Tokyo Zero

by Marc Horne

  It all goes reddish… various beautiful and delicate Japanese trees break the illusion that we are wasting away our lives in California.

  As it gets dark he says "Okay Mai-chan… you take him out."

  I curl up expecting a bullet in the belly. Not long later I am being driven to a nice disco in Roppongi, Tokyo

  ____________

  The driver drops us off. I am in a silky shirt and my nice trousers. She is in a small black dress like a tattoo. Her hair is down and rolls around in wet tentacles. Her eye make-up is brown and shadowy. Occasionally she opens her eyes wide like exploding suns. I am impressed.

  We walk down the street, past barking Iranians to a Hawaiian-themed bar whose colors call her.

  I am far away from thought of corpses… I napped in the car and refreshed my entire life.Then she says "Sorry about the gas."

  I look at her and her nose is wrinkled. What does that mean… I remember… but it is beyond my reach… metric system.

  "Not your fault, man," I say, a tough guy.

  "Oh… very my fault. I switched the gas."

  I look at the bar. It is calling me. A large Australian man with wiry hair is ejected from it with no touching. He masquerades violence but knows it is not right here. He also realizes they will let him do his full cock dance of defiance so he does it.

  "Mayumi… you killed a family!" I softly exclaim, only just deserving special punctuation.

  "So did you. But with your crazy plan you would have killed me, you, Junko, Yosuke, the whole family and maybe more. Maruhashi and Sato have bad tempers. So I had to move. Do you plan to use fake gas next week?"

  We paid our tax at the front door. They let us in. Girls were dancing on the bar. Low effort dances, like just climbing up there had taken a lot out of them. Video screens attempted to rob us of context. They showed surfing all night, creating a pleasant rolling effect.

  She had a point. Maruhashi was less in control of himself than I had imagined based purely upon his beautiful furniture.

  "That's a surprise… the twist you know. But why would I come all the way to Tokyo to let off a fucking stink bomb in Shinjuku station?" I put a sexy move on her as we were at the edge of the dance floor when this exchange took place.

  "What-ever. Just don't get me killed." and she started to dance.

  I was surprised that she didn't want to die. That had been my lazy analysis of her.

  She danced like a mirror at first, waiting for me. Then I touched her and the mirror broke. She danced like a fighter. She made her own space. Then she looked down at herself, her pretty ankles, and danced more slowly. Every other beat she obeyed. And we danced a hundred dances in the space of four tunes. Her dancing was such that I could have been dancing with her skeleton, the pattern of her moves, and not noticed her excellent flesh.

  Under her tutelage, I drank more colors of drinks than in my preceding existence and my moods were colored accordingly. Laughing at her side, occasionally gasping in horror at a story one of us had told about insanity as it touched us, we had a hell of a time. She told me about a strange journey through the American south with an elderly relative, demented, who had disappeared… that I am sure. And I told her … probably stuff I shouldn't.

  I have never liked dance music as much as I did that night. In fact, no one has. And I have never liked a woman as much as I liked her that night. In fact, no one has.

  Cooling in the street, wearing her lipstick, I said… "Whose side are you on?"

  And she said "You interest me most… at the moment."

  And I said "Well let's drink some bloody more!!!" and she said "I know a good place" and we went there.

  Chapter 37

  In the taxi she told me that Sato had been trying to find out what had happened to Honda. So far, all he knew was that he had not been arrested.

  We were in an alleyway that was long and smelt of fish. There was a little red lantern and a locked door beneath it. She knocked out Morse code on it and the little porthole opened. A beautiful Swedish girl all red like a darkroom light looked at us. Judged us. The door opened.

  Inside were furry tables, and a good number of European girls and scary looking young European and middle-eastern men in polyester shirts playing with knives. In the back was a dance floor inside a large plastic tree.

  I quickly got the impression that these men were Sato's men… the fake English teachers. They drank like they had spent all day trying resist the temptation to slap incorrect verb conjugations out of people's mouths. They were all in their twenties and as their white shirts got wet with sweat and beer, various military looking tattoos were appearing.

