Loups-Garous

by Natsuhiko Kyogoku

  Rey Mao looked at Ayumi.

  “You…”

  “What’s this about?”

  “It’s about that night. You told the police about me.”

  “We didn’t.”

  “Then why did they snoop around, looking for me?”

  “I don’t know anything about that,” Ayumi said.

  Rey Mao shook off Ayumi’s hand from her arm.

  “You want to go at it?”

  “No. I’ve told you before I don’t know how to fight. I hate getting hit.”

  “Stop talking nonsense.”

  Rey Mao grabbed Ayumi this time. Mio flew up from behind her.

  “Stop it, Cat.”

  “Let go.” Rey Mao released her arm. The three of them fell against the wall. The case Ayumi was sitting on fell onto its side with a thud.

  “You can’t do that. It’s dangerous!” Mio said loudly, throwing her body over the case. “You morons! W-what do you guys think this is?

  This thing could blast us a kilometer into the earth!”

  “Blast us?”

  “It’s the turtle I was telling you about, the turtle. My second attempt at it, anyway.”

  “You mean your plasma weapon. That movie with the turtle—”

  “I’m not planning on using it on anything…or anyone.” Mio shrank and sat back on the floor. She looked up at Rey Mao. “Just because you aren’t documented doesn’t mean you can do whatever the hell you want. That really hurt,” she said, rubbing her arms.

  Rey Mao stood in a coil of cables set up by the wall, tense all the way down to her fingertips. Ayumi was leaning against the wall just a few paces from her and shifted her eyes from Rey Mao’s arms to her face and said calmly,

  “This weird girl did not sell you out. Not even I am interested enough to cause you trouble. If I’d reported you, I’d be questioned too.”

  Rey Mao’s look at Mio relaxed a little, and then she turned her face to Hazuki.

  “You’re that politician’s daughter, aren’t you?”

  “I’m…”

  “She has nothing to do with this either.”

  “How do you know? She’s on the side of the authorities.”

  “So are Tsuzuki and I, then. What did you call it again? Caged? We’re all caged.”

  “Well then…”

  Rey Mao picked up a cable and let go of it angrily. She said to Hazuki, “Why’d you send Yuko away?”

  “She wasn’t sent away. She was killed.” Mio stood up abruptly.

  “See, this is why you need to get connected. Yabe is dead.”

  “Dead…” Rey Mao slumped into the wall. “She died?”

  “She’s wrecked.”

  “You … weren’t you there?” Ayumi said.

  “When?”

  “We thought maybe when the area patrol came to pick up Yuko, you chased after them.”

  Rey Mao didn’t respond and instead looked sternly at Ayumi.

  “Hey, were you there or not, Cat?” Mio asked angrily. “Why were you hiding from us then? Help us out! You seem good at physical labor. And Makino, if you knew she was there, why didn’t you tell us?”

  “I didn’t know. I just…thought I did,” Hazuki said.

  “Why?”

  “She’s not supposed to know Hazuki is the daughter of a politician.

  They were never introduced,” Ayumi said.

  “So?” Mio took a second to understand and then turned her neck.

  “I see. So she knew because she was at Hazuki’s house that night.

  Her full name is on the front gate. And if she were there, it can be assumed she followed us there. And she wouldn’t have known anything had happened to Yuko. We didn’t, after all.”

  “I did, though,” Rey Mao answered.

  “You were worried, were you? Well isn’t that nice,” Mio said.

  “Nothing like that. This was a matter of life and death. Of course I was concerned,” Rey Mao said. “I thought of calling you, but of course I can’t.”

  “You guys are so hard to deal with.” Mio sat back down in the chair.

  “Then you really have nothing to do with this?” Rey Mao asked Mio.

  “None. If the cops are after you it’s because you screwed up somewhere, or someone else has been giving them information. We have nothing to do with this.”

  Rey Mao painted the wall with her back as she slid down onto the floor and sat. She was very badly injured. It must have hurt.

