Chapter 5: The absence of Haruhi Suzumiya
She was late.
Not fashionably late. Not dramatic-tension-rising late. Just plain not-on-time late. When you had someone like Haruhi in your life you came to know the difference between all three and it was obvious to Kyon that Haruhi wasn't on time, and for reasons that he couldn't fathom. What could make her late for one of her own passion projects? What could have happened to keep the troublesome girl from showing up? Perhaps it was nothing, but Kyon couldn't help but feel apprehensive - he had a hunch that things were wrong, spectacularly so.
"Did anyone try to call her in the last few minutes?" he asked, pacing his bedroom, trying not to sound too much of a pessimist, at least not so early in the morning.
"I tried but..." Mikuru replied, checking her phone with a worried expression on her face. "Miss Suzumiya isn't picking up. I've text messaged her too, but… well..."
"It's really not like her to make us wait without at least making a show of it. Normally she'd have teased us with something by now, like a photo or a vague text from her phone," Koizumi added, and Kyon looked his way.
"You're definitely not picking up anything from Haruhi, none of the usual signs of her powers at work?"
"No," the esper shook his head, hand held to his mouth in contemplation. "She appears to have generated a pocket of Closed Space, but I can't get a fix on its location. And this isn't like Miss Haruhi's normal behaviour - her Closed Spaces normally only manifest when she's agitated, but wherever she is right now, all I can perceive of her mind is that she's calm…"
His words trailed off, having pretty much said what Kyon was thinking deep down, that there was something eerie going on, something unnatural, more so than usual day-to-day life with Haruhi.
Even Yuki seemed on-edge, sitting in terse silence in the corner, "The Arabian Nights" open in her lap but her hands resting on the pages. The alien-girl's head was turned slightly towards the window, as if in hope of seeing Haruhi approaching the house at any moment. Kyon wished dearly that he could be as apparently-collected, yet to no avail. He basically knew at this point that Haruhi was not safe, that they had to start searching for her immediately. Deciding to trust in gut instinct he moved to stand in front of the group, so that everyone would see him.
"Okay, we can all tell that there's something afoot here, so we're going to have to check things out and investigate. Haruhi might be in danger and that means trouble," he explained, knowing that in situations like these, the others tended to defer to his leadership.
"Well, you're the expert here Kyon. I'll trust your gut on that one," Koizumi said, getting up and followed by Mikuru moments later. Pausing only to mark her page before giving the situation her full attention, Yuki rose and joined them. "Where should we check?"
"Someone here ought to check her house and usual route to school, someone else the school grounds," Kyon decided. Koizumi might be the one with the psychic link to Haruhi, but the esper's powers usually seemed to play second-fiddle to his own unspoken connection to the girl. And right now, he was fully aware that they had to save her. It was uncanny, but the invading sentiment of dread would not quit him - was he starting to get paranoid? Perhaps all the excesses and chaos of life in the presence of Haruhi Suzumiya had finally brought about on a long-expected mental breakdown? He had no answer to those queries, all he knew was that they had to find her… and fast.
"Mikuru, go round the houses of anyone we know and ask if they've seen Haruhi - Tsuruya, Kunikida, Taniguchi, everybody. Koizumi, get to the school, search the campus, grounds and clubroom. Yuki, you're the fastest of us - backtrack along Haruhi's usual route between her home and here - see what you can find at her house, then follow whatever commute she takes to the school - I'll check her usual hangouts and meet you all there."
They responded to his orders without a word of complaint, even timid Mikuru mustering a determined expression. As he pulled on his own shoes and socks Kyon tried to think of anything he'd missed - he didn't doubt in Yuki's abilities, or that Koizumi couldn't get them out-of-hours access to the school. Even if the buildings were shut for the weekend the number of strings the Brigade's resident esper could pull through the Organisation were enough to make conspiracy theorists everywhere foam at the mouth.
"Sis!" he called, and like a jack-in-the-box his little sister popped out of her bedroom, carrying in her arms Shamisen, the formerly-stray cat that one of Haruhi's unwitting miracles had once granted human speech and the mind of a philosopher. He had since been assured by Yuki that the calico was now a completely normal feline, but Kyon retained his doubts about 'Shami', and right now was paying close attention to the cat.
