Free Virus: The Day of Resurrection by Sakyo Komatsu Page A

replied an unexpectedly strong, if coquettish-sounding voice. “I’m very … well. But my face. I wonder if these wounds will heal completely.”
    The doctor’s voice sounded over the speakers. “If you wish, we can make you even more beautiful than before. Though you’re lovely enough already.”
    “Do you feel well enough to talk for a few minutes?” asked the inspector. “I’d like you to tell me about what was going on in the car at the time of the accident. A simple explanation will be fine. Just so we can understand the circumstances a little better. And in particular, so we can establish for sure that the truck driver was not responsible.”
    “The man in the trailer was not to blame,” Ms. M said crisply. “It was all Tonio’s fault.” Suddenly, she began to cry bitterly. “It was terrifying … truly terrifying. Nothing like that had ever happened to me before.”
    “Easy, now,” the attending physician said. “It’s all right. You’re completely safe now.”
    “What did Tonio do?”
    “Well, I want to say up front, there’s nothing between Tonio and me … it’s true,” Ms. M said through her tears. “We first met last winter in Lausanne, and then by coincidence I ran into him again. It was about a month ago. After that, we went to Monaco, and Tonio and I both won quite a bit of money. He called me his goddess of luck. We were together as far as Genoa. I was in Livorno when Tonio went to pick up the new car. Later, he called and said he’d drive me to Rome …”
    “Nothing between them, eh?” sneered a reporter from Paris Match. “Hah! A whole month wandering around together on the Ligurian coast? Any way you shake it, that falls into ‘hot and heavy’ territory.”
    “That’s enough about Tonio,” said the inspector, her voice patient. “Please tell us about the accident.”
    “Yes, well … when we left Civitavecchia, Tonio was feeling perfectly well . He’d gone to bed early the night before.”
    This elicited a snort of laughter from somewhere in the press corps. The news that Tonio had been well had the Alfa Romeo investigator biting the frills on her hat. “Hey, look at that …” said one of the reporters, nudging another who stood nearby. “How much you wanna bet she eats that Borsalino before she’s done talking?”
    “… the new car was so amazing that the boy at the petrol stand had his mouth hanging open for a full minute. Even so, Tonio drove like he was afraid of it. He went at a crawl in the city, and when we came out onto the highway, he made sure his seatbelt was on tight and would hardly speed up at all. I told him I’d heard these cars could do over two hundred, and maybe I shouldn’t have, but I told him to go faster. But that man—he would only go up to around fifty or sixty on average, and other cars kept passing us. For a man who said he was a Le Mans racer, I thought he would be a little more masculine. Finally, Tonio said he’d open her up once we got onto a long, straight stretch of road. No, he didn’t in the least look like he was particularly frightened. He seemed relaxed, and he was even singing a song. But he never once turned to look at me, and he didn’t reach out to touch me either. I was a little irritated and was sitting pretty far away from Tonio in the seat.”
    “He may have had a body like a Volante,” someone murmured, “but when it came to engine performance  …”
    “Still, he seems to have been fine up to about a hundred,” said someone else.
    “Sssh!”
    “Pretty soon we got on a straight road. Tonio said, ‘Here we go!’and stepped on the pedal. He was leaning over the steering wheel just a little. It was a truly incredible car, and we were doing over eighty in no time. And that’s when …” Suddenly, her voice grew a little shrill and trailed off. For a time, there was only the sound of her sucking in air as she breathed.
    “I saw the truck coming from far away … and that’s when Tonio gave a