Asimov's SF, January 2007

by Dell Magazine Authors

  “Yes, he is. Satisfied? Or do you intend to stick around and watch him do it?"

  “I thought he was a tattoo-boy. Only he don't like what he does to others, does he?” Ulger looked at him with a chin-first thrust of his shapeless, bristled head, peering at the Japanese man's ink-free arms and lower legs.

  Considering Ulger's law-enforcement skills, Masafumi decided that giving the city over to a street gang, of any ethnicity, would be a more pleasant option.

  “I wouldn't know. I haven't seen him naked. But my friend here is full of surprises, so I'm not assuming anything about him.” Harumi shifted her tray of tofu from one arm to the other, then made a break for it in the narrow space between Ulger's left elbow and the brick façade of the storefront next to the Japanese eatery. Masafumi likewise slipped past the rent-a-pseudo-cop, albeit making sure that he grazed the man's mushrooming waistline with the corner of one of the wooden trays. Noticing that Ulger failed to flinch at the glancing blow, Masafumi smiled, and followed Harumi into the pungent-smelling interior of the restaurant. Behind him, he felt the heavier footfalls of Ulger, so he didn't startle when he heard the blatty voice say in his ear, “And where do you think you're going, huh?"

  “The kitchen, where do you think the tofu goes?” Harumi snapped over her shoulder, and then Masafumi and the young woman were in the kitchen, past the swinging doors that smacked into Ulger's belly as they shuddered to a stop. The room was hot, filled with sizzling, boiling, and sputtering meat noises, and lest he be overcome by a torrent of culinary nostalgia for his homeland, Masafumi asked, “Where's the back door?” Following Harumi's pointing finger, he hurried past the stooped black-haired cooks hovering over flaming burners, and quit the room for the less humid alleyway beyond.

  It wasn't until he was a couple of back-doors from Ignazio's shop that Masafumi realized he had company, there in the alley. Ulger. Waddle-stomping toward him from between two buildings, manju-shaped face worked into a doughy frown. Before the man could speak, Masafumi said quietly, “Sir, you do not wish to harass me. Not if you desire a ... what do you call it, ‘nano-yarn sweater'? I'm more than a tattoo boy. I am a learner, in the process of learning.

  Real cop or play cop, nothing Masafumi said now would give Ulger cause to harm him, or so he hoped, and counted on.

  “Harumi, she tell you—"

  “Harumi? No, she's said nothing about it. Nothing at all. But this desire of yours, it is known to others. Who have in turn enabled me to fulfill your wish. If you still desire it be made so—"

  “You sure Harumi didn't tell you?"

  “Very sure. As I said, others have mentioned it, in passing. And I have heard them. Just as I've heard that doctors will not do this for those who don't carry an official badge and wear loaded guns, but there are others who will perform such a service—"

  “Not that Miami reject boss of yours—"

  “I didn't mention him. But there are others who will perform this service, regardless of whether one's pistol fires bullets or air—"

  “I know Harumi said—"

  “No. Nor does she know how to ... knit such a garment. But I do. And I would be happy to do so, upon request."

  “'Upon request’ like you'd do it for free?"

  “Being an apprentice, I'm not in the position to require a fee ... but one must consider the worth of that which costs nothing. It is your choice. Excuse me, I must get back to work,” and before Ulger could speak again, Masafumi was inside the autoclave room, and over the now comforting drone of Ignazio's needle, her heard his boss shout, “You two have a nice walk?"

  Giving the nearest low-walled vat of dye-bathed nano-tubes a gentle shake, watching the wave-like undulation of the transparent fibers within, Masafumi smiled and yelled past the curtain, “Nice ... you could say that."

  “That's my kiddo. Next time she comes in for more ink, I'll let you do the slinging, okay by you?"

  Images of narrow bands of patterned flesh warred with more graphic, if equally finespun, mental pictures of oozing human cross-hatching within Masafumi's brain, as he echoed, “Okay by me...."

  * * * *

  “Masa, remember what you said about women wearing layered kimono, how a little bit of each kimono showed ... were you joking?"

