“That was a pretty long call, Investigator Hieda.”

The Care Center’s hospitalization ward was dark and quite old-fashioned in style. As a human doctor led Echika and Harold down the hall, they passed by hospital visitors and nurse Amicus.

“So what?” Echika retorted bluntly.

“I can tell even if you won’t say anything. You asked for a change in partner, right?”

“No,” she replied on the spur of the moment. Dammit. “I didn’t go that far.”

“That’s good.” Harold smiled. “If I may ask, do you hate Amicus?”

So he noticed. That question felt like he’d just lunged at her throat. Given her attitude earlier, it was an obvious thing to inquire about, but having it pointed out so plainly did make her a little embarrassed.

“No offense to you, but…yes, that’s right.”

“I don’t mind; things like that don’t bother me. What makes you despise us, though?”

“I’m not interested in sharing my personal history. Don’t ask me about it again.”

“I see. Well, I’m fine with the stoic sort. Those kind of people are respectable.”

“No…” What’s with him? Is he not gonna get it unless I say it to his face? “What I’m saying is, I’m not going to pretend like we’re friends.”

“Hmm, excuse me… Can I start giving you the details about the infected patients?”

Echika stopped with a start. The slender doctor walking in front of them turned a reproachful glare at their pointless chatter.

“My apologies.” Aah, time to switch gears. “You said the first patient was hospitalized two days ago, right?”

“Correct, and this morning, we’ve gotten to the point where we have twelve others hospitalized. More than half of them are students of the ballet academy, and they were brought in for hypothermia symptoms. They all say that they see an intense blizzard.”

The doctor gestured with his chin toward the window, where they could see a dimly lit, almost sleepy sort of sky. There wasn’t a speck of snow to be seen, and the only things dancing busily through the air were delivery drones.

“The patients’ minds really are seeing a blizzard,” Echika noted. “That shared delusion is one of this sensory crime’s distinctive features.”

Sensory crimes were caused by cyber viruses that infected the Your Forma. The first of these serial offenses showed up in Washington, DC, followed by Paris, and now Saint Petersburg. Common symptoms included seeing an illusory blizzard, followed by signs of hypothermia.

“I’ve only seen the patient records and past cases on the news, but this seems to be a new strain of a self-propagating virus.”

“Yes, and even a Your Forma’s full scan can’t detect it. The developers in Rig City have organized an analysis team to look into it.”

As of now, only two things had been made clear about the new infectious agent.

First, it started with a single infected source and spread to others via Your Forma messages and phone calls.

Second, the virus had a very short incubation period, roughly fifteen minutes, which was the only time it was contagious.

Thus, the disease’s problem wasn’t so much its infectious capacity but rather the fact that after its outbreak, the Your Forma became inoperable, which hampered its capacity to spread.

At present, no one had discovered a means to remove the virus yet. There were only limited ways of dealing with it: either applying a suppressant drug that made the Your Forma’s functions shut down or undergoing a surgical procedure to remove the Your Forma altogether.

“Delusions of a blizzard are one thing, but why would imaginary snow actually affect the body…?”

“The Electrocrime Investigations Bureau is grappling with that question, too,” Echika remarked. “At the moment, we suspect it’s a nocebo effect. Like the old water droplet experiment.”

“What’s that?”

“Briefly speaking, it’s an experiment that proved a person can convince themselves to die. The subject is blindfolded and strapped to a bed. The doctor tells them they’ll die once they lose two-thirds of their blood, then makes a small nick on their big toe with a scalpel, causing a bit of blood to trickle out.”

“But in truth, they never actually made an incision, and what the patient thought was the sound of their blood was droplets of water.” Harold continued the explanation from where Echika left off, despite not having been asked to do so. “The experiment goes on to give the patient hourly updates on how much blood they’ve lost. And a few hours later, when they’re told they’ve bled out two-thirds of their blood, the patient passes away, despite being physically unharmed.”

“You’re well informed,” Echika snipped peevishly.

“I read it online once. Once we’ve seen something, we never forget it.”

“Oh yes, our nurse Amicus are like that, too,” the doctor added. “Whenever crucial clinical records end up getting lost along with their backups, they can output them from their memories and reproduce them.”

“That’s simple work for us.” Harold smiled. “But, Investigator, isn’t that experiment a little too forceful of an explanation, rationally speaking?”

“The brain is surprisingly easy to fool,” Echika said, lowering her voice. “And since the Your Forma is integrated with it, the experiment is considered a viable explanation.”

The three of them arrived at a large hospital room housing fifteen beds. On them lay the infected patients, sleeping soundly under the effect of the suppressant. Every one of them seemed to be in stable condition.

“Per your request, we’ve attached Brain Diving cords to each person,” the doctor said.

The Brain Diving cords and Lifelines they used were all HSB cables. HSB stood for Human Serial Bus, the unique standard the Your Forma used. Possession of HSB cables was legally forbidden for individuals due to privacy-abuse issues, but certain medical institutions and investigative organizations were allowed to use them.

“Oh, so you’re going to discover the source of the infection from here,” Harold mused. “Do you think you’ll discover the culprit, too?”

“I’m not sure about that. I’ll only know once I Dive in.”

In Washington and Paris, they’d traced the sources of the infection—Ogier, in Echika’s case—but that didn’t reveal any clues about how the patients had been exposed to the virus to begin with or the identity of the culprit. And since there were no vestiges of the infection in the Your Forma and Mnemosynes of the source patients, it proved that the people suffering from it had no idea where they’d contracted it.

So this time, she had to pray this Dive wouldn’t turn out to be in vain, too.

“That being said,” the doctor started, looking around the room anxiously, “processing twelve people in parallel. I’ve never seen electronic investigators handle more than two at once… Won’t it impact your mental faculties and scramble your ego?”

“Don’t worry. They requested me because I can handle it.”

Since electronic investigators experienced the memories and emotions stored in the Mnemosynes as if they were their own, their Dives resulted in many cases of ego scrambling that required mental care. In Echika’s case, however, she could handle processing multiple people in tandem. Not once in her career had those emotions engulfed and overtaken her.

If there was anything to be worried about in this situation, it was Harold’s processing abilities.

“So.” Echika glanced at the Amicus. “Aide Lucraft, where’s our Lifeline?”

“I was told to use this one.”

Harold took out an Umbilical Cord meant to connect electronic investigators to their aide. Its design was a bit different from a typical Lifeline, though. It looked like it was made of golden and silver threads woven around each other, and it gave off a faint glint.

“It’s…custom-made.” Echika knit her brow.

“Yes. It converts the data sent to me when monitoring you into a protocol I can understand.”

Chief Totoki had deemed this a necessary investment, but Echika still had her doubts about things working out. She’d had one negative experience too many until now, and they’d left a lasting impression on her.

Despite her lack of enthusiasm, Echika plugged the Lifeline into the port in the nape of her neck. Harold approached her to connect the cord himself and stood right in front of her, prompting her to look away and suppress the urge to pull back from him.

It’s been a long time since an Amicus has gotten so close to me. If this wasn’t for work, I’d never be doing this.

“I’m connected, Investigator.”

“Aaah, yeah.” Echika glanced at Harold before freezing up.

He slid his entire left ear out of place and plugged the cord into a USB port behind it. “Is…is there anything wrong?” Echika asked.