He stumbled his way to the subway entrance at the base of the plaza. Several civilians bowed to him to show their respect. He went to the restroom, saw that the “Other” door was marked “Out of Service.” He found the door for ethnic Japanese and made his way to the sink to wash his face. He wiped his nostrils clean, blew the snot out and washed his face again. The stink of Jenna’s death wouldn’t go away. He sat down on the bathroom floor and stared blankly at the people coming in. His portical rang. He ignored it.
6:12PM
One more inch and it would have been death. The driver swerved with just enough pressure to curve smoothly, rather than colliding with the two boats next to his. Nine mechanical horses raced as tribute to the miracle of man traversing water. The LA Kyotei Stadium was massive, water tracks that were second in size only to Tokyo. Thousands were in the crowd, and Ben and Tiffany sat in the box seats for Taiyo Tech along with five other couples.
“They’re amazing!” Tiffany Kaneko exclaimed. She’d dyed her hair blond since the previous evening and wore a red kimono. Though she hadn’t powdered her face white, many envious glances skittered in Ben’s direction.
He sulkily sipped on a tiny cup of sake.
“What’s wrong?” Tiffany asked.
He forced a smile, realizing people next to their box seat were watching them. “I’m amazed by the race. Chao’s dexterous for a fat man.”
“His fat is deceptive. Look at him on those corners,” she said. “He uses his weight to counterbalance those turns. He eats an ungodly amount of ramen to keep those handles. He used to be really skinny, but he wasn’t as good. His big butt keeps him glued to the boat.”
“Were you the one who was telling me you found big butts on men attractive?”
“A man who sits a lot won’t run off on you.”
“I don’t think you have to worry about men running off on you,” Ben noted.
“I’m always telling my girlfriends to find a fat man.”
“You eyeing Chao?”
She giggled. “I bet he’d be having more fun tonight. What’s bugging you, Mr Iko?” She said the last word like “mystery” + “ko,” her favorite nickname for him.
“I hear it’s quite chic for officers to change the dye of their hair.”
“You’re pondering what color to change your hair to?” she asked.
“How do you think I’d look with blond hair like yours?”
“I like black hair,” she replied. “I should write an opinion piece on it after I finish the two pieces I’m working on.”
“What are they about?”
“Can’t say.”
“Why not?”
“I don’t want you to censor it preemptively,” she said.
“I only give suggestions so you won’t get into trouble.”
“I know and I appreciate it. But there used to be a thing called ‘freedom of press’ where you didn’t have to worry about offending the wrong person or political group.”
He put his hand on her waist and said, “I still have the freedom to press you.”
“There’s people around. Later,” she promised.
“You gonna tell me what you wrote about?”
“My dream last night.”
“You dreamt of kyotei racers?”
“Rats. I lived in a big mansion and it was gorgeous. But anytime I tried to sleep, I was covered by rats.”
“Did they smell bad?”
“Do rats smell?”
“I never tried smelling one,” Ben replied.
“Why don’t you try next time?”
He sniffed her clothes and she pushed him away with a laugh. “After the rat dream, I dreamt I was married to a man whose first wife had died. He was still in love with her and, no matter what I did, he couldn’t let go. It was so sad.”
Ben’s mind went to Mutsuraga. “Based on a true story?”
“Probably a movie I watched somewhere. Would you censor a sad story?”
“If it was boring.”
“You find all sad stories boring.”
“All sad stories ring the same. It’s the happy ones that… wait, is that a line from somewhere?”
“I think you have it in reverse.”
“You want a happy family?”
“I’d love a miserable one where everyone hated each other.”
“Why?”
“So we could find redemption in each other’s arms.” She kissed him. “Why aren’t you watching the races?”
“How can I when you’re next to me?” he said, moving his hands lower to her hips.
“What about go tonight?”
“Sounds great. Let’s go,” Ben said.
“Go to play go?”
“Go home and play something else.”
“All you officers only have one thing on your mind.”
“What’s that?”
“Procreation,” Tiffany said.
“I consider it a form of recreation.”
“Let me watch Sollazzo race. Please? Pretty please?”
He nodded and she clapped gratefully.
“Can you be a darling and get me some yakitori and rice candy from outside?” she asked, in a way that was gentle enough to be forceful.
He saluted her and exited the box, down the escalator. Many attendees bowed as they passed him. A group of enlisted men saluted him. When he got to the food stand, there was a long line. An attendant bowed to him and said, “Sir, please go to the front.”
He shook his head. “It’s not necessary. I can wait.”
“No, no. Officers should not wait.”
“It’s fine. Thank you.”
A new round commenced on screen. The racers were speeding around the course. For all purposes, he looked like a soldier waiting in line to grab food for his lover.
“Good match, isn’t it?” someone asked.
“Wh… yes, yes,” he stammered. “Been waiting all week for this.”
“Who you rooting for?”
He had to look at the screens to remember the names of the racers.
