weightily over an expanse of water that was easily more than fifty yards wide, and it served as a broad avenue for both pedestrians and cars in large numbers. However, at a certain point, the people crossing the bridge registered two figures standing near the foot and gazing up at the clock tower on the building.

The passersby turned curious glances their way, but they also walked quickly past, doing their best not to interact.

The two targets of all this attention were children who looked like a couple of dolls.

One child was abnormally tall, with a physique resembling a beer barrel.

He had a backpack hanging near his waist, but his height made it look like a money pouch.

The figure that stood next to him belonged to a small, delicate boy with suture scars forming a geometrical pattern all over his body.

Even though it was winter, the boy had taken off his jacket and was wearing a sleeveless shirt, almost proudly exposing the black scars to the public eye.

With a lively expression, the scarred boy spit his chewed gum into its wrapper.

Then he spoke to the enormous child next to him, whose gaze was roaming around nervously.

“Gum’s pretty nifty, huh, Frank? You never get tired of chewing it.”

“Hmm. I like it, too, but it doesn’t feel like enough unless I chew ten pieces at once, so it gets expensive.”

“Don’t be such a tightwad; you can spend that much. Gum’s the ultimate food, you know? Look… See that building over there? They say that’s a gum company. Even if good ol’ Huey told us to burn the whole city to the ground, I’d protect that building, no matter what.”

“Y-yeah… Is that maybe why you chose this spot, specifically?”

The smaller boy was bold as brass about his ominous comment, and the big kid glanced around uneasily.

“L-listen. Never mind that now, Rail. I think everybody’s looking at us.”

“Well, sure. I wonder what’s got ’em so interested, my scars or your build. Scars aren’t all that unusual, I guess, but I bet it’s me… These suture scars look like somebody made ’em on purpose. They’re probably sympathizing or pitying me.”

“I—I don’t think anybody’s putting that much thought into it. I-is it really okay for us to stand out this much, though?”

“It’s fine, it’s fine. Huey’s order not to draw attention doesn’t matter anymore. If we’re this conspicuous-looking, the enemy’s bound to notice us, whether they want to or not. Plus, if we’re only standing here, the cops shouldn’t try to question us. Well, if it’s too obvious and they think it’s a trap, that’ll be the end of it.”

Rail cackled, apparently enjoying himself as he made a suggestion.

“Oh, right. I thought of something good, Frank.”

“What?”

“Yesterday, I said our names wouldn’t go down in history, but…did you ever hear about the Comte de Saint-Germain, Frank?”

The name was very sudden, and Frank thought hard for a little while, then shook his head apologetically.

“Um… I don’t know him.”

“He lived in Europe, a long time ago. His name’s in the history books, but he’s famous for all the weird rumors about him. They say he time-slipped, or he’s immortal; things like that.”

“H-huh…”

“So listen, Frank! If we get to be that kind of famous, I bet we’ll go down in history, too. Just think: ‘Wherever those two appear, a huge, mysterious explosion always wipes the place off the map’!”

Rail’s eyes were shining with glee. Once again, Frank thought for a little while, but…

…before long, he spoke as if something had occurred to him.

“Th-that’s no good, Rail.”

“Why not?”

Rail sounded genuinely stumped, and Frank responded with a shake of his enormous head.

“I-if we did that, then there wouldn’t be anybody left to tell people they’d seen us.”

“Oh… I see. Yeah, you’re right! Ha! …Aaah-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha!”

The boy was grinning like a lunatic, and the people on the bridge put more distance between them as they passed by.

However, the situation abruptly changed.

As Rail and Frank stood there with nothing to do, a young girl’s carefree laugh reached their ears.

At first, they thought she was laughing at them.

They were used to people curiously eyeing Rail’s scars and Frank’s size, but it was rare for anyone to actually laugh out loud. Intrigued but not particularly angry, Rail scanned the area, and then…

He spotted the mirthful girl walking toward them, holding a large camera.

Wha…? She’s not just laughing, she’s planning on taking a photo?!

This was something completely novel. Rail had already gone beyond thinking of his suture scars as unique and considered them a fashion statement, so he felt no particular resistance to the idea, although he did worry that Frank might be sensitive about his gigantic frame.

That said, acting as decoys on the bridge had been his idea, so he couldn’t complain.

While Rail was thinking all this, the conversation between the girl and the monocled man beside her came into earshot. The girl was so focused on the man as she walked that, apparently, she hadn’t even seen the two of them.

“Ah-ha-ha-ha-ha! Oh, honestly, Vice President! It isn’t like you to joke around like that!”

“Hmm. It wasn’t a joke. Well, if you wish to believe that, Carol, I have no right to stop you, but as your superior, I cannot stand by and allow you to walk into danger, either. What should we do, hmm…?”

When he heard the pair’s conversation clearly, Rail’s growing tension evaporated instantly.

Oh. So she wasn’t laughing at us?

Besides, if she wasn’t even looking at them, it made sense why she was coming straight toward them. She seemed to be simply keeping pace with the man in front of them.

Huh?

Noticing a contradiction, Rail glanced at the man next to the girl.

He was definitely heading their way, and he had to be able to see them, but he didn’t seem the least bit concerned about Rail and Frank.

That was unusual, all by itself. With such sharp eyes, maybe he had to keep a cool head in absolutely any situation—a hitman or something like that?

While Rail was wondering about that, the vice president passed right in front of him, and the girl following him continued straight on, failing to notice Frank’s enormous legs.

“Really, Vice President! How could getting caught by someone who looks so nice be dangerou— Eek?!”

There was a light thump, and the girl came to a sudden stop.

She’d run into Frank, who immediately shrank back in apology for obstructing traffic.

“Oh, I-I’m sorry.”

“Ouch… E-excuse myeeep?!”

As the girl apologized, rubbing her nose, she looked up at the other party, then shrieked when she saw how big he was.

“Oh, maaan. You scared her, Frank.”

Rail poked his head out from the shadow of the giant’s legs.

“Eep?!”

At the sight of his scars, not unlike the ones on Frankenstein’s monster, the girl screamed again.

