Lucky-Cat Pajamas

Nitya flattened the paper fish out against the stone stump as Kanami’s eyes widened. Its scaly letters smoothened out into something more readable: a distinct handwriting that shifted between languages before settling into English.

“Do you want to read it or should I?” Asked Nitya.

“You read it. You are the one who figured it out, after all.” Kanami said. She poked Nitya after a second. “What are you doing? Go ahead and read it, silly goose.”

“...I’m not a goose.”

“Ahaha, my mistake~”

Nitya grumbled. She leaned closer to the paper fish and began to read.

“You who seek the light, your journey to find it has begun, but O’ Light Seeker, there is still much ahead. Your reward for the discovery of this message is your next clue: have you ever seen a day without its sun, or an eclipse without its ring? Carry this fish with you, and you will find it offers you much more than this message.”

Nitya dragged out a holoscreen or two. She created a small note on her HUD’s home screen and began typing. “A day without its sun…An eclipse without its ring…”

“What does that mean?”

“It means we have someone-and somewhere-we need to visit. Let’s go.” She closed the holoscreens, placing the HUD back around her neck.

“Wait, you're forgetting the fish-look! It turned into an omamori. So cute.”

Nitya picked up the paper-fish-turned-omamori and examined it. A tightly-knit, orange and red bag in the shape of a koi fish held shut with a piece of white string. No longer was there any writing on it, only lovely, embroidered scales. She almost wanted to throw up.

Pulling on the string, Nitya held the omamori up, beginning to peel it open, and stared as Kanami plucked it from her hands. She tied the string back and poked Nitya’s ears. “You don’t open them, silly. It’ll lose its blessing.”

“You believe in things like that?”

“It’s hard not to, with this whole thing, don’t you think?”

“I think I’ll remain skeptical.”

Kanami rolled her eyes. She leaned down and tied the omamori to part of Nitya’s jacket, winking when she stood up. “Don’t worry; it’s only temporary.”

“You’re ridiculous,” Nitya grumbled, tracing the omamori’s string with her fingers. “Let’s go.”

She walked ahead and stepped onto the stairway. Her thoughts drifted as she walked, pausing as something darted from the side of the doorway. Laying a hand over her gun, Nitya’s other hand reached into her pocket and thumbed a button on the heavy metal cube sitting there.

The cube numbed her hand as she pulled it out and pushed its button, the stone wall reverberating when the tip of a baseball bat tapped it. Nitya brandished the metal bat with both hands and it scraped against the stone. She stepped out into the remains of Kanami’s shop.

“So where to next, Nitya? You never told me why-”

“-Hello, Reconnaissance,” Said her HUD in its sing-song tenor voice, accompanied by the incessant chirping of her vitals patch, “Your heart rate has been rising for the past minute. Please-!”

She rammed her hand into her shoulder. Something scuffled around her and-

Crack!

A masked woman fell to the ground with a scream as the bat slammed into her side. In the middle of her mask was the same emblem that was on the motorcycles. Nitya cursed. Of course.

Kanami screamed and Nitya slammed her bat into another person. She dragged Kanami by the sleeve as people swarmed them, pulling her behind the remnants of the operating chair. “The Thanatonic gang. Of course they'd be here.”

“The what?”

“It has a few names: Thanatonic Gang, Gang of Thanatos. Doesn’t matter.” Nitya fished out her handgun and slid her HUD over her head. A gang member scurried in front of them. Her hands wobbled as she fired at their eye and missed by an inch. She cussed under her breath. “What does matter is that they’re Hemera’s little lapdogs. If they’re here, they’ll try to kill or capture us at any cost.”

Kanami chewed on her nail. It was impossible to tell if the red smears on her face were eyeshadow or blood. “What do we do?”

“Can you drive a bike?”

“I don’t have a license-”

“I don’t care if you have a license. Can you drive one?”

Kanami nodded. Nitya handed her the gun and opened a holoscreen. Data cubes began accumulating in her hands. “I’ll hack a bike and you drive, and when I say three, we’re going to run, okay?”

“Okay.”

“Okay. One…two…three!”

Nitya jumped up, running to the street, and dragged Kanami with her, slinging a cluster of data cubes into the building. Her fingers barely managed to grab onto her bat before the cubes exploded. Code and sparks flashed as one. Metal screeched and the building shuddered.

A masked man darted out from a corner and jammed a gun into Nitya’s throat. The holoscreen trembled off. Despite the mask, his hot breath coated her face, smelling somewhere between mint and a nutri-bar. She gagged as he shoved the gun further against her throat. A hand ripped her bat away from her and she thrashed, pushing her nails into his stomach. A bat cracked across his head and he crumpled to the ground without a sound. Kanami pulled her close.