  Ayumi held up Mao’s left arm. She winced.

  “You got hit pretty hard. Was it the cops?”

  Rey Mao shook her head. Her hair fell to the sides.

  “I lost. Again.”

  “Lost?”

  “To the guy with head art and the foreigner in the metal suit.”

  “What are you talking about?” Mio scrunched up her face and scratched at her head.

  “The guys who abducted Yuko.”

  “Abducted?”

  “Yeah. Kono, was it?”

  “Call me Ayumi,” Ayumi said.

  “Ayumi, eh?” Rey Mao said. “You gave up on them at that intersection, right? Well, after that the patrol car stopped one more time.”

  “Stopped in the middle of the route?”

  “Yeah. It looked like they got some kind of message. I was hiding behind the shadow on the sidewalk, so I decided to stop and watch a little. Then, after about five minutes, the head art guy and the foreigner in the metal suit showed up. They knocked out the local cop and the security system rep and carted Yuko off with them. So I…”

  “You went to save her…again. Can’t say you’re bored, I guess.”

  “Those fuckers.” Rey Mao looked at her left shoulder. Mio went over to her and took a look.

  “Holy shit! They cleared a hole into your shoulder.”

  “They had…guns.”

  “Guns?! Like a pistol? You lie!”

  “I’m not lying.”

  “But the only people who have guns in this day and age are in Africa or the Middle East. They’ve been totally banned everywhere else. They’re inefficient for killing en masse, they’re too powerful for use in self-defense, too ridiculous to threaten with and so difficult to handle most of the time they injure people by accident. Nothing good about them.”

  “They’re great for killing people,” Rey Mao said.

  “That’s all they’re good for,” Mio said. “No one’s making money making them. Everyone’s stopped making them, so it’s only the secret organizations that have them now. Even the guns being used in Africa are rusty old pieces. I’ve only seen them in movies from ages ago.”

  Hazuki hadn’t seen them even there. In her history courses she’d perhaps seen an image of one. Even when they were mentioned in fiction it came with a disclaimer.

  “What do you call those guys who just scare you into things? Goons? Those guys don’t exist anymore, right? I mean, what would they threaten you into doing these days? You can’t even kill animals. The only thing a pistol is good for, like you said, is killing people.” Mio went quiet all of a sudden and stared back into the hole in Rey Mao’s left shoulder.

  “Hired hit men?”

  “I know I’m in no position to call them strange, but these are some strange people. Ayumi.” Rey Mao called Ayumi.

  I can’t get used to hearing her say that, and it’s a name I hear a lot. Hazuki was startled.

  “It’s like you said. In the end, my fighting method doesn’t stand a chance against someone who is out to kill. I dodged him and went for his vital points. It should have brought him down, but that skinhead didn’t even flinch. He came at me with his survival knife…It was scary,” Rey Mao said. “Because I wasn’t trying to kill him. But that was his only motive. There’s a big difference there. I was scared so I ran, and then they didn’t come after me anymore. I just ran away. Then they shot me. I think it was a silent gun.”

  Hazuki couldn’t even imagine being shot with a gun.

  “You kept running?”

/>   Could she have been running with those injuries for the last four days?

  “I was in Section B for a solid day. Partly because the bleeding wouldn’t stop, but also because in the daytime I couldn’t move. After a day I was able to come back here to Section C, but this time the cops were here. What’s more they were asking around for me by name. I just assumed that meant…”

  “You assumed that we had told on you.”

  “I couldn’t think of anyone else who knew about me. And the area patrols were everywhere. I couldn’t go back to my place. The pharmacists on the west side hid me for a while, but then the cops showed up there too.”

  “What about your injuries?”

  “We got a doctor who sees us. He sees us for injuries and illnesses. Nothing fancy though. Just twentieth century medicine.”

  “I can’t believe…you made it out alive,” Ayumi said. “Not even the police can go up against guys with guns. These days not even cops get weapons.”

