The Harashima Prologues by Santtu Pesonen - HTML preview
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PROLOGUES
SANTTU PESONEN
5
The time was 8.00am. A piercing, robot-like beeping filled the stale air of the cabin, spreading the unbearable noise into every inch of it. A cybernetic hand reached for a machine sitting on top of a surprisingly ornate rosewood nightstand, smacking down on it in hopes of stopping the horrible high-pitched shrieking. Attempt number one. No luck – the noise went on as if nobody had smacked the machine at all. Readjust hand position. Attempt number two. Still no effect. Perhaps try a single finger instead of the entire palm of the hand? Attempt number three.
Something clicked. Felt like a button. The cry of the alarm clock finally stopped. That seemed to be it. A series of groggy grunts followed, accompanied by a sequence of movements that caused a body to sit up on the edge of a metallic bed that stuck out like a sore thumb in the otherwise anti-modernist, forest-inspired environment. Movements that caused a pair of eyes to open. Movements that caused a hand to move through a head full of gray hair that shone with a shockingly youthful sheen considering the features of the face that was attached to it.
Yoshiro Busujima was repeating this exact same series of actions for the 100th morning in a row. While he grunted with a 7
slightly exasperated tone, still sitting at the edge of the bed, he glanced at the clock. 8.02am. He’d best get up and get this bullshit out of the way – they’d be here in less than an hour. He ran his fingers along the length of his beard, reached for his black lounging pants that were laying on the floor and stood up to put them on. Then he took a step towards the cupboard.
Opening the door of the cupboard revealed a bottle of whiskey – almost empty at this point – and a steel mug. Yoshiro grabbed them both and set them down on the counter next to the cupboard. Then he peeked into the freezer, hoping to find one more ice cube. And he did. Grabbing it, he stopped to think, as he had so many mornings prior: having an ice cube in your hand should normally provide a sensation of coldness, but he didn’t feel that sensation. A side effect of having a mechanical prosthetic where there was a human hand at one point, but he still wasn’t sure if he should feel happy or sad about it. He felt that much less human thinking about it. He felt like a monster not feeling anything at all with the ice cube between his cybernetic fingers.
Though to be fair, he should feel more like a monster for what he did to that orphan boy who attempted to steal some credits off of him. As much as Yoshiro felt he was no longer human, he still had to admit to himself that he made a very human mistake in underestimating the strength he still had even in his old age. And that wasn’t even accounting for the extra strength that his cybernetic hand provided. He’d merely intended to push the kid a foot or so away from him, not to the 8
middle of the busy city street where a passing hoverbus ended up crushing him flat against its armored front. And now Yoshiro was being held in this cabin for committing accidental murder.
But of course, the law didn’t care if it was an accident or not.
While he was zoning out thinking about how and why he ended up here, the whiskey had poured itself into the mug with the ice cube in it, and the mug was about half-full when Yoshiro finally snapped back to reality. Just the right amount. He gave the upside-down bottle one last shake to make sure every last drop of whiskey had truly left it – not a single drop left the bottle anymore. Grinning with a sense of satisfaction, Yoshiro put the empty bottle back into the cupboard, took the whiskey and stepped outside onto the terrace.
His grin widened and subtly turned into one of humor as he admired the view from the terrace. This cabin was about as far as you could get from the technologically advanced civilization of Neo-Tokyo in the 22nd century and it was still surrounded by walls of skyscrapers on all sides no more than two miles away.
And while the cabin was technically intended to be a prison, whoever built it took care to make it feel that much less like one with almost every commodity you could think of – a TV, a comfortable bed, a sanitation chamber and a service station from which you could order any product you desired and it would be shipped to the cabin within a few hours. Yoshiro sat down onto the armchair on the terrace, took a sip of the whiskey and pressed a button on a machine that lay on a table next to the 9
chair. Then, with his voice still raspy from some final shreds of sleepiness that he had yet to shake off, he started talking.
“Yoshiro Busujima, day 100.” Full name and number of day in imprisonment – these had to be stated on the audio log any day one was to be recorded. “Last day here… Supposedly.
Looking forward to what the final judgment’s going to be. My guess is either death sentence – eye for an eye, if you will – or forgiveness and freedom. About the only two options here, realistically.”
He took another sip of whiskey before continuing. “I’ve been thinking about the kid. How he died. How I was made a murderer in the eyes of the law. This whole prison sentence was simply unjust. I didn’t deserve to end up here. Though in some ways, getting away from the city has been oddly refreshing. It’s given me all this time to think – not just about everything that went down over the past 100 days but also society. Civilization.
The importance of taking time to yourself. I could recommend this to anyone, even if having this opportunity meant having to literally kill for it.”
Another pause for a sip of whiskey. Much to Yoshiro’s shock, that sip resulted in the mug being emptied completely.
He stared at the ice cube in it for a moment, as if contemplating eating it. But instead, he set the mug down on the table and continued his ramble. “I feel bad for the kid. He didn’t deserve to go in such a way. Had his whole life still ahead of him. All those opportunities, the potential, the life experiences – taken from him in an instant. Because of me.” Yoshiro paused again, 10
sighing with a tone of repentance in his breath. “At this point, I don’t care about the legal interpretation of the events. If anything, my imprisonment only highlights the fact that the law doesn’t understand the concept of an accident. But then again, that would also make the hoverbus driver a murderer. So why was I arrested instead of him?” With that question leaving his mouth, Yoshiro noticed a sudden surge of anger in his voice.
Was this his growing cynicism towards modern society showing less subtly as he aged? He reached for the mug, intending to take a sip of the whiskey to calm himself down, but suddenly remembered that it ran out with the last sip.
As his hand moved back to rest upon the armrest, he continued. “Anyway. While my time here has been therapeutic in some ways, I don’t feel that my arrest was entirely justified. I feel bad for the kid. I feel bad for myself. What happened is going to taint my memory for the rest of my natural life. I just want whoever listens to this to know that I regret the events that led to the death of a child. They will haunt me to my grave. No one deserves to die at that age or in that way. End of log.” Then Yoshiro pressed the button on the machine again.
He rose up from the armchair and peeked inside to glance at the alarm clock. 8.13am. He figured he still had about 45
minutes to wait for his judgment – but as he turned back to look at the wall of skyscrapers outside, a hovercar was suddenly just arriving, slowing down to park itself on the faux grass that surrounded the cabin. This must’ve been one of those new models with noiseless fission engines – that at least would have 11
explained how Yoshiro didn’t hear it coming even from this short distance. As the hovercar descended and plonked onto the ground, its back door opened and out stepped a young-looking gentleman, dressed in a purple suit and with his eyes covered by fully black sunglasses through which his eyes could not be seen at all. The man put his hands behind his back and took a step forward, exclaiming with a sense of enthusiasm that somewhat surprised Yoshiro: “Morning, Yoshiro.”
