Pornopsychedelica

by Chris Johnson

  Tomoko looked up at the picture of Montejo. 'It's a striking image. Are they here for him or for what he believed in?'

  'Both. They're people here who think they've known about him for years. People can be influenced easily with the right words and images.'

  'So, you can hack humans now.'

  'They've been getting their brains hacked for years.'

  'We need to get into that hotel.' Tomoko didn't need to indicate the building, it was rising up like a giant spike, red lights winking from the very top, a serrated edge outlined in blue. Two police helicopters flew overhead. 'We need to find a way through.'

  Tomoko couldn't see anything on fire, but the air smelled of smoke, like Chinese New Year when everybody lights firecrackers. She thought about lucky red, the red lanterns and envelopes full of money, thought about Fernandez. Tomoko was moving faster now, felt the urgency of what she had to do. She could hear sporadic gunshots, almost lost under the roar of voices. They were being jostled and pushed, but not by any single person. She took Teja's hand and guided her to the edge of the street, where the way forward was clearer.

  They had to push and shove, climb over cars, walls and barriers, eventually reaching the steps that led to the glass doors of the hotel. People were forcing their way out and others trying to get in, pushed back by security guards unless they presented a room key. A hand came up straight into Tomoko's chest and she got the man in a wrist lock, forcing him to his knees.

  Police and army personnel were in the lobby, distraught guests and hotel staff trying their best to cope with it all. She recognised one of Peter's men, yawning like he'd been sat there for hours. He called the android waitress over to order another drink. Tomoko turned her back to him. Guests were sitting on the floor, surrounded by cases and rucksacks.

  Tomoko said, 'Find out where Fernandez is. Keep a low profile. I'm going to find Peter.'

  Two news drones buzzed overhead, cameras feeding live images to JPN News 54. A cop chased them with an umbrella. The elevator arrived and Tomoko moved quickly across the lobby, the last in just before the doors closed. She asked for floor thirty-two when a woman asked her which she wanted.

  They stopped at what seemed every floor, people pushing in and then out, desperate to get back to the safety of their hotel rooms or maybe thinking they'd be safer trying to leave the city. Maybe some were leaving to join the protests.

  Tomoko was out on the blue-carpeted corridor, walking with purpose, just like Saigo had taught her. Move like you belong there, he'd told her, like it's something you've done a thousand times before. She passed room 3007, then 3009. She found the room numbers on the south side, checked the guest list Teja had hacked and jacked at Kiyoshi's. All the rooms were booked, no indication that any guests had checked out. She was lost for a moment, doubled back to find another corridor.

  She pressed her ear to door 3060, heard the television, moved down to 3062 and did the same. She couldn't hear anything, but 3066 had one of those 'please clean the room' signs hanging from the door handle, seemed a good chance that room would be empty.

  A woman came out of a room and went down the corridor. The lock opened with the hacked keycard Teja had made at Kiyoshi's, and Tomoko entered, moving through the darkness toward the balcony. She fumbled a moment to find the door handle.

  Outside, she checked the schematic on her phone to see where Peter's room would be. She climbed over the balcony and jumped down to the one below, ran along the top of the stone balustrade and leapt across to the one opposite, then down again, landing softly. She had her gun in her hand as she edged to the glass doors.

  Two men tumbled across the floor inside the room, vanished from view for several seconds and then came back. She saw a woman running towards them, saw her thrown back when the scuffle collided with her. The two men seemed to be fighting over something. Tomoko slid open the balcony door and crawled inside, on her feet when three rapid shots sounded and the woman screamed.

  Tomoko took everything in with a single glance. Jefferson dead on the floor, his jacket open and a white shirt covered in blood, Peter taking a moment to scoop back his hair with his fingers before raising a gun to Kameko. Tomoko shot him in the back of his hand, knocking the gun from his grip. Peter yelped.

  He pointed at Kameko, his whole body shaking in anger. 'Shoot her, Tomoko. She tried to kill me. Fucking bitch.'

  He was holding his hand and wincing, blood running in a steady flow from his fingers.

