by Kotaro Isaka
MS
REMOTE CONTROL
Tlie big man lumbered the few meters' distance to Masakado and stood over him. Had he opted for the revolver out of restraint? C^r was it just handier? Haruko now charged at him again, but he sensed a movement and spun around to face her. A wave of fear swept over her—was he going to shoot both of them?—but she couldn't stop herself.
Her body moved almost automatically, remembering how her college friends had taught her to do it. Step in with the left leg, plant it next to the opponent's right. Grab him at the waist, then pull with all your might as you swing with the other leg. And don't underestimate the strength of someone who has to carry a child around all day.
The leg moved, but it was Haruko herself who was thrown. She didn't quite get the physics of what happened, but as she launched the judo move, she found herself flying through the air and rolling on the ground, pain shooting through her whole body. Her arms and legs were scraped, her knee throbbed, and there was blood on her hands, though she couldn't have said from where.
The man was immovable. And was now aiming the revolver at her. But just as she was closing her eyes, thinking it was all over, she saw him rock forward slightly. Masakado had tackled him from behind. Dragging his leg, he bulled into the big man and made him turn. Akira hadn't been kidding about rubbing the lamp, and this genie was sturdily built, like his namesake. Lord Masakado. But the results were the same. He let out a cry when he, too, was thrown to the ground. The big man's earphones had come off, yet he seemed otherwise unfazed as he turned the gun on Masakado.
But in the scuffle the cell phone had come sliding toward Haruko— Masakado had tossed it in her direction as he rolled across the pavement. She picked it up. "Hit 'redial,'" Masakado said, his voice nearly gone.
Haruko pushed herself up on her knees and then managed to stand. She looked back over her shoulder at the screen. Aoyagi was still waving. No one had shot him yet.
She suddenly recalled a night years ago when she had forgotten a date they'd made to go to the movies and had shown up after the film had started. Aoyagi had been annoyed, but in the end had forgiven her with the warning not to be late next time. It seemed like forever ago. But she wouldn't be late again.
THE INCIDENT
She fumbled with the phone and pressed "redial," even though she could feel them watching her. Then she stood with the phone held over her head. "All together now," she said, her voice barely a whisper. The big man rushed her, but she had heard the sound of the call connecting. "Go, Aoyagi!" she said.
In the next instant, at several places around the city, the shushing sound of rockets could be heard one after another. Psssst. Psssst. Psssst. Then long, shrill whistles overhead as streaks of light rose high in the night sky. And finally, as the whistles ended in deep booms, the darkness was lit up with great explosive blossoms, which in turn slowly fell apart and drifted to earth. Flowers of light a hundred meters and more across, exploding in the sky.
In the shadow of a tall building, a great chrysanthemum. Since fireworks were never launched in the middle of town, the scene was utterly strange, as though the office towers themselves were sending out ribbons of fire. The night was no longer black, as the sparks lingered endlessly, floating ever so slowly down to the streets of Sendai. Finishing at last with a satisfying fizzle.
As the three men stood transfixed, looking up at the fireworks, Haruko got a running start and landed a kick between the legs of the big one.
Masaharu Aoyagi
His footsteps echoed from the sides of the drain, amplifying to a deafening boom. He was running along the tunnel again, as fast as he could go, tliough in the dim beam of the tlaslilight it seemed less a tunnel than a short tube that ended just uj) ahead. As he Hung himself forward, the tube went with him into the dark. T liere was no way of knowing liow far it went, how long it would go with him, and no time to wonder, llecoukl only run, exi)ecting sofuier or later to bang into a wall.
Had they been fired by remote control?'Fhey had come Irom .i number ol places around tlie city, but it was fiard to imagine someone had been at eac'h spot to light the fuses at exactly the same moment. It must have becMi done*
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REMOTE CONTROL
from a remote site. And then he remembered that Todoroki had once told them that the day would come when a whole show could be done by punching in a number on a cell phone. "But the fireworks will always be the same," he'd added. Professional pride.
When Hodogaya had called him earlier that night to tell him the manhole covers had been switched, he'd said he had another proposal for him. Aoyagi had moved to Inai's bathroom so that Kojima couldn't hear before continuing the conversation.
"What kind of proposal?"
"Don't get me wrong; I like your plan. This whole thing about telling them you're innocent on live TV is a great idea, and if it works, you're golden. All I'm saying is, you might want a backup. If it doesn't work, you'll need a way out."
"If it doesn't work, Tm through," said Aoyagi. He was too weary to think beyond the park.
"I understand how you feel, but you might like to know that there's another manhole right there in the middle of the plaza. It's too dangerous to come out that way—you're better off walking out from where you've planned—but it might be just the thing for a getaway. Anyhow, I put a fake cover there, too, just in case. Just a thought we had."
"We?" It seemed the longer Hodogaya was involved, the more people knew about his plans.
"Just a few of us who've been brainstorming on your behalf."
"When I get out on that plaza, it's going to be surrounded by police aiming guns in my direction. You think they're going to just stand back arid watch while I dodge down a manhole?" It didn't matter how light the cover was. "If I so much as flinch, they'll shoot—manhole or no manhole."