Rail snickered in apparent amusement. Frank was flustered, and his troubled gaze flicked from Rail to the girl and back.

Then the man with the monocle, who’d been watching the scene unfold, walked over to join them. He pressed down lightly on the girl’s head, stopping her screams.

“Don’t run into people, through no fault of their own, and then shriek at them. It’s rude, Carol.”

“…—…—…”

Carol’s breathing was still ragged, but the presence of the man beside her seemed to reassure her, and over the space of about ten seconds, it gradually returned to normal.

At the same time, her face blanched, maybe because she understood what she’d done, and she timidly bowed her head.

“Oh, I-I’m sorry…”

Throwing the girl a lifeline, the monocled man doffed his hat and took control of the situation.

“My companion has been terribly discourteous. I intend to lecture her thoroughly, so do forgive her, if you would.”

“It’s no problem. When I saw you, mister, I thought you looked like a hitman, so there’s that.”

“However, you did not run into me.”

“…You know, I’m impressed you can just strike up a conversation.”

The sutures drew up his lips into their usual smile, but Rail was looking up at the man in front of him in bewilderment.

The man with the monocle responded to Rail’s incredulous remark.

“Hmm… If you are referring to your scars and his height, neither poses a significant obstacle to conversation for me. Naturally, I expect that does vary from person to person.”

“Huh… Ordinary people usually give us weird looks.”

“Among my associates, there is a doctor who hides worse scars than yours beneath his gray clothes. In addition, if you were alluding to the height of the fellow next to you, I know many other altitudinous individuals. While I have not had the pleasure of making his acquaintance directly, there is a young man named Robert who lives in the town of Alton in the south of this very state. He will be sixteen this year, and yet he has already attained a height of nearly eight feet, and I am told he continues to grow at a speed of approximately four inches per annum.”

The aforementioned man’s height would later set world records, and he would be just shy of nine feet tall when an illness took his life. The monocled man gazed dispassionately at Rail and Frank.

“I-is that right…?”

“…”

Frank sounded impressed. Rail still didn’t look convinced, but before he could speak again, Carol’s timid voice reached him.

“U-um… I’m really sorry about that. I ran into you, and then I even screamed…”

The girl had slung her camera over one shoulder, and she drooped dejectedly. Giving a little smile, Rail thumped her on the shoulders.

“C’mon, don’t let it get you down. I mean, when I saw you just now, I thought you were a camera thief for a second.”

“What?!”

“Kidding.”

The boy was wearing an impish grin, and for a moment, Carol blinked at him in amazement. Then she managed to both puff out her cheeks in annoyance and smile at the same time, which was no small feat.

“Oh, gosh…! That was mean.”

Carol’s anxiety had dissolved completely, and when her cheeks returned to normal, she gave a childlike smile and ducked her head again.

“I really am sorry. My name is Carol! As an apology for what just happened, won’t you come and eat with us?”

“Huh?”

This was a first for Rail; he’d never received a proposal like that one before.

First of all, since he’d obeyed Huey’s instructions not to stand out—like a dunce—he’d only rarely exposed his scars in public. For the same reason, except for when they were on a job, Frank had always stayed at Huey’s vacation home.

For a brief moment, Frank’s face lit up, but then it turned gloomy again almost immediately as he shook his head.

“N-no restaurant has chairs I could sit in.”

Carol didn’t let that bother her.

She seemed completely over her astonishment at Frank’s enormous body already, and she smiled with the innocence peculiar to children as she said in a somewhat precocious manner, “It’s all right! Let’s buy sandwiches, and we can sit in that nearby square to eat!”

“Are you sure? We’ll actually take you up on that, you know.”

“I—I eat a lot, so it’ll get expensive.”

Carol found herself on the receiving end of a mean-spirited smile and some hesitation, but she puffed out her chest with everything she had and spoke with utter confidence.

“Please don’t worry! He may not look like it, but Mr. St. Germain here is the vice president of a newspaper! He’s generous!”

“Hmm…”

As the subject of her boast, the man with the monocle put a hand to his chin and spoke in a calm voice.

“…Am I to infer that I will be paying for this?”

The Russo mansion

“All right, Miss Lua. If there’s anything else you want, just ask,” Ricardo Russo said calmly, then quietly closed the door to the room.

There were several rooms in this long hall, and he saw a Russo Family member sitting at the far end.

The man was the only one there, but when he left to use the bathroom, he always called someone else to take his place. They were careful never to leave the hall empty.

He’d crossed his legs and was reading a newspaper, but he was keeping a close eye on the situation down at this end over the pages.

Watching him, Christopher, who’d been waiting for Ricardo outside the room, yawned in apparent boredom.

The woman they’d just visited in that room was a “guest” named Lua.

Christopher thought that calling her a guest was pretty rich when she was obviously being held captive, but he didn’t really sympathize with her.

He had no idea what sort of person she was. It would have been one thing if she’d shown signs of wanting to escape, but she showed no particular emotion at all.

Ricardo visited the room sometimes, acting as a sort of caretaker, but Christopher felt safe in assuming that there was almost no chance he’d be taken hostage.

“How long has it been since that doll got here? A week already?”

“Yeah. If I were her, I bet I wouldn’t be able to take staying in a dreary room like that…”

“Oho, what’s this? What do you plan to do with a gutless attitude like that? If they put you in the pen, you’ll go nuts.”

“It’s fine.”

Ricardo responded to Christopher’s overly familiar taunt with his usual sullen expression.

“I don’t plan to join the mafia—and our family will end with my grandpa’s generation anyway.”

“It will?”

“I told you before, but my dad and mom are already dead.”

“Right, come to think of it, you did say something like that. What did they die of again?”

Christopher asked the question without any hesitation, and Ricardo answered it without any display of anger or sadness.

“A bomb. It blew them to bits, car and all.”

He’d related that fact far too easily. Unlike his tone, the information was terribly grave.

Ordinarily, it might have seemed like some sort of joke, but both his eyes and his family history made it clear that they were true.

“Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha! You always say those things so casually. Shouldn’t you at least pretend to be upset? Not that I know much about any of that.”

“Not really. Asking for sympathy won’t bring my parents back.”

Even when he spoke about his parents’ deaths, Ricardo didn’t show much emotion. However, it did seem to make him think, and after his reply, silence fell for a little while.

The weight of the atmosphere didn’t really bother Christopher, but Ricardo tossed him a question in an attempt to change the mood.

“What about you, Chris? Any family?”

“If you mean blood relations, probably not. It’s more like I never had any to begin with, see… To be honest, I really have no idea how you feel about your folks being dead, and I’m not sure what to do about that. Still, people can see worlds they’ve never been to and experience powerful emotions through books and plays, so I’d like to believe that the time will come when I’ll be able to empathize. Well, to that end, I spend my time with a group that’s pretty much family to me. My dream is that, someday, when somebody asks me what’s important, I’ll be able to play innocent and say, ‘Family.’”

“What a hypocrite.”

“I’m a fake, so that suits me just fine… Although I don’t think you’ll really understand what I mean by that, Ricardo.”

As they turned a corner in the hall, the two of them continued their odd conversation.

He’d been here a year now, but Ricardo still hadn’t told him much about his past, and Christopher had volunteered almost nothing about his own.

However, if he was asked, Christopher would answer once in a while without seeming to mind.

Either way, Ricardo had already witnessed a massacre at Christopher’s hands in Chicago, so at this point, Christopher didn’t find any sense in hiding anything. That said, when it came to homunculi and the liquor of immortality, there were a few things he’d kept quiet about.

“Oh, right. By ‘family’…do you mean those people, Lamia or whatever it was?”

“Yes, well. Also, if it isn’t too bold to say so, I’d like to become family to the Earth. But alas, we aren’t blood kin.”

“You say some weird things sometimes, Chris.”

Ricardo was watching him with cold eyes, but Christopher responded with a smile.

“Is that so? My pal Chi told me everything I said was crazy.”

“…And he stayed friends with you anyway. Chi’s a really nice guy.”

“That’s what I think, too.”

Speaking of Chi, I wonder what he’s up to these days, Christopher thought, and as he did, Ricardo stopped, then jerked a thumb in the direction of the entryway.

“I think I’m going to go buy Miss Lua some new books. I haven’t been to town in a while anyway, and I’d like to go.”

“Good idea. She seems a little gloomy, and I bet books would suit her.”

As he answered, Christopher remembered that this would be the first time he’d left the house in quite a long time.

As a rule, his job was to act as Ricardo’s bodyguard. However, due to his appearance, he didn’t accompany him to and from school. Since Ricardo had refused to be dropped off and picked up, other family members watched over him from a distance.

However, when Ricardo went out on private errands like this, for the most part, he took Christopher along.

Once, Christopher had teased him: “If people see you walking with me, you may never manage to make friends, you know?”

But Ricardo had replied, “Just being the Russo grandkid is isolating enough already.”

As a result, the eccentric who was isolated from the world and the boy who was isolated from his surroundings had begun their odd season together. Christopher had never experienced a normal life before and found it rather boring, though not intensely unpleasant.

They almost never left the house, but he had witty, wordplay-filled conversations with Ricardo and read every book he could lay his hands on in the library, and that was diversion enough for him.

Hmm. Maybe the twins haven’t contacted me because I’m almost never in town.

The twins were the message runners for Huey’s subordinates.

Their role was to appear out of nowhere and transmit Huey’s words to the members working at their preferred side jobs in various places.

From what he had heard, they were a male and female pair named Sham and Hilton, but even Christopher couldn’t begin to guess what sort of characters they actually were.

They were mysterious beings: If you called to them during important situations, they’d always respond, but the person who actually spoke would be different every time. During the Mist Wall incident, he’d heard they’d been able to get away safely because Sham had been there and helped them.

They were everywhere.

At least that was what Christopher had always thought, but naturally, there was no guarantee that they’d be all the way out on the outskirts of Chicago.

As a rule, Sham and Hilton were probably only in places that Huey had deemed important.

Or did they decide they’re done with me?

In a way, his ability to handle this quiet life with no fights or mortal combat might be due to his utter defeat by a man who was a mere human. He couldn’t do anything about it if people said he’d lost his touch as a hitman, and it was possible that even Huey and his comrades had abandoned him.

Even that thought didn’t cause Christopher any real pain.

Well, it might be kind of nice to stay here and entertain myself by watching Ricardo grow up. Maybe I could help him out on the sly and turn him into a marvelous don.

“A mafioso after my own heart. Kind to Nature…good at singing…has powers of flight…able to lift a car with one arm…can savor a glass of wine in one hand while juggling thirteen mistresses…”

“…What are you talking about? I’m leaving.”

Ignoring Christopher’s muttering, Ricardo marched out the front door by himself.

Hastily, Christopher started to follow, but an imposing voice called to him.

“Where are you going, Christopher?”

When he turned back, there was Placido with a group of several subordinates.

“Master Ricardo says he’s going shopping. I’m going along to help.”

“I see…”

Christopher sounded a little less enthusiastic than he did when he talked with Ricardo, but Placido didn’t seem to have noticed the difference.

“I don’t know much about your skills…but if I were you, I’d assume you’re going to be busy real soon.”

“Uh-huh…”

“They’re letting a troublemaker out of the pen, see, and when that happens, he might come after Ricardo. If you let someone so much as scratch my grandchild, my flesh and blood, I’ll take a blazing-hot iron pipe and let you suffer the same wound a thousand times deeper. Remember that.”

“If you went a thousand times deeper, wouldn’t it punch straight through and set the house on fire?”

With a retort implying that Ricardo was his employer, not Placido, Christopher walked straight out the front door without turning to look back at his boss once.

One of Placido’s men spoke to him, back in the entryway.

“Are you sure about letting young master Ricardo leave with a guy like that, boss…?”

“Hmph. Just let him be. I dunno why, but Ricardo refuses to warm up to anyone except that freak.”