  'I'm not shooting your wife, Peter.' She picked up a cotton napkin from the table, the remains of a half-eaten meal there, and threw it at him. He wrapped it around his hand, Tomoko watching him staring at her. Peter had the huge hotel suite Tomoko expected. She could see a dead guy slumped up against a wall, maybe shot by Jefferson. 'Kameko's lover came to kill you.'

  'Piece of fucking shit.' He leaned against a stool at the bar, pressing the napkin to his hand. 'Why would you do this to me, Kameko? I gave you everything.'

  'You gave her life, Peter,' said Tomoko. 'She's got her own mind. Get over it.' She helped Kameko to her feet, still on the floor where she'd fallen. She kept the Glock on Peter as she said to Kameko, 'Have you got somewhere to go?'

  'Yes.' She couldn't take her eyes from Jefferson. 'I have somewhere. I need to get a few things.'

  'Hurry up.'

  She went into another room, the sound of clothes being thrown into a bag, and then she reappeared, taking a last look at Jefferson before leaving.

  Peter was still breathless after his scuffle. 'She didn't even look at me?'

  'Why would she? She's a simulant. She processed what happened here a hundred times faster than any human. She knew the best action was to leave.'

  'Where will she go?'

  'Probably to Yamaguchi.'

  'Ridiculous.'

  Tomoko took her time to look around the room, peeking quickly behind doors. 'Do you think Jefferson would try to kill you without getting some kind of clearance? With you dead, Kameko would just assume your role. And with Jefferson by her side, all your men would just fall into line.'

  'Fernandez isn't even on the transport yet. Yamaguchi wouldn't allow anything to happen until his grandson was safely away.'

  She could see a droplet of sweat tracing his temple. 'Maybe Jefferson saw an opportunity. Maybe he thought you were getting suspicious.' She kept the gun trained on him. 'But with you out of the picture by your own wife, it would look as though Yamaguchi had nothing to do with it.'

  He smiled then, shaking his head. 'You won't get out of here.'

  'Sure I will,' she said. 'How many men do you think you've got outside the door? I'll guess none, or maybe one or two that already know about Kameko and Jefferson.'

  'They'll know you're here.'

  Tomoko smiled. 'They'll know why I'm here.'

  He shuffled against the stool, adjusting the napkin around his hand. The whole thing had turned red. 'We have to put this behind us and discuss your future. Your place is at my side. Didn't you always get fair treatment in Malaysia?'

  She fast-dialled Teja and raised her phone to her ear. 'What have you got? Damn, that was fast. I'll meet you there.'

  She slipped the phone into a pocket and motioned to the main door with the gun. She followed him closely out onto the corridor.

  'Looks like your boys have gone for a coffee break.' There were a few people in the corridor, guests of the hotel making their way to and from other rooms. Three stood talking. She poked him with the gun to tell him to start walking.

  'Where are we going?'

  'To find Fernandez.'

  He straightened his shirt and tucked it back into his trousers. 'Why all the fuss? Just get it over with.'

  'Soon as I have your money and you tell me what happened to my father.'

  'You came to rob me?'

  'I don't know how much money Yamaguchi paid you, but it'll cover what you owe me.'

  'I don't have it. It's with Giselle.'

  'And you trust her?'

 
; 'Why wouldn't I?'

  'Have you not looked outside?'

  He slowed down and she poked him again with the gun.

  'I can't believe you'd come to rob me like a cheap crook. Didn't Saigo teach you any manners?'

  'He taught me a lot of things. You told me once you had to keep me on a short leash.'

  He turned to face her when they reached the elevators. 'It must have been an emotional moment.'

  She touched the call button. 'You don't have emotions. But I believe you loved my mother.'

  'Loss is something we both have in common.'

  'We have nothing in common. Where are the rest of your men?'

  'Some with Giselle, some with Fernandez.' He moved towards her, stopping suddenly when she raised the gun. 'This is insane, Tomoko. If it's just about money, I'll pay you. I'll get you an apartment in the city. But first you need to kill that bastard, Yamaguchi, and find my wife.'