"Yes Kyon?" Sis' chirped, concern evident in those oh-so-wide eyes, no-doubt aware from his attitude that something was wrong. Although she was not in on the big secret, the SOS Brigade had effectively adopted her as a junior member and mascot, and she got on particularly well with the girls. "What's wrong?"
"Haruhi's missing," he said, dropping any kind of sibling bickering and kneeling, not just to look her in the eye but to tie his shoes. "We're going looking for her. Keep the door locked and the phone with you, and if she or anyone strange comes to the house, call me straight away, okay?"
"Sure!" she nodded seriously, and as Kyon rose to his feet he saw one of Shamisen's eyes close in what might have been a wink.
He searched everywhere across their usual haunts in the city, stopping at the little spots where Haruhi had in the past graffitied a wall with the SOS Brigade logo or unwittingly caused some shenanigans, from the shopping mall where they had filmed parts of her beloved fantasy 'masterpiece' to her favourite cafes and snack-shops. By that point he was winded, sore and aware he was clutching at straws - it wasn't like Haruhi would go out of her way to buy them all food on the way over, unless whatever caught her eye was strange or a weird experience for everyone to go through, like the time she bought a whole case of chicken, tabasco and chocolate breads, which so far as culinary "delights" went were absolutely terrible.
Despite the aches and exhaustion he kept on going, checking his phone constantly. What messages did arrive were not encouraging. Mikuru had visited Tsuruya, like his sister another of the Brigade's unofficial auxiliaries, who had not seen Haruhi but did confirm that something had her father on edge. Given that Koizumi had in the past claimed several murky links connected the Organisation with Tsuruya's family, Kyon did not find that encouraging. Koizumi himself had then texted the news that an unaffiliated esper and enemy-turned-friend had just messaged him to report that she had declined an invitation to a "big meet" scheduled for yesterday, one relating to "the question of Haruhi Suzumiya". Spurred by this, Kyon had in turned called an old close friend of his own, someone with powers not dissimilar to Haruhi. The girl's mother had answered the phone with the news that her daughter had come down with a fever in the night and was bedridden, a development that left him even more concerned that something was severely out of balance, and that if the SOS Brigade didn't find Haruhi, soon going to get a lot worse.
All he could think about was that he needed to find Haruhi, laced with the fear that her madcap energy, her anachronistic tendencies, her wild imagination and her impulsive projects might vanish from the world… and perhaps the world vanish with her. There were too many unknowns at play to take any chances when it came to Haruhi, and, to be honest, he'd never forgive himself if any harm should befall her. Not so long ago he promised Yuki that the SOS Brigade would flip the universe on its side if one of their own was in danger, and now that the wildcard wildcat who had brought them together was possibly herself in danger, he had to live up to that promise.
But his search turned up nothing, and eventually Kyon found himself sprinting up the steep hill to North High, discovering that Koizumi, joined by Mikuru, had searched the whole school, coming up short and openly worried themselves. No classroom, no bathroom and no corner had been left out, giving way to a quiet desperation that manifested in the first words Koizumi spoke as he arrived and joined them in the school auditorium. "Maybe she just overslept?"
"Y-yes, maybe she got too excited, with the costumes and the play and everything, that she went to bed late and missed the meet-up time?" Mikuru timidly added, whistling in the dark and herself looking much more worried than both Kyon and Koizumi combined. "Maybe Ms. Nagato's found her already."
"I did not," declared Yuki as her very name was spoken, arriving as fast as she could, which was admittedly at a much faster pace than any standard human, and unsurprising considering her extraterrestrial origins. Not exhausted in the slightest even after all this effort, she gave a direct and clinical report of her findings, which did not alleviate any fears whatsoever.
"Haruhi Suzumiya was not at home," she admitted, pausing for half a second before continuing. "Analysis indicates that persons unknown entered her domicile and then left, evidenced by shoe marks and molecule disposition in the vicinity of her room. She has most likely been abducted."
"By who? Those anti-time-travel people? The Sky Canopy Dominion? Someone unknown?" Kyon began to theorize openly, more to give an opportunity for anyone to correct him and give way to a possible answer or path than to vent his frustrations. Nothing came, though.
