Chapter 1: Return (1)

Summer had come to Carlton.

After six years away, Roche Linvanx had returned to his hometown. Compared with the brief, muted crimson summers at the First Northern Defense Line, the heat here lasted much longer. It was more intense, more vivid. Cicadas shrilled without pause. The green shadows beneath the trees looked juicy enough to squeeze. Sunlight was so thick and bright it seemed to paint everything in a glossy white sheen. The sudden downpours lived up to their name, arriving and departing in a flash, always accompanied by a rolling crash of thunder.

A bus crested a hill, the pale blue of its battered body flecked with shifting leaves and patches of sunlight. Roche sat by the window. He looked to be in his late twenties, with a few freckles and dark red hair tied back. His amber eyes shone like gold in the sunlight as he stared, unblinking, at the vivid summer scenery outside. He still seemed unaccustomed to the change from snow that stung like pebbles against his face to the sticky, sultry breeze.

His phone suddenly vibrated. The caller ID displayed the politely distant name Pester Linvanx.

He answered. A cool female voice came through the speaker. “Where are you?”

“About fifteen minutes away.”

“Your paperwork’s already done. You don’t need to go through HR. Report straight to the Medical Department. I’m busy, so don’t come looking for me unless it’s important.”

Before he could say a word, Pester hung up. A string of mechanical beeps filled the silence.

Roche stared at the phone for a moment, then slipped it back into his pocket.

It’s not like I begged her to get me a job at PAA, he thought bitterly.

PAA—the Paranormal Affairs Association—had been founded ten years ago. Its primary responsibility was dealing with the Spacetime Rifts appearing across the country in ever greater numbers, and the Anomalous Entities that emerged through them. The things Roche had fought at the First Northern Defense Line were much the same. He’d spent four years there as a combat medic before retiring a year ago due to injury. After more than three months in the hospital, he woke to find that he’d lost most of his memories. He couldn’t even remember who he was.

Losing his memories didn’t mean the past would let him go. More than once, he’d watched water run from a faucet and mistaken the pale, swollen tentacles drifting in it for harmless reflections. More than once, a gust of wind through the trees had made him throw himself to the ground, certain an explosion was about to tear the building apart. And more than once, he’d lain awake through the long dark hours, waiting for the first pale hint of dawn in the east. When morning finally came, the world washed in blue, he’d feel grateful to have made it through another night without nightmares.

Once his vital signs returned to normal, old Linvanx refused to let his only son go back to the battlefield. Instead, he leaned on his daughter, who had risen to become head of PAA’s Operations Department, and forced Roche into a position there. Roche Linvanx himself didn’t think he could adapt to the routine of working, going home, and doing it all over again. He stubbornly insisted on returning to the front. After endless arguments with his father, a few broken objects, and several ambulances pulling up outside their house, Roche finally gave in. He agreed to work as a doctor in PAA’s Medical Department.

The bus came to an abrupt stop.

It braked so hard that even Roche, securely fastened by his seat belt, nearly slammed into the seat in front of him.

“What the hell?”

“Did we hit something?”

“Who’s driving? Are you trying to rear-end someone?”

Several passengers shouted questions over one another. Some got up and crowded into the aisle, but the driver sat motionless, his hands slipping limply from the steering wheel.

Alarm bells rang in Roche’s head. The driver might be having a heart attack or a sudden brain hemorrhage. He unbuckled at once and pushed through the crowd. “Excuse me, let me through. I’m a doctor.”

At the driver’s seat, he saw that the bus had switched into its braking mode. The engine was still running, though—just like the mechanical thing that had burst out of the driver’s chest.

It looked like a tangled mass of barbed wire, but it contracted and expanded like a human heart. With each beat, it gave off a rumble like an engine.

Roche stared at it. It felt as if someone had set a fire in his chest, his blood running hot as it surged straight to his brain. The driver was dead. There was no doubt about that. But before the Anomalous Entity had burst through his body, he had still found the strength to pull the brake.

“Get out.” The words squeezed through Roche’s throat.

“Huh? What did you say? What’s wrong with him? Can he be saved?” a passenger asked, bewildered.

Roche spun around and shouted, “I said get out! He’s been infected by an Anomaly!”

For an instant, he was back on the ice fields. Blood froze as soon as it spilled. His gear grew heavier and heavier. The ground beneath him opened and closed, every crevice packed with black, gelatinous creatures. They—or it—surged like boiling water. A muffled scream rang out. Roche didn’t look back, but from the corner of his eye he saw a soldier drop to his knees. Below the knee, the creature’s tentacles had twisted his legs to pulp.

Even as the gel climbed over the soldier’s face, probing his eyes, nose, and mouth before swallowing him whole, he clung to his rifle and kept squeezing the trigger mechanically. The magazine had long been empty. No flame flickered from the barrel.

Then came the second soldier. Then the third. One after another, methodical as clockwork, they fell like scarecrows as the black tide chased them down.

Roche was sure it had been a massacre planned long in advance. Still running, he glanced back at the heart of the ice fields. The glacier, frozen for ten thousand years, couldn’t be bothered to notice one tiny human. It sent the mist billowing up, blocking mankind’s view once again and forcing them to retreat to their warm homes, where they could numb themselves and forget what terrible thing lay coiled in the polar wastes.

“When you’re up against a mechanical-type Anomaly, an EMP weapon is always a good option. If things get desperate, grab the nearest object that can spray water and pray the thing doesn’t have short-circuit protection. Chemical corrosion is another option if all else fails. And do me a favor: forget your lousy bullets. Especially in tight indoor spaces. You don’t want your Anomaly walking away unscathed while your teammates drop one by one from ricochets, do you?”

