Super Geisty

Rinako had thought that Ritsuo’s basement of basements had been their last stop but apparently not. Halfway along the Sorayo vertex Kurama had pulled over. A thick snow was blowing outside the car, so that she could just make out the lights in the windows of a few cheap stores and the underside of a viaduct above them. Didn’t look like the best neighbourhood.

‘I’ll just be a minute.’ He said and got out the car, sleet and and a bitter wind lashing against her side.

‘Aren’t we going to Ten Skies?’ She leant toward the door but it slammed shut before she could get an answer. Rinako watched through the window as Kurama ran holding his jacket up above his head before disappearing down a side alley beside a brightly lit store outside of which holo-sheets lay stacked over a couple of stands.

She leaned closer and squinted through the window. The layers of snow made it hard to see but in the distance she could just make out a sign hanging above the alley, where the gigantic residential buildings stretched away into darkness. Takuya Pass.

She looked back down into the alley. Kurama had stopped outside one of the buildings where snow was mounted on a small step.

What’s he doing? Wait, what am I doing?

She leant back in her chair for a few moments, watching vacantly as a man picked up one of the holo-sheets outside the store.

After a few moments she sat up again and looked back down the alley.

Kurama was holding something now. The snow was coming down more and more heavily as though threatening to obliterate the whole scene like the artefacts in an ancient film stock. She could just about make out something in his hand as he crouched. It looked like a bag. A paper bag like they give you in cafes along the strip. The thumping of the wipers became the only sound she was aware of. He crouched and moved something on the ground. It was a brick. He carefully placed the bag where it had been, then moved the brick back in place and stood up again staring at what he’d done for a moment before looking up and down the alley. There was a loud knock at the window and she almost jumped through the roof.

‘Miss, would you like any—‘ a man, his face barely visible in thick gloves, scarf and coat was shouting at her through the window, a crate full of some sort of flowers in his arms.

She waved her hands at him and made an apologetic face before leaning back in her seat and exhaling.

That. Almost. Killed me.

She looked back out the window. Kurama was still there, looking up at the building now. Then, as though with the changing of some signal within him he turned and ran back toward the car, holding his jacket above his head like he was swimming back up out of a dream that had almost swallowed him.

Rinako sat back in her seat stiffly.

There was a momentary burst of noise and cold air as Kurama flung open the door and sat beside her before slamming it shut. He leant back for a moment catching his breath, his body carrying with it the lingering coldness of the world outside. ‘Sorry about that.’

He flicked the ignition switch and the stick lit up. ‘Alright, I hope you’re ready for this.’

***

He hadn’t been joking about Ten Skies. It was a sight to behold. The car had stopped in a huge glass dome from the inside of which the dark foreboding city was transformed into a sky of pinks and blues populated by the occasional swimming cloud. A screen flashed up with a vector frame face and asked them a series of questions regarding their destination and clearance. You actually needed an appointment to get into the richest sector in Tokyo5. And that’s what it was. After a few minutes in the dome, during which the only clue that something was happening was the occasional flickering of the sky, the transparent walls folded away like a glass flower in bloom and the car rotated on a bed of vaporised clouds into a large park. All around them stood other, much more expensive vehicles, these reserved not for residents but outsiders rich or lucky enough to visit.

They walked a short distance, all the way the vaporised clouds clinging to the ground up to their ankles. It had a strange synthetic smell. The sky was a similarly artificial shade of blue, likely because it was artificial. Kurama explained that the district got its name from the fact that when it had been built the residents, largely celebrities and high fliers in business or some other lucrative pursuit, refused to accept any level being lower than the others so they’d ended up synthesising a separate sky for each level. Each was custom designed, some months being rented out to top end jewellers or haute couture brands, and others featuring some sort of art installation where you’d see the work of whoever the culture holos claimed was the uppest and comingest of the moment. Last month there had been some sort of liquid fireworks display in which drops of acid coloured light fell and dissolved into the vast blue above them like paints into water. The whole thing was a huge vanity project for whomever owned the most fashionable skyscape that month. The residents had about as much interest in the works themselves as businessmen who ended up paying for works of art for their waiting rooms by name rather than appearance. She looked up and wondered what this one would be like when the day’s ocean receded and the glittering peaks of stars showed through.

Their destination was a mansion on three floors. A white colonnade stood outside and a marble path ran through the gardens, winding between several fountains up to the enormous front door. The sound of running water was a constant.

