"The lawyer's badge stands for equality and fairness. Every life, including yours, is of equal value. Is that what you've been saying all these years? Nakamura Ichika, Abe Asuka and her husband, this woman. All of them had families before they died. Is that the equality you're after? How do they fit into your standard of justice? What makes one life worth saving and one worthless? I think now I understand what you're trying to measure. It's the value of life, isn't it?"
Makishima Shougo's voice echoed as he looked at the tall, black-haired man with locks falling to the nape of his neck, who stood with his head tilted slightly to one side and his pale blue eyes narrowed, totally relaxed, wearing a white shirt under a black vest and tie, and both dark pants and shoes. Some of his hair was behind his right ear, while the rest fell over the other side of his face. The bright light of a memory made him squint for a couple of seconds. Opposite the Public Safety Bureau headquarters, officially 70 stories high and with a huge radio tower on its roof, stood the NONA tower, owned by the Ministry of Health and Welfare.
"The complaint filed by the prosecutor before the Justice is almost 200 pages long, in it he accuses and requests the indictment and a preventive seizure of assets for a large sum of money to a former Prime Minister, a former Chancellor, a former federal prosecutor, a former judge, personnel of the current Public Safety Bureau and this Ministry for being the authors and accomplices of the aggravated cover-up of the accused for the Chiyoda bombing, in which 74 people died and more than two hundred were wounded. The indictment includes other related crimes, such as hindering the performance of a functional act and breach of the duties of a public official."
Standing in the center of the large, clean office, wearing a formal black suit that sported a badge, shorter black hair and locks combed to one side of his face, Agawa Hajime watched as one of the ministry's senior staff turned off a screen in the corner of the room, where an interview from the previous day about the federal prosecutor with reporters was playing.
"What proof is there that some of our personnel are involved?" the older man scoffed, approaching the huge glass window and putting his hands in his pants pockets.
With perfectly coiffed half-gray hair and dressed in a dark, expensive suit, he gazed down at the busy city dozens of floors below. Agawa smiled, turning his head to the side for a second.
"Sir, there are precisely complete wiretap dialogues that the prosecutor managed to collect, and that he intends to read in secret session next Monday. We are living history. If the full report is released, not only the ideological authors of the attack will be questioned, but also the very foundation of the Sibyl System."
"You are an extremely talented lawyer, but it seems you do not understand the law. We are taught that laws are legal norms that establish duties and rights to all citizens equally so that social coexistence is possible, and whose non-compliance entails a sanction, but this is a theory of law that is not fully applied in our modern society. Laws don't protect us from the powerful."
"Everyone is equal before the law, sir," Agawa blinked and frowned.
"That is naive," he raised his voice, turning around to see him. "Principles don't alter facts and reality. The law may delimit man's free will in society, but non-compliance doesn't always lead to punishment, and can be circumvented with money and influence. Does a scanner bother you? Bribe the staff of the company that maintains it. Your ideals are not enough to change an irrational world so full of contradictions. You have two choices then: either you go crazy and end up in a cell, or you adapt to it. Let me ask you. What do you think we should do to maintain a prosperous and modern society?"
The man took a few steps around the room behind some black armchairs they used for corporate meetings, hands in his pants pockets, gazing at the skyscrapers in front of them, until he came up to him.
"We need a fair justice system with objective laws that define what constitutes a crime and outline the penalty to be imposed on the person responsible for such illegal action."
"Fairness and justice have no place in this world. Your duty as a lawyer is to make an unfair argument sound fair and just. When a jurist tells me that I'm making a legal mistake, that what I'm doing is illegal, I tell him to legalize it himself, because that's what he's studied for."
"He has studied to defend truth and not lies, justice and not injustice," Agawa raised an eyebrow.
"In this society, Justice doesn't care about objectivity and truthfulness of facts. Truth is an expendable variable in matters of crime and justice. Sounds illogical and totally opposite of what you learned in college, doesn't it? However, this is the world we live in. Thanks to technology, everyone's thoughts, desires and hopes are read and analyzed, and based on that assessment, crime and punishment are defined. Your theory is meaningless and impotent against it."
Agawa raised his eyebrows for a few seconds, as if awakening from a deep sleep, "I don't really know what's going to happen to me, to you, and anyone else. All I know is… no one can avoid death. In the end, such is the only equality of men."