Brandishing the bat as a shield, she dragged Nitya across the pavement and looked at a sleek motorcycle. A screen sat above the fuel tank blinked softly. Its key had been left in. Kanami groaned. “It has a dual-security system.”

“No issue for me.”

“How long?”

“No more than a minute or two. I’ve already streamlined most of the process.”

“Get started. I’ll keep you safe as long as you need.”

Pulling Nitya behind the motorcycle with her free hand and firing her gun with the other, Kanami gave her a smile. Nitya couldn’t stand it. She forced out holoscreens and slammed her fingers against digital keyboards. She wanted to scream.

Pulling up a standard script, Nitya modified it slightly before inserting it in the bike's software. She ignored the stench of fire and the way Kanami shook beside her. She had to ignore it. That was how she operated. That was how they would make it out. Stinging guilt nibbled at Nitya as Kanami pulled away.

“Wait. Don't go out there. All I need to do is route the primary owner to you and your HUD. I can route it to me later.”

“Why me?” Shouted Kanami. A knife’s silhouette pierced through the fire and she swung the bat into its owner, only falling back beside Nitya once they fell. Their knife, sharp and curved, clattered to the ground.

“Because you’re driving,” Nitya said, a miniscreen popping up on both the bike’s screen and Kanami’s HUD. She swung a leg over the motorcycle. “Aren’t you?”

Kanami blinked. She started for a second before rapidly nodding her head and sliding onto the bike. She tapped its screen and turned its key, the engine rumbling to life. “Hold on~”

Nitya hesitated. She clicked her bat back into its box and shrieked as Kanami slammed on the gas pedal.

Clinging to Kanami, Nitya’s chest raced, the wind whipping around her ears. The motorcycle heaved across Fresa’s cracked asphalt and growled as Kanami cut into a highway leading into Ciruela District. Thanatos-branded bikes sped closer. Their symbol glowed, almost lost in the thick blanket of holoscreens and neon lights. Nitya’s stomach lurched as Kanami launched them across a broken connector and into a lower level of the district.

Kanami screeched. “Where do you have this thing taking us?”

“My place, but we need to throw them off,” Nitya pointed to a latticed tower jutting out from a bed of high-rises. “Head towards Ciruela Tower-the traffic is always bad around there.”

“How much is that out of the way?”

“Fifteen minutes.”

“‘Kay. Hold on!”

Nitya held on to Kanami as the engine roared. She could feel her heart pound in her hands. She buried her head in the taller woman’s cropped jacket, fingers curled into themselves to avoid touching her bare skin, and closed her eyes for just a moment.

Ah. It was warm.

Her eyes fluttered open. Impossible to miss and painfully bright, Ciruela Tower loomed above them less than two miles away. Nitya pulled away and wiped her mouth.

“Have a good nap, Ni-ni? I could feel your drool on my back. ” Kanami asked, the smirk evident in her voice.

“Don’t call me that.”

“Ahaha~where do I go after the tower?”

Nitya looked at the motorcycle’s screen. “We have enough gas to circle it a few times. Just do that for a while.”

“Whatever you say and…they’ve been catching up for a while. Started about the time you fell asleep.”

Nitya slid her HUD down and looked behind. Tucked between the cars cruising on the highway, Thanatos-branded motorcycles inched closer. Her fingers traced the outline of her gun’s handle as she looked around the dense highway.

The smell of rubber and exhaust burned her throat. A cacophony of bad music blared. The streetlights twinkled in tall streaks. She sighed. The gun was a last resort.

Nitya faced Kanami’s back and pulled out her phone. It half-projected a holoscreen of the last album she listened to, an average nihilist slog, and she slid it out of view in embarrassment. What did she even open it for? She placed it back in her pocket after choosing a playlist.

Nitya tapped on Kanami’s shoulder. “If you can get us on a backroad or maybe a service tunnel, I can disable them without causing a wreck. We won’t have to circle Ciruela Tower that way.”

“Doesn’t Ciruela border a river? We can lead them towards it, can't we? It'll be a lot safer than a tunnel.”

“You're right. Changing the destination now…”

She breathed in the soggy night air and looked at the Neo-Athens skyline. Kanami leaned the bike to the right, taking a ramp that ejected them back onto the city streets after a loop. Here, the skyline of the other districts was tucked away behind high-rises and lonely trees and obscured by holoscreen ads. Her breath puffed into small clouds quickly lost in the wind.

