Slum Online
Page 9
> Then I guess I’m hardcore.
> So why come here at such a deserted hour?
For a moment, I imagined a twinkle in the eye of his immutable face.
> I needed to know how I’d been countered.
> The hollow by the column?
> That’s the one.
Holding the beer bottle in one hand, Hashimoto leapt back over the counter. He landed on the polygonal floor with a flourish and extended his hand toward Tetsuo.
> Then next time, you will win.
For the next three days, Tetsuo explored Sanchōme in the hours I knew most others would be offline. I wanted to know every inch of Versus Town. I searched online for maps, but nothing I found had the level of detail I was looking for.
In a shooter, memorizing the location where each enemy appeared gave you an edge. In a strategy game, you needed to know what tactics to use for each map. Information was just as important in a fighting game. I had lost once because of a slight hollow in the ground, and I wasn’t going to make the same mistake again.
Slipping between two nearly identical buildings, Tetsuo traced a gentle curve through the alleyways. At times he walked along the tops of walls, slipping and falling as he went. At others, he ran down the streets, leaping over polygonal obstacles barring his path. Tetsuo walked through Sanchōme block by block as I mapped the city on 5 mm graph paper. Compared to running, walking was painfully slow. You never seemed to get anywhere. But since I was marking down the location of every depression in the ground and every polygonal brick that had fallen out of a wall, running was not an option. Mapping Sanchōme was proving to be more difficult than a dungeon in a role-playing game.
Tetsuo passed through an alley no wider than his body and came face-to-face with a towering wall. The boundary separating Itchōme and Sanchōme was lined with E-rank walls like this one. There weren’t meant to be shortcuts between the two areas, but by some happy accident someone had discovered that even these walls could be scaled.
The system wasn’t designed to handle someone doing two air blocks at the apex of a high jump to shift their center of gravity to the other side of a wall. Most games contained exploits like this that the developers had never considered. E-rank wall jumping was one such exploit. The kind the players who gathered in the JTS Saloon knew inside and out.
Tetsuo ran along the base of the wall that divided the city. The unchanging sky spread overhead. Looking up, the scene reminded me of the narrow skies over Shinjuku.
Try though he might, Tetsuo couldn’t make it over the wall. Heavyweight characters had a lot of power in their attacks at the price of mobility. Lightweight characters didn’t deal much damage with each hit, but they were nimble and fast. Middleweights fell somewhere in between. It took a lightweight like Hashimoto to scale an E-rank wall.
For a character who could wall-jump, the JTS Saloon wasn’t all that far from Itchōme, but a middleweight like Tetsuo had to take the long way round.
Tetsuo threaded his way back through a winding alley. It was almost eleven thirty at night. People would be filtering into Sanchōme soon. Tetsuo ran down a hidden alley he’d discovered earlier that day. He climbed a low wall and slipped between two houses, running straight across the yard of a Japanese-style home. He broke into a red-roofed Western home through a window and ran out the back door. This route shaved what would have been a fifteen-minute journey down to seven.
As Tetsuo darted out of an alley into a small adjoining square, two characters appeared at the edge of the screen. I pressed the A button to stop running. Tetsuo turned to face them.
One of the characters was a capoeirista in a chocolate-brown jacket that fit snugly about the waist. A camouflage texture covered his military-style pants. His lace-up boots and leather gloves were the same brown as his jacket. He was a heavyweight fighter with tousled blond hair.
The other character was a middleweight snake boxer. He wore a black tank top and black leather pants. A white skull was dyed into the texture on his back. A black wristband ringed his forearm. Where his eyes and mouth should have been he wore a sinister mask done up like the toothy designs the Americans painted on the noses of their bombers during the war.
The two fighters faced each other across an empty fountain in the middle of the square.