  “It took everything I had to protect my life. That girl is another story. That girl…”

  Died? she asked and Mio said yes, she died, without emotion.

  “Who are these people? What’s going on?” Mio asked.

  “Tsuzuki, you’re so full of questions today.”

  “It’s because I have no idea what’s going on!”

  “I do,” Ayumi said.

  “What do you know?”

  “Don’t you see? The guys who killed Yabe—they have guns and weapons and are out for murder. They can intercept police and government information and alter it. I don’t think they have anything to do with those old anime and DC guys.”

  “You don’t get it at all, Ayumi.”

  “But I do.”

  “What do you get?”

  “That these aren’t the kind of people we kids can go after. That’s all we need to know,” Ayumi said.

  Ayumi faced Mio.

  Mio sneered at Ayumi.

  “You’re giving up?”

  “I’m not doing anything. We’re just kids. We’re not cops. We aren’t do-gooders. It’s more weird that we are doing anything at all.”

  “Yeah, but are you content to let this go, Kono?”

  “Sure,” Ayumi said, and looked for Hazuki’s backup. “We’ve made it this far without worrying about other people. I hate interacting with people. Makino’s the same way. But…”

  But that all changed.

  They’d never even made eye contact before.

  Now they’d looked right at each other, yelled, and grappled.

  It was all weird. It was weird, but…

  “I think,” Mio started, then repeated I think. Mio must have been thinking the same thing.

  “I think I don’t like the way it was. I hated it. What about you, Cat?”

  “I’m running away.”

  “Running away!” The sound came out of Mio’s throat at a high pitch. She advanced on Rey Mao. “You’re running away?”

  “I don’t want to get killed.”

  “You’re running away, Cat?”

  “Stop it, Tsuzuki,” Ayumi grabbed Mio by the shoulder. “She’s seriously injured. She almost died. Do you have any idea what it’s like to have escaped an attempted murder?”

  “What?” Mio rubbed her eyes and looked with disbelief at Rey Mao’s black and red bloodstained shoulder. Hazuki looked at it as well.

  The pain had burnt black.

  “We grew up not knowing any pain. We can’t know what it’s like. We can’t really empathize. We couldn’t possibly tell anyone not to run from it or to be less selfish. Listen, Tsuzuki. The next time this girl is attacked she will be killed. If not her, someone else. None of your magic computer programs can bring a person back to life. I for one don’t want to have to deal with any more real contact life or death situations.”

  “I don’t either,” Mio said and extended a finger toward Rey Mao’s open wound.

  “Does it…hurt?”

  “Yeah. I’ve never hurt like this before. Totally different from taking a punch.”

  “That bad…”

  Mio touched her forehead to Rey Mao’s shoulder and looked at the floor.

  “It would hurt to die, wouldn’t it, Cat?”

  “If you died quickly, it wouldn’t hurt at all.”

  Mio remained motionless.

  “All right.” Ayumi, who’d been looking at Mio’s back, turned her face toward Hazuki. “Let’s just stop now. Makino goes home. We can’t keep doing this.”

  Yeah.

  Of course that was what they wanted. At home time stood still. It would be like it was yesterday, last year. If Hazuki just went on repeat-ing what she did every day, the world would do the same. Her feelings would have nothing to do with it.

  “And you, Mio—you need to stop snooping around.”

  “I can’t leave Rey Mao alone.”

  “She’s strong. You’ll only make things worse by trying to help her.”

  “What if Rey Mao is—”

  “Caught by the police?” Hazuki asked.

  “What about it?”

  “I mean, the police won’t kill you or anything because they know that those two guys saw you and are after you. Even if your relationship to us is exposed.”

  “It hasn’t been.” Rey Mao peeled herself off the wall. Mio lifted her face too. “I don’t have any proof of identity,” Rey Mao said. “My life here is a crime. I might not get killed, but I won’t get off without a conviction.”

  “But there are other murderers, right?”

  “Yes. People I’ve never seen in these parts. Guys like the skinhead with the peacock tattooed on his head, and the one who looks like an old soldier in a metal suit. I think those guys were hired.”