"Persons unknown," repeated Yuki, her own worry not as apparent as the others in the SOS Brigade, though Kyon felt that she too was stressed out, just as much in a state of panic as the rest of them. "Conference with other Humanoid Interfaces active in this vicinity indicate that Haruhi Suzumiya visited a number of thrift shores to purchase clothing yesterday, before returning home. Apart from that, nothing of relevance has been observed."
Kyon bit back a curse, a part of him hoping that the ever-capable Yuki Nagato would be the one to present a solution. And looking at her, he wondered if she too was feeling frustration, or disappointment.
"Could you perhaps reach out through the Data Overmind to check out if there were any suspicious activity near Haruhi's place last night, some manipulation of reality?" he asked, flailing for a lifeline and grabbing hold of a thread of thought. The entity that created Yuki perceived all existence as data, and had an almost obsessive interest in cataloging Haruhi and life on Planet Earth, believing them to be the key to its own evolution. If there was any insight to be gained, it could be through the Overmind.
"Do you think they'll give Miss Nagato access though?" Mikuru asked, fidgeting around as she looked first at Yuki then back at Kyon. "You did threaten their existence over her safety..."
"For Haruhi's sake, I'm pretty sure they'll set all of this aside. If we tell them that-"
"Access granted…" Yuki announced calmly, opening her eyes and gazing off into some unseen horizon, lost in the connection that made all the world's data available to her. It seemed that Kyon had a fairly good bead on the mindset of the creators, as well as the creation. "Commencing search."
She raised her hand as if to touch an invisible wall, and space around her fingertips seemed to flicker, to distort. Then her mouth opened and spewed forth a blurred garble of sound that might have been code, or an old dial-up modem. Almost instantly she stopped, retracted her hand an inch, and looked back to her peers.
"This is… odd," she said, and that uncharacteristic hitch in her soft voice was to the others like the crack of a whip. "The logs for Haruhi Suzumiya's residence show no activity since she left for school at 08:07 yesterday."
"I don't understand, how is that odd?" Mikuru asked, but it was Koizumi who answered.
"Because Ms. Suzumiya returned home safe last night before she disappeared, and wherever she goes there's always some activity on a background level - her powers never switch off," he tapped his head and issued one of his smiles, though this time it was cheerless. "Believe me on this."
"Correct," Yuki confirmed. "The logs show only minimal deviations in data-space for the whole of yesterday evening, as if Haruhi Suzumiya never returned home. I conclude that the records have been altered, and that the database has been tampered with.."
"Someone's trying to cover their tracks," Kyon said, and realised with a stroke of horror that an alteration of the Data Overmind records could only have come from within the alien consciousness itself. Chills ran down his back as he remembered a smiling blue-haired girl with a knife, sent by the collective's radical party to kill him and so prompt a reaction from Haruhi. "Some faction of the Overmind took Haruhi?"
Yuki essayed a curt nod, and very slightly averted her eyes, as if ashamed to be associated with those apparently responsible for this abduction.
"It's not your fault Yuki," he said. "And if anyone can help us solve this, its you."
"Yes, can you track them?" Koizumi asked, getting closer, as if proximity to Yuki and Kyon would pool their initiative and produce to a different result. "Do they have anything like an IP address or..."
"No, but I can track data signatures, even if altered. They are good..." Yuki said, taking a dramatic pause before her expression changed ever-so slightly, her eyebrows moving a millimeter down. "But I'm better."
She pushed her hand forward again, and once again the space around her fingertips began to streak. Even standing there motionlessly, Mikuru, Kyon and Koizumi could tell that there was a fierce battle going on in a place that they could not see nor hear. Yuki was battling for the whole planet, the whole universe maybe, but they were all doing this for Haruhi. For her sake alone, they had to succeed.
"Done. They went through proxies, fake names, actual blocks and meta firewalls, but I succeeded. I only have-" Yuki said before a little shock threw her back on the ground, apparently disconnecting her from whatever cosmic database she had accessed.
"Ms. Nagato!" Mikuru yelled, while Kyon and Itsuki jumped to help the disabled alien construct. "Are you alright?"
