Note: This chapter explains a lot, but at the same time, it makes references to Absit Omen (the prequel story to Against the Wind).
The music:
Lisa Gerrard - Marantha
Sarah McLachlan - Angel
Theater of Tragedy - Angelique
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Against the Wind
Chapter Eleven
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"Make him shut up. This is painful."
Afloat on fire that singed the edges of his consciousness, Watari gasped. Sans the heat inside, it was warm around him, he noticed, even as he continued to lie still. He had yet to gather the strength to dare to open his eyes.
"What the hell have you done?"
A faint brush of sound against his mind and his muscles twitched in a sparse response to what he expected to be a harsh touch, and what was nothing save another gentle breeze of warmth. Slowly, carefully, it washed over him. A caress, he mused.
"Silence. Both of you."
Cautious, aware of himself though boneless and strangely calm, he tried to move, instinct bidding him to shy away from that commanding voice. It played a too familiar string of bitterness and vice and now, whatever the place, it would not reach out for him again. He would not be taken. Not this time.
They talked, somewhere nearly out of his hearing range; muffled sounds as though, just by the strength of his wish, he had crawled away and hidden from their curious eyes. And they fought, and someone moaned in pain but it wasn't him. It could not have been.
I think I'm falling, he thought absently. Startled at the clarity of the sound of his own thoughts, he shivered. Let me.
He felt the warm current of air caress him again, and he could no longer resist the impulse to look around. He opened his eyes, squinting at the bright assault. Wiped clean from the traces of deceit that had broken him apart, his surroundings were again pristine white.
Pain was just a memory, yet he should have felt it – he remembered now, how it had burned him; how it turned to ash the urge to run and the loathing and his shame. And his anger – it was gone, replaced with a sense of serenity that enveloped him even as he moved and carefully sat up.
You heard me, he thought, and it had to be his voice that echoed through the invisible walls. Mother. How?
He had called for her as he had crossed the threshold of his own resilience and it seemed like the last thing left to save him from turning into dust. It was not real, he knew – his body was not there, and he felt as though the flesh that held him was none of the binding cage he knew from each and every day on that netherworld plane. It felt real, and yet it didn't – he brought himself none of the expected pain as he pulled hard at a stray strand of his hair.
So he stood, and his breath caught – he could swear something picked him off the ground and held him; warm arms he could not see, a feather-light coil that lifted him up. And that warm breeze brushed at his hands, a gentle swirl across his cheek, around his neck.
Where are you?
It was there – a faint sensation at the back of his mind. Familiar, and yet so different; it did not violate him, this time. Like a presence within him – a part of him, once he thought of that – it made itself known, reestablished the link he vaguely remembered. But how?
In a half-daze of calm he failed to understand, and confusion at what had happened, he slowly turned around. The brightness blinded him, he thought briefly – and then it adjusted itself to a softer shade of gray. Watari rubbed his eyes; he could hear his breath, steady like the beating of his heart. Even and calm, just like his mind - as though the spectrum of emotions he knew he should feel had been locked away, too far to let it sink into him as long as he stayed where he was now.
He spotted movement out of the corner of his eye and frowned. There was what looked like a reflective surface in his line of sight. It could have been near or far – he could not estimate distance in that monotone space that surrounded him from all sides. And as he glanced down, a roughly drawn path appeared beneath his feet, leading straight towards nothingness far ahead of him. There, the only tangible sight was his own reflection, moving in slow waves that rippled softly on the surface of glass.
He took a step, and another; his feet were light, his body weightless. So he started along the path, unsure, half-expecting everything around him to change any second and knock him off his feet one more time. He remembered clearly – she had been there; Tategami, the one he had thought dead and gone for all that time. She had held a grudge, and revenge was hers as he had entered that place. Another illusion that took him by surprise and pushed him over the edge.
His reflection rippled again around the edges as he approached, slowly dissipating into a blurry image of dark contours and shadows. They might have lain beyond, or maybe it was just another illusion and Watari felt his curiosity grow. He walked faster until he could move no further and stood face to face with a screen-like wall. He blinked back confusion at what it showed.
"Move over. He needs help."
Touya. Her small frame was shaking with anger. Watari frowned. She fixed her stare on the dark god – Enma's distorted face turned into a blur as Watari looked at him. He liked it that way. He needed no reminders of that spoiled loathing that contorted that face. Yet it was his own body that made him shudder as he cast down his eyes, following Touya who dropped to the floor to catch him as he fell. It could have been someone else, not him, for the lack of connection Watari felt with the limp form.
If they're there... he thought, watching; like a spectacle on the screen, actors playing their roles. But I'm there, too. And here. Wait.