  The elevator arrived and Tomoko pushed him in, grabbing a guy by the collar and dragging him out. 'Take the next one.' The glass elevator allowed her to see across the city, the angry mob, cars on fire, petrol bombs flaring holes in police lines. Another elevator passed them going down and Tomoko saw Giselle in there, a fat briefcase at her feet. 'Isn't that Giselle? Where do you think she's going?'

  He peered down. 'My money.'

  'She won't get far.'

  'My offer still stands. Let's put this nonsense behind us. We need each other right now.'

  'How do you figure that?'

  He was holding his arm tight to his body, trying to ease the pain in his broken hand. 'Bring Kameko back to me.'

  'You still want her after what she's done?'

  'She might send more people to kill me. Maybe even Yamaguchi if he knew what she was up to. I'll need you to protect me until I can get back to Malaysia.'

  She watched him looking out across the streets, to the distant police lights. 'Maybe I'd get a better deal from Yamaguchi.'

  'Yamaguchi can go to hell.' He slid into the corner of the elevator. 'Where are we going?'

  'I told you. To get Fernandez. But first somewhere quiet so you can tell me what happened to my father.'

  'What's the point? It was a long time ago. We can discuss this in Malaysia.'

  'I haven't come all this way to protect you from your wife. Tell me what happened to him.'

  'I killed him,' he said. 'It's what you've always known.'

  'Maybe Jimmy was telling the truth and you paid him to leave.'

  He looked back to the city, to an explosion that threw white and crimson fragments into the night. 'You never really knew Saigo. You didn't know what type of man he was.'

  The elevator doors opened, several floors below from where they'd started. The corridor was empty and she motioned for him to go first. 'Any sudden moves and I'll drop you right here.'

  A third of the way down the corridor, Teja came out of a room. She kept her voice low. 'Room twenty-six oh-nine. Other side of the fire door, about thirty metres further down. Two guards inside, two outside.'

  Tomoko said, 'How do you know?'

  'Kiyoshi's fly drones.' Teja showed Tomoko her phone, the screen displaying two images, one of two men standing either side of a room door, the other picture showing a man sat on a sofa watching TV, another at a bar. It looked as though he was making coffee. The information broker had had all the toys for snooping when he couldn't hack what he needed. 'Fernandez is in another room talking to a friend.'

  'He has somebody with him?'

  'On the phone.'

  'I know you,' said Peter. 'You're the woman from the leaving exhibition. You went with Fernandez back to his apartment.'

  Teja smiled. 'Yeah. That was me.'

  'You won't get Fernandez. You'll be lucky if you get into his room. The transport will be here soon.'

  Teja never looked up from her phone. 'They can't get through. I overheard Yamaguchi's people in the lobby saying that they were going to get him out on foot. The armed courier is about half-a-mile away.'

  Tomoko said, 'Teja, go get Fernandez.'

  Teja went around the corner and down the corridor, still looking at the phone.

  Peter seemed more anxious now. 'What are you doing? Do you know what will happen if Fernandez isn't on that flight?'

  'Yeah. Yamaguchi's grandson won't be getting on.'

  They heard gunshots, the sound of someone running and then falling heavily.

  'Tomoko, you need to be reasonable. There's a lot more than money at stake here. You could have finished me a hundred times over. Now is not the time.'

  'What do you propose?'

  'Help Yamaguchi get Fernandez out of here. We can put everything in the past.'

  'I'm not sure about that. Teja has Fernandez.'

  She was walking towards them, Fernandez in front. He was wearing purple silk pyjamas, his feet bare, looking around like a cat on its way to the vet. Teja had spots of blood on her face.

  Guests were in the corridor now, drawn from their rooms by the gunshots. A man and a woman ran down the corridor. Tomoko was about to say something to Fernandez, when Peter pushed a fat man into her who was squeezing between them. The man lost his balance and squashed her up against a wall. She managed to push back and get him to his feet.

  'Hide him somewhere,' she told Teja, then took off after Peter. She saw the elevator doors closing, numbers indicating it was going down. She bolted for the stairwell, taking the steps three at a time, her vision a dizzying spiral. She ran back onto the main corridor several floors down and jabbed the elevator call button, but he had already reached the floor below. She ran back for the stairwell, went down and back onto the corridor.