The masked snake boxer blurred into motion. Darting across the fountain he circled to the left of the capoeirista. The capoeirista responded with a middle forward kick. The snake boxer canceled out of his move and sprang back to his original position before retaliating with a low kick of his own. The capoeirista’s health inched lower. He chased after the snake boxer with a speed dash. Breaking the capoeirista’s dash with a crouching punch, the snake boxer back-dashed into the middle of the fountain.
Their fight raged through the slums of Sanchōme.
The capoeirista I had seen before. A blond-haired soldier in a leather jacket. I knew I was looking at Keith, one of the top four players in Versus Town. The masked snake boxer, however, was someone new. Whoever he was, he was matching one of the top four step for step, blow for blow. Maybe even outmatching him.
Keith placed one foot inside the fountain. The masked man threw his fastest punch. Keith blocked. The masked man closed the distance, chaining another attack seamlessly onto the punch he’d just thrown. Keith inched backwards, artfully avoiding each attack.
Keith launched a middle spin kick in the hair of a pause between two of his opponent’s attacks. The masked man dodged with a crouching back dash, moving toward the center of the fountain. Keith canceled out of the spin kick and did a speed dash. The masked man kept moving. Keith’s foot came to rest on the rim of the fountain.
It was just like the fight between Tetsuo and Ricky. While the masked man crouched inside the fountain, any attacks Keith made from the fountain’s edge would sail harmlessly over his head.
But Keith didn’t attack.
Adjusting his angle, Keith speed-dashed to the side of the masked man, drawing up beside him. They were so close their polygons were overlapping. Keith did a handstand, catching his opponent’s neck between his legs.
The two fighters collapsed in a tangle of arms and legs, separating in the middle of the fountain. Keith back-dashed. Once more the fountain stood between them.
Keith hadn’t made the same mistake Tetsuo did. The move that had caught the masked man’s neck between his legs was a capoeira throw. Keith had recognized there was a danger his attacks could miss and switched up. Unfortunately for Keith, the masked man had responded with a throw break. He had managed to get off the one command that could save him and had done it with only milliseconds to act.
The masked man circled the fountain. Keith advanced to head him off from the right, striking with a middle kick. The masked man backed away to the left, stepping out of the incoming kick. Keith followed hard with another kick. To keep things interesting, he threw in a cancel move, forcing the masked man back step by step to avoid the barrage of blows.
A brick-textured wall pressed close behind the masked man’s back. A white windowsill jutted from the wall’s face. A polygonal potted plant was visible through the glass. Just as fighting from the low ground put you at a disadvantage, having your back up against a wall didn’t do you any favors either. If you took a hit, your body made a good target for midair combos as it rebounded off the wall.
Keith had backed the masked man into a corner. He threw a crouching punch, but the masked man blocked. Keith chained a low kick onto the punch, but the masked man hopped above the sweep of his leg. Keith canceled out of the low kick and into a rising toe kick. Still hanging in the air, there was no way the masked man could dodge. The kick connected.
The counterhit sound FX played and the masked man soared through the air. As his body rebounded off the wall, he did an air block. Moving forward, Keith threw his fastest punch. The masked man did another air block as Keith punched. His center of gravity shifted and his body caught on the white windowsill. Keith’s punch missed.
Now Keith’s body rose into the air. The masked man threw a punch, canceled, and punched again. Keith’s body crashed into the wall. The masked man caught Keith’s rebounding body with another open-palmed thrust and speed-dashed forward.
Canceling out of the dash he punched again. And again. He finished the attack with a reverse roundhouse kick. Keith’s lifeless body grated against the wall, sliding slowly to the ground.
Keith vanished from the screen.
The entire fight had lasted only a few seconds.
Tetsuo immediately walked toward the masked man.
> Hey.
The masked man wheeled around. He stood 45 degrees to Tetsuo’s right, exactly three and a half steps away. Just outside of dash-throw range. Words bubbled over his head.
> Enjoy the show?
> Who are you?
> See you around.
The masked man broke into a run.