As he looked around again, he held his breath. I've been here before.
"Get out. Just go!"
An aura of warmth wrapped tighter around him; it kept him separated from the images he watched, from Touya's anguished cry and the sight of Enma turning on his heel before he walked away from the scene. And that thought; it refused to leave – Watari knew that place, and the presence within him, and as a clear picture of comprehension began to form, he smiled.
Is this what it looks like to you? he thought. The images changed, the view shifting smoothly in front of his eyes. His lifeless body in Touya's arms, and her quiet words, but this place overwhelmed him and Watari squashed the sudden thought that soon, he would have to go.
I remember now. Scattered pieces of memories flashed in his mind and he turned around – the interface around him began to change, in sketchy lines drawn by a timid hand. Here was a bench, and the sakura trees all around, and the sun. With artificial cold tinting the sunbeams that peeked through the branches, yet almost real and deceptively warm. And he knew; this had been the best Mother could have done for him, back then, and now he was reminded of where he had found his hiding place twenty five years before.
There was air there – an illusion, he knew - but he drew a deep breath anyway. The breeze had turned cool and he felt a soft mist cast over his eyes.
Is this all right? he wondered, heedless of the affairs outside that virtual place. It felt strangely like home, as though he had returned after long years of having been missed. Driven by the urge to turn around – a nagging at his thoughts that would not let go – he glanced over his shoulder at the mirror-like wall.
Dissolved into a distant afterimage of dark contours and a soft addition of muffled sounds, Touya's silhouette holding his own in her arms was suddenly irrelevant. It was his reflection there that drew his eyes and Watari watched, entranced, how what looked like him reached out one hand, waiting, dark amber eyes locked on his. But he wasn't moving, save the heaving of his chest as his breathing quickened – it was not him in that mirror, even as his eyes tried to convince him otherwise.
I don't want to go back, his thoughts echoed again and the look on the reflected face changed. Watari shifted his eyes to catch a glimpse of the outstretched hand. I'm tired of pain.
And something in his mind told him that he could stay, even as he moved at last and touched the cool surface with his own hand. It had bidden him welcome and he knew he was not imagining any of this. She had tried to save him; somehow, the once lifeless machine and her endless streams of variables and values had gained a life of her own.
It was just cold glass under his fingertips, but the corners of Watari's lips curled up in a bright smile. I know you, he thought; a wordless acknowledgment of something he had felt all along. An echo answered him, a whisper among his thoughts. You know me, too. Mother.
Why his own image? He wondered, watching that too-familiar face, rather expressionless yet trying to convey meanings where words failed. And as the other hand reached out as well and he stepped closer to stand eye to eye with... himself? Watari felt something in him understand.
"You are me," he whispered. His voice had a sound no different from his thoughts, in that place. "And I am you," he said with a slow nod of his head. He almost laughed as that reflection mirrored his gesture, no sooner than after a while. It was brilliant, he thought. He had done so much more than he had ever dared let himself dream of.
He chased away the thoughts of another illusory trick; that very display in front of his eyes, and that feeling, connected every scattered piece of the puzzle he had run into over time. He would prove it. That had to be the answer to every instance of information acquired despite failures, every inexplicable disappearance of his tracks in the system while he knew for a fact he had yet to take care of that. And that message - sent from here, he was sure of it – it had told Konoe, as best as it could, to help him.
Too late for that, he thought sourly. But perhaps it was not yet too late to wrench Mother, and himself, out of Enma's greedy grasp.
I have to go now, he thought, careful to give his inner voice a gentle tone. But I'll be back.
He met resistance; merely a feeling that urged him to pay the new ideas no heed, turn back and sit under the sakura trees. But he had to make her obey; she had kept him there before, much longer than she should have. He had blamed his former colleagues but now, as he focused to figure out a way to control it, he could not help the second thoughts. Perhaps, if the nature of his connection to Mother exceeded the technical aspect Watari knew about, it had never been severed and keeping him inside had been the only idea Mother had to save him, when things got out of hand during the final testing run.
Now, he had to go back, gather his thoughts and come up with something resembling a plan. With the lack of a terminal of any sort, he visualized the termination of the program and soon, he felt himself slip loose from the grasp of the artificial warmth. He braced himself, expecting his physical body to serve him with another set of signs of its displeasure at the rapid changes and the hardware it was forced to carry. So he let out a slow breath, with one thought in his mind, and the bright day around him turned dark.
