The two gangsters bowed deeply to their employer, as Yukie stepped ever so slightly back, away from Kimu.
“Kimu,” Ito said. “Tsueno,” he added. That was out of order. Tsueno’s name always came first, as he was the senior. Both men, still bowing deeply at the waist, tensed slightly because of the change. It meant something, and they both sensed it, but neither knew exactly what. The air buzzed with their almost-palpable guesses and imaginings.
Ito did not greet Yukie, of course.
“Sir,” the men answered in unison.
“You got the machine, I see,” he said, strolling toward it with his hands behind his back, as an office manager might do.
“Yes, sir,” Tsueno answered. “From a black market dealer’s hideaway. It’s an older model, but that’s all that ever made it to Fukuoka before these things were outlawed altogether. It was functioning, as of a week ago. This was the machine that correctly predicted the death of Watanabe Yoshiro.”
Watanabe had been an enemy of Ito’s, and rumor had it that this machine had told him, months before the fact, that he would get a knife in the windpipe, just as he had done Sunday last. It was whispered that someone—the names given varied in each telling—had been waiting for the local yakuza bosses to die of old age, but had lost his patience and had started taking them out, one by one. That was why Watanabe had gone to such great lengths to get his death foretold in the first place.
Not that it had helped.
Perhaps it was because of Watanabe’s fate that Ito had even considered getting a Death Prediction Machine of his own. He was sure that, unlike Watanabe, he could avoid doom if he knew it was coming. It would take a certain kind of rare intelligence, of course, but Ito was used to feeling smarter than everyone around him.
“Very good work. Today we will find out how we are all going to die,” he said, smiling. He did not look at Kimu.
“Thank you, sir.”
Yukie was visibly uncomfortable. She looked, in fact, a lot like the way Tsueno imagined a woman would if she’d been carrying on with one man behind another’s back, and suddenly found herself in the same room with the two men, standing in between them. Ito hadn’t congratulated Kimu on a job well done, though he’d obviously been involved in getting the machine. Yukie frowned. Tsueno wondered where her real sympathies lay at that exact moment.
“I can give this machine a blood sample, now?” Ito asked.
“Yes, sir,” Kimu replied, and he began to explain it, hurriedly: “There’s some kind of internal sterilizer. It’s totally safe. Why don’t you give it a blood sample, and while it’s processing that, we can clear the paper jam?”
“Hmmmm,” Ito said, and nodded. He stuck his middle finger into the opening. “Now what?”
“Allow me, sir,” Tsueno said. He rose and went over to the machine, and pushed the same button he’d seen Kimu push earlier.
Again, the hiss, the clanking, and then a new sound: a slow, steady humming that got louder with each passing moment.
“It stings,” Ito said, withdrawing his finger from the machine and looking at it. Yukie held out a pale blue handkerchief, patterned with images of children at play. Ito looked at the handkerchief, and shook his head. “What a waste that would be,” he muttered. Then he stuck the bleeding finger into his mouth and sucked off his own blood, his eyes still locked with hers, and asked, “How long will it take?”
“We’re not sure,” Tsueno said. “For some people, it only takes a few seconds. For others, longer. Maybe twenty minutes, even.”
“In that case, I have other things to attend to. Cleaning house, for example. Mr. Kimu,” Boss Ito turned his attention to the younger thug. “I know that you’ve been working hard…working overtime, on projects I haven’t even assigned you. I fear you’ve been working way too hard, lately. Too much overtime.” Ito put one arm around Kimu’s shoulder, and the other around Yukie’s waist. “I would like to discuss this problem with both of you.”
He led them towards the exit, leaving Tsueno standing by the machine. When they reached the door, Ito turned and said to Tsueno, “Get that machine working, will you? Fix the paper problem, or whatever it is. We’re going for a drive in my car.”
“Yes, sir,” Tsueno said, and bowed as he flooded with relief. In a few minutes, it would all be over, he thought, holding the deep bow as long as he could. As he finally straightened up again, he saw Kimu looking back over his shoulder, a grin on his face. Gallows humor?
Or did that idiot Kimu have something planned? Tsueno wondered, and shook his head. He’s going to screw up everything.