“I didn’t expect you quite this early”, Yoshiro responded.
He’d seen this man by glance before when he was being taken in – not enough of a run-in to tell Yoshiro everything he wanted to know about him, but from what little he did catch of him back then, he seemed like your average agent of law: a man whose parents were rich and paid him into law enforcement training, the confidence a trait lazily picked up in training rather than anything genuine, and anything resembling real emotion was faked. “Sorry”, the man replied, stepping further forward and digging up a cigar from his breast pocket. “I wasn’t needed elsewhere, so I figured I might as well drop by.” He then pointed the cigar towards Yoshiro, asking: “Care for a cigar?”
Yoshiro raised his hand, waving it and replying with as polite a tone as he could muster: “I’m good.” “Fair”, the man said hastily, sounding slightly disappointed. He then pointed the cigar to the side, and his henchman – or henchwoman, with fancy black clothing and gold hair and makeup – blew over its tip, lighting it up.
12
“So…” the man began, pausing to inhale some of the cigar and blow out the resulting smoke, “did you find any use for the tape recorder?” Nodding slightly, Yoshiro said: “Yes, I did, in fact. Recorded a brief ramble every single day.” “Good”, the man replied, trying to conjure up a smile in the process but seeming to forget how to do so. Not a surprising thing to forget given his training, Yoshiro thought to himself. The man took another dose of the cigar before proceeding. “As for your judgment”, he said with an inquisitive tone, “any guesses?” His face turned into that of someone who wanted a quick answer as if he was busy – then again, for all Yoshiro knew, he’d gotten a call about an urgent case on the way here and actually did need to be leaving as soon as possible. “Death sentence or forgiveness”, Yoshiro replied as quickly as he could. “Well, you’re in luck”, the agent said with a faked sense of empathy.
“It is one of the two.” Then he stepped his way back to the car and extended his arm to his side, signaling that Yoshiro was free to go.
Yoshiro gave the man a relieved smile and began to walk along the grassy patch of land that pretended to be a yard. But he was only able to take a few steps before a sudden, sharp pain burst into his chest and stopped him from moving.
He looked down to find that the gilded blade of some type of sword – either a katana or a kodachi, if he had to guess – had impaled him from behind at the location of his heart. While he struggled to form words from the blood he was gurgling, he suddenly felt something cold against his neck. Slowly and 13
agonizingly, he turned his head to one side to see the golden lips of the female agent touching the skin of his neck. This wasn’t normal behavior for an agent of law, though. The last thought that ran through Yoshiro’s mind right before his brain shut down was that there was no way these were agents. No agent would kiss a criminal sentenced to death on the neck while they were being executed. No, this woman was leaving a mark – a signature of sorts that would tell the actual agents of law who killed him. How many had this pair already murdered, and was Yoshiro their final victim or would more follow? Sadly, he wouldn’t find out.
The woman removed the blade from Yoshiro’s body, letting it fall to the ground and bleed dry. Then she turned to the man and asked him: “So when do I get paid?” To which he replied:
“As soon as possible. I’ll see to it that you get the payment within 24 hours.” “Sweet”, the woman replied, cracking a half-smile. She looked at the recorder on the terrace table and pointed at it with the blooded blade of her sword. “The recorder?” she asked. “I’ll take it to the repentance team for analysis”, the man said. “They can listen through it and decide whether to store or destroy it.” “Right”, the woman replied with a slightly disappointed tone in her voice, as if she wanted to smash it then and there. Turning her gaze back to the man, she gave him a sinister smile and said: “It was a pleasure working with you.”
The man smiled back with an entirely different level of genuineness than what he had attempted with Yoshiro and 14
responded equally happily: “Likewise, but rest assured we’re only getting started here. I’ll be needing your services for a while yet.” Pausing to inhale some of the cigar again – he came to the sudden realization it’d been a while since the last one – he continued: “I’m confident it’ll take the cops a while to catch on to the fact that there’s a criminal in their ranks. And the CEO’s son is almost certainly the last person they’ll suspect.” He then dropped the cigar to the ground and stomped on it a few times to put it out. “We’re done here”, he said, waving for the woman to get back into the hovercar, and when they were both inside, it fired up again and took off towards the city.
15
Josh Heynes was standing outside a skyscraper in Neo-Tokyo, smoking a cigar while waiting for a call from one of his fellow police officers that were scanning the building for potential threats. It’d been 12 minutes since they’d gone in, and he was starting to get nervous. But he knew the guys. He trusted them to eliminate any and all dangerous individuals before one would have a drop on them. Guess the cybernetics help, he thought to himself. Josh had made a decision long ago not to resort to such enhancements in his own body – he preferred to keep himself as human as possible. And while he felt himself inferior in many regards because of said decision, he also took relief in the knowledge that his death, however soon it might arrive, was going to be of natural causes. Hopefully anyway.
The building Josh was standing at the foot of was a hotel, one of the more luxurious ones you could find in Neo-Tokyo –
The Golden Falcon, or simply The Falcon if one wanted to spare the time and energy of saying the full name. Next to the Office of Legal and Military Operations, this was the most closely monitored complex in the entire city. Every single square inch of its interior was monitored with unparalleled precision and scrutiny, with a database-driven alarm system, 16
security cameras around every possible corner and guards patrolling the hallways 24/7. And yet, somehow, a murder had happened here the other day. Josh for one struggled to comprehend how a murderer would be able to sneak in, especially given that any guests entering the hotel would be given a full-body security exam and anything remotely suspicious would be confiscated.
It was a curious case in all regards. The victim, a wealthy CEO by the name of Yosuke Harashima, had just come back from a business trip and arrived at the hotel in the small hours of the morning, booking one of the penthouse suites. Josh didn’t know the man except for his name and the fact he ran several successful corporations spread throughout Japan. Through his business endeavors, he had so much money and power that he effectively controlled the country. And following his death, it was beginning to break at the seams – so much was evident a mere two days later. It amazed Josh just how much of an impact Harashima’s death had had. He wouldn’t be surprised if the country was at the brink of a civil war within the week.
