Beatless: Volume 1 Read online

  The falling flowers were being sent dancing through the air by the hot wind from the fire. The thing that had once been Marie had fallen over in the road, probably knocked down by the explosion.

  The flowers that had fallen on the road and walls around them were gathering into bouquets like groups of silkworms making cocoons. They were everywhere: on houses, on the streetlights. It was like looking at a botanical garden for plastic flowers. The windows and doors of the nearby low-rise houses were completely covered in blossoms, and Arato could hear voices from inside yelling that the doors wouldn’t open.

  His instincts were whispering that he needed to run away. The tentacles of fear that sprang from his childhood memories were squeezing cold sweat out of him.

  But, despite being covered with the same deadly flowers that had controlled Marie and the car, Lacia continued walking calmly. “Why must we run?” she asked.

  Arato tried to tug on her arm, but her thin body didn’t budge an inch. Of the two of them, only Arato’s face was creased with panic. His heart hadn’t stopped hammering since the explosion had threatened to swallow him.

  Calm among the chaos of the world around them, Lacia asked him another question. “Are you afraid?”

  “Of course I am! We could die here any second!” he yelled. “Anyone would be freaked out right now.”

  “Then, do you intend to continue to allow that fear to overcome you?” Her question was like a sharp jab to the heart.

  He hadn’t expected to get a lecture in courage from a machine. The urge to yell at her to mind her own business was strong but, even though she was a robot, he couldn’t bring himself to raise his voice at a girl like her. Instead, he asked, “What good will overcoming my fears do me now?”

  “If you do not fight back now,” said Lacia, “when will you fight?”

  The flowers that made machines go crazy were still falling. There were potential enemies all around them. Arato wanted to shout that this wasn’t the time or place, but in the end he kept his mouth shut from pure frustration.

  Still, she may have been frustrating, but she was also beautiful. He wanted to stop walking, to stand there and face her and just look at her. But after an explosion like that, people were sure to come out of their homes to see what had happened. They would get dragged into whatever was going on. Imagining what would happen, Arato felt a horrible, sickly chill run up his spine.

  The demon flowers in Lacia’s pale violet hair had started to bloom. Her black coffin looked like a giant bouquet.

  Forget fighting back; there was literally nothing Arato could do. While he tried and failed to think of a course of action, the petals on her white skin began to sprout short legs.

  Arato felt like he was about to lose his mind to pure terror. “Just stay still for a second,” he said, then clenched his teeth and reached out one hand. The flowery crown that had formed from layers of blossoms scattered and fell. He managed to brush away the danger that had threatened her, and the thought that he could contribute something gave him courage.

  “Looks like you were right. I can fight back after all; I just needed to try,” said Arato, thanking her with his actions.

  Lacia was an hIE, so maybe it was like his buddies had said, and she wouldn’t understand the human emotions he was showing her. But still, he was satisfied just showing her his thanks.

  “Let’s go!” He squeezed Lacia’s hand and pulled her along with him. This time she didn’t resist. He noticed, with surprise, that her hands were warm.

  There was always the danger of another car trying to run him down, so he kept to the narrower streets of the residential district.

  “Lacia, you’re an hIE, right?” he asked. “Could you call the police?”

  When he finally had the presence of mind to check, Arato noticed that the only thing falling from the sky anymore was a gentle rain. Looking back, he saw that there was no visible wrecks on the main street. He ran past the side of the burning car, which was still covered in flowers. The flowers on the ground were flowing toward Arato and Lacia like a wave.

  Without lungs, Lacia didn’t run out of breath even running along with the giant black weapon in one hand. “The police lack equipment capable of disabling this enemy,” she told him.

  Even though he was running for his life, Arato felt his heart soaring so much he wanted to yell, probably because of Lacia’s hand, which was gripped tightly in his.

  The familiar sight of the town at night seemed brand new to his eyes, and he had no idea where he was running to. Arato just knew that he was running together with a girl who wasn’t actually a human. All he knew about her was her name.

