Echika stood rooted in place, not terribly surprised by what had transpired. She had thought Benno would probably reach his limit any day now, and sure enough, today was the day… Echika pretended not to notice the stinging in her heart.

These kinds of malfunctions occurred when a Diver’s and a Belayer’s processing speed didn’t match. Their abilities hadn’t been equal to begin with, so Benno forcing himself to work with her was bound to wear him out eventually.

Echika was used to seeing her partners break down.

Before long, several nurse Amicus hurried into the room. They brought in a stretcher and carried Benno away. He would probably get out of this with a week of hospital stay. That’s what always happens, Echika told herself as she silently stifled the guilt bubbling up from the pit of her stomach.

“I’ve seen investigator aides exhibit these symptoms before,” the doctor standing next to her said.

Echika took a silent deep breath as she felt his condemning gaze.

“Which one of them was it?” she asked. “Clidat? Algren? Cerbère, maybe? Who else was there…?”

“Enough.” The doctor’s eyes had long since filled with disdain. “They told me that there was a genius out there who fries all her partners’ heads and sends them to the infirmary. That’s you, isn’t it? Electronic Investigator Hieda.”

She already knew how to give him the answer he wanted. What he wanted to hear was something along the lines of, I’m not doing this on purpose or No one enjoys seeing their colleagues suffer. Those kinds of lines, full of transparent goodwill.

But no number of pretty words could sweep away the facts. That was something she’d learned all too well a long time ago.

“Benno will recover. The Your Forma will mend his cranial nerves, and he’ll be fine,” Echika said, her face expressionless to an almost cruel degree. “I’ll be taking my leave, then. Thank you for your cooperation with the investigation.”

She walked out of the hospital room, not regarding the doctor, who stared at her as if he couldn’t believe what she’d just said.

Tracing the information Your Forma records to find clues that would solve criminal cases.

That was an electronic investigator’s—Echika Hieda’s—job.

***

Amicus Ex Machina

<Today’s temperature stands at −7°C. Attire index A, warm clothing, is recommended>

Despite it being eight in the morning, the stars continued to faintly twinkle in the sky. With the psychological-horror movie she’d watched during her flight still burned into her eyelids, Echika stood at the roundabout by Pulkovo Airport, located in northwestern Russia.

Her jet-black hair, typical of her Japanese descent, was styled in a bob cut that reached down to her jawline. Her thin frame was covered by a sweater, short pants, tights, and boots—all of them black. People had ribbed her countless times about being a raven in the body of a human.

Cars flowed into the roundabout, their headlights activated. Buses with Cyrillic letters written on them pulled over to spew out their passengers before sucking in more people. As Echika’s eyes met with a few of the riders’, their personal data—like their names and professions—danced through her field of vision in a pop-up display.

Ever since the popularization of Your Forma, this kind of personal information had become visible just by looking someone in the face. Not for the average citizen, mind you, but for people whose professions granted them the necessary permits to access it. Names, dates of birth, addresses, lines of work… These were all visible to Echika without even a command.

At any rate…

Despite it being fifteen minutes past the agreed time, Benno hadn’t shown up.

Fine, Echika thought, licking her dry lips as she decided to call him. Audio call to Benno Kleemann.

Converting her thoughts to a textual command, she issued that order to the Your Forma inside her head. The boring ringback tone buzzed through the earphone she’d left on her ear.

She knew Benno hated phone calls, so she didn’t expect him to pick up. And despite that, she’d made the call anyway. Sometimes, he’d answer if he was in a decent mood. Besides, she had half a mind to complain to him about his perpetual tardiness.

But today wasn’t a good day, it seemed. The call timed out and automatically closed. A moment later, she received a text from him. She opened up the message window floating at the corner of her field of vision.

“I’m still at the hospital. When Chief Totoki said yesterday I’d be arriving on the scene, that was a lie.”

She lied? Echika knit her brow.

“The chief ordered me to keep quiet about it, but our partnership ends today.”

Figures.

She’d seen this coming. Her partnerships got canceled pretty often, so she wasn’t disappointed or dejected by the news. The problem was that Chief Totoki had kept it a secret from her until today. That gave Echika a vague, ill premonition.

“Someone from the local branch should be in the airport to pick you up. Stay at the roundabout.”

“Understood. Did you hear anything about my new aide, by the way?”

Echika replied with a question, but Benno didn’t answer it. That pissed her off a little, but she was the one who’d gotten him hospitalized, and he hadn’t liked her to begin with. Him turning a cold shoulder to her didn’t come as a surprise.

A new partner, huh?

She wasn’t enthusiastic at the prospect, to say the least. After all, no matter who showed up, they wouldn’t last long. Most electronic investigators worked with the same aide for a year or so, but in Echika’s case, her partnerships lasted only a month at best. Her data-processing abilities were so outstandingly high that no one could match her, so her aides kept failing and getting hurt.

Feeling a wave of melancholy creep in on her, Echika took out her electronic cigarette and sucked on it. As she was about to blow out a wisp of water vapor that contained neither nicotine nor tar, an alert popped up from her Your Forma.

<Smoking is prohibited on airport grounds>

Restraining the urge to click her tongue, she turned off her cigarette and instead resorted to fiddling with the nitro-case necklace hanging from her neck in an attempt to distract herself.

The person picking her up arrived only thirty minutes later. As Echika stood there, almost freezing over, an SUV pulled up in front of her. It had a squarish body with a stylish maroon coating, and its roundish headlights seemed like an expression of how this car was meant for driving off the road.

Her Your Forma swiftly analyzed the car’s make. A Lada Niva. An ancient, respectable model that hadn’t seen a full makeover in some forty-odd years. An artistic city like this had a unique taste in automobiles, indeed.

“Good morning. Are you Electronic Investigator Hieda?”

The driver’s-seat window rolled down, revealing the face of a young Caucasian man. But despite looking him straight in the face, no personal information popped up in her field of vision. That alone instantly made Echika that much more depressed.

The person at the wheel was an Amicus. Though they were once called androids or humanoid machines, they were now considered an indispensable part of human life.

“Did I keep you waiting long?” he asked, holding up an ID badge identifying him as an Amicus working with the local police. “I was told to meet you at nine AM…”

“We were supposed to get here at eight.” Benno had relayed that to her, so this was another one of his petty attempts at harassment. Typical. “Never mind, let me get in.”

No sooner did the Amicus unlock the door than Echika slid into the passenger seat. Finally, she could warm herself up a little…or so she thought, but her expectations were dashed when she found the interior of the car was terribly cold.

“Oh, excuse me. The cold helps my processing speed,” the Amicus said, flipping the switch for the heating with a friendly gesture.

As far as Echika knew, it couldn’t tell the difference between hot and cold. Being a machine fashioned in human form, it was compelled, by its system, to act “human.”

“But if I was to catch a cold because of this, it would be a breach of your Laws of Respect.”

“Right you are. Of course, I take care to watch over my behavior accordingly.”

To respect humans, obey the orders of humans, and never attack a human being—all Amicus were programmed in accordance with these Laws of Respect.

Honestly speaking, Echika didn’t like these machines much. Or rather, she flat-out hated them.