  Pretending to be engrossed in the spiking arcs of onion peel juiced lines Harumi inked into the firm tofu surface, Masafumi shook his head slightly, then said, “The Heian period, around the late seven hundreds, through the eleventh century. If you can find the novel The Tale of Genji by Lady Murasaki, she describes the nobility of Kyoto and Nave wearing layered kimono. I read it in Japan.... It's one of my mother's favorite books. I think she still has her copy."

  “You think?"

  “She and I seldom write, or call. She and my father, they were eager for me to leave the house, to leave Japan. It was an ... understandable parting of the ways."

  “Oh. Like they kicked you out?"

  “Not precisely. But it is partly true. They kicked me out of my room, within their house. Your family, when they gather, do they speak of hikikomori? Someone on your father's side may have witnessed this ... disorder. It is common, in Japan, less so in Taiwan, South Korea."

  Sliding her finished tray his way, Harumi uncovered the next slab of fleshy-firm tofu and ventured cautiously, “You mean those guys who used to stay in their rooms, for months, years even? Not talking or eating with their folks? My dad's dad mentioned something like that. So ... you're ... one of them?"

  “Was one. My parents, they hired a woman, a ‘rescue sister’ to come to my door and lure me out of my room. Once I came out, she took me to this place, in Tokyo, called New Start. A meeting place for fellow hikikomori. Here, you might call it a boy's club. There was one female hikikomori there, while I was in attendance. But she was an aberration. Far more males do ... what I did."

  “So one morning you decided to hide. Not get up, or leave the room? I think everyone I know has felt that way at least once—"

  “Not the same ... not at all. For me, for us, the staying-in is a response to pressure, to expectations. When one cannot fulfill one's destiny, it is better to retreat than to exist as a failure."

  “If that's the case, Ulger should be hiding under his futon in his apartment. I can't think of anything worse than running around pretending to be a cop, down to wanting body armor to take up the slack from a bulletproof vest that he doesn't even own—"

  “Walker is not Japanese. And I doubt many expectations were placed upon him,” Masafumi said succinctly.

  Harumi mentally digested what she'd heard, then said, “To me, he's a more likely candidate for being a hicky-whatever than you could be. You're just a kid now, and you said you were locked away in your folks’ house for how long?"

  “I didn't say how long. It was enough time. I was at an age where my future should have been set, but ... my doubts diluted my artistic destiny. My parents, my teachers, they were sure of what I was to be, but me ... the uncertainty, the inexactitude of my calling, all of this served to render me unable to do anything more than simply be, in my room. It's difficult to explain further. The people at New Start, they advised me to change paths, seek other outlets for what minimal talents I possessed.

  “I've seen your work, ‘Fumi ... there isn't much more that Ignazzy can teach you about inkslinging that you don't already know. How long have you been working for him, two, three years? Your work's fine, just fine ... in fact—” here her voice took on a different tone, less conciliatory, more eager, “—what you said about the layered kimono thing got me to thinking ... what I have on me right now is sort of like a short kimono, no? But what if I add bands along each arm, and each leg, with a suggestion of the pattern of some more kimonos underneath? Y'know? With thick bands of black to delineate the difference between each ‘sleeve.’ Sort of like what that pretend-cop suggested, a quilting type of thing."

  Masafumi felt emotionally, creatively, naked, sitting there on the tatami mat next to Harumi. Ignazio had also s
uggested that he work on Harumi, and now, she herself was requesting that he ink her, a most personal, even intimate request. As if his own wishes had been made flesh.... But as he pictured her future body illumination, his mind echoed with another imagined transformation, that of a lowly play-badge for hire into something slightly more legally augmented. That the two creative works were so thoroughly linked in his consciousness somehow tainted the former while increasing the repugnance of the latter.

  But she was expecting an answer ... just as that slug-eared thug had been badgering him for the last few days, constantly requesting a specific date—and suitable price—for his own transformation.

  Realizing that to honor one request must invariably mean fulfilling the other as well, Masafumi said slowly, “Would you be open to a form of barter, as payment for my work? It's not the most pleasant option, but one that I think will turn out to be satisfying for you ... in, how do you say it, ‘the long run'?"

  “By ‘not the most pleasant option’ do you mean unpleasantness, as in ... say, that Ulger freak?"

  Nodding, Masafumi anticipated her refusal, but was pleasantly shocked when she said, “Do whatever you want to me in front of him, as long as it culminates in getting him off my back...."