  He looked back at Lacia and she spoke, her light violet hair bouncing as she ran. “Arato, do you trust me?”

  Lacia wasn’t an ordinary hIE. Arato thought her appearance and the falling flowers could even be connected, somehow.

  “Yes!” Despite his doubts, Arato’s yell split the night. He figured it would be uncool of him to doubt a girl.

  He may not have had a destination in mind, but he was running full speed, holding tight to Lacia’s hand. If he kept running in that direction for another five minutes, though, they would arrive at the Endo apartment, where Yuka was waiting.

  While he was still wondering where to go, a sharp impact to his side threw him to the ground. As he grunted in pain, a second car roared by, inches from his head. Lacia had just saved him from being run down.

  Then she was straddling him, pressing him down to the pavement. “Arato Endo,” she said, “I have a request for you.”

  The moon shone white in the sky above, and Lacia was staring him straight in the eyes. “Become my owner.”

  A warm, wet feeling was spreading from where she was straddling his waist. Her whole body was wet, as though she had recently come out of the water. Droplets pattered onto Arato from her hair, gathering and running down his chest like teardrops.

  “What do you mean ‘owner’?” Arato asked in confusion. “You want me to claim you or something?”

  “I have decided that you are the most suitable candidate to be my first owner,” Lacia told him calmly.

  Arato had no idea what kind of standard had led her to that conclusion. With sudden death all around them, he didn’t think it was a good time to make that kind of decision. “Don’t just decide that on your own,” he protested. “You don’t know anything about me.”

  For some reason, he thought about Yuka and his friends just then. His chest felt tight. What kind of danger would this decision drag them all into?

  “I do not need any more information about you,” Lacia informed him. “You said that you trusted me.” Her slightly wet body leaned down on his, as if she needed his support.

  Lacia had saved him from the exploding car. But it had still been his decision to fight down his urge to run and reach out his hand to her. A girl was right in front of his eyes, lips pressed together, waiting for his response. Looking at her, knowing she wasn’t human and that she was far stronger than him, he felt the need to protect her.

  “Okay!” he said finally.

  “I judge your reaction as consent,” Lacia announced. “I will now confirm the details of our contract.” She bent her beautiful figure to rest a hand on Arato’s shoulder as he lay there. “You have no need to participate directly in the actions I will take,” she continued. “I will provide strength. I ask only one thing of you.”

  Arato couldn’t follow what she was saying. He just kept getting lost gazing at her lips.

  “I am a tool, and cannot take responsibility for my own actions,” Lacia went on. “Therefore, I request that you take responsibility for me.”

  There was a sudden sharp, thunderous noise from nearby; Lacia had fended off a second attack by the car with her coffin, which she had stood up on the road. The tires squealed as it tried to push through the barrier, but several anchors were holding the coffin to the street. The impact from the high-class car hadn’t budged it an inch.

  �
�I will now gather your biological information, owner. After I have confirmed this information, I will ask for your consent to this contract twice more.” Lacia took Arato’s hand and guided it toward her own body, where there was a metal component, almost like a keyhole, in the neck of her skin-tight suit.

  She brought Arato’s pointer finger near it, and then she pushed his finger inside the keyhole. “Registering Arato Endo as the owner of class Lacia humanoid Interface Elements Type-005,” she said. “This hIE’s equipment device, Black Monolith, is capable of autonomous judgment, and as owner you will accept all legal responsibilities for the actions it takes. Please confirm.”

  “Okay,” Arato answered.

  Lacia’s hair accessory started to glow cerulean blue. “I will begin recording your life log, owner. If the correct procedures are followed and a legal request made, this record may be disclosed and displayed in a court of law in response to relevant litigation. I require your consent to this in order to release the lock on my device.”

  “Okay!” Arato answered again.

