Makishima adapted quickly to life in the Sibyl System. It was almost like a perpetual holiday—not a terribly inconvenient state of being, though he did wonder if he would feel differently a year, or decade, hence. They said that time ran oddly within the Sibyl System, in curious and unpredictable cycles, almost dreamlike in its measure. Would he one day wake up only to realize that a thousand years had elapsed, and he was a creature unrecognizable?
One day he decided to share his concerns with Masuda, with whom he had developed something like a friendship, while the two of them were sitting together in the library. (The Blue Astrocyte's library was Makishima's favorite place: it contained every book ever written in every language, and none were ever checked out.) Makishima sat with a biography of Alan Turing, a book in which he had become deeply immersed. The mathematician's life was an interesting tale, full of tragedy and pathos, but Makishima was far more intrigued by the man's theories about artificial intelligence, which seemed to him directly applicable to the problems affecting Japanese society. Masuda, meanwhile, was reading an American comic book, which he described to Makishima in glowing terms. Far from dismissing his fears, the other man received them with the utmost gravity.
"It's certainly possible. I, for instance, have changed in countless ways in the years I've spent as a Sibyl legislator. I never liked celery before—couldn't stand the taste of the stuff. But now I crave it. I have a celery addiction. It's quite unaccountable."
Makishima sighed.
Masuda leaned closer. "In fact, some of us have a theory."
"What is it?"
"It's not very scientific, it's just a hunch that's been making the rounds. It started when Kansuke carried out an experiment. He announced, in Mr Chambers' hearing, that he wished they would remove beef teriyaki from the restaurant menu, as he hated the taste of it. And what do you think happened?"
Makishima said that he didn't know what happened.
Masuda stabbed a finger against Makishima's breastbone. "The next day, Kansuke announced that he'd had a change of heart. He now loved beef teriyaki. He thought it was the best dish ever created." He raised an eyebrow. "What do you think of that?"
"It sounds like Mr Chambers sent a message to Kansuke: shut up, or else."
"No, no. It was Kansuke's palate that changed. He genuinely likes beef teriyaki now. I've seen him eat it—he can't get enough. Mr Chambers caused his desires to change. What does that suggest to you?"
It suggested many things, none of them pleasant. He put down his book. "It suggests that our brains are not simply wired into the Sibyl System. Something more is happening. Sibyl is changing us, too."
"So now you understand why I don't dismiss your concerns. I don't think they go far enough, personally. A thousand years may pass, yes, and you may be older and wiser in superficial ways, but who cares about that?" Masuda sighed. "The real question is, will you be Shogo Makishima at all?"
Someone badly wanted me in the Sibyl System. They turned the whole MWPSB to the task of capturing me, alive, at all costs. Why? Makishima slowly rose to his feet and went over to the window. As he used to do in his penthouse while lost in thought, he studied the Tokyo skyline with unseeing eyes. It was an overcast day, and the gauzy haze of pollution lent the horizon a pleasing orange tint. I thought it was because they wanted to use me as a weapon, but what if that isn't the case? What if they—Mr Chambers, or whoever controls him—don't want individuals at all? What if they want something else?
"You should read this," said Masuda. "I love comic books—better than any novel, if you ask me."
"I didn't ask you."
Have I changed already? He searched his feelings, but gave up a second later. How could you tell if the stuff that comprises you has changed? Kansuke changed because he dared to challenge Mr Chambers. That suggested the best way to avoid having his personality scrambled—for now, anyway—would be to stay under Mr Chambers' radar for as long as possible.
"Of course, you won't have to worry about any of that soon enough." Masuda put his comic book back on the shelf and scratched his chin as he considered his next selection. "None of us will, I hope."
Makishima turned. "What do you mean by that?"
"You know. The Okaba Street trials."
"Right." He knew it would be fruitless to ask the man to elaborate. Masuda seemed to think that Makishima was one of Yamato's close political allies, making him privy to inside information. Which might be true—he wasn't certain yet. Yamato, at this point, could be friend or foe or something in between.
One thing was clear, though. The longer Makishima stayed in the Sibyl System, the longer he risked losing his identity and becoming the thing he hated most.
Later that day, after a pleasant afternoon spent swimming laps in the Olympic-sized pool, Makishima noticed something amiss on the way back to his apartment. The faces he passed in the hallways seemed distressed—some were grief-stricken, others looked stunned, and a few were openly weeping. What tragedy could cause a god to cry? he wondered. Illness and death were half-remembered concepts in the Sibyl System, being too academic to cause true sorrow, and the misfortunes of their subjects in the real world were viewed with equanimous detachment.
In the elevator, Makishima saw more grieving faces. He recognized one of them from his first session in the Diet—she had been sitting next to Sawaki, he remembered—so he took the young woman aside and asked her what had happened.
"You don't know?" She blinked at him with tear-filled eyes. "It was announced over the PA."
"I was in the pool."
"Oh." She accepted a handkerchief that Makishima pressed into her hand and dabbed at the corners of her eyes. "It's Eve, she…"
Makishima's eyes narrowed. "Eve? Do you mean Evelyn? Evelyn Sawaki?"
The girl nodded. "The news just got back from Caneworth. They killed her. Those animals—they, they ambushed her. She's dead."
It was an absurd statement. Unless their brain-enclosures were breached, Sibyl gods were all but immortal—and if they had been breached, Makishima would be dying too. He studied her more closely. Her eyes were red-rimmed, her hair a mess. But what jumped out at him was that she appeared genuinely distraught. She knows people can't die in the Sibyl System, but here she is, bawling her eyes out. He patted her on the shoulder.
"Was it the latent criminals?" he asked.
"Of course, who else? They must have been plotting since Hugh came back. How could they dare? Don't they know what this means? Now we'll have to kill them all." She snorted back tears. "We have to send a message. To make them learn."
"Maybe they don't care that you're going to kill them," said Makishima. "Maybe they would rather die as free men and women than live as slaves on somebody's vacation island."
The girl looked at him with an uncomprehending glassy-eyed stare, so Makishima offered his condolences again and continued on his way. It was becoming clear that the people in Sibyl were unpredictable, and he found that galling. He was the best student Professor Saiga had ever had; he could get nearly anybody to follow his cue, if he desired, and people were just one of the many tools in his toolbox. But three days in the Sibyl System still found him an observer of events rather than their orchestrator.
I'll have to speak with Yamato. He's the key to everything—him, and Mr Chambers.
