The black dog pulled the carriage through the marketplace, drawing astonished looks from passersby. Clearly, even in a metropolis like Vista, a dog-drawn carriage was a rare sight.
The black dog, whose true identity was far from ordinary, was a little displeased at being gawked at by mortals, but it simply kept its head down and walked on. It even took the initiative to avoid pedestrians and vehicles, behaving better than many carriage horses. Isaac's impression of it improved somewhat.
Isaac was studying the buildings on either side of the street when he suddenly noticed something stretching across the air overhead.
At first he thought it was a bridge, but its shape seemed familiar. Two parallel rails rested on metal supports three or four stories above the ground, following the course of the street, with stout columns supporting their weight at intervals.
Isaac was wondering what the elevated rails were for when a deep rumble came from the distance, growing louder as it approached.
He looked toward the sound and saw a carriage racing along the elevated rails. No animal was pulling it; the carriage itself moved along the track, roaring over their heads.
Isaac stared, dumbfounded, as the carriage disappeared at the end of the street. It took him a while to recover. "What was that?"
"You really are a country bumpkin through and through." Carlo yawned. "A railcar. It's much faster than a horse-drawn carriage and carries far more. That's what the railways in the wilderness are built for."
Isaac looked up at the rails again. A carriage that could race along tracks without horses...
Then he noticed that, besides the rail supports, many slender cables hung above the street, stretching from one column to another.
"What are those?"
"Electrical wires." Carlo glanced at them. "Don't tell me you don't even know what electricity is."
Isaac was momentarily at a loss. "I know what electricity is, but as far as I knew, it was still confined to scholars' laboratories. I didn't expect Vista to have already..."
"Already strung it up all over the streets." Carlo finished for him. "Looks like you may be a university student, but in Vista, you're practically illiterate."
Isaac had no reply to that.
"Anyway, just don't go climbing up to touch those wires, and stay away from them when it rains. Vista never runs short of unlucky fools who get electrocuted." Carlo waved a hand.
Isaac connected the crisscrossing cables with the railcar that had just roared past. His impression of Vista changed yet again, and he realized that its level of technology had already far surpassed anything known in Palmer.
Under Carlo's directions, the dog cart turned several corners and entered a street lined with maple trees.
Isaac looked out through the carriage window. Most of the buildings along the street were two or three stories tall, with pale gray exterior walls and dark red roofs. Their porches opened directly onto the street, with no gardens or fences in between. All sorts of signs hung by the doors: some belonged to private clinics, others to law firms. Most appeared to be independent practices, and the whole street was somewhere between a residential neighborhood and a commercial district.
Carlo called the dog cart to a halt in front of a two-story row house.
Unlike the other buildings, the residence at number 122 bore no sign identifying it as a detective agency or anything of the sort. There was only a metal plaque displaying the house number.
After getting out, Isaac picked up his luggage and glanced back. After a night of speed and thrills, the carriage frame looked ready to fall apart.
"Boss, my books should be in your agency, right?" Isaac looked away from the carriage and toward the agency.
Inside the entrance was a narrow hallway, with stairs leading up on the left and a direct passage to the living room on the right.
The living room appeared to be an open reception area, with dark wooden floorboards and a desk in the very center. A sofa stood against the wall, beside a fireplace. The mantel was packed with books and folders, and a coat rack stood in the corner.
The entire space was furnished so simply that it was almost bare.
Isaac, however, spotted a large stack of books on the desk at once. He hurriedly set his luggage aside and strode over to check them.
The books and manuscripts his adoptive father had left him, which had been kept at Palmer Bank, were now all piled on the desk and appeared undamaged.
"Well? Your books are all right?" Carlo asked.
"Mm..." Isaac wasn't entirely sure himself.
He wasn't Edward, after all. He couldn't know the actual state of these books well enough to confirm on the spot whether anything was missing.
Carlo walked over to the window, drew the curtains, and pointed to two doors on the other side of the living room. "First, let's settle where you'll be staying. Of those two rooms, one is a storeroom and the other is a guest room. You'll stay in the guest room."
Isaac put down the book and followed Carlo as he pushed open the guest-room door. Inside, a single bed stood against the wall, with a small bedside table beside it. Across from them were a desk and a wooden chair, and a wardrobe stood in the corner. There was another door on the other side, leading to a private washroom.
"A private washroom?" Isaac was a little surprised.
"It used to be full of odds and ends. An employee complained a while back, so I had it converted. If you want to bathe, you'll need to heat the boiler for a while first. The switch is in the washroom. Figure it out yourself."
Isaac put his suitcase beside the bed and his bedding roll at its foot, then looked around the room that would soon be his.
The window faced south, letting in sunlight. Overall, the room was reasonably bright and airy, and drying clothes shouldn't be a problem.
He walked out of the guest room and glanced toward the stairs. "The second floor..."
"The second floor is my territory," Carlo said. "No unauthorized visitors without my permission."
"Understood." Isaac didn't press the matter. He had only just arrived, and it was always best to mind his boundaries.
He walked back into the living room and looked around again. After a moment's hesitation, he asked, "Boss, there doesn't seem to be a kitchen on the first floor."
"Mm, there isn't."
Isaac waited for more, but Carlo clearly had no intention of explaining further, so he had to ask, "Then what do we do for meals?"
If the kitchen was on the second floor, and unauthorized visitors weren't allowed up there, could his boss actually be going to prepare meals for him? The picture was too wonderful to imagine.
Since meals and lodging were included, perhaps they ate at restaurants and got reimbursed?
As Isaac was thinking this, he heard Carlo's voice.
"Why, we mooch our meals, of course."
"...Huh?"
"The Joint Investigation Bureau is close by. Head east and turn a corner, and you're there. Just go there for meals." Carlo pointed out the window.
Isaac froze for quite a while before he finally understood. "Boss, you usually... mooch meals at the Joint Investigation Bureau?"