  A metal fixture at the waist of Lacia’s white suit, four wings overlapping to form a shackle, twisted; one part rising up, as though it was some kind of lever. Blue light shot through the shackle, and a light blue glow began to spill out of Lacia’s black coffin.

  As Lacia was bathed in blue light, Arato heard a faintly dry, rustling noise. Carried by the wind, flowers had begun to rain down on them again; the two of them were still under attack. Since they had stopped running, whatever was controlling the flowers had sent them to fall over their heads once more.

  But, even under the deadly rain of five-colored petals, Lacia was calm. “In order to disable the sub-units currently attacking us, I recommend severing their optical transmissions,” she said. “I believe this will be the option that has the least impact on our surroundings, and it presents the least possible level of danger to this society.”

  Arato was having trouble keeping up. A moving pile of trash and lamps was crawling along the ground toward them as they stood still. The flowers were using Marie as a foundation for their pile. Arato could see her body crawling along underneath it all, dragging her skirt along the ground.

  With a creaking, grating noise, the strange shape, covered in flowers and wounds, dragged itself toward them. It was equal parts art and insanity, and it was closing in with every passing second.

  “If you can stop them,” Arato yelled, “do it now!”

  “However,” Lacia went on calmly, “the three-dimensional control artillery barrage will also disable all wireless connections in range. There is the possibility that this will disable vital life-preserving devices utilized by humans within this range.”

  Arato had been hoping she would just take care of it, but Lacia’s eyes, as she gazed at him, were dead serious.

  “That will be your responsibility, owner,” she told him.

  Arato couldn’t really grasp the full weight of what she was saying. But he could tell, from the feeling of her hand on his shoulder and the look she gave him, that the choice he was being given was a very heavy one.

  “Owner, please decide: will you accept responsibility for the possible danger to human life, and authorize the use of my artillery?” she asked.

  Arato’s nerves shied away from the combination of the terms ‘responsibility’ and ‘human life,’ but he trusted her.

  “Do it!” he commanded.

  Lacia nodded. The coffin, still anchored to the street, opened its thick outer shell. The bundle of black metal plates stored inside began to rotate and expand in three dimensions like a metal tree spreading its branches.

  Then the world around Arato changed in the blink of an eye. It was like suddenly waking up from a nightmare; the flowers were gone, and the street looked just like it always had.

  “They’re gone,” Arato exclaimed, pushing himself up automatically and surveying their surroundings. Even the noise, which had been pounding down on them until just a moment ago, had disappeared. “They’re all gone,” he said again.

  “I have struck the sub-units with a negative curvature material film, rendering them invisible to a specific band of frequencies,” Lacia told him solemnly. “They are no longer able to receive command signals or wireless energy transfers from the main unit, and are therefore nullified.”

  “I mean, I get that they’re invisible now, but I don’t understand the rest of that...” Reaching out his hand to feel the surface of the road, Arato felt something dry crumble under his touch, and reflexively jerked his hand back with a gasp. But, after steeling himself, he reached out again; he couldn’t see them, but he could feel soft piles of the petals. The flowers were all still there. But, since Lacia had made them invisible, all the wireless signals were passing right through them.

  She had hit every single one of the tens of thousands of petals with a single attack. Since she had done it all while remaining perched on Arato’s chest, he had no idea how hard it had been for her.

  A gust of wind blew by and, with a dry rustling, an invisible blizzard of flowers was carried away.

  Arato was shaking so hard he thought his heart would stop. He may not have been too bright, but he had at least noticed that Lacia was far from normal. A deep, animal part of his brain was telling him that he could not handle the power he had just witnessed.

  “What the heck WAS that?” he gasped. “You’re incredible!” His instincts were starting to worry that this ‘girl’ he now owned was incredibly dangerous.

  For her part, Lacia simply stood without a word.

  Looking up at her, Arato momentarily saw her as a giant monster, towering over him. For just an instant, he saw her as something not beautiful, but terrifying. But, more important than any of that, Arato was on a time limit. He had to get home before Yuka’s ice cream melted.

