Slum Online

by Hiroshi Sakurazaka

  > Alas, no.

  > Oh well.

  > He came to Versus Town around when you did, but he arrives too early in the day for anyone to have taken note.

  > Early to bed, early to rise.

  > But how healthy and how wise?

  > That’s the question.

  > I still smell the proverbial rat.

  > I’m not so sure.

  > He IS a skilled throw breaker.

  > Oh, he’s good, but not 100 percent good.

  > No one can break throws 100 percent of the time.

  > True that.

  > Still, he must have some weakness.

  > Only one way to find out.

  > You sound every bit the comic book hero.

  I could have sworn I saw a smile flash across the immutable textures of Hashimoto’s face.

  According to Hashimoto’s grapevine, viewership for the tournament was over 90 percent. If the mystery snake boxer really was Jack, he would have a huge audience to witness his victory.

  Something told me Jack wouldn’t be caught dead in a situation like that. If all he wanted to do was defeat Pak, he could have entered the tournament like everyone else and been done with it. Why spend all that time lurking in the shadows of Sanchōme waiting for an opponent that might not even log in? No, Ganker Jack was driven by that same nameless force that drove Hashimoto to role-play and Tetsuo to obsess over fighting in a make-believe world.

  > Jack would never enter the tournament.

  > Not as Jack, at any rate.

  > What do you mean?

  > Perhaps he is like me. Now, I am ninja, but I do not always walk in shadow. Jack may not always show the same colors we have seen.

  Hashimoto let down his mask to relax at JTS in a tuxedo. Maybe it wasn’t impossible to think that when Ganker Jack let down his mask, he fought in tournaments.

  > I don’t know about him, but I just want to fight the best.

  > Of course you do.

  > What are you going to do if that snake boxer is Jack?

  > Nothing.

  > Nothing?

  > The hunt is its own reward. In this town, what do we seek if not reward?

  > Always the philosopher.

  > I am ninja, and there are inquiries to be made. If you’ll excuse me.

  Hashimoto sprinted off.

  There was still some time before the next match, so Tetsuo made his way to the arena door.

  Tetsuo arrived at the wall dividing Nichōme and Sanchōme.

  The speakers emitted a soft hum. There were no sound FX here. Huge polygons made up the buildings, and even though these were the same graphics that brought Sanchōme to life, here they seemed sterile and dead.

  Since he started spending all his time at JTS, Tetsuo seldom came to Nichōme. He didn’t even feel at home in the arena the way he once had. Today there was something he wanted to try that brought him to the wall.

  Only lightweight characters could freely jump the E-rank wall surrounding the city. Middleweights like Tetsuo needed something to act as a springboard.

  After watching Jack slip through my fingers, I had practiced again and again until I mastered using overturned steel drums to boost myself over walls. Unfortunately, overturned steel drums were strictly features of Sanchōme; if you needed one in Itchōme, you were out of luck. All of which meant that for now, the wall-scaling shortcut from Sanchōme to Itchōme was a one-way trip.

  Taking Main Street through Itchōme and using every shortcut in the book, it took precisely five minutes and fortyfive seconds to reach the JTS Saloon. No matter how much they prettied up Sanchōme, it didn’t take long to get tired of the scenery. It took less than one minute from log-in to the arena, so if you could find a shortcut to Sanchōme behind the arena, you’d be shaving a lot of time off your commute.

  Tetsuo ran along the wall that divided the virtual city. In Itchōme the arena stood a good distance from the wall, but in Nichōme they were right on top of each other. At the spot where the arc of the arena came closest to the wall, it might just be possible to use the polygons of the building to propel a middleweight character like Tetsuo over the wall.

  I adjusted my perspective, viewing the building from a variety of angles. I found a window frame in just the right place. It was set slightly into the wall, so although it wouldn’t be possible to climb up onto it, it would make for a solid foothold.

  Tetsuo backed up against the dividing wall and started running at a right angle toward the face of the arena. Two and a half steps out, he jumped, followed by a high jump as his foot connected with the window frame. If it worked, the triangle jump would propel Tetsuo over the wall.