8:37PM
After they got back to his apartment, Tiffany slipped out of her kimono and started to kiss him. He caressed her breasts, her light brown nipples perking up. She had the tattoo of a three-headed lizard to the right of her belly button, a mascot and symbol of good luck from the Northern Campaigns when an actual three-headed lizard was supposed to have led the stray Japanese army into the camps of American rebels.
A few minutes later, she asked, “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing’s wrong.”
She felt his pants. “This isn’t like you. You were so giddy earlier.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Why don’t you lay down? Let me give you a massage.”
She helped him undress. He lay in bed. She put her hands on his shoulders. “There’s the problem. All the nerves are bunched up.” She massaged his neck, rubbing out the tension.
“You still remember your university days?” he asked.
“Of course.”
“Good memories?”
“Good and bad. What about you?”
“The cadre sent us down to San Diego for part of our officer training. One of the first things they had us do was chop off the head of a prisoner. They brought this skinny guy out for me. I could see his rib cage and he had a hard time breathing. They tied him to a pole. Told me I had to cut his head off. The man was so scared, he shat himself. I couldn’t do it. Tried to, but my hands wouldn’t move. After that, they said I didn’t have what it took to serve in San Diego and gave me all sorts of demerits.” He got up on his elbows. “I still think about how scared that guy was.”
“Why?”
“Maybe I have a psychological defect. Shooting an enemy, that’s one thing. But cutting off their head. I don’t know if I could ever do that. But I might have to. Someone said to me,” and he did his best to mimic a deeper voice, “‘The sword is an extension of our soul. Used properly, it becomes a part of who we are, an
expression of our being. Kill a man with a gun, and you have no connection to him. Kill him with a sword, and your souls are intertwined.’”
“It would have been shocking for anyone to be faced with that kind of situation without any context,” she said. “Don’t feel bad.”
“The officers made so much fun of my name back then.”
“I love your name, Beniko. It has a lovely ring to it.”
“It’s a woman’s name.”
“Your mom picked it?”
He nodded. “Before I was born. She was convinced I’d be a girl.”
Tiffany touched his face. “You would have been very pretty.”
“I didn’t like them mocking me and they even attacked my parents for giving me that name. When I tried to defend them, they asked me why I cared. Didn’t I turn them in? I couldn’t say anything and their bullying got worse, so I stopped caring and just fooled around. It worsened my reputation and I’ve never been able to shake it.” He kissed her and asked, “Do you ever feel like covering anything other than kyotei and football?”
“Like scarred captains of the army?”
He laughed. “I’m sorry I’ve been out of it tonight.”
“You should be. I’m going out of town for the next week. Big kyotei matches in Beiping and Hong Kong.”
“You’re not covering the Anniversary?”
“I am, but from Beiping.”
“Do you have different lovers in every town?”
“You really want to know, or will that spoil the fun?”
“You know I don’t get jealous about things like that,” he said. “I just wonder what you’re like around different people.”
“The same. Well, a little different.”
He held her chin, looked her in the eye.
“I’m gonna miss you,” she said.
“It’ll only be a week. I’ll be here waiting.”
There was a look of regret in her eyes and he wondered why.
“Lay back down,” she ordered, then continued to massage him. “Go to sleep.”
“I’m not tired. I have so much to do.”
“Like what?”
“Plan a funeral,” Ben said. “And keep a promise I made a long time ago.”
“What promise?”
“I’m sworn to secrecy.”
She moved her hands down his back. “You can take care of your secrets tomorrow. Tonight, clear your mind of thoughts.”
“I wish I could.”
“Let me help you.”
“How?”
“With pain.”
She intensified the strength of her massages. Ben drowned his restlessness in tactile vacuity.
11:41PM
The tenth portical ring woke him. Tiffany was nowhere in sight. Ben turned on the portical. There was no video, only an audio call from a number he didn’t recognize.
“You’re still alive.”
“Who’s this?” Ben asked.
“It’s me,” Agent Akiko Tsukino said. Her number was blocked as with all members of Tokko to maintain their privacy.
“Do you need something?”
“Check under your bed,” she ordered.
“Why?”
“Just look. I need to confirm if they’ve targeted you as well.”
He moved to the edge, shone his portical below. To his surprise, there was a device there he’d never seen before, crowded with wires and what appeared to be explosives.
“W-what is that?” Ben stuttered.
“Is there a red light on?”
Ben saw the red beam shining in his eyes. “Yes.”
“That means it’s armed. The bomb is pressure sensitive.”
“You mean if I get off the bed–”
“You’ll die unless you listen to me,” Akiko replied.
“How did this happen?”
“Someone wants you dead. There’ve been several names targeted on a list I found on Jenna’s belongings, including you. The others are already dead.”
“Can you send a bomb squad?”
“We just had them try on another target.”
“And?”
“They were killed. I’m outside your apartment building. The technicians designed a jamming signal I can send out, but it’ll only last a minute before it gets overridden.”
“What do I do?” Ben asked.
“Hold on. Let me sync with the bomb’s kikkai signal.”