With a confident smile, Placido murmured to himself quietly.

“Besides… At this point, I’m more important than my grandkid.”

His lips warped into a vivid expression, and he finished the rest of his thought silently.

The liquor of immortality.

As long as I have that, I’ll even be able to conquer the end of my natural life.

When that happens…there won’t be any use for descendants.

The Wrigley Building was divided into two structures—one north, one south—that were linked by a skyway partway up.

Below the skyway was a plaza that occupied the space between the buildings, serving as a resting place for the people traveling along the street.

After introducing themselves briefly, Carol’s group of four had thought that Frank would be able to sit on the curb of one of the plaza’s flower beds, so they’d gone there.

On the way, they’d procured their food by practically buying out a hot dog stand, after which Carol had gotten a lecture from the vice president as they made for the plaza.

“Good grief. Mind where you walk when you’re out on the avenue. Just try breaking your camera by pulling another stunt like that. As a photographer, you’d be lucky to get one hundred points.”

“As I keep asking, out of how many?”

“Out of 26,783,419.”

“If you’re going to give me realistic answers, don’t always do it at times like this!”

“Setting that aside, I will contact accounting and make sure they subtract the cost of these hot dogs from your wages. Keep it in mind.”

“Awwwwww…”

Behind Carol, who seemed to be on the verge of tears, Frank walked along with Rail on his shoulders.

Rail had seemed like a ball-jointed doll to begin with, and now he looked almost exactly like a ventriloquist’s dummy. As he sat on Frank’s shoulders, which were as wide as a chair, he felt as if he were talking a walk through the sky.

Frank seemed a little entertained as he spoke next to Rail’s ear.

“I—I wonder if I could make friends with Robert, that tall person they were talking about.”

“Huey’d never let you meet him.”

“I—I guess not, huh…”

Frank looked down dejectedly, and Rail chuckled.

“Well, never mind that. Christopher has be-my-friend-itis, and anybody who talks to him is automatically his friend.”

“Huh? But Christopher’s…”

“He’s alive.”

As Rail answered Frank, he was wearing an oddly confident smile.

“He’s absolutely alive. That guy looks about as close to a vampire as you can get, and if he kicked the bucket that easy, we would have been dead on that last job… Maybe all the way back at the lab.”

As he listened to that cheerful laugh, all Frank could do was nod.

A shudder ran through his shoulders, perhaps due to some unpleasant memories attached to the word lab, and Rail had to struggle to keep his balance.

Then, in an attempt to forget something, Frank deliberately changed the subject.

“B-but… Are you sure it’s really okay for us to take all those hot dogs?”

“Sure, it’s fine. You’re a big eater, Frank, so you need to take food when it’s offered. Besides, doesn’t this feel kinda like fate? We were just talking about St. Germain, and then we actually ran into a guy with the same name!”

As the pair conversed, they looked at the mountain of hot dogs in St. Germain’s arms with childlike, sparkling eyes.

However, Frank’s face turned glum again almost immediately, and he whispered to Rail.

“B-but listen, Rail. Those two are good people, I just know it.”

“? Well, yeah. I mean, they’re treating us to lunch.”

“W-we’re being decoys right now, so… If we’re with them, they’ll get roped into this, too.”

Remembering why they’d been standing on the bridge, Frank had grown worried for the other pair’s safety, despite their recent acquaintance. During his conversation with Rail before Carol and St. Germain had come along, he hadn’t sounded very concerned about others’ well-being, but apparently, he was a more thoughtful type toward people he actually knew.

Meanwhile, Rail, who’d proposed wiping the town off the map, replied, “Seriously, it’s fine. Just think about it, Frank. You think they’d attack us in broad daylight, bold as brass, in the middle of a crowd? If they have decent brains, I think they’ll follow us back to our hideout tonight and attack when we’re asleep. And when they try it, we’ll take them out instead! It’s not like we’re going home with Carol and her buddy, so I doubt we’ll end up causing them trouble. See?”

He seemed to be looking out for Carol, such as it was, but to Frank, the prediction seemed to have a remarkable number of holes in it. However, his nose caught a whiff of the hot dogs the pair in the lead were carrying, and instead of pursuing the matter further, Frank decided to fill his own stomach.

Immediately afterward, he’d be forced to realize that it had been the wrong decision.

It was true; Rail’s plan was far from airtight. The biggest hole was…

…the fact that not everyone on the enemy’s side had a decent brain.

Chicago River On the bridge

“It’s this way, Mr. Graham.”

“Prob’ly thinkin’ it’s another lovely Chicago day, huh?” Head lowered, Graham muttered in response to Shaft walking ahead of him. “How… How sad!”

“Aaaaaah— The fella goes into sad mode now of all times! And would you quit saying ‘sad’ out loud already?! What are you trying to do, hypnotize yourself?!”

As they crossed the bridge, several men yelped in distress.

Graham gazed up at the skyscrapers of Chicago from the center of the group. His half-closed eyes were filled with tears.

“Look… Look at the Wrigley Building, there on the left… The white terra-cotta on it just shines. It’s a beautiful building, yeah? Isn’t it?”

His tight voice was filled with concentrated emotion, but none of his friends were seriously listening to him.

They knew it was a waste of time.

“In contrast, there’s the Gothic beauty of the Tribune Tower, over there on the right! Aah… Aah… They’re each just as beautiful as the other! You can see two completely different buildings at the exact same time… It’s like two totally different eras fused with the town! It’s so sad… I mean, c’mon, it’s just way too sad!”

“…Why, exactly?” Shaft retorted involuntarily.

Graham’s desolate scream echoed in his ears.

“And the harmony with that blue sky is flawless! Perfect! I don’t know jack about art, and it even got me thinkin’, ‘Damn, that’s pretty,’ so you know it’s gotta be good! But, but! What do you think occurred to me after that?! I thought, ‘Now, those would be worth breaking’!! What is wrong with me?! I thought they were pretty, so why would I want to break them?! What kind of nihilist am I anyway?! Why am I imagining myself with a huge-ass wrench about ten yards long neatly taking those buildings apart?! What is this? Where the hell am I planning to go?! I need to apologize! I need to apologize to the people who live in those buildings and the people who made them! Dammit… Is there anything sadder than confirming your own head is screwy?!”