Suddenly, his wrist comm chirped. He glanced down at it and was relieved to see the name of one of his colleagues – Jenn Walters – on the screen. 14 minutes he had waited and now he finally had some news. He hoped it was good. He slid his finger across the screen, and a holographic projection of Jenn’s torso produced itself in front of him. Not only was Jenn one of Josh’s favorite subordinates, she was a looker in his eyes. If he wasn’t married, he would have liked to try his luck with her – then 17
again, for all he knew, her interest was elsewhere. Someone closer to her own age, in all likelihood. “Yeah?” Josh exclaimed with an air of impatience to his voice, the still-smoking cigar clenched between his teeth. “Sir, we’ve scanned the building from top to bottom”, the holographic Jenn said. “It’s all clear.
You’re safe to enter.” While Jenn was reporting this, Josh took one last hit of the cigar and dropped it to the ground, stomping on it to put it out. “Thanks”, he said. “I’ll meet you at the scene in three.” “Aye, sir”, Jenn replied affirmatively, and Josh ended the call with a swipe of his finger across the screen of his wrist comm.
With a sigh that signified something between frustration and relief, he shoved his hands into the pockets of his overcoat and entered The Falcon. Being a certified agent of law, he had the benefit of being able to enter without needing to endure the security exam – the alarm system would only go off if it wasn’t able to register whoever entered as hotel staff or a government official. It had a direct connection to the government’s population database and communicated with it in order to scan entrants and decide whether to go off or not. For those trying to enter with a known criminal record, the security system had a
“special treatment” that it would trigger – to Josh’s dismay, the details of what that special treatment was and how it worked was classified information.
He had three minutes to reach the door of the hotel room where the murder had taken place – that was the timeframe he’d given to himself and his team. Shouldn’t be hard to meet, even 18
if the hotel’s interior was a gargantuan maze of highly stylized art deco walls and painting-like details adorning them that you could stop and admire for hours on end. It was no wonder why this hotel was so fucking expensive – no layman could afford to spend half of a night here. Anyway, Josh dug up the room number from the back of his mind. 9999. Being one of the hotel’s ten penthouse suites, it was easy to remember. The room numbers for each of those began with three nines and ended in a number between 0 and 9, depending on a room’s orientation in relation to that of the hotel building itself. “Hey”, Josh hollered to the Japanese lady behind the reception desk in Jangl – a creole mixing Japanese and English, with hints of Chinese. It’d been developed over the last 200 years or so and was the main language of business between native Japanese and immigrants.
The girl lifted her gaze from the desk, seemingly startled by being called. She tried not to let it show. “Care to accompany me to the crime scene?” Josh asked her. “I’m afraid I can’t, but you can take one of the security guards with you”, she responded with a hint of careful defiance in her tone. From that, Josh was able to tell that she had trust issues with law enforcement. He decided not to push it. Speaking no other words to the girl, he gestured for one of the two security guards standing on either side of the reception desk to join him, beginning his stride towards the end of the hall where the main elevator was. The guard was right behind him.
Two minutes or so later, he was at the door of room 9999
where his team was already waiting for him. “Hope you didn’t 19
do anything to the door while I was on my way”, he said with a sarcastic tone, aiming it at no one in particular. “No, the door is as intact as it was when we got here”, said an unusually exhilarated Jenn. “We were frankly surprised ourselves.”
“Well”, said Josh, “let’s see what we have in there then.”
With a gentle gesture, he guided the security guard he’d brought along to open the door, which the guard did. He dialed in the room number on some kind of wrist-mounted device and placed it against the door’s key detector, and with a click, the door unlocked itself and swung open.
Much to Josh’s shock, the room was in a condition as pristine as it would be for a fresh visitor entering it. About the only thing that was in any way off was the corpse of Yosuke Harashima, sat against the edge of the bed, with his pants down at his ankles, his penis cut off and a slash wound across his throat. The team, making no sounds other than their footsteps, walked closer to the corpse and surrounded it in a neat semi-circle. Then, agent Shinji Furuki presented a question that surely was on everyone’s minds, in Jangl: “How do you suppose the killer did this without a weapon? It would have been confiscated at the entrance.” To which Josh responded, also in Jangl: “I guess there’s only one way to find out.”
Turning to the guard, he asked him: “You speak English?”
“Yes”, the guard replied. Internally, Josh sighed in relief – he still wasn’t entirely up to speed on his Jangl. Then he asked the guard: “Do you have a holo-recording of the events in this room around the time the murder would have occurred?” Beginning 20
to dial something in on his wrist apparatus, the guard said: “Yes, we do. Give me just a second to dial in the info and…” And with a swipe of his finger, a holographic projection – a ghost from the past, if you will – filled the room.
When they were done gazing around in awe at the sheer size of the projection, the team of agents turned their sights back to where the corpse was. The holo-recording was showing Harashima standing at the edge of the bed, with his pants down at his ankles, and a woman on her knees in front of him, performing fellatio. Josh looked at the three-dimensional image with unparalleled intrigue. She sure looks fancy for an escort, was his first thought. Even the most elite and high-price escorts in Neo-Tokyo didn’t dress quite like this – the ghost woman’s attire gave Josh the impression of a cross between a princess and a ninja. As he leaned in for a closer look, he caught himself intrigued by the metallic sheen of Harashima’s member and was surprised to find out that it was a cybernetic implant. He had no idea there even were companies that manufactured such appendices.
In the next moment, his feeling of surprise was replaced with one of shock when the holographic woman ripped off Harashima’s cyber-cock and slashed his throat open with it. The wound it produced was so clean that anyone could have mistaken it for having come from something more ordinary like a knife. Then again, a knife wouldn’t have made it into the room with the woman. Suddenly, as if realizing something, Josh yelled to the security guard: “Pause.” With a swift motion on his 21
wrist controller, the guard paused the playback. At that moment, Shinji aired his thoughts. “A cybernetic dick acting as an improvised weapon. Never thought I’d see that.” Josh ignored Shinji’s comment and walked a step closer, keeping an eye on the apparatus in the woman’s hand and trying to see something in it. Jenn took note and tried to budge in with a joke: “If you’re trying to find the manufacturer, rest assured that I don’t think you need a—”
Then Josh found it. “DanariTek”, he mumbled, following up with: “Somebody look up the CEO of DanariTek for me.” Jenn was the quickest to oblige to Josh’s request. “Yosuke Harashima”, she said. From that thread of thought, she produced a potential scenario: “So the guy had one of the companies he ran install a cybernetic penis on him and booked a private night with an escort to test it out, only to have said escort murder him?” “That does sound plausible”, Josh replied in his contemplative voice. “Either way, we have our suspect”, he said, turning to look at the frozen 3D image of the escort, pushing her facial features into his memory. Something in her reminded him of his wife. He shook his head at that particular thought, then raised his gaze and addressed the team. “We’ll continue this tomorrow. I know a place we can pay a visit.” The DanariTek headquarters. But it wouldn’t be for the business that Jenn thought he was going there for, albeit jokingly. In any case, he saw it in her eyes. Beginning to walk back towards the room door, he said to the guard: “Thanks for your help. You may 22
return to your position.” The guard did as instructed without saying a word, and Josh and his team followed suit.