A motorcycle shot out from an alley and Kanami shouted. She veered left. “Slight detour! If they get close, you’re on your own!”

Nitya pocketed the gun and brought out the bat’s box. She clicked it open, resting it across her lap, and surveyed their surroundings.

A bike scraped against them and its owner reeked of cigarettes. One sat burning in their mouth as sparks flew and metal screeched. They waved a small gun around, puffing mango-scented smoke into Nitya’s lungs before pointing it at her.

Thwap! She cracked the bat across their side. They fell with a cry and their motorcycle eased into a stop a few inches from a fence.

“Modern tech is something else, huh?” Kanami giggled.

“Maybe that'll scare them off for a while.”

“I don't think so, but don't try to swing and hold on~ We're going to break a few traffic laws!”

Metal screeched as the motorcycle leaned closer to the ground and Kanami sliced across the road, narrowly pulling them under a bridge. She laughed with a whoop-whoop! Nitya found herself laughing with her, exhilaration bubbling in her lungs as she rested against the Kanami’s back.

Neon lights blurred and a drizzle pitter-pattered on their hair. Nitya wiped the rain from her eyes, clicking the bat back into its box, and opened a data cube script (its base being almost all of a grocery store chain CEO’s tax information). A zip bomb hovered in the corner. Its name read only “:).”

“Ready, Nitya? We're almost there!” Kanami shouted. The bike lurched. They skidded under a small walkway that smelled of sewer water obscured by herbs. “What do you need me to do?”

Two motorcycles pulled onto the sidewalk they drove on. Nitya tapped on the zip bomb. “Keep us on this strip. I’ll shut down their entire system for a few hours.”

“‘Their entire system?’ Including whoever made the bikes?”

“Their bikes are all jailbroken. A good enough attack will take out the entire gang’s base for a while. But…if it takes out the manufacturer, it’ll just lead back to the gang.”

Nitya’s hands glided across a holoscreen. A bullet scraped her ear and she dug her teeth into her lip. She generated a data cube, spinning it in her hand. Blue and non-explosive, a pretty thing teeming with malicious code that spun around it in thin, binary lines. She almost wished she could preserve it.

Kanami veered right and Nitya flexed her fingers, whipping her head around. She closed an eye. The motorcycles slowed as they crossed a short bridge. Nitya threw the cube.

It bounced off a wall before sticking to both bikes. For a moment, nothing happened. She held her breath. The ever-glowing emblem flickered and then-

The bikes slammed against each other with an ear-splitting screech. Their riders shouted curses and their bikes split apart, slamming into a stop against the river bank, bucking their riders off. Their wheels seized and Nitya could hear the pre-programmed error chime play.

She exhaled. “We should be good now.”

“I knew you could do it, Nitya! How’d you pull it off anyway?”

“Most Quickfoot bikes automatically unzip most files that match the company directory. Even though it’s a major flaw, most don’t know about it. I guess it was overlooked when the gang mass jailbroke their bikes.”

“Hmm, exploiting that to target specifically the jailbroken ones~so smart. So, where now?”

“My place is about thirty minutes from here. Head back towards the tower for a while, and I'll let you know when to turn.”

Kanami laughed, as carefree as the evening breeze. “You got it~”

She smiled before facing the road again. Nitya wanted to vomit.

*

Her apartment building sat, blocking out the moon, to the left of the district’s center and nestled in the shadow of skyscrapers. It and its parking garage were fenced in by thin and aluminum bars obscured by shrubbery, trees, and flowers that could have been real or fake. Either way, they smelled like cheap perfume.

It cost far, far too much to live there for their perfume to smell like alcohol.

Nitya swiped her ID across the automated checkpoint and it let out a little jingle as its gate creaked open. Kanami tilted her head as she drove through. “Look at you in a gated community. Must be nice~”

“The people who own this place don’t do what they’re paid to do. It’s not that nice.” Kanami giggled. She drove in laps for a bit. Nitya pointed at an elevator in the corner of the parking garage, swinging both legs over the side of the motorcycle as it slowed. “We can take the bike in with us, and we should.”

“Not safe to leave it?”

“From the little I know about my neighbors, no.”

She pressed the button for her floor before hopping off the motorcycle and rolling it in the elevator with Kanami. A quiet song played above. She closed her holoscreens, sliding her earbuds back in her pocket, and looked at the taller woman. Her heart panged with something unfamiliar.

Nitya stepped out of the elevator first, breathing in the crisp night air. She slid her nails across her key and held it up to the lock before wrapping her fingers around it and turning back. Kanami tilted her head. “Nitya?”

