Chapter 10. What I Can Do (2)
In a modern democracy where no one can hold power indefinitely unless a coup d'état breaks out, perfectly controlling the media is a difficult thing.
One could certainly attempt it. But for the attempt to stick, several preconditions had to be met.
First, the issue had to touch the people who ran the broadcasting stations. The heads of any organization that had grown bloated past a certain size tended to be earnest about one thing above all: self-preservation. Convinced that a given story could cost them their seat, they moved aggressively to shut it down.
Unfortunately for the government, the Black Magical Girl at the heart of this affair had little connection to the media.
The girl had no parents. Not that she'd simply lost them in an accident—she was a child who had never had them to begin with. Nor did she have many close acquaintances, and even if she had, none of those connections reached the upper floors of a broadcasting station.
It was true that the station news had once painted the Black Magical Girl as a villain, but news narratives reversing themselves was an everyday occurrence. Excuses for burying such an about-face were easy to prepare.
Especially this time, when the Federation, the government, and the Company had all been hiding the truth.
The second condition was that the story had to make no money.
Information that earned nothing while needling the government, the Federation, or the Company was something the press simply left alone. Naturally so.
The government maintained a review board with authority over broadcasts, the Federation was likely to end up sitting 'above' that government, and the Company was in a position to pay the stations for their advertising.
But once again, this was not a story that failed to make money.
Aired on the news, it pulled in excellent ratings. Besides, the Company was not the only corporation in this country. Even with Noir Corporation pulling its ads, the advertising slots around a newscast drawing numbers like these remained expensive.
As a result, the Black Magical Girl's plea claimed every main-news slot on the air.
The story even flew overseas. Foreign broadcasters, with not the slightest reason to mind the Korean government's mood, picked the whole affair apart without mercy.
The Federation refused every interview request.
Korea hadn't been the only place petitioning the Federation for interviews, but the officials handling other countries all demurred, offering the same line:
"The Federation spans the entire galaxy. That one part of the Federation did something does not necessarily mean it was the will of the Federation as a whole."
In other words: whatever wrong the people in charge of Korea had committed was their own doing.
But talk of that caliber could not easily put public opinion to sleep.
Magical girls, or heroes, or special units—throughout the world there were organizations to which those able to run a Hope Circuit belonged. All of them sat beneath the Federation, and most of their members were children or barely more.
So once a situation like this erupted in Korea, people inevitably began to think:
"Surely not us too?"
The 'good image' the Federation had spent the past five years cultivating took a serious blow from all this. Branding one minor a terrorist—while letting the 'real terrorists' slip away.
Even beyond Earth, any planet whose civilization had developed to a reasonable degree drew a line between 'minor' and 'adult.' And so, naturally, word that such a thing had been done to an Earth 'minor' spread, bit by bit, through the member states of the Galaxy Federation.
The office of 'magical girl' was quite famous even outside Earth, after all.
The Federation wasn't the only party in a bind, either.
Nations operating similar organizations of their own saw critical voices rise about the affair as well.
Most of them were simply rushing to speak first, before the finger could point their way.
None of it could be blithely ignored. Answer enough of it, and sooner or later a crack would show.
To smother the situation somehow, 'countermeasures' were required.
Even within the government, opinion was divided on what those countermeasures should be.
Of course, of the three parties—the Federation, the government, and the Company—the one hit hardest was the Company.
Noir Corporation's public standing was slammed in a single stroke down into the deepest basement.
Its image had never been particularly rosy to begin with, but public sentiment soured to the point that people were seriously discussing a boycott of Noir Corporation.
...Perhaps it was a backlash against how completely the girl had been treated as a villain until then.
Until that point, public opinion had mostly favored catching that magical girl quickly and putting her on trial.
Because they had been the ones insisting on it, the moment contrary evidence surfaced, they clamored all the more fiercely to 'punish everyone responsible.'
There was plenty of talk about the 'magical girls,' too.
The girls themselves had still made no statement. People wanted to ask what they had been doing while things curdled to this point, but even the Federation held its tongue on that subject.
Three days had passed since the broadcast, and the world was still in an uproar.
