Chapter 30:

Darkness Itself

Tokyo5: Prosper’s Law


The metro rattled around the bend, the ceiling rattling above where their hands clung to the overhead rail. It was originally the pride of the city now one of its oldest working transport systems.

‘So uhh we’re not going to report to the Chief then.’ Said Rinako.

‘Nope.’

‘And we’re not taking the car…’

‘I told you, it’ll be programmed to bring us back.’

They’d were both nervous. The meeting with Itari had unsettled them and it didn’t help that everywhere they’d been there were blue eyes staring back at them. It seemed like street corner, or doorway had a vanguard posted to it. VisAge had rolled them out as promise, the whole thing must have been planned for some time. There had been several at the station.

She held on tight. The passengers swayed as the carriage swerved around the monorail, swinging outward at its extremes. They seemed used to it, men in suits swaying gently swayed with one hand on the overhead grip the other holding a briefcase. They didn’t even lookup, just carried on reading the holos. The whole carriage was full of the little blue floating squares.

A couple of teenagers were writhing around watching videos in theirs.

She tapped her foot. ‘It’s not as if we know for sure.’ She leant over to Kurama and whispered. ‘All we’ve got is that maniac’s theory.’

Kurama remained silent.

‘I mean, it’s not like we’ve investigated further and have anything to back it up.’ She glanced at him. ‘You know in secret, for instance.’

He looked at her. ‘If you’ve got something to say…’

He looked around. The businessman opposite was looking up over his holo.

‘No, no.’ She said.

After several moments she leant over again. ‘I mean, you’ve seemed pretty quiet lately. Since the Kingfisher thing. Then that meeting with Takeru. Now this—‘

He looked away. ‘Nothing you need to worry about.’

‘I’m your partner. We’re supposed to trust each other.’

He turned back and they stood looking at each other, heads bobbing with the train’s motion.’ He looked away again. ‘Never mind.’

‘What?’

There was a bump and everyone in the carriage jolted.

Kurama turned back to her. ‘Trust… how about you going through my datapad?’

A look of shock now entered Rinako’s features.

‘I left that thing out to—‘ he shook his head.

She now looked up, shame replaced by an angry hook between her eyebrows. ‘You left a trap for me?’

Kurama looked sheepish for a moment. ‘It turned out I was right, didn’t it.’

The train again shook, the man in front of them stumbling. People began to mutter around them. There was a series of rapid thwumping noises as it passed through a series of arches.

She looked away from Kurama.

From a guy who sets traps for his partners… no wonder he’s—

The train jolted hard this time and both of them stumbled forward.

After a long silence, Rinako spoke. ‘I know I shouldn’t have looked but you won’t tell me anything. We’re supposed to be partners.’

He let go of the rail and turned to talk to her. ‘And I’m telling you this is nothing for you to—‘

He grabbed the rail again as the whole carriage shook violently. People were starting to look around now. A baby started crying somewhere.

Kurama looked up. ‘And you proved—‘

This time, there was a deafening screaming noise and the carriage shook with such violence that people were thrown to the floor.

‘What the drak?’ Said Kurama.

They both looked to the ceiling.

A huge rent had appeared in it, a piece of metal flapping wildly at its edge before suddenly flying off into the now visible sky.

A second later, everything exploded.

***

They pulled themselves up. The whole carriage was now tilted to one side, the buildings of the city below replacing the sky in the windows. People were scattered around the seats and aisle, groans filling the carriage. Some were moving slowly. Some weren’t moving at all. A vicious wind screamed through the compartment. In a moment the train had been transformed from peaceful normality to a scene from a warzone. The hole in the roof was long and jagged, a great gouge as though someone had torn open the carriage like a tin of meat. The edges curled up into wicked spikes. In the distance through the hole she could see the sparkling river, winding peacefully through the city below.

‘What the drak’s going on?’ Rinako clung to one of the support poles, now standing at 45 degrees.

Kurama was beside her, looking around. ‘Come on.’ He pulled out his breaker and Rinako followed suit.

They passed along the carriage, picking their way through the bodies and pieces of luggage, hits the button for the compartment door which jerked once before opening and entered the next carriage. In it, was a similar scene, bodies draped over the backs of seats, the left side of the compartment bent inward, and in the middle, Rinako noticed, jutting through the floor, a piece of masonry attached to a sign for Shibuya air-metro.

A single ringing sound resounded through the train. ‘If you are changing for Ikaro Central or the Colosseum, please alight at the terminal. Welcome to Shibuya22… ‘

They looked at each other then continued along the aisle.

‘What could have caused this?’ Asked Rinako, though it was more to the world around her than anyone. Thoughts of terrorists, the LCL, all the left or right aligned fanatics had started running through her head like an identity parade slideshow.

Kurama crouched to look through the window. They were passing into the station now, the floor becoming steeper. On either side, people laid wounded, their hands resting over parts of their bodies. The two boys she saw earlier both lay still. They must have moved into the next compartment.

