No.
Blues's eyes followed the trail of footprints winding up the garden path to the front of the house. A spattering of fresh mud soiled the doorstep, meaning whoever had gone inside hadn't bothered to take his boots off. Another trail led away from the door off to the right, and at first Blues was relieved to see it—until he realized that that pair of prints was different from the first, and that his house had been visited by two intruders instead of one.
On silent feet he shrank back from the door as his hand reached for the rusted utility knife in his pocket. Slowly, he unfolded the blade.
Don't panic. Maybe they're just hikers. Maybe they're lost.
If they're lost, why would they split up?
With dread, he remembered the four energy cells he'd left in the box in his bedroom upstairs. He felt a sudden urge to count the five remaining in his backpack, but he pushed the thought out of his mind. He couldn't do that here. Not while... Well, perhaps for now it would suffice to imagine counting them. One... two... three... four... five...
Then his eyes happened to wander downwards to a point of red light trembling on his chest.
Still gripping his knife, he turned on his heels and ran. From his right came the sound of crunching leaves and feet pounding against earth. Then the front door of the house popped open behind him, and a second pair of beating footsteps joined the first.
"Dumbass," said a man's voice in a huff, "why didn't you fire?"
Blues didn't dare to look back. His backpack bobbed up and down behind him, and he reached behind with his one free hand to steady it as he wove through the trees.
"The little son of a bitch is fast," said a second voice.
A piercing buzz whizzed past Blues's left ear, and he let out a gasp. He didn't know what kind of weapon the noise had come from, but he was sure he didn't want to be struck. As he ran, he shoved his knife back into his pocket: what good could it possibly do him now?
"Careful, there!" said the first voice. "Whatever you do, don't damage his head."
The forest ahead of him came into razor-sharp focus. He picked his way over fallen tree trunks and ambled over rocks. A split-second decision took him along the slope of a wide ravine, still muddy from the previous day's rain. He sidled along as quickly as he could with the toes of his shoes digging into the incline, and when he noticed too late that his slowed pace had made him an easier target, he realized he'd made a terrible mistake. Another buzz flew past his right arm, and this time he saw the flash of white light that followed it just before the shot was absorbed into the dirt. Only twenty or so paces away, the two men hunting him came into view, rigged with loaded packs, their heads swathed with bandanas.
"Hey," one of them called out, and Blues knew from the timbre of the man's voice that he was talking to him. "Looking for these?" As he clutched onto a tree for support, he reached into the side pocket of his pack and withdrew two of the missing energy cells. Then he held them out to Blues with a lopsided grin. Behind him, his partner, his suntanned face dripping with sweat, lifted something cylindrical and silver, glinting menacingly in the sun, which Blues recognized from Dr. Light's netscreen as the barrel of a plasma rifle.
Blues turned away and scrambled along the ridge. As he went, he watched the point of red light with rising panic as it trailed along the ground behind him. Then, with an outraged cry, he came to an abrupt halt: just ahead, the ridge gave way to a near-vertical drop. Below was the rocky bed of the stream, at least twenty meters down. With no way out but up, he grasped onto a pair of protruding tree roots and heaved himself toward the crest of the ridge. The soft, wet earth collapsed under his feet—and as he dangled there, momentarily helpless, another buzz and a flash of white light zoomed toward him and found its target just below his right knee.
The sheer force of the impact almost knocked him from his grip, and the initial shock sharpened into waves of jolting pain that shot out to his toes and the tips of his fingers. He shuddered and cried out, the men laughed, and more shots rang out all around him—and then, just when Blues was certain all was lost, someone let out a yelp, which was followed by the muddy "shhhhh" of a large and heavy object sliding uncontrollably down the face of the slope.
"Aw, shit," said the other voice.
It was the loveliest sound Blues had heard. Better even than Chopin. With renewed courage, and in spite of the burning in his leg, he pulled and kicked himself up onto the top of the ravine. Neither of the men were in his sights, nor was he any longer in theirs. Giddy with joy, he pushed himself to his feet and set off again at a pained and awkward limping run.
He didn't stop until the patches of sunlight faded from the forest floor and the droning of cicadas gave way to the hush of an encroaching evening. Putting his faith in his ears, he listened for any sound of footsteps, or voices—but heard none.
