Hanzai Japan: Fantastical, Futuristic Stories of Crime From and About Japan Page 18

  All we have are calluses on our fingers.

  Everyone’s there. At least, everyone who is left is there: Principal Jono and the remaining survivalist teachers, clipboards in hand and pencils raised, ready to judge our worthiness to play at the Spring Dance. A crowd of students gathers in the back of the gym, thrumming with eagerness. This is going to be the fight of the century.

  The stage waits, bare.

  I hate this, waiting, my guitar slung over my shoulder, plinking the strings. They make weak little ringing sounds, since the instrument’s not plugged in yet. It’s the same sound my heart will make if it breaks, if we lose. Ru holds her fists over her eyes, like she can’t even watch, her drumsticks sticking out of them like antennae.

  But even right before the audition, Miki sits on the floor, working on her deck.

  I glare at her. “What are you doing? You’re always on your deck. I’m worried about you.”

  “What? Oh—it’s secret. But you’ll like it. I promise.”

  Off to the side, New Guy watches us closely. What if he’s right? What if Miki is behind the destruction of the city?

  What would Shonen Knife do? They would trust each other, and they would play. That’s all we can do.

  Principal Jono will flip a coin to see who goes first. He announces: “Flying Jelly Attack is heads, Lizard Blood is tails. Whichever side lands up will get to choose whether they go first or last.”

  Yuki and I stand on either side of Principal Jono, seething. Soon, it will all be over. The coin spins, glinting in the light coming in through the windows. It seems to spin forever before falling like a bullet into Principal Jono’s hand. He slaps it on the back of his other hand, looks at us both, and finally reveals the outcome.

  “Heads!”

  I should have thought more about what would be best: play first and get it over with, play last to leave the final impression with the judges, play first to show how great we are at warming up a crowd, play last so we could respond to Lizard Blood’s strategy—

  Miki taps me on the shoulder. “Let Lizard Blood play first.”

  She seems very confident, hiding something behind her big brown eyes and glasses. Okay, then. Shonen Knife trusts each other, so I trust her.

  “Lizard Blood will go first,” I say and step aside.

  It takes them a stupidly long amount of time to set up because they have to plug in their instruments, warm up their neural implants, synch all their systems, and I figure this will be a black mark against them because the longer they take the more restless everyone gets. But I know them, and I’ve heard them, and once they start playing, they’ll cast some kind of weird headbanger spell that will overpower the crowd with a wall of death metal. They’ll burn out everyone’s hearing before we even get onstage.

  But then something happens. Something amazing.

  Yuki starts to strum a chord—that is, her uploaded programming directs her arm to play a chord. And nothing happens. Her hand goes limp and splats over the frets, and her other hand tangles in the strings instead of strumming. Azumi does a little better, getting her bass to play a couple of chords, but they’re bad chords, out of tune and wavering. The drumsticks fall clean out of Hana’s hands. When she scrambles to pick them up, she falls off her stool.

  It’s like they’re not in control of their own bodies. It’s like something has gone wrong with their neural implant programming.

  I look at Miki, who nods with satisfaction. “That’s what I’ve been doing with my deck—hacking the implant software Lizard Blood uses to play their instruments. It was tough because they had massive protections on their system. Military-grade firewalls. Best money can buy—you know Yuki. But I got through, you know?”

  I stare at her with really big eyes. “You. Are. A. Genius.”

  She’s my new hero. I could kiss her, but I have to go back to watching Yuki and Lizard Blood fumble around, trying to figure out what to do with their instruments without the software to guide them.

  New Guy arrives in time to hear the explanation. “Ah. That clarifies much,” he says. “That only leaves one suspect in the bank-hacking case. Thank you, girls.”

  “What?” I blink at him.

  He approaches the stage and draws a badge from his pocket. Yuki and the others finally go still.

  “I am Detective Fukaya, and you, Yuki Niamori, are under arrest for destroying the city through the cybernetic network.”

  Well, who expected that?

