Mask of Intrusion

I chose a hotel room without consulting Kenji, not that it mattered to him. I chose the location with specific intent. With a hostel or capsule hotel, I’d save money, but the exposure posed a major risk. With an expensive hotel, not only would I blow through my savings, but the privacy became a detriment. As in, if I screamed, nobody would hear. As a result, I chose a mid-priced hotel in a region of Sendai with decent foot traffic and not too much privacy. I specified a room with a window not too far from the ground, in case I needed to escape. Then I paid, went to my room, and flipped a switch, setting my door to the do-not-disturb setting.

Flopping onto the bed, it didn’t feel too different from a holiday. On a whim, I closed my eyes and envisioned Kenji’s apartment turning into the hotel room. I didn’t hear the rumbling of walls, but I heard Kenji’s reaction.

‘What’re you doing?’ he said, with a note of annoyance.

‘It’s my hotel room.’

‘I can see that. It’s also smaller than my apartment.’

‘I thought it’d be interesting to share the same space,’ I said. ‘Plus, I might need the strength amplification.’

‘Are we in danger?’

‘No, but it’s better to be ready.’ I rolled off the bed, rubbing my eyes, and looked out the window at pedestrians. Magenta light from a nearby neon sign illuminated the exterior wall of the hotel. ‘I read about Golden Harvest online. Turns out they have an office here in Sendai. Think it’s worth checking out?’

‘I doubt they’ll store organ harvesting schedules on regular systems.’

‘It might be disguised as something else.’

‘Might be,’ Kenji conceded.

At noon, I changed clothes, left the hotel, and travelled deeper into the city, to the Golden Harvest office building. I kept my distance, observing the exterior from a 24-hour internet café. The building looked similar to the site I’d escaped from in Neo-Tokyo, but it was more spacious and visible from the street. Employees came and went for lunch, swiping an ID card to enter.

First objective, secure an ID card. Not difficult. I followed a group of employees and used levitation to pluck a card from a young man’s jacket pocket. As I walked back to the building, Kenji remarked:

‘That guy might get in trouble for losing his ID card.’

‘So?’

‘Why’d you pick him?’

‘I didn’t. At least, not consciously.’

‘The older guy in the group looked like their superior. Could’ve taken it from him.’

‘Well, I didn’t give it much thought.’ It wasn’t the first time Kenji annoyed me, but I had to control my thoughts, in case they bled into his area. ‘Besides, if he gets fired, he won’t be helping a corrupt mega-corporation.’

‘He can starve with honour,’ Kenji replied with a sardonic tone.

I ignored him, having reached the office building. Cameras dotted the entryway and foyer, but I’d worn a blouse and skirt to blend into the office environment. I doubted Golden Harvest expected me to get closer to their headquarters, so hopefully they wouldn’t check the cameras in Sendai for a while.

I swiped the ID card and entered. My heart pounded as I stepped into the foyer, acutely aware I’d willingly entered a place like the one I’d escaped from mere days ago. A security guard chatted with the receptionist, each with a steaming paper cup. I kept my eyes ahead and walked to the elevators.

‘Calm down,’ Kenji said. ‘My walls are vibrating.’

‘That doesn’t help,’ I snapped, before taking a deep breath. ‘Now what?’

‘This was your idea.’

‘I was talking to myself,’ I lied. The elevator opened and I entered alone, pressing a floor at random. ‘I’ll find a cubicle with an unlocked terminal, browse a bit, and then we’ll get out. Sound good?’

I got off on the fourth floor and found myself among a sea of identical cubicles. They’d mimicked the design of proto-isolation cubicles in work environments of the pre-radiated USA. The cubicles had high grey walls with treated surfaces, so workers couldn’t stick things onto it. All monitors were angled in the same direction, and a secondary machine dictated the work to be completed that day.

‘Take a deep breath,’ Kenji said.

‘I’m calm.’

Kenji inhaled deeply. ‘Smells like capitalism.’

‘Shut up. Help me look for a usable terminal.’

With employees on their lunch break, we easily stalked through the rows of cubicles until we found an active monitor that had been left unlocked. Kenji, who decided now was a good time to reveal he’d done minor work for a mega-corporation, talked me through the icons on the desktop.

An “announcements” icon gave the best information, though it wasn’t much. The only significant notice talked about a major shareholder meeting at the headquarters in Sapporo, occurring in the following month.

‘Check his emails,’ Kenji said. Nothing much stood out, though one of the most recent emails was a back-and-forth with his boss. The employee asked if they could leave their computers unlocked during breaks, as a glitch sometimes caused the computer to freeze after waking up from the sleep function, which required a manual shutdown. The boss told the employee to turn the monitor off and delete their email exchange.

‘Do you think…?’ I poked my head over the cubicle, at the corner office. Hopeful, I rushed there and turned on the monitor. Sure enough, the boss had left his computer unlocked.

Kenji and I searched through files but, again, didn’t find much. Certain documents mentioned deliveries, which may have referred to organ harvesting, but it didn’t help us. We almost ran out of time. Kenji wanted to leave, but I kept searching. Luckily, the risk paid off: I found a document about field agents. I printed the spreadsheet out, scrunched it into my pocket, turned off the monitor, and stepped out of the office as the elevators arrived. Waiting around a corner for the employees to file past, I hurried to the elevators, only to bump into someone. A young man.

‘I think you dropped this,’ I said hastily, handing the young man his ID card. He looked ready to cry and thanked me profusely, but I’d already hopped into the elevator and mashed the close button.

‘That was nice of you,’ Kenji said.

‘Shut up.’ I extracted the document on field agents and perused the contents. One of the columns detailed cities, and Sendai only showed up once. The field agent in the Sendai was named Trushita. Typo? Seemed an odd name, to me. As for Sapporo, there were at least a dozen field agents there, though not all of them had been listed as “active”. Fighting Kishimoto one-against-one was hard enough.

Returning to the hotel, discouraged, I took a nap.