Chapter 22:

The High Price of Living

Tokyo5: Prosper’s Law


The lounge where they’d been escorted was never left unattended. There was always at least one of the blue eyed servants present, the steady hum and glow of their eyes more like the nostrils of some robotic guard dog. The butler occasionally came through too, glancing at them and sniffing as though someone had walked something unpleasant through the house.

Funny how the servants can be even worse than the masters.

Kurama and Rinako sat on a period green sofa. The luxury of the furniture made her feel acutely aware of Kurama’s ripped leather jacket and her own clothing and how out of place they were.

Kurama’s eyes flicked up to the nostril-eyed servant. It was so motionless, it could have been a lighting fixture. ‘So, worthwhile interview, I thought?’

‘Yes.’ Said Rinako. She looked up as the butler again passed by, this time carrying a gleaming gold tray. ‘Really learnt a lot from the young chairman.’

She looked at Kurama. ‘How about you?’

Kurama nodded, looking down. ‘Yeah, he put me straight on a couple of things too.’

Lady Takahara returned to the room, the tension of before all but disappeared form her face. After surveying the room she looked up to the tall windows and addressed the servant. ‘Make sure the curtains are opened before our guests arrive, will you?’ Then turned to Kurama and Rinako. ‘Please, please, I hope you can excuse the commotion. We have some very important guests.’ Her mood was completely different.

Blue-eyes - as Rinako had taken to thinking of them - pulled a cord to draw the curtains, revealing the courtyard she had seen earlier, an identical servant-guard standing with his back to the glass.

‘Oh, really?’ Said Kurama.

‘The shareholders for the new launch. It’s such an important time, and we’re all so busy. I’m sure you understand.’

They both stood. ‘Yes, of course. Thank you for your cooperation.’

‘No, it is our duty. I do so hope you are able to find this monster… but I expect it’s far away by now.’ She said.

‘Oh, you’d be surprised.’ Said Kurama.

‘Hmm?’ She looked at him distractedly, as though her mind had been elsewhere.

As they made to leave, two small children, a boy and a girl ran giggling across their paths, the boy wielding a toy light-pistol. Kurama quickly checked to let them pass. The girl had pink holo stains across the back of her dress that were fading as they looked.

‘Isaac, Martia!’ Shouted Lady Takahara. ‘Look at the state of your dress, the guests will be here any minute.’

They stopped and looked up at Lady Takahara, and the boy began ‘Uhhh, they don’t—‘ then on seeing Kurama and Rinako, stopped and bowed in unison with the girl.

‘Please accept my humblest apologies.’ He said. Light dripped onto the floor from the nozzle of his pistol, as though it had a bad cold.

Kurama laughed and shuffled awkwardly. ‘Hey. Don’t sweat it.’ He looked at the girl. ‘Looks like you were on an important case.’

Rinako saw the boy smile and his eyes glance up toward the breaker holstered at Kurama’s side. ‘They’re so polite.’ She said.

‘Well, normally they are. A little nip and tuck does wonders.’ Said Lady Takahara.

‘Nip and tuck?’ Rinako looked up at her.

Lady Takahara’s eyes fixed on her and for the first time Rinako noticed their bright green hue. ‘Being the head of a multinational corporation does have some advantages, you know.’ She smiled.

***

‘What was that, about the age of the building?’ Said Kurama on the flight to Minamoto’s. This was where Intraderma had built their largest consumer outlet, among all the other luxury showrooms. Rinako had only heard it mentioned figuratively, ‘oh looks like something from Minamoto’s’… that it was a real place was a little like entering a picture book.

She gazed out the window. The the fact that children had been sent there was still troubling her. They couldn’t have been more than six years old…

She’d seen the adverts and knew it was becoming somewhat normal in light-space at least, for young people to go for some of the more superficial personality enhancements, or internal cosmetics as companies like Intraderma called them, which sounded a lot better than ‘we will hack off the unwanted parts of who you are.’ Particularly in business. There were rumours some of the agencies behind the newer idols were forcing it on their clients too.

Maybe I’m just getting old. Maybe I should get some internal cosmetics…

She looked at Kurama, taking a moment to register what he’d said. ‘Oh.’

She looked up quickly at the sky-cab driver. He didn’t seem to have any family affiliation, and the comms light between compartments was off. ‘The cupboard in his bedroom. It had been moved recently. And someone had completely cleaned and replaced some of an area of flooring beneath it.’

