The Hunger

Club Deus- New Kyoto- June 17th 2233

1:45am

Ichijo and Haruto had parted ways for good. For the rest of the evening, he saw neither hind nor hair of the man and apparently neither did any of the bottle girls. He spent the rest of the night mingling, talking to a myriad of successful men and dancing to the best of his ability. Aside from Haruto he must’ve been handed at least a dozen private lines. Kaiya was a success and that came as a small comfort. Ichijo knew, without a copy of Haruto’s brain the mission had been a failure.

Sakura rounded up the girls after a few hours and they quickly vacated the scene. Once in the limo, the energy ramped up to the fun, boisterous levels of before. Ichijo sat quietly in the corner, racking his brain for a plan to present to Jaelynn. Wondering absently at the silence that had suddenly overcome his thoughts.

Since he had stepped out to talk with Haruto, he hadn’t felt the pulsing numbness on the top of his head. Jaelynn was either occupied or not listening to his thoughts at all. It was a relief and a source of persistent fear. Did she give up on him? Would she kill him now? He searched for answers in his mind, finding nothing. All the while on the car ride he made infrequent eye-contact with Sakura Taira who gave him a serious look. He knew that she knew.

The limousine pulled into a housing district south of New Kyoto. At various points the girls filed out one at a time, having been handed a garment bag and hanger for their dresses that would go back to Ms. Threadbare the next day. This pattern continued at various addresses until only Ichijo and Sakura remained.

The car stopped and a short man in a suit and hat stepped into the cabin area. Ichijo assumed it must’ve been their driver. He tossed two more garment bags and hangers on the seats near Sakura and Ichijo respectively. These ones, in contrast to the ones handed to the rest of the girls were filled with a change of clothes.

“Put those on. And leave your dresses in the bags, someone else will drop them off.” He ordered.

The two got busy undressing. Ichijo caught himself admiring Sakura as she removed her clothes. Sakura caught his glance and gave him a genuine smile. He averted his gaze and began removing the ribbons in bunches. Since he had no idea how to remove the pieces properly, he simply shoved them into the bag as tightly as possible.

His new clothes were a strange kind of relief. A single plaid button-up shirt and form-fitting pair of pants. On a separate hanger was a red pair of underwear and a bra. Upon replacing the g-string for the underwear he felt a wave of relief wash over him. He finally felt less naked for once. He pulled on his pants and was fiddling with the bra when Sakura tapped his shoulder from behind.

“Let me help.” She said, adjusting the cups into the correct place and hooking the bra in the back. With a shock, he realized just how sore his chest had gotten over the course of the night. He could breathe a bit easier now and he no longer had the urge to slouch.

“Thanks.” Ichijo responded. “I wasn’t sure how to ask, I mean… you know.”

“Yeah, don’t worry about it.” Sakura walked to the front of the cabin, already dressed in an elegant blouse and skirt. She knocked on the screen separating the cabin from the driver’s seat and said, “Good to go, Hiro.” The car began moving again. A long silence followed as the two stared at one another. “Don’t think too hard about it.” Sakura continued. “We’ll go to sleep and get debriefed tomorrow morning, that’s how this stuff goes.”

“So you are like me.” Ichijo inquired.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about, new girl. All I know is the plan failed. Someone from the organization will be by to find out why and we’ll move on to the next assignment.” Ichijo decided to probe further.

“Do you work for Jaelynn Amadeus?” He asked.

Sakura turned to him with a wild look in her eyes. She leaned towards him, her elbows resting on her knees as she studied him intently. The fire behind those green embers seemed to flicker with uncertainty as she did so. “Don’t talk about Jaelynn Amadeus. If you’re lucky new girl, you’ll never have to see her again. Do your job. Don’t ask questions. Keep your head down and you won’t have to think about Jaelynn Amadeus.”

“You might want to be more forthcoming. If you’re somehow assigned to me, you’ll be seeing her soon.” Ichijo promised. Sakura was taken aback at the remark. She settled back into her seat and closed her eyes. The rest of the drive was spent in silence.