I pulled my hands away from the keyboard and grabbed the controls, jabbing the stick twice to the right. Tetsuo took off in pursuit. They were both middleweight characters, so they ran at the same speed.
The masked man ducked into an alley. It was a virtual obstacle course. The ceiling was too low to stand and walk, so he wave-dashed through with a string of crouch dashes. Outside again, he bolted across the yard of a large house and turned a corner, his speed never dropping below a flat-out run.
Little by little, he pulled away from Tetsuo. The way he moved, I could tell he knew the placement of every brick in every building. If I hadn’t just been out mapping Sanchōme, I would have lost him completely in less than ten seconds.
Suddenly the man burst out into the middle of a wide empty square. Ahead, the wall dividing Itchōme and Sanchōme towered above us. Tall buildings hemmed us in on either side. Above the wall, two butter roll clouds drifted against a perfect turquoise blue sky.
Tetsuo followed the masked man into the dead end. The man turned around slowly. A middleweight couldn’t jump an E-rank wall.
Out of nowhere, the masked man turned and did a roundhouse kick. A loud clang sound FX reverberated. His kick had hit a metal drum. If he’d meant to hit Tetsuo, he wasn’t even close. The drum rolled off with a deep bass rumble.
I pulled out my keyboard, typing as fast as I could. A bubble appeared over Tetsuo’s head.
> You’re him, aren’t you??
The man chased after the metal drum. He caught up with it three steps from the wall and hopped on top. Using the drum as a stepping-stone, he leaped into the air. He gave the command for an air block, and at the apex of his jump his body twisted to the side. The polygons of his body caught on the top of the wall. He did another air block. His center of gravity shifted, and he disappeared as he slid down the far side of the wall.
With seeming ease, the masked snake boxer had scaled a wall I thought impossible for any middleweight character. He had gotten away.
The E-rank wall towered over Tetsuo. He was alone in the slums of Sanchōme.
I had seen Keith, one of the top four, fall before my eyes. He was an excellent player, worthy of the reputation he had earned for himself. But the masked man was even better. He had handled each of Keith’s attacks with cold precision, and his ploy—deliberately allowing himself to be hit in order to lull his opponent into a false sense of security—was exquisite.
Exhausted, I stared at the screen.
The street fight, the chase through Sanchōme. There wasn’t any doubt. I had finally found Ganker Jack.
Tonight’s score: 0 wins, 0 losses.
CHAPTER 8
A LISTLESS BREEZE BLEW THROUGH SHINJUKU over the sickening heat of sunlit asphalt. Tall buildings walled in the city like the sides of some giant wine bottle. The thick air was the cloudy dregs of the wine clinging to the back of my neck.
I walked along Ome Highway toward school. It was 9:42 AM. I checked the bulletin board before heading to my logic class. In the room, I threaded my way between the downturned heads of students diligently taking notes and sat down in the dim seat by the wall, seven rows from the front.
“You’re late.” Fumiko cast a withering glance in my direction from the corner of her eye.
“Sorry.” I fought back a yawn. “What color today?”
“Orange. You’re really slacking off, you know that?” she added before melting back into the note-scribbling masses.
Another yawn rose in my throat, but with Herculean effort, I suppressed it. I hadn’t gotten nearly enough sleep over the past few days. I rested my cheek on the cool desktop.
The sound FX of a dawn redwood rustling in the wind.
The sound FX of a truck trundling along Ome Highway.
The sound FX of Fumiko’s eraser attacking her paper.
The world was filled with sound FX. But just then, I didn’t have the energy to care. Even without earbuds, the noise washing over me remained distant.
I took an orange attendance card out of my pencil case and shut my eyes.
“You feeling okay?”
My eyes opened at the sound of Fumiko’s voice. “Yeah, I’m fine.”
“You were out cold.”
I lifted my head and looked around the room. The only people left were a handful of chatting students, Fumiko, and me. Of Uemura the Elder, there was no sign. The sea of gently bobbing heads had vanished without a trace.
