A week passed without any particular incidents, and Saturday arrived for Alexander.
It was a lazy Saturday with no part-time shift scheduled. With nothing in particular to do, Alexander was lying on her bed at home. Around one in the afternoon, just as she was thinking about taking a nap, a jarring beep-beep-beep sound came from the watch on her left wrist. A call was coming in.
“...Tch, damn it.” A laser beam shot out from the watch, displaying a hologram screen in the air. Alexander manipulated the projected light screen and touched the display for 'Answer' with her index finger.
A watch-style communication device. This machine, also known as a wearable terminal. In all of Alusthogrun, the Colt parent and child were probably the only ones still using such an old-fashioned thing. That is how outdated this watch was.
After all, this was an era where wearable terminals, having come full circle, were beginning to be shunned. Wearable terminals were deemed inconvenient and not user-friendly, and a shift was occurring where mobile phones were becoming popular again. People who willingly used a wearable terminal that could not even send an email were a rare breed these days.
`Oh, Alexander. You up?`
“Yeah. Just about to have a nap, actually.”
Projected on the light screen was the annoying face of her father, a face she would rather not see right now. If her father's grinning face were in front of her, she would have punched it by now. That is how cranky Alexander was at the moment. Because she was dead tired.
`I see, you were about to sleep. My bad. But I wanted to let you know. You got a call. A girl, said her name was Yuni. She asked me to pass on a message, wondering if you could meet at a cafe around three this arvo. What was it, I think, Cal, Cal, Ca... Calcium?`
“Ah, probably Caduceus. Got it, tell her I'll be there.” Rubbing her sleepy eyes, Alexander stretched. Finally, she yawned. And she was about to end the call. But just then, her father's expression on the screen turned grim. `Hey, Alexander. `
“What? I'm hangin' up.”
`You're not going to tell me you got a girlfriend, are you?`
“Huh?”
`You've never shown any interest in boys, ever. I mean, Neil has been 'just a friend' for over ten years, right? Wouldn't it be okay if things developed beyond friendship just once!? And yet you—`
“Don't let your imagination run wild, it's bloody creepy. I'm hanging up now. See ya.”
`Oh wait, wait Alexa—` She abruptly cut off the call. Her father's face disappeared, and Alexander let out a sigh of relief. Then she looked at herself in the mirror, having just changed into her pyjamas, and let out another weary sigh.
She had just taken off her makeup and changed her clothes. Now she had to put on makeup and change again.
“...Haaah, time to get ready.” Muttering this, Alexander stretched her arms and rolled her shoulders. And with a big stretch, she took off her pyjamas.
Alexander arrived at the designated cafe at 3:15 PM.”Sorry I'm late.”
“No, not at all. We just got here ourselves... And I'm the one who should be sorry for calling you out so suddenly without checking your schedule.”
Yuni was already at the cafe. When she saw Alexander enter, she made a point of getting up from her seat to greet her.
It was past lunchtime, and the afternoon crowd on the main street was sparse. The only other customers in the cafe besides Yuni and Alexander were a red-haired woman sitting next to Yuni.
Yuni led Alexander to the table where she had been sitting. It was a dim table in the far corner of the shop, with a faint musty smell. After Alexander ordered an iced coffee from the owner and confirmed that she had taken a seat, Yuni introduced the red-haired woman sitting next to her to Alexander.
“Let me introduce you. This is Elaine, my aunt and the one who raised Yun and me.”
“Nice to meet you,” the red-haired woman said, giving Alexander a lovely smile. Then she stated her name.
“I’m Elaine. Thank you for saving Yun. I'm very grateful.” The woman, with her gentle smile but slightly tired green eyes, seemed to be named Elaine. And the woman who introduced herself as Elaine took something out of her bag and showed it to Alexander. Then she asked Alexander, “So, you're the child from this detective agency, right?”
What the woman named Elaine showed her was the business card Alexander had given to Yuni the other day. The card, with 'Colt Detective Agency' written in a poppy and tacky Comic Sans font, was undoubtedly from the Colt Detective Agency. The same supremely tacky business card that Alexander's father painstakingly printed one by one on their home printer.
“Yeah. That's right.” She asked if I'm the child from the detective agency, does that mean this is a job request? At that moment, a glimmer of hope flashed in Alexander's mind. Alexander tried to put on a cheerful smile. And Alexander said, “So...?”
Then Elaine's expression changed. Her youthful, lovely smile turned into a strained smile appropriate for her age. And Elaine asked Alexander, “I just want to confirm... the name on this business card is your father's, right?”
“Yeah, that's right. Douglas Colt is my father.”
“This might be a long shot, and I'm sorry if I'm mistaken... but is that Douglas Colt the former detective Douglas Colt? The one who worked as a detective in Boston?”