  Tetsuo traced a wide parabola in the air, narrowly missing the top of the wall. But not in the direction he’d intended. He crashed into its side and slid unceremoniously back to the ground.

  I repeated the attempt several times, each time adjusting my timing, but Tetsuo always came up just short of the top. A lightweight character like Hashimoto could probably have made the jump without even needing to air-block.

  Before I knew it, the digital clock on my DVR read 6:20 PM. Just ten minutes before the semifinals started. If I didn’t get back soon, I’d be late. I started to retrace my steps along the periphery of the arena.

  On my way back, something caught my eye—a light pole at the edge of the screen.

  It stood exactly one jump distant from the window frame, but was just a hair closer to the wall. I decided to give it a try. Tetsuo backed up to give himself room for a running start.

  This time, Tetsuo ran toward the window frame at a 45-degree angle. Two and a half steps from the wall, he jumped. Tetsuo air-blocked to shift his position and give his feet purchase on the window frame, then immediately high-jumped off the frame. His new trajectory sent him toward the light pole. The instant before he struck the pole Tetsuo performed another air block, kicking off the pole to complete the triangle jump.

  Tetsuo’s body traced a wide arc through the air. This time, he rose just a little higher.

  The instant before hitting the wall, I gave the command to air-block. At the height of the arc, Tetsuo’s body twisted to the side. The polygons of his body caught on the top of the wall. Another air block shifted Tetsuo’s center of gravity, sending his body careening over the top of the wall.

  Sanchōme sprawled around Tetsuo.

  Nichōme it was not. The clean, tidy streets had been replaced by a gritty, polygonal slum.

  I laughed. Just a giggle at first, then louder until at last I was roaring in spite of myself. Tetsuo couldn’t laugh, so I had to laugh hard enough for the both of us. In a way, it was almost too easy. The E-rank wall towering over Tetsuo seemed smaller than it once had.

  Using this shortcut, I could probably trim three minutes off the time it took me to get to JTS from log-in. It was even trickier than jumping off a rolling steel drum. It was a small miracle I’d made the jump on my first try. Maybe it really was my lucky day.

  There wasn’t much time, so Tetsuo started looking for some polygons that would get him back over the wall. The only thing nearby was a small can of kerosene—too small for a springboard. Tetsuo moved his search to the next street. If he kept his opponent waiting too long, he’d be disqualified.

  Someone appeared at the edge of the screen as it began to scroll. Whoever it was had leapt over the same E-rank wall Tetsuo had just scaled and come sliding to the ground in the same location.

  One thing was for certain: it wasn’t Hashimoto.

  He wore a black tank top and black leather pants. A white skull was dyed into the texture on his back. There was a black wristband on his forearm. Where his eyes and mouth should have been there was only a sinister mask, its grin done up like those designs the Americans painted on the noses of their bombers during the war. He looked like a middleweight snake boxer.

  Tetsuo turned to face the masked man. He was ahead and 45 degrees to the left. Three steps away, Tetsuo stopped.

  A bubble of text appear
ed above the man’s head.

  > Karateka. Are you Tetsuo?

  With my left hand still on the stick, I pecked at the keyboard with my right.

  > I am.

  > Let’s fight.

  > Are you Ganker Jack?

  > That’s what they call me, anyway.

  > Sorry, I’ve got a tournament to get back to.

  I looked around the screen. The only thing on the ground was that can of kerosene. Tetsuo would need more than that to make it back over the wall. It didn’t occur to me to cut my connection and log in again.

  > You running?

  > There’s the tournament.

  > So that’s why you’re here. Couldn’t take the buzzing of the flies back at the arena? Had to hit the quiet city streets?

  > The semifinals are about to start.

  > So?

  > If I beat Tanaka, I’m in the finals. Beat Pak, and I’m No. 1. > You really believe that?

  > What?

  > Why do you fight?

  > I fight to be the best.

  > Then you’re wasting your time with Pak.

  > He’s last year’s champion.

  > You really think whoever wins in that little ring is the best?