He sank down against the moss-covered trunk of a fallen sugi, rubbing at his aching leg. Though the pain had begun to subside, the spot was blackened by an oblong scorch mark ten centimeters or so wide. He figured his self-repair subroutine would take care of it within a few days—but he wasn't at ease. He ripped into his backpack, pulled out his remaining energy cells, and cradled them in his mud-coated hands. Fingers trembling, he counted.
One, two, three, four, five... One, two, three, four, five...
You idiot. Of course there are five. And stop crying.
He needed to get his thoughts together. "Breathe," Yuichi had said to him once, without knowing whether it would help or not. For Blues, breathing was an automatic subroutine whose primary purpose was aesthetic. He could stop it if he wanted to without any harm done; he didn't need air except when he needed to talk. But it was worth a try.
Consciously, he drew in a large breath. He held it in for a few seconds, the way he'd seen Judith do it long ago on that horrible January night. Then he tried exhaling slowly—only to gasp it all out halfway through in exasperation. Why should he listen to Judith and Yuichi anyway? They'd been liars.
He realized his head felt heavy. He returned the energy cells to his backpack and pulled out his generator. With steadying fingers he lifted the hem of his faded black t-shirt and plugged the output into the hole in his navel. Immediately, he felt reassured by the warm, gentle surge to his core, and let his hands rest in his lap.
Blues didn't know who the two men had been, but he had an idea. Nurtech, at least, knew that he was alive. But how? Piece by piece, a convincing picture emerged. After more than two years of stealing energy cells from the communities at the base of the mountain, it was only a matter of time before someone took notice—and he was struck by the painful realization that he hadn't been nearly as careful as he'd once imagined.
He'd learned a few things about humanity during his first year of life: Dr. Light's netscreen, and Dr. Wily, had been eager teachers. He knew that humans did terrible things. That they even killed each other, sometimes just for fun. And if they couldn't manage to be kind to themselves, then what chance did he have?
Chattering flocks of sparrows gathered in the branches. As darkness settled over the mountain, so did a deepening quiet. A chill breeze blew in, and Blues withdrew his yellow scarf from his backpack and wrapped it around his shoulders. At last he could hear nothing but the languid chirping of crickets and the soft shifting of dry leaves beneath him as he pulled his knees up to his chest. Not to be forgotten, a fresh ache gnawed at his stomach—and he wondered which, Nurtech or his dying power core—would get him first.
I'm okay, he thought. Really. I'll be fine.
He was lying to himself—but he now knew that lies were necessary once in a while, and he'd learned from the best.
Hedged in by darkness, he sought refuge in his mind. Faintly at first, the melody from Chopin's etude 10, part 3 came together in fits and starts. It grew clearer until the sound was so vivid that he could almost hear the echo of the notes through the trees. Then the pitch black of the forest in front of him was overlayed with the image of the camellia he'd drawn on his bedroom wall, which sprouted color and depth, and transfigured into the original just as it had once looked in Dr. Light's garden. Then, unbidden, a stream of sights and sounds from his former life flooded in. They faded, but in their place materialized an all-too-familiar bearded face, a pair of seemingly kind, wrinkle-rimmed eyes, and the faint scent of whiskey.
If Nurtech knows I'm alive, then maybe he too... Involuntarily, the thought filled him with excitement—but it was short lived. He clenched his fists at his sides.
You really are an idiot, you know that?
"Oh, please," Kalinka said. "Stop it."
He rose at the first light of morning, damp with dew, and marched ahead in an aimless daze. With each step, his right leg ached, but he pressed on. He couldn't return to his house, and at any rate he was afraid to linger in any one place too long. His best hope now, he figured, was to put as much distance as he could between himself and his pursuers. Only later, after he was certain they'd lost his trail for good, could he begin the search for another place to live and new sources of energy cells. For now, he had to keep moving.
When the sun was high overhead, he passed through a grove of spreading azaleas at the base of the mountain which, a few months earlier, had been covered in bright purple flowers. They were at the outer limit of his circle: beyond them lay a world he'd never seen. With a silent goodbye to the forest behind him, he picked his way over the rocks jutting out from the shallow stream ahead, and abled up the side of the adjacent slope.
