Harmony by Project Itoh Page A

brain. The barrier is there to protect the brain and spinal column from potentially dangerous substances, and no scientist has been able to develop a medicule able to pass through. Basically, it’s a blind spot in the system.”
    “Doesn’t the blood-brain barrier work like a filter? Why can’t they just make a medicule smaller than the holes in the net?”
    “Actually, the barrier is not like a net. Though in fact it was believed to be for quite some time. A century ago, the popular theory was that anything with a molecular mass of, oh, 500ì or less would be able to pass through, but that theory has since been entirely refuted. As it turns out, certain kinds of material, no matter what their size, cannot pass through the blood-brain barrier, while rather large molecules can pass through if they are needed by the brain. In other words, size doesn’t matter. The blood-brain barrier isn’t a mindless filter, it’s a highly attenuated and complex selection organ.”
    The man looked down at his lap. “I see.”
    I smiled. This was about the closest thing to a smackdown I was likely to see in one of these meetings.
    “Though the numbers are small, there are a handful of instances every year of people with WatchMe installed dying of brain tumors and otherwise preventable hemorrhages. The brain is the last sanctum of the body, you might say. The only place where WatchMe’s eyes cannot go. That is, most of the brain. Because the pituitary gland and pineal gland deal with hormones, we can access them.
    “Of course, we are doing what we can to monitor the coma patients externally via electronic scanning, though that falls far short of nano-level resolution,” the Interpol officer explained. “That said, only eight hours have passed since the…outbreak. We have, at present, no confirmation of any brain abnormalities in those affected, but it is still quite early in the day, so to speak.”
    I saw Prime Inspector Os Cara Stauffenberg stand. She was probably still in her pink tent in the Sahara. For a second, I felt like she might be glaring at me, but I was too busy ignoring her to see.
    Would Cian have killed herself if Prime hadn’t sent me packing from the Sahara? Would Cian really have stuck a knife into her own throat if I hadn’t been sent back to Japan to go to lunch with her and watch her do it?
    Or would she have done it anyway, with a knife she was using to cut tomatoes in her own kitchen?
    
    Want to fill a bathroom with poison gas? Beyond easy.
    
    Hadn’t Miach said something like that?
    
    Every person holds within themselves the potential to take another’s life.
    
    I’ve got the power.
    I could kill someone.
    Even myself.
    Each of us holds within us the power to destroy something important.
    Had Cian killed herself, after a thirteen-year delay, just to truly understand the meaning of Miach’s words for herself? Was I to be the only one left behind?
    “In two hours from now at a general emergency meeting of WHO in Geneva, I will be addressing all admedistrations and telling them that this, this chaos, is evidence of a full-on attack against lifeism,” Prime announced.
    “As senior inspectors, all of you will be cooperating with security in your local regions. You all know about the treaties binding each admedistration to WHO—we’re going to make them honor those treaties. I want each of you to take the initiative in rooting out the people responsible for this, and let them know we will not sit idly by while they threaten our very way of life.”
    Every agent in the room nodded. Like that, the session ended, and I was back in my hotel room, surrounded by unpacked bags.
    Unlike the other inspectors, I didn’t have much time. I had to start right now.
    
    Just two hours earlier, our fearless leader Prime Inspector Os Cara Stauffenberg had opened a secure session in AR with me.
    
    “Though it is not public knowledge, you are under house arrest. Add