Location: Training City
Time: Tokino-48 year (2108), Feb. 14 (Tue) 12:41
I played my part, and unsurprisingly, everything worked out the way Alexis thought it would. It was a little unsettling that she seemed to know that Karen would be killed by her sister. Even more so that she specifically told me not to interfere.
But anyone in my profession knew not to ask questions about things like that.
After giving Emily and Olivia the address I put some distance between us before retrieving the envelope from my shoe. This time I didn’t give myself any time to reconsider. I ripped the envelope open and read the message she left for me.
‘Hassan will target Alec Alexander on the night of the 14th. It doesn’t matter where he goes or who is with him, Hassan will confront him.’
Straightforward, and in all likelihood, completely accurate. I had no idea why Hassan would be going after Alec, but that didn’t matter. I knew I should just trust Alexis and put all of this behind me.
Yet I found myself running in the direction of the address I was instructed to give to Emily and Olivia.
It was still only noon. I had time to check in with Alexis, right?
I mean come on, how could I not? There was way too much about this that just didn’t sit right with me. Too many loose ends.
Or maybe there were no ends at all, and that’s what was making me feel so uncomfortable about this.
I’m the one who was supposed to be sneaking around setting the stage. So why did I feel like I had become an extra in Alexis’s grand performance?
No. I couldn’t leave it like that.
Besides, I still don’t understand what was preventing me from just opening that second envelope from the beginning.
I picked up my pace in order to guarantee I’d be able to finish my talk with Alexis before the other two could make it there.
It didn’t take me long to reach her. I considered trying to sneak inside, but ultimately decided against it. I just entered through the front door, like a normal person.
The inside of the building was mostly just open space, so it was easy to spot Alexis instantly. She was making some adjustments on some kind of growth chamber in the center of the room. I couldn’t make out the details, but there was a body floating inside it.
“Kamiya Kazuko. I typically don’t do walk-ins, but I figured you’d show up. Not pleased with the information I gave you?”
“Ignoring the fact that I never asked for it, I’m a little too pleased.”
“Is that such a problem?”
“Sometimes it can be. Whenever things are going too well it’s usually a sign that you’ve missed something.”
“Then it’s a good thing that I don’t miss anything.”
Alexis seemed content to just continue with that pointless back and forth.
“How are you certain that Hassan will target Alec Alexander tonight?”
“Because I heard it from the man himself.”
Huh? Didn’t she just drop a bombshell?
“So you’ve been in contact with Hassan? For how long?”
Depending on her answer, Alexis might need to be investigated further.
“I’m in contact with a lot of people, it’s easy to lose track.”
“Why were you in contact with him?”
“Are you familiar with the philosopher’s stone?”
It wasn’t nice to answer a question with a question, but I decided to play along.
“Before I came to this city? No. But I’ve learned a bit about it since then.”
“I would imagine. It’s what Enki is looking for after all.”
I already knew that. Hassan, or Enki if you wanted to call him that, had been on a crime spree stealing famous relics. He came to this city because it was the last known location of the philosopher’s stone.
“I know that about 20 years ago it vanished, seemingly into thin air.”
Looking for it now was pointless. Twenty years had gone by without a single hint as to what could have happened to it. There was no reason to believe it was even in Velstand anymore.
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“Exactly. Here’s the thing about that though. It was actually-”
She stopped mid sentence.
“What?”
“No, this is the part where the free trial ends. This is my new sales tactic, how do you like it? If you want the rest you’ll have to create an account and subscribe. Or you could just pay me.”
I should have figured. Why would an information broker give out anything for free?
“What do you want? Information?”
“No, not this time. I’ve already got everything I can from you. I just want you to put in a good word for me next time you talk to your boss.”
That made sense. It was always a good idea to try and build connections.
“Alright, easy enough. I’ll tell him all about how amazing and helpful Alexis Albright is.”
“So as I was saying.” Alexis wasted no time getting back into her explanation. “It was actually me who stole that shiny little rock all those years ago. Can you believe it?”
“No, I can’t.”
“Try harder then, because I did.”
“No, that’s impossible.”
I thought about asking her why she'd steal something like that as a child. Ultimately I decided not to. I could tell that it was the kind of question she probably wouldn’t answer.
At least, not without a price tag that I wasn’t willing to pay.
“As impossible as sending a letter ten years into the past? Or as impossible as getting you to do a job after giving you the reward upfront?”
“Even more impossible. There’s no way you managed to steal something so well protected as a child. Your augmentation wouldn’t even help with something like that.”