They had a suspect. They had a place to pay a visit to. They had a case on their hands. And Josh Heynes was eager to dig deeper.
23
“What do you mean he’s been killed?!”
Maria Crahan couldn’t believe what she was hearing. She was on the phone with one of the local police officers of Neo-Tokyo, a gentleman with a pleasant baritone voice who hadn’t yet given her his name, who had taken upon himself to inform Maria of her father’s death. Her face was red with a mix of sorrow and anger, her eyebrows shooting towards the sky with shock but the rest of her expression conveying an odd sense of comfort upon knowing why his father hadn’t come home when he was supposed to.
Her father. Yoshiro Busujima. Once an esteemed cybernetics engineer – one of DanariTek’s finest – until an accident took everything away from him and had him put into prison for the last few months of his life. Just under four months had passed since the sentence had been decided upon, and when Yoshiro hadn’t shown up at Maria’s apartment the day he was meant to be released, she had been growing more concerned by the day as to what had really happened to him. And now, it turned out the reason he hadn’t come back was because...
“I won’t pretend to know how it happened”, the police officer calmly responded to Maria’s pained inquiry. “We found 24
his corpse on the yard of the cabin last night. Hole through his chest, looked to have come from a katana or something similar.
But nobody should be able to get to the cabin carrying one – the only people who’d be able to get in with a weapon are the police.” A lonely tear rolled down Maria’s left cheek as she listened to the officer, trying not to let her sorrow affect her increasingly labored breathing. Still, she got the impression that the officer was able to tell that she was trying not to scream, judging by how he continued the conversation. Feeling the need to fill the silence, the officer sighed and told Maria: “It’s okay to be sad, you know. I’m not gonna pry about your relationship with your father, but I can tell he meant a lot to you. We’re continuing the investigation as we speak, we’ll keep you informed about how it goes. And if you know anything that might help us, I’m a mere phone call away.”
Holding back tears, her voice raspy from the agony of having lost the person she loved the most, Maria replied:
“Thank you, officer.”
“Call me Devin”, the officer requested in a tone that was equal amounts formal and friendly.
Maria paused for a second, unsure if she should comply or not. She decided on the former and said: “Thank you, Devin.”
She paused again to catch her breath – she could feel herself at the verge of bursting into an hour-long crying fit – and then continued: “I’ll help as best I can. I want to know who’d do such a thing to my dad and why just as much as you do.” Devin responded, evidently dialing back the friendliness: “Well, like I 25
said, if you find out anything relevant to the case, you’re free to give me a call.”
A second tear. A third tear. Both eyes watering. Any second now. Maria knew she couldn’t hold back for much longer. The pain was beginning to take over her entire body, making her hand tremble ever so slightly, her grip on the phone loosening almost to the point of it slipping out of her hand. In that state, knowing she was mere seconds away from losing control, the only response she could muster was a half-whispered “Yeah.”
She began to move her arm to a position where she could press the End Call button on the phone screen, but as she looked at it, she suddenly lacked the energy to make even that slight movement. She hunched over, the tears flowing at a steadily increasing frequency, and let out a scream of agony to rival that of a banshee attempting to intimidate its prey. And to this scream, there was the added element of having a stranger subjected to it that made it twice as painful to Maria. Under normal circumstances, she’d only let the closest of her friends see or hear her in this state. But she knew Devin felt genuinely bad for her. A person working in law enforcement wasn’t one she expected to get anything resembling empathy from, but in a way, she was glad her prior preconceptions about basically everyone in the Neo-Tokyo police force had been proven wrong. Just knowing that provided her with a sense of comfort she hadn’t felt in a long time – not since her husband died trying to stop a robbery two years prior. Now there was a man unlike any other, with a sense of justice that sometimes preceded his 26
intelligence, but Maria admired that about him. So great was her love for him, so unprecedented her devotion, that she never thought about finding a new partner, because as far as she was concerned, he was still there with her, his arm wrapped around her and his voice calming her down and promising that it’d get better. Only in spirit and not physically.
Maria was so deafened by the sound of her own crying that she didn’t even catch Devin hanging up.
Much to her own surprise, Maria was able to regain her composure after only ten minutes or so. Roughly a sixth of the time she was expecting to cry for, given the circumstances. She straightened her back and reached for the coffee mug that’d been sitting on the nightstand next to her for the past... hour?
Upon checking the time from her phone, that indeed looked to be the case. The cup was still half-full – or half-empty, depending on one’s viewpoint – and the coffee had probably gone cold at this point. Maria decided not to subject her taste buds to it and placed the cup to the evaporator above the nightstand. Recognizing that something had been placed into it, the evaporator beeped and did its thing, emitting a barely visible laser beam and heating the bitter liquid until it turned into gas and spread its aroma across the apartment.
Then Maria grabbed her phone again with the intention of giving her best friend a call. She’d known Yuriko for as long as she remembered – the two of them had been through heaven and hell together, seen each other at their best and their worst, done things together that Maria hadn’t dared to do with her 27
husband when he was still alive. If the poor man hadn’t entered the picture, chances were Maria and Yuriko would be romantically involved with each other at this point. They had discussed the possibility once, although Maria still wasn’t sure if it had been just drunken banter or if there had been some actual weight to the conversation.
Regardless, she dug up Yuriko’s number from the contact list and pressed the Call button. Mere seconds passed between her doing so and Yuriko picking up. “Howdy”, Yuriko greeted Maria, her voice raspy as if Maria calling her had woken her up.
In all fairness, it was still relatively early in the morning –
knowing Yuriko’s sleep schedule, Maria wouldn’t have been surprised or offended if she’d declined the call at this hour.
“Hi”, Maria responded with a tone to her voice that conveyed that she had been crying only moments earlier. Yuriko was quick to pick up on the cue and asked Maria: “Is it about your dad?” “Yeah”, Maria replied, her voice still slightly heavy from remnants of sorrow that had yet to be shaken off, and moved on to explain: “I just got a call from the local police. They did some investigating into why Dad hadn’t come back when he was supposed to. Turns out he was killed in prison the day he was meant to be released.”
As the words left her lips, Maria felt the last few shreds of her sorrow turn into anger. Yuriko too noticed the shift in Maria’s tone as she spoke the last sentence. A pause followed, a moment of silence that told Maria that Yuriko was just as shocked as she had been upon hearing the news herself. “Wait...