  Yuki should deny it, but she doesn’t. She throws down her guitar and clenches her fists. Even Azumi and Hana look surprised, so they must not know anything about it.

  At the edge of the stage, Yuki looks over us all, green eyes filled with rage.

  “You think this is just an act!” she shouts. “You never respected me because you think all this is fake!” She gives her frilly skirt a tug. “It’s not an act! It’s anarchy! Yes, I destroyed the city’s banking and water infrastructure! I want everything to burn!” She throws horns with both hands and screams, “ANARCHY!”

  I have to admit, I finally sort of respect Yuki a little bit because she seems very honest about her mission.

  She jumps off the stage and shoves Detective Fukaya aside. He’s so surprised he doesn’t go after her right away—I mean, who expects Yuki to do anything that smacks of effort? So she runs and we all think she’s going to get away, but then Ru trips her. Just sticks out her foot, and Yuki goes sailing, purple curls flying and tiny hat spinning off toward the ceiling. It’s great. Detective Fukaya arrests Yuki. Azumi cries while Hana leads her away, arm around her shoulders to comfort her. And that’s that.

  It turned out Miki had such a hard time hacking Lizard Blood’s system because all of Yuki’s neural interfaces and military-grade firewalls were a cover for her high-level hacking activities. Lizard Blood really was a fake band. Who knew?

  So, that’s how Flying Jelly Attack triumphed and won the chance to play at the Cherry Blossom High School Spring Dance. We auditioned with our signature song, “Flying Jelly Attack,” and we sounded triumphant. That just goes to show that Rock and Roll Will Never Die.

  Unfortunately, by the time of the Spring Dance the power had indeed gone out all over the city. But that doesn’t matter because we have the generator, and we insist that the Spring Dance go on as planned for the sake of good morale. We decorate the gym and fill it with students. It seems like a miracle that everybody comes, but I know I’m right: times like these, everybody just wants to dance.

  So we play for them. Outside the windows, far away in the city, mobs riot at bank headquarters and government buildings for not doing more to stop the economic collapse. A couple of skyscrapers are on fire and helicopters buzz around them, recording footage for the news. The city really is falling apart, but I don’t care, because my dream has come true: my band is playing at the Spring Dance. The Cherry Blossom High School gym is the safest place in the city. Hundreds of students surge screaming at the stage, and me and my girls have our instruments plugged into amps, ready to go. I look at Miki and Ru, meet their gazes, and they nod back at me. Their hands are poised to begin. Nothing else matters.

  I turn to the microphone and call, “One two three four—!”

  Psychos can really leg it. You know, the ones who become bashers.

  I’d never seen another basher in action, but I’d heard the story from a friend who had.

  He’d seen the guy, through the window of a café on the third floor of some building, hotfooting it on the street below. He’d been going at such a pace he’d seemed to just race by.

  It had been a bright afternoon.

  The basher had already slipped away by the time the young woman crumpled to the ground, clutching at her shoulder. Her long hair dipped below her neckline, starting to flow, engulfing her upper arm and elbow, before it finally reached the ground.

  The hair, of cou
rse, was blood.

  I’m telling you, it wasn’t normal, blustered my friend, who had run track and field in college.

  Of course it wasn’t. Of course it wasn’t normal.

  At that speed, the guy could have run in the nationals.

  But the man they brought in had never run track and field, not even in high school. He wasn’t particularly fit and, if anything, I’d say he verged on being short. He wasn’t even young. In his fifties, he was divorced, isolated from his neighbors, and out of work.

  I know why psychos run so incredibly fast. It’s because they’re running for their lives. Anyone can do it; all you need is an assassin charging in from behind. Desperate to stay alive, you push through your limits. You might not even realize what’s happening. You might be convinced you’re running only to hurt someone. But the truth is you hear the knife slicing the air behind your own neck—you feel its cold, keen edge.

  That is why you run so incredibly fast.

  The problem is that the assassin’s invisible to everyone else. This means the psycho ends up taking the blame. Maybe that’s only fair. There’s nothing, after all, that says you have to attack someone in the middle of your escape.