The room whirled around him as Watari blinked and opened his eyes. Wincing, he tried to move; his body obeyed the orders of his mind, though not without residual pain that still burned along his spine. He turned his head. Touya's face was blurry. His glasses were gone, but he could see her well enough. She sat on her heels, by his side, quick hands working a disposable syringe and a small bottle of something he could not identify.
"Thank goodness," she said tiredly. "I'm sorry, Watari-san. The system went crazy and Tategami--"
"Switched the programs," he said, grasping her hand as Touya took his arm. He sat up, biting down on his lip to distract himself from the discomfort of doing so. "I know. Tricky, I'll give her that. I had a curious ride."
She frowned, turning a pointed look towards the syringe. "Let me give you this. You suffered a severe shock reaction. It made you start rejecting the chips." Sighing at Watari's suspicious stare, Touya shrugged. "It's just an anti-inflammatory drug."
"Then it won't change anything." Watari looked up. "I've had enough of drugs to last me quite a while. Besides, it's all right. I think I know where I stand, so there's no need for that."
Touya shook her head as Watari gently pushed her hand away. "Your call. But I'm not sure it's the wisest decision you can make now."
Watari scrambled to his knees, mentally willing his sore body into obedience. "Appreciate the concern," he said, brushing his hair off his face. "But all I need right now is to verify what I've just found out."
Reluctant, Touya withdrew her hand and put the syringe away. "Tomorrow. Right now, you need rest."
"No." Watari gave his head a shake. "This is big. Bigger than I thought."
Something akin to fear flickered in the Head Researcher's dark eyes. "What is?" she asked.
"Mother," Watari said. A new rush of excitement electrified him as he thought back to what he had seen. "I sort of suspected that before, but now I know for a fact that the total of her signs of sentience are--"
"Don't be ridiculous, Watari-san," Touya cut in sharply. Her usually gentle eyes took on a cold, stern look. "It's a sophisticated machine, but to say that it displays the characteristics of—"
"I know what I saw." Annoyed, however slightly, Watari had heard enough and took his turn to interrupt. "What I felt, if you find that sort of input convincing enough."
Touya leaned in, face to face with him, and looked him straight in the eye. "If your medical knowledge doesn't reach that far, let me inform you that you still fall under most of the rules of the human physiology. Your state for the past fifteen minutes happened to be complete unconsciousness." She took a deep breath. "In other words, any memories you retain are hallucinations. Nothing more."
"Look." Watari stood. "I don't think it was a part of Tategami's program. I'm pretty sure I did not imagine this, either."
Touya pursed her lips as she, too, rose to her feet. "Can you prove that you didn't?"
Watari crossed his arms. "Can you prove that I did?"
"I would not argue if I weren't able to prove my point, Watari-san."
There was something like fear, still; it lingered at the edge of her gaze, showed in her stance. She tried for defiance, Watari noticed as he looked at her. She had left something unsaid in between the lines, and her pose fell apart. He would make sure to find out what.
"I can prove mine," he said. "And I will." I just have to find a way to do that behind your back, his inner voice added to that.
"Right now, you are going to rest," Touya said. She reached out her hand, yet faltered, apparently changing her mind. "It's late. You're supposed to be ready to work in the morning, and I'm supposed to make sure you are. And if we fail this time because you've got your priorities wrong, Enma will be on your case and on mine. I don't think either of us is looking forward to that."
"Fine, fine." Watari shrugged. "I'll be here. But I can very well start now."
Touya looked up at him with narrowed eyes. "Forget it," she said. "I'm sorry, but whether you like it or not, you'll do as I say. I won't clear this, and don't even think of attempting unauthorized entrance from here." She gave him a small bow and turned around. "Goodnight."
Watari watched her leave, raising one sandy eyebrow as she shut the door behind her with a too loud thud. Something was bothering her, he mused; from the moment he had mentioned Mother, Touya was more high strung than she seemed to have had the reason to be. His brow drew together and Watari pressed two fingers to the bridge of his nose. Something still failed to add up in this grand puzzle. He would be damned if he did not figure it out.
Squinting, he looked around. The fuzzy blur of a room was a clear enough memory in his mind. Twenty five years earlier, he had thought his affairs with the Five Generals had come to a definite end. There, in that room, he had thought he had sure every part of his work that had kept him bound had been destroyed. By his own hand. I should have known, he thought bitterly. It went too smoothly to have been enough.
He took a step back. The sound of crushed glass made him take a sharp turn and he looked down. Kneeling on the floor, he let out a quiet groan. There went his glasses. Cursing under his breath, he picked up the broken spectacles and sighed.
"A lesser of the recent signs of bad luck," he muttered to himself. "It can always get worse, right?"