  > Why not?

  > In boxing, it’s a boxer. In fencing, it’s a fencer. There’s a best for every set of rules. We don’t need an arena to tell us who the best is. Whoever wins in the arena is the champion of the arena. The best in town is the best in town.

  Tetsuo and Jack stood in a small alley in Sanchōme. All around them sprawled the slums of the city. The kerosene can rested at the edge of the screen. They were in a virtual space. A city without electricity or gas. Without hospitals or post offices. It was a make-believe city populated with make-believe beings. And Tetsuo had a question for Ganker Jack.

  > Why do you gank people?

  > Not the first time I’ve been asked.

  Jack walked slowly to one side, making a clear path for Tetsuo.

  > I picked you for a reason. But if you got your heart set on that tournament, I won’t keep you from it. Go beat Pak. Let everybody tell you how great you are.

  The clock on my DVR read 6:31 PM. If I hurried, I could make it to the ring in about two minutes. Tetsuo and Tanaka’s match started after Pak’s, so if I left now, I still had time.

  I knew Tetsuo was good.

  Tetsuo practiced combos on training dummies. Tetsuo explored the back alleyways of Sanchōme. Tetsuo could kick off a rolling steel drum to jump an E-rank wall. Tetsuo hunted Jack. Tetsuo entered the tournament. Tetsuo, Tetsuo, Tetsuo… I was Tetsuo, but for some reason, at that moment of all times, I couldn’t get Fumiko out of my mind.

  Fumiko and I were two very different people. We thought differently, we lived differently. We had different likes and dislikes. We didn’t even take notes at the same speed. We could see eye to eye on an intellectual level, but we were as different as night and day.

  But that was what kept us together.

  I’d fallen into the habit of adjusting my life to suit hers. I sacrificed sleep to wake up earlier. I went to lectures I had no intention of listening to. I searched for the blue cat she was supposed to be looking for even harder than she did. I felt as though everything I did had to mesh with her worldview. But that was a mistake. We fought because we had different sets of values, and that wasn’t something worth fighting over. It didn’t matter that we didn’t share a single common interest. It was enough that I was by her side, and she was by mine. And that’s why I cared for her. No, that’s why I loved her. It finally made sense. I could finally admit it to myself.

  I loved her, and because I loved her I had to be the person that she loved. I had to follow through with what I had begun. I had to fight. That was the person she had fallen for. If I ran away, if I turned back now, then that person would cease to exist.

  I felt the mist around my heart burn away. Funny that I should realize all this online, talking to someone I didn’t know in a side alley of a city that didn’t even exist in RL.

  Because I couldn’t find the words to say the only important thing there was to say, Fumiko and I had missed our chance. Or maybe life was nothing more than a series of missed chances.

  I felt a laugh rise in my throat. I tried to swallow it, but it came spilling out all the same. It was a good thing I was in Versus Town when it did. Here my laugh remained a secret thing. Unless it affected the stick I held or the buttons I pressed, Jack would never know. If he had, he’d probably think I was certifiably deranged.

  If Fumiko and I were complete opposites, Tetsuo and Jack were two peas in a pod. They dreamed the same dream and lived by the same code. The spot they were vying for wasn’t a spot on the winner’s platform, it was lurking somewhere down in the slums of Sanchōme. And it wasn’t big enough for the two of them. In the small hours of the night, while ordinary people lay asleep in their beds, Tetsuo and Jack scoured the darkest corners of this virtual town looking for it.

  Tetsuo didn’t need to prove his skill to anyone. Neither did Jack. They knew their skill, and that was enough. This was a choice I couldn’t get wrong. To be true to who I was, I knew who Tetsuo had to fight.

  I looked into the screen and took a slow, deep breath. I flicked out a command with the stick. Tetsuo dropped into a fighting stance.

  I input another command as I typed. Broken down into packets of light my command sped through fiber optic cables to the game’s servers for processing, the resulting calculations reduced again to packets that boomeranged back to my console. After a delay lasting a mere fifteenth of a second, Tetsuo adjusted his white headband.

  > Let’s rock.