“Well, it doesn't bother me if you believe it or not, I’ll just continue on. The important thing I wanted to say is that I decided to store the stone somewhere safe. I made sure to siphon off some of the stone's supernatural properties for use with this thing,” she knocked on the scanning pod beside the growth chamber she was working on. “But as for the stone itself, it was way too dangerous to hold onto myself. Especially at that age. So I put it somewhere no one would look. Inside an otherwise completely normal baby.”
I wanted to laugh, but her face was completely serious.
“So, let me get this straight. You’re telling me you stole the philosopher’s stone, took some of its power, and then hid it inside the body of a baby?”
“That’s basically right, but you’re thinking about it the wrong way. I didn’t just shove it down some kid’s throat, that wouldn’t work at all.”
“Probably not, no.”
“See, the stone is special because when supplied with enough energy, it can break down and reconstruct anything. Physical objects, memories, living creatures, even an entire personality could be broken down and reconstructed in another body. Obviously, that means it can work on itself as well. So I used the stone to perfectly break itself down, storing the resulting energy inside of the baby. In that form it was totally undetectable, but if you know how to activate it, you can reclaim it from the baby’s body. Well, it’s been almost twenty years now, so he’s not really a little kid anymore.”
“And that baby was Alec Alexander?”
Rather than use any more time, I skipped right to the end.
“Exactly. Interestingly enough, he developed an augmentation because of all the excess energy I stored inside of him.”
“Alright then, let’s say I believe all of this. I get why Hassan would want to go after Alec, but how would he know he had the stone?”
The two of them already had a run in once before, and Hassan clearly didn’t notice.
“That’s easy, because I told him everything I just told you.”
An answer I should have been expecting, but it surprised me nonetheless.
“I traded that information for this thing.” This time she knocked on the growth chamber.
At the end of day, she was nothing more than an information broker. A good one, for sure, but there wasn’t anything more to it than that. Honestly, I was starting to feel stupid for overthinking all of this.
“Wow, should you really be telling me that? I might let Alec know later. Are you going to swear me to secrecy?”
“Of course not. We both know that nothing stays hidden. Tell whoever you want. I’m an information broker, not a police officer. I don’t owe anything to Alec or anyone else. I’m only concerned with my clients' requests.”
She really was a professional. Probably more so than myself. I already wasted enough time talking with her.
“Hey, one more thing though. Answer this and I’ll throw in an extra compliment about you when I make a call back to Japan. Why did you include that second envelope with your list of requests? What was stopping me from just opening it from the start?”
“Nothing was stopping you. And I always do things the way I do them because that’s the optimal solution. You can be a rather contrary young man at times. That’s why I had to go to such extreme lengths to even get you to join the ATC. Anything less and you wouldn’t budge. And if I just gave you a list of demands, you would have tried to bargain with me. That would have wasted time and you would’ve missed the chance to organize the teams the way I wanted. One of the other students would get caught, and then Karen would be on high alert. But by already giving you the reward, I could completely eliminate the chance that you’d try to bargain with me.”
“But that still doesn't explain why you thought I’d actually follow through with your demands.”
“They say that honesty begets honesty. There’s no trick to it. I just thought that you’d act the way I wanted you to.”
“Do you really think you know me that well?”
“If this incident proves anything, it’s that I know you better than you know yourself. The only thing that stopped you from opening that second envelope was yourself.”
She was right, and that was why it was so annoying. The more she stared at me the more vulnerable I felt. My entire purpose was to be unknown, yet she made me feel like everything I would ever be was on display. She might have only had one eye, but it felt like I was being watched by thousands.
Alexis Albright.
I couldn’t pinpoint anything specifically, but that woman was dangerous. More dangerous than anything the Kamiya Group could handle. She described using and outsmarting me as if it were nothing more than an unavoidable outcome. Not to mention how casual she was about seeing a ten year plan come to fruition.
She did all of that work for what? To get me to do a few simple jobs for her? For any normal person, there must have been a thousand easier solutions, but she did something that no one else could replicate.
To her, such an extravagant plan was as simple as anything else.
“By the way, there’s one more question that you’re not asking, but I imagine that soon enough you’ll really want the answer. Well, at least Kanon will want to know. Feel free to send her to my office when the time comes. I’m pretty busy, but I’ll leave some time for her. I’m going to charge her of course. She’ll need to do me a few favors. This whole thing is mostly my fault, but I never work for free. It goes against my ethics.”
I left without inquiring any further as to what she was talking about. I’m not sure what she thought I forgot to ask, but there was no point in asking. It would probably become apparent soon enough.
Dealing with her any longer would just make things more complicated.