She frowned. ‘It was the same colour as when my mum worked on the floors at the local estate.’

She had often gone with her after her father had passed. Funny how her mother’s menial work had seemed exciting and exotic when she was that age.

Kurama nodded and looked back out the window.

The light for the partition window came on. ‘Real fog coming on this morning, sorry about that.’ The driver said, and switched on the partition again. Every now and then, the entirety of the district would be swept up in mists generated by the layered skies. It was worse at the upper levels. The price of high living.

‘And the tablets…’ said Rinako.

‘Yeah, we’ll have to check those out.’

Kurama had been infuriatingly quiet the whole way there. Sitting with his head propped on a fist while the mists coiled and brushed their wisp like fingers at his reflection in the window.

Rinako stared out of her own. The mall was coming into view now, blue landing lights flashing on its underside.

***

Intraderma was just one of many outlets in Minamoto’s, like a ride in a theme park for the hideously rich. It occupied a space comprising half the upper floor of the mall. Every store here was high end, and the shoppers drifted around draped in expensive dresses, sunglasses and handbags like living mannequins so that it was hard to tell when you were inside a shop or out. Especially since the actual mannequins were synthetics, cycling through their slideshows on little podia in the windows. The women there all looked immaculate. The men all looked immaculately rich.

‘So… did he tell you anything?’ She said.

‘He pretty much got to up to the point Natsuki arrived at the house, but then... ‘ Kurama shook his head. ‘It was like it all just fell away. His eyes went blank. You saw what he was like. He said he couldn’t remember much else, they’d all been drinking.’

‘Well, he would, wouldn’t he… ?’

Kurama made a pained expression. ‘Yeah but… ‘ he looked at her, ‘Skit was running a hemispheric-scan on him whole time. Came up clear.’

The hemispheric-scanner. The lie detectors of solid-space all had their failings but one of the best and worst things - depending on which side of the law you stood - about augmented reality was that it leant a certain transparency to cognitive function. The hemispheric scanner constantly checked auditory data, what someone was saying, against activity in the neural core - in short, it could tell from which area of the brain a statement originated, like sourcing a brand’s manufacturer. The wrong source and the product was counterfeit. Officially, they weren’t allowed to use them, except in very particular circumstances (those being circumstances in which those administrating the law weren’t very particular…). If he hadn’t triggered the hemispheric scanner it meant what he was saying had come from his memory. He truly believed it.

They glass lift brought them to Intraderma’s showroom before she had time to ruminate on this. The shop was covered in the glossy black and gold text that was Intraderma’s ‘Because You Matter’ trademark. A huge black pebble sliced across the top diagonally served as a reception desk. A black suited man with a neatly trimmed beard came over from behind it, smiling warmly.

‘Welcome to Intraderma.’ He spread his palms. ‘Can I help you with anything in particular?’

Rinako caught him checking out their shoes, though his smile remained in place, like a placard hanging up to cover whatever was underneath.

Kurama held up his id. The placard wobbled slightly.

‘Just a few questions.’ He said.

The concierge (because Intraderma didn’t have shop assistants, it had ‘concierges’…) walked them through the showroom, though it was a tour more designed to lead them away from the very public entrance, Rinako felt. Each part of it was dedicated to a different part of the Intraderma’s portfolio of internal cosmetics so that it felt somewhat like walking through the inside of an enormous neural core, with chambers dedicated to hypocampus work, and two enormous front lobe lounges among all the other side rooms. Each had screens and rest areas where technicians would walk prospective clients through the procedure. Huge animated images of smiling families, fathers giving daughters piggy-backs through reedbanks, and mothers inexplicably laughing at boats (apparently in happy-people-land, boats were hysterical). Happiness and success were the messages.

‘So…’ said their guide, as they arrived at a spotless waiting room toward the back of the premises. The difference between private and public health sectors was written clearly in leather and marble. ‘Was there anything in particular…?’ He clapped his hands together and leant forward.

‘The Takaharas are clients of yours?’

The concierge looked uncomfortable for a moment. ‘I—I’m sorry, there are client confidentiality policies… I’m sure you understand.’

Kurama smiled and nodded, looking around the room. ‘Looks like you’re doing well here.’

‘Oh yes, internal cosmetics have been in great demand since the relaxing of—‘

‘You must be doing well yourself, I mean it’s on commission, I guess.’ Kurama looked back to him and smiled again.