“Right now, we’re probably a whole lot sadder than that…”

He wore blue coveralls and held an enormous wrench; he was a man screaming nonsense who could easily have gotten himself reported to the cops at any moment.

The people crossing the bridge gave him an even wider berth than they’d given Rail and Frank a little while ago, passing by without meeting his eyes.

The Wrigley Building Central plaza

“Oh my gosh… So you two were in a circus?!”

“Yep. We traveled all around the country. It’s ’cause Frank and I both look like this, see. Our parents sold us.”

“Oh no…”

“Oh, hey, we don’t care. Thanks to them, our lives are loads of fun now.”

Rail laughed merrily, and Carol believed the whopper completely. As she listened to the boy, her eyes earnest, she answered with guileless praise.

“That’s really amazing… You’re so cool! I wish I could be like you! Oh, um, if you wouldn’t mind, please let me interview you properly later on, for work!”

“Ah-ha-ha. Sure, if the owner says it’s okay. He’s a real fickle piece of work, though. He doesn’t give two hoots for your hurt feelings or anything like that, so I’d be careful if I were you.”

Visualizing Huey’s face, Rail bad-mouthed him without reservation.

Frank kept stuffing his face with hot dogs, working his big jaws as much as he wanted, while the vice president only sipped black tea he’d purchased from the hot dog stand. This meant that Rail and Carol were the ones doing most of the talking.

In this short time, Carol seemed to have gotten completely used to the suture scars, and she looked Rail in the face as she talked to him.

Before long, possibly because Carol believed him far too honestly and he’d begun to feel guilty, Rail began to tell her about himself, incorporating just a little of the truth.

“See, at the circus, I’m in charge of the explosives.”

“Huh? The…explosives?”

“That’s right. There are all sorts of them, you know. For the human cannonball, say, and the flaming ring, and in the magic show where somebody escapes from a box that blows up. It’s my job to stage it.”

“Ooooh! Amazing… That’s amazing! You’re just about the same age as I am, but you’re doing such an important job!”

Carol’s eyes were shining even more brightly, and maybe the sight had put him in a good mood. Gradually, Rail introduced more of his real feelings into his story.

“The thing is, I like explosives. Well, I guess they raised me so I would, but…”

“Raised you?”

“Yeah, at the circus, I mean… And I actually do love explosives. Just think about it: They’ve got no name, just tiny little crystals, or drops of liquid, or thick, soft stuff like clay, and then, when something suddenly triggers them, they express themselves. Even though they disappear before they ever get a name, when they catch fire and touch off an explosion, absolutely everybody turns and looks, right?”

Even though his voice was calm, Rail’s expression seemed somehow radiant. The smile he wore wasn’t his ironic one; it was genuine, from the bottom of his heart.

“And they really do disappear in an instant. I bet nobody bothers to remember what explosives are called. Still, in that moment when it happens, the memory of an explosion, the sound of it, the light—that’s all branded into people’s minds. Or…if they get hurt in the blast, they might have the scar their whole life.”

“That example sounds a little dangerous.”

“Ah-ha-ha, you’re right.”

Carol smiled wryly, and Rail beamed back at her.

“Rumor has it Chicago was once home to a bomb fiend who was like an artist. I guess, for now, my goal is to surpass her.”

“A bomb fiend?”

“Yeah. It’s really a lot like an urban legend. This girl had a magnificent way with bombs. When there was a building scheduled for demolition, she got in there before the wreckers did and brought it down in style… Or she did so many experiments with explosives in a rocky spot by the lake that she ended up changing the shape of the coastline and the map… And when she brought that building down, there was absolutely no damage to the buildings around it. She’s amazing.”

The story really did sound as if it had to be an urban legend, but Carol listened to it quite seriously. She hadn’t been an information broker’s assistant for a full year yet, but even so, during that time, she’d heard and experienced an incredible number of odd tales, so she accepted the story of the bomb fiend as fairly plausible.

“It’s hard to tell whether that person is a nuisance or not.”

“Well, it didn’t make the papers, so it might be made-up. I’d like to meet her if I could, but…I don’t even know what she looks like.”

“Oh, in that case…”

Our newspaper might be able to find out.

Carol was about to tell him so, but before she could—

—a voice came between the two of them: heavy, gloomy, and ominous, yet resonant.

“Let me tell you a sad, sad story.”

“Huh…?”

Carol and Rail turned around at the same time and found a bright blue pillar standing there.

A young man in ultramarine coveralls was looking sorrowfully down at Rail and the others from beside the flower bed.

“If that bomb fiend is a doll who wears glasses over an eye patch…she’s not here anymore. That sister’s in New York now.”

“…Who’re you?” Rail asked suspiciously.

However, the man took up an enormous wrench that was hanging from his belt and spoke in a dramatic manner distinct from the Poet’s.

“What’s even sadder…is that, even if you try to go to New York, you’re gonna have to come with me first, so life truly just doesn’t go the way you want… That’s the sad, sad story.”

Don’t tell me… He’s the enemy?!

He’d never expected anyone would just walk up to them in broad daylight like this, and on top of that, the guy had drawn something that was clearly a weapon.

He hesitated, not sure how to respond—but Carol, sitting beside him, turned pale and shrieked.

“AAAaaaaaAAAH!”

She grabbed Rail’s hand, yanked him to his feet, and dragged him into the vice president’s shadow, tearing him away from the man in the coveralls.

Then, from her hiding place behind the vice president, she shouted.

“It’s the train robber! V-Vice President! He’s the train robber!”

The man in the coveralls looked at Carol and the vice president, fell to thinking for a little while, and then—

Before long, he smacked his hands together in recollection.

“Hmm…? Huh? Oh…hmm? What?”

Shaft and the rest of Graham’s hangers-on whispered to one another about the situation as they watched from a distance, flustered.