Coincidentally, he found the man himself waiting in his apartment. Yamato was seated at his kitchen table, having invited himself inside and helped himself to Makishima's digital fruit. Or was the fruit real? He could never decide if the essence of it made a difference to its existence. A cantaloupe was sliced open messily in front of the Vice Chairman. He looked up when Makishima entered.
"Ah, there you are." Yamato used a rag to wipe his hands and gestured at the fruit. "Would you like some?"
"No, thank you."
"I let myself in," said Yamato. "I hope you don't mind. You've heard the news, I expect?"
"About Evelyn Sawaki?" Makishima nodded. "It doesn't make any sense to me, though. I take it she isn't actually dead?"
"Not in the traditional sense, the sense you're referring to. She will die in a few days, if nothing is done."
"I don't understand."
Yamato pushed the cutting board away and rested his arms on the counter. Deep circles ringed his eyes, and there was an unspoken weariness to his manner. He looks overworked. "It's impossible to die in the Blue Astrocyte. It would take a real world catastrophe for such a thing to happen, and we've taken many precautions against that eventuality. Nona Tower is defended against any conceivable attack or natural disaster. We filter our air and, if necessary, can make our own. We have our own water source, separate from the Tokyo municipal supply. We generate our own power. We are an island of stability in a dangerous world."
"It sounds like Heaven is well-defended."
"It is. Physical death is nearly impossible, you see. But brain death?" Yamato shook his head slowly. "That is an altogether more realistic possibility. To demonstrate, I'll need to briefly explain how the Sibyl System actually functions."
Makishima lowered himself onto the kitchen stool opposite Yamato. "I'm all ears, Yamato-san."
"Your brain cannot survive without your body. Sounds obvious, right? Well, think of the tremendous strides made in the field of microsurgery in the last century. We transplanted anything and everything. Tissue rejection was a thing of the past, a sad memory of the older practitioners. We succeeded in whole-body transplants even before the recent advances in cyberization, and even those first experimental cases lived long, healthy lives. But bodies are in exceedingly short supply, of course. In that case, before cyberization, why didn't we simply remove the brain and let it survive in the same kind of nutrient bath that your brain is in at this precise moment? Wouldn't that solve the issue?
"No. Because we realized that the brain—the mind—does not need nutrients alone. It doesn't need blood or oxygen. Those are trivial to supply. It needs input above all else. Input is what matters. The brain must have sensory input to generate a coherent sense of itself—to generate you, in fact. Without sight, sound, touch, smell, you would quickly lose your mind."
Yamato turned the cantaloupe over. He tapped the outer skin. "This is Sibyl. While it does contain supercomputer elements and some human-written software, what it really is, Makishima, is an artificial corpus callosum. Are you familiar with that term?"
"I believe it connects the two halves of the brain, unifying them into one whole," said Makishima. "There were neurosurgical experiments and several breakthroughs after it was severed."
"Precisely. Here, in the Blue Astrocyte, we experience each other's presences via the medium of Sibyl. The same is not true of Caneworth. Because it wasn't designed by the original architect—"
"You mean Mr Chambers."
"Yes." Yamato hesitated. "And you still haven't met him yet. I apologize. He really isn't as mysterious as he seems."
"I'm sure Mr Chambers is a busy man. I'm happy to wait until he has time in his schedule."
"Very good." Yamato popped another slice of cantaloupe into his mouth. "As I was saying, at first Mr Chambers was reluctant to allow the creation of a second environment for Sibyl's members. He finally gave in under the agreement that it would involve no physical hardware—in other words, none of the existing Sibyl architecture would be employed in its creation."
"Its designers, Evelyn Sawaki and Hiroki Masuda, came up with an ingenious workaround for this problem. Instead of using Sibyl hardware as an intermediary, they chose to link each brain directly to every other brain. As I understand it, they called it a peer-to-peer system, an idea of Mr Masuda's."
"I think I understand now. Without the Sibyl computers keeping everything nice and friendly, there is the possibility of real violence and brain death. If someone wanted to kill Miss Sawaki, she would die in the real world."
"Well, yes and no. Mr Masuda did anticipate the risks, so he gave one brain control over the rest. That brain is the winner of the Lottery, of course, and the person who has absolute control over reality itself in Caneworth. Mr Masuda refers to that state as the Dream."
"Then what happened? How did she die?"
"I spoke to Hiroki this morning, after the news reached us. He believes that there was one possibility—a thirty-second handshake period at the start of the Dream in which no brain has priority. For those thirty seconds, anyone could kill Evelyn and face no consequences."
"Very clever of them to figure it out," said Makishima.
Yamato grunted. "Clever enough that they've signed their own death warrants."
"Death is not the worst fate, Vice Chairman."
Yamato shook his head. "I've no interest in arguing that old topic. Suffice it to say that none of them will survive the month."
Makishima slid off the stool and stretched. "Well, I feel very sorry for them, but they did roll the dice. We have a Diet session in a few minutes. Would you like to walk down together?"
"I came here to speak with you privately before the session, actually."
"Oh? About what?"
Yamato seemed to be turning something over in his head. He said something under his breath, then looked up at Makishima. "I'm hesitant to ask this of you. I know Mr Chambers would disapprove, and that alone would be enough for me to throw out the idea. But Evelyn is dear to me… She's a good friend. I would hate to lose her."
"You know of some way to save her life?"
"Yes. It would be risky for anyone, but since your brain has been linked to Sibyl recently, less so for you. As I explained earlier, the Recreation Node requires a direct brain-to-brain interface. Presently the Node is one brain short. Evelyn has been cut off from all sensory input—I imagine that she's extremely distressed right now, lost in a sea of what we can only imagine as silent darkness. It would be a thousand times worse in reality. And there is no way of reconnecting her to Sibyl without killing her. But there is a way to save her life. She need only be reconnected to Caneworth."
"That sounds deceptively simple."
Yamato chuckled. "Quite so. Saving her life will require her mind to genuinely believe that what she experienced in the Dream—her death—was exactly that: a dream. That alone will allow her to reconnect to Caneworth."
"You said before that Caneworth is a peer-to-peer system. That means everyone in it, including the latent criminals, must believe in the same shared world."
"Yes."
Makishima spread his hands. "Well, they all think she's dead."