The car drove out of the city and into the sky as the road rose several stories. Ichijo realized they were headed for a tiered city. One of the many advances in the last century was architecture that laid the foundation for another layer above. A tiered city functioned in that way with houses, shops and buildings built around massive central pillars that decades later would serve as the support structures for an upper tier. The car drove between two layers of civilization. Through the dark streets of the second tier eventually they came to a modest, brutalist building with three levels largely separate from the rest of city.

Sakura exited the limousine carrying her dress, indicating for Ichijo to follow. As he did he noticed out of the corner of his eye a black van had pulled up behind them. The same one that he had been abducted in. Leaning on the hood was a dark figure he couldn’t make out, but he decided against investigating.

Ichijo followed Sakura to the apartment’s façade. There were three cube-like cement entrances stacked on top of each other. The upper floors each accessible via their own spiral staircase. Sakura took the staircase to the third floor and opened it. Ichijo followed her inside, hearing a little too late the footsteps following them up.

Sakura turned on the lights revealing a traditional genkan. Beyond the lowered entryway was a hall leading to the common areas. To the left a small door indicated a bathroom. And to the right was an open entryway to another room. The two removed their shoes and stepped into the hallway. Sakura turned to their right and flipped a switch revealing a modern kitchen and Jaelynn Amadeus.

“Good evening, ladies.” Jaelynn remarked, leaning against the stove. “I presume you had a pleasant drive?” She asked, looking into the hallway beyond Sakura. Ichijo turned around and dropped his garment bag on the floor. Two men towered over them in the hall. “Pin her down.” Jaelynn ordered and Ichijo’s face hit the kitchen floor before he could think.

The two men turned him over and slammed his body onto the raised counter in the center of the kitchen. The wind left his lungs followed by a pitiful gasp. Each man had grabbed an arm and a leg and pressed them to the counter so firmly he thought they might fall off. Sakura slid into one of the kitchen’s corners; her arms folded with a concerned look on her face. Ichijo recognized one of his assaulters as Joseph. The other man must have been Hiro the driver, still wearing his suit and hat.

“Let’s talk, Kaiya.” Jaelynn said softly. She leaned over his face and made eye-contact. “Do you care to explain your actions tonight or do I need to dig it out of you?”

She smiled sweetly in the way Ichijo had seen her do so many times in the 7-Fifty-Seven. The eyes of a woman who felt content, who was happy with what she was doing. He finally realized what those eyes meant. She was looking to sink her teeth in. To bite down and rip flesh. Every time she had looked beyond the glass at him she had been hungry. Finally, she was going to have her meal.

“I know! I know! I didn’t get Haruto Minazuki’s brain scan!” Ichijo blurted. He gritted his teeth, hesitating to say what he had to next. “But it wasn’t possible to begin with. Your intelligence was wrong.”

“My intelligence? The organization doesn’t make mistakes, Kaiya. I am one node in a vast network of brains that looks to find the best action for us to move forward. And if you’d followed the meticulous instructions I set out for you you wouldn’t be in this situation. I’d have my information and you’d be sleeping soundly waiting for your next assignment. Instead… Sakura.” Jaelynn turned in her direction. “Would you care to explain to Kaiya what she did wrong?”

“Ma’am. She hacked into the mind of a non-target and she leaked classified information to the public.” Sakura looked at Ichijo with immense pity. “She also tampered with organization property.”

“Very good. Now, again Kaiya. Do you care to explain yourself?”

He racked his brain, trying to place each offense. He knew he was taking a risk hacking the fat man but… Leaked information? Tampering with organization property? He couldn’t place them. He decided it didn’t matter, he needed to convince her that he was worth keeping alive. “Sakura, could you reach into my garment-bag and pull something out for me?”

Jaelynn glared at Sakura. After a second she nodded allowing her to rummage. “What am I looking for?”

“A small white card with inlaid lettering the code is- 5dE88f6390oT3. Should be between two magnets in there.”