He brushed one hand across his face, then collected the few small fragments of glass before someone – or he – stepped on them again. Graceful did not describe him well, tonight. So he stood, crossed the room, and put whatever was left of his glasses on the desk. He swallowed hard; he remembered that place too well. Newer equipment, and the people had changed as well; yet to him, it suddenly seemed as though much less time had passed since he had last been there.
He had dealt with Hinote Katai, his former second in command, in that very room. That man had paid the highest price for every wrongdoing of his design. Watari had not taken lightly to his betrayal of trust, and Hinote had fallen under the force of his accumulated wrath. Right there – ironically enough, near the place where Watari himself had lain not long ago.
That night, he had been asked the question that stayed with him even as he left this place and moved on. Was it worth it? He had been asking himself often afterward. Quarter of a century ago, he did not know; but the more time passed, Watari was ever the more certain that the answer was 'no'.
Yet now, he knew, it was at least worth it to think again. Mother. He had given her life, and he did not know how. He wondered if Touya did. Or if she ever wanted him to find out. Her words had been quick, but in her face, unwelcome surprise had shown. The Head Researcher of all people, he thought, should have been aware of something as important as that. And yet it puzzled him. To keep such a secret, to hope he would be there and stay unaware, was naïve – if not worse.
Tempted to find out how much Touya's warning was worth, Watari chuckled at his broken glasses. Well, at least he would not feel so bad about complying despite his urge to plunge straight into solving the problem that boggled his mind. He did not remember consciously using his power on Mother; not then, not now, not ever – and the strength of their connection left him without doubt that it must have been his doing. He remembered the feeling, how she touched his mind. No matter what they did, they could not have forged something as strong as that.
He would find a way to go back, alone, and figure it out. Perhaps Mother's memory stored hints that could push him onto the right track. He did not want any of them to know if he found anything relevant, though perhaps there was no good way around that. He had only one way to find out.
Tomorrow. He would go in again, and maybe, if he tried hard enough, he could start working towards regaining the upper hand.
He left the room, hard pressed to stop himself from looking back. That place had haunted his dreams often, long ago. Yet even when it stopped, and Watari had put those memories away in the farthest corner of his mind, he could not have escaped the feeling that, one day, he would come back.
Sometimes, he hated being right.
--
Watari brushed the light switch with his fingers, but thought better of it as he returned to his room. Instead, he left the door slightly ajar. The dull throbbing in his temples would not appreciate the hard light, but he did not fancy sitting in the impenetrable darkness, either. The filtered air left his eyes dry; he rubbed at them and blinked a few times to make heads and tails of the bleary contours of black against the grim gray of the walls.
The unfamiliar interior, and the very atmosphere, did nothing to lift his heart. So he smiled, to himself – or maybe, subconsciously, to the image of Tatsumi in his mind's eye that formed there as Watari glanced at his own long shadow splashed across the floor.
He let out a quiet sigh and sat down on the futon by the wall. Such a gloomy place. He had been driven, once, to complete oblivion to things such as that. Ambition, the unquenchable desire for achievement, had put his work before everything else. He would not have cared, twenty five years back. But now, he caught his thoughts wandering to the previous night, yet again. He suddenly realized that, sweet as it had been, it returned with a painful pang in his heart.
He knew he should not have let that happen. One more thing to miss, now that it was out of his reach. The simple pleasure of sharing warmth, of falling asleep in somebody's arms. No... not somebody's, he thought, burying his face in his hands. In Tatsumi's arms. It was a gift, he told himself, and he should cast away the thoughts of how, in the end, it made leaving all the more difficult for him.
The ghosts of Tatsumi's arms whispered around him, in the alluring darkness of that room; every silent shadow he had passed in the corridor as he walked back reminded him of what he had left behind.
You are Watari Yutaka. My partner.
Over and over again, he replayed the words in his mind and his memory held every subtle nuance of Tatsumi's voice. He could speak so gently, when he spoke from his heart, Watari thought as he lay back. He crossed his arms under his head and closed his eyes, to restrain the unbidden tears that began to burn therein. Of all things, going soft right now would be a mistake. He had to be strong. Had to keep his thoughts clear.
He could do it. There had to be a way. Even Enma had a weakness, and it was his greed. Perhaps he had more in mind than just his personal gain, but Watari was no longer blind. It was not his victory; not anymore, once Enma got what he'd wanted all along. It would be his prison, and if he could help it, Watari would take any tainted kind of freedom over captivity any day.