"The damage is extensive, but not critical. Apparently, they were closer to my level than expected," Yuki blinked up at the two boys as they propped her up, seemingly untouched, but visibly unable to move her legs. From what Kyon knew of her though, she was very durable, and likely to be back on her feet before long. Then Yuki surprised him by murmuring, "I have lost their trail… I am sorry.."
"Can you get it back?" Mikuru asked, crouching between Koizumi and Kyon, all of them invading Yuki's personal bubble at this point.
"No. They will have placed further countermeasures into effect. I could try, but I cannot guarantee any success," Yuki said, sounding vaguely apologetic.
"Did you get any info, though?" Kyon asked, finding himself quite useless now as the more this went on, the more it seemed that his suspicions were confirmed. "Couldn't the Data Overmind help with this?"
"I did send them my findings, but now they're locking me out of the loop," Yuki explained. "I can only conclude that consensus has shifted to accept whatever action the Radical faction has effected."
Her hand was resting on Kyon' sleeve, and he felt it grip hold of him gently. She was afraid, Kyon realised. He had protected her from her own creators by threatening to turn Haruhi loose on them. Now that Haruhi was apparently out of the picture…"
"It'll be okay," he laid his own hand over Yuki's, doing his best to comfort her. "We'll find a way through this."
But he didn't know how, and for a terrible moment thought that not only had Haruhi vanished from their lives, but in a just a few seconds Yuki would be gone too.
"There was something else," Yuki managed, and with a visible effort managed to sit up of her own accord. "Approximately two hours before Miss Suzumiya returned home, a number of Human Interfaces in this vicinity requested data-package updates on the same topics."
"What were they?"
Yuki motioned for her bag, and Mikuru grabbed it for her. From inside Yuki produced the book that Haruhi had begun waving around when she announced their latest project.
"The literary anthology "The Arabian Nights", and the human terms 'djinn', 'genie' and 'lamp."
Mikuru was confused, but Koizumi and Kyon looked at each other and knew exactly what was going on. "They want to transform her-"
"Into a genie," concluded Kyon, and in his mind everything pieced together.
"Ms Suzumiya has the right mindset to be a genie, and she certainly has the power to make this change," said Koizumi, clearly thinking much the same. Then the esper's smile vanished from his face, a rare sight for anyone in his vicinity. "And it pains me to say this, but there's a certain logic to such a plan. Even we've agreed it would make sense to put a stopper on her powers, or at least a limit. Transforming her into a genie would be ideal."
"Don't tell me you're ready to go along with this?" Kyon snapped, and for a moment he saw actual anger flash in Koizumi's eyes.
"Ms. Suzumiya is my friend Kyon, the same as the rest of you, I want her safe and well, here with us. But from an outsider's perspective, consider what a danger she presents. Now consider that the tale of the genie is bound up with the concept of control. Imposing that control over Haruhi would seem very attractive to someone who considers her more of a threat than a person."
"Yeah, if Haruhi ever subscribed to the rules about genies like in those stories," Kyon retorted. "Remember last night, where she was rewriting Aladdin so that she, the genie, came out on top? Haruhi always does things her own way."
"Then why isn't Haruhi Suzumiya here?" stated Yuki. "If what you say is true, she would right now be aware of her powers and capable of anything."
"Whoever is doing this," chipped in Mikuru. "Must have had a plan to control her. Ms Suzumiya's thoughts, desires and imagination fuels her ability, so to "make" her into a genie they would need to plant and reinforce certain ideas into her."
"Then it's clear that whatever party is behind this has at least one esper on their side," said Koizumi. "There have been… certain of us who proposed using our connection with Ms Suzumiya to effect a kind of hypnosis, but the Organisation always ruled it too dangerous to toy with her subconscious, and I personally considered it unethical."
"You're probably right; this honestly feels a little too fanciful to not have a human touch involved. Drawing upon Arabian mythology to transform Haruhi into a more compliant form sounds really out of character for the Data Overmind, no offence Yuki."
"None taken… what form of conditioning did these espers propose?"