"True." Yamato sighed and rubbed his jaw. "To save Evelyn's life, you would need to go to Caneworth as its next Lord. You'll bring with you a piece of code that Masuda will write for you. It will probably look like a sword or scepter—he's big on symbols. Once there, you will execute Masuda's code, which will give you full control over the Dream. You will kill the latent criminals and bring Evelyn back at precisely the same instant. When her mind realizes that there is no one there to contradict her existence, she'll rationalize her memory into something believable. Then you can both return to Sibyl. Of course, it will be mentally taxing for both of you. Caneworth will need to be generated by two brains alone—a difficult task. But I have faith in you."
"Suppose I get murdered during the first thirty seconds, just like her?"
"That bug has been patched by Masuda. Your Authorship of the Dream will begin immediately."
This is either a very clever trap or exactly what it seems to be. His feelings for Sawaki appear genuine enough, however. Makishima looked at the clock hanging above the sink. Their Diet session was less than ten minutes away. "This piece of code that Masuda wrote. Can he make it look like a Dominator?"
Yamato blinked. He appeared to wonder if Makishima was joking, then shrugged as if it made no difference anyway. "Yes, I don't see why not. It can be anything. Is there a reason you'd like it to be a Dominator?"
I want to understand what it felt like for Kogami, he thought, but he saw no reason to tell Yamato that. I want to see what being Sibyl's instrument of destruction will do to my soul.
"No," he said.
"Yes, well, certainly. I'll inform Masuda. Does that mean you'll go?"
It was a great risk, but it was also a correspondingly large opportunity. Mr Chambers would have no jurisdiction in the Dream, and that made the place highly appealing to Makishima. And if the worst happened and Sawaki really did die, he could simply spend six months as the Lord of Caneworth. Not the worst type of vacation.
"Yes."
"Excellent. We'll announce it in today's session." Yamato checked his watch. "Which, by the way, is just about now. I'll meet you down there."
After Yamato left, Makishima took a quick shower. He stood under the scalding water with his face upturned and his eyes closed, letting the heat wash away all fear and hesitation. He thought of Shinya Kogami's relentless spirit and pictured himself taking some of that ferocity for himself, borrowing from the soul of his murderer.
In his fancy, it fit together perfectly with his own soul, and in this way he knew that they were true mortal enemies.
On the sixth day after the cloud-script announced the date of Armageddon, Kagari awoke from a drunken sleep and began to shiver. He was lying next to Lady Sawaki's old bed, the stone floor icy beneath his body, blankets and sheets surrounding him in a great big mound. There were several empty bottles on the bureau, nestled in his blankets, and scattered about the floor. He had a tremendous headache, and his back was sore. His mouth tasted of whiskey and vomit.
He'd intended to drink himself into a stupor, such that the obliteration of Caneworth would pass by like a gentle breeze, barely noticed in his inebriated state. But he'd miscalculated the dosage and woken up early.
Kagari sat up. He looked around the bedroom with bloodshot eyes. He was alone, though he vaguely recalled having spent the night with one of the serving maids.
"Starvale," he called out hoarsely.
The door was shut, and nobody seemed to hear him. Kagari dragged himself along the floor to the bureau, which he used as a sort of climbing wall, clinging to each drawer with the helpless tenacity of a waterlogged rat. When he was sufficiently vertical, he staggered over to the door and opened it.
He peered into the hallway.
A uniformed guardsman stood at the end of the hall. Kagari thought his name might be Buckley. Buckley looked at Kagari with something like contempt.
"Where's Starvale?" he called out.
"In the war room, preparing for the attack," said the guardsman, and his tone seemed to add, Which is where you should be, you drunk fool.
Kagari sneered at the guardsman and nearly lost his balance. He kept his footing only by bracing himself quickly against the doorframe, as if Caneworth were a sinking ship and he was readying for the final plunge into the ocean depths.
"Tell Starvale," he said, swallowing around his nausea, "I'll be right there."
The guardsman shook his head and walked off.
Kagari watched him go, then turned and surveyed the path to the bathroom. He was going to have a cold shower and then he was going to the war room, where the latent criminals of Caneworth were planning an ambush for the Sibyl brain that would be arriving tomorrow.
How could you ambush a god, though, he wondered? It had worked with Sawaki, but only because her divinity was incomplete—a coding error of sorts. But the next god to arrive would be an improved model, with all the bells and whistles, and ready to mete out divine justice.
They want to kill us, he thought. That's fine. But they're not going to do it without an explanation. I deserve an explanation.
They gave Makishima a holster for Hiroki's computer program, which, as promised, looked exactly like a standard PSB-issued Dominator. He slid it from the holster and held it in both hands curiously, letting the light play over the barrel, his eyes narrow with concentration. Kurou Yamato and Hiroki Masuda and a fellow called Naoka—who supervised the link between the Sibyl System and Caneworth, and who looked perpetually confused—were all watching him. He ignored them.
The Dominator was cold to the touch, which surprised him, because whenever he'd touched Kogami—especially during their fight on the top of Nona Tower, an especially crisp memory for him—he'd felt as if he could be burned by the Enforcer's flesh. He'd imagined that the Dominators were filled with intense energies, and radiated great heat and light along with their customary death and paralysis. But, at least here, in the Sibyl System, that was not the case. The Dominator shone darkly in the orange glow of the Awakening Portal, which itself cast reddish shadows over their faces, as if they were lit by firelight.
"You understand what you must do?" Yamato inquired.
"You must bring Evelyn back alive," Masuda put in, his face a lined mask of worry. "Please, Shogo. Bring her back."
Makishima nodded. "When I go through that Portal, I'll awaken in Caneworth. Once there, I'll use Hiroki's program—" he lifted the Dominator, which still rested in his hand with a comfortable weight "—which will bring Sawaki back to Caneworth and kill all of the latent criminals. This will convince Sawaki's subconscious mind that she's still alive, and that what she experienced was just a dream."
"You may need to calm her," said the man called Naoka. "We don't know what sort of shape she'll be in. No Sibyl member has ever experienced brain death before. These are uncharted waters."
"I'll be very kind to her," he assured them, and stepped up to the Portal.
It was a large circle, and connected by a thick data-cable to a humming bank of computers taking up much of the wall. This room was a small one, just off of the Stadium, and it seemed to be where much of the administration of the Sibyl organism took place. The moan and whine of the computers corresponded to the flickering intensity of the light that emanated from the Portal. When Makishima stepped into it, the machines clattered into life, and a printout ejected from a nearby workstation.
Naoka went swiftly over to it. He read the sheet over with a look of great discernment and smiled. "It worked." And to Makishima, he added, "The Nutrient Arms have accepted your request for transfer. That means your brain will be disconnected from Sibyl and hooked up to Caneworth momentarily."