With one leg over the other and a heavy book resting on his thigh, Makishima narrowed his eyes and his lips twitched slightly into a smile. The cover read The Spirit of Law. He was sitting in an armchair wearing a white shirt, light purple pants and white loafers, his head turned towards the man standing in front of the huge glass window, hands in the pockets of his black pants, gazing at the NONA tower surrounded by luxurious buildings and skyscrapers.
"Oh… I see. How interesting. Power is granted only to the one who bends down to take it," Makishima raised an eyebrow, reproducing Yashiro's words aloud. "You weren't born with that power—you chose to take it. The power to decide who lives and who dies, to determine whether a life is respectable or worthless. No matter how honest a man is, in the end the one who can choose is the one who wields power. Anyone with enough power and influence is able to choose the value of a life. I bet you've seen it, haven't you? In a world where we've managed to read people's minds... many crimes that are difficult to prove such as corruption remain in impunity, since the Sibyl System doesn't have the search for truth as its essential purpose, which serves as a criterion of legitimization in the State in the exercise of the right to punish. I dare say it's impossible to do so because of the multiple constraints of the system itself."
"Will mankind never learn that policy is not morality—that it never secures any moral right, but considers merely what is expedient?"
"Thoreau," Makishima closed his eyes for a moment and lowered his head in a deep nod, white locks of hair lying across his chest. "Maybe I was drawn here to have this conversation. You too have peered behind the curtains, seen the contradictions of this world. But unlike you, I'm not interested in justice or in judging the value of human life. Each man must recognize his own. You've mentioned that death is the only equality among men. I think all our flaws are exposed when we look death in the eye, when we face human nature and reality. I don't want to decide about anyone's life. I want them to expose their hearts for themselves... and judge whether their lives are worth living."
Agawa let out a short, low chuckle, and turned around with his hands in his pants pockets, utterly relaxed. Makishima blinked and eyed him warily.
"You haven't changed," Agawa shook his head gently, squinting his eyes. "If a runaway trolley were headed straight for five people tied up on the railroad tracks, and you had a chance to divert it by killing only one person on the opposite track, you probably wouldn't save any of them. You'd be the one cutting the trolley's brakes, just to see which choice the driver would make. Sure, there are grays, but behind any choice, at its core, you either do something, or you don't. You're the most egotistical and self-aware man I've ever met, yet you never come to realize how much you crave for someone to recognize your actions.
"You pride yourself on not deciding for others, but you were quick to determine the value of her life and choose it over everyone else's. What is it with you two, anyways? That's what everybody wants to know. Some say it's a brother-sister thing, others call it platonic. I prefer to believe it's a little of both. The inspector. Takahashi Yashiro. I want to know who she is. You came out of the dark for her, more than once. Risked your life for hers. Makishima Shougo placing somebody else's life ahead of his own? What makes her so special?"
Makishima's golden eyes hardened as he stared at him for several seconds, brows furrowed and jaw clenched, until he closed his heavy book on his thigh and rose from the armchair in one quiet movement. He was turning to leave when Agawa's voice resounded again, "Have you ever heard of the Chiyoda bombing?"
Makishima stopped in front of the small table between the armchairs, and looked at him out of the corner of his eye.
"I've heard it happened a few years before the Sibyl System was implemented, and that it largely represented its moral justification under the slogans of order, security and justice. It's said to have been a terrorist attack perpetrated by a group opposed to the ruling party of the time, which consisted of the detonation of a bomb while a union rally was being held. As a result, dozens of people were killed and hundreds were injured. Following the massacre, groups sympathetic to the ruling party looted and set fire to premises identified with the opposition. Decades later, this attack was again named by a prosecutor who denounced important political figures, but then committed suicide."
"Hours before the day he was due to report, his body turned up dead from an overdose of suppressants in the apartment where he lived in Ginza. Well, I'd buy it if he was a stranger. But I knew him. He was my friend."
"What happened to the people he denounced?" Makishima turned to him again.
"Justice acquitted both the former prime minister and the rest of the accused. Since their crime coefficients were normal, the case was closed and no one ever mentioned it again," Agawa clicked his tongue. "The Ministry of Health and Welfare turned a blind eye, but continued to monitor this case for months, flagging any curious employee who sought the truth or asked too many questions."
"There is no greater tyranny than that which is perpetrated under the shield of the law and in the name of justice," Makishima closed his golden eyes, then looked at him again, frowning. "Normally, it wouldn't be accessible to the public with censorship and removal of historical events. How do you know all this?"
Agawa's eyes blinked softly, and he smiled.
"Because I worked there."