  They didn't pay me much attention. I suppose that it would take a few glances to see that I wasn't wiry… just a bit on the skinny side. Mayumi and I took a booth with benches made out of plastic, slick like telephones, that took some adjusting to.

  "So… these guys."

  "Will run around like crazy for a few weeks. Until they are not so useful anymore."

  "Have they worked out that Maruhashi bought them primarily because they will look good hanging from the lamp posts?"

  "er… I think I understand. No."

  "What do they think?"

  "They think they will have a good time. And that they have kone… connects? Connections."

  "Do they?"

  "Connections around their necks!" she joked somewhere between languages.

  _____

  We were there for an hour. At the end she went quiet… she said. "Blake… something strange happened to me last night. For the first time. I had … a … you say… a vision. Do you believe in visions… like the Master's?"

  Okay.

  "Yes."

  "This was my vision: we were standing in a field. You and I. It was your country I think. Not a field… a park. And far away some people were standing… drinking tea. Maybe playing that game… like baseball. In the sky I saw a big plane. It was pulling a smaller plane. They didn't look real. Like in the anime. Space ships. And they crashed. We saw them and you pushed me to the ground. So big, we should die. But no one else jumped. And after a while, we were both a little embarrassed to be the only ones on the floor. We looked up and saw just one little plane, parked by a meter."

  "And where did you have this vision… what were you doing?"

  Her face was childlike for a split second.

  "In bed… sleeping with you."

  I sipped my drink.

  "You don't think it was a dream… a yume?"

  "What?"

  Then I told her what dreams were.

  *******

  Static and fog.

  *******

  I woke up in a heap the next morning. We were back in our room. I had no hangover… suspected of course a severed spinal column. Stretched out my leg and realized what was happening… intense stabbing pain from my foot was overwhelming me. I limped into the bathroom sure that I had glass in my foot. I got there and raised my foot to the mirror. Japanese characters were tattooed all over my sole. She just laughed when I questioned her about it, and of course I didn't raise the topic with anyone else. There are 81 of the fuckers.

  Chapter 38

  Alarms go off. Feet clatter in corridors, like an army is passing. Mayumi tools up and scrambles too. She is a bodyguard after all.

  I manage to get a sock on while all this is happening. I would hate to get shot while putting my sock on, I think, ludicrously.

  Eventually I hobble out of the room. All is quiet now. No helicopters with their drama. No Waco fires surging down the ancient wood of the corridors. I follow my usual path, lagging behind the leaders. I end up in the 'western entertaining room.' Tied up, bandaged and otherwise tiger-striped (like with blood) is the recognizable form of Takeshi Honda, ex-Self-Defense-Force-man. Sato, Mayumi, Maruhashi are in a distant semi-circle in front of him. Security guards with little lugers are behind him. He seems calm, and it is hard to believe they could have managed to tie him up so neatly if he was fighting.
<
br />   The four calmly discourse in Japanese with predictable frequencies of utterance. Honda's calmness is remarkable and seems to bother Sato and Maruhashi.

  I pick up quite a lot. He survived because he knows how to roll. Then he made his way back to the church. The Master had left on a pilgrimage. But he had left a note. It said "Work with Maruhashi… he is a good man" or maybe "a necessary man." Then the others refuse to believe him, that they could not trust him anymore. My name comes up quite a lot during this phase of the conversation.

  Our need for Honda and our many compromises so far give me a premonition of the outcome of this conversation.

  I go and get a drink. So Honda is back. And the Master has sent him. Operation Double Double Double Bluff was underway.

  One would think that letting off gas bombs in Shinjuku station would have a clear and definite meaning. That it did not, sent out a pessimistic message about our human journey.