“I started the fire in Naranja.”

“What?”

“Three years ago, when Naranja District burned to the ground. That was me. I started that fire.”

“Look, if this is your idea of a joke, I don’t want to hear it.”

“Do you think I would joke about something like this?”

Nitya started looking up at Kanami and gasped as she was shoved against the wall. The key fell to the ground. Kanami’s gloved hand squeezed into her throat. Instinctively, Nitya clawed at her before letting her hands drop to her side. Her eyes fluttered closed and opened to see Kanami’s arm configuring into a gauntlet. It was pure and bright and its joints clacked together as it was flexed.

Kanami raised it until it was level with Nitya’s face. Giving her a dazed smile, Nitya met her gaze. “If you’re going to kill me, augh, go ahead. I don’t-I don’t blame you.”

“Why did you do it, huh? Why did you do that? Why would you do that?”

“Ack, I-”

The gauntlet dropped. Kanami let her go and she fell to the ground, scrambling onto her knees. She pressed her palms against her neck. The gauntlet configured itself back into an arm and Kanami held her head in her hands.

“Oh God, what am I doing? What am I doing?”

Nitya looked up at her. She was surprised to see she was crying. She was more surprised to find her own eyes filled with tears.

*

Nitya opened her apartment door a while later and sank into the couch as Kanami parked the motorcycle beside her aloe vera plant. She pulled off her boots, exhaled, and stood up before Kanami even had a chance to turn around. “I’m guessing you want to take a bath?”

“It would be nice if I can, yes.”

“Do you want the bed or the couch?”

Kanami blinked. “Ah, well, I’d feel pretty bad stealing your bed~So the couch is fine.”

“Then your bathroom is over there, by the washer. That bathroom only has the bare minimum, so I’ll grab you some stuff from mine…” Nitya said, pointing her finger and placing her boots on a small shoe rack. She looked Kanami up and down. Everything from her red and orange hair to the black and red tracksuit pants she wore that matched her cropped jacket was covered in dirt, dust, and debris. “I’ll get you something to sleep in, too.”

“No, Nitya, it’s really fine-”

She waved Kanami’s words away. “Just wash what you’re wearing now after your bath-but before that, I’m gonna order delivery. Want anything in particular? I’m thinking Chinese.”

Nitya placed an earbud in her ear after ordering, shutting her bedroom door with a soft click. She grabbed a basket from her closet and sat on her tub as she stacked products into it. Maybe this would absolve her.

Maybe, maybe.

She placed the basket next to her left foot and dug through her closet. Being a foot shorter than Kanami, Nitya’s closet was full of things slightly-too-small for the other woman. She grabbed what she could: underwear with an anime logo, a mismatched pair of socks. Nothing else could fit. Nothing else except-

-A set of men’s pajamas, a plain white pair except for a lucky cat on the shirt. It was cute, holding a large coin, and a bold red outline separated it from the rest of the shirt. A poorly embroidered heart Nitya had made was ironed over the coin. She laughed as she traced the stitching of the words I love you.

She’d bought these for him when she was little, and now he would never wear them again.

Pulling the pajamas off the hanger, Nitya folded them and placed them on the top of the bucket, scooping it up and holding it against her hip as she walked to the second bathroom. The water wasn’t running yet.

“...Now almost everyone is gone, Luca. You, mom and dad, Nina-I mean, it’s pretty common in a world like this, right? So, it’s not supposed to be a shock, you know? But it is. Nina’s gone. I’m almost completely alone.”

Nitya raised her hand to knock, hesitated, and set the basket down as she leaned against the wall.

“I guess you both died because of the same person. I met her a few days ago. She’s smart, like, much smarter than I am, and pretty, too. She’s the reason you died, but she’s also made sure I didn’t die. I don’t-I don’t really know what I’m supposed to make of her.” Kanami sighed here. “I mean, she slapped me when I was having a goddamn panic attack! I almost hurt her only an hour ago! Now she’s treating me kindly. I don’t understand, Luca.”

She slid down the wall. “So much has happened. Nothing is really making sense right now. I just wish she’d try to understand me, or at least see me as a person.”

Nitya stood. For a while, there was only crying interspersed with soft, haggard breaths. The water turned on. The doorbell rang. She knocked, placed the bucket inside the bathroom, and set the food on the coffee table. She didn’t bother grabbing her food.

Her bedroom door slid shut. Nitya peeled off her own disgusting clothes, climbed into her bed, and stared at Neo-Athens in the window.