He focused on opening the lid of the machine. At least, at first it had seemed like a simple lid. He discovered that it was more complicated than the hood of a car, or the latch on a suitcase, however. He fiddled and jiggered with knobs and levels until, finally, he got something right and a crack above the feed slot opened enough for him to see the slips inside.
Outside, it was still quiet.
The papers were jammed in deep, and a little ripped up, but he tried his best to extract the two little cream-colored strips without damaging them further. The problem was, his fingers were too big to reach all the way in. For a moment, he wished that Yukie had been left behind. She could have reached them, easily, with her long, slender fingers.
He pushed and shoved until his fingers were touching the papers, but by then they were so tightly wedged that he couldn’t actually grasp the little sheets, much less pull them free. Just then, the machine stopped humming, and after a mechanical cough, a third slip of paper slid into the jammed slot.
Yanking his hand out, he cursed mildly to himself. He could rob rival gangsters, misdirect cops, talk a board of shareholders into paying him protection money, and assassinate enemies without getting caught. Would he let a mere paper jam hold him back? Ridiculous. Especially now that his plan was about to bear fruit.
But try as he might, nothing helped. Digging at the slips with a pen just ripped one of them in half. Turning the machine on its side had no effect. Shaking it didn’t do anything at all. He was staring at the damned thing, thinking hateful thoughts of broken plastic and metal, when something caught his eye. It was a button with a blinking light underneath.
It was labeled, he discerned with some difficulty, “Form Feed.” A half-formed memory from high school, of a dodgy dot-matrix printer (and a caning delivered unto him by the middle-aged computer lab supervisor) bubbled to the surface. He realized this was the very thing he needed. Tsueno jabbed at the button with his thumb.
A soft whirring sound started up again. Moments later, three slips of paper were spat out of the front slot, like a trio of tongues sliding out of a single expressionless mouth. They dropped to the ground.
Tsueno reached out to catch them, but they slipped past his fingers to the floor. As he bent to pick them up, he looked carefully at them.
Damn.
They were written in English. Of course they were. This machine hadn’t been made in Japan, had never been properly adapted to the Japanese market, since it had become illegal so early on…so of course, it was all-English. Unlike Kimu, Tsueno had never worked in an office. He had slept with a blond American cram-school teacher for a while, back in his twenties. Busty; he remembered her cleavage better than he could remember her face. He certainly hadn’t picked up any words or phrases from her that were of any use outside of a bedroom, though. (Though he had once laughingly hollered, “Harder, harder,” while another of Ito’s thugs had kicked some drunken, disrespectful American jerk’s teeth in.)
He stared at the first slip of paper, and then the second. One of them had only one word. Another had two, and the third had three words. Which was which? They were all mixed, and Tsueno had to figure out which was Ito’s. The one with three words? It made sense on a hierarchical level: a boss should have three words on his deathslip, as opposed to underlings, who only warranted one or two. Yes, the slip with three words would be Ito’s. Unless, of course, terseness was a sign of resp
ect, and a boss’s paper ought to only have one word. Tsueno sighed. That was stupid bullshit. He was just looking for a shortcut, but he knew that he’d have to translate them all.
There was a computer on a desk in the corner of the room, near the window overlooking the street, that was always left on. Sometimes, while on lookout, he played computer games on it—multiplayer games, online adventures full of swords and blood and scantily-clad anime Valkyries. He sat down in front of the computer and wiggled the mouse. The screen lit up.
He searched for an automated translator, and in a few seconds, he found one. Scrolling down to select the “English to Japanese” language pair, and switching the language input to English he painstakingly typed in the three words on Ito’s paper.
I-M-P-R-O-P-E-R-L-Y–P-R-E-P-A-R-E-D–B-L-O-W-F-I-S-H
As he scanned the results, he realized that he could hear his boss and Kimu yelling at one another, outside. It was an industrial neighborhood, so probably nobody would hear. But it was a little worrying. He stood up and looked out the window, and saw Yukie was off to the side, shrieking. Kimu and Ito were shoving one another. It was a prelude, of course, to death. As he watched, Ito stepped back from the Zainichi and gestured toward his car.
Good, Tsueno thought to himself, and felt a grin spread across his face. Go for a drive. He felt giddy with his impending success, and sat down to read the results onscreen.