  Although … the more I think about it, the more I suspect that the unseen assassin chasing the psycho is himself a psycho, pursued by his own unseen assassin. That you’ve got one psycho chasing another, who chases another. The pattern repeats again and again until, finally, an innocent someone who isn’t a psycho, someone who just happens to be in the way, ends up footing the bill.

  I know all this because I am a psycho. And because I’m the kind of guy who likes to chew on this sort of thing. Not that my way of doing things is any different from the multitude of other psychos out there. Every now and then I become a basher. I plan to keep it up, as no one’s caught me yet. I’m sure they will, soon enough. I’ll just keep bashing until that happens.

  I don’t normally use a knife.

  My tools are a jar of honey and a plastic convenience-store bag. The honey is a special kind. It costs thirteen thousand yen for five hundred grams, is imported from New Zealand, and is extracted from a limited number of hives located in a specific region.

  While we’re talking about psychos, I personally think you’ve got to be a little unhinged to spend that much on honey, but my girlfriend tells me it’s a bargain.

  She takes it in her tea. She says drinking it is good for her skin, that it helps keep her slim, and that it keeps her looking young. She’s never offered me any to try. Not that I want to. It’s the weight that interests me. That and the rock-solid, sturdy jar.

  My girlfriend earns more than I do, working for the kind of large corporation everyone knows the name of. According to her, her salary’s going to keep on going up. She changes the design on her nails once every one or two weeks. And she’s always buying new clothes. There’s an amazing diversity to women’s clothing. There’s all kinds of tastes and styles. I’m not just talking pants and skirts. Although these—both pants and skirts—come in their own variations, from the subtle to the brash. These can be simple differences in color and design, but also differences in color and design that alter the signals describing the wearer. The signals—in a nutshell—that say whether you’re orderly, provocative, juvenile, or like a doddering old lady. It’s genuinely fascinating. There’s more—she buys shoes, accessories, makeup. She buys underwear. All of these things come in their own vast arrays of designs. Sometimes she looks great, sometimes she looks shockingly bad. My girlfriend’s got amazing latitude. When she’s on form, a single look’s enough to get me hard. When she misses the mark, she’s awful. Can’t lay a finger on her.

  But she never gives up the challenge. Fashion is her hobby. It’s a good hobby for a girl. I think it’s cute.

  It goes without saying that her insatiable pioneering extends to her hair. It gets dyed, permed, bundled, woven, hitched up, and twisted—she’s a true master. Just when you think she’s had it shaved like a monkey, the next time you see her it’ll be long and straight and down to her waist. Yeah, she buys hoards of wigs too.

  The downside is that it’s impossible to find her presents. She’s very selective. She passes swift but meticulous scrutiny on everything she buys. Sometimes she dresses to look like she’s never even heard the word “fashion,” as though she lacks even the slightest interest in clothing. That’s how selective she can be. And her infatuations change with the speed of a dying man’s complexion, so it’s impossible to guess what she likes in any given moment.

  This is why I always give her the honey. It’s decided: the honey is my present. It’s the one thing she is bound to appreciate. Because, as I already mentioned, it’s good for her skin, it helps keep her slim, and it keeps her looking young. Plus she needs a little every day. She’s always grateful when I turn up with a jar of the stuff.

  “This is the best. It’s like it’s in tune with me. You know, a perfect fit,” she says.

  I like the way she describes it. It’s in tune with me too.

  You know, a perfect fit.

  It was when I was shopping with my girlfriend, the first time I held the honey in my hand, that I heard the voice shouting “Run!”

  It was my voice, even though I hadn’t said a thing. I’d just been nodding quietly away—uh-huh, uh-huh—listening to my girlfriend and the shop attendant wax lyrical about the benefits of the honey. But I’d definitely heard it. My own voice, shouting “Run!” That was when I knew it for sure—that psychos had their own unseen psychos chasing them, that that was why they run so incredibly fast. I was right, I was right, I thought. I’d always wondered if that wasn’t the case. I weighed the special honey in my hand. I rolled it in my palm, savoring the feel of the curved surface. “Run!” I shouted again into my own ear. Sure, I’ll run, I thought. I’d finally found it. The murder weapon I’d been looking for. With the honey in hand, I would run.