Sakura fussed with the bag for several minutes. Meanwhile, Jaelynn wandered around the table to Joseph, surveying the weapons on his hips as if deciding on which one she would use. She reached down and unbuckled the spiker. A long-barreled machine with a wicked rotating barrel full of barbed spikes. The spiker fired spikes made of supercharged lead. The spikes, when making contact with a solid-brain, would melt the drive completely making recovery impossible. An augmented human could take a bullet to the head and potentially survive. They wouldn’t survive a spike bolt.

Jaelynn twirled the spiker in her hands then placed the barrel against his temple. That would be it, one impulsive trigger pull-later and he’d be dead. In a moment of panicked clarity Ichijo realized that he couldn’t feel Jaelynn tap into his mind. She still hadn’t done it the entire time he’d been there. Something had interrupted it, something that started when he talked with Haruto Minazuki.

“I found it.” Sakura declared, handing the card over Ichijo’s body to Jaelynn.

“That’s Haruto Minzuki’s personal line. He’ll be expecting a call from me later. If I call him, he said he’s willing to talk, or even give me a job.” Ichijo explained desperately. “If you think this man’s mind is that important you should consider keeping me alive so I can get that information. Unless your organization is fine with letting something like that slip by.”

Jaelynn looked down at him with disdain. “So? Is this all you have to show for tonight? Some cheap intelligence we could gather at a moment’s notice?” Ichijo clenched his jaw.

“I’m not talking about his private line information. I’m talking about a person who can use that line to their advantage, can you get that at the drop of a hat?”

The thirteen-character code would allow him access to Haruto’s private line, after that, the client could either accept or reject a connection from outside. If the person recognized the connection and person, they would indicate. After that, another string of twelve characters would be added to the code corresponding to Ichijo’s line and for every six hours after that, an encrypted “key” containing the new passcode would be sent to any who had previously established a connection allowing them to connect automatically. And only those with a unique twelve-digit code of their own along with the original 13 character code would be able to unlock the new passcode and be able to send a message.

This level of encryption was certainly possible to spoof but it required a lot of work and to top it off, private lines like this still left the ultimate decision of whether to accept a call up to the user of the service themselves. Haruto Minazuki wasn’t likely to answer a call from someone he hadn’t met before. He was less likely to answer to someone he wasn’t interested in.

“Also. If I had tried to hack his brain tonight, I would’ve been compromised. He had two guards shadowing him the entire party. Or did none of your bottle-girls notice the slight shimmer following him around the venue?”

“I remember seeing that, actually.” Sakura muttered from her corner.

Jaelynn lifted the spiker and aimed it for her head next. “So what!? You think the organization got you bad info too?”

Sakura raised her hands. “No ma’am,” she cooed timidly. “I’m just explaining what I saw.”

Jaelynn lowered the spiker and returned her attention to her captive.

“All I did was tell some people I was Joben Gima. I doubt any of them would believe something so insane. I remember hacking the fat man, but I don’t care. As for tampering with organization property, go ahead and scan my brain. The only maintenance I underwent was at the laboratory before I left. If there was interference with your thought-tapping maybe it was Haruto Nakazawa. When he walked up to me, I got a weird feeling. Might be he wears a jamming device on him of some kind. That’s all I can think of.” He closed his eyes as he felt the spiker press between his temples.

The barrel lifted and he heard a loud crack! A meaty thud hit the kitchen floor as both Joseph and Hiro released him. Ichijo’s eyes snapped open, and he saw Joseph standing back in shock. Hiro the driver lay on the kitchen floor with a lead spike protruding from his forehead. Blood began to seep out from where the rod had penetrated. He was human.

Jaelynn dropped the spiker on the floor with a clatter and stormed out of the room. “Sakura or Joseph, I don’t care which, plug that girl into a diagnostic machine. Have her write a detailed report of her conversation with Haruto and give it to me on an encrypted line.” From the hallway another shadowy figure emerged, sliding a coat onto her person. “Once we have next steps for you, we will reach out. Oh…” She glanced back at the body of Hiro the driver. “Would you get someone to clean that up, as well?” She left, and a heavy air hung over the scene.