“Badly cooked fugu?” Tsueno shook his head, and hurriedly typed the phrase from the second slip—
C-A-R–B-O-M-B
—and hit ENTER. As the results loaded, Tsueno’s attention wandered back to the slip with the weird message about the fugu. His eyes widened. Wait, he thought. If Ito and Kimu are getting in the car, then that has to be my slip. He resolved never to eat any kind of fish ever again, fugu or otherwise, and smiled. He was going to cheat death after all.
A horrific sound erupted outside. He leapt to his feet just in time to see an enormous ball of orange flame burst out through the exploding windows of Ito’s car. The blast shook the office, sent pens and books falling to the floor.
He grabbed the slips and ran to the door. Throwing it open, he stood still and stared for a moment, as a second and then a third explosion went off. It was awful, like something out of a gory movie. Yukie’s slim arms flailed wildly against the front windshield, inside the car, and a hand on the windshield on the driver’s side, melted onto the plastic-coated glass. It was just like he’d planned. Maybe a touch more horrific.
But Tsueno’s smile melted away. He felt a little bad, now that it was done. Kimu wasn’t supposed to have been in the car when it went off. Tsueno scanned the area for anyone who might be watching, when suddenly his eyes traveled to the bottom of the stairs, where what he saw sent a shock through his body.
Ito stood alone, gun in hand, staring up at him.
“The slips?” his Oyabun asked flatly.
“Boss!” Tsueno answered, still shocked, his mind racing.
Maybe he doesn’t know.
“I know.”
“Know what?”
“I know how Inoue got you to plant that bomb.”
“Oyabun…”
“Shut the fuck up! I want to tell you how I know.”
Tsueno nodded, but didn’t lower his head.
“Yes, boss.”
“You thought I didn’t know about Kimu and Yukie. Any shit-dripping idiot could see what was going on. But you think I’m the only one who’s been cuckolded?”
Tsueno stared at Ito. “You slept with my wife?”
Ito shook his head, and gestured at the car. “Kimu told me your plan. She told him a few days ago, after one of their ‘meetings.’ I thought you might enjoy this being your last sight.”
Bitch, Tsueno thought. That cheating slut. Suddenly he felt sympathy for Ito, and could understand why Yukie was in the car, dying with Kimu.
“Thank you, boss,” Tsueno said.
“The slips.” Ito said again. “Where are they?”
“Beside the computer, Oyabun,” Tsueno said.
“Good. Thank you, Tsueno. Now, come down here and show your boss some respect.”
Tsueno breathed deeply. He’d already scanned the stairway, thought out his chances of getting back into the office alive. Ito probably had a couple of thugs in his inner sanctum, waiting. He went down the stairs slowly, and before his Oyabun whom he had so shamelessly betrayed, Tsueno bowed his dizzy head.
And then Ito put a bullet in it.
Story by Gord Sellar
Illustration by Jeffrey Brown
LOVE AD NAUSEUM
The Times, 5/18/04 A.M. (After Machine)
SWF, 35, seeks SM 25–50. Must love outdoors, adventure, fun! Box 1876.
The Times, 7/21/05 A.M.
SWF, 36, seeks SM 25–50. Must be employed, love outdoor hobbies. No OVERDOSE, ALCOHOLISM, similar readings, please. Box 1876.
The Times, 11/1/07 A.M.
Health-minded SWF, 38, seeks same, SM 21–55. Steady employment a must, like outdoors. No OVERDOSE, ALCOHOLISM or INFECTIOUS DISEASE readings please. Send photo. Box 1876.
The Times, 3/12/08 A.M.
Health-minded SWF, 38, seeks same, never married SM 21–60. Steady employment a must. No OVERDOSE, ALCOHOLISM, INFECTIOUS DISEASE, or JEALOUS EX-WIFEs. Send photo and copy of reading. Box 1876.
The Times, 10/4/10 A.M.
SWF, 41, seeks SM 18–65. Send photo, resumé, health records and notarized copy of reading. Box 1876.