Makishima felt a tingle course through his body. He tightened his grip on the Dominator and ran his finger over the patterned grip. "How long will that take?"
Naoka consulted the banks of computer screens. They gibbered out madness in the form of text, babbled reams of information that might have been sense or insanity, or both. Makishima thought of Choe, his negotiator betwen the machine and the human world, and closed his eyes. "It shouldn't be long now. You will be disconnected shortly. You'll lose consciousness, but only for a few moments, and when you awaken, you'll be in Caneworth."
"Remember to keep hold of that program," Yamato urged, and his voice seemed to come from a distance. It was tinny and soft. "If anyone gets hold of it, they'll control the Dream, not you."
"All right," said Makishima, and placed the gun back in its holster. He blinked several times in an attempt to moisten his eyelids. "Who turned out the lights?"
"No one did." To Naoka: "Is it beginning?"
"I'm checking, Vice Chairman." The sound of typing. A louder hum. "Yes, they're disconnecting him now."
"Good luck, Shogo."
He tried to respond, but the night, a great screaming mouth, swallowed him whole.
It wasn't like Makishima's first crossing into the Sibyl mystery. Then, awareness had stopped and started with the suddenness of a rollercoaster cresting dips and rises on a great adventurous track. The Portal took sight and hearing away piecemeal, with the other senses firing off randomly, as though his body had lost its sense of what was reality, what was imagination. He felt water washing over his skin, and then a murmuring in his ears—he couldn't recognize the words—before his eyesight faded to black. His thoughts went, too, and then his speech, and then he was just a mass of confused, frightened emotions.
Then that, too, faded away, leaving nothing behind but a sense of regret.
The Castle Caneworth war room was a hive of disturbed excitement when Kagari, feeling like an interloper, crept inside. They had taken over the biggest of the dining halls, and the large wooden table served as their strategy map. Knives and forks were plunged into the wood in symbolic representation of squads, barricades, cannon. During Kagari's slumber, the castle had been transformed into a warren of booby-traps and confused dead ends. All paths led to and from the Awakening Portal, which was surrounded by barriers of iron spike and chicken wire mesh that had been borrowed from the hatchery. Anything to render violence upon intruders that could be done had been done—but it wouldn't be enough, Kagari knew, not nearly enough.
"Shusei." Starvale looked at him from the end of the big table, grand and larger-than-life in his pilfered royal clothes. A silver pin gleamed on his lapel, proclaiming him as the head of the Caneworth household guard. His cheeks were embellished by the addition of five days' worth of whiskers. His gaze was steady and confident.
"Hey, everyone." Kagari went around the table, feeling the eyes on him, and came to stand beside Starvale's chair. His chair, really, but he didn't want it back. He wasn't a leader. He'd meant what he said before.
The other man looked at him impassively. "I'm sorry, but things have changed, Shusei. I've taken over command. You were… unresponsive."
Kagari ran a hand through his hair and smiled weakly. "That's fine. I don't want command. I just want one thing."
One of the guardsmen snorted and muttered a soft insult, and laughter rippled through the assembled men and women. Most of the soldiers were gazing at him unpleasantly, with degrees of antipathy that ranged from dislike to outright hostility.
"What is it, Shusei?" Starvale asked.
"It looks like from all of this stuff—" and he nodded to the table, with its maps and strategies laid out like a Christmas ham and sides "—that you guys intend to kill whoever Sibyl sends tomorrow. I'm fine with that. I just want one favor."
This led to a few objections, and shouts rose up to drown out Kagari and envelope the dining hall in noise. Starvale waited patiently until it had expended itself and raised a calming hand. Silence fell.
"What favor, Shusei?"
"I want you to let me talk to the Sibyl member that comes through the Portal," said Kagari. "Whoever it is, I just want a chance to speak with them first, before the fighting starts."
"Whoever appears will kill the first latent criminal they lay eyes on."
"I know," said Kagari. "I don't care. I just want to speak to them."
Starvale looked steadily into his eyes, as if trying to divine his motive. Kagari didn't flinch. Don't you understand? he thought. If I'm going to die at the hands of Sibyl, I damn well want to know who's pulling the trigger this time.
Starvale shifted. He looked down at the cutlery festooning the table, then back up at Kagari. "Fine," he said slowly. "You can go talk to them. It will help us, in a way. We'll see if they intend to make good on their threat."
"Thanks."
"Is that all?"
"Yeah. I'll let you get on with your plans."
A small part of Kagari's mind traitorously whispered in his ear: You can reason with whoever they send. If you ask for forgiveness, they'll let you live. Would that be so bad?
He left the hall.
Makishima was reconstituted in the same manner as vegetable soup. The pot—his skull—was filled with water; then sliced potatoes, carrots, onions, and leeks were liberally thrown inside, along with salt, sugar, many different herbs and spices, and a can of chicken stock. These ingredients, combined by vigorous mixing, were put on the fire to simmer for an hour.
That was what it felt like, at least.
It's a wonder anyone wants to come here, he thought.
His body congealed into physical existence like jello poured into a mold, and he took a few seconds to steady himself, his fingers clutching a piece of wire grating. He took slow breaths and inhaled deeply. The fragrance of Caneworth was that of grass, sweat, leather, mildew, and char. He found it unpleasant.
"What an awful vacation spot," he said aloud, and slid open the screen protecting the Awakening Portal.
Or he tried to. The mesh didn't budge. Frowning, Makishima pushed it, pulled it, and tried to move it to both sides. It was solidly fixed into place. He turned in a circle, saw the heavy ironwork barricading him inside the Portal, and realized what it was supposed to be: a fence to keep him out.
He began to laugh.
Kagari crouched behind an overturned table a dozen feet in front of the Awakening Portal and waited. He was the only one who dared come this close—the soldiers of Caneworth, with Starvale's prudent blessing, had taken up strongly defensible positions behind false walls and hidden trapdoors which had been ingeniously hewn into the very stonework of the castle. Most of the soldiers wore what heavy armor and equipment the garrison could supply; the rest made do with makeshift axes and wooden shields. Cannon towed on rolling carts and arrows and boiling pitch stood by, ready to fling death at Sibyl's messenger. The latent criminals of Caneworth didn't seem to understand their predicament—that this was all imaginary, in their heads, and there was nothing they could possibly do to stave off the inevitable. But Kagari couldn't blame them. They were frightened and ready to lash out like cornered animals.
