Last night, her father had laughed heartily and said:
‘I’m truly in awe of your tremendous luck, Alexander!’
‘Tr-tremendous luck?’
‘It’s on a level that can’t just be described as ‘good luck’! That streak of fortune is nothing short of magnificent! Right now, I can’t help but be envious of you, my girl!! If I had your luck, I might have become a detective even greater than Sherlock Holmes!’
‘Sherlock Holmes is fictional, and besides…’
‘And I’d be a rich man by now!’
‘Eh? Wha- Dad?’
‘I’d still have a firm grip on your mother’s heart, I wouldn’t have to run myself ragged promoting the business all over town because cases would come flooding in one after another, and it would be…—Gahaha! Ah-hyah-hyah!! Just imagining it makes me laugh uncontrollably!!’
Insight, deduction, observation, and tenacity. Until just the day before yesterday, her father had been insistent that these four elements were indispensable for a detective, but yesterday he had retracted that statement in an instant.
—A detective needs only one thing. Yes, an extraordinary stroke of luck.
—And you, Alexander. You are my angel, no, my guardian goddess!
“...A detective who relies entirely on luck, what kind of detective is that…?”
“Yo, Alex.”
On her first journey to school after being discharged from the hospital, Neil popped up from behind Alexander with his usual playful expression. The moment she saw him, Alexander’s brow furrowed. In a low, muffled voice, she said bluntly,
“Good morning, Special Agent Neil Archer.”
“.. Alex.”
“Wait, ASI agents aren't called special agents, are they? If you’re an intelligence officer, should I call you by a code name?”
“I’m really sorry. I mean it, and I regret it. But the circumstances…”
“No excuses needed. Did you think you’d be forgiven if you just explained the situation? If so, you’re hopelessly naive. Or is that ASI agent who asked you to spy on me just underestimating civilians?”
“Alex, please, just listen to me.”
“Nothing you say is worth listening to.”
“At first, it was just for a bit of pocket money. And it’s not like I was watching you all the time. To start with, he said he’d pay me if I told him how Miranda Jane was getting on at school… and besides.”
Walking a few paces behind, Neil spoke without meeting her eyes. The name that came out of his mouth made Alexander doubt her ears.
“What did you just say about Mrs Jane?”
“That ASI agent, he’s Miranda Jane’s younger brother. He was just using me to check if any suspicious characters were getting close to his sister. But then you suddenly became a person of interest, and things changed, and… I was made to watch you. Because he said you’d die otherwise.”
“So, who is this agent?”
“Deputy Manager Patrick Lerner. Miranda Jane’s maiden name was Lerner, apparently. …Besides, you’re a detective’s assistant, aren’t you? You should look into it. I’m sure your old man knows Patrick Lerner.”
With a strained smile, Neil placed a hand on Alexander’s shoulder. But Alexander shook it off. Undeterred, Neil placed his hand on her shoulder again, this time gripping it so she could not pull away.
“...Please. Believe me, Alex. It’s not like I sold you out.”
“After deceiving me, now you want me to believe you? You’ve got some nerve…”
Alexander forcefully pulled Neil’s hand off her shoulder and turned her back on him, heading for the bus stop. On the way, she tried calling the phone number she had got from Yun’s doctor, but the call did not connect. After the ringing tone, ring, ring..., only the voice of an automated operator could be heard.
‘The number you have dialled is not in service or is outside the…’
After school, Alexander did not go straight home, stopping instead at the Colt Detective Agency. She had promised to deliver the envelope she had received in the hospital to its recipient and her client, Elaine.
“So, Dad. What was in that envelope?”
“Dunno, no idea. I could tell it wasn't dangerous, and that there was a stick-shaped device about ten centimetres long, but that’s it…”
“You didn’t open it?”
“Of course not, don’t be daft. If there was something private in there concerning the client, we could be sued.”
“But handing over something when you don’t know what’s inside…”
“We hand it over, and leave it to the client to decide whether to open it. That’s a detective’s job. We might pry into the target’s privacy without a second thought, but we take the utmost care not to touch the client’s.”
Still, that was a strange dream, she thought. Whilst talking to her father, Alexander was recalling the bizarre lucid dream she had had the night before.