Yet the illusions had made him question too much, too often, and it scared him more than he cared to admit. Perhaps all of this was just another game. He could not tell once, how could he trust his own perception again? It would have been convenient, to make him believe what he did was real. And even if he won, he wondered, how brilliant a trick on Enma's part would that be? To convince him that he was free. Watari would let go, yet he would live inside his mind, with Mother to keep him company, and the people who were nothing but what he wanted them to be.
He treated himself to a harsh reprimand as he tossed his head from side to side. Anything to stop the dark thoughts from invading his mind. Real or not, he had no choice but to go on. Yet now he was alone; he could heed the impulse to curl up and screw his eyes shut to escape the darkness of those thoughts.
And he did. He wrapped his arms around himself to remember the gentle touch; it had been his, just last night. But not anymore. Fingers carding through his hair – could he convince himself that they were not his own? It was not his hand now, but Seiichirou's; and maybe, if he tried hard enough, he would hear another heart beating along with his. Sound by sound, word by word, he chased away all save those good memories that kept him warm.
But it did not work. Disappointed, but not overly surprised, Watari sighed. Sleep would not come, either, much as he needed it. He had so much to do, and who knew how little time, before everything was ready and he lost his chance to finish what he had started his own way.
Tossing and turning annoyed him. He used to toy with his projects on the sleepless nights. That option gone, he rose anyway, and reached for the bag that sat in the chair, brought by whoever had gone to his apartment to fetch a few of his necessary things. He fished in it for his hair brush and tossed the bag away. It would be a long night, he thought.
Knotted without the ribbon, his hair needed a long while of untangling and pulling to bring it back to something resembling a decent state. But not long enough. Soon, Watari was pacing the room again, absently twirling a thick golden strand around his hand. He needed a plan. He needed information as well, but Touya, nice as she seemed, did not strike him as one to answer the sort of questions he wanted to ask. Tategami would know – she became a part of Mother years ago and Watari doubted there were many secrets she did not know about. Tough luck. The past twelve hours had shown him she was the last person in Meifu inclined to help him in any way.
The others... Watari did not suppose they knew much at all. Unless you played a crucial part, you were better off not getting too interested in what did not figure in your job description. Once again, he thought, he ended up completely on his own.
He tossed the brush onto the bag and reached in his pocket for a hair tie. Force of habit, he mused with a sad smile. His last one found a new home, the day before. Tatsumi would probably ponder the sense of his leaving that thing behind. Not that he would have had any use for a hair ribbon, with his hair so short.
Footsteps in the hall, he thought, and turned towards the door. The faint light down the corridor did only so much to disperse the darkness of that windowless place. But no sooner than a few seconds later did he see a darker shadow growing wider in the crack in the door. He frowned.
The sounds faded; the black shadow ceased to move.
"Come with me," said a whisper-soft voice. "We need to talk."
Watari raised his eyebrows in slight surprise. Some change of front, that, Touya-san. He tucked his hair behind his ears and shivered; not with the cold, but with something like anticipation that made his skin tingle.
Touya started back down the hall, waiting for neither his reply nor for Watari to follow. But follow her he did, curious what 'talk' stood for and what made the Head Researcher change her mind. His shoes made loud clicking noises against the tiled floor, in a strange, uneven echo to Touya's, until the woman disappeared in one of the rooms. The door moaned on its hinges, left open and still in light swing as he caught up with her.
Already bent over her computer, Touya typed something with one hand, waving the other one over her shoulder. "Close the door," she said.
Watari did as much. An electronic lock made a single beeping sound on engage. He turned around.
It had to be her private quarters, he concluded, if the stacks of magazines, newspapers that sat on the floor, and the thick volumes on almost every flat space were any indication. Touya herself straightened herself and dug into the pocket of her lab coat for something Watari did not manage to identify. She whirled in a flurry of dark hair and white coat and hurried past him without a word.
He watched with quirked eyebrows as she plastered a carefully inked fuda on the door and turned to him with a grin. "Out of sight, out of mind. And out of the hearing range, for that matter."
She flipped the light switch. Watari winced, the sudden brightness too harsh on his eyes.
"You're still in pain," Touya stated matter-of-factly. Watari sent her wordless congratulations for perceptiveness in the form of a wry smile.
She produced a small bottle from one of her pockets and tossed it to him. Watari caught it, but barely, in both hands, cursing his earlier clumsiness hundredfold.
"You do need your glasses," Touya chuckled a little as she shed her lab coat and discarded it onto one of the chairs. She gave him a critical look and turned off the light, in favor of a smaller lamp on her desk.
Watari cleared his throat. "Yeah. The search party reported it as unfortunate casualty earlier tonight."
"I'm not going to ask." Touya perched herself down on the chair, indicating the other one across the table. "Have a seat."