Ben looked at all the paintings on the wall, thought of the days he’d spent aligning the furniture to get optimal feng shui.
“I got it,” Akiko said. “Leave your portical on the bed, open your window, and jump out.”
“Is there a Plan B?”
“What’s wrong with Plan A?”
He envisioned himself splattering against the cement. “I think I’d rather die in an explosion than falling down from a building.”
“Can’t you take a leap of faith?”
“In you?”
“I’ll release a safety net,” she assured him – the nets that went up in case people tried to commit suicide from the tops of buildings.
“Very generous of you. Why would you care if I lived or died?”
“I still need your help tracking down the general.”
“So this isn’t an interdepartmental favor to your alumnus?”
“Not this time.”
“If I’m not very helpful, will you shoot me too?”
“I shoot anyone who betrays the Emperor.”
It was madness to jump out of a building. But did he have any other choice? He looked under the bed again. There were explosives all right. Was this how he was going to die? Think, Ben, think! If he jumped out the window and she didn’t trigger the net, it was very possible they could call his death a suicide. An all-too-convenient closure to a Tokko plan to dispose of him. He preferred to leave a bloody mess. He looked over at the window and knew it was a far drop down. Too far.
“Jam it,” Ben said to Akiko. He tossed the portical down, ran out his room and down the stairs, nearly slipping. He rushed to the front door and grabbed the samurai armor. As it was coated in titanium, he hoped it would provide some protection. He lifted the chest plate and covered his body, ran out of the unit and shut the door behind him. The elevator seemed like a bad option so he went for the stairs when he heard a rumble. The fire was oddly cold and he felt something hurtle into his back and propel him downwards. He closed his eyes, ready for death. “Shikata ga nai,” he murmured to himself, feeling morbidly satisfied that his concluding emotion was a sense of welcoming.
LOS ANGELES
July 1, 1988
1:36am
* * *
Just under twenty-four hours earlier, Akiko had woken her boyfriend early in the morning. Night was dissolving into day and a layer of fog dallied over Venice Beach. She remembered traces of a dream, an old friend painting his house blue, covering the lamps, shelves, even the flowers in a darker hue of ultramarine. She’d reminded her boyfriend of his duty. “If more men with your genetic history don’t contribute to the fertility clinic, the population of pureblooded Japanese will disappear in the USJ.”
“Do you know what I have to do there every day?” he’d protested. “They take the joy out of–”
Everything was nothing for her, while seeming nothingness could signify anything in the proper context. In the wrong context, her concerns about the infertility Japanese men were experiencing from all the atomic weapon testing going on in Nevada could be construed as treasonous.
“Why’d you volunteer me for this?” he groaned.
“Because we’re citizens of the Empire and it’s our obligation to help in any way possible.”
“What’s the big deal about being pure Japanese? You’re French and Korean, and you’re a more important part of the Empire than I ever will be.”
She bristled at his reminder of her polluted ancestry. “The fact that you’re full blooded Japanese is essential to the Empire,” she said, even though, objectively, it m
ade no sense. Some of the finest officers she’d served with were of mixed ethnicity, whereas many of the pureblooded Japanese were arrogant assholes who felt too privileged to listen to common sense.
As an agent of Tokko, she knew hints of personality had to be vanquished. Akiko possessed no photos, despised most gifts as junk, and had only the most utilitarian of furniture. Her kitchen was bare as she rarely ate at home. The floors were concrete and the wood was stripped out in case of electronic bugs. There were no shelves betraying books of interest, nothing worthy of being categorized as a hobby, though she did possess an extensive library of writing recommended during her time at BEMAG on her portical.
She was extremely satisfied with the thought that even if her apartment had been targeted by the terrorists, she’d have lost nothing and her room would be almost indistinguishable from a thousand others. Anonymity was her secret identity. Her appearances were mostly natural with only a minimal amount of sun cream to protect her skin. For official agency visits, she wore dark red lipstick and colored her eyes violet because she found the effect intimidating for her subjects. It was a color combination she’d worked at over the years to produce an almost warpaint-like appearance, and it was the one she’d used when she met Beniko Ishimura.
Almost a day after she’d sent her boyfriend to the clinic, she was at the hospital with Ben. He’d survived the attack and was lying on a hospital bed in front of her, his back being treated for burns. The doctor had assured her he’d be able to return to duty in a few hours, saved by his suit of armor.
“Thanks for coming for me,” Ben said to her. “If you hadn’t delayed that bomb, I’d be a thousand pieces right now.”
“It was my duty,” she replied.
“Even if it was, I’m grateful,” he said. He turned to the side. “I honestly didn’t think you would give a shit whether I lived or died.”
“Why would I not? We’re both servants of the Emperor.”
“I’m glad you still feel that way.”
“Why didn’t you trust me when I asked you to jump out of the window?” she demanded. “If I wanted you dead, I wouldn’t have gone through such an elaborate ruse.”
“It’s not that I didn’t trust you,” he replied. “I’m just afraid of heights.”
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