  There was some kind of refurbishment work going on here, tools and ladders, ceiling tiles missing and cables hanging down. She could see all the way to the windows on two sides of the building, Peter in the middle of the room, running between tables to a fire exit at the far corner. She could hear him spitting curses when he ran into a chair in the gloom and tumbled over. He got to his feet quickly. She raised her gun and fired, the bullet punching through his shoulder and spinning him into a second round that went through his side.

  Tomoko continued to move closer, watching his body twist and contort, trying to manage the pain of ruptured flesh so he could keep moving. He fell against the window. Two news camera drones hovered right in front of him, lenses peering through the blood smeared on the glass. The giant screen on the building opposite relayed JPN News 24's live feed, Peter's face right there. Tomoko was maybe twenty feet away when she shot Peter in the back of the head, the drones descending to follow him to the floor. Tomoko stepped over Peter to look out across the mob, to the giant screen, Peter there with a puddle of blood that filled his left eye orbit, agonal breathing pushing his tongue out.

  She heard footsteps behind her and turned without looking down at the body on the floor, seeing Fernandez enter the room, Teja on his heels.

  Tomoko said, 'I was about to call you.'

  'I heard shots.'

  'Were you seen?'

  'No. Everybody seems to be locking themselves in their hotel rooms.'

  Fernandez said, 'What have you done? You have killed Mr. Yang. This will be very bad for you.'

  'It will only be bad for you.' Teja pushed him deeper into the room.

  He was looking around, at the step ladders in the middle of the floor, the tool boxes, power drills and saws. 'I know your name, Tomoko Iwamoto.'

  'You killed my friends. You cut Jennifer in half.'

  'That was unfortunate. You never saw the finished piece. Had I had the time to show you, you would have seen the beauty in what would have been a magnificent creation. I only needed –'

  Tomoko holstered her gun. 'You want to be a piece of art? We can make that happen.' She opened the balcony doors and the news drones hovered into the room. 'Get naked.'

  'Right here. This is not the place.'

  'Break his arm, Teja.'

  'Okay. Okay. This I can do.
It's no big deal to be naked. You are two pretty girls.'

  Tomoko watched him undress, thinking about what he'd done to Jennifer, what he'd turned Martin into. How he'd sliced into her and touched the intimate parts of her body. 'What do you think we should do with him?'

  'Whatever you decide, it needs to be quick. Yamaguchi's people won't take long to find us.'

  Tomoko took him to where a cable was hanging down from the ceiling, wrapped it several times around his wrists. She told him to stand on a tool box and pulled the cable tight so his arms went rigid above his head, used the ladder to tie the cable off into a hook above the ceiling tiles. Teja kicked the box out from underneath him. The cable stretched with his weight so his toes were just touching the ground.

  He was making a childish, whimpering sound. 'If you are trying to scare me, I will admit I am a little concerned now. If you knew of my importance to the New World you would not be doing this. Mr. Yamaguchi will not be happy about what you have done to his friend.'

  'Fuck him,' said Teja. 'So what do you want to do with him?'

  Tomoko sat on a chair. She glanced across at Peter, somehow detached now from everything the man had ever been. She'd felt that way when she'd raised her gun, felt the hesitation rising inside her, but pushed it aside to commit herself to killing him. She had her answer about what had happened to her father when she watched him trying to get away, his body shattered, bleeding, snarling curses, like all the false dignity in the man had drained away, leaving the violent thug he'd always been.

  Tomoko said, 'You've never suffered, Fernandez. You've never felt pain or hunger, you've never been caught in the rain and had no one to call. Your whole life has been inside a comfortable bubble, everything going your way. It's time you learned what pain really is. What it feels like to be completely helpless.'

  'I've felt that,' he said. 'All those things. I understand what you are saying. I have been very lucky.'

  She looked at Teja, the high cheek bones and the flawless skin, eyes wide and bright. Tomoko watched her reach into a pocket and then apply black lipstick, smiling at her like they were sharing a moment, although Tomoko wasn't sure what it was. She pulled the drop knife from her pocket and placed it on the table.