“H-h-how do you know that!?” Alexander jumped out of her chair in surprise, letting out a bewildered cry. At almost the same moment, a waiter brought the iced coffee Alexander had ordered to the table. Alexander quickly whispered an apology to the waiter. Sorry. The expressionless waiter gave a small nod in response and returned behind the counter.
“S-so, how do you know about my father...?” Alexander sat back down in her chair and asked Elaine. Elaine lowered her green eyes and took a deep breath. Then, she began to tell this story.
“A long time ago, when I was still in Boston, my mother was murdered. On the day I was born, at the hospital. My father, who was also there, was stabbed in the stomach and nearly died.”
“...”
“Because it happened in a hospital, and because my father was a famous... no, a very infamous person, it was apparently a big news story at the time. But the culprit was never found, and the case went cold.”
“Wow...”
“And so. I've heard that one of the detectives in charge of my mother's case at the time was your father. But after the investigation headquarters was disbanded, Mr Colt quit the police force immediately, and I heard that he disappeared after that. I never thought he'd be in Alusthogrun. I was truly surprised.”
Yuni, sitting next to Elaine, looked back and forth between Elaine and Alexander with her red eyes, her mouth half-open as if she did not understand her aunt's story. Alexander, too, had her mouth agape, her eyes wide open.
Alexander's father, Douglas Colt, had, as Elaine's words suggested, a period where he worked as a detective in a country other than Alusthogrun. But that was long before Alexander was born. It was when her father was in his mid-twenties, and only for two years. According to her father, the reason he quit was because he was fed up with the darkness that infested the police organisation. Vested interests, a culture of cover-ups, and so on. That was basically the reason.
In any case, Alexander had never imagined until now that there was someone who knew about that fleeting period of his life. That is why she could not believe that such a person was sitting right in front of her.
“Um, so, does that mean my father might know you too, then?” Alexander said this, scratching her temple with her fingertip and looking into Elaine's eyes. But Elaine shook her head and said, “I think that's unlikely. He probably knows my father's name... well, I don't think there's anyone in this country who doesn't know my father's name...”
“R-really?” Alexander tilted her head again. She was becoming more and more confused about who the woman in front of her was. “What do you mean, there's no one in this country who doesn't know...”
“My maiden name is Varlozzi. My father is that Pellmond Varlozzi.” Elaine said with a soft laugh, dropping a name that even Alexander knew. And Alexander shouted for the second time.
“Pellmond Varlozzi?! Th-the... Founding Father, Senior Technocrat Pellmond Varlozzi!?”
I met Pellmond Varlozzi's daughter.
When Alexander mentioned this at the dinner table, her mother let out a shriek that was a mix of joy and terror. And her father, who happened to be having dinner at home that day, turned pale at the outlandish story. And her father called Alexander's name. “...Alexander.”
“Oh, right, Dad. Ms Elaine said she's coming to the office tomorrow around eleven in the mornin'. She said her husband has something he wants to ask you.”
“Alexander, can I ask you one thing?”
“Hm?”
For a rare moment, her father looked unusually serious. Alexander stirred the minestrone her mother had made with a spoon and stared at her father's face with a curious expression. And her father asked Alexander, “Did she tell you anything else about Pellmond Varlozzi?”
“Nah. Just that he's her father, that's it.”
“...I see.”
Alexander had never seen her father's face like this before. His brow furrowed, his mouth set in a firm line, his body tensed. It was a side of her father she had never seen before. The father she knew was always grinning and seemed not to take anything seriously. And the heavy, sombre tone of his voice just now was something Alexander had never heard before.
What kind of relationship did her father have with the super-famous Pellmond Varlozzi? Alexander was becoming more and more confused. “...Dad?”
“Pellmond Varlozzi... I hope the request isn't to find him...”
Another side of her father that Alexander had never seen before emerged. Her father's shoulders slumped, and he muttered this with an anxious look. Alexander could not help but say, “It's not like you to be so down, Dad. Weren't you a master at finding people?”
“Do you understand, Alexander? The person we're talking about is that Pellmond Varlozzi. Before he was a senior technocrat, he was rumoured to be a secret agent, that Pellmond Varlozzi!”
“A secret agent, eh. But that's just a conspiracy theory, right? It's got to be made up.”
“...Well, yeah. The story about him being an intelligence agent isn't very credible, but it's a fact that he's better at covering his tracks than even the most skilled spies.” With a sigh, a soft, boiled potato rolled off her father's spoon. Plop. The potato disappeared into the red minestrone soup.
“Besides, Pellmond Varlozzi is dead, isn't he? So a request to find him would be—” Alexander said this, but her father shook his head in denial.