(“Hey… What do we do about this? Mr. Graham went and launched a suicide attack.”)

(“Yeah, plus he did it here, when everybody was already eyeballing the big lug!”)

(“That guy doesn’t have the brains to tail people… And it gets uglier.”)

Shaft was the only one who looked calm. He glanced at the other people accompanying the targets and sighed.

“I told you we did a train job on our way here, right?”

“Huh? Yeah.”

“Mr. Graham aside… We tried to take money from that guy with the monocle. Once.”

“…And?”

Several of the people who’d witnessed it firsthand were watching the monocled man, and their faces were pale. That alone was enough to give a good idea of the answer, but one member of the group found it a bit hard to believe, so he went ahead and asked anyway.

However, the answer he got back was exactly what he’d thought it would be. Shaft rubbed his jaw, remembering the pain from back then.

“He took us out. Everybody except Mr. Graham, and it only took a few seconds… For the sake of our honor, lemme tell you… That guy has to know jujitsu or something.

“Not only that, but he and Mr. Graham seemed to hit it off… Well, I guess you could say they’re acquainted, sort of.”

Meanwhile, on seeing the two journalists he’d encountered about ten days ago, Graham twirled his wrench, looking mystified.

“What is this? And here I was wondering who you were. What are the information brokers from the train doing here? D-don’t tell me you two are the Poet and Sickle… Wait, are you? They say the culprit in a mystery novel is usually the last one you’d suspect. Are you journalists and information brokers secretly that Huey jerk’s flunkies?”

As he spoke, he took a paper out of his jacket and glanced at it, comparing it with the quartet.

“Well, the wanted poster mentions a ‘dramatic speaker,’ and that could technically fit the old guy… Then can you use capoeira, little girl? Hey, show me some capoeira.”

“Wh-what’s capoeira?! I don’t know anything like that!”

The statement hadn’t made any sense to her, and Carol shouted back an honest answer, even though her shoulders were shaking.

“Whaaat?! You’re a capoeira user, but you don’t know what capoeira is? What is this mystery? I see… They say riding a bicycle is experience, not knowledge; is that the kind of thing you mean? No, no, wait, I lied. I was actually about halfway sure it wasn’t that… But why couldn’t I just admit it? What was in it for me? What was in it for anyone?! Huh, little girl?!”

“I’m not really the person to ask!!”

Trembling at the unjust, shouted accusation, Carol hid in the vice president’s shadow.

Meanwhile, the two who did appear to be definite matches for the wanted poster were each exhibiting a different reaction.

The one who looked like a big kid seemed bewildered, glancing between the smaller boy and the others, while the boy was glaring at Graham with sheer hatred.

Don’t call me that bastard’s flunky!

Unusually for him, Rail was furious, but he didn’t put it into words.

From the things Carol had just shouted, although the details weren’t clear, apparently the guy in front of them was some sort of robber.

So why would a robber have our wanted poster?

As he gradually regained his composure, Rail reviewed what he knew about the situation.

Considering his recent exchange with Carol, it was clear that the guy wasn’t terribly bright. He might really be just a thug.

In that case, did it mean the enemy looking for them had passed the wanted poster all the way down to punks like this and had them hunting at random?

If they tortured this dim-looking hood for the moment, would they be able to get him to cough up the name of the outfit that had given him the wanted poster, at least? Meekly going with him was an option as well, but if there were lots of people waiting for them at their destination with tommy guns, Rail and Frank would have no chance of winning.

If only Christopher were here. Or at least Chi or Leeza. If they were, machine guns wouldn’t scare me.

Okay, I’ve made up my mind.

Rail’s thoughts had been going around in circles, but he’d hit on a conclusion he could work with.

We’ll make like we’re going with him, and on the way, we’ll thrash him within an inch of his life, then take him to the Poet and the gang.

The guy was just a thug, and he couldn’t have much going for him.

Working from that assumption, Rail began to speak. He was wearing his usual sarcastic smile.

“What if we say we don’t want to?”

“I won’t let you say something that sad.”

The thug in the coveralls shook his head, leveling his wrench. Rail sighed in exasperation, then taunted him.

“Don’t glare at me like that, mister. We’ll go with you. We just have to go, right? Frank!” Rail said.

Frank hastily gulped down the hot dog he’d had in his mouth. Then he scooped Rail up, easily lifting him to his shoulder.

“R-Rail… Frank…”

Carol hadn’t managed to process the situation, and she was gazing anxiously at the two of them.

Rail gave the girl a somewhat melancholy smile, then giggled and said good-bye.

“Oh, Carol. Really, thanks for today. It wasn’t for long, but it’s been ages since I got to chat with a normal kid like you. Maybe even the first time.”

“Th-the hot dogs were yummy, too.”

After the one-sided expression of thanks, Rail looked down, thinking for just a little, and then—

Lowering his voice, he murmured one more brief comment to Carol and the vice president.

“You could call this a warning, I guess. It’s, well, not easy to say, but…”

He didn’t know the specific content of the job, but he’d been called in, and the thought of the implications led him to speak out of concern for the girl.

“…if I were you, I’d get out of Chicago, fast.”

“See, there might be a big explosion around here or something.”

The man in the blue coveralls left with Rail and Frank; helplessly, Carol watched them go.

She’d hesitated, wondering whether to stop them or call somebody, but Rail had smiled and said “No, it’s fine,” and in the end, she hadn’t been able to do a thing.

“Vice President…,” she’d tried, asking for help, but…

“Hmm. They agreed to go voluntarily, so I doubt there’s any way to stop them. Had they protested, I would not casually overlook it. However, they do appear to have their own motives. If you are still unconvinced, would you like to go with them?”

“B-but…”

“If you lack the determination for that, then report on the affair from a distance as a journalist. Naturally, some journalists go to the front line in pursuit of a more incisive truth. Interpretations of what constitutes an ideal journalistic mind-set must be left to the sensibilities and convictions of individuals. Of course, I would prefer to avoid convictions that are clearly harmful to the company.”