—Excerpt from Anomalous Entity Response Guide: Home Edition

Roche lowered the fire extinguisher. His barrage had driven the Anomalous Entity out of the driver’s body. It had landed on the engine and was vibrating rapidly. If the thing had emotions, its behavior suggested it was furious.

As for the passengers, Roche glanced toward the rear door. Good. They’d all run. A moment ago, one of them had tried to retrieve his luggage from the overhead rack. After Roche greeted his ancestors with the most polite phrases he’d learned in the army, the man had taken off at a pace that might have set a world record.

Roche squeezed the extinguisher’s handle again. Its pressure and contents had clearly dwindled; it coughed weakly, like an old man short of breath. That wasn’t enough to hurt the mass of wire. It bounced a few times like a wad of chewing gum, then shot through a gap and into the engine. A shrill scraping sound followed.

Roche swore under his breath. Before he could do anything else, the bus exploded, right on cue. The windows shattered. Orange flames leapt up and licked at the charred frame. Luggage and scraps of seats flew everywhere. The blast hurled Roche out of the bus. He tumbled down the slope, struck the guardrail hard, and left a strange red shape smeared across the concrete.

The cicadas fell silent. The sunlight shone over a dead stillness, broken only by the crackle of the flames.

Pester Linvanx answered her phone. A man’s teasing voice came through the other end. “My dear lady—” He drew the words out lazily. She heard pages turning. “You forgot to mention in the file that your adorable little brother was a berserker.”

Now the call was punctuated by the sharp sound of metal bending and snapping.

Pester didn’t react. “You at the scene?”

“Not quite. I just got to the foot of the hill. Whoa! Can an ordinary human drag a bus? That bus looks like it’s fighting for its life. It’s grown claws and is desperately trying to grip the road. Sorry, but have you seen that video, ma’am? ‘I picked up a cat. It wants to come home with me, guys~’ That’s exactly how unwilling that bus looks.”

Then he must have moved the phone away, because he started shouting up the hill.

“Hey, you! You can’t force it if it doesn’t want to go! Let it go! An Anomaly’s life matters too!”

The answer was a tremendous splash. It sounded as if the bus had been thrown down the hill and rolled into the river in the valley, swollen with the season’s rain.

Pester hung up.

Roche had of course heard the man’s shout. He didn’t have time to answer. He’d grabbed the bus by its front bumper and thrown it down the slope. After rolling several times, it had plunged into the river. A heavy storm had passed through only a few days earlier, and the water had risen. Murky gray-yellow currents swallowed most of the bus at once. The rest of it twitched like a living thing, then fell still.

The mass of wire controlling the bus must have shorted out completely. Roche only regretted not seeing the sparks himself.

“Hellooo~”

A car pulled to a stop nearby. Roche turned and saw a blond man with his hair tied in a half-ponytail, wearing red sunglasses, rolling down the window to greet him. Judging by the man’s voice, he was the one who’d just yelled, “An Anomaly’s life matters too!”

“Roche Linvanx?”

As the blond man spoke, Roche noticed that his teeth were sharp and pointed, like a shark’s. The muscles in his face twitched despite his best efforts, but he nodded.

The man lowered his sunglasses a fraction, revealing one lake-blue eye. “Are you all right? That looks like a nasty cut.”

Only then did Roche notice the shards of glass embedded in his face. Irritated, he tore out several pieces that had melted in the heat and nearly fused with the wounds, then tossed them aside. “It’s nothing.”

The blond man raised an eyebrow and glanced at the file in his hand. Just as the file said, the wounds on Roche’s face healed rapidly, restoring it to its usual appearance in moments.

“Doesn’t it hurt?”

“That’s none of your business,” Roche said. “Pester send you?”

“The Department Head heard an Anomalous Entity had appeared on your way here and immediately sent out whoever was on standby nearby. That was me today, so here I am. She really didn’t need to worry, did she? You can handle those things on your own.”

He spoke as he took pictures, presumably to document the incident.

“You have a sister who cares about you,” he said with a sigh. “I’m Koin.” He held out his hand, probably expecting a handshake. But at the mention of a sister who cared, Roche’s face darkened. He slapped Koin’s hand away.

Koin didn’t seem offended. Grinning, he invited Roche into the car and offered to take him to headquarters to check in.

“Want a lollipop? I’ve got—let’s see, strawberry, lychee, soda, coffee, chocolate, and blueberry ice cream—”

The man’s mouth never stopped moving during the drive. He’d bounced from celebrity gossip to the meaning of life before suddenly changing the subject to ask whether Roche wanted candy.

“No, thanks,” Roche cut in brusquely.

“You’re going to work in the Medical Department?”

“Yeah.”

“What a waste of talent.” Koin yawned. “Look, you’ve got Rapid Regeneration and way more stamina than an ordinary person. Instead of killing yourself in the Medical Department, working late and living on glucose, all without overtime pay, why not come work for me? My last two teammates are both gone. I’m in desperate need of fresh blood.”

Roche didn’t respond to the invitation. Instead, he asked, “What do you think about their deaths?”

“Hm? People die in this line of work all the time. Why do you think the pay’s so good? Why else would PAA have been separated from the public security system?”

Koin peeled the wrapper off a lollipop. It was milky white, probably milk-flavored. Somehow, he spoke just as clearly with the candy in his mouth.

Roche was silent for a while. Then he said, “That’s good.”

The wind blew into the car, carrying the city’s familiar mix of dust, exhaust fumes, and air-conditioning.

“You’re really better like this.”