11. Tracking III
At a coffee shop with a second-floor terrace overlooking Paul Street Intersection, O'Brien sat with a cigarette in his mouth, blankly watching people pass by. People seemed to have already forgotten that these streets were stained with blood just a few weeks ago. Even if another madman erupted somewhere on these streets and tore people apart, they seemed not to care, as if it were someone else's problem. Or perhaps too many madmen had appeared and disappeared among them, and they too had become numb to reality. Yes. The world was already full of crazy people, even if they weren't madmen. Or maybe everyone was already half-insane.
A tall, well-built man and woman who caught the eye from afar were walking toward the cafe. O'Brien spent a while blankly admiring the woman's figure, then when he looked at her face, something seemed familiar and he snapped to attention. The couple O'Brien had mistaken for lovers—or more precisely, a man and woman who looked well-matched as lovers based on appearance alone—walked toward him on the second-floor terrace.
"Coffee?"
"Did you order for us?"
"Look at this selfish bastard. Where does a baldy get off smoking in a public place? Are you a streetlamp?"
"What!? Look at this anchovy-brained fool."
"Ah, stop it!"
Seemingly fed up with Supremer and O'Brien's snarling, April sat at the next table and lit a cigarette. Supremer sat at another table on the opposite side with deep furrows in his brow, glaring at O'Brien through narrowed eyes.
"Obie. Did you find out anything?"
"Not at all. Our esteemed target has such a shy personality that, forget acquaintances, I should become his friend."
"You're already friends with all the madmen."
"Right. Are you done writing your incident report? Why don't you go get a few lashes while you're at it?"
Supremer raised his eyebrows and opened his mouth as if dumbfounded.
"Any word from Kobe?"
"Not yet."
April blew smoke from her small mouth and looked at people passing in the distance. They had entrusted Kobe with the previously collected data, requesting him to filter out those close to the target. It took considerable time to recognize the target among thousands of hours of video footage and select those who had spent long periods with him. In the process of the AI recognizing the target, there were cases where it grabbed the wrong person and matched them, or equated people who were nearby with those who simply worked alongside.
"This job isn't very interesting."
Supremer propped his long legs on the table and leaned his chair back.
"Ah. Do you guys remember that dwarf lady who ran Madame Two in Zaporizhzhia? You know, the one where her husband got into an argument with an employee at the shop and had an episode. I ran into that lady earlier. And she was walking arm-in-arm with some young guy. So I looked carefully. And that guy was the employee who argued with her husband back then. Strange, right? From what I saw, that was definitely 'madman induction.' (Criminal act of deliberately turning ordinary people into madmen to eliminate them) Otherwise, how could she casually walk around the streets with the guy who did that to her husband?"
"Great discovery. Why didn't you report it?"
O'Brien scanned the passing people without focus, as if it weren't a big deal.
"So I went right up to the lady. She was startled to see me. I said, 'Ma'am. Long time no see. Remember me? I'm the one who killed your husband. Out for a drink? You've come quite far.' Then the guy next to her suddenly blocks me saying, 'What the hell?' So what do you think I did? 'Hey. If you and I fight this time, who do you think will die first? I can send you off with one shot of this gun even if you go mad. But if I go mad, won't you be the first to die?' Then this bastard's face suddenly stiffened."
At Supremer's words, O'Brien looked at him with a serious expression.
"This bastard's completely crazy. You idiot, what if the lady reports you when you have no evidence?"
"Evidence, what evidence? That lady's face is the evidence. They looked so happy together, well. But it's really strange. How can he stick with such an old lady? Does she have a lot of money?"
"She had money."
April, who had been quiet, spoke with an indifferent expression.
"The reward money we got all came from that lady."
"I knew it. Life is all about money. Nothing's impossible. Right? Ah~ I wish I had some money too."
O'Brien snorted and turned his gaze to the street. Where the cafe was located, a park extended lengthwise from the main street. The street wasn't very wide, so people on the terrace across the street could be seen from one side, and patches of grass were laid out in the middle of the street where groups of three or four people sat enjoying the atmosphere. Mainly young women frequented the area, keeping men's eyes busy, and there were some buskers on the grass, but since it was such a busy thoroughfare, they couldn't gather much of a crowd.
"Did they find the trigger for this incident?" (Person who critically influenced the madman's outbreak)
"Well. I think the police are still looking."