Kind of… tacky. Thought Rinako. The sort of thing rich sportspeople invest in when their personal shoppers are unavailable.

It was the Takahara estate. Several of them were names in the corporate sector, but by far the majority of their wealth was down to the patriarch, Shigemasa Takahara, the recently passed CEO of Intraderma Cosmetics. The rest of the family were supported by this single figure like a weighty chandelier suspended by a lone fixture. And it was weighty. Kurama looked around the grounds as they waited and counted 27 vehicles by the time the door was answered, each worth more than he could afford if he saved for ten years.

‘About time. We’ve been waiting all day, Shimetsu is quite beside herself!’ A thin lady in a satin green dress whisked them away from a black suited butler who had barely finished opening the door, and led them into the house.

‘Shimetsu?’ Asked Kurama.

‘Yesssss… she’s had quite a shock haven’t you sweetheart?!’ The woman was speaking to a vicious looking fluffy black dog that she carried about cradled like a baby. Rinako thought how the physical characteristics of artificial species always seemed to triangulate a particularly spiteful nature.

Kurama looked up as they passed beneath a giant wooden spiral staircase in the foyer. The ceiling went up and up, through fresco after fresco, a glass dome just visible at the top. It was like looking at the inside of a telescope.

‘You’ll be wanting to go straight to the murder room, I expect.’ She said.

‘The err.. murder room?’ Asked Kurama.

‘Yes! Why, don’t tell me you haven’t been told the details??’

Kurama looked at Rinako for a moment. ‘Listen…’ he realised they hadn’t been introduced.

The woman stuck out her hand, encased in a long black velvet glove. ‘Takahara. Lady Osbeth Takahara.’

‘Right.’ Kurama regarded the hand for a moment. ‘Lady uhh Osbeth.’ He turned back to the foyer where the butler stood. There were several other servants around the walls, robed, metal plates just visible beneath that gave off a strange almost imperceptible buzzing. Their faces were geometric bronze masks with pin pricks of blue light for eyes.

‘The thing of it is… we don’t really deal with murders.’ He held up his badge. ‘Strictly geist stuff.’

‘Well of course!’ She shouted, loud enough that Rinako half expected jewels to fall from the lights suspended above them. ‘That is why you were called!’

***

‘Ah, here are they?!’ An overweight half-european looking man in a tweed suit pulled himself up from a sofa and the lights of a holoscreen in a room off to the side of the hall and rushed through the doorway to greet them. He immediately shook Kurama’s hand with both of his, then bowed.

‘Excellent. Good to meet you, my good fellow!’ He had curly hair and a walrus moustache. His face suddenly took on a stern expresison. ‘You’ll be wanting to check the body for clues, eh? Excellent work!’ He slapped Kurama on the back.

‘Really, must you always be so uncouth?’ Lady Takahara turned to Kurama and inclined her head, smiling with strained delicacy. ‘Do excuse my husband. He’s not accustomed to guests from below.’

Below was what the Skies residents called anywhere outside the district, and, Rinako had started to think, probably how they viewed the people that lived there.

‘Wait, husband?’ She said. ‘I thought Takahara-san—’

‘Oh yes.’ Lady Takahara placed a gloved hand against her chest. ‘Ernest helped me through the whole thing.’

Yeah, sounds like it…

‘We married not two months ago.’ She looked down and Ernest took her hand.

‘He was a great man.’ He said. ‘And the best business rival I ever had.’

‘Right…’ said Kurama. Both he and Rinako looked at the swirling frozen-holo ring around the Lady’s finger.

The Takahara mansion was as expansive in its depths as it was in its heights. Rinako couldn’t believe it every time a door was opened by one of the blue eyed servants and another hall stretched away into the distance, covered with expensive looking wood panels and paintings. She looked at the paintings as they passed and began to see a family resemblance in each.

Maybe a little too much of a family resemblance…

After they’d passed numerous banquet halls on the sides of the corridor, they reached a much smaller circular vaulted room, with walls of curved wooden bookcases. Several wheeled brass ladders allowed access to the higher levels. In the middle of the room was the body of a man in a brown suit, in a posture resembling the letter Z. Kurama looked up. It looked like he had fallen, the neck bent one way and legs the other. Around the body there was a holo-light outline like the ones they used in the cop shows.

‘Did err… did you—?‘ he gestured toward the outline.