And what that turbulent world most wanted to know was the 'Black Magical Girl' who had exposed it all.
Just where had that girl vanished to?
The first day, we camped on a wooded hillside.
No, I'm not joking. I was, quite literally, camping.
I'd gone out with a mask over my face and my hair tied up and arranged differently, dressed in ordinary clothes—but when it came to where I should actually hide my body, I hadn't the faintest idea. I had money set aside, though not a great deal of it, so I had hunted for the cheapest and safest place to spend even a single night, and the place I settled on was right here.
It was, admittedly, a somewhat risky undertaking. Pitching a tent and sleeping wherever you pleased in a spot that was no campground tended to draw people's eyes.
I had at least chosen somewhere with no one nearby.
Truthfully, I wasn't even sure where 'here' was. Judging by the burial mound behind us, it was clearly no proper camping spot.
"My, my. Whatever would you have done without me?"
"Want me to grill some for you too?"
I asked it flatly, watching James preen, and James shut his mouth.
Naturally, James's appearance had been altered as well.
Fortunately, this country apparently had a few Squeakians living in it. Most were employed by the Company, and there seemed to be a network among them, but true to his temperament, James had never really belonged to their community.
They supposedly came as tourists now and then, though I'd never actually seen one. Then again, one wandering the streets in its natural state would end up under someone's heel, so they probably took some other arrangement most of the time.
Still, that distinctive fur of his was far too easy to identify, so James masked his body with the same sort of technique that had fabricated my face. At the moment, his fur was a brown tabby pattern.
And even after all that, James stayed inside the bag. Apparently, simply not being seen at all remained the best option.
Having answered James, I quickly scanned our surroundings.
Thankfully, there was no one around at all.
It was a weekday, for one, and we were beside a grave site. If today happened to be the anniversary of the grave's occupant's death, the bereaved family might come to pay respects—but judging by how tall the grass had grown over the mound, we were probably safe for now.
"...We can't stay here long, though."
"Of course not. This was merely a shelter found in haste."
James had prepared the tent.
Naturally, it wasn't one intended for a campground but a lightweight model kept on hand in case we ever had to rough it out on some hillside. It only needed to fit the bag and me, so it was quite light.
And if it ever felt too heavy, I could simply stuff it into sub-space.
...I wonder—is there any way a person could live inside sub-space? Probably not, which must be why I couldn't just climb in and stay.
"By the way, you really don't eat meat?"
"There is hardly any need to, is there? If you insist on preparing something, I would prefer larvae to that sort of meat. Mealworms, perhaps."
"Got it. I'll eat all of it, then."
It wasn't as if he'd asked intending to share anyway.
And I had no desire to touch mealworms.
...
I watched the meat cook in silence.
Well, what a life of luxury this fugitive existence was.
My body still ached. Honestly, I wanted nothing more than to collapse right there and sleep.
But at the same time, I was starving. The first thing I'd done after pitching the tent was dig the canned food out of my bag.
For the record, James was cracking sunflower seeds inside the bag—the ones bought for him back when we were hiding out in Pangpang's room. So I wasn't particularly worried about his food supply. Those seeds alone would keep him fed for a good while.
...A little envious, honestly. For a body like his, tucking himself away in any out-of-the-way corner counts as going into hiding. Though out in the wild, he might well end up as a cat's dinner, I suppose.
Listening to the sizzle, I picked up my chopsticks.
The surface of the canned ham, cooked through, came into view.
Grilling canned ham over a camping burner on a wooded hillside—was I supposed to call that atmospheric, or just lament my lot in life?
One thing was certain: it was illegal.
...Pangpang's house came to mind.
They said the weather was slowly turning toward spring, but outside it was still quite cold. I didn't know how long a tent and a sleeping bag would hold out.
And there was no such thing as an extended stay in a place like this. Was I really going to roam from hill to hill, pitching a tent wherever I pleased? That would stand out far too much.
Sneaking back into Pangpang's house was impossible, I supposed.
Even with the meat browning golden and filling the air with a delicious smell, I couldn't help sinking into those gloomy thoughts.