  “You can’t beat guys like that,” Ayumi said. “So, like you said, running away would make the most sense. The more we try to help, the worse your situation gets. You understand now, Tsuzuki? Your friend gets killed.”

  “My friend…” Mio said.

  “Unlike Makino and me, you actually have a friend here. You should value that.”

  Mio widened her bloodshot eyes and sharpened her mouth. She looked like a pouty child put off by having been scolded.

  “It’s just that…” Rey Mao leaned forward and got up on one leg. “Makino here,” she said, gesturing toward Hazuki, “she’s in danger now too.”

  “Danger?”

  “These guys know that Yuko was secured at her house. The police officers that secured Yuko after processing her, and you, both recognized Yuko. They know that. They might come after you. Be careful.”

  “The security at her house is ridiculously thorough,” Mio said. “An insect would set off the alarm.”

  “Insects are flying in and out of there all the time. A child could break in. Don’t underestimate these guys.”

  Hmm, Mio groaned very purposefully, and moved over to Hazuki. She examined Hazuki’s face. “That’s it.”

  “What?” Hazuki said.

  “Make the first move. Makino, have your father call the police and see what ended up happening with the so-called trespasser.”

  “What’s that going to accomplish?”

  “Everything. That cop who was attacked by the skinhead and the metal soldier didn’t die, right? He’s probably scared of the skinhead and was threatened not to talk by the metal soldier.”

  “Not to talk? You mean threatened to keep quiet?”

  “Right? Like Cat said, the records can be tampered with but not the memory. That’s why Makino could be in danger too. In that case she should talk first.”

  “Right, but to say what?”

  “Make a statement. Something like, ‘The girl apprehended by our security system for invading our house looked a lot like the one they’re saying was killed.’ Hazuki, they made you look at her on your security screen, right?”

  “Yeah, but I told them I didn’t recognize her,” Hazuki said.

  “That’s normal. But they’re going to start broadcastin
g her face all over the world tonight. The face of a savage serial killer’s victim. You’re going to see that and think it bears a resemblance.”

  “And tell the police?”

  “No.” Mio was suddenly upbeat. “You tell your father. You’re going to have your politician dad tell the police.”

  “I see…” Hazuki thought of the expressive face of her foster father.

  She hadn’t thought about it before, but he was certainly a powerful figure.

  And more importantly, he would never harm Hazuki.

  “Imagine. Information brought in by a prefectural suit. Not even the police would ignore that. And the security company’s records might have been erased but not the mainframe security data from your house. The system set up in your house can save all kinds of images. There’s about a month’s worth of incoming records that get saved privately. If Yabe appeared on your home monitor for even a moment, there will definitely be a record remaining.”

  Remaining.

  A record of that fictitious night.

  “If you leave it alone the system will erase as it records new material, but it’ll still have records of just a few days ago. You should pull it now and save it on a flash drive or something. If you compare that data against the data saved by the security system people, you’re guaranteed to turn up some discrepancies. Then the police can’t keep quiet and the officer that took Yabe in can’t keep hiding behind his fear of the skinhead.

  “What do you think about that?” Mio said to Ayumi. “You have a problem with this? This is a complete offensive campaign devised by a child, as you’d put it. It’s a citizen’s duty. If all goes well, doubts about the murder will be exposed. I mean, it’s not like the guy will get caught, but Makino will be safe. After that…

  “She’s at the mercy of the authorities.” Mio tied it all up.

  CHAPTER 018

  SHE SET HER monitor on voice-recognition mode. Initiate call, she inputted in a soft voice, and called Shima.

  The face that appeared on her monitor screen was haunted.

  Shima was located just four rooms away and in the same stand-by mode as her cohort Shizue. As soon as she appeared Shima said, “Not again.”

  “This is being recorded. You should watch what you say.”

  “I’m not in any state to be careful about what I say. You should know that as a counselor,” Shima threw at Shizue.