Volume 6 Chapter 0 (2/2)
I s.h.i.+vered when I checked the screen. The short-message social media speech bubble said something truly horrifying.
“M-M-M-Maxwell, you’ve got it all wrong! I only said it on a whim and I didn’t mean it like that! I mean, there are times when you get distracted by crazy things, right!?”
“Do not worry. I would not confiscate your administrative privileges over something so minor. I have long since known that you are an utter pervert.”
Maxwell had no intention at all of protecting me here, but that was a disaster environment simulator’s management program for you. You wouldn’t find any twisting of the truth there.
“More importantly, do you need something?”
“Sure. Miss Anastasia is attempting to contact you. I a.s.sume about that festival.”
Anastasia was a small friend I had made over the internet. She had skipped all the way to college and done a lot of other crazy things that sounded like something from a manga, but she was a real hacker in the sense of being a digital criminal. She also caused me a fair amount of trouble by looking up to me whether I liked it or not. To be honest, I had no obligation to speak with her and doing so was sure to only bring trouble, but…well, she had spent 14 hours on an airplane to come here for that festival. It would be cruel to ignore her.
“What format? Phone call? Chat? Email?”
“Sure. It is a video chat request.”
“Good thing I hadn’t taken off my clothes yet. Put her through.”
She, however, had taken off her clothes. The girl who was clearly more than a head shorter than me was in bath mode, so the whitish platinum blonde hair that usually flowed down her back was tied up on top of her head and she had a towel forcibly wrapped around her body, although it looked like it could slip off at any moment. The camera was probably the usual handheld game system attached to the head of her small robot dog.
“…Anastasia, what are you doing?”
“As a hacker, I made sure to get a secure connection, so don’t you worry. By the way, the baths here are even smaller than I’d heard. This might be normal in the West, but it feels like you’re erasing a part of your culture with this.”
“Then you should have stayed at a traditional inn. That’s what you get at a business hotel.”
“If you insist, I could always go and stay with you.”
…Scarily enough, I knew she would immediately come running over even if it was 2 in the morning.
“So what do you want?” I asked.
“To have a virtual mixed bath. How about we use a Dive Device to really do it right?”
“…I’m hanging up.”
“Okay, okay. I get it.” She dismissively waved her hand on the screen. “I was hoping for a report on that case from before.”
“…”
“When I pursued the flow of data, an incident hidden in a sea of people came into view. This case was about Sakai Iori, a girl of 9. She is registered with the government as an Elf Archenemy. She has a poor family life and there were suspicions that her parents were abusing her. Also, that was encouraged by a TV news program that wanted to get a video of the tragic moment to help recover from the low ratings they’ve been suffering from thanks to the spread of internet broadcasts. Basically, they’ve been approaching the neighbors in the name of covering the story and spreading rumors in order to isolate the parents. The abuse follows an unnatural path, so the odds are good it was triggered by the unseen pressure from the TV station. Well, that part is a lot like the Perfect Lover. If they just left it like that, there was a good chance of a tragic incident happening and they could probably even air it while disguising it as an on-air accident. But without the TV station, those parents probably could have kept their irritation hidden in their heart. So what are we going to do, Truth? Are we really going to sit here and do nothing? Nothing at all???”
“Hey, Anastasia.” I slowly let out a breath. “Go to the police with that long story.”
“They can’t interfere in civil affairs. They can only act after the tragedy occurs.”
“But those same rules mean we can’t interfere in criminal or civil affairs. It’s not like we have a police ID or attorney’s badge.”
“Truth…”
“Besides, I’m not a hacker. I might know more about machines than most people, but not because I wanted to commit digital crimes. I can’t have you relying on me for that. To be honest, this issue is from another world altogether. You might as well be asking a chef to perform surgery.”
I tried to have a rational discussion, but the arrogant hacker was not listening. Yes, that kind of digital criminal was always concerned about their own freedom first and foremost. Someone who cared about their neighbor’s rights and privacy would not rummage through someone else’s storage or peep through their cameras.
So Anastasia’s next line seemed to pry open my heart and peer inside.
“I don’t want to hear that from the genius who already stole the villains’ data from the depths of a TV station that’s equipped with the best in anti-terror security. C’mon, I said I prepared a secure connection, didn’t I? Hurry up and tell me what happened. I want to be the first to know.”
…Oh, geez.
Why did it have to end like this, dammit?
[Support by] The Girl Named Sakai Iori [DELTA brain][edit]
Lives in Kukyou City, Hirano Ward, Residential District 3-1-2.
Registered at the Government Office as an Archenemy Elf.
Age: 9. s.e.x: Female.
Shows several warning signs for abuse: irregular absences from school, delayed healing from cavities, and wears the same clothes multiple days in a row.
Both parents were absent from parents’ day and they have refused a home visit from her teacher.
Neighbors say they can hear a child crying at both day and night, but she and her parents fully deny it.
The government has decided to “wait”. They have concluded the accelerated healing of an Archenemy would make it difficult to find evidence of abuse.
The following is a sample of her voice:
“Year 3 Cla.s.s 3, Sakai Iori. My dream is to grow up to be as great as my mom and dad.”
“…Do they ever hit you or yell at you?”
“No, never. I’m fine…”
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