Everything Becomes F: The Perfect Insider
Chapter Nine Yellow Blind Spot
This ship's totally different than when we arrived.
U-Um...
How far is the walk to Magata Labs?
Thirty minutes, but there was an incident.
An incident?
Is this okay?
Ask me later.
Excuse me.
I'm Shibaike, with the Aichi Prefectural Police.
You're Saikawa-sensei and Nishinosono-san, yes?
Yes.
This is Director Shindo's wife.
Hello.
I've heard the basic details. Could you show me around?
Nishinosono-san?
Please try not to wander around.
I refuse.
The chief asked me to ensure that you were absolutely safe.
Please cooperate.
Uncle...
That's impossible, Moe-chan.
Uncle!
A day or two is one thing, given the location,
but I can't cover up someone's death for a week.
Please, Uncle... I promised the people here!
Fine. Here's what we'll do.
I'll make time to visit there this evening.
I'll speak to the laboratory staff directly.
You tell the police everything that happened.
No need to worry about anything.
All right.
Saikawa-sensei...
That's enough. Let's tell them everything.
I feel bad for Yamane-san, but I've made my choice.
I'm going to tell them everything.
I'm glad.
I'm sorry I couldn't keep my promise.
No, I'm the one who made an unreasonable request.
Now that this has happened,
I absolutely want to know who did this.
Saikawa-sensei, Detective Shibaike is calling you.
Oh, Deborah?
Resetting Red Magic brought her back on-line.
I'll be right back.
Yamane-san, excuse me.
Sensei...
Sorry, I'll be going, too.
Okay!
Come in.
Nishinosono Moe.
Excuse me.
Oh!
Nishinosono-san?!
Gido-san, right?
So you work here?
No, I just arrived.
What about you? What are you doing here?
Well, you know...
You know her?
You're here for a ladies' magazine interview?
That's right... Miss Trend.
You know it, right?
No, never heard of it.
Oh, it isn't well known here.
They're taking interviews and photos, for a two-page spread!
I don't know what to say.
So, what's happening with the case?
You told her?
With all these cops around, it would be more suspicious if I kept quiet.
Hey, who killed Dr. Magata Shiki?
Who are the suspects?
There can't be too many somewhere like this.
It's not that simple.
A week ago, she was alive.
And since then, no one's entered or left her room.
But she was killed.
It's been over a week.
No one's ever been in there.
Or so you think, but actually—
Actually nothing!
We investigated ourselves!
We?
Who is we?
Saikawa-sensei and I.
Sohei-kun's here?
What? Why?
What is he doing in a place like this?
He came with me.
For work?
The two of us came together.
Then work had nothing to do with it?
He loves computers,
but he spends most of his time wandering around, looking at old buildings, right?
He keeps photographing buildings that look on the verge of collapse.
How did you get to the island, Gido-san?
A raft?
Or did you swim?
What?
I took a ship. A plain old ship.
You're boring.
Come to think of it,
when I arrived, there were several people leaving...
Were those Sohei-kun's students?
You're mistaken.
No, they must have been!
He said he was going camping.
You misheard him.
What?
You two coming here together was a lie?
The two of us and nine extras!
Extras?
There were nine or so, sure.
Two women... And then, a bunch of young men.
Where do you live?
Yokohama.
Sohei-kun goes to Tokyo a lot, doesn't he?
He uses my place like a hotel!
But I get some change out of it,
so I can't complain.
What's wrong? Do you not feel well?
Everyone, give me some space with that.
Saikawa-sensei stays in a girl's room.
In her room, of all people...
He uses it as a hotel? That's wrong!
Change!
Of course he wouldn't do that!
What?
I finally found you.
You're late.
I asked a lot of people where you were.
You're lying.
If that were true, you should have been here sooner.
What were you doing?
I was looking into how those security videos are recorded.
What are you doing?
I told you to give me space.
But...
The videos of Dr. Magata's door
are recorded and compressed once a minute.
I'm writing a script to check
if these files match the times that they were recorded.
I get it.
You were looking for any gaps in the files.
You're sharper than the detective.
If there's a missing file,
it would mean that footage is missing.
And it might have shown the killer exiting the room.
Correct.
And?
Nothing was missing.
The files were all there.
Oh.
I looked for copies and dummies, but there wasn't anything.
In other words, it's more proof that nothing was done to that footage.
But is the footage really that important?
Of course.
It's the one piece of physical evidence that turns her living quarters
into a perfect locked room.
And...
And?
My hypothesis requires
a way to get through that door, no matter what.
Hypothesis?
Do you know who the killer is?
If nothing else, I know how the killer got in.
You didn't tell me that!
And what do you mean that
I didn't see Dr. Magata!
Tell me, please!
I'll figure it out for myself.
I know you can do it.
Fifteen years ago,
she went into that room herself.
But at some point, the killer entered, too.
Oh, jeez!
Fifteen years ago, she was alone.
But in that room,
there were two.
Magata Shiki and the killer?
Sensei...
I, too, have
figured it out.
We thought, except for Dr. Magata, no one
went in or out of that door for fifteen years.
But the killer went in, as well.
They went into the room together.
There was a robot named Michiru in the room.
Michiru could lock and unlock the door.
It existed because of someone who was always locking the door.
And of course, that person
was not Dr. Magata.
Even when I lost my parents, I had you.
That's why I've survived this long.
Like me, she lost her parents,
and she had the same kind of person.