He trudged on. At the bottom of an embankment he found a ruined netphone screen-down in a puddle, but to his relief the rest of the afternoon passed without incident. He'd just decided to encamp for the night inside a pile of fallen and rotted tree trunks—a perfect place to hide—when a sudden flutter of movement at the edge of his peripheral vision pulled his eyes to his left.
Something dangled in the distant trees. At first Blues didn't know what he was looking at, and his initial impulse was to take cover—but as he watched, two kicking legs differentiated themselves, and the figure took on a human shape. Above the dark outline of an obviously human head was a black line stretching upward toward an overhanging tree branch. The line, and the figure under it, swang back and forth.
Blues had seen something like this before—or imagined it, although at the moment he couldn't place how. The sight pierced him with a dread he didn't comprehend—and, forgetting all about Nurtech, he broke into a run toward the hovering figure. As he went, he ripped the sunglasses from his shorts pocket and put them on, just in case. The vision in front of him, veiled in deeper darkness, took on an unreal quality. "Like a nightmare," a human like Kalinka might say.
Half a meter or so from the ground, a portly man in a rumpled suit hung by his neck from a rope. Legs flailing, he looked down at Blues with wild eyes and opened his mouth, but the only sound that escaped was a breathless gurgle: a broken plea for help.
It was horrible. Wincing from the pain in his leg, Blues clambered up the trunk of the tree gripping his rusted knife between his teeth. Then he sidled along the branch where the man's noose was tied, stooped down, and frantically sawed at the rope. Below him, the man continued to thrash. Blues thought he should say something—perhaps, some encouraging words.
"Hang in there," he called—and realized his mistake. "Sorry—I mean... that's not what I meant."
The last thread of rope gave way and the man collapsed to the ground with an earthy thump. Blues dropped the knife and swung down from the branch. He straddled himself over the man while tugging at the noose—it loosened, and suddenly to his relief the great chest beneath him heaved upward. With loud, labored, rasping breaths, the man rubbed at the red trough around his neck where the rope had been. Then, he fixed his gaze on Blues with fierce intensity, and with his other hand reached up, wrapped his fingers around Blues's scarf, and pulled him close.
Blues struggled. He pried at the man's fingers, but they didn't move. Alcohol-scented breath tickled his face, and Blues's discomfort gave way to rising panic—and he'd just started to glance around desperately for his knife when something small and squarish was shoved into his hands. The fingers released their grip, and Blues went careening backwards to the ground. When he'd steadied himself, he looked down at the object.
It was an ordinary leather wallet. The man, still splayed on the ground, took a deep breath.
"Open... it," he whispered.
Blues had no clue what he was going to see, but he did as he was asked. Inside one of the clear interior pockets was a photograph of a small, short-haired woman with glasses reclining on a picnic mat, with a laughing baby on her lap. Behind and above them, a shock of pink cherry blossoms spread out into the distance.
"Tell them... I still love them," said the man, and scratched lugubriously at a patch of beard stubble on his cheek. "And I'm sorry, y'know?" Tears formed in his eyes. He blinked forcefully, and a little stream spilled down the side of his face and onto his ear. "I'm sorry... I'm sorry..."
"I..." Blues stared down in bewilderment. The request didn't make sense. But I got you down, he thought.
"Listen," the man said. "My suicide note... on my netphone... but I lost it.
"So, please..." A glassy look settled over his eyes, and he glanced away. He let out a raspy moan. "Give them a ping... let them know where to find me, after... You got a netphone, don't you, kid?"
Blues didn't have the heart to say "no." "But I got you down," he vocalized instead, as if this were some kind of debate.
In reply, the man looked downward toward something lying on the ground next to the tree. Blues followed his gaze to a small, white bubble-wrap sheet emptied of all its pills, its plastic circular inlets gazing upwards like so many vacant eyes. Next to it, an opened bottle of shochu lay knocked over onto its side.
At last Blues understood. Panicked, he pushed himself to his feet. "Help!" he shouted through the trees, peering wildly in every direction. For the first time in his life, he would have been overjoyed to be discovered by a group of hikers—but he knew it was too late in the evening for that.
"Somebody, please."
The only answer that came was the indifferent buzzing of cicadas.
The dying man at his feet was quiet. Afraid of what he was going to see, Blues looked down.
The man's chest was barely moving, and his eyes stared intently upwards at something in the trees. Blues followed his gaze. There was nothing but branches and leaves.