"In this situation, they'll probably use her own powers to convince her through hypnosis that she is a genie… probably a slave too and a willing one to boot," Koizumi shuddered. "I suddenly find that sense of calm I can sense within Ms Suzumiya deeply unnerving."
This was bad. It was all theoretical, but if it was true it meant that an unknown faction or group of factions could possibly control Haruhi, and in turn, the whole world, with unlimited power at their disposal. Even though Kyon knew none of the major parties caught in Haruhi's orbit were interested in something as mundane as global control, he couldn't speak for whatever splinter groups had set out to save the world from Haruhi. As such, the SOS Brigade needed to retrieve their Chief and fast. But where was she?
And then Kyon's phone rung. Whipping it out he saw his home number displayed on the screen, and held it up to his ear hoping his prayers were going to be answered. "Sis?"
"Big brother! Shami just bought something weird in through the cat-flap, a picture of a girl with writing on the back, like a postcard!"
"Is it Haruhi?" he thumbed the speaker button so that everyone could hear.
"No, it isn't big-sis Haruhi, but she's wearing your school uniform, and really pretty! The message is weird though, just your name and then all numbers and letters, english ones."
Reading with the careful slowness of a child, she began to recite. Holding the phone up so that everyone could hear Kyon watched Yuki blinking along with the sequence, shaking her head slightly every time his sister stumbled and got the characters mixed up, at which point Kyon asked her to stop and repeat herself, until the little girl began to get angry.
"That's it, you've got them now, stupid," she said, when at last Yuki nodded and Kyon said they'd received the message. You could practically hear the pout in her voice.
"This is code for a packet of data, expressed in hexadecimal script," Yuki said. "Corresponding to a metal object approximately 0.5 pounds in weight."
"Like a genie's lamp or bottle!" exclaimed Mikuru with an excited squeak, and Kyon pumped his fist in victory.
"Thank you sis," he beamed into the phone. "Is there a name on this message?"
"Yeah, Yasumi Watashi.., no...Watahashi, yeah, that's it! Yasumi Watahashi - is this going to help you find big-sis Haruhi?"
"I think so, and when your big-sis Haruhi sees you again, I think she's going to want to give you a big hug. You did great Sis!"
"Yasumi Watahashi," smiled Koizumi as Kyon rung off. "There's a name I never thought we'd hear again."
Kyon agreed. Yasumi Watahashi had been a freshman girl who joined the SOS Brigade not that long ago, and then disappeared just as abruptly after helping them through their last crisis. Rearrange the syllables of her name in Kanji and you got watashi ha Suzumiya… I am Suzumiya. A little fragment of Haruhi's subconscious, a part of her that was aware of the true nature of the SOS Brigade, and which had budded off to help them.
"Haruhi just helped us out, though she might not be aware of it," he said, an idea forming in his mind. "Just like before, some bit of her is still on our side and fighting. Okay, Yuki, get in contact with the Data Overmind again. Tell them it's a request from me this time, and I'm offering a solution, not a threat."
Not like threats could work anymore, without Haruhi around all he had were words. Well, time to see if words could work. One of the things he had learned about the Data Overmind was that the largest party was deeply conservative when it came to upsetting the balance of power. If that collective were suddenly acquising to the radicals, then it was likely because their arm was being twisted.
Blanking out for half a second once more, Yuki looked up at Kyon and nodded, indicating that she was back in conversation with her ostensible masters. "What do I say to them, Kyon?"
"Tell them that I'm offering a way to restore the status quo. Request a data modification. You have Yasumi's code for Haruhi's vessel," Kyon said. "Ask them to move the corresponding object from its current location to here and to do so as fast as possible."
It was a gamble, a tossup to see if the Data Overmind were truly agreed in the plan that the radical faction had attempted to present as a fait accompli. If he misjudged this, if those agitating for Haruhi's capture and enslavement weren't a minority, then he might just have delivered her into her grasp, brainwashed and transformed into a loyal, obedient servant.
Yuki was silent for a little moment, unwittingly building the tension, until a fax-like sound was heard and a golden lamp materialized before them, lid inlaid with amethysts, and hieroglyphs very much like the logo of the SOS Brigade inscribed into its surface. There was no mistaking it...
This was Haruhi's lamp.