"Not if we can distract them for a few seconds. Listen, if you decide you want out, just wave your arms. As soon as we get the signal . . . kaboom!"
"What d'you mean?" But as he said it, Aoyagi suddenly thought of Todoroki. "Fireworks?" he asked.
"When I found out you used to work at that factory, I put in a call. I explained the situation, and they said they'd be happy to help."
"But the police must be watching them, too." And they were probably tapping the phones at Pyrotechnics. If anybody was planning a display on his behalf, someone had probably found out.
THE INCIDENT
"Fortunately, the boss's son can't stand the media any more than the rest of us. When I tracked him down, he jumped at the chance to help."
"Todoroki's son?" So he'd come home from Aomori to take over the family business.
"He's going out now to do the setup; then later, if you give the high sign, he'll do the rest. And 1 don't care who they are, cops or secret agents or the goddamn Pope, when those fireworks go off, they're going to look—at least long enough for you to get down that hole." When Aoyagi asked where he would put the launchers, Hodogaya had laughed. "You'll have to wait and see," he said. "But if you end up back underground, you should head west. The drain passes under Nishi Park and empties into the Hirose River. Comes right out of the bank."
"And 1 just jump into the river?"
"There's a kind of gate at the end, like a big flap. It opens from the water pressure when the drain's running. They've got it fixed up to look like a rock, sort of like camouflage so it doesn't spoil the view. But you should be able to push it open from inside. The river's pretty shallow right there, so you can just walk across. There's a way up the far bank, near a driving school."
"And after that?"
"After that, you're on your own."
He went on running as fast as he could, not stopping to look back. The tunnel seemed to roar. He could feel the walls closing around him.
T hey must have realized by now that he'd gone down the manhole. T he fireworks might have distracted everyone for a moment, but the T V cameras would have caught him as he disapj^eared underground. Still, it would ta
ke them some time to seal off the drains, and at the moment they were probably desperately trying to figure out where he would come up. And there was also the chain hcjlding down the cover in the park—that should slow them down a little.
He had to keej) going. His head was practically em|)ty, his brain past thought, but he knew one thing—his file was over. I lis footsteps echoed rlown the tunnel. The flashlight let him see a short way ahead, but beyond that was darkness. Behind him, too. And that was his file now in a nutshell. His past and his future were black, anti even the present, the ground under his It'et, was vanishing last.
t2'>
REMOTE CONTROL
"If they could make a double of me, could you make me into someone else?" After Hodogaya had told him about the fireworks, Aoyagi had called the plastic surgeon. Though it was the middle of the night, he hadn't seemed particularly surprised. "It's just an idea. But it things don't go well, maybe I could get rid of this face, live as someone else. Could you hide me at your clinic while it was being done?"
"As someone completely different?" said the doctor.
"Not if 1 can help it. But I don't have a lot of options left." He would prefer to stay as he was and prove he was innocent.
"No, I suppose you don't."
"It's my last move," he said, feeling for the first time that it really was the end. And yet it was one more thing he could do, one last choice he had available. If you went to war with a giant, that was the kind of sacrifice you had to make. When the earth moved, all you could do was survive, even if it meant abandoning everything you had. At least you would still have your life.
"How would you get here?" the doctor asked. "Do you know the way?" Aoyagi had asked him for the address, though he doubted he would ever need it. "It's a little difficult to find. Shall I send someone to meet you?"
"Who?"
"A friend. She was worried about vou and called to see if I knew what was happening. I'll ask her to show you the way." Aoyagi asked again whom he had in mind, and when he was told he agreed.
"If you see fireworks early tomorrow morning, you can expect me," he said. "Have her wait near the driving school on the west bank of the Hirose River."
"I hope we won't be seeing you," the doctor said.
"I hope so, too," said Aoyagi. Last night, he had been counting on the TV station to broadcast his version of things, on the cameras to protect him while he surrendered and started the process of convincing the police of his innocence.
But it had come to this.
He was on his way to a place where he would cease to be himself. But he would still be alive.
"Run!" Morita's voice echoed around him, here in the darkness of the tunnel. "T here are no points for style. Just run! Live! That's what being human means."
:vM)
THE INCIDENT
"Morita," he muttered, gasping for breath. "Is that the voice of the forest again?"
No, it's me saying it this time, he thought he could hear Morita say.
Then suddenly something seemed different up ahead. He could see something. He remembered what Hodogaya had told him and slowed. Bending his shoulder, he pressed against the wall and felt the panel slowly give way. As he did this, he could hear the sound of the river, like the snuffling of some beast at the bottom of the bank.
He pushed harder and the floodgate swung open. His legs slid out from under him and he rolled face down into the river. Splashing wildly, he managed to get to his feet—the water came barely to his knees. He wiped his face; the water had a rank, organic smell. But there were no police cars with flashing red lights. No cameras. He set off for the far bank, his legs struggling in the current.
.As he pulled himself onto the rocks on the west side of the river, he could see someone approaching through the dark: a slightly built woman with a baseball cap pulled down around her ears. Aoyagi took a deep breath.