The mind fights to survive even in the face of no hope.
Kagari was wearing jeans. He didn't have a weapon. He wasn't afraid.
Fear had seemed logical before, when death was poking around the neighborhood, so to speak, but there was a salutary effect in seeing it up close. And it helped that he knew for a fact that dying wouldn't hurt—he had died once before, at the hands of Chief Kasei, and it had been nothing more than instant oblivion, like falling asleep, with perhaps a touch of warmth on his cheeks. Probably from the Decomposer round, whose energy traveled faster than the nerve impulses from his pain receptors. A reassuring thought.
The minutes passed with the languor of dripping honey. Kagari's legs began to cramp up, so he shifted into a half-crouch and massaged them to bring sensation back. As he did so, he failed to notice a reddish glow coming from the Awakening Portal, and more importantly, the slight hum that was growing from the stone ring. The Portal flickered several times like a faulty light bulb, and the pressure in the room suddenly changed, causing Kagari's ears to pop as a new body appeared, displacing the air surrounding it.
There. Much better. Kagari sat back with a sigh just as soft mocking laughter drifted from the Awakening Portal. Every muscle in his body froze up again, and he hunched down, trying in vain to conceal himself. Oh, shit. They're here.
The iron bars and the chicken mesh clanked as someone seized hold and shook them. He heard the welds being tested; the god jostled the grate, kicked it a few times, and ran his fingernails over the bars. Then he began to laugh again, louder this time.
"Is this meant to keep me out?" a voice called, highly amused. It echoed in the stone chamber and seemed to reverberate through every crevice of Caneworth. Kagari crouched lower behind the upturned table, trying to fold in on himself like a collapsible umbrella.
"Who is that?" the voice asked. "I can see you there, you know. Your hair is sticking out."
Kagari swore and ducked. But the damage was done, and he sagged in defeat. What was the point in hiding any longer? He should at least die with dignity, right? For a few seconds he debated that question, feeling his courage run, falter, and flow anew beneath his skin. Finally his spine stiffened and he gritted his teeth.
He climbed coolly to his feet, brushing sawdust from his jeans, and straightened to stare the god in the eyes. Let him see that Kagari wasn't afraid, even in the face of the real death.
But the effect, sadly, was ruined. Kagari's eyes widened in disbelief and betrayed his attempt at coolness. He stared at the god in shock.
It was impossible, but he was looking at a face he instantly recognized from a photograph that Sasayama had carried around like a good luck charm—a face that had been enlarged, enhanced, and digitized before being sent to every precinct in Japan as the top name on the Public Safety Bureau's Most Wanted list of criminals. It was a face Shinya Kogami had spent hours memorizing after Sasayama's death; then he, too, had carried it around like a religious token, its surface worn smooth from constant handling. Kagari couldn't have forgotten that face if he'd wanted to, even if he'd paid a hundred million yen for a total brain-wipe.
It was the face of Shogo Makishima, of course.
"I recognize you," said Japan's most notorious criminal mastermind, as calmly as if they had bumped into each other at the supermarket. "Give me a moment to remember from where." His eye skimmed over Kagari's stunned face, questing, lightly touching mouth, nose, ears, and lingering on his bright red hair. "I know—you're Kagari, aren't you? You're one of the MWPSB's Enforcers. You were in the cellphone recording that Chief Kasei showed me, the one Choe took before they killed him."
A transformation came over Makishima's face. He blinked and looked momentarily excited, then stared at Kagari with great urgency. "You're alive. Does that mean Choe is alive, too? Is he here somewhere?" He peered around the chamber as if expecting to see Choe Gu-sung waltz out from behind one of the shadowed columns.
Mutely, Kagari shook his head. He didn't know what the man was talking about. It seemed that every time someone threw him a curve ball, it stopped in mid-air in front of his glove and changed direction. What was Shogo Makishima doing in the Sibyl System? Hadn't they worked for months in an effort to capture him? Kagari's mind raced, eliminating possibilities one by one, circling back on discarded theories like a dog chasing its own tail.
Then it dawned on him. Capture Makishima alive at all costs. Division One had received memos like that repeatedly over the course of the investigation, always couched in terms that exaggerated Makishima's importance as a living asset. His colleagues had ignored them, in truth, knowing that sometimes in their line of work people died—an unfortunate reality. But he finally understood why it had been sent in the first place. In retrospect it seemed glaringly obvious: the Sibyl System had never wanted Makishima to die at all. They had wanted to invite him into the System as an honored guest.
"He's dead, then?"
Kagari stirred himself. Everything had clicked together in his head in a way that signified total understanding, like a set of locking gears lining up in perfect synchronicity, and he finally understood the Ministry of Welfare's unceasing flow of nonsensical and contradictory orders. They all made sense when he viewed them from Sibyl's perspective, from a desire to safeguard Makishima's life.
We weren't sent out to capture Shogo Makishima so that he could face justice. We were sent to ensure his immortality.
"Well? Is Choe Gu-sung alive?"
Kagari shook his head slowly. "I doubt it. Not unless the Sibyl System can reverse a Dominator's effects. I saw Chief Kasei—or whatever Sibyl brain was piloting her body, I guess—shoot him at point-blank range with a Decomposer round. There's no way he could survive that, unless he's got more tricks up his sleeve than I gave him credit for."
Makishima rested a hand against the barricade and stared at Kagari. "A pity," was all he said.
"So you're the new Lord of Caneworth," said Kagari, not liking the silence growing between them. "I'll be honest—when I was trying to guess who they would send, your name wasn't exactly at the top of my list."
Makishima sighed. "Becoming a pickled brain in the Sibyl cupboard was not my fondest ambition, I admit."
"I didn't even know you were still alive," Kagari continued. "I figured Kogami would have gotten you in the end. He was driven enough to get the job done."
"He nearly did. It was only Sibyl's quick action that kept me from bleeding to death."
"If you don't mind my asking, what happened?" Kagari scratched his head. "I've been trapped here since the night you attacked Nona Tower. I'm in the dark about everything."
The god swept his eyes over the dining hall, taking in the various defensive barriers, the overturned tables, the cannon trained on the spot where he stood, and smiled slightly. "I suppose it can't hurt to tell you. My plan was to take out Sibyl and free mankind from its unnatural captivity. Barring that, we would at least try to broadcast its true nature to the people of Japan. We failed, obviously. I was captured by the PSB, who turned me over to Sibyl. You already know what happened to Choe." Makishima's eyes clouded over for a few seconds. "I managed to escape. Then—and this was something I wasn't expecting—Shinya Kogami shot me in the back and left me for dead in a hyper oat field. The Sibyl brains then airlifted me to Nona Tower, where I was given the keys to the kingdom, so to speak."