“No, that man is alive. He's definitely still alive.” With that, her father gulped down the minestrone as if he were drinking it. Then he said, “Honey, can I have some more!” In response, his wife gave him a cold look. She pointed towards the kitchen and coldly dismissed him. “Get it yourself... I wish you'd learn a thing or two from Alex.”
Senior Technocrat Pellmond Varlozzi. He was an Abaddoselenium Engineer who was considered a legend in his field.
This was because he was the one who discovered the substance known as Abaddoselenium, and he was the one who contributed the most to the development of technology using Abaddoselenium. It was also said that he was the one who developed the technology that made the Ark that sails the sky, the Federal Republic of Alusthogrun, float.
For these achievements, he was revered by the people of Alusthogrun as the 'Founding Father'. But on the other hand, he was loathed like a snake by conspiracy theorists who hated authority, and he was often the subject of their conspiracy theories and jokes.
“Hey. Don't say that, honey. I love you, please. Can I have some more?”
“I don't need your love. If you have time to spout such nonsense, put a little more money into the household budget.”
The conspiracy theories surrounding the man named Pellmond Varlozzi were very diverse. There were stories of him being a dark ruler who controlled the world from behind the scenes, an alien from another planet, a man who teleported from the future, and even an outrageous episode that claimed Pellmond Varlozzi never even existed. In other words, most of them were outlandish and unrealistic stories. Alexander did not believe in such 'conspiracy theories' in the slightest.
“Well, anyway. Dad, be at the office tomorrow. No going off to take pictures of that actress Courtney whatever-her-name-is.”
“I know,” her father replied in a listless voice. Alexander slurped her red soup and looked at her father with a suspicious eye.
And so, the next morning arrived.
“So, Dad! What's your bloody problem!!” Alexander's angry roar echoed through the Colt Detective Agency in the morning.
“You don't even know anything yet, and you're refusing the case? How rude can you be!!”
“Alexander, listen to me!” Her father sat in a cheap pipe chair in front of a faux-antique, dark brown desk placed before a window that did not let in much sunlight. He let out a heavy sigh. Then he dropped his forehead onto the desk with a thud, sighed again, and muttered in a muffled, unclear voice, “...You don't understand anything...”
“No excuses!! First of all, do you think you're in a position to be picky about jobs! You haven't had any decent cases this month, have you? Then!!”
“That's not the issue. Listen, listen carefully. It's better not to get involved in anything related to Pellmond Varlozzi...”
Her father had been like this since morning. He kept making excuses, saying he did not want to get involved because he valued his life, that it was not just about getting paid, that the Abaddoselenium world was too dark to get involved in, that he never wanted to have anything to do with that man again, and on and on, trying to find a reason not to meet the woman named Elaine.
The only word that could describe her father's behaviour was 'pathetic'. That was the only word Alexander could think of.
“It's so embarrassing. I don't want to think of this bloke as my father...” And like her father, Alexander, who also refused to listen to her father's story, had a reason why she could not back down.
She had made a verbal promise to Elaine. My dad will meet any request you have. Even though it was just a verbal promise, she had boasted with such confidence that she did not want to say, “I'm afraid we can't take the case.” And the fee the other party had offered was, well, it was...
“Alexander. I'm telling you for your own good. So, with this case—”
“...Our livelihood is on the line.” “What?” “You know our family's finances are in shambles, right, Dad? We're gettin' by on Mum's part-time wages and my low part-time salary, but we're really strugglin'! The pictures you take don't make much money, and the occasional detective cases don't pay much either!! The pay is always peanuts!”
“A-Alexander...?”
“Even when you investigate a wife's affair, the husband only pays half the fee! And how many cases of the reverse have gone unpaid?! The clients are one thing, but you're just as bad, Dad! Demand payment properly!! This isn't a charity, it's a business. Wake up, you old fool!!”
“Well, uh, that's...”
“And if you whine and refuse to take this case, Mum said she's going to divorce you. She said she can't take care of you anymore.”
Divorce. The moment he heard that word, her father looked up and stared at Alexander. His face was a mixture of shock and desperation. “I can't get a divorce! I don't want to leave Ilya!!”
“Tell that to Mum. Don't tell me, I don't know anything about it.” This time, it was Alexander who sighed.
By the way, the talk of divorce was not a lie that Alexander had made up on the spot... it was the truth. It seemed that her mother, Ilya Colt, was half-serious, and had recently been looking into the details of divorce proceedings.
And last night, her mother had told Alexander: If your father whines and refuses to take this case, your mother and I are getting a divorce.
“Alright, alright! I'll do it, I'll be happy to do it!” her father said, his brow furrowed and his eyes sharp. Just then, there was a knock on the door of the Colt Detective Agency.
“Excuse me.” Alexander went to the entrance, turned the doorknob, and opened the door with a click. Standing in front of the door were the red-haired woman Elaine and a man in a suit with white hair and red eyes.
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