The next day, we left the campsite.
I folded the tent up, crammed it into the bag, and strapped the enormous thing onto my back.
The fact that James's voice came from the back of my skull whenever he spoke to me displeased me immensely, but there was nothing to be done.
James had already disassembled the pager Hayun had given me and cut its power. Apparently he intended to rework the components into a pure pager—one for calls alone, stripped of any tracking function.
So the topmost section of the backpacking pack, the part that rose to the back of my head when I wore it, had become something like James's laboratory.
In other words, I was James's mobile hideout.
I hated that too, but since I was, after all, the one who needed help, I had no other options.
...Still hurts.
There wasn't even a road worth the name anywhere nearby. Not that there was nothing at all—just faint traces showing that people had passed through once upon a time.
I had no idea where this was, either.
The black hole had certainly deposited me somewhere no one knew. Somewhere even I didn't know—say no more.
There was at least a road in the vicinity, and I figured if I followed it, I'd come out somewhere eventually.
"What do we do now?"
"Finding a dwelling comes first, I should think. One that requires no identification."
...
Where else was I going to find a place like that?
I was mid-pondering whether I'd have to keep moving from mountain to mountain when my energy abruptly drained away.
"What about a private guesthouse?"
"For one thing, places like that tend to be overpriced for what they offer. Give it a week and I'd have burned through every won I have."
Well, if all I did was sleep there, I could stretch it past a week—but I had to eat, too.
Besides, with a private individual running a lodging out of their own home, I would inevitably cross paths with the owner constantly, in all sorts of ways.
Which meant the odds of my identity being discovered would shoot up at terrifying speed.
...I'd rather pass on that.
"If only there were an abandoned house somewhere."
Better than nothing, I supposed.
"...Or maybe I should just ask the magical girls for help."
"Have you lost your mind?"
James shot back at my muttering.
"Has it not occurred to you that the magical girls are themselves objects of surveillance? The fact that they aided you this time will certainly have been reported up to the Federation. No—there is no 'certainly' about it. They went that far and failed to stop you. It would not be the least bit strange if they were barred from continuing as magical girls at all."
...
If Hayun had to quit being a magical girl.
Would she really be all right? She'd be devastated—I was sure of it.
I dragged a hand down my face.
Jihye.
I worried about Jihye, too. I'd only watched as far as her being carried off to the hospital before turning back.
Out here I couldn't see the news or the papers. I had no idea how any of it had turned out.
I got to my feet again.
However things unfolded, for now I had to walk.
I considered following the road, then turned my feet and changed direction. If some passing car spotted me walking along it, things could get tangled.
I decided to walk where I could see the road but stay far enough away that cars couldn't see me. I probably couldn't keep up that distance forever. Mountains don't get to be mountains for nothing.
If it came to that... then I'd have no choice but to walk the road.
With that much resolve, I walked hard.
Call it luck, maybe.
"Hm."
James rested a hand on his chin as he gazed up at the dilapidated house.
While walking near the road, I had found another path—like the one leading down from that grave site—marked only by faint traces of human passage.
This one, though, was far rougher than the path up to the grave site had been.
Though it was only the very beginning of spring, weeds grew thick along the way. They came up to nearly my shins; come summer, I figured they would genuinely reach my waist.
By that point I'd already been walking for hours, and steeped in fatigue, I was looking for somewhere to rest a moment.
I had only stepped off the path thinking I'd sit down if I found a tree stump or something.
"This looks quite suitable for a temporary stay, wouldn't you say?"
James said, surveying the desolate village.
That's right. It was a village.
It was fairly spacious in area. About six households' worth.
Whether six houses really counted as a village was debatable, but with some lots holding nothing more than the foundations of former homes, it looked as though the residents had drifted away one by one until even the remaining six houses had been abandoned.
"If we pitch a tent inside one of the houses, it might be livable for a stretch."
"...Are you serious?"
"You can't be asking that in earnest yourself, surely? For lodging that costs no money and demands no identification, there isn't much else left."
...
I looked at the house once, then around at the surroundings.
