Itoh, Project - Harmony

“Actually, the barrier is not like a net. Though in fact it was believed to be for quite some time. A century ago, the popular theory was that anything with a molecular mass of, oh, 500ì or less would be able to pass through, but that theory has since been entirely refuted. As it turns out, certain kinds of material, no matter what their size, cannot pass through the blood-brain barrier, while rather large molecules can pass through if they are needed by the brain. In other words, size doesn’t matter. The blood-brain barrier isn’t a mindless filter, it’s a highly attenuated and complex selection organ.”

The man looked down at his lap. “I see.”

I smiled. This was about the closest thing to a smackdown I was likely to see in one of these meetings.

“Though the numbers are small, there are a handful of instances every year of people with WatchMe installed dying of brain tumors and otherwise preventable hemorrhages. The brain is the last sanctum of the body, you might say. The only place where WatchMe’s eyes cannot go. That is, most of the brain. Because the pituitary gland and pineal gland deal with hormones, we can access them.

“Of course, we are doing what we can to monitor the coma patients externally via electronic scanning, though that falls far short of nano-level resolution,” the Interpol officer explained. “That said, only eight hours have passed since the…outbreak. We have, at present, no confirmation of any brain abnormalities in those affected, but it is still quite early in the day, so to speak.”

I saw Prime Inspector Os Cara Stauffenberg stand. She was probably still in her pink tent in the Sahara. For a second, I felt like she might be glaring at me, but I was too busy ignoring her to see.

Would Cian have killed herself if Prime hadn’t sent me packing from the Sahara? Would Cian really have stuck a knife into her own throat if I hadn’t been sent back to Japan to go to lunch with her and watch her do it?

Or would she have done it anyway, with a knife she was using to cut tomatoes in her own kitchen?

Want to fill a bathroom with poison gas? Beyond easy.

Hadn’t Miach said something like that?

Every person holds within themselves the potential to take another’s life.

I’ve got the power.

I could kill someone.

Even myself.

Each of us holds within us the power to destroy something important.

Had Cian killed herself, after a thirteen-year delay, just to truly understand the meaning of Miach’s words for herself? Was I to be the only one left behind?

“In two hours from now at a general emergency meeting of WHO in Geneva, I will be addressing all admedistrations and telling them that this, this chaos, is evidence of a full-on attack against lifeism,” Prime announced.

“As senior inspectors, all of you will be cooperating with security in your local regions. You all know about the treaties binding each admedistration to WHO—we’re going to make them honor those treaties. I want each of you to take the initiative in rooting out the people responsible for this, and let them know we will not sit idly by while they threaten our very way of life.”

Every agent in the room nodded. Like that, the session ended, and I was back in my hotel room, surrounded by unpacked bags.

Unlike the other inspectors, I didn’t have much time. I had to start right now.

Just two hours earlier, our fearless leader Prime Inspector Os Cara Stauffenberg had opened a secure session in AR with me.

“Though it is not public knowledge, you are under house arrest. Add to that the fact that you witnessed one of the people involved take her own life, and it is clear that you cannot be allowed to be involved in the upcoming investigation. Let us not forget that as a recent victim of an emotionally traumatic experience, you have likely sustained psychological damage. Most admedistration ordinances dictate that any conclave member who has experienced a dramatic ordeal must submit themselves to a minimum of one hundred twenty hours of psychiatric counseling and drug therapy. Your presence will not be required at the emergency meeting of Helix inspectors to be called in two hours time.”

I laughed. Of course I should be involved with the investigation. And seeing my friend kill herself was emotional trauma? Really? If I’d suffered an emotional trauma, it was when I failed to die at the age of fifteen. No, it had been when I tried to kill myself by overeating, long before I met Miach Mihie. Don’t talk to me about psychological damage. I’ve been damaged for years.

But I didn’t say that. Instead I saluted Prime Inspector Stauffenberg and informed her that I would happily use my newfound free time to work on my press release informing the media just how many of us in the Niger armistice monitoring camp had collaborated in acts of shameless, wanton indulgence.

She had asked me if I was serious.

“Deadly serious.”

I wanted everyone living in every admedistration across the world to know exactly what we did, even if that revelation should happen to take the fragile state of truce between the Nigerians and the Kel Tamasheq and throw it off a cliff, leading to the loss of countless lives and the complete gutting of the Helix Inspection Agency as it lost all authority in the aftermath.

Also, I added, if my memory serves, due to the nature of our work in conflict zones, Helix agents are given a five-day reprieve before they are required to report to mandatory therapy following a traumatic incident, ma’am.

I was satisfied to see a shiver run through Prime Inspector Os Cara Stauffenberg as the sheep’s clothing came off her misguided, insubordinate underling. Clearly, she was wondering how someone with such a deeply flawed character could have sneaked her way into the upper ranks of an elite division of WHO.

Except I knew she wasn’t trembling at me. She was trembling at the unseen, unnamed specter of Miach Mihie standing right behind me. At times like this, I often felt like it was Miach’s words coming out of my mouth.

I counted roughly thirty seconds of rage, regret, and hesitation passing before Prime spoke again.

“Fine. You will participate in the investigation.”

I nodded, satisfied.

“However,” she added, “though you may have a reprieve, don’t dream you’re getting out of therapy. Not even I could do that. Five days from now, you will be placed in an emergency morality center to undergo a full therapeutic regimen.”

This was about the worst that Prime Inspector Stauffenberg could threaten me with, and nothing she was saying was news. Unfortunately, she was right. The mandatory therapy requirement would be a very hard one to get out of. In five days’ time they’d toss me in an emergency morality center somewhere, pile on the kindness and thoughtfulness until I couldn’t breathe, and when I cried uncle they’d keep me in their benevolence-stained sweatshop a few weeks more just for good measure. As long as I was a member of an admedistration, there was no way around it.

I had five days. I only hoped that would be enough time to figure out why Cian had died.

02

That day, found the perfect rope in his storage closet.

The image was completely’s POV, so I couldn’t actually see him, though I knew what his face looked like from a little data window in the lower right-hand corner of my field of vision.

Ichiro Tokume; life pattern designer; 38.

These were the people that designed how other people should live. It was a branch of health consulting.

They would look at your hormonal balance, blood sugar levels, CRP, GTP—the works, all supplied by WatchMe— then determine a lifestyle pattern to optimize both their client’s health and their social assessment score. They would devise lifestyle “recipes” that told their clients what to eat for breakfast, lunch, and dinner; what sports they should participate in; and the most efficient place for them to go to volunteer in their free time.