  When they arrived at the entrance to the apartment, Arato asked Lacia how long it’d been since they met. She told him eight minutes. He could hear police sirens off in the distance.

  “What took you so long?” Yuka was waiting to rush out and confront him as soon as he signaled the door lock open with his pocket terminal.

  “Hey, sometimes shopping is hard,” Arato told her, pulling the package of rice out of the shopping bag. He made sure to check the bag for flowers, just in case.

  Yuka was speechless. Clearly in a panic, she pointed at Arato with a shaking finger. “Ah, ah, A-Arato!”

  “My name is Lacia,” Lacia said, introducing herself. “Pleased to meet you.”

  As Lacia politely bowed her head, all the blood drained from Yuka’s face. Obviously, since Arato was Lacia’s owner now, there was nothing strange about her being there with him. Of course, her having the form of a human made things more complicated.

  “Oh my gosh, my brother just bought a girl,” Yuka wailed.

  “Hey don’t say it like that,” Arato protested. “I didn’t pay a single cent for her!”

  “That’s even worse!” Yuka said accusingly. Of course, Yuka’s reaction was only natural; most people didn’t come home from getting groceries with an unknown girl in tow. Yuka looked like she was seriously about to start crying.

  “I’m so sorry for whatever my brother did to you,” Yuka said, her voice shaking and catching as she bowed her head deeply. “I’ll make sure he gets rehabilitated. I think he’s a first time offender, so please go easy on him.”

  Arato was about to tell her she was misunderstanding and to raise her head. Before he could, though, Lacia untangled the siblings’ thread of understanding.

  “I am not a human,” she explained to Yuka. “I am an hIE. Therefore, taking me home is not a criminal act. I did not have an owner, so Arato Endo agreed to take me in. Despite the circumstances, our contract is official.”

  “As expected,” Arato sighed, “an hIE is a heck of a lot better at explaining things.” Lacia’s calm explanation made him forget his nerves. In fact, even the fact that he had just been under attack seemed like a distant memory.
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br />   “What?” Yuka said, raising her head. “Seriously?” She was actually sniffling back tears. Arato wasn’t sure whether to be happy that she was so worried about him, or sad that she had suspected him of being a kidnapper.

  “So yeah, about that,” he began. “Do you think it would be all right if we let Lacia... -san, crash here?” Arato couldn’t bring himself to drop the respectful honorific.

  “Yeah. I understand,” Yuka said, wiping at her eyes.

  “Wait, you’re seriously okay with this?” Arato asked.

  But Yuka’s smile was quick to return. “You found her and picked her up, right?” she said. “So, I guess she’s yours now.”

  Arato felt like he should tell Yuka about everything that happened. Honestly, he just wanted to grab Lacia and his sister and run inside, but he didn’t want to freak Yuka out.

  “Listen, Yuka,” he said. “While I was out shopping, a whole bunch of flowers started falling from the sky. Marie, the Yuzawas’ hIE, got broken. I think whoever was doing it might have been targeting Lacia.”

  Arato had asked if Lacia knew anything about who was behind the attack, but she didn’t. All she’d said on the way back was that she would make arrangements for patching up the damage that had been done. She could not, however, be more specific about what that meant.

  Arato, having just stepped out of a nightmare and back into the real world, was still trying to sort out his concept of reality, and couldn’t give Yuka a very good explanation, either. At a loss for words, he simply rolled up the hem of his shirt and showed her where a large bruise was forming. “Here, look. A car hit me right there. Lacia showed up and protected me.”

  “Well that’s good,” Yuka remarked. “She really saved your butt.”

  She really had.

  “Come to think of it,” Arato admitted, “I really was useless back there.”

  “Well there hasn’t been anything on the news about any of that,” Yuka said. “And if you thought she could be dangerous, how come you brought her back?”