Even in broad daylight, the place was overwhelmingly bleak. Of the six single-story houses, this one sat highest up the slope and was the most intact. Most of the others had half-collapsed.
This one at least held its shape, but...
With steps I didn't want to take, I made my way over to the house.
On the narrow wooden veranda, where a single person could just barely sit, stood a rusted sliding door. The window, at least, was still unbroken.
Abandoned houses like this usually get picked apart by the urban-exploration crowd, but this place was too remote for anyone to have found it, apparently.
When I opened the door, a skin-crawling creak rang out.
And a damp smell billowed up from within.
The interior of a house long unoccupied was in a state where, truly, only the rain could be kept out.
...
"Honestly, wasn't the grave site better?"
"Even so, pitch a tent in here and you won't freeze to death. And if you use a fire inside, the odds of being spotted shrink considerably—provided you block up the windows, that is. As for the mold... well, we can deal with that gradually as we settle in."
"Hold on—isn't that supposed to be my job?"
"Well, yes, wouldn't it be? My robot has already become your equipment, after all."
...
I had plenty I wanted to argue, but there was no helping it.
I heaved a deep sigh and looked around.
It was a bit bigger than Pangpang's place, at least.
...Fine. Whatever.
"Could you build something like a radio?"
"Applying circuitry, I can run whatever you need for daily living. In that sense, too, this location is well suited. Wouldn't you agree? Opening sub-space requires at least a minimal amount of energy, after all."
That was why I'd hauled the bag all the way here, too.
The thought that no one knew where I was put me somewhat at ease, and the circuit had quieted a little.
Perhaps because I'd confirmed that Hayun didn't hate me.
Which meant at least one potential enemy fewer, right?
...
Still, that remark of James's honestly grated on me a little.
If I got hungry with nothing to eat, I would give serious thought to making a meal of James.
"Did you not just have an appallingly uncivilized thought?"
"Well, these days you can at least read a person's face."
Back when he was my supervisor, he'd seemed utterly incapable of understanding my expressions.
I let out a long sigh and set down the pack.
James scurried over and slipped inside it. That pack was his tent, I supposed.
I unzipped it, took out the tent, and spread it open.
I didn't drive pegs into the ground, but well, nothing was going to blow it away.
With the tent fully up, I looked around the interior, which was 'abandoned house' in the truest sense of the word.
...I didn't know how long we'd be staying, but in a place like this, we could probably manage a few weeks?
In that case, the inside ought to at least be clean.
I heaved a deep sigh.
I wasn't fully recovered, and the prospect of heavy labor already did not appeal to me one bit—but
well, what could I do?
For now, I had to stay hidden until Hayun called for me.
...And the fact that my heart raced at that thought proved I was truly beyond saving.
She had heard all sorts of things said.
What she heard most often was, 'How could this be possible?'
The adults all said the same thing.
That no matter what had happened, Jieun should have been caught. That if she had grievances, she should have simply told her story properly.
"...Lies," Hayun murmured. "They say all that—and then once she was caught, they'd have claimed nothing could be done."
Should she have simply run away, back then? If she had fled somewhere far away with Jieun...
...
But in the end, Hayun was who she was—she would never have made that choice. Staying at Jieun's side in a situation like this would have done nothing but needle her.
And yet, still.
Still, she wanted to see her. Ever since she'd learned that Jieun didn't seem to outright despise her, she had wanted—simply, constantly—to see her.
Had she chosen wrong, back then? Should she have knelt down and begged, if that was what it took to leave together?
She hated all of it. Truly.
The circuit had been confiscated. It likely hadn't been taken from her for good. If it were needed, they would call for Hayun and return it—just for that moment.
The way one handles a tool.
"Hayun..." Cherry called out to Hayun, who lay on her bed staring blankly at the ceiling.
But there was nothing more to say.
Even knowing none of it was Cherry's fault—feelings were not something so easily reined in.
Hayun turned her head.
She saw the pager resting by her pillow. The spare pager she'd received long ago.
...At least with that, she could believe she was still connected to Jieun.
A single thread of hope.
Perhaps the only reason Hayun hadn't spiraled out of control by now was, truly, that one thing alone.