No. 6

CHAPTER 4 - Are You Sad?

"Are you sad?"
"Yes, I am."
"You're not really, are you?"
"No, I'm not."
-Hoshi Shin'ichi, "Bokko-chan", Short Short 1001

***

Two conveyer belts were running. Humans lay on them. Someone had put them there.

They were not alive. He could tell clearly even from where he stood behind the glass.

Bodies. Several dozen, maybe even a hundred, were being carried down. A half-moon shaped device of enormous size was operating beyond.

The bodies were sucked in one after another into two square openings. It seemed like the glass was of a special kind, for he could hear nothing of what was occurring on the other side.

Bodies slipped by continuously in this silent scene.

There were men. Women. Children and adults. Clothed and naked. Their statures, ages, and sexes ranged broadly.

"Why are their heads... all..." The words stuck in his throat. They became a lump that blocked his airway.

The top half of the head had been cut away from every corpse. A translucent plastic dome had been placed on top instead. Men and women, children and adults―all had been fitted with bowl-shaped plastic from the forehead up.

"―Samples," Shion said, heaving a breath with his shoulders. "They're samples."

"What do you mean?"

"Brains... they needed human brains as samples."

"―So these bodies have all had their brains removed?"

"Yeah― I think so. And I think they've all finished serving their purpose. So―"

"So?"

"They're being disposed of."

This time, Nezumi was the one to swallow hard.

The half-moon-shaped device at the other end of the belt: was that for disposing the corpses? Did it burn them instantly to ashes? Did it grind them up and then dry them into dust? Or did it use some special chemical to melt them right down to their bones?

The bodies were being sucked in.

People who had been alive just moments before―living, speaking, crying, loving one another―were being disposed of like trash.

How... how could... No. 6, how could you be so cruel? How could you have turned out to be so ruthless?

"They're not humans." Shion's voice reached his ears. It was no whisper. It was crisp and clear. "This isn't any human deed." His fist pounded the reinforced glass.

This isn't any human deed.

But the staff clad in white had been standing here conversing only moments earlier. They had been sipping a warm drink from their mugs. They had been engrossed in their work.

Are they all monsters?

Nezumi's eye caught the photograph at his feet.

The smiling woman, the smiling boy. The sleeping baby.

'Look, look over here. Smile, come on!'

'Daddy, I'll take a picture next.'

'Honey, make sure you get the baby, too.'

He could almost hear the family's conversation―so typical, yet so precious all the same.

Is the guy who had this propped up on his desk a monster, too?