"The CCTV footage is so crappy you can't tell who it is. This is why you need to install good CCTV cameras. Ah, if I catch that bastard, I'll turn his face into a dumpling."
"You should've become a cop. Don't like your job? Should I change it for you?"
"How?"
"I heard if you go to the Iron branch, they'll even improve your genes. Go get remodeled from head to toe."
"Really? Then you'd get your hair back too?"
Supremer giggled.
"Ah, this anchovy-brained bastard, really."
"Obie. Signal."
A small light blinked at the corner of O'Brien's black sunglasses. O'Brien took a rectangular device from his pants pocket and placed it on the table. The top of the device had a liquid crystal display, and when he tapped it with his finger, white text scrolled from left to right across the black screen.
[Incident]
Location: Paul Street Intersection
Subject: Male in his 20s
"Sender: Elysia"
At the placebo's text, April's eyes sharpened. Supremer seemed pleased that the boring time was over, watching April make the call with eyes full of anticipation. Soon the satellite beside April blinked and shone light, creating a square hologram.
"April. You saw the placebo, right? Where are you now?"
"Nearby. Check the coordinates for me."
"Just a moment."
A map of Paul Street Intersection spread out on the hologram screen. A blue arrow flashed, pointing to April's location. After a moment, a red target blinked in the northwest direction, and a red dotted line extended from the blue arrow creating a path toward the target.
"It's close. Obie. You have the bike?"
"Engine's running."
"Let's go."
The three left the coffee shop and headed toward where the target was.
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The target's location was a shabby first-floor restaurant in a secluded alley. Police who had already received the report were inside the restaurant and around the building, and passersby were peering around the restaurant as if watching a spectacle.
"Hey. O'Brien. Long time no see."
A man who had been looking around the building outside approached O'Brien, who had just arrived. O'Brien raised his right hand lightly in greeting when he saw the man.
"Still alive and kicking."
"You look like you've gained weight. Life must be comfortable."
"All thanks to you guys. Did you come because you got a tip?"
"Ah. It seems like the guy we've been chasing for days."
O'Brien glanced around the restaurant.
"Did someone die?"
"No. The shop owner just got a bit startled. He found the guy when he went down to the basement storage to get ingredients."
"Did he become a madman?"
"Well. Judging by the fact that he didn't bite anyone, not yet... Hey, when are you going to catch him?"
"Ha! We're not slacking off either. We've been circling around this area for three straight days, and we haven't seen hide nor hair of the guy until he suddenly appeared today."
"Ey. I don't know why there are so many crazy people these days. Really. How can we live when it's so unsafe?"
The man put on airs while appreciating April's figure as she stood near the storage area. April went to the proprietress inside the shop. The proprietress was wrapped in a dark green blanket with a terrified expression on her face. April greeted her lightly and asked if she could explain the situation at the time.
"It was just when I started preparing for lunch time. We ran out of steak sauce, so I went down to the basement storage, and the storage door was open. At first I thought it might be my husband, so I opened the door and went in. But there was an overpowering smell of raw meat. There's a big refrigerator in the storage where we freeze meat. Sometimes the electricity goes out and the refrigerator turns off, and the meat spoils while it's bad, so I thought the refrigerator light had gone out again. So I went toward the refrigerator. My goodness. At first I thought it was a big dog. I saw something flat on the floor wriggling, and when I looked, it was dripping blood and tearing at raw meat. I was so scared I stayed still, then tried to back away to escape, but a frying pan hanging on the wall bumped and fell. At that moment, it stopped tearing at the meat and turned its head. Oh my God. I had really never seen it before. Such a monstrosity. I'd only heard about it on the news, never dreamed I'd actually see one. Really. It was horrible. Ah, I thought, so this is a madman."
April asked if the madman had attacked the woman, and the woman said she fainted on the spot, and when she came to, the madman had disappeared. When the proprietress finished speaking, April went down to the basement storage and looked at the chunk of beef he had torn apart. The overpowering smell of meat tormented her nose. As she left the storage and climbed the stairs, she found a yellowish-brown sticky liquid in the middle of the stairs and took out a dagger from her thigh, getting some on the tip of the blade.
"What? Is it oil?"
Supremer, who was beside her, spoke as if bored. April kept staring at the yellowish-brown liquid with long, narrowed eyes, then frowned as if something wasn't right.