28
He was killed in prison?!” Yuriko was no expert on prison safety protocols, but even she was able to at least guess that such a thing shouldn’t be possible. The prisons of Neo-Tokyo were some of the most heavily monitored in the entire world, and any unauthorized personnel attempting to enter one –
especially anyone carrying a weapon – should at the very least be turned away at the door, if not arrested on the spot. Little did either of them know that the cabin where Yoshiro had been kept wasn’t. “How the fuck is that possible?”
Truthfully, Maria was just as clueless as Yuriko. In response to Yuriko’s incredulous inquiry, all she could think to say was:
“Ask the police, not me.” “Well”, Yuriko interjected in an attempt to keep her train of thought going – for whatever it was worth, “surely they’re gonna catch whoever did it sooner or later?” “I can only hope so”, Maria said in response.
“Anyway, sorry for your loss”, Yuriko said to Maria, her voice loaded with all the love and caring she was able to convey. To which, Maria formulated the simplest response that social rules dictated: “Thanks.” “So what are you gonna do now?” Yuriko asked Maria, and Maria didn’t hesitate to reveal to Yuriko her honest intentions: “Well, I feel like the least I can do is help out the police. Do my own investigative work, find out who killed Dad and get the fucker behind bars. Or better yet...”
“No, Maria”, Yuriko interrupted. “You’re not seriously considering a revenge plot.”
29
“I am seriously considering a revenge plot”, Maria replied in a manner that suggested no hint of humor. “You’re gonna end up in jail yourself if you do that!” Yuriko interjected, trying to talk Maria out of doing what she was really thinking about doing, even if she knew it was no use. Once Maria put her mind to something, there was no stopping her – a trait that’d gotten her in trouble numerous times prior, in particular with her father. “Think about it, Maria. Even if it grants you some sort of personal satisfaction, killing someone isn’t the way to solve this. And if you get arrested, I don’t have the money to bail you out.”
“I’m not gonna get arrested”, Maria tried to convince Yuriko, although even she didn’t fully believe herself. “And if I do, surely the police will understand that I was just dealing my share of justice?” The sarcasm in Maria’s voice as those words spilled out of her mouth was practically touchable, thick enough to be cut with a knife and eaten like a piece of bread. Yuriko sighed, growing audibly frustrated, and continued her attempt to change Maria’s mind: “I know you’re joking about that last part, but seriously, Maria. Are you really sure you wanna fall on the bad side of the law? Just leave it to the cops, they’ll do what needs to be done regarding your father’s killer. You’re only gonna make it worse for yourself if you get involved.”
The problem for Maria was that to an extent, she was already involved. After all, she had promised to Devin – and more importantly herself – to do her own part for the investigation and help bring her father’s killer to justice. Yuriko 30
only wanted what was best for her best friend, and Maria appreciated her for it. But as far as she was concerned, even if she decided not to hunt down the bastard who took his beloved father’s life, she was going to be part of the investigation, no matter which side of the law she’d ultimately fall on. She just wasn’t sure how to tell that to Yuriko.
A few moments had passed without either of them saying anything. Upon that realization occurring to Maria, she responded to Yuriko’s concerns in the only way she knew how –
with an audible inhale that conveyed a sense of uncertainty, followed by: “I’ll be fine, Yuriko. I’m just doing my part to bring Dad’s killer to justice.” To which Yuriko said: “It’s how you’re gonna be doing your part that concerns me. Or did I manage to talk you out of exacting justice by means of murder?” Maria wanted to be honest and say no, but she knew Yuriko would only continue her attempts to do so if she did. She wanted to sigh but prevented herself from doing so – over the years she’d known Yuriko, Maria had learned that was her tell as to when she was about to lie, and she knew how the conversation would continue if Yuriko caught her sighing before speaking her next words. With that, Maria firmly replied:
“Yeah. Don’t worry.”
“Awesome”, Yuriko exclaimed happily. “Keep me posted on how the investigation goes.” Maria kept her response brief: “I will.” Suddenly, she realized there was one more thing she wanted to say. “And, uhh... Thanks. I needed a voice of reason.”
A statement that was only half-true at best, but of course, Maria 31
couldn’t let Yuriko know about that part. Even then, she appreciated Yuriko’s concern for her, and she hoped that much was evident in her tone. “Anytime, hun”, Yuriko replied, oblivious to the truth hidden behind the facade Maria was putting on. “Catch ya later.” “Yeah”, Maria responded. “Bye.”
And with that, Maria ended the call.
She felt bad about lying to her best friend, but it was the only way to keep Yuriko off her ass. The two of them were equally stubborn. Had Maria answered honestly to Yuriko’s inquiry about changing her mind, Yuriko would have kept going until she actually did. The phone call would have lasted for the rest of the day if necessary. But much to her own dismay, Maria needed to be getting off the phone around now in the first place, for she had to be going somewhere. Somewhere unrelated to the case at hand. Under better working conditions, she would have been able to phone her boss and request a day off on account of the morning’s events, but alas, she didn’t have the luxury of a superior that understood needing some time off because a family member died. Many of her colleagues had suffered through similar situations – only their family members had died of natural causes – but when they’d tried to explain to the boss that they needed time off, his response was an unequivocal “I don’t care who died, you’re only getting the time off that’s in your contract. The company doesn’t run itself. Now drag your ass over here on the double.”
32
Knowing how useless it was to try to convince the old corporate douchebag otherwise, Maria began her proceeding to the apartment’s front door and prepared for the day ahead.
33
To Nyx Hatara, life in her early 30s was about as chaotic as it could possibly get. In Neo-Tokyo in particular, between the knowledge that everyone was being constantly monitored, and yet crime still running rampant with the police and the government only being so powerful to do anything about it, as well as societal pressure to conform to a “normal” way of life while still being encouraged to be herself and lead a life that she herself was happy with, it was nothing short of a whirlwind of conflicts and contradictions. Very often, she would catch herself wondering how anyone could possibly live in a society like this one. She for one was only barely able to manage. To push a sense of indivindualism while expecting everyone to lead lives that were effectively carbon copies of each other was a conflict of interest Nyx found herself pondering frequently throughout her existence.
But maybe that conflict of interest was exactly why society had so many issues. Maybe that was why so many people fell into a life of crime when the life they were expected to lead turned out to not work out for them. Maybe that was why Nyx had found herself on the wrong side of the law now.