The vice president replied indifferently. However, as he gazed after Frank’s big body, which was already growing hazy with distance, he had a little compassion for Carol, though he was calm to the end.

“…Well, I doubt they’ll have their way with those two easily.”

“Huh?”

“All right. Carol, we will be staying in Chicago for a little while.”

“Wait… What are you saying? I mean, weren’t we scheduled to go back to New York tomorrow?”

Could he be planning to save those two?!

A faint hope that someone else would take care of it, like a civilian to a superhero, swelled inside Carol, but the vice president’s eyes were still as sharp as a hitman’s, and…

“I have a hunch that something is about to happen. It will be amusing to let ourselves get involved before returning to New York.”

“…Isn’t that different from what you said earlier?”

“I am the type who puts himself on the front line, you see. However, there’s no guarantee that following those two would put us there,” the vice president answered with absolutely no hesitation.

As Carol responded, she broke out in a cold sweat.

“Um… Isn’t this when you’re supposed to say, ‘You go on home, before you get involved in something dangerous’?”

“Did you want me to say it?”

“Of course not!”

Carol quelled the brief burst of fear by answering in a loud voice to motivate herself.

Quietly, the vice president spoke to the apprentice journalist.

“Hmm. I did indeed consider telling you to go home, but I determined that, under the present circumstances, sending you off on your own would be more dangerous.”

“?”

Carol was about to ask what he meant, but before she could put the question into words, the answer presented itself in a way that was impossible to ignore.

As the people nearby focused on the receding Frank and Rail, one man slowly lowered himself to sit beside Carol.

The man had a scar on his cheek; he was someone clearly not on the level. He dexterously opened a newspaper with one hand.

Then, in the space between the paper and his body, he casually opened his jacket with his free hand—and flashed a glossy black handgun so that only Carol and the vice president could see it.

“…Come with me for a bit.”

The man’s demand was dispassionate. He kept his eyes trained on the newspaper.

“If you have nothing to do with those guys…”

Then he’ll let us go? B-but if that happened, I’d still worry about Rail and Frank…

That was the thought on Carol’s mind when she heard what Krieck said, but her worry was completely off base.

Krieck took the cigarette from his mouth and tossed it onto the ground, then spat out the rest of his sentence with a sadistic smile.

“…call it bad luck and give up.”

“V-Vice President…”

In response to Carol’s frightened voice, the vice president spoke as calmly as ever. Evidently, he was going to allow himself to be apprehended without a struggle.

“Carol. Let us hope that that the spirit behind your ‘Of course not’ earlier will hold until the incident has actually occurred.”

Then, with a rare, ironic smile, the vice president murmured something so softly that only Carol could hear.

A comment that would plunge the girl, who was still quite young, into an even greater maelstrom of unease…

“After all, it is likely that a matter this trivial will not even qualify as part of the incident.”

“So how far are we going, Mr. Blue?”

Once they’d gone quite a ways from the Wrigley Building, just as they entered an alley with very little traffic, Rail took the opportunity to speak up.

At first, the man in the blue coveralls had been alone. However, by the time they’d left the vicinity of the Wrigley Building, the group had grown, and before they realized it, Rail and Frank had been surrounded by five or six men.

The man in blue stopped dead, then answered, whirling around to face the boy in an exaggerated motion.

“Sadly, from what I hear, I’m not allowed to tell you for any reason. On the other hand, though, I can say this. My name is Graham. Graham Specter.”

“Uh, nobody asked about your crummy name.”

“Aah, too bad, you don’t seem interested in me! However! When I think of what I’m about to do to you people, I really should introduce myself!”

“Wh-what are you planning to do?”

In response to Frank’s uneasy question, Graham smacked his wrench against his shoulders.

“You two, Rail and Frank… Those actually are your names, right?”

“Yes. Although we don’t have family names.”

When Rail answered with a masochistic smile, Graham nodded to himself several times.

“I see… Good. If I’d found myself with a case of mistaken identity on my hands now, I woulda been up a creek.”

“And? What does that have to do with giving your name?”

“It’s rude to ask someone’s name before introducing yourself, ain’t it? If you went out of your way to ask me something so basic, you really must think I’m nuts… Do you? Is it the clothes? Are these bright-blue coveralls to blame?! Do people think I’m suspicious, sad, repulsive because I wear this outfit all the time, even when I’m in town or taking a day off? I wash it every day, you know, and I’ve got three different ones that I wear in rotation!”

It was both a simple answer and a ridiculous one.

Immediately afterward, Graham begin spouting off all by himself. For a moment, Rail stared blankly, but soon after, he began smiling in amusement and heckling him.

“Ah-ha-ha-ha! Mister, you’re pretty polite for a guy who’s smack in the middle of kidnapping somebody.”

“Kidnapping? Yeah, kidnapping… Is that how you’re taking this? As a matter of fact, though, there’s no way around it, no matter what you call this! Arbitrarily dragging you around without an explanation is kidnapping, plain and simple… Aah, have I finally fallen as low as I can fall? Did I fall?! Am I falling? Where to? Into hell? But who decided hell is underground?! Isn’t that mind-set incredibly rude to the ground and everything beneath it?! Just think about it: People used to think that the Earth was the center of things, and that the universe revolved around it. If that’s true, it means when you’ve fallen as far as you can fall, you’re at the center of the Earth! Mind-blowing… Did the Earth revolve around hell, long ago? What a deep story… And a sad one. So very sad…”

Graham was completely off in his own world.

The young man in the coveralls had fallen to his knees and started crying. Rail set a hand lightly on his shoulder, speaking to him in a comforting and very unchildlike voice.

“It’s all right, mister. It’s okay if it’s sad. We’ll forgive you.”

“Ngh… The idea of getting forgiven by a little kid makes me feel like I’m gonna fall further and further into this hell of sadness. I’m grateful, though. Thanks…”

“It’s fine. You’re not sad at all, mister.”

Rail shook his head slowly. Then, he continued as if it was the natural next step in the conversation.

“So… Who told you to take us away?”

“No matter who told me, it’s still sad… Besides, I’m even sadder because you thought I’d sing over a cheap trick like that! What is this? Why must this sorrow torment me?!”