Kagari snorted. "Lucky you."
Makishima shrugged. "It's not the kind of afterlife I was expecting, but it does have its perks. On the other hand, I am not quite the reformed man that dear Sibyl believes me to be. I confess to have been biding my time, waiting for the right opportunity to present itself." He peered closely at Kagari. "And do you know? I believe it has."
"What's that supposed to mean?"
Ignoring him, Makishima asked, "Do you know why I'm here?"
"Yeah, we got the message. We killed Sawaki and you're here for revenge."
"That's why Sibyl sent me here, but as I said, I have my own plans. I certainly never expected to meet an Enforcer from the Public Safety Bureau here, let alone one who has a history with myself and Choe Gu-sung."
The feeling that death was mere seconds away from seizing Kagari by the throat lessened, and he leaned against the overturned table, feeling sensation slowly return to his limbs, a tingle that crept like a centipede's feet over his skin. "What are you saying? You're not going to kill us?"
"I'm open to negotiation, Enforcer, if you're willing to bargain for your life."
What is he talking about? How is he going to explain letting us live to the Sibyl System? They won't settle for anything less than blood. On the other hand, he is Shogo Makishima, the guy that even Kogami had difficulty tracking down. He must have some trick up his sleeve.
"I come from a long line of hagglers," said Kagari, a grin spreading across his face. "I'm all ears, Makishima."
"Very good. I'd like to discuss matters in a more private setting. Would you ask your friends to remove these bars?" He gave the iron cage a hard shake. "Or, if you would prefer, I can take them down myself."
"No, let me talk to them," said Kagari quickly. "They'll be glad to hear you didn't come here to kill anyone."
Convincing Starvale and the others to let a Sibyl god free in Caneworth wasn't easy, however. They seemed to think that Makishima had Kagari under his spell and was somehow forcing him to do Sibyl's bidding. Another theory, espoused by those who especially disliked Kagari, went that he was betraying them all in exchange for his own life. After much back-and-forth, Kagari managed to convince Starvale that he was trustworthy. They opened a narrow corridor from the Awakening Portal to Lady Sawaki's chambers. Starvale, looking ill under the weight of his plate armor, led Kagari and Makishima there in strained silence.
"I'm glad you're being reasonable, my lord," Starvale began when they reached the chamber entrance, but Makishima raised a hand and cut him off.
"I want to speak with Kagari, not you. The fate of everyone in Caneworth rests in his hands. If he chooses, you will all live long, happy lives in digital bliss. Or you may all be dead by nightfall. Understand?"
Starvale's eyes grew progressively wider and more terrified as the god spoke, and Kagari swung the door shut with an apologetic wince.
Lady Sawaki's bedchamber was as he had left it—mess and all.
It was a surreal setting for a parley between god and subject, Kagari thought. He saw the large bed in the center of the room, overflowing with silk sheets and sable blankets, and for a moment he was overtaken by memories of Evelyn. But then Makishima strode past his field of vision and rudely jolted him from his reverie.
"You look overwhelmed," the god said. "Get yourself a drink."
Kagari poured them each a glass of water from the drinks tray, then went over to sit at the breakfast table. "We're alone," he said, and sipped at his water. "What did you want to ask me?"
"I want you to help me destroy the Sibyl System."
Kagari flapped his jaws for a few moments. Then, aware of how he must look, he gave a quick nod. "Of course." It might not have been the absolute last thing he expected to hear from a Sibyl member, but it was the next closest thing. "Was this always your plan? Get recruited into Sibyl and take it down from the inside? If so, let me just say that it was very impressive planning."
Makishima wandered over to the large bookshelf and peered at the titles there. "No," he said over his shoulder. "We had no idea what the Sibyl System truly was. We thought it was simply what had been advertised: networked supercomputers of unprecedented speed, programmed in such a way as to maximize societal happiness and well-being. Choe had his own suspicions, some of which he shared with me." He selected a book and began to flip through the pages. "In hindsight, I wish I had paid more attention to his theories."
"We didn't know either," said Kagari. "The MWPSB, I mean. And you know what? I don't know what we would have done if the truth had come out. Ginoza and the other division chiefs would probably try to put the best face on it, say it was for the good of the country or something. But the rest of us?" He stared at his glass of water. "Yayoi might have quit. Masaoka, too. Hell, I know Kogami would have gone on a total rampage."
Makishima looked up from his book. "You were close friends with Shinya Kogami, then?"
That's a weird question. Kagari frowned. "Yeah, we were pretty close. We'd go out drinking together. I'd say he was a friend."
"What was he like?" Makishima spoke without inflection. His eyes bored into Kagari's face.
Whoa, what made him get so intense all of a sudden? Kagari ran his finger through the puddle of condensation on the table and shrugged. "Kogami was a complicated guy. You never knew whether he would laugh his head off or take your head off. He was a bundle of contradictions—kind to animals and children, cruel as hell to latent criminals. I saw him break a guy's ribs once just to get his Crime Coefficient to spike. There was a reason he was kicked down to Enforcer, you know."
"He was a worthy opponent, to be sure." Makishima weighed the book thoughtfully in his hands. Kagari squinted, trying to make out the title. Selected Poems. He couldn't see the author's name. "I would have liked to spend a few hours in conversation with him. As it was, our brief encounters left me deeply impressed."
"Oh, I think you two would have gotten along fine."
Makishima shot him a questioning look.
Kagari nodded to the book. "He read poetry, too."
The god didn't say anything to that, just kept staring down at the book thoughtfully, so Kagari tried to bring the conversation back around to the main issue—his life. Well, the lives of everyone in Caneworth.
"You said you wanted me to help you take down Sibyl." Kagari spread his hands. "Hell, you came to the right place."
"You're willing, then?" asked Makishima. "It will be dangerous. I can't guarantee your safety."
Kagari nodded with a confidence he didn't feel. "A little danger comes with the job. But how dangerous are we talking, exactly?"