Story by Sherri Jacobsen
Illustration by Kate Beaton
MURDER AND SUICIDE, RESPECTIVELY
SCENE: Two scientists, Dr. Rosch and Dr. Nelson, are discussing experimental results in a lab. A machine is at the centre of the room, wires leading from it to various terminals at the edge of the room. A hand-made label affixed to the machine by one of the technicians identifies the machine as “The Machine of Death.”
DR. ROSCH: So the machine works. Given a sample of blood, it tells you how you’re going to die.
DR. NELSON: Yes.
DR. ROSCH: And we know this because we’ve done experiments on lab mice and on ourselves. Once the mice started to die, we started to get 100% accuracy. And with the passing of Dr. Chomyn last week, it seems it works on humans just as well.
DR. NELSON: Yes—we need more data points, of course, but there’s no technical reason why it won’t work just as well on any mammal.
DR. ROSCH: Okay. This being the case, I have a question.
SCENE: Outdoors, Dr. Rosch and Dr. Nelson are strolling outside, walking and chatting.
DR. ROSCH: So, I know I’m new here, and I wasn’t around for the invention of the Machine. I’m necessarily approaching this from an outsider’s perspective.
DR. NELSON: Yes, but that’s fine.
DR. ROSCH: Right. So, here’s a thought experiment. We’re going to assume that we’re ignoring the animal cruelty laws, we’re getting around them somehow.
DR. NELSON: Without jail time.
DR. ROSCH: Yeah. So, given that, we pick out a rat—let’s call him Timmy.
DR. NELSON: Okay.
DR. ROSCH: So we take Timmy the Rat and we decide that we’re going to kill Timmy by braining him with a hammer.
DR. NELSON: (surprised noises)
DR. ROSCH: Okay, so stay with me. We decide, we promise to ourselves, that as soon as the test is done, we’re going to kill Timmy the Rat by smashing in his skull with a hammer. We run Timmy through the machine and it comes out “KILLED BY BEING BRAINED WITH A HAMMER.”
DR. NELSON: Well, not necessarily. It could be any number of things. It might say “KILLED BY SCIENTIST” or “GOT HAMMERED” or what have you. We don’t know why there’s such variablility, but there is.
DR. ROSCH: Right. But what all those predictions have in common is that they all fit with being hit on the head with a hammer.
DR. NELSON: Correct.
DR. ROSCH: Okay, so we take this prediction, read it, and then we kill Timmy by sma
shing his head in with a hammer. Everything’s fine, right?
DR. NELSON: Right. Of course, if we decided to spare Timmy, then the paper would reflect that. It wouldn’t have said “KILLED BY BEING BRAINED WITH A HAMMER,” it would have said something like “DIED OF OLD AGE,” or whatever.
DR. ROSCH: That’s fine. It’s crazy and creepy, but it’s fine. The predictions are infallible. Sometimes they’re unclear or ironic, but they always always come true.
DR. NELSON: That’s correct.
DR. ROSCH: Okay. So what if we decide we’re going to kill Timmy by smashing his skull in, but we’re not going to do it right away. We run him through the machine and then put him in a box, where he’ll have food and water and be cared for, and we leave him there for a few months, and then we brain him. The prediction’s still going to be hammer-related, yes?
DR. NELSON: Most likely. Of course, the longer we try to keep him alive, the greater the chance that the rat might die from some other cause, a heart attack or something else we can’t control.
DR. ROSCH: But we can know that by the prediction: if it says something like “HEART ATTACK”—something that’s inconsistent with being killed by us with a blow to the head—then we know the rat isn’t going to live long enough for us to kill it.
DR. NELSON: I suppose.
DR. ROSCH: So let’s, say, take a sample of blood from Timmy and we put him in this box, this life-support box. Then, we take this box and we ship it overseas. Overnight. We ship it to Fred, say.
DR. NELSON: Dr. Merry?
DR. ROSCH: Yeah. And we tell Dr. Merry that it’s coming, and then when he gets the box, let’s say Timmy’s survived. We’ve instructed Dr. Merry to open it up and kill the rat inside with a hammer at precisely 11:59 p.m., which he does without hesistation.
DR. NELSON: A stroke before midnight?
DR. ROSCH: Sure! For drama’s sake. Then, one minute later, at midnight, we actually run the blood sample we took earlier through the machine. What do you suppose it’ll say?
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