“Ah-ha-ha. Yeah, I guess you wouldn’t fall for that one, huh?”

Smiling like a mischievous kid, Rail stuck his tongue out lightly.

Then, as his tongue slipped back into his mouth, something malicious stole into his smile.

“All right, that’s fine. We’ll just get it out of you by force.”

“Hunh?”

As Graham raised his head, Rail snapped his fingers and called to Frank, who was standing behind him.

“Frank, let’s get started.”

“O-okay. All right.”

The giant child gave an exaggerated nod, and then—

With no hesitation, he kicked the kneeling Graham off the pavement.

“Ghk…!”

The impact had struck without warning, and Graham almost bit his tongue.

What?! What’d he do to me?!

The shock had hit him abruptly from the side, and it immediately traveled through his whole body, violently shaking his bones and tissues.

Next, Graham felt like he was falling, but strangely.

Huh? I… I’m falling sideways?

The moment it crossed his mind, a second impact landed.

Graham had been dashed against the side of a building, and as he slid down the wall, he focused his eyes on the scene unfolding before him.

What he saw was Frank, who had apparently kicked him into the air and now seemed to be the same size as a normal kid. That was when he first realized that he’d flown a very long way.

Just how far…did he kick me?

“Wh-why, you little…!”

The kick had been less resistance and more a surprise attack, and Graham’s thuggish companions all yelled.

Some of them took knives from their jackets, but Rail gazed at the sight as if it entertained him. Once again, he called to Frank, behind him.

“I think you’d be fine on your own, Frank, but I’ll get ready, too, just in case. Get my stuff.”

“O-okay.”

Frank obediently put a hand to his waist, took the backpack from his belt, and held it out to Rail.

The backpack looked pretty big in Rail’s small arms. The boy took out a coat, then began slipping it on in a gesture that could have qualified as elegant.

Of course, even as they were doing this, a man with a knife was sprinting toward them.

“Hey bastards, you think you’ve got that kinda ti— AAAAaaaa aah 

Partway through his sentence, the man heard a smack, and his mind soared clean away.

Frank’s massive hand had knocked him into the air, and his body spun neatly, then hit the ground.

At that shocking sight, the men surrounding them all froze at once. They had the numerical advantage, but in their current situation, numbers meant absolutely nothing.

They didn’t take to their heels, though. The men closed in warily, slowly shrinking the perimeter around the boys.

“I—I think we should probably get a little distance.”

“Right. Go for it,” Rail murmured, still getting into his coat.

Frank picked him up easily—

And on legs like the ends of tree trunks, lightly launched himself off the ground.

A wind whipped through the area.

And an enormous shadow slipped between the men, skimming just above the ground like a huge cannonball.

By the time they turned back to look, their eyes wide with astonishment, Frank was already setting Rail down on the ground, twenty yards away.

“Wha…?”

The men who’d witnessed that gigantic shape racing through the alley couldn’t believe their eyes.

At the same time, they realized that, with both the kick and the slap from Frank a moment ago—they hadn’t seen either one.

They felt as if they’d witnessed a monstrous speed too fast for the eye, so great that they hadn’t sensed the weight of that massive shape at all. In fact, the entire body had seemed like an enormous engine.

Big meant sluggish.

The men had been tripped up by that assumption, and all they could do was stand there and stare, mouths gaping uselessly.

At the sight of this parade of the abnormal, the handful of passersby had either made a run for it or were watching the shifting situation, paralyzed with fright.

At the same time, their eyes went to Rail, who’d finished changing.

The design of the coat he’d put on was similar to coveralls, with lots of pockets, but two things clearly distinguished it from what Graham wore.

As for its shape, Rail’s garment had long sleeves, opened at the front, and covered him to a point just below the knees, like a doctor’s lab coat.

The other difference was its color.

The surface of the coat sparkled, reflecting the light as if it had been woven from silver thread. It made the already doll-like Rail look even more like a work of art in a box garden.

“Surprised?”

The boy flashed a bright, cruel smile from the depths of his hood, and his expression seemed somehow rapturous as he spoke.

For a moment, the men thought the boy was referring to his clothes. However, what he said next was completely different.

“You were startled by how fast Frank is, weren’t you? You just paid attention to his build and the way he talks, and you figured he was dumb, right? Ha-ha! Prejudice is a scary thing!”

Then the men remembered.

Frank had moved in a nearly unbelievable way, just a few seconds earlier.

Rail laughed lightly, seemingly amused by the gulps of their would-be kidnappers, then veered off topic.

“But come on, isn’t that weird? In the ocean, sharks are big, and they swim pretty fast. Did you know that even alligators can run at thirty miles per hour if they get serious about it? Rabbits are supposed to be nimble and quick, but they get done in by the claws of tigers and lions that are dozens of times heavier than they are. So why would you look at Frank and think that being heavy is the same as being slow?! Ah-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha! Ah-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha!”

He laughed. And laughed. And laughed.

After he’d cackled for a while, rattling on and on about things that might have meant something, or might not, he abruptly stopped and spoke, twisting his lips into a brutal smile.

“Do you reeeeeeeeally not know why I’m chatting away like this?”

The sequence of events had left Graham’s friends unable to move, but at Rail’s words, they shared an involuntary glance—and then they noticed the sense of wrongness around them.

In the center of their circle…

A strange object lay on the ground, right where Rail and Frank had been standing a moment ago.

A pocket watch with a warped objet d’art attached to it.

That was the only way to describe the thing, which was about the size of a chicken egg. However, the eerie ticking of the clock stuck to its surface plunged the men into indescribable anxiety.

Indifferent, Rail murmured to the men to give their unease tangible form.

“See, the only one we need to torture is Mr. Graham over there, so…”

Behind Rail and his smirk, Frank had covered his ears and was trembling hard.

“For now…I’m gonna blow you people away.”

Just then, the clock’s second hand ticked to twelve, and—

—the blue sky between the buildings of the Chicago back alley was rent by a heavy, piercing blast.