  ___________

  Next day we gather. It is now two days to zero hour. Honda is in an immaculate blue suit, a scratch or two on his face. The others look even more normal. I am wearing a "I Love Nihon" t-shirt. We are in a gazebo near the pool. This will be our final recon. We will find watch points, refine timings, surreptitiously measure air currents. We are dropped off at different train stations to make our way there. My primary task is to start at ground zero and identify obstacles to the operation of the device, such as cleaning teams, turbulence etc.

  The train doesn't take very long. I see the city sweating. It knows I am coming and is naturally in a state of anxiety. Its people, that brutal scaffold, are in their usual state… the numbness that comes before screaming and bloodletting or before more numbness.

  I get to Shinjuku station. I know it well and ascend to the level just below the surface, where direct air currents are few and far between and awfully predictable bottlenecks will focus the infection.

  I move to the inexplicable alcove that we found. It has no function except to be shadowy and to suck huge volumes of air into the air conditioning system and then spit it back into the main body. I can see from the "Hello Kitty" sticker on the wall that Honda has completed his analysis of the main delivery points that this air flow will deliver to. This will be correlated to Yosuke's data on people throughput at those points to determine the optimum timing for the attack.

  The little vent opens easily: it has been manhandled into this sluttish state by my good friends. I hold my hand on the surface, behind my back and wait for a good few minutes - somewhat tense minutes. During that time I sense no major tremors caused by trains. This means that the delicate glass delivery mechanism will not be triggered prematurely by anything barring an earthquake. And what is the chance of an earthquake and a major terrorist attack occurring on the same day? So I can console myself that I am preventing an earthquake. I do some visibility tests as well with a sheet of white paper standing in for the device. I determine that no one will spot it when it is in place.

  I have been told to take the subway to Ueno, out west, before heading back home. Makes sense. I buy a delicious snack, a can of the Sweat and get on the train. It is cold and almost empty. Empty except for a man who practically makes me shit myself: Keizo Matsuoka… you know… Ko Samsara.

  The train moves into a tunnel. I lean forward and see myself reflected in the glass backed by a shadow: I look serious. "Is this a coincidence?" I ask, bracing myself for a metaphysical cloud to spew from his mouth.

  "There are no coincidences. We are all characters in your memoir, and above that in a slim novel doomed to obscurity. The only coincidence is due to the fault of the author."

  That he is lotus fashion on the bench, hiding his flippers bothers me. But then I see he is in the "silver seat" intended for old people, handicapped etc. I remember that they get cut a lot of slack.

  "Well… ok.. let's talk business. Shouldn't you be in some room with a big map with arrows on it right now?"

  He shifts his weight: I am disappointed that a Yoga master has to do that. He is otherwise looking cool in his kaftan and with a million beads on him.

  "I leave the planning to others. Maruhashi has a plan. My job is done. I tried to let them know the truth, but it is … tangential.

  "One thing I would like to do is stop you."

  I throw a hand up "What? Me? I am just the hired help"

  I am so unconvincing that I begin to wonder if, let alone an actor, I am even human.

  "Did he tell you about Jesus and Judas." He says 'he' like I am talking to my jealous wife.

  "Yeah… I am fully briefed on that. You are Jesus, he is Judas."

  "Have you heard that story before?"

  Honesty is the best policy I decide. Stupidly?

  "We know all about Atlantean mythology. We know all about your cults' retarding effects on human development. Nazis, masons, nouveau-Buddhists, Agarthites, Cthuulans. Bastards. I mean since we are speaking honestly now. And since I think you have fuck-all to do with tomorrow's attack any more."

  "You think I mean nothing. You think my tales of time travel are a bauble I dangle in front of the crowd to keep knowledge from them… scientific, political, metaphysical knowledge that could improve them… improve our cultures."

  The train is still in the tunnel. We seem deep.

  "Well, I have come to realize that all you lot have been doing is slowing the obsolescence rather than the advance of the human race. I mean… Babbage had a perfectly functional computer two centuries ago. The humans should be wandering around eating grass in the elysian fields by now. Instead we have 'Windows 2000.'