Right here.
Sachiro-san.
As he fell to the ground, he screamed, "I won't let you do this!"
That's what he meant
as he collapsed.
He couldn't allow his young daughter's pregnancy.
Fifteen years ago, when she entered that room,
she was alone.
But one day, there were two people.
That second person
could have only been the child she gave birth to.
That's how the killer got inside that perfect locked room.
Her child was the one who killed her.
The child killed its own mother,
amputated her limbs, used her fingerprints to leave,
had Michiru lock the door from the inside, and escaped!
Why?
You're thinking the same thing, aren't you?
That isn't enough.
Even if you know how the killer got in, you don't know how they got out.
Until you can prove that,
you can't treat anyone as the criminal.
But...
Her daughter.
It was a girl.
Dr. Magata gave birth to a girl in that room.
How do you know?
Sensei,
you can see something I can't, right?
I won't deny that.
Then, do you want to see what she saw?
I do.
That's why
I'm here with you.
Sensei, what time is it?
Um... 6:22.
I've made up my mind!
I'll do it in the next thirty-eight minutes.
I'll solve the case by 7:00.
Let's do it!
O-Okay... But we can't.
Why not? There's no reason we can't!
I haven't synchronized it in two days.
It's a little off.
That doesn't matter!
Within thirty-eight minutes, more or less!
Sensei, why are you freezing?
Why...
Why am I so stupid?!
Sensei?
Why didn't I figure this out until now?
Wait, Sensei!
Hasebe-san!
This room is isolated from Red Magic, right?
Y-Yes...
What about the computer's clock?
The clock alone is connected by a special cable.
The clocks on all the lab's computers are synced.
Call up the script I just wrote.
Run it on today's data.
I don't believe it!
What's going on?
The file between 12:00 and 12:01 is missing!
What is this?
This is the logical conclusion.
Yes. And?
Nishinosono-kun, call me an idiot.
Idiot.
It isn't enough! It isn't insulting enough!
I want to insult myself!
Did something happen today, at 12:00?
What happened at 11:00 today?
11:00?
The power outage...
But that was because Yamane-san reset Red Magic.
Yes, and that set the time properly.
From the start, the time was off in the entire lab.
It was one minute behind the real time.
But Red Magic's reset meant that the proper time
came in over the network.
The delayed minute needed to be adjusted for.
So because the system adjusted its time,
there is no file for 12:00.
Wait.
The time in the lab was wrong?
The killer adjusted the clocks.
They were deliberately delayed by a minute.
What happens if you change the time?
And how would that file be recorded, after the time's set back one minute?
There would be an overlap, and the two files would have the same name.
Would they both be saved?
No.
They'd have the same name,
so the new file would overwrite the old.
That's how computers work.
Which means the old file...
It would disappear.
If you messed with the time,
you could make that one minute disappear, couldn't you?
We thought we had all the data,
but there was actually one missing minute of footage!
That's right.
During that one minute, the killer passed through the yellow door.
That's the trick they used to exit, isn't it?
Yes.
And they took the elevator to the roof.
They didn't call it from the roof.
They went from the basement to the roof.
There, they waited for Director Shindo, and murdered him.
Yay!
You're a lot of fun!
I'd never want to be your friend, though.
What a coincidence! I agree!
Sohei-kun!
Why so pale?
Setsuko, I'd love to tell you not to talk that way,
but it doesn't matter right now.
Shimada-san?
You were looking at the Red Magic source, right?
Can I see a list of something?
Search for variables that call the time.
There are a lot of them. Where am I looking?
Red Magic's entire main system.
No.
No, that isn't it.
No. No.
It should be an increment equals.
What variable type? There are too many.
Most likely, an integer.
What's he talking about?
An integer. A whole number, probably.
What about it?
Please shut up.
No.
That isn't it, either.
Come to think of it, there was one weird if statement
I didn't understand in the mail system.
Bring it up.
Yes, search for this variable.
I can't believe it...
This is the part that opens Dr. Magata's door.
I can't believe it was hard-coded.
This is the hourglass I was searching for.
Hourglass?
What is the system call doing?
Getting the time.
And the variable definition?
A global static integer.
Unsigned short.
What's this?
Integers are two bytes, right?
They are.
Nishinosono-kun...
Y-Yes?
Multiply 256 by 256.
65,536.
How long ago was 65,535 hours before 7:00 AM two days ago?
Subtract 19. Divide by 24.
Take the remainder. It's August.
And leap years...
February 10, 4:00 AM, seven years ago.
Isn't that when
Red Magic, version 4, came on-line?
Um...
Yes... That's right.
That explains why Red Magic went out of control,
and why she hid versions she'd completed a long time ago.
You're amazing, Nishinosono-kun.
That calculation was something only you could see.
I want to show my respect.
Thank you.
Nishinosono-kun...
Yes?
It's almost 7.
Yes.
Moe-chan...
Uncle!
I'm relieved to see your face!
It's been a long time, Saikawa-sensei.
Yes.
So, you had something you wanted to discuss?
Allow me to explain how this locked-room murder took place.
Sensei,
we haven't found a way in or out yet.
I'll explain it in front of the killer right now.
If I tell them I know the truth, they'll confess everything.
How can you say that?
Their pride.
Their pride as a human being.
You know who the killer is, then?
Yes.
We finally meet,
Saikawa-sensei.
Hello,
Dr. Magata Shiki.