Ichijo lighted from the counter and opened the garment bag. Inside he retrieved Joseph’s lighter and handed it back to him. “Here.” Joseph took it without looking away from Hiro. Two men arrived from the front door with a box. They placed Hiro’s corpse inside and carried it out wordlessly. They were already planning to kill somebody.

Joseph swore, then left with the cleaners. Sakura slumped against the wall and sighed deeply only managing to stand up after a few minutes. Ichijo found himself surprisingly calm as he stood there. He was alive and for now that meant his existence had possibility.

“I uh, I was supposed to let you know when I got here that I’d be your roommate. Joseph will be around, obviously to… keep track of things. But if you want me to run your diagnostic, I can do that.” She looked pale, her hair even seemed a tad grey in the light of the kitchen lamps.

“Yeah, I’d be grateful for that.” Ichijo said.

The two wandered into the common area. Everything, much like the kitchen was minimal and practical. The floor was an intricate pattern of well-laid tatami. The pink, white, and green accents depicted flowers in bloom. There were plenty of mats to sit on. And in the center of the room a large kotatsu with a silver teardrop lamp hanging over it centered the space.

“I’m going to shower.” Sakura expressed shakily. She pointed to the silver lamp and snapped her fingers, the lamp lowered from the ceiling a smidge and a small panel opened up. “If you want to get things started you can plug in there.”

“Thank you.” Ichijo obliged, getting comfortable under the warm table. He retrieved the male net plug from under the panel. A cleverly disguised terminal. He thought, he’d never seen the like. He fussed with the egg-shaped screen of the silver teardrop eventually finding the prompt to begin his diagnostic. Unlike the more practical machine at the organization’s laboratory this one seemed designed for a preschooler with bright buttons and flashy icons.

He decided that since Sakura would be taking over after a while, he’d trust the computer to give him a deep scan and he pressed the button to begin the process and laid his head on his coming from the hallway he thought he heard Sakura Taira sobbing.

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The casket sank below the grass like a passing rain shower. Around him, Joben’s family feigned remorse about having not been there for him. He knew the truth, as his grandfather’s sole heir they all wanted to show solidarity in case he found it in himself to share the wealth. What they didn’t know was along with his decent amount of savings, Joben had also inherited his grandfather’s debts. If he managed to hang onto a fraction of what he’d inherited, it would be a miracle.

He felt a hand on his shoulder, comforting him. Joben glanced over to see Hiroki Nakazawa with snot and tears erupting down his face like Mt. St. Helens. You idiot, it’s not your grandfather who’s passed away. He patted his friend’s hand and returned his attention to the ceremony. So much cost… and for what? So a few of his family members could pretend they gave a damn? The only people that belonged at this funeral were him and Hiroki. They’re the only people that spent any amount of time with the old man. His grandson Joben and Hiroki the great doctor’s only pupil in neuroscience.

The ceremony wrapped up, and family members funneled past to give him some fake goodbyes. Hiroki shook each of their hands, Joben stared at the hole in the ground thinking about his future. As soon as they’d left, he turned to his friend: “He was missing something when they put him in there.”

“Yeah. I saw it leave when we were at the hospital.” Hiroki sighed having finally wiped the moisture from his face.

“I don’t mean his soul, Hiroki!” Joben snapped, having a hard time expressing his frustration.

“Well, what do you mean, then!? I don’t know what’s going through your head when you talk so vaguely!”

“I mean… In his brain, he had an augmentation.”

“An augmentation? Like what?”

“Like… I don’t know! He asked me to dig it out of his head when he died. That’s why we had to have a closed casket.”

Hiroki’s face turned pale. He seemed disgusted at first but then, curiosity won over. As usual with him he was always trying to learn something new.

“So what was it? The augmentation?”

“That’s just the thing… I really don’t know, Hiroki. I was hoping you could help me figure it out. I’ve never seen anything like it, it was…” The two men glanced back. In the distance they saw the funeral director craning his head towards them with suspicion. Joben put his arm around his friend and they walked away whispering.

“Come over to the house tomorrow night and I’ll show you what I’m talking about.”

“Sure thing.” Hiroki promised.

The cold autumn wind buffeted them as they wound their way out of the graveyard. About them death seemed to dance, inviting them to play. And play they would, if only they knew what they were toying with.

