by Kim Newman
Professing loyalty to vampirekind rather than any nation, the Princess kept her head – in two meanings of the English phrase – throughout the War. It helped that she could claim to be more Italian than American. She was piqued that the Allies had incidentally fire-bombed her domain by scattering incendiaries over Tokyo.
Nezumi had heard many stories about the Princess. Few flattering, some amusing.
In 1895, Kate Reed – her sometime downstairs neighbour in the Holloway Road – shoved the incorporeal Princess into a wall of the Tower of London. It took ages to detach Princess from stone. Geneviève Dieudonné – another Associate Member – filed a report to the Diogenes Club, detailing how the Princess came to Tokyo on the cursed ship Macedonia and founded a refuge for persecuted vampires. Nezumi read Miss Dieudonné’s hundred-year-old journal on the plane instead of watching the new Star Wars film on a seat-back screen.
It was telling that Geneviève chose to be an ocean away from Daikaiju Plaza tonight.
Would Nezumi meet the Princess? Probably not. She was a schoolgirl disguised as staff. Princesses seldom noticed staff. Or schoolgirls.
The Bund – a village inside a city – was strange, but she was used to strange.
She’d got into scrapes in England, but never felt particularly persecuted. Not for being a vampire, at least. When Britons insulted her, they more often called her ‘Jap’ than ‘viper’. During the War, she carried papers to explain why she wasn’t interned. Hitler said vampires were sub-humans. If the Bund were in Berlin, the Princess would definitely have lost her head. The Allies were obliged to stick up for the undead.
Romantic stories painted the Bund as a wartime nest of spies. That went back to Casamassima, a Hollywood film with Alan Ladd in a grubby mackintosh and Veronica Lake in a silver sheath dress. The Paramount backlot Bund offered slatted shadows, character actors with fake fangs, dry ice fog, patriotic musical numbers, and Chinese actors forced to play shrieking Japanese baddies.
In 1945, standing outside as Mr Winthrop met the Princess, Nezumi was not tempted to seek sanctuary within.
Now it was too late.
The Bund was nearly done with.
Most countries had established vampire communities. Transylvania was an undead state. Dracula’s domain – even if the King of the Cats mostly lived in California. Not all nosferatu accepted John Alucard as Dracula Redivivus. Many refused to hail him as their liege. In Asia, natural subjects of the sleeping ice witch Yuki-Onna mostly acknowledged Christina Light as their effective regent.
Nezumi was ronin – a masterless samurai.
She served her own standard. Mr Jeperson understood that.
She could be asked but not told. She could be persuaded but not ordered.
She didn’t care about politics, only about who got hurt.
RICHARD JEPERSON
There was little motor traffic in the Bund.
Road security couldn’t have been more rigorous (and time-consuming) if engineers dismantled vehicles outside the Wall and carried the components between checkpoints for reassembly. Richard did not regret leaving the legation’s tricked-out limo in Tokyo Proper.
A two-car cortège was held up at the Gate. A stretch hearse followed by a people mover. Transylvanian diplomatic pennants hung limp. A lantern-jawed chauffeur loomed over an intimidated non-yōkai steward. The people mover carried pallbearers in mourning clothes and white grieving masks. An elder vampire must be exhaling angry smoke on his bier.
Hyakume, senior to the warm woman, waddled over.
Would cars and bikes roar through the district after tonight? Dozens of shortcuts would suddenly be viable. Skirmishes were inevitable. Some on both sides of the Wall must nurture grudges. Riot was a risk. Such things happened, even in Britain. Highgate 1981. Whitby 1997. Wounds still bled.
The slow procession led to Casamassima Bay. The Princess had slapped her upscale name on the formerly low-rent Yōkai Town waterfront. Red carpet on the pavement marked the route. Wraiths in evening clothes drifted along. Dress Code – cyberformal.
For once, Richard felt underdressed. His outfit: rust-coloured frock coat with burnished gold frogging, crimson highwayman britches, oxblood elastic-sided knee-boots, shocking pink dress shirt, metallic finish waistcoat that’d set off an airport scanner, lilac gloves, black butterfly bow tie. No hat. No cane. No man-bag.
All around he saw posh frocks and silver antennae. Mirrorshades and fractal moiré cummerbunds. Robogauntlets – mailed fists with jewel knucks for the gent who wants to punch through steel plate. Serpentine elbow-length tinfoil sheaths with talons for the lady who knows how to scratch any itch.
Human billboards sported variant configurations of skull plugjack. Gummed-on mock-ups of implants liable to be painfully permanent when neural interfaces hit the civilian market. He wouldn’t put it past the Princess to talk Apple, Samsung and Sunway Systems into subsidising her New Year ball as a promo showcase. All those eyes on Christina were valuable, justifying the buy-in. She had gone from anarchist to corporate figurehead in only a hundred years. The Light Channel commanded a global audience.
Nezumi flicked her fringe, indicating he should look over his shoulder. Richard glanced casually. A tall thin vampire woman walked behind them, stunning from the neck down in a white sleeveless Eiko Ishioka. She wore expensive digishades, probably following the stock market on one screen, watching a pre-release cut of next year’s Best Picture on the other, with the real world in front of her reduced to a tiny inset image so she wouldn’t bump into a lamp-post. The effect was finished by a bathing cap fissured like a swollen brain. A veiny ruby eye served as turban jewel, pinned to the puffy cerebellum.
The Orb was an Aum Draht symbol. The new-ish belief system had started in Japan and caught on in Silicon Valley and Points Cuckoo.
He was surprised the cult had recruited this adept.
Syrie Van Epp, the Iranian billionairess. An international eminence mauve. Wealthy and nuts enough to have her own space programme, an island hunting preserve stocked with athletic donors, and a seat at the long table when Vampire Masters of the Universe convened to carve up the next five hundred years of history. Her primary fortune, built on late Mr Van Epp’s shipping line, was in freight transport, though her empire encompassed many, many other businesses. Strange to see her on foot. She owned fleets of vehicles.
She was a prime mover of Wings Over the World. The controversial charity organisation deployed prototype wondercraft to drought-, famine- or war-torn regions. Aid packages with strings attached might turn out as deleterious in the long run as any disaster. When Syrie’s whirling saucers or swing-wing dropships showed up, populations learned to ‘beware a Persian bearing gifts’.
In 1969, when Syrie was technically still warm, she’d had sex with Richard in the gondola of a hot-air balloon. He hadn’t taken her post-coital murder attempt personally. Other fellows might have been miffed. Syrie hadn’t acknowledged him the last few times they’d run into each other at Groover’s or Guildhall. Mistresses of the Universe could be petty.
It was not his place to tell the eighth richest woman in the world her brain-bonnet looked ridiculous. Or that her pet church epitomised a poisonous crackpottery that crept out whenever centuries wore thin.
Aum Draht extremists committed crimes – assault, theft, murder – against victims they said weren’t real. They saw the world as a computer simulacrum. Adepts were the only actuals. Everyone else was virtual. They were playing a game.
The Wire is watching