Everything Becomes F: The Perfect Insider
Chapter Eight Purple Dawn
You saw Dr. Magata?
Yes... It sounded just like her.
And when I asked who she was, she said,
"I've heard that question before."
Who was that?
I'm back...
Do you take milk or sugar, Saikawa-sensei?
Saikawa-sensei takes his black.
I knew it.
Here you go, Saikawa-sensei.
Thank you.
Shimada-san,
where else can you find those machines?
They're all over the lab.
The meeting room on the first floor, for example.
But most people have one in their room, like I do.
I understand.
And if you don't need that sense of floating,
you don't need the machine. You can just do it from a normal terminal.
In other words, anyone in the lab
can participate in it, right?
Yes. I just took a look at the login records.
I couldn't identify whom it was that Nishinosono-san spoke with,
but there was a new name registered.
What was the name?
"Michiru."
No way. Could it really be Dr. Magata?
That's impossible!
Then whose body is that?
But it sounded exactly like her.
Anyone could have done that.
This place uses voice recognition as ID,
and there are also Dr. Magata's interview logs.
So if you put her voice recordings together,
it would be possible to impersonate her, right?
Correct.
And a man could do it, as well.
Of course.
But that's a pretty elaborate prank.
And a pretty nasty one.
Oh, Saikawa-sensei!
Your fingers are so pretty!
Do you get that a lot?
No one's ever complimented them. Or insulted them, really.
Oh, I love the way you said that...
Hey, Shimada-san! You're not allowed to do that!
I'm holding back the things I want to say.
What's wrong with saying what I think?
It might be the beginning of something special—
It had better not be!
Shimada-san,
why don't you head back to your room?
I want to talk some more!
I have no spare mental capacity to deal with you.
You aren't being elegant at all...
My apologies.
Door, close.
Jeez.
It's finally quiet in here.
When you were meeting with Michiru-san...
No, before you were,
I was meeting with Miki-san.
Where is Miki-san?
With the director's wife?
No, the guest room on the first floor.
You were there the whole time, until you arrived just now?
Isn't that a little too long?
Hey, Nishinosono-kun...
Do you think Miki-san resembles Dr. Magata?
Huh?
The employees here plan to try to pass her off as Dr. Magata.
They do?
Well, they're sisters,
so I suppose their faces do look similar...
But Dr. Magata is smaller and thinner.
Miki-san is tall and has a very different air about her.
I see.
Tomorrow... No, I suppose it's today now...
A ship is coming.
If we can make contact with the mainland, the police will be here tonight.
They're going to leave Dr. Magata's body in that room.
And they'll tell everyone that Miki-san is Dr. Magata.
Normally, Dr. Magata doesn't meet with anyone.
Miki-san will meet with the police
only if they insist.
They'll lie for a week.
But the police will go into that room, right?
They're going to hide that yellow door.
They'll put a shelf in front of it.
Nishinosono-kun, we'll be criminals.
If we don't answer questions, we aren't liars, are we?
Is that how your morals work?
But the best option would be to tell the police everything,
and have them keep Dr. Magata's death a secret.
Then no one would have to lie.
How would you get them to do that?
I'll ask my uncle.
Oh, right. Your uncle is...
Chief of the Aichi Prefectural Police.
But I don't know if that will work.
Sensei?
That's dangerous...
I'm fine.
You've gotten really bold.
If you had a rope, you could get up or down this.
It's about six or seven meters, maybe.
I couldn't do it.
How did the killer get into that room?
Why kill Dr. Magata?
And how did the killer escape?
We can't answer those questions or why Director Shindo was killed...
There may have been different killers.
Maybe it was two murders, with two motives, that happened to coincide.
No way...
That's just weird.
It is weird. Extremely weird.
Sensei, you're making fun of me, aren't you?
Should we ban weird or strange opinions?
Forget it.
I've stopped caring about the case.
I'm enjoying being with you, here and now.
It's dawn.
This is the start of the day when we become liars.
So what did you want to talk about?
Right...
A long time ago, I did something really terrible to you.
The night of the plane crash.
I was such a mess. I was out of control.
And I hurt you...
And then, I broke your glasses...
I'm sorry for what I did.
It's fine. You can fix glasses.
After that, you came back to my house many times.
I asked you lots of times, didn't I?
"Why do people live?"
Yeah.
Back then, it was all you thought about.
Every time I asked, you had a different answer.
And never one I understood.
You once told me that it was to catch goldfish,
and once, you said the difference
between meaning and no meaning is like that between an eared seal and a fur seal.
It was all stuff like that.
"What do you mean, to catch goldfish?"
At first I got mad, but...
Then it started to seem funny, and eventually...
I was able to laugh.
Why did I forget something so important?
That's more than enough for now.
Sorry I'm so busy.
If you want something to eat, go ahead.
And if you need a shower...
Thank you.
I'll take you up on that shower.
The towels are on the right side of the door—
Yes, thank you.
