Pandora’s box and the world’s taboo
“Next we will blow up this hall.”
The enemy’s eerie voice echoed throughout the venue.
This statement set the large room buzzing, but the surrounding group in gas masks leveled their machine guns at us until we fell silent again.
Fifteen minutes ago, a sniper had attacked the Oracle during the Ritual of Sacred Return. Most of the people attending the ceremony had run for it, but men in gas masks who’d been stationed throughout the palace had rounded us up and herded us into this hall. We were still there, under orders not to move, completely hostage to the terrorists.
I wasn’t near Mia, Rill, or Siesta. Kimihiko was probably still in the hall where the ceremony had been held. I had to do my part here. And so—
“I’m glad you were close to me, Bruno,” I said to the old gentleman beside me, softly enough that the men in gas masks wouldn’t hear.
“No, I’m the one who feels safer here, young Miss Ace Detective.” Bruno’s white whiskers shifted as he grinned. His all-encompassing generosity soothed my nerves just a little.
“I’m sorry,” he went on gently. “I knew someone might be targeting me, yet my sense of duty kept me from backing out of the ceremony. I was unable to come up with any countermeasures, and now we’ve fallen into the enemy’s hands. It’s really deplorable.”
“Please don’t apologize. If you’re going to put it that way, Siesta and I are the Ace Detectives, and we couldn’t head off this crisis, either. We’re all responsible.”
This wasn’t anybody’s fault.
We were all trying to do the right thing. Even now, we were struggling to get there. That was what this was about.
For the sake of doing my own version of “the right thing,” I asked Bruno a question. “So, Bruno. How much do you really know about Another Eden, or about the secret the Federation Government is hiding?”
I swallowed hard, and there was a moment of silence.
Had Bruno been defeated by the enemy? Had he failed to do anything at all? He was the world’s wisdom itself; did he really have no idea who the enemy actually was, or what secret the world held? That wasn’t possible.
If there was a reason he was staying here quietly anyway, it must have been that…
“Can you really not answer that? If it’s information that could destroy the balance of the world…”
Bruno Belmondo, the Information Broker, possessed knowledge that could be more of a threat than any weapon, and he never shared it with others.
He was no longer a Tuner, but he still lived by that philosophy, even under these circumstances—no, because of these circumstances. The Information Broker worked constantly to keep the scales balanced.
“Bruno, please. The things you know could save lives.”
If Bruno Belmondo was still captive to the Tuner way of life, then I would be, too. One more time, as the Ace Detective, I’d talk the Information Broker around. Besides… “Weren’t you hoping we’d get it out of you anyway?”
Bruno himself was the one who’d first tried to make me the Ace Detective again. Two weeks ago, when he’d visited the detective agency and told us he wanted us to return to the position of Ace Detective, he’d said that what he could do alone was limited, and he was trying to acquire more comrades.
“Once, there was a detective girl who asked me for a favor,” Bruno said, sounding somehow nostalgic. “In this world, there’s something known as an absolute taboo. A Pandora’s box that must not be opened. A sealed coffin that will unleash disaster on the world. However, there was a time when I was desperate to learn about it. As the Information Broker who embodied the world’s wisdom, I felt I had no choice,” he went on. “One day, someone with the same ambition appeared. As the Information Broker, I was merely a database, but he was someone who used that information to act—”
“—The Ace Detective?” I asked.
Bruno nodded wordlessly.
This interaction was how the roles of the Information Broker and the Ace Detective played out.
We’d tackled our missions together that way since time immemorial.
“However, he forced Pandora’s box open, came into contact with the world’s taboo, and died.”
When Bruno said “he,” he meant the former Ace Detective. The one who’d come before Siesta and me.
“And he told you about that taboo? About the answer?”
Bruno didn’t answer that question, either. This time, maybe even the Information Broker really didn’t know.
“The one thing I can say is that Pandora’s box still slumbers somewhere in the world.”
“Is what’s inside it the secret the messenger from Another Eden wants? Does the Federation Government have custody of it?”
Bruno started to answer, but just then—
A man in a gas mask pushed the muzzle of a gun against his back.
“Bruno…!”
I was startled, but Bruno only held up his hands, demonstrating that he didn’t plan to resist. Then he grinned and asked the man, “Did you need me for something?”
The world’s wisdom is about to perish.
The letter that had been sent to our agency flitted through my mind.
Then the man in the gas mask marched Bruno away at gunpoint.
“It’s all right.” As he left, Bruno smiled at me. “In every era, I believe in the Ace Detective.”
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