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Somewhere in layer two of New Nantan- June 17th 2233

8:35am

Ichijo jolted awake, finding himself in a bed far too large for him alone. He threw the silken sheets off. The body of Kaiya Arakawa was still dressed in the same clothes as before. He held up the hand and it responded to his movements perfectly. Sakura must have gone out of her way.

He vaulted out of bed and followed the scent of freshly cooked eggs to the common room. There, over the bar that separated the living room from the kitchen, Sakura Taira was cooking breakfast with an apron of all things.

“Good morning.” She said, the events of last night seemingly forgotten.

“Uh… hey. Sorry I passed out I should have told you I’m-“

“Don’t worry about it. I know what it’s like. You don’t want your body moving in a way you don’t want, and you don’t want to have someone poking around in it.” She placed a plate of omurice on the counter. The ketchup read: “かいや” with a little heart in the corner.

“This is too much, really.” Ichijo insisted.

“Don’t worry, I was already cooking. You can cook breakfast tomorrow, how’s that?” She said, squirting out a little “さくら” on her own omelet before digging in. The two ate and Ichijo couldn’t help but notice cleaning supplies lining the counter, cans of empty soda and other things. It wasn’t until halfway through his omurice he noticed that Sakura was wearing a bathrobe. Her hair, an uncombed mess, fell around her head in half-dry clumps.

“Did you… have a good sleep?”

“I couldn’t sleep. You know how it is when you’re busy; and all that.” She trailed off, filling her fork with bite after bite of hot omurice. The steam exiting her mouth could power a turbine, but she kept shoveling until it was down.

“Are you okay?” He asked, blowing on his next bite before taking it.

“I’m fine. And I don’t need a heart-to-heart Kaiya. Nights like last night come with the territory.” She insisted, clearing her plate and offering to take his. He finished his last few bites and handed it over with a thank you. “Jaelynn isn’t using thought-tapping because you’re here, at my place. If you say something, I relay to her. Just thought you should know.”

“Is that your way of saying this place is bugged?” Ichijo scoffed. Sakura stared off into space.

“You know… I never checked. I guess it would make sense.” She rinsed the plates brusquely.

Ichijo finally decided he was done beating around the bush.

“You said a minute ago that you… ‘know how it is?’ Are you like me? Did Jaelynn put you in another body, Sakura?”

Sakura dropped the plates in the sink with a clatter. Her eyes narrowed fiercely as soon as he’d said it. “I don’t talk about it.” She snapped.

“What do you mean, you don’t talk about it?”

“I said! I don’t talk about it, Kaiya. I don’t think about it. This is my life. I live it as well as I can, and I enjoy what simple pleasures I can glean from it. Everything else is dead to me. I don’t trudge it up anymore and that’s fine by me. I’ve managed to convince Jaelynn to let me erase a lot of the old stuff and it’s made things easier. Like I said, no heart-to-heart will happen here. I’m content.” Kaiya rounded the corner to the living room

“But to spend your life like this, to live under the thumb of this… organization! How can you deal with that?!”

“Look around you, Joben Gima.” Obediently, his eyes darted about the well-lit living space to the comfortable amenities, the lavish furniture and décor. “I get to live in this. I attend parties where I’m fawned over and loved. I have friends, I do some dirty work but not much. You really think I care about pride or honor? I’d rather live like this than starve in some alleyway unable to pay for my augmentation-upgrades or cybernetic enhancements.” She threw off her robe and tossed it over the couch.

“Joseph will be here in about two hours with your next assignment. Can you behave yourself?” Sakura asked.

“Do I have a choice, warden?” He replied. Doing his best not to glance down at her voluptuousness.

“Nope!” She exclaimed. “I’m going to bed.” And with that she stormed into the bedroom and shut the door.

Ichijo sat in silence for a while trying to picture his next move. Two hours… what could he do with two hours? He scanned the common room, considering the TV, the kotatsu… the teardrop computer.

After a moment of pondering, he sat down, plugged into the net and called up Haruto Minazuki.