"I can't believe vou're here," the woman said.
"I can't believe you came," said Aoyagi.
"You're soaked."
"It's a long story."
"I can imagine. But we should get moving. My car isn't far away." She reached out her hand to pull him the rest of the way up the bank.
"Are you back in Sendai?" he asked. She had written a few months ago to tell him that she was going to give u{) acting and come home.
"Sort of," she laughed. "But you've been making something of a spectacle of yourself again." After a moment she added: "1 think we're even now."
"But I didn't exactly choose any of this."
Struggling to keep up as she marched through the held, he said: "C'.an 1 ask you one thing?"
"Of course."
"Did our doctor triend ever tlo any work on you?"
"Don't worry," Rinka laughed, ignoring the c|uestion. "Ik“ has some great c(;mputer games. We'll have a marathon while you're Wiiiting lor the swelling to go down."
Aoyagi hurried alter her, the wati'i sloshing in his shoes.
PART
FIVE
THREE MONTHS EfiTER
"We were being threatened, and you guys didn't help with all the pressure you put on us." Todoroki sat across the table from Mamoru Kondo and an older detective who was picking his nose.
The snow that had fallen two days earlier still covered the ground outside the window. A string of clear days after the New Year had convinced the staff at the factory that it would be a light winter—and then this storm. It was said that the total snowfall in Sendai was exactly the same every year, regardless of when it fell, as though the weather gods were keeping a balance sheet.
After it became known that the fireworks on the morning of Aoyagi's escape were Todoroki-made, the police had paid repeated visits to the factory. The boss's response was always the same. The day before, Aoyagi had shown up at a pachinko parlor where Todoroki's son, Ichiro, was playing, had put a gun to his back, and told him to set up the fireworks or he'd kill him.
"But we've checked the security tapes from the pachinko place. There's no sign of Aoyagi or your son."
"Of course not. I was playing a machine that was out of sight of the camera." Ichiro Todoroki was leaning against the desk by the entrance, scratching his ear. "Just because they have a lousy security system, doesn't mean I wasn't there or that Aoyagi didn't threaten me. I thought he was going to kill me. Are you saying the police won't protect you unless they get the whole thing on video?"
Not bad, thought the older Todoroki. "Anyway, I didn't think we had any choice, so we did what he told us to do. I set up the launchers and rigged them to go off by remote control. Ichiro didn't want to go, but I made him."
"You've told us all that, and the reporters who were outside that day con-
THREE MONTHS LfiTER
firm that a van left the factory late that evening," said Kondo. He had heard the story any number of times.
"Reporters have one-track minds. They were so focused on Aoyagi they ignored the van once they'd decided he wasn't inside." Ichiro laughed at the memory. It was their tunnel vision that had allowed them to get away with staging the diversion.
The older detective took a turn at the questioning. "But if they were right there at the factorv, whv didn't vou tell them that the fireworks in the van had been ordered by Aoyagi?"
"No one asked," snorted Ichiro.
"So you maintain that Aoyagi threatened you and that you set up the fireworks at his insistence," Kondo repeated, though by this stage he seemed to be merely going through the motions.
"He had put the screws on the Security Pod guy, too, and he drove the van that night. VVe did it because Aoyagi said he would kill us if we didn't."
"Your story matches testimony from Masakado Kikuchi. And from Haruko Higuchi, who was also involved in the events of that evening. But why did you set up the fireworks in Security Pod blind spots?"
"Because he told us to, with a gun to make it more persuasive."
Kondo sighed. "Mrs. Higuchi has testified that Aoyagi threatened to take her child's life," he
said. "And that she was willing to do whatever he said in order to save her."
"Can you blame her?" Ichiro said. "We're just average, law-abiding citizens. We would never have done any of this if we hadn't been forced into it."
"So you say you were waiting at that intersection near the park for Aoyagi to contact you, but when a j)atrol car stoj)j)ed you, you got out and tletl. At that point, why didn't you just ask the j)olice for j)rotection?"
"kike I told you, 1 didn't know whether they were really cops or not. I was terrified. Just wanted to get away." Ichiro's story had been completely consistent from the morning after the event, even it it didn't seem com|)letely logical. 1 or all his lather knew, j)erhaj)s he had been frightened.
As he listened to the back-and-lorth between his son and Kondo, the older 'lodoroki wondered how long the questioning would go on and how many more times they'd come back. I he fireworks had pro’ided Aoyagi with the
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chance to escape, but the details surrounding their preparation and launching had all been explained and weren't really ceritral to the case. Most likely, the police were just looking for a scapegoat, someone to blame for their failures. He looked from his son to Kondo and the other detective, their faces expressionless as they repeated the same questions and answers.
Kondo turned to him this time. "If you don't tell us what we want to know, I can't guarantee you'll be able to keep this place open," he said.
Todoroki wanted to point out that he was being threatened now for the second time in three months. But instead he said that Sendai would be heartbroken if its famous Tanabata fireworks weren't available. "But if you think you can close us down, go ahead and try," he said. The other detective yawned. "I realize you guys don't get a kick out of this anymore," he went on. "So can I ask you something, just between us?"