34
And to think that she was working for none other than the double-faced son of the Neo-Tokyo corporate police force’s CEO. Now that was a contradiction if she ever saw one. The guy would be smoked out of the police force faster than he could fire a gun if the police were to know one of their own was also running a series of criminal operations. Some of which Nyx played a part in. But Koji was cunning. He knew how to trick the system and cover his own tracks. He knew how to sneak people into places they shouldn’t be able to get. And he knew how to manipulate.
Nyx cursed herself for having fallen for Koji’s tricks. The start of their encounters had seemed so innocent, so perfect, so… genuine. Nyx hadn’t realized until she was already in too deep that Koji “falling in love” with her and wanting to be her boyfriend was a hoax to lure her into his underground crime circle. And yet, she played along – had played along for the past year. Little did Koji know that Nyx was formulating a plan to take him and his little shadow operation down from within. She just needed a little more time. And for Koji not to catch on to her true intentions.
Somehow, Nyx’s memory trailed back to her first encounter with Koji as she was strolling through the nocturnal streets of Neo-Tokyo towards her home, the surprising lack of traffic at this hour weaving an almost eerie atmosphere in its abnormality. Back then, she was working as an escort at a private establishment, the name of which she preferred not to remember. The police had apparently gotten wind of a clue 35
related to a criminal incident that led them to its location, which led to a raid spearheaded by Koji. Nyx, hearing the commotion, without a client at the moment and curious as to what was happening, walked out of her designated room to the sight of Koji’s face practically glued to hers, his expression exploding with awe and adoration as he took in the features of the figure that’d just appeared in front of him. Nyx’s reaction to Koji popping up before her was equally surprised but in a hell of a different way – less love at first sight, which Nyx was now sure had been feigned in Koji’s case in the first place, and more a sense of trepidation and shock as to what the police were doing there. She thought they had come looking for her specifically in order to arrest her, even though she had done nothing wrong to the best of her own knowledge. After all, the establishment was officially registered and fully legal.
What Nyx didn’t expect afterwards was Koji becoming a regular at the place, always asking specifically for her whenever he booked a session. She felt it a little odd, a little scary, for a police officer to become a regular client of hers, even though many of her colleagues had clients of their own who wanted them specifically and no one else, but then again, those guys weren’t police officers as far as Nyx knew. And when Koji started showering Nyx with the “I love you”s, she felt it quite odd at first but eventually started responding with equal affection and conviction, oblivious to the fact that all of it was a manipulation strategy to make her do his bidding. And do his 36
bidding she did, quitting her job and becoming one of Koji’s henchmen when he told her to.
It made her angry, remembering that series of events and how she hadn’t picked up on Koji’s tricks until it was too late.
She was effectively his right hand at that point. She was the queen pawn. Koji had trusted her with the power to coordinate the operations in his stead, a task that she’d learned to do by essentially mimicking his style of leadership. Now Nyx was no leader by nature, but the occasional planning and execution of criminal operations she got to do had given her some valuable insight as to how Koji ran his mini-mafia. And soon, it would be time for it to come to an end.
But Nyx had to be careful. And she had to keep the police out of it. If she simply walked into the police station and gave them a thorough report of everything she’d been through, that’d be a direct sign to Koji that she ratted him out. And he’d kill her if he found out. He’d seemed genuine when he gave her that threat – a sign that Koji was a police officer in name only and wasn’t afraid to throw his reputation away if the situation demanded it. No, Nyx had to do this alone. There was no other way to go about it without tipping Koji off. And even in these circumstances, that risk still existed if she didn’t watch her own back.
She got to her apartment door, letting out a heavy sigh as she punched in the door code, and the door slid open with an electronic whine to match. She entered the hallway, waited for the door to close behind her and proceeded to undress while 37
grunting in a mix of frustration and determination. The attire that Koji had given to Nyx to wear for the day made her look somewhat like a geisha, a type of dress that was quite unusual even for the most high-class escorts – a role which Nyx, given her prior experience as one, she felt she’d pulled off quite convincingly in tonight’s operation, the murder of a high-profile CEO. She shook her head as the memory of a shower of blood falling over her flooded into her mind, telling herself to shut it out. Nyx had worked hard to make it seem as though killing people in cold blood didn’t faze her in the slightest, but the reality was that she was haunted by every single face she’d had a hand in erasing from the world. And to what end had so many lives had to be ended in the first place? Was Koji merely driving his own method of delivering justice? Sure, their victims were convicted criminals, but could their sins not have been forgiven in some cases?
In that moment, Nyx remembered one man in particular: Yoshiro Busujima. As far as she knew, the only crime he had ever done was causing an accident that killed a child. Surely the 100 days he was jailed for was enough punishment? Surely Nyx didn’t have to puncture his chest with a sword and leave him to bleed to death on the fake grass of the cabin “prison” the day he was meant to walk away and return to his normal life? What if he had family waiting for his release? In her mind, there were dozens of crimes worse than indirectly causing the death of a human being, crimes much more deserving of a death sentence.
38
If this truly was Koji’s idea of cleansing society, Nyx refused to play along with it any longer.
With her supple form naked next to the opening to the apartment’s cleaning facilities, pile of blood-soaked clothes in hand, she stepped into the shower cubicle and tossed the clothes into the cloth washer. Then she turned the shower on and let the stream of water fall over her, washing off the still-fresh blood of a famous corporate leader.
While the evidence of the night’s murder was being cleansed off her body, Nyx couldn’t help but wonder what sort of crime the CEO of DanariTek could’ve possibly done to deserve to be killed. Let alone by having his cybernetic dick ripped off and used as an improvised slashing weapon. The memory of the action made her surprised she’d had the strength to perform such a feat. But then again, maybe cybernetic implants were designed to be quite easily detachable in case a replacement was ever desired. Even then, she hadn’t though they’d be that easily detachable. Or that they could serve such vulgar secondary purposes.
Nyx’s thoughts were becoming too clouded. She needed a way to relieve the stress.
In that moment, she remembered something peculiar –
something she never thought she’d have the gall to pull off.
She’d snuck out of The Golden Falcon, where the murder had taken place, with the mechanical penis implant hidden in her dress. Perhaps a hidden pent-up desire she didn’t know about had guided the impulse, had subconsciously told her to take it 39
with her in case she could use it later tonight. And in this moment, she was indeed feeling like she could use it.
She looked around the floor of the washroom, hoping the thing hadn’t accidentally flown into the cloth cleaning apparatus, hidden within the pile of silk and fabric. It hadn’t.