If you're going to eat something,
shall I make breakfast?
Would you?
It's been like this the whole time, and I haven't eaten anything.
I'm trying my last resort right now...
Last resort?
I'm trying to shut down Red Magic,
and switch over to UNIX.
Mizutani-kun and Shimada-san are making the preparations now.
It would be simple to just switch over,
but many of the facility's functions are dependent on Red Magic.
We may not even be able to open the doors.
Think you can do it?
Yes, but it'll take another twelve hours or so.
If this doesn't work,
I'm really out of options.
So it wasn't a virus that caused
Red Magic to go out of control?
Correct.
I never suspected that from the start.
What I suspected was
a program that had run recently in the system.
What you call a Trojan...
A Trojan horse.
What is that, exactly?
A normal virus attaches itself to normal programs and files.
But a Trojan horse makes itself
appear to be a useful program,
but inside, it contains destructive functions.
An anti-virus program can't detect it...
Because it doesn't act irregularly and then destroy things.
It destroys things like a virus would, as part of its normal operations.
Since it's acting properly, an anti-virus won't work.
Then you still don't know the cause of the trouble.
Finding out will take time.
First, I plan on shutting down the system and doing a full reset.
Giving up on Red Magic
is the best option I can think of.
There'll be a lot of obstacles,
but being unable to contact the outside is a critical issue for us.
We'll have to investigate the error's cause afterward.
Huh?
I fell asleep, huh?
Yeah. It's almost eleven.
You're right...
I slept about three hours.
The ship will be here soon.
The police will be contacted,
and then things are likely to get very boring.
I'm fine. I won't be bored.
Because I'll be with you the whole time, right?
Glad to hear it.
Since yesterday, I've had so much fun...
I shouldn't say that, should I?
I was scared, and it was creepy.
And I was sad, remembering that day.
But I talked to you about what I remembered,
and my body feels lighter, somehow.
If only I could figure out the answer to this quiz,
everything would be wonderful.
If you call it a quiz, they'll get mad at you.
Two people are dead.
But that happens all the time, right?
It just happened physically near us.
You're strange.
So are you!
You're in a very good mood.
I am?
I can tell.
You've figured something out, haven't you?
Well...
It's about F, maybe.
F?
"Everything becomes F."
You figured it out?
No,
but I've decided to start thinking about it.
I think that will lead us to the answer.
You don't know the answer, but you know how to get there?
My mind must work in a different way than yours.
I see the path first.
And then I slowly travel down it.
That's weird...
F, huh?
Finish. Future. Free. Or...
Future?
"Miki" means "Future"?
See? That's how your brain works.
You take random ideas you think of and try to use them to find the answer.
But that isn't right.
"Shiki" means "Four seasons," which also begins with F.
And "Michiru" can mean "Full," which also has an "F."
I'm more interested in "Everything" than "F."
Does she mean her four personalities?
That would mean the subject should be "everyone," right?
There must be a reason it's "everything."
Final notice to all staff.
At exactly 11:00, the main system will shut down.
All functionality will be off-line for approximately ten minutes.
They're shutting down Red Magic?
That was faster than I thought.
I hope it doesn't shut off the electricity.
Nishinosono-kun, you said
Dr. Magata wore gloves, right?
Yes.
Why?
I don't know...
Wait, don't you wear gloves when you wear a wedding dress?
But the body had no hands.
Who are you?
I won't let you do this!
But Dr. Magata is smaller and thinner.
Miki-san is tall and has a very different air about her.
Seven is the only lonely number.
I am the only one that is seven.
Sensei, what's wrong?
Imperfection, attempting to become perfect.
Sensei?
I'm fine.
I want to smoke.
Can you let go of my hand?
What are you doing?
I've figured out a little bit of the truth.
Tell me, Sensei!
Sensei!
Nishinosono-kun...
Yes?
It wasn't Dr. Magata you saw.
The lights are back!
It's connecting! The phones work!
Hello. This is the Nishinosono residence.
Suwano, it's me.
There's been a problem. Get here now.
There's been a murder at Magata Labs...
Call my uncle!
I want you to contact the police, too!
Miss...
Miss, are you hurt?
Oh, not now...
I'm hanging up.
I see.
I'll contact the police immediately, then.
We finally got through.
Sensei, about what you were just saying...
Yeah. Want me to tell you?
No, I'll think for myself.
I'll catch up to you on my own.
You've gotten strong.
After the incident, Shiki was arrested.
There was a trial, eventually,
but she was declared non compos mentis
and therefore, not guilty.
Nagono Juvenile Detention Center
And so, Shiki cut herself off from the outside world,
and lived inside her lab.
Some said it was the same as being inside a prison.
However,
it was the environment Shiki wanted.
Meeting no one
and being seen by no one.
Michiru, unlock the door.
With no one interfering
and no one telling her to do anything.
That was
the ideal world
she'd always desired.