“Did the bell ring?”
“About ten minutes ago.”
“I must not have heard it.”
“Obviously.”
“But I always hear it…” I rubbed my eyes. No matter how tired I was, I always woke at the first chirp from my digital clock. The sound of my dad flushing the toilet in the morning would wake me up. I had to close the shutters on my window to keep out the noise from the busy street in front of our house, or that would wake me up too.
“You’ve been playing that game again.”
“Yeah.”
“I don’t see what’s so fun about it.” There was something peculiar in her voice.
I ran my fingers through my hair. It was still warm from the nap. “It’s not about having fun.”
“Then what is it about?”
“Blocking out the noise.”
“That again.” She raised her eyebrows and let out a long, deep sigh. “Better hurry or we’ll be late for the next class.”
Fumiko dragged me by the bag strap to our political economy class. The air in the halls was cool. Sunlight bathed the campus. We sat in the same seats we always did, seven rows from the front. The familiar bell sound FX signaled the start of class, and Fumiko took her glasses out of their plastic case with Pavlovian timing. I was drifting, only halfway in the real world. There was a haze in my head that wouldn’t clear.
The next day I managed a little time for myself between classes, so I went out into Shinjuku. For most people, Shinjuku was a place they came to accomplish some particular task. Some came in search of material things, or entertainment, or pleasure, and others came to provide them. The pimps and recruiters looking for girls to star in cheap adult videos were always busy. The only people without anything to do were college students like me and Fumiko, and the homeless.
Fumiko would probably get upset at being grouped with me. After all, she had her blue cat of happiness to look for.
From the outside looking in, I didn’t have the vaguest notion whether she was shopping or looking for that cat. Like most women, she preferred being in nice, pretty places. If the cat she was looking for really was a ghost, it seemed unlikely to turn up in the accessories department of the Takashimaya Times Square department store, but she insisted otherwise. She gave the homeless man outside a wide berth. He was standing by the entrance to one of the many tunnels that crisscrossed beneath the city streets. Ad
mittedly, by June most homeless gave off a fairly aromatic bouquet. Harmless as they were, I could hardly blame Fumiko for wanting to avoid them, but if you asked me where I thought we were more likely to turn up leads on the cat, the squalid back streets seemed more promising.
People who lived in RL didn’t stand around waiting to spill their innermost secrets to you the moment you walked up, so I was only marking off the areas—not the people—on my map as “checked.” As I ticked off one graph paper box after another, it occurred to me that the heroes in all those role-playing games must be extremely sociable. The emphasis of the games was always on the challenge of vanquishing some great evil, but maybe what really made a hero was his uncanny ability to glean information from the local villagers. The villagers in RL tended to scurry off to their jobs and whatnot without a word. Not that I was much of a hero. I was probably closer to being an NPC—call me Villager A.
That day I spied a villager in front of the arcade near Shinjuku Koma Theater who looked as though she might have some morsel of information. She wasn’t made-up. Her reddish brown hair was disheveled. The shawl—or was it a cloak?—draped over her shoulders streamed lazily behind her in the damp air. The bat lady. She was buying canned coffee from a vending machine. Two cans.
Passing through the sliding glass doors, I followed her into the arcade. As I walked inside, a slightly cooler but still humid mass of air poured over me, its fragrance a blend of molding carpet, plastic rubbed smooth, and rusted coins. Removing my earbuds, I moved deeper into the arcade. A tsunami of game music and sound FX so violent I could almost see the sound waves crashed over my body and broke against my eardrums.
Several patrons were already inside. One sat at a strip mahjong game. Win a game and you got to see a famous porn star in all her glory. Another sat at an electronic card game examining a hand of digital cards. Both were dressed in suit and tie. The man playing the card game had tossed his bright red tie over his shoulder and was staring intently at the screen. From time to time he would mop sweat from his brow with a handkerchief, check the cards in his digital hand, and then mop his brow again.