  "All you bastards made sure the bomb got out before the Turing Machines. You decided to maintain the reign of kings and culls. I have no sympathy for you or for this race. It's time for bed. The machines will be able to.. to… feel… better than we can, so they get the world."

  His weak eyes are deep and beautiful, moreso than any woman's. I would like to give them as a gift to the one I love.

  "You gamble much on your logic. You trust too much in your master. Let me tell you… I did go to Shamballa… I did travel through time. And I learned all that is to happen in this Earth, And I pledged myself to battle it… to battle you."

  "What???" Was this whole thing a trap? I accepted his offer of a sip of Pocari Sweat.

  "Then I descended into time and had to accept… limitations. I made my all moves as a puppet. I cannot act to stop you."

  "Good. I will not take advantage and smack you in your greasy face. You and your… apocalypse"

  "But I can ask you to stop yourself. That it is the one freedom granted me by the cosmos."

  "What are you doing with Maruhashi… you seem like a nice fellow. Whose idea was this massacre?"

  "Before we leave this tunnel, and before the sleeping drugs in that drink take effect I have three questions for you. The first is long, and I guess, a statement. The other two are shorter."

  My legs are numb, my mind ok.

  "Pocari Sweat!" I shout.

  "1. How can your organization of so few members possibly have influenced history enough to have created the Internet, placed software in all distributed computing devices to allow them to communicate, invented a time-bombed Ebola virus and all the other incredible things you have done while remaining invisible to your enemies except those with the benefit of a god-like perspective? Are you as pure as you think?

  "This leads to questions 2 and 3: Where is your lover and who is your master."

  I don't fall asleep. He just disappears in front of me, snatching a few minutes from my watch as he goes.

  The train stops and I get off, too early and at random, to throw up.

  I am in Omotesando, the funky part of town. So I can stagger in peace. I walk up to the surface. The sun is thorough in its penetration of my organism, not restricting itself to my eyes. The figure of a slim girl in a mini forms in the solar storm.

  "Jesus Fucking Christ!" she says when I get near her. And quite rightly so : It is Claire Blyth
e, my Sister-Lover.

  Chapter 39

  Doutoru coffee shop. I ate ham: she beef. "It's so fucked up!" she said

  Outside the arcade, near the panty-hose machine. "I so fucking hate you," she said

  Eating the ice-cream of the future, frozen little golf balls "uuu fckkkk" she said, crying a little.

  But enough of the highlights!

  So at the top of the steps was Claire. Tall, hanging from some point way up in the sky, tanned, two or three bags that I couldn't imagine not being covered by one, white t-shirt immaculate - shades over the eyes. Strong looking woman: she was totally there.

  "Claire," I said, "I'm drugged. So if I treat you as real… please forgive me."

  She held my face in her hands, swearing like a machine. Then…

  "Baby. Don't get freaked out. Can you come? I want you to come. Baby. Baby."

  Did she really say that? Unlikely.

  We walked down Takeshita-Douri, hand in hand. People were walking in the streets, hand in hand. Waves of people, doused in the soft sound of voices that almost cared about each other, vaguely colored by the violet shade of the Hanzoumon line that came here. Like the Champs D'Elysees of Tokyo, with all the necessary translations that implied. I stayed drowsy because that was easy for a good ten minutes.

  "So who is following who?" she asked, somewhat patronizingly. I was juvenated by her hand holding. Time had always accumulated around her rather than changing her (in my mind)… the girl was inside the woman.

  " 'Whom.' I'm an English teacher now," I said. Pedantry became me like a Sumo loincloth. She frowned, perhaps disappointed by my lack of effort to resemble a normal human being.

  Normal human beings swarmed around us, eating ice cream. Was that not enough for her?

  "So," I asked "I take it you have a message for me? Let's get that over with then we can go and watch the kabuki. One watches kabuki, right?"

  Her puzzlement focused around a pretty pout.