With a deep breath, Watari nodded and did as he had been told. He watched the woman closely now through slightly squinted eyes. More relaxed than before, there was still something tense in her posture, something defensive in how she crossed her arms under her breasts.
"I'm sorry I brushed you off before," she started. "But you need to learn to get the hint." Dark eyes glanced over at the door, then focused back on Watari's face. "If something looks like it can help your case and you're not sure if it's common knowledge, assume it isn't.
Her words registered and Watari's heart skipped a beat. "I wasn't aware of having a case going," he said. Studying her face for hints of reaction that would tell him she was baiting him did not help. Touya only rolled her eyes.
"I'll be damned if you aren't." She looked at her wristwatch. "For the next half an hour, these," she pointed at the fuda on the door, and three similar ones on the walls, "and the fact that Tategami's undergoing maintenance, if you'll pardon the phrasing, mean that nothing you say will leave this room in any shape or form."
Watari cast her a dark look from under the cover of his lashes. "Sure. I can't go any further down, so might as well dish out my ingenious, nonexistent plan to overthrow Enma and take his place."
Chuckling, Touya leaned back in her chair. "I'm not sure I'd want his job, and I doubt that's even remotely close to what you're after."
Watari's expression of focus did not falter; Touya's laughter not in the least contagious. He remained silent.
"All right. If you put it that way." Touya got up. "It boils down to what you were saying earlier, though I'm not sure how much you figured out, so I was hoping you would tell me." She crossed the room and opened a small cupboard.
Watari watched her every move, weighing his options all the while. She was up to something. It had to do with him, too, and he could not yet decide whether he liked it at all.
Back by the table, Touya set a plastic bottle of water in front of him and walked away again. She flipped the power switch on an electric kettle, silent for a while as she prepared two porcelain cups, and reached for a black, nondescript container that sat on the counter top.
"Coffee?" she asked.
Watari shook two pills from the bottle onto his hand and popped them in his mouth. He chased them down with a generous sip of the cool water. "I wouldn't mind."
Touya nodded and reassigned herself to her task. When she spoke again, her tone was a conversational one.
"If you don't want to talk, I'll start," she said. "You left quite a mess behind you. I guess you already know it was rather harmless in the end, considering your sabotage would have blown the Project if they hadn't been prepared for that."
Watari shrugged. "Tategami took a real pleasure in the way she informed me of that," he said, his voice sour. So he was in for a recap of his grand failure, now. He twirled the bottle in his hands to work off the uncomfortable feeling of shame that welled up in his gut.
"Well, that doesn't really surprise me, but we'll get to that," Touya said as she poured the steaming water into the cups. "After you vanished, the techs in charge of restoring Mother's database reported a series of strange occurrences. They retrieved the data pertaining to the live capture software your virus corrupted, but that was a given..." She paused as she turned and met Watari's eyes. "The main concern lay in backing everything up, in case you discovered the scheme, somehow, and came down on it again. And that's where they ran into the first wall."
Watari swallowed hard, tempted to let his tongue loose and retort with a vicious comment or two, but he kept his silence. Listening to the details of how he had been tricked angered him more than he cared to admit. It hurt more than his pride, too.
Touya returned to the table with two cups of coffee. She set one in front of Watari and went back to reclaim her seat. "The system failed to execute the maintenance software once the backup drives were installed. They tried manually copying the files onto the external disks, but with no luck. The entries turned up empty, like the disks themselves were corrupted, or incompatible, but Mother reported no errors like that. The techs tried repeatedly until the only option left was a total overhaul."
Almost again his will, a haughty grin pulled at one side of Watari's mouth. "Must have been frustrating."
Touya let out a quiet snort. "Imagine that. Better yet, it didn't help. Mother's functionality was restored, though; all apart from that. Besides the transmissions between the main unit and your terminal, no data was permitted outside the system in any shape or form." She broke off to take a sip of her coffee, then waved her hand. "Mind you, I wasn't here to see that, myself. The curious thing is that not all of it was in the official reports. But people talked."
Watari sipped down on his own coffee. The porcelain cup felt pleasantly warm in his cold hands. "That figures," he said after a while.
Touya gave a small nod of her head. "I went over everything a good number of times, back and forth. I was curious what you did and how you did it. I'd never seen anything like that before."
To his knowledge, the virus he had planted had no right to cause damage of such sort. Loath as he was to admit it, Watari had not thought such radical methods would have been necessary at all. Not my doing, he mused, but he kept that thought to himself. For the time being, at least. He nodded for her to go on.
