Sumio eased the door closed behind
Mizuki as she left, then turned to the mess on the floor. One of
the disadvantages of taking part in a clandestine operation was
the fact that they couldn’t just page the janitorial staff. Of
course, that did mean that some of the scientists here were
being more careful not to make messes in the first place, so
that was something good.
"I guess that could have gone a bit
better," Masaki said, still sounding tired.
"Yes, it could have. But she has to get
used to the realities of this war sooner or later," Sumio said,
as he started to clean up the mess. "Better that she does it
sooner, so it won’t be so much of a shock for her later."
"I know," Masaki sighed again. "I just
sometimes wish I could protect them better. They’re really only
kids, even after all they’ve been through."
"I know, Masaki. But, remember that even
you can’t be everywhere at once, all right? You’re not immortal,
nor are you indestructible."
"Believe me Sumio, I know that a lot
better than you do," Masaki said, sounding rueful.
"Sorry. I guess this kind of
conversation really would tend to remind one of one’s own
mortality," Sumio said, nodding.
"I’ll second that," Masaki said, turning
to lay on his side.
XxXxX
Dr. Balkus, after having gone over every
scrap of hard data pertaining to the Lost Number Aptom, was
sitting in one of the large throne-like chairs at the back of
the lab. Dr. Balkus was fuming at himself; first and foremost
for having been so careless as to reprocess Aptom so many times
that the Lost Unit had ceased to be a Zoanoid and become
something else altogether.
Then there was also the matter of
whatever Commander Gyou was planning to do. Dr. Balkus knew that
to derail the Commander’s plans would require him to know about
them in the first place, but Gyou was proving to be better at
operating in secret than the Twelfth Zoalord’s arrogance would
have at first suggested. Whatever the Commander had in mind
would no doubt be very dangerous if he was working this hard to
conceal all evidence of it.
Maybe it is time that I had a look
at those video records personally.
Dr. Balkus stood up and walked back over to the large computer
that sat on the other side of the small room where he had been
sitting. The main records had been erased, yes, but Dr. Balkus
knew more about computers than Commander Gyou had ever taken the
time to learn. If there was a way to get those records back,
then Dr. Balkus was going to find it.
As he went through the main files as
well as the backups, Dr. Balkus found what he was looking for
after only twenty minutes of work. Reconstructing both the video
and the audio for this particular file took a bit of work, but
Dr. Balkus was impatient to find at least something that would
give him an idea of what their Twelfth Zoalord was planning.
There was also something else, something that gnawed at the
Second Zoalord’s mind like an annoying termite. Some familiar
feeling that Dr. Balkus was at the moment strenuously trying to
ignore.
It still did manage to distract him on
occasion, though, but this kind of data recovery was something
he had done often enough that he could afford to be a little
unfocused. When the video was fully restored, including the
sound that had been recorded, Dr. Balkus replayed it. What he
saw surprised him, and the Second Zoalord did not like to deal
with surprises.
"Murakami’s son? Still alive?"
Dr. Balkus watched as the small family
drama played out on the large screen in front of him. The boy,
Kenji, was left to stay on his own in the tent that Murakami had
no doubt set up for him to inhabit. Dr. Balkus thought that
Murakami was a fool to leave such a young child out in the
forest this close to a Chronos processing facility without even
some small measure of protection. Of course, it was possible
that Murakami thought that hiding his son so close to this very
facility was tantamount to hiding him in plain sight.
That plan had obviously backfired in
spectacular fashion, but that still left the question of just
what the Commander had done with Murakami’s son. There was no
doubt at all left in Dr. Balkus’ mind that Commander Gyou was
the one responsible for this Kenji Murakami’s disappearance. Now
there was only the question of just what the Twelfth Zoalord had
done with the boy. Killed him, that was the first thought that
came to Dr. Balkus, given the way that the Commander evidently
abhorred all things that dealt with the elder Murakami.
Dr. Balkus also had a marked antipathy
for the man, since he had expected that Murakami would die just
like all of the other prototypes he had used to finish off
designing Commander Gyou’s Zoalord body. It was both annoying
and somewhat gratifying to learn that it had been a
Proto-Zoalord designed by Dr. Balkus himself that had managed to
cause so much trouble for Chronos.
Somewhat gratifying because it had
been one of his own designs that had survived for so long,
annoying because the Proto-Zoalord had been
attacking
Chronos rather than joining up with them. A Proto-Zoalord that
strong would have quickly found a place for himself within
Chronos’ ranks. Perhaps Murakami would have even been given the
chance to become a full Zoalord before his lifespan inevitably
ended.
He would not have been one of the Twelve
Overlords, but at least Murakami would have had a place within
Chronos and a chance to live. Dr. Balkus was disconcerted by the
fact that Murakami had decided to throw all of this away for
some reason on a scheme for revenge that his own flawed biology
had doomed from the start. But Murakami was not the issue at
hand right now, his son was.
For a moment, Dr. Balkus considered
confronting Gyou with the evidence of the Twelfth Zoalord’s
treachery. Then, thinking better of it, Dr. Balkus decided to
find another way to see what had happened to young Kenji
Murakami. There had to be something that would give him at least
some clue about what Gyou was planning.
The feeling of resonance and
recognition came back then; even stronger for all that Dr.
Balkus was determined to ignore it. It startled Dr. Balkus out
of his contemplation, something that the Second Zoalord was not
at all grateful for. What is
this presence that I keep sensing?
Dr. Balkus wondered, slightly agitated.
Who could have this strong a telepathic signal that even I, the
strongest telepath of the Human-born Zoalords, would not be able
to filter it out? Could it possibly be…?
Dr. Balkus, deciding that finding out
just who was sending out these strong telepathic waves was more
important right now than finding out where Murakami’s lost son
was, shut down the computer and turned away from it. He needed
to focus right now.
XxXxX
Commander Gyou, who had been thinking
about how just about everything was going his way right now, was
also caught unawares by the psychic waves that were gaining
strength the closer they came to Mt. Minakami. Gyou, since he
was not anywhere near as experienced as some of the other
Zoalords when it came to dealing with telepathy, was almost
knocked unconscious by the overwhelming mental force.
What the hell is this?!
Gyou demanded silently of no one.
Is this Balkus’ work? I’m going to
wring his sanctimonious neck for doing this to me!
It was almost as bad as when the Relic had reacted to his
Zoacrystal, but somehow worse this time since Gyou didn’t have
any readily available explanation for why his Zoacrystal would
be reacting now. After all, the Relic was at the bottom of the
basement level, separated from him by several hundred layers of
reinforced titanium, steel and concrete.
It was simply not logical to think that
the Relic could be affecting him over so great a distance,
especially since Shirai had said that the Relic had only
activated that once in response to the Remover. So the only
thing that made any sense at all was that Balkus was somehow
doing this to him for the Second Zoalord’s own sick amusement.
Gyou had not known that Balkus had even possessed a sense of
humor, but he was starting to wish that he had never found out
that particular fact.
Gyou felt once again that his head was
slowly being crushed in a vice, and as had been the case during
his experience with the Relic, Gyou just wanted the pain to
stop.