Ernest stepped forwrad holding the lapels of his jacket. ‘That was the young lad, wanted to keep it all, you know…’ he waved his hands, ‘… no one touch anything that might be evidence,’

‘Yeah. Thanks for that. ‘ Said Kurama. He crouched to take a look. Rinako was had already circled to the far side.

Kurama looked up. ‘Ok, well if you dont mind…’

‘Yes, please, go ahead.’ Said Lady Takahara, standing beside her husband.

Kurama climbed to his feet. ‘I mean… we normally prefer to investigate murders, you know, without members of the public. We’re traditional like that.’ 

Rinako looked at him.

‘… If you would.’ He added.

‘Well.. ‘ Lady Takahara looked slightly taken aback.

‘Come on.’ Barked her husband and steered her away by the arm. She glanced over her shoulder several times before leaving the room. ‘Let’s leave these to do their job.’

Several minutes later one of the blue eyed servants came in, looked around and removed a couple of jewellery boxes and an expensive looking antique vase from the room.

***

They had been examining the body now for just under an hour. It was, to all appearances, a male, apparently in his 40s, who, according to Skit, had no pre-existing medical issues besides some minor liver damage related to drinking. They’d already been given the victim’s details as part of the report lead but it was good to check. Beyond that, there was nothing out of the ordinary for a geist related death.

‘Notice anything weird.’ Said Kurama after several minutes of silence had followed their comparing observations. He was still crouching scratching his chin. ‘Apart from the kids drawing a line around the body...’

Rinako looked down at the body. ‘Well… I mean… it’s quite… ‘

‘Geisty.’ Finished Kurama.

‘Super geisty.’

‘Yeah.’ They both stared at the body. Aside from the major physical injuries, the victim had the superficial burns associated with geist encounters, the eyes were dim, the feet bore the telltale scorch marks that came with the discharge of electrical energy, there was even a clear point of entry in the skylight… all absolute, textbook signs that he had been killed by one of the glitches. It’s just that it was exceedingly rare for all of these signs to be present at once.

‘It’s almost like a geist was trying to show off to all the other geists in the neighbourhood.’ He brushed away some of the dust around the victim’s shoes and looked up. Ceiling dust.

‘Or someone has been doing a lot of reading.’ Rinako was looking at one of the bookshelves on which several volumes entitled ‘Concerning Geists: An Evidential Account’ stood.

They looked each other. They’d spent so long checking the body, they’d neglected to investigate the room.

The door opened and Lady Takahara snuck back in, dog in arms. She looked around sharply, checking the number of paintings on the walls. ‘When will you be done?’ She asked.

‘Excuse me?’ Said Kurama.

‘This… ‘ she waved her hand around, and the black puppy slipped a bit before she scooped him back up, ‘—investigating. Will it take long?”

Kurama looked back at the body. ‘Something more important to do?’

‘Takeshi has a meeting with the shareholders.’ She swiped at her hair. ‘He’s not just the heir now.’

‘This geist,’ said Kurama, rocking back on his haunches. ‘Came in through the window, did it?’ He gestured above them where the skylight was smashed.

She remained staring at him. ‘Yes, I suppose.’ She said.

‘You weren’t here to witness it then?’

She paused a moment. ‘I’d have thought it was obvious.’

Kurama rubbed his chin, surveying the floor. ‘Where is your son by the way? You’ve mentioned him but we’ve not seen him as yet.’

‘Oh,’ she smiled, her eyes growing heavy. ‘He’s a very busy man. He’s really grown into his father’s role.’ Her eyes clouded over.

‘Yeah, well, send him down when you can.’

‘Down.. ? Oh.. oh, no. That’s quite impossible, I’m afraid.’ She pulled the little abomination dog closer. ‘He has to prepare for the meeting, there’s really no time for—‘

‘That’s ok. We can talk to him down at the station. Where is it you said, Intraderma? I’ll give them a call right now and schedule an appointment.’

A look akin to mortal horror appeared on Lady Takahara’s face. ‘Well, no, no that won’t be—‘

Kurama had his comm out.

Lady Takahara was already halfway toward the door. She turned and came back half crouched, one finger raised, the pup hanging like an eel in her arm. ‘One minute.’

‘That was mean.’ Said Rinako after she had left the room.

Kurama continued to brush around the victim’s feet. He smiled. ‘Yeah.’