  > Music to my ears.

  > You wanna get us started?

  > After you.

  I counted slowly to three.

  My fingers flashed over the controls, giving the command for a speed dash. Tetsuo covered the three and a half steps between himself and Jack in a headlong rush. I canceled out of a punch into an elbow, then canceled again into a throw.

  The throw landed. Tetsuo grabbed Jack by the nape of the neck. Jack brushed Tetsuo’s hand away, causing them both to spin 45 degrees around each other before coming to a halt. The two characters stood facing each other a step and a half apart.

  Maybe throws weren’t going to work on Jack after all. I put in a slight delay before inputting the command, so even with a throw break in his buffer my throw should have made it through. Should have. But Jack was responding to the throws as they appeared on-screen. It shouldn’t have been possible, but someone with superhuman reflexes just might be able to pull it off.

  Jack stepped forward and to the right. Tetsuo advanced, throwing his fastest punch as he did. Jack dodged to the left. Then he turned his back against the E-rank wall.

  Tetsuo rushed at Jack. Tetsuo threw a punch, followed immediately by a crouching punch. Jack blocked both, then went on the offensive. He launched a roundhouse kick, canceled it. Jack turned and leapt toward the wall at a roughly 90-degree angle. He air-blocked, then launched a flying kick at Tetsuo as he came out of the triangle jump off the wall. I couldn’t block in time, and Tetsuo took the full force of the attack.

  Jack closed in on Tetsuo as he lay sprawled on the ground. Tetsuo rolled to one side, gaining some distance. Jack launched a roundhouse kick as Tetsuo got back on his feet. Tetsuo blocked. Jack canceled out of a spin kick into a crouching punch. Tetsuo’s health fell.

  Jack fell back. Tetsuo followed, canceling out of a punchkick combo into a speed dash. Normally this was when Tetsuo would have gone for a throw, but he went with a low spin kick instead. The attack caught Jack in the leg, throwing him off balance. Tetsuo jabbed with his elbow as he advanced, but Jack had already recovered, giving him just enough time to block the attack.

  I grunted in frustration.

  If you could rule out being thrown, the only things you had to watch out for were midair combos off a counter. Catching Ganker Jack in midair without throwing him would be even harder than
I’d imagined. If Tetsuo’s arsenal was reduced to rock and paper, then the outcome was more or less decided before the fight had even begun.

  But Pak had done it. On holy ground in a Shinjuku arcade, Pak had won using nothing but rock and paper. Pak, who even then had thousands of eyes on him as he competed in the finals, had pulled it off.

  I had to get out of the open. Tetsuo darted into the thick of Sanchōme. Only a split second behind, Jack gave chase.

  Another figure appeared suddenly on the screen. The character had scaled the E-rank wall and landed in roughly the same place Tetsuo and Jack had come tumbling down.

  I reached for my keyboard. Words bubbled over Tetsuo’s head.

  > Wait. Someone’s here.

  >You didn’t show for a quarterfinal match. Someone must’ve gotten curious.

  > What now? Keep fighting?

  > I ain’t stopping. If they’re looking for you, we’ll go somewhere they won’t find you. How’s the back side of Sanchōme sound?

  > JTS?

  > We’ll finish this there.

  > Don’t get lost.

  > I’ll be there, don’t you worry.

  Jack melted into the alleys of Sanchōme. Tetsuo just stood there, hoping to conceal the fact that they’d been fighting only moments before.

  The man who had scaled the wall wore a deep blue ninja outfit. On his feet was a pair of jet-black tabi. He was a lightweight character, a jujutsuka. Versus Town’s very own ninja, Hashimoto.

  Hashimoto approached with his usual gait. He turned to face Tetsuo, 45 degrees ahead and to the left. He stood three and a half steps away, just out of Tetsuo’s dash-throw range.

  > Well done.

  > What did I do?

  > You flushed out the fox.

  Hashimoto’s slightly out-of-place role-playing was reassuringly familiar.

  > Yeah.

  > Then my suspicion was correct. The window in which he could safely contact you was small.