"I don't know. I'm trusting in Choe Gu-sung." Makishima approached the breakfast table and sat down opposite Kagari, who found the nearness of the deity vaguely discomfiting. He wanted to scoot his chair back a few centimeters, but didn't dare for fear of giving offense. Seen up close, Shogo Makishima was quietly intimidating, his face calm and unnerving in the way it studied your every move and expression. It was like being recorded by a machine, Kagari thought—or like a Hue check scanner.
"What do you mean? Choe Gu-sung is dead."
"Before our attack on Nona Tower, we made contingency plans. In the event that one of us was incapacitated or killed, the other was to go to a prearranged address in the Warehouse District of Tokyo."
"That's the automated district, isn't it? Humans aren't allowed to go there. It's mostly factories."
"Correct," the god replied. "That very remoteness made it particularly well-suited for our purposes. We leased a disused factory from a firm that went bankrupt six years ago. Choe rigged up that space as our headquarters, so to speak."
Kagari gave a low whistle. "So that's why we couldn't find your base of operations. We were using the Cymatic scanners and the Hue check cameras to find you, but there are no cameras or scanners in the automated district. It's supposed to be tightly regulated for human access."
"Yes, well, never believe everything you hear."
"I'll try to remember that. Anyway, what does your old HQ have to do with taking down Sibyl?"
Makishima examined his glass of water carefully. He lifted it and peered at each bubble, sniffed it, and ran his thumb around the edge of the glass. "Amazing, isn't it?" he asked Kagari. "So convincing a replica of a real glass of water, yet entirely unreal. Just a figment dreamt up by my slumbering brain. The mind behind Sibyl was truly brilliant."
Kagari looked at his own glass of water. "It's pretty real, all right. Tastes like water."
"Choe told me that if he died during the attack on Nona Tower, I should return to our warehouse and type a certain command into one of his computers. He didn't say what would happen when I did so, only that it would be a great help. That's what I need you to do for me, Enforcer Kagari."
"How do you expect me to do that?" Kagari asked. "I'm a jar-brain just like you. I don't have a body. I can't just walk over to the train station and buy a ticket to the Warehouse District, can I?"
"Have you ever heard of the Internet?"
Kagari frowned. "Yeah, in school, I think. It was an old-time network, had something to do with telephones, right?"
Makishima sighed. "It was the world's first global communications network. It grew out of the telegraph/telephone system and later became the blueprint for what would grow to become the Cymatic Grid, although the Grid would be based on different technologies. It fell into rapid disuse in the middle part of the 21st century. Today, all of Japan's communications are done wirelessly or through quantum cabling, and under the sanction of Sibyl."
"Okay," said Kagari. "What does this have to do with me walking around in a body again?"
The god crossed his arms and tilted his head thoughtfully. He regarded Kagari as if measuring his dimensions, calculating if he would fit in a shipping crate or something. "I said that you would help me by going to our headquarters in the Warehouse District. I didn't say how you would get there."
Kagari's stomach began to fall. "How, then?" he demanded.
"I've done a lot of reading since being invited into the System, and with the help of Hiroki Masuda, a Sibyl programmer, we've adapted some of the older technical ideas underpinning the Internet and some of the newer ones developed for Sibyl into a new specification."
Kagari looked up at him blankly.
Makishima sighed. "He wrote code that will hook your brain up to the old Internet the same way that Sibyl brains communicate with the Cymatic Grid. From there, you'll be able to bypass the Grid's security system and travel directly to the Warehouse District."
There was a brief pause as Kagari digested this idea.
"Are you sure that's possible? A moment ago you said the Internet was some historical relic, and now you're saying I'm going to go beaming across it like some CommuField star on the Grid? Does it even exist? Who maintains it?"
"Yes. These days it is mainly used for infrastructure which wouldn't be cost-effective to upgrade—power plants, water treatment facilities, that sort of thing. And according to Masuda, a Sibyl consciousness should be capable of traveling across it."
Kagari closed his eyes. "But you're not totally certain it'll work."
"No."
"It could be fatal."
"May I point out that your body is already dead? But to answer your question, yes."
"And do I have a choice in the matter?"
Makishima made an amused sound. "Do you think you do?"
Kagari sighed. "That's what I was afraid of. And once I'm there, what happens?"
"Simply carry out your mission and then return the way you came."
"Then what?"
"I'll set you free."
Lying son of a bitch. Kagari nodded.
"Let's go over the specifics. There are several security systems in our HQ that you'll need to disable before you can access Choe's computers. I know all of the important passwords."
Kagari listened like he used to during Ginoza's briefings—with careful attention. Despite what Yayoi claimed, he really did know how to focus when something truly important was being discussed, and this sure counted as that. What Shogo Makishima was saying would dictate whether he lived or died, and he really didn't want to die. There was so much left to live for.
"You'll tell everyone I went back to Sibyl, like we agreed? And you'll let them live?"
"Of course."
Kagari nodded. "Fine. Then I'm ready."
Makishima pulled the Dominator gently out of its holster and cupped it in both hands. Surrounded by the ancient majesty of Caneworth, it looked like a thing out of another world—sleek, machine-crafted, deadly. He pointed it briefly at Kagari, who blanched and recoiled, then smiled and pointed it at the floor. When he depressed the trigger, the Dominator fired, but not with any Paralyzer or Decomposer round. It made a sound like crackling firewood and created, in a small depression in the floor, a ring similar in size and construction to the Awakening Portal, but somehow different.
"That should do it," he said, looking from Kagari to the humming ring rising out of the stone floor. "When you step inside, you'll be sent past the gatekeepers that keep the Sibyl pantheon locked up. You'll be funneled through a fiber-optic cable that was owned by a telecommunications company at the turn of the century. It's still intact and should function well enough, but it's rarely used by anyone these days, which works to our advantage."
"They won't be able to tell I'm there?"
"Their safeguards are meant to prevent humans from accessing the network, not Sibyl-privileged data. With the proper credentials, you'll be allowed straight through the firewalls. To them, you'll appear to be just like any other official Sibyl transmission."
Kagari nodded, but he didn't feel terribly confident, even with Makishima's assurances. He moved closer to the ring. It seemed to glisten like a sheen of oil lying atop a surface of filthy water.
Makishima holstered the Dominator and went to stand next to Kagari. "You aren't afraid, are you?"
"No, of course not," he said slowly, then paused. "Actually, yeah, I am. I'm about to go through some ancient telephone wire, aren't I?"
"Fair enough. But what are you, really?" The god tapped Kagari on the chest. "Just a series of self-propagating electrical impulses."
"That doesn't make me feel better. What if I don't wake up?"