  * * * *

  “So, you kids sure ole Iggy-nazzy won't come back, spoil our little inkslinging party?"

  Outside the lowered shades of the tattoo parlor windows, the last rays of the setting sun cast narrow deep orange shafts of light on Harumi's body as she stood in the middle of the room, while Masafumi spotted the freshly inked narrow stencils around each of her upper arms above the elbows, and encircled each thigh with a two-inch wide band of intricately patterned freehand flash. Once he was done rubbing the transfer paper against her skin, Masafumi stepped back to make sure all the elements of each design were successfully spotted onto her skin. For his part, Ulger squirmed around in one of the tattooing chairs, eyes narrowed, upper lip curled back over his flat-bottomed, oyster white teeth, breath coming in noisy hitches through his flaring nostrils. He'd accepted Masafumi's terms readily; if he was allowed to watch “Tattoo Boy” apply four around-the-limbs tattoos on Harumi, he'd be given that elusive nano-yarn sweater ... if he never bothered Harumi again. If he were to break that promise, and continue to harass her, the real police would get a call reporting a non-official bearer of the restricted body armor nano-weave.

  Luckily, Harumi's limbs were thin and the single-needle black outlining of her tattoos went quickly, if awkwardly (for him to tattoo the backs of her thighs and arms, she had to lie face down on the tattooing bed, resting on her already tattooed limbs), and once the outsides of each new leaf and flower were inked, he switched to a seven needle cluster, to create the background wash of color. Given that his needles touched his previously incised inked lines with every pass, Harumi's eyes began to water, even as she defiantly refused to let out a sound, lest she increase her audience's pleasure at her discomfort. Masafumi heard Ulger's panting breaths over the drone of the tattoo gun, and when he was done laying down the pale greenish white background, he gave Harumi an I'm so sorry wince, as he put a three-needle tip onto his tattoo gun, and began inking in all the deep green leaves.

  Five colors later, and countless swipes of his now-bloodied wipe cloth, Harumi's limbs shone with brilliant, slightly raised bands of color, the merest hints of a far more intricate design not quite fully seen “beneath” her previous tattoos. But her fleshy kimono was now layered. As she gingerly walked toward the mirror on the back wall of the shop, ignoring Ulger's wolf-whistles, Masafumi pictured her wearing a real kimono over her tattoos. One that was made of a transparent fabric, gauze, or perhaps even uncut sheets of that nano-fabric those factories made in bulk. This was the answer to his imponderable quandary, that unbridgeable gap between the artistic vision and the material reality. A design that literally moved as the woman wearing it moved, even as she still maintained the formality of the now outdated kimono's restrictive T-shape. In his excitement, he almost forgot about Ulger sitting there, waiting for his “payment.” Harumi was so beautiful in all her inked glory. Only her pale shorts and narrow tube top marred the perfection of her fleshy garment. Yet hadn't Ignazio told him that the people who attended those tattoo and Body Art conventions often took the judging stage all but naked, to better show off their ink? If Harumi would allow him to create additional “layers” of kimono on her skin, could she not wear a transparent kimono when taking the stage?

  “Masa, you're the man ... and Walker—what can I say? You ain't,” Harumi hissed through a tightly puckered pair of red-shaded lips, then, after blowing Masafumi a kiss, quit the parlor, stepping raw and bandageless into the early evening street beyond. Sure that she'd be able to tend her own fresh tats, Masafumi slowly turned his attention to Ulger, who was busy fishing something out of his breast pocket ... a syringe, filled with a pale clear liquid. Grinning and squinting at him, Ulger said, “I do guard duty for the pharmacy down the block ... I know they ain't gonna miss this. Just like I know you ain't gonna say squat about me using it, right?"

  Realizing that Ulger had stolen anesthetic, the one thing forbidden to anyone undergoing non-medically sanctioned body modifications, Masafumi merely shook his head, disgusted by the man's cowardice, yet simultaneously elated by the sight of Ulger feeling his own neck for a vein, then shooting the contents of the syringe into his body. From what Ignazio had told Masafumi, nano-ribbon implantation was far less painful than getting a small tattoo. Wanting to snap, Too bad you didn't bring enough to share with Harumi, he instead waited until Ulger's eyes grew dazed and his head lolled before saying succinctly, “Remove your shirt. And put your arms on the armrests. Another thing—don't speak as I work."