In the dream, a talking dragon had appeared. It was a huge dragon with blue, lizard-like scales, yellow, snake-like eyes, and large, bat-shaped wings. It had introduced itself as Khalice.
The dragon calling itself Khalice had said that it was a deity whose fate was intertwined with a man named Pellmond Varlozzi, and that it was also a guardian of the earth. It had also said this: Obey what Pellmond says. After you give the memory stick to his daughter, you and your father are to step away from this matter immediately.
In the dream, Alexander had questioned Khalice. Why was he so concerned with their every move? Surely there were many other, more dangerous people out there. But Khalice had answered instantly. You are the most dangerous. You are the closest to the truth that must not be uncovered, and you are on the verge of breaking its seal.
According to the dragon Khalice, this truth was something that would save no one. On the contrary, it was a sharp blade that would deeply wound a certain individual. That was why Pellmond Varlozzi and many others were trying to protect that seal. Some were even risking their own lives to do so.
But for Alexander, it was all rather confusing. She had just been charging ahead recklessly, without much thought. She was not searching for anything specific, no ‘this is it!’ moment; everything had just happened by chance, not by her own will.
What on earth am I supposed to do? Alexander had asked Khalice, but the only reply she received was this:
If you do not stop now, you will lose everything you hold dear.
Everything. Friends, family, your life, all of it.
“...By the way, Dad. Do you know a Deputy Manager Lerner at the ASI?”
The thought suddenly occurred to Alexander, and she asked her father. He looked up, his eyes wide with surprise, and stared at her. “Why do you ask a thing like that?”
“Well, I just, um…”
“Did you, by any chance, get this envelope from him?”
“Eh? No, I don’t know who the bloke was, so I can’t say…”
ASI agent, Deputy Manager Lerner. A name she had heard from Neil that morning. The person who had supposedly ordered Neil to watch her.
Neil had said that her father would probably know of a Deputy Manager Lerner. Judging by his reaction, it seemed he did. Her father then questioned her.
“Alexander, try to remember. The man who bumped into you, how tall was he?”
“His height? I reckon he was about 175 centimetres.”
“I see, then it’s not him. Not Lerner.” Dad answered that in a flash.
“This Lerner is almost certainly Patrick Lerner. He must be in his late thirties, but he looks remarkably young. Or was it forty? Anyway, he’s short, with a deceptively innocent face. But he’s a world-weary, dangerous character. A real scumbag who’ll stop at nothing… hmm…”
“Huh… How come you know so much about him?”
“What are you talking about, Alexander? I’m a detective. And I’ve got the basic information on the people around Pellmond Varlozzi covered. Who is where, doing what. If I know that, I can avoid contact. Mind you, I haven’t been able to track Pellmond Varlozzi himself at all. When, where I might run into him. Can’t predict it in the slightest. He’s the very definition of elusive.”
Her father took a sip of his freshly brewed black coffee and muttered, “Hot.” Listening beside him, Alexander had a sudden realisation.
The people around Pellmond Varlozzi. That is what her father had just said. “Is this Lerner bloke also one of the Senior Technocrat’s people…?”
“Yeah. Among the ASI agents, and among those who operate in the open, he’s probably the closest. Although, you could also say Lerner’s the one getting pushed around.”
Her father blew on his steaming coffee. As Alexander watched the white steam rise, there was a knock on the door of the Colt Detective Agency.
“Come in, it’s open.”
Placing his coffee cup on a nearby table, her father went to the door and opened it. It was Elaine, alone, holding a large bag. Isn’t your husband with you? her father asked, but she simply smiled wryly and evaded the question. “I’m sorry. He seems to be busy with work.”
“Ah, I see.”
“...He spent all this time searching for the truth, but the moment it appeared right in front of him, he got cold feet, it seems. He wanted me to check it before he saw it himself. He’s a strange one, isn’t he?”
Elaine gave a plausible reason, but the unspoken words ‘I am lying right now’ seemed to be written all over her face. However, both her father and Alexander pretended not to notice and continued the conversation.
“Ah, well. Actually, this is about a separate matter.”
“You haven’t got the video?”
“Well, we haven’t been able to confirm that either. But there’s something Alexander here was given to pass on to you.”
Her father explained. He had expected Elaine to be surprised, but her reaction was unexpected.