Drak…

The chunks of masonry were becoming more regular now, poking through sheered out sections of the carriage ceiling and walls on the left hand side. Papers from open briefcases blew across the compartment and out into city through another gouge in the floor, which was now closer to their side than beneath them. She watched them cascading into the distance above the sparkling river, like letters being delivered by some kind of magic. The wind shrieked through the hole, as though the whole train had become some kind of giant’s flute. Then she heard another howling, just behind it, low and deep.

The next carriage was twisted at a more extreme angle making it harder to walk. They had to clamber across the upturned side of the train, careful to avoid any cracked parts of the windows. It was like walking across a frozen lake, unsure which parts could break. Every footstep brought an unnerving creaking sound, or worse the grinding of grass under strain. Now she could hear the sound of alarms coming from the station. Blue lights flashed outside the windows. Smoke was being sprayed from vents at the far end of the carriage.

We must be hanging halfway out the station.

She was just about to point this out to Kurama when she saw that he’d stopped. Ahead of him the smoke had cleared. Where the end of the carriage should have been there was just darkness and the overhead rail, the walls ending in shorn off metal. The front had been completely blown away. She saw through the window that a large section of the station entrance was also missing like something had gone straight through it and the train.

Kurama was staring into the shadows of the exposed tunnel ahead. For a few brief moments she wondered what he was looking at. She could see nothing in the dark.

But that was because she was looking for something within the darkness.

When what she should have been looking at was the darkness itself.

***

‘Drak!’ Kurama knelt down and holstered his breaker.

He grabbed his comm and held it to his face. ‘—Home Station! Chizuru, Chizuru! Urgent call out required, Shibuya 22 Metro. Escalate. Repeat, escalate. Shibuya—‘

Interference and a screeching whistle blared from the comm and he pulled it away form his ear, wincing. The sounds of many different voices speaking across each other urgently was audible from the comm.

‘Alright. They’re coming.’ He called out.

Rinako was just staring ahead. The great shadowy depth of the tunnel was moving. Towers of darkness danced across the tiled archway like the flames of a huge black pyre.

A geist.

The thing was huge. It filled the tunnel completely, a space large enough to house a passenger class cruiser. She could see it glistening in the centre as it rose and fell as though she were staring down into a well filled with some dark inky oil. She saw now that the walls of the tunnel were cracked, sections of it moving gently as though the creature within were breathing.

‘Rinako. Rinako!’

She pulled her eyes from it, and looked at Kurama. ‘What is—‘

‘Radiant.’ He shouted. ‘Kagekatachi by the looks of it.’ He was fiddling with the utility belt at his side.

Rinako’s mind snapped back to reality. ‘Radiant? But they’re—‘

‘They exist.’ he said. He pulled a dark glove over his hand and stood.

She didn’t need to ask anything more. There was something in the tone of his voice that was enough.

They jumped down to what remained of the platform, a gap of about 3 or 4 meters, since the train had rolled up half on its side. Rinako came out in a roll and caught sight of Kurama skittering over to a broken support column. She looked up to the ceiling where its remains were, wondering if that was the safest area to stand. There was a cracking noise as the tunnel shifted, dust falling from new cracks in the ceiling and she ran over to join him.

The tips of the huge shadow geist were shifting in and out of the tunnel like dark water sloshing in a shaking vessel. The distance gave her a greater appreciation of its scale. Pieces of the train were sometimes visible caught in its inks limbs. The train itself had been shorn in half the tail end twisting like a broken spine, carriages hanging out of the shattered station entrance.

She flicked on her breaker.

‘That won’t do any good.’

‘But—‘

‘Trust me.’ Kurama looked in her eyes.

After a few moments she flicked off the weapon. ‘Ok, so what do we do?’

He looked all around the platform. It had been evacuated though several bodies lay motionless on the ground, like some surreal painting of urban sunbathing. In the far distance by the exist archway, a couple of enforcers stood, guns raised. They were waving up the stairs behind them from where the sound of massed footsteps could be heard.

‘Get to the exit.’ He pointed over to the enforcers. ‘I can cover you. Dispatch is already on its way.’

She looked back at him and frowned. ‘Did you seriously think that would happen?’

He was about to protest when she grabbed his arm. ‘I’m a prosper.’ He looked up into her eyes then his expression softened. ‘Yeah, I was afraid you’d say something like that.’

After a few second he let out a breath through his nose. ‘Ok.’ He looked around again. ‘Take the ladder to the maintenance gantry over there.’ He was looking toward a metal scaffold against a wall at the back of the station.

‘I already said. I’m not leaving—‘

‘I know. Not that. There’s an access hatch that should lead to a crawlspace above the station.’

She looked at him, puzzled.

‘—Don’t ask. From there, circle around so you can get above where we are now.’

She looked up and saw a grille in the ceiling. ‘Ok.’ She looked back at him after taking a few steps.

‘Just wait for my signal, ok?’ He called.

‘Ok.’ She stood staring for a few moments. ‘What will you do?’

He looked back at the tunnel where a twisted section of train seating was flailing in the air, grasped by one of the shadowy spires. ‘Uhhhhh. Just… wait for my signal.’

Rinako looked down. One of his hands was glowing, surrounded by pink flames.