  It was a few days later that I started on my bashing spree, going from one criminal act to the next. My girlfriend’s apartment—high salary notwithstanding—is a good twenty-five minutes on foot from the nearest train station.

  “I work in the city, so I’d rather spend my private time somewhere quiet, where I can stretch out a little. Get it?” she says.

  I understand where she’s coming from, but I still can’t believe the place she chose.

  At night it’s the worst place you could be. The footpath leading to her apartment is pitch black, following a factory wall, and there’s a short tunnel that cuts below an overpass. There’s an entrance to a shrine to keep an eye on as you walk—gaping like an open maw, the darkness heavier there than elsewhere—and you have to trail around the periphery of a barren and sinister park, which has nothing going for it bar the toilets installed slap-bang in the center. It’s an ideal location for a basher. When I get the go-ahead, I tend to visit my girlfriend’s apartment on a weeknight after work. I’m lucky, I guess, in that the unseen psycho behind me only closes in when the conditions are all in place for me to become a basher myself. In other words, when I happen to have a jar of the honey to give my girlfriend (not too often, at thirteen thousand yen a pop), and when there’s a single person walking ahead of me. When the conditions line up like this, I hear the voice shouting “Run!”

  It could be that I’m getting better at reading the signs. That something warns me, Tonight might be the night. Then, in subconscious preparation, I buy a jar of honey and make the arrangements to pay my girlfriend a visit.

  Whatever the case, that’s when it comes. “Run!” Frightened, I turn into a basher.

  My first step is to remove the jar of special honey from the small paper bag bearing the manufacturer’s logo. The latter I fold and stash in my rucksack so it doesn’t get marked. In its place I take out one of the plastic convenience-store bags I keep a stock of, and slip the jar inside. Then I start running. “Run!” I cry into my own ear.
Right—I have to run! The murderous knife comes veering in, towards my suit collar, the blade as broad as my arm. “Run!” I run incredibly fast. I’m not usually that fast a runner. No better than the next man. But everything changes when my life’s on the line. Keeping up this incredible pace, I begin to swing the plastic bag in circles. The jar picks up speed, buzzing a circular orbit. My victim sees me approaching and tries to escape, but I’m faster. It goes without saying. I’m a psycho, after all.

  I close the distance at a raging pace, and, with all my might, let loose the five hundred grams of honey—with the weight of the jar and the force of the acceleration—against my victim’s not-so-psychotic skull. The blow is enough to knock them unconscious. By this point I no longer sense the knife behind me. I’ve shaken off my unseen, psychotic pursuer. For now … this time. One more time. Relieved, I gather my wits and shift my grip on the plastic bag. I take out the jar and position it within my palm. This special jar of honey, how its curves cling to my hand! I crouch next to my victim and fit the plastic bag over his head. Then, painstakingly, taking care not to spill much blood from the bag, I crack his skull from above. If I get a little messy it doesn’t show on my dark suit. And my girlfriend’s apartment is all mood lighting, so it’s really dark and atmospheric. Once I’ve put the jar back inside the paper bag with the logo, I go straight over to her place.

  Each time she opens the door it’s like I’m seeing her for the first time. She’s always fresh, like a completely different woman. You’ve got to appreciate the effect of pouring all that salary into dressing up. The truth, I suspect, is that she’s unhappy with the way she is. That she doesn’t feel in tune with herself the way she feels in tune with the honey, that she doesn’t like the fit of her body. That this is why she’s always on the lookout for something new. I hope she finds what she’s looking for soon. I’m sure she will. The way I found the honey.

  I present her with the honey and she cheerfully boils some water, making tea. She’s got beer ready for me in the fridge. We clink our drinks; my can of beer with her cup of honey-infused tea. She turns pale when the news of my criminal activity shows up on the TV.