‘Well, hahaha…’ he looked flustered for a moment. ‘The Intraderma family treat all its members very well. We’ve had unprecedented growth just this last year—’

Kurama was nodding. ‘I imagine most of that is through reputation.’

‘Oh yes.’ The concierge looked a lot more comfortable now. His voice took on a practised rhythm. ‘Our reputation is vital to Intraderma’s ongoing success. Repeat custom is the mainstay of our operations. After all it is a very select clientele that we—‘

‘Yes, I’ve heard. I imagine it wouldn’t look too good if it got out that a client was connected to a recent murder.’ Again he looked back at the concierge and smiled.

‘Well, no… that’s—‘

Kurama pressed his lips together and pointed. ‘But you’re right. Absolutely, we should follow official policies. I should call the office and we’ll request a level 27 data purge. There’s no space for any bending of rules here.’

He winced. ‘Of course, we’ll need the correct warrants and that’ll have to go up to data security… you see we’re not as efficient as you, everything has to go through the entire division, there are so many departments, then the request has to come back down through communications— it’s like hitting a ping pong ball up into the sky, goes up to the top then by the time it comes back down, its often quite different from when it left. You just gotta pray its in some kind of shape.’ He laughed and slapped the concierge’s shoulder.

The concierge stared, his lip flickering slightly in approximation of a laugh.

Kurama’s face grew serious. ‘But you know the worst thing… the absolute worst?’ He waited, then leant in.

The concierge’s eyes widened as Kurama whispered. ‘There are people in the office who take payments for giving stories to the holos.’

He leant back and looked at the concierge like a sculptor admiring his work.

‘Can you believe it?! I couldn’t… but its true. Guess they’re not on a high enough pay grade or whatever. But we get stories leaked out over the press all the time. You remember the N-berg data trafficking thing—‘

‘Good heavens!’ Said the concierge.

‘Now… were we just to have a quick discreet look at the records none of that would happen. But you… are… absolutely… right. We can’t go taking shortcuts with something like this. Have to follow policy—‘

‘No!’ The concierge pulled at his collar. ‘I mean uhh… perhaps it wouldn’t be entirely—and yes, we should always do everything we can to aid in any investigation.’ He paused.

Kurama held out his comm-link. ‘You’re sure? Because I can call them right now.’

The concierge gestured behind them, turned, turned back again then bowed. ‘If you’ll come with me.’

Kurama slowly withdrew the comm-link, shaking his head. ‘Well… if you’re sure…’

***

The Intraderma data records were kept in a station behind the waiting room. The concierge evicted the receptionist hurriedly, tapped a few credentials into the screen and left them to it with only a brief glance back at the machine. For a place with access to such resources they weren’t exactly operating at maximum security when it came to clients’ transactions. Everything was in there. Bank codes, transaction history.

‘Level 27 data purge…?’ Asked Rinako.

Kurama sat at the machine, scouring the screen. ‘Sure. Its just above a level 26. You don’t even want to see a level 28.’

How is this guy still in active service…?

They finally located the recent transactions list. It was a surprisingly short list, though several names came up multiple times. There were several celebrities Rinako knew and was surprised to see. Some not so much.

When they entered Takahara, several listings came up. Both children were there. Rinako drew her breath. Then down near the bottom of the names was Takeshi Takahara.

Kurama pressed the name. He frowned as the page shifted. His appointment had been only recent. In fact, two days ago.

‘When did the call come in on the lead?’ Asked Kurama.

Rinako pulled out the little pink card that contained the initial case information. ‘Three point zero.’ She looked up. ‘Two days ago.’

Kurama was nodding. ‘So they called it in straight after the surgery. Busy day.’

He pressed on the history tab and scanned the screen, Rinako looking over his shoulder. The records however gave no information as to the nature of the procedure. All that was listed was the date, name and price of the transaction.

‘Guess we can tell what matters to Intraderma… ‘ she said.

‘You still got that prospectus?’ Kurama turned on his chair, holding out a hand.

The concierge had given it to her when they’d been on his initial tour. Kurama flicked through the pages, images of swimming pools, models dressed as businessmen shaking hands and laughing, other people laughing, a lot of laughing in general and pictures of spas, mountains, clouds and plants. It was more like a holiday brochure. Eventually he stopped, pointed at the page and looked back up at the screen.

20 million Gen. The magic number

There were two words in black and gold script above his fingertip.

Memory Graft.