  With the cheerful obedience of a cow marching along a slaughterhouse tunnel, Ulger started to say “okay” then substituted the finger sign for okay instead. Before his eyelids drooped over his eyes, Masafumi told himself, This ... will be so good.

  * * * *

  Through the magnifying goggles, the skin of Ulger's neck became a landscape of raked sand and occasional rock-like protuberances, dotted with short scruffy shafts of kelp-dark hair. As he minutely scored and hash-marked that barren soil of enlarged pores and pliant flesh, Masafumi forced himself to think of rough fabric, not supple enough for a kimono, but perhaps suitable for an obi, to surround and bind the layers of a kimono into a whole ... and as he worked, incising, and laying down strands of nano-ribbon that looked nearly hair-thick under the most extreme magnification his lenses allowed, artistic urges took over utilitarian purpose. His realization that this was not a job meant to protect, but merely a prop meant to prolong Ulger's delusions of legal servitude, began to guide his hand. His efforts transcended their agreed-upon boundaries....

  ...and when he was finished, and had slathered the freshly laid nano-ribbons with ointment, and bandaged over his creation, he kicked the bottom of the chair, to rouse Ulger.

  “All through."

  “Uhmmmp? Done? I got my armor?"

  “It's within you. Although the addition of an actual vest will greatly augment the protective element."

  Oblivious to Masafumi's irony, Ulger shakily got up off the chair, and as he gingerly felt the bandages criss-crossing over his neck, shoulders, and under his arms, said, “Y'know where Harumi went to?"

  That Ulger would ultimately seek to break his promise had been a given to Masafumi, but the quickness of turnaround did rankle him, as Masafumi replied, “No. And if I may remind you—"

  “Nope, I didden say you could say squat to me."

  Masafumi watched as Ulger labored to pull on his shirt, offering no help to him as he struggled, other than to suggest, “A beer might make whatever pain comes later go away."

  “Nah, I'm gonna get me some sake ... and Harumi will be there to serve it to me, won't she?"

  Harumi had said nothing about her post-tattooing plans, but he doubted that she would consider working another shift that night. Smiling, he sa
id, “Perhaps she will be. You should go then?"

  “Damn right ... and I'm gonna show everyone there what I got goin’ for me now. Teach ‘em not to take me serious as a security guard. Once they see what I'm packing, they'll take me real serious...."

  With that, Ulger stepped out the door, but when Masafumi hurried over to peer through the sides of the drawn shades, he saw the enforcer wannabe ripping and tearing at his bandages, until they trailed over his shoulders like the fluttering tail of a squid.

  It took all the resolve Masafumi had to resist the urge to follow the man into the restaurant, to watch the horrified reactions of those Japanese-reading patrons and workers when they saw what was nano-embroidered into Ulger's flesh ... precisely drawn symbols for “I despise Japan and all that is Japanese” across his neck, or, if he managed to get his shirt off (or if it was removed for him), the phrase “I seek to defile all Japanese women” and “Death to Japanese men” on each shoulder, or the best ones of all along the bottom of each armpit: “I am worthless slime” and “I am unworthy to live."

  Just as the long-ago Tokugawa shogunate inevitably spawned a far different, yet equally—if not far more—involved form of kimono decoration, so Masafumi decided that the current ban on non-police officers obtaining a suit of nano-body-armor should also trigger a more decorative, if less protective, variant. Using bundles of nano-ribbon, vat-dyed to a brilliant, unmissable shade of crimson, made the individual characters stand out vividly and unmistakably under Ulger's exposed flesh, much as embroidery stands out above that which is to be embroidered.

  Patient, and sure in the knowledge that his creation would be seen and subsequently read, Masafumi busied himself cleaning up the shop, putting away bottles of ink, placing the used equipment in the autoclave, scrubbing down the chair Ulger had sat in, just in case any invisible blood mists should still be clinging to the vinyl surfaces, until he heard the ever-closer wail of the sirens. Be they police or an ambulance, it did not particularly matter to Masafumi.