There it lay, on the floor of the shower cubicle at her feet. With a hasty motion, she crouched down and then stood back up, taking the metallic phallus in her hand. Then she leaned back against the shower wall and spread her legs ever so slightly, her entrance already radiating with a moist, almost desperate warmth. A careful brushing motion, familiarizing herself with how a cybernetic member would feel. She expected the metal to feel cold, but to her surprise, the sensation was quite the opposite.
For a fleeting moment, Nyx’s mind went back to the DanariTek CEO. To think she now essentially owned a part of him... All because she had taken it and killed him with it. But she’d have the opportunity to make things right in her own way.
But for now, she wanted to think only about herself.
Then, with a careful whimper, she pushed it all the way in, and the world faded away for an indefinite number of minutes.
40
“World-famous entrepreneur Yosuke Harashima has died”, blared the voice of the news reporter through the TV speaker in a DanariTek factory lounge. A sea of faces turned to face the screen in thorough collective shock. Some people in the lounge loudly exclaimed “What?!” in response, others whispered theories to one another conspiratorially…
And then there was Enez Harady, merely taking a sip of coffee in her own little bubble of solitude, surrounded by noise but choosing not to contribute to it. She had never been quite able to figure out why her colleagues regarded her as the intimidating enigma that no one dared interrupt. Or talk to in the first place. She’d always found herself quite friendly and approachable – or at least, that’s how she preferred to think of herself. But evidently, everyone else working at this particular DanariTek establishment disagreed, even the bosses. It was no exaggeration to say that Enez had no friends here, mostly on account of her apparent aura that said “I’m here to work, not make friends, so stay the fuck away”. Honestly, though, she kind of liked it that way. She continued sipping on her coffee as she listened to the continuation of the news report.
41
“The 63-year-old billionaire, most famous for founding several companies specialized in cybernetics and other technological advancements, was found dead in a penthouse suite at The Golden Falcon yesterday morning. The local police are unwilling to disclose the cause of death at the time of reporting, but their involvement suggests that Harashima was murdered. An investigation to determine the supposed murderer is currently ongoing.”
A wave of anxiety washed over Enez. What if she had been involuntarily involved in Harashima’s killing? After all, he had specifically assigned her to the team responsible for designing the prosthetic penis Harashima had been so eager to test at The Falcon. What if the police found her name in some file and connected her to the case? Were they coming after her? Was she going to be arrested? But she wasn’t the murderer, that much she could convince herself of – she’d never even taken the first step towards The Falcon. She did get paid decently, but not well enough to justify so much as strolling near such a prestigious hotel. Doing so would have felt like pretending she was some sort of elite bitch with power and fortune to spare, which couldn’t be further from the truth. She barely had so much as a thousandth of a percent of Harashima’s wealth, though again, working as a cybernetics engineer for DanariTek was one of the better-paying jobs in Neo-Tokyo. Enez knew she made more money than the cops if nothing else, but that’s where her comparative authority stopped – if she somehow was on a path to trouble with the law, she wouldn’t be able to buy her way out.
42
Her moment of anxiety was interrupted by a tap on her shoulder. She turned her gaze to the direction where she believed there’d be a concerned face of a colleague greeting her
– wishful thinking with her reputation at the workplace, though
– but what she was greeted by instead was the stone-cold, inquisitive gaze of a rough-hewn but oddly gentle-looking man whom Enez estimated to be in his early-to-mid 50s. No doubt a police officer.
Enez’s suspicion of the gentleman’s occupation was confirmed upon him flashing up his holographic badge from a device on his wrist. She couldn’t quite tell if the apparatus was a cybernetic implant or simply wearable – its design gave her no clear impression of either. “Josh Heynes, Neo-Tokyo corporate police”, he muttered as an introduction, then proceeded to ask:
“Enez Harady?”
Something gave Enez the impression that he already knew her identity rather than asking where he could find an Enez Harady, so she merely muttered a stoic “Yeah” in response.
“Mind coming with me?” Officer Heynes requested. “Got some questions I’d like to ask you regarding the death of one Yosuke Harashima.”
Enez’s heart sank. There’s that goddamned anxiety again.
But this time, it turned out she’d been right to be anxious. The cops had connected her to the case. In this situation, her first instinct would’ve been to plead innocent and refuse to answer any questions, but she had to remind herself that she was surrounded by coworkers. Pulling her usual act in this space 43
would only attract undue attention to her and make her that much more of a suspect. Making her best attempt at maintaining her earlier stoicity, she lifted a finger so as to tell Officer Heynes to wait, accompanied by the words “One second” as she lifted the coffee mug to her lips and threw her head back to down the rest of the bitter black liquid in a singular gulp. Given how much there was left, she was surprised she didn’t choke doing so. Then she returned her gaze to the officer, set the now-empty coffee mug back on the table and spoke as she began to stand up: “Now I don’t mind.”
Looking slightly impatient, Officer Heynes tilted his head to one side in a motion as to signify which direction the two of them were walking and turned on his heels. Then he started moving. His pace was calm, steady, almost calculated, neck a parallel line with his spine, shoulders relaxed, hands in the pockets of his trenchcoat. Enez followed Heynes, almost unconsciously matching his posture and walking style. Only she didn’t have a trenchcoat or pockets to put her hands into, so she elected to cross her hands behind her back.
Heynes was quick to take note of Enez’s mannerisms in the moment matching his own, as if she’d suddenly become a mirror image of him, but decided not to bring it up. He didn’t seem the type for casual conversations with people in cases he was responsible for handling anyway.
The two of them came up to an office door after a few minutes of strolling, and Officer Heynes stepped aside, extending an arm in a welcoming position and muttering in a 44
friendly tone that Enez wouldn’t have expected out of a police officer: “Ladies first.” “That’s kind of you”, Enez responded with a dash of sarcasm in her voice as she stepped through the door and into the office cubicle. “You single?”
Heynes produced an unamused grunt in response and followed Enez into the room where she and Jenn Walters were waiting. He felt it pertinent to begin by introducing the two ladies to each other. “Miss Harady, meet Officer Jenn Walters.
She’s going to be conducting this interrogation alongside me.
Jenn, Enez Harady.”
Interrogation? Enez’s heart sank again. The mental images of her future flashed in her mind’s eye. They’d already made up their minds that she was the murderer, even though she’d been nowhere near The Falcon that night. She was going to jail. She was going to rot in there for the rest of her life. She was--
“You can relax”, Officer Walters piped up. Enez turned a thankful but still slightly anxious gaze to her, as if waiting for confirmation that her fears in the moment were unfounded. And as if on cue, Jenn continued in a calming tone: “We already know you’re not the murderer. But you are nonetheless connected to the case, and we need all the information we can get.”
