The Perfect Insider:Chapter 1-1

Chapter 1: The White Conversation

1

It is summer, the girl recalled.

In the room of expressionless concrete on all sides, no indication of the season was detectable. Nowhere in this building could an exterior window be found. Time and history were artificial concepts here. There was neither heat nor cold.

Most likely, living beings other than humans such as animals and plants do not exist here either, the girl suspected.

The blindingly white room was truly barren. The air was purified, so there was little dust as well. Merely an artificlal serenity. A single chair made of an inorganic aluminium alloy was prepared, so that was where the girl sat.

In front of her was a large display monitor set into the wall. The screen showed a white space similar to the room she was in now. From above, a small security camera stared in her direction like an owl.

The image on the screen was not this room. The girl herself was not shown.

She waited in this manner for several moments.

She'd left her bag outside the room. Her bag contained her computer for taking notes as well as her camera, but it was a rule that nothing was allowed to be brought into this room, according to the man outside. He was this building's boss, but his demeanor was kind and he'd had a charming presence.

Within the display screen was a single variation. Inside the projected room sat a girl in white clothing. Due to the room's brightness, the figure was little more than a vague outline, but after the camera's iris auto-focused ever so slightly, she was promptly visible.

The girl in the display was sitting in a chair, and looking straight this way. And younger than she ever could have imagined.

"Good day." She heard a woman's voice come through the speaker. "What is your name?"

"I'm Nishinosono." The girl answered. "Nice to meet you. Um, I…"

"Wait, I heard your last name, but your first?"

"It's Moe."

"Moe? How do you spell it?"

"M-O-E. Moe."

"Your age?"

"I'm almost twenty," Moe answered. She had prepared to be asked a lot of questions, but this woman in the screen was taking charge of the conversation to a surprising degree.

"How did you come here?" the woman asked.

"By helicopter."

"The chief's helicopter?"

"No, a different one." Moe shook her head. "Um, Doctor Magata… Do you know my dad?"

"Multiply 165 with 3367 and what do you get?" the woman suddenly questioned.

"55 and then… 5555. Six 5s, right?" Moe answered immediately. But then, she was taken aback. "Why'd you give me that calculation?"

"A test. Though I had a feeling you would solve it." The woman smiled slightly. "However, multiplying 7 is your greatest weak point. Just now, you took longer to say the last digit. Why is that?"

"It's not a weak point. I love the number 7." Moe crossed her legs to calm down.

"No, you misunderstand me. Ever since you were first learning your multiplication tables, you struggled with the 7s. Kindergarten, was it? Or maybe earlier? 7 is your lucky number though. You have no siblings, right? Well 7 is the loneliest number of all."

Moe was indeed an only child.

"Um…… Can I please ask?" Moe had more or less returned to her own pace. "About my dad……"

"Wow, your thought processes are quick too! And you've got the ability to make decisions. And also…" The woman stared directly at Moe as she spoke. "Your thoughts have emergent characteristics. That is your number one talent. Yes… I met with Sir Nishinosono Kyousuke sixteen years ago, four times. The first was in America. You were actually there as well. I asked him for your name, but you burst out crying, so I never recieved an answer. You were wearing a red dress, with ribbons in your hair. March of sixteen years ago… the sixteenth. The city was Champaign."

"You remember all that? Or…" Moe inquired, surprised.

"Or did I research it knowing you would come here… correct?" The woman answered immediately. "A meaningless question."

"So, how many years have you been here?" Moe was forced to pose a different question.

"Don't ask questions you already know the answer to." The woman smiled again. "Our talk doesn't require such formal prelude. We don't even need conjunctions. I have no interest in context, after all…" With that, the woman lifted her hand and tossed her long hair.

"Is it true that you killed your parents?" Moe quickly asked a new question.

"Now you get it. Let's face the topic head on. Even your perceptivity and observational skills are exceptional." The woman spoke with a calm tone. She gave no particular intonation, though her mature voice was clear as day. "How about your parents? What kind of people were they?"

Moe instantly hid her face.

"I understand that they have passed away," the woman continued indifferently. "We both know that's why you've come to see me today. But, no matter how many stories I tell about your parents, you'll never get the information you want. Professor Nishinosono was a gentle man. I did not know his wife at all. I literally just asked you what they were like. Did you see the airplane accident?"

