Tsubaki stepped out of the elevator and into a long hallway with numbered rooms on either side, doors that had flaking white paint, and dusty cheap carpet under foot. At the end of the hallway, a window with tattered blinds framed Kakushin’s towering city skyline. She stopped for a moment and gazed outside, observing a park and a monastery, and a small fleet of drones that flocked through the air like fleeting pigeons. As she followed the trajectory of their flight, she saw that they came from an urban farm, a tall glass building layered with green, across from the monastery. To Tsubaki’s right, the feint sound of rock music was muffled from behind a door. She selected a lockpick from the case in her jacket pocket and got to work.
Once inside, she found that the apartment was bare, much like her own, but untidy, cluttered, with piles of books and records and other items stacked on the floor and the dining room table, on the kitchen counter and in the bathroom. A sticky note on the fridge had the day’s date and a time, 12.30pm, scribbled down. A record player, recently purchased, it seemed, was the source of the rock music. Tsubaki had never been permitted to actively listen to music, and being void of emotions she could recognise that it was more than just noise without the rhythm and melody resonating with her in any way. She knelt down and examined a pile of books. They had been stacked alphabetically. She sniffed the air, opened the door of their pantry to find it almost completely empty, save for a few containers of supplement powders. Things were starting to make sense.
There was a tattered old laptop on the dining room table that Tsubaki was able to hack using a simple decryption program stored on a USB drive. From an email account belonging to Shin Jushinomi, Tsubaki discovered a receipt for a memorial plaque belonging to the local cemetery, and a name: Carter Jushinomi. It appeared that the date of death had been today, exactly one year ago. Jushinomi. Holy shit. Tsubaki knew that name. Jushinomi was the name that two androids had taken upon their escape into Kakushin three years ago. They believed that they were brothers. Tsubaki had been ordered to eliminate them but had failed. They disappeared soon after that. But Shin’s brother had named himself Nil, so Tsubaki could only conclude that he had either changed his name, or there was a third brother. Had there been another? A third? How did he die? And why were they mourning him? Tsubaki thought about that sticky note. She could wait for the brothers to come home, but there was no guarantee that they hadn’t abandoned this place, or any indication of when they might return. Meanwhile, the fugitive androids were out in the open, and it was only a matter of time before they started causing trouble. 12.30pm was a few hours away. Now she had a time and a place. She would find them at the cemetery, and she just wondered what they’d be doing. This entire time Tsubaki realised that she had been tapping her foot to the beat of the music. She stopped herself and left the apartment.
Tsubaki pulled up at the memorial car park which was empty save for a solitary little Honda with faded paint. The sound of her car door slamming was uncharacteristically loud in this quiet serene place. Wind rustled through the garden and blew leaves pattering over polished stone. A square of smooth stone walls lined with silver plaques stood atop some shallow marble stairs. Tsubaki approached slowly, listened for movement, and then stepped around one of the walls. The brothers were there. They didn’t look similar, one was broad-shouldered, the other lean, and they lacked other genetic signifiers of blood relation. This at last confirmed Tsubaki’s suspicions.
The brothers did not speak, even when they noticed Tsubaki standing idle before them. The leaner of the two brothers held a silver plaque in his hand—Carter’s—and he tenderly fitted it onto the wall, then kissed his fingers and touched them to the plaque. Their faces were blank, solemn. Were they truly in mourning? She reminded herself that the emotions these androids experiences weren’t real. They only believed they were in mourning due to a fault in their programming.
Tsubaki’s hand hovered over her gun. She knew what she needed to do, but now, watching these two very peculiar souls, she felt a compulsion to wait, a curiosity, perhaps. Maybe this could lead somewhere. She relaxed her hand and walked forward.
“Hello,” she said, politely. The brothers now watched her carefully, which Tsubaki figured was justified. “My condolences for your brother.”
“Who are you?”
“A friend.” Tsubaki allowed the light in her eyes to flash. “It looks like you’ve been through a lot.”
“You have no idea.”
“Maybe that is true. Listen, I know who you are, where you came from. I was told you could help me, or maybe, that you could point me in the direction of someone who can.”
The brothers looked at each other. They could have been communicating telepathically if they possessed the appropriate hardware, which would actually explain why they had been so difficult to catch in the past. “It’s not that we don’t want to help, but she doesn’t need the attention right now.”
“Please.” Tsubaki stepped forward. “Harry Valentino sent me. He was the one who said you would help. He told me to trust you.”
“Harry? Is he okay?”
“He’s been arrested. Tokyo Robotica raided his laboratory. He wouldn’t get you involved if it wasn’t life or death.”
“Okay.” Again, the brothers looked at each other. “White Palace, it’s a nightclub in town. Be there tomorrow night.”
Tsubaki faked a relieved grin. “Thank you.”
As she turned to leave, she spotted a wooden shrine laden with statues, flowers and incense, dedicated to the spirits of those who had passed and were remembered here. She did her best not to show any sign as a bright light flashed in her mind and she experienced a troubling sense of déjà vu, followed by a feeling like nails being driven into her skull. She pressed her hand hard to her temple and staggered against a wall. She saw the loving face of a man, standing at the shrine, but the background had changed now, just a little. She held a yellow flower in her hands. They were the hands of a little girl.
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