“Yes. Mr. Lerner contacted me to say that he had given Alexander a USB containing the surveillance footage from that day in an envelope for her to pass on to me. …Is it not that?”
Elaine showed no surprise. She placed the bag she was holding on the table and took out a laptop computer. —Hearing Elaine’s words, her father questioned Alexander.
“Hey, Alexander. Are you sure you didn’t get this from Lerner?”
“I told you, didn't I? The bloke who bumped into me was about the same height as me.”
“Lerner’s height is 148 centimetres. He’s a real short-arse—”
“No-o-o! I’m tellin’ ya, he was around 175 centimetres!”
“What was he wearing?”
“He was dressed in all black. Black fedora, white shirt with a black tie, a black trench coat down to his calves. His slacks were black too, but his leather shoes were white.”
“Hmm, I see. What about his hair?”
“His hat was in the way, so I couldn't see it properly. But I think it was long enough to cover his eyebrows? And it was kind of messy, or maybe curly… Oh, and he had some stubble.”
“What about his build? Was he fat, thin?”
“I think he was on the thinner side. His cheekbones were really sunken. But his body seemed muscular.”
“Eye colour? Glasses?”
“He was wearing black-rimmed glasses. And I think his eyes were…”
“A dull blue, perhaps. And he has an aquiline nose. Droopy eyes and sharp eyebrows. And his glasses are square-shaped with black frames, aren't they?”
Elaine interjected into the father-daughter exchange. The laptop she had taken out was an old-fashioned model, about five centimetres thick, unlike the ultra-thin ones common today. On its side was a hub for inserting something, and Elaine pointed to one of the slots. She then booted up the laptop and chuckled.
“Could you open the envelope, Mr. Colt? What’s inside is surely just a simple storage device.”
“Ah, yes. Understood…”
Her father carefully broke the seal on the envelope and took out a red, stick-like device. He then handed it to Elaine. Elaine smiled again.
“I knew it was this.”
Elaine inserted the device into a slot on the laptop computer. Then she began to operate it.
Beside her, Alexander stared at the red stick with curiosity. It was a device she had never seen before.
“Um, that red thing is…”
“Oh, this? It’s an old device called a USB flash drive. A relic from the 2000s, you could say. It’s an auxiliary storage device that you use by plugging it into a computer’s USB port like this.”
“USB port…?”
“Well, USB itself is a thing of the distant past. …This computer itself is a very old one that my father repaired to get it working somehow. And this USB is also my father’s. A long time ago, when I was still a child. We went to a market where enthusiasts like my father gathered, and we bought it. I liked this red colour, so he bought this one. …Brings back memories.”
As she operated the machine, Elaine reminisced. It seemed to Alexander that tears were welling in her eyes.
Her father, sensing something, looked not at Elaine but intently at Alexander. He pinched her cheek, then gave her a sharp smack on the head. And he roared. “Alexander, what have you been keeping from me!”
“Huh?!”
“The man you met at the hospital was Pellmond Varlozzi himself!!”
“What?! Eh, no… —No way!”
“Mr. Colt, please don’t shout at her like that. The fact that he approached her himself means he was confident she wouldn’t recognise him. Besides, without his white coat, no one would realise that man is Pellmond Varlozzi.”
Elaine closed the laptop with a snap, put it away in her bag, and returned the USB flash drive to its envelope. She then traced the writing on the outside of the envelope with her finger, as if it were something precious.
“...This messy handwriting, as if he wrote it in a hurry. It’s definitely my father’s. And the footage was authentic. Thank you, Alexander.”
Elaine wiped her tears with a handkerchief and took Alexander’s hand. Her hand was cold and trembling as she held Alexander’s gently.
Alexander brusquely pulled her hand away, then instead put an arm around Elaine’s shoulders and gave her a gentle hug.
“...I’m so sorry. For all the trouble I’ve caused you and Mr. Colt.”
“Not at all…”
“The real footage was in Alusthogrun. And to think I’d actually get my hands on the data. I never expected it. …I’ll transfer the money to your account later. Thank you, truly, thank you so much.”
“Ah, Mrs. Varlozzi. About the fee…”
Her father, looking awkward, kept glancing at Alexander.
Somehow, I’ve got a very bad feeling about this.
Alexander muttered this to herself. And her premonition would turn out to be spot on.
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