Enez let out a sigh of relief and muttered: “Okay. I’ll help you as best I can.” To which both Heynes and Walters nodded gratefully, followed by Heynes instructing Enez: “Take a seat.”
So she did, with the two police officers following suit.
45
“So…” Officer Heynes began sharply, almost startling Enez.
“I believe when we met, there was a news report just playing on the TV in the lounge, reporting on Harashima’s death.” Enez merely produced a confirmatory nod in response. Heynes crossed his hands loosely on the office table, leaned in subtly and asked in a slightly curious tone, as if he’d just heard about the incident himself: “What did that news report say?”
Lucky for Enez, she had an amazing short-term memory.
She crossed one leg over the other, intertwined the fingers of her hands on her lap, leaned back and recited, calmly now that her earlier anxiety had subsided: “Found dead in a Golden Falcon penthouse suite yesterday morning. Cause of death officially undisclosed, but judging by the police investigating his death, he was likely murdered.” The police officers nodded silently in confirmation. “Well, the possibility of him having been murdered is pretty much 100%”, Heynes muttered. “Guy had a deep wound across his throat through which he bled out.
Now, can you guess what the wound was produced by?”
Time for Enez to flex her deductive skills. “Well, I know The Falcon is the single most secure building in Neo-Tokyo.
Security systems and regular patrols out the ass. No entry with weapons from anywhere unless you’re security or a government official. So the wound would’ve had to come from something attached to Harashima. Like a cybernetic genital that the murderer ripped off.”
“And you manufacture those here, don’t you?” asked an evidently impressed Officer Walters. “Prototypes, but yes”, 46
Enez replied. Then Walters presented a follow-up question:
“And to our understanding, you were the chief engineer on the team that produced Harashima’s prosthetic penis. Is that correct?” “That is correct”, Enez once again confirmed.
At that point, Officer Heynes produced a nod of his own, as if confirming to himself that all of the officers’ leads so far had been spot on. Enez thought she recognized a hint of hesitance in his motions, as though he hadn’t been entirely convinced they were even on the right track. Then it was his turn to ask a question: “So how do you suppose the murderer was able to just rip his dick off and slice his throat with it? Did something go wrong in the production process?”
Enez figured she might as well be as thorough in her explanation as possible. “We do design our prosthetics to be replaceable, but they’re not supposed to be that easily detachable. The unit we installed onto Harashima was essentially a failed prototype. We hadn’t had time to test it thoroughly when he came by to have it installed. Tried to tell him it wasn’t ready, but he insisted, the stubborn old fuck. And the installation surgery, well… It turned out some of the soldering couldn’t quite be done according to our quality standard, so the prosthetic ended up not attaching to his body properly. A properly soldered prosthetic can’t just be ripped off and used as an improvised murder weapon.”
Officer Walters piped up at that point: “Anything else that went wrong during the surgery?” To which Enez replied: “If there is, I don’t know about it. You’d need to ask one of the 47
guys who actually were in the surgery room. I just heard about it second-hand.” “Names?” inquired Officer Heynes, and Enez obliged his request: “Four in total. Steve Falk, Kaori Jutou, Deren Falk, Jennifer Yu.” As Officer Heynes noted down the names Enez listed, Walters muttered in a curious tone, mostly to herself: “Two Falks… Brothers?” “Father and son”, Enez responded. Walters turned her gaze to Enez and nodded so as to thank her for the correction.
“One more question, then I’m thinking we’re done”, Heynes informed. “Did Harashima have any adversaries you know of who might have wanted him dead? Perhaps within the company?” Enez produced a slight sigh, then proceeded to answer: “Not to the best of my knowledge. Other than the usual haters on the Net. Though there is a lot of reason among the female employees here to want him behind bars. Well… Was up until the other night.”
“How so?” inquired a slightly shocked Walters. Enez turned a steely gaze to her and explained: “He was well-known within the company for being a very… hands-on sort of CEO, let’s put it that way. Not a single day went by when he wasn’t sexually harassing a female employee. Rumors even talked about him raping one. Of course, none of that knowledge is public because Harashima threatened the victims with gutting and selling their organs on the black market if they ratted. And they took his word for it. The man was capable of a lot, and his achievements in all of the companies he ran is only the tip of the iceberg.”
48
A look of disgust spread across both of the officers’ faces.
That told Enez a lot. Everything they’d known about Harashima prior was little more than a carefully crafted facade to paint him as the benevolent tech giant, the cyber-messiah of the world, the archangel of a biomechanical heaven on Earth. But the reality was something else entirely. Harashima was no different from the rest of the self-important billionaire cunts of the world. As far as Enez was concerned, every single one of them deserved nothing short of a death sentence, but of course, that was never going to become reality with how much power they held.
Except in Harashima’s case, thank whatever deity may or may not exist – justice indirectly served. That was the part she was careful not to say out loud.
“Thank you for your time, Miss Harady”, Officer Heynes said and stood up. “Your information was helpful. If you don’t mind, we’d like to speak to the members of the surgery team you mentioned. Can you send ‘em here?” “Absolutely”, Enez replied cheerfully with an accompanying nod as she stood up herself. She turned on her heels, took a step, two, three, four, then felt a sharp pain in her abdominal area as the office door opened and greeted her with the sight of a disgruntled coworker who had decided to stab her in the stomach with…
What had she been stabbed with? She turned her gaze downward as the first drop of blood spilled down one corner of her mouth. The shape of the hilt didn’t look knife-like – if anything, it was too phallic to be attached to a regular blade.
And from a certain angle, she thought she could see the 49
DanariTek logo on the object. The association was becoming clearer by the second, but Enez was too preoccupied just holding on to her consciousness to come to a definite conclusion about what was embedded into her abdomen. Then, an angry male voice on the other end of the hilt begun to whisper: “Harashima says hi, bi—”
The voice was promptly interrupted by a bullet that collided with where the bastard’s head likely was.
As the assailant fell backward, Officer Walters rushed to Enez and wrapped her arms around her so as to keep her from collapsing. She brought Enez down carefully and propped her against the wall, the improvised weapon still in her stomach, asking her: “You okay?” In response, Enez was only able to produce a panicked, half-whispered “Yeah”.
“Hold still, I’ll call you some help”, Walters continued, beginning to dial in a number on her wrist apparatus and hollering into it not much later: “Medical team, this is Officer Jenn Walters. We need some medics at the DanariTek headquarters ASAP. Got a young woman here stabbed in the stomach with an improvised weapon—”
And at that point, Enez fell unconscious, her only wish that she’d still wake up. She didn’t care whether it was tomorrow, next week, next month, next year… She simply wanted to wake up again.
50