In desperation, Blues shook the man by the shoulder. "What do I do?" he said. "How do I save you?"
The man didn't answer.
"Don't die," said Blues, pathetically.
Never in his life had he felt so useless. He knew a lot of things: the class, order, family, and species of every tree he encountered, and how to play "La Campanella" with his eyes closed—but he didn't have the first clue how to save a human who'd overdosed on sleeping pills, or even whether this particular human could be saved at all.
So he did what he could. He pushed his sunglasses upward onto his head, crouched down, and picked up the wallet. Then he pried the photograph of the woman and the baby from its sleeve and held it in front of the man's half-lidded eyes.
"I'll do it," he said. "I'm going to find them and tell them. I promise."
In reply, the man stared vacantly up at the photograph—but suddenly his eyes grew wide, and his pupils began to flash rapidly back and forth. His face softened, and Blues thought he'd seen the same expression somewhere before.
It was the way Dr. Light had looked whenever he talked about Catherine or tended to her shrine.
Just then Blues was seized by a flare of pain more terrible than anything in recent memory—an eight—and as he doubled over and squeezed his eyes shut, gripping at his stomach with his free hand, he struggled with all his might to keep the photograph in place.
When at last the worst had subsided, Blues straightened himself and looked down. The man, still staring at the picture, furrowed his brow, then pressed his lips together as if stifling a sob.
Then, as quickly as the spark of lucidity had appeared, it went out.
The man's chest stopped moving, and the look of anguish melted from his face. In its stead, a cold and sunken stillness settled over his features. His eyes remained open, but they were fixed in place, and dull: it was as if a light behind them had been shut off.
Blues looked away. So this was what it was like, he thought.
Hanging and sleeping pills. Out of the three ways Dr. Wily had said humans prefer to take their lives, this man had made use of two. After all he'd done to preserve his own life, Blues couldn't understand how someone could be so eager to throw away his own.
He opened the wallet again. Across from the sleeve where the photograph had been was an identification card tucked into a clear pocket. Next to a picture—taken obviously in happier times—of the man's face locked forever in a big-joweled smile, was the name "Hiroyuki Mitsui," and an address to a house in Suginami Ward, Tokyo.
Blues felt his body tense up. Tokyo was a massive city of millions: in one of the netscreen pictures he'd seen, it was a grey expanse dotted below with innumerable heads of black hair. The image had excited him once, but the thought of going there now, after years of hiding—and while Nurtech was hunting him—seemed like madness.
But he'd made a promise: the first promise, he realized, he'd ever made to anyone in his life. Somehow, that single act was more meaningful to him than the entire past two years' worth of lying low for the mere sake of carrying on one more day, and filling his house with art no one but himself would ever see.
Blues put his knife into his pocket and Mr. Mitsui's wallet into his backpack. Then he stood, and with one last furtive glance at the dead man splayed on the ground, turned back toward the forest.
The last light of the evening began to fade, and although his stomach ached, and the burn on his leg made each step painful, he began to trudge back along the same path he'd come from. Following his mental map of the side of the mountain he'd seen so far, he would spend half the night, and the next morning, retracing his steps until he reached the stream and the grove of azaleas. An hour's hike east from there, he knew, was a trail leading down into the nearest village—and there, in the middle of town, was a station served by one-car trains which he had never before dared to imagine boarding. Afraid though he was, the idea excited him, and he began to walk a little faster.
He'd gone only about a hundred paces when a low hum cut through the silence. He froze and withdrew his knife as he peered ahead. Barely visible against the encroaching darkness, a dark, wheel-shaped object floated up in the branches. Sleekly it descended, and it coursed through the air toward Blues with cold precision. The thing approached, the whirring grew, and Blues, not knowing whether he should be frightened or not, stood his ground. At last the object came to a graceful stop in mid-air a meter's distance from his face and began to rotate slowly on its axis.
Blues found himself blinking into a single, black, shining blank eye. It looked like the lens of a camera, he thought—and just as the word "camera" came into his head, a sudden flash of light blinded him. He blinked again. The "eye" disappeared behind a shutter, and the wheel floated upwards through the canopy and was gone. For a few seconds Blues peered absentmindedly at the spot where it had been, and then, suddenly, his curiosity gave way to a rising unease.
He set off again at a run, looking over his shoulder as he went.