Makishima shrugged.
"Well, I guess this is goodbye. I'll say hi to Choe for you if I see him."
With that, Kagari stepped into the ring, stood a moment in apprehensive silence, and then disintegrated into his constituent elements, which themselves floated away on the Caneworth breeze. A moment later and Makishima stood thoughtfully alone.
"Goodbye, Shusei," the god said into the empty room, before turning on his heel to complete his mission.
Upon returning to the Awakening Portal, Makishima was greeted by the assembled forces of Caneworth standing in front of the Portal. The man called Starvale stood at their head. Evidently they believed that he intended to leave without fulfilling their agreement. Clever of them. Makishima smiled. But they don't have the faintest idea.
"You've conducted your business with Kagari, then?" Starvale called, voice firm despite the pallor of his face.
"I have," Makishima replied.
"And you came to an agreement with him concerning our fate." Starvale eyed him warily. "That we should be allowed to live here, away from Sibyl, in return for his services to you. That is what he promised us."
"That is what we agreed to, yes."
"And do you intend to keep to that agreement?"
"No."
Makishima unholstered the Dominator and held it before the torchlight. He studied the play of firelight across the machined barrel and shook his head slowly. "A thing of beauty," he remarked to the stunned prisoners of Caneworth.
Starvale stepped forward, face ashen, body trembling, and shook an accusing finger at Makishima. "You agreed—"
"I lied," said Makishima pleasantly. "Now, are you all here? That's everyone in Caneworth? Seems to be the case. Wonderful. We'll get this over with quickly."
They attacked him, but it was useless—Makishima scarcely noticed, and for all the good their phantasmal weapons did them, they may as well have been wielding foam swords. He stood unperturbed in a bubble of still air; spears, cannonballs, and arrows rained down upon him but could not penetrate that protective sphere. Makishima bent his head over the Dominator and adjusted the settings, twisted knobs, punched buttons, until the gun let out a startled chime and changed its shape into something he'd only seen once before—in the hands of Shinya Kogami.
It was a Dominator in Destroy-Decomposer mode, and it was frightening. Makishima studied it like a museum patron critiquing a masterwork of art, fascinated, before raising the barrel toward his attackers. He murmured, "Multiple targets, simultaneous," and received a glow from the gun in reply. He slid his finger in front of the trigger.
Then he fired.
The Dominator gave off a terrific blue radiance, like sapphire phosphorescing, and sent a few hundred tiny crystals flying across the room at incredible speed. Each crystal found its mark—each latent criminal of Caneworth lay dead or dying a second later, their blood pouring down in rivulets to the stone foundations of the castle.
A moment after that, Shogo Makishima depressed the trigger again, beginning the second part of the program's sequence. The Awakening Portal began to glow, surrounded as it was by mounds of bodies, and the outline of a woman began to sketch itself into the space within the ring. The sketch became by degrees more detailed, filling in muscle, sinew, bone, and flesh and blood, until Evelyn Sawaki stood before him, motionless, blinking as if she had just walked out into the bright light of a stage and, catastrophically, had forgotten her lines.
Makishima went over to her.
"Miss Sawaki," he said gently. He waved a hand in front of her face; her eyes tracked it, but remained dull and sightless. He took her by the arm, led her from the ring and to a wooden chair that had miraculously remained upright during the chaos. With the former Lady of Caneworth seated, he turned to the bodies strewn like misshapen lumps upon the ground, bodies lying upon bodies, and, exercising his Authorship of the Dream, vanished them with a wave of the Dominator. He turned back just in time to hear the woman speak his name.
"Makishima."
"Yes. I'm here." He knelt before her, gazed into her clouded eyes, and brushed a tangle of dark hair from her face. "Are you yourself again, Evelyn?"
She is quite pretty, isn't she? Makishima remained on one knee and didn't object as, bizarrely, Sawaki began to stroke his cheek and repeat his name, senselessly at first, later with greater emphasis and meaning. His name rang through all the empty corridors of the empty castle, a name that found no listening ears save for his own. When the echoes at last fell silent, Evelyn Sawaki was gazing at him with something like adoration.
"Shogo," she said.
"Yes."
"You saved me."
"Certainly not. It was a programming error, Evelyn. You were only gone for a few moments. You must have dreamt something. What did you dream?"
Her head fell back, and she gazed at the arched ceiling in wonder. "You saved me," she mumbled again.
Sighing, Makishima climbed to his feet and, bending over, slung the woman over his shoulder. He carried her to the Awakening Portal, from which they both departed like a faintly dissipating mist.
Then, with no one there to imagine it into existence, Caneworth itself vanished.
To travel the fiber-optic cables of Japan as disembodied data, Kagari found, was like being a narcoleptic with a short fuse traveling the Shinkansen. While en route to the next node on the old Internet, Kagari was only vaguely aware of his surroundings, conscious, but existing in a sleepy state of half-life. Whenever he reached his destination, however, his mind seemed to momentarily reboot, which was almost exactly like the groggy feeling of waking up on a Saturday morning after sleeping in too late. He had control over his trajectory only during those brief stops, unfortunately, and it wasn't as if Japan's ancient Internet had been based on a sensible grid system like most major cities—it went everywhere, in branching paths that resembled the nervous system of some great animal. Kagari couldn't plug in the address for the Warehouse District and let a car drop him off a half-hour later. No, he had to use trial and error: overshooting by hundreds of miles, then shooting back along an express cable designed for military alerts, then, having gone too far, doubling back in the other direction.
It was slow progress, that was for sure.
And it didn't help that some parts of the Internet led... nowhere. It really was a relic, having been superseded decades ago by its more capable cousin the Cymatic Grid. Several times he went down seemingly operative paths and ended up inside a barely-functional mainframe, nearly sucked into a cascade of memory errors like a swimmer trapped in a whirlpool, powerless to escape.
After what seemed subjectively like a couple of hours, but really was probably closer to a few minutes at most, Kagari found himself in a promising spot: parked smack-dab on a computer system belonging to the Northeastern Power Corporation of Japan, which, fortuitously enough, offered an internal help system for employees. There were no longer any humans involved in repairing the electrical grid, of course, but due to a clerical oversight somebody had left this useful program running, so Kagari took advantage of it.
Without knowing quite how he did it, he managed to call up a map of transformers in the region. Then it was simply a matter of looking for the region code of the Warehouse District.
Perfect.
Seconds later, Kagari was on his way to Makishima's old headquarters.