"I see it in my soul as if it happened yesterday." Moe chose her words carefully, as though she were dealing with dangerous weapons.

"I don't have anything like a soul." The woman smiled once again. "I suppose you want to have a human conversation though. Alright then, let's chat, shall we?"

"Who are you?" Moe instinctively asked the question that suddenly welled up inside her.

"Aah… now this is surprising. You truly have an amazing intellect." After saying that, the woman sat wide-eyed and silent for a moment. "That is the incisiveness of human thought, right there. Did you, perhaps, notice it too, just now, suddenly? That's amazing…. You can't make that with a machine. Asking a question like who I am… an artificial intelligence would never think to ask that. However, after talking with me, it took less than a minute for you to notice the disparity between me and my manufactured image of Magata Shiki, and then to unconsciously ask that question. Such quick knowledge acquisition could never be replicated by a machine. That is quite important. I am Magata Shiki. I am not, as you suspect, a separate personality."

"Doctor Magata, why did you murder your parents?" Moe repeated the same question.

"I cannot answer questions of why," Miss Magata answered while smiling. I am more concerned with in what manner they were killed. Considering I witnessed it…"

"How come you can't answer my questions?"

"Because I don't know. We can make wild guesses, but that won't result in a solution. Not without hearing it directly from the killer."

"Are you saying you weren't the one who killed them?" Moe leaned forward in her chair.

"That's right. At least, to my awareness, that is the truth. When your parents died in that accident, were you interested then as well, as to why the accident occurred? You were… how old at the time?"

"Sixteen." Moe spoke calmly. "I have no interest in the cause of the accident. That won't bring back my mom or my dad."

"My own parents died when I was fourteen." Magata's expression showed not even a hint of gloom. "Everyone thinks I killed them. Though, truly, that's not unlikely. After all, I was holding the weapon that took their lives, stained head to toe with blood…. No matter how much we, like you say, investigate the cause, nothing will appear out of thin air."

"Wait, you don't remember?" Moe narrowed one eye.

"That would not be completely accurate. I do remember. How they were killed, everything." Miss Magata answered with a soft expression. "The doll did it. I saw the whole thing."

"A doll?" Moe parroted. "What kind of doll could do that? Since when can dolls commit murder?"

"Who knows? It ran away somewhere." Miss Magata tossed her hair again. "I understand that nobody believes my story. But the understanding of others has no bearing on the truth."

Miss Magata Shiki must have been much older than Moe. However, the girl shown in the display in front of her face appeared to be in her teens. On top of that, her delicate jawbone and porcelain features, together with her fair white skin, gave the impression of someone entirely un-Japanese. Her long black hair was precisely groomed, and elegantly fell over her shoulders. That was as far as Moe could see on the screen.

"Then, Doctor, are you saying… a separate personality of yours… committed the murders?" Moe questioned.

"That's also… probably wrong," Miss Magata answered immediately. "It's true that there exist separate personalities within me. However, Miss Nishinosono. "The people inside me… they don't know my parents."

"How could you possibly know that?"

"Because, I've been talking with them for a very long time. An extraordinarily long time. Of course I know that much. Split the numbers from 1 to 10 into two parts. Then, multiply all of the numbers in each part together. Is there any way to make the products the same?"

"No," Moe replied instantly. "One side will contain 7, which makes that product a multiple of 7. Since the other side doesn't have a 7, they'll never be the same."

"See? 7 is the lonely one," Miss Magata said. "Among my personalities, the only the one with a motive to kill my parents… was myself, Magata Shiki. That's why, if my own body killed my parents, I would definitely remember it. I alone… am 7…. B and D as well."

(B and D…?) Moe didn't understand.

"Er, what do you mean by motive?" she asked.

"I wonder, maybe I wanted to play outside…?" the Miss Magata within the screen replied. "That's about as much as we can surmise based on all the evidence. Do you legitimately think there is meaning in such a thing as a motive? Did you come all the way here just to ask me that?"

"No I didn't."

"In that case, let's get down to business." Miss Magata said, and averted her eyes for the very first time. "You have seventeen minutes and forty seconds remaining."

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