"There was nothing at first sight, but that was impossible. No computer, Mother least of all, goes mad like that on its own. So I went back to the beginning. The data recovery program dug up a fair share of your private work, but apart from that, it spat out a number of things I was told were gone beyond retrieval. An obvious lie, that; I didn't have much trouble getting it back. And when I put it together, I arrived at an impressive collection of reports from those three months when you were comatose. In the words of one Hinote Katai, who oversaw the research..."
Touya sifted through a stack of papers on the table and retrieved one sheet. "The first anomaly was registered on July the twenty fourth, 1982," she read, "immediately after the attempt at disconnecting test subject one, KinU, from the system. The resulting critical error destabilized Mother, causing an immediate rejection of GyokuTo and destruction of her physical form."
Watari's eyes widened in shock. For a moment, the dead silence rang in his ears. His heart pounded in his chest, his mouth went dry.
"This is not in the reports, but I suspect Hinote wrote you off. They wanted to finalize the Project at any cost, and you didn't suit their purpose anymore." Touya shrugged. "Either way, their attempt at killing you the second time backfired, and they ended up with leftovers of Tategami, you, and Mother... with a mind of her own."
Watari swallowed around the annoying dryness before he remembered he had been clutching his coffee cup and took a sip, careful not to choke as he pushed it down his constricted throat. The information overload flashed through his mind and, as he tried to remember to breathe, Watari stared into his cup.
"It didn't add up," Touya continued, "until Enma let me in on everything and I looked you up. You had natural telekinetic abilities, however insignificant. It translated well to giving inanimate objects your spiritual energy; life, if you will, when you died."
Watari looked up.
Touya met his eyes. "Let me give you a piece of my mind. I believe that failed experiment left your subconsciousness intact enough to know they were about to off you. And since your connection to Mother was also intact, your instinctive defense reaction gave that computer life."
Watari felt as though a numb shell he had been locked in cracked, and he rose rapidly to his feet. The chair toppled over with a loud clatter. He reached to pick it up, with a soft apology muttered under his breath. He cast his mind back to every instance of inexplicable behavior on Mother's part, the latest one included, and set it against what Touya had just said. It made perfect sense.
"The virtual reality emulator was improved upon," he said quickly, half to Touya, half to himself as he paced across the room. "The original problem with real-time content refreshing wasn't an issue anymore because Mother could parse some of the incoming signal on her own. Tell me," he said as he came to a sudden halt. "The illusion before I came here. Who killed the process?"
"Bingo." Touya snapped her fingers. "No one did. It looked like it crashed on our terminals, and perhaps I could have bought into that explanation. Until today."
"Mother killed the program." Half-dazed, Watari felt like he plowed through a thick net of riddles that finally were coming together into a coherent whole.
"She reacts to your emotional extremes, it seems. An overload on the incoming channel works like a command, but her response is based on a very primal instinct and all she can do is what makes the most sense to a computer."
"Freeze the system," Watari whispered. "To avoid further damage."
Touya smiled. "In a way, you could say she saved your life."
"More than once," Watari said as he walked back to the table on somewhat weak legs and sat in his chair. His mind worked in overdrive again. He felt almost exhilarated, despite the mixed feelings brought up by each next rushing thought. "Tategami said it was an error in my programming that did her in. Another little lie on her part, or..."
"It wasn't you." Touya shook her head. "It was Mother."
Momentary confusion derailed his train of thought. Watari chewed absently on the inside of his cheek as he searched for the right words again, among the hundreds of simultaneous ideas that hit him at once. "That makes sense," he agreed. "But in this case, why didn't she just say that Mother did it because of me?"
"She doesn't believe it." Touya set down her cup and folded her hands on the table. "Go figure, she'll take Enma's words over anything, if they point to you. She needs a scapegoat, I guess. Just ignore her. She's a walking vice vial around here, and she's quite commonly known as such."
Watari frowned, even as a soft chuckle escaped him. "I don't believe she values Enma's so-called truth over valid proof."
"Well." It was Touya's turn to rise. She picked up her coffee cup and carried it to the sink. "I don't suppose she knows everything we've just covered. There's not much proof, either. The indications of Mother's sentience could easily pass as glitches, errors, you name it."
"Wouldn't it be possible to pinpoint her unique signature? The pattern--"
"It matches yours." Touya turned. "To the dot. That's no scientifically accepted proof, at this point. Long story short; anyone familiar with your pattern who has ever examined Mother said it was you, and nothing more."
Watari looked at her, but beyond the mist over his eyes, he saw a flash of memory of his own reflection; he remembered that feeling and the moment when, in that virtual reality, it had dawned on him. I am you. You are me.
"The consequences of that carry further than you think." Touya leaned against the table as she spoke. "Mother automatically rejects anyone that isn't you on connection attempt. I tried, myself. Repeatedly." She gave her shoulders a light shrug. "That's what I was originally supposed to do. Though, I guess, in the long run, I'm glad. And you should be, as well."
His eyebrows climbed into his hairline as Watari gave Touya a dubious look. "I'm not sure what I'm missing here because I can't see how I should be happy about that. But you got me curious now."
Touya's face took on a serious expression. "If you're the only one Mother will accept, then you got yourself a hell of a wild card, there. Enma can't get rid of you without blowing the Project, and that's the last thing he's inclined to do. It shoves an enormous advantage right into your hands."
Watari narrowed his eyes. Touya seemed calm, and he tried to maintain a similar image of himself. But inside, he was trembling; on the verge of what could be the chance he had hoped to find, he dared not imagine he had found it just like that.
"Come on." His silence her cue to continue, Touya took a step closer as she spoke. "You want out. For good, not for a while."
Struggling to overcome the loss for words, Watari tried to decide whether he should believe his ears at all. "What business do you have in that?"
With a humorless chuckle, Touya glanced aslant. "I'm not going to waste time trying to convince you there's nothing in this for me. You'll believe me or you won't at your own discretion. But I'll say this: I refuse to take sides until I have no other choice. I can't help you, but I won't stand in your way."
"Why?"
The Head Researcher's expression hardened. "Because no scientific pursuit, much less personal gain, warrants needless cruelty and underhanded mind games." Her eyes shifted over, her gaze resting upon Watari's in a firm stare. "If you can make this blow in Enma's face, maybe you'll get your life back, somehow." Briefly, she closed her eyes. "Maybe you owed this to him, maybe you didn't. The deal was between you and him. But I don't want to stand and watch him drive you mad for the sake of his overblown dreams."
Watari laughed bitterly. He brushed both palms, now damp, across his face. "I wonder, I do."
"This isn't an illusion, if you can take my word for it," she said in a gentle tone. Then she took a step back. "Either way, keep in mind that Tategami has access to everything you do, except when her operating program hibernates during maintenance. Every other day, between one and three in the morning."
Watari smiled and gave her a small, appreciative nod. "Thanks. I'll remember that."
"I told you what I know. It's up to you what you'll do with it. Don't screw it up."
Watari watched Touya pull herself up from her lean. He wondered, not quite believing she had said the truth about the lack of personal gain on her part. Then again, even if she was setting him up, he decided he did not have much more left to lose.
"I'll try," he said. He got up and inclined his head. "Thanks for the coffee."
Touya nodded back. "Anytime."
He crossed the room towards the door, feeling slightly lightheaded. The Head Researcher's voice caught him as he rested his hand on the door handle.
"This is a no-win case, unless you get yourself a strong enough argument to make Enma back down."
Watari felt himself deflate a little. There existed only one thing that could do the trick; he knew all too well. "Mother," he whispered under his breath. He did not look up, even as Touya's quiet steps sounded behind him and the lock on the door disengaged.
"This isn't something you can grab and run. If you try, he won't stop until he tracks you down." Touya paused. She drew a deep, clearly audible breath. "If you can't find a place where he has no power, or where he won't dare to use it, take my advice and don't even try."
His hand clasped tight around the door handle as Watari tried to brace himself. He cast a brief glance over his shoulder. "Right."
The door creaked open. He crossed the threshold; his feet were heavy and a faint throbbing reclaimed residence in his head. Now he needed time to digest it, before the information could be put to use.
"Oh, and Watari-san?" Touya called after him.
Watari started a little at the sudden cheerful tone of her voice. "Yes?"
"There are contact lenses in the drawer of your desk."
He shook his head, not even bothering to suppress a grin. "Thanks, chief."
Watari took his time as he made his way back to his room, trying to gather all the information, the new facts, and contain the mix of heavy anticipation and hope that shook him up. Maybe Touya had lied. Maybe she genuinely wanted to help, but he could not figure her out. Of all she had said, one thing kept bouncing back and forth in his mind. Mother, he thought. The best bet. Or rather the only one he had, he knew; yet it wasn't just as simple as his inner voice made it sound.
A place where Enma's power won't help him get it back.
He shook his head. Wherever he went, he would not be safe. How long could he run, even if he somehow managed to take his winning card far enough from here?
Struck by a sudden thought that left him breathless, he came to a rapid halt. For a while he stood, regaining his breath. There was a place where the political affairs might slap Enma's greedy hand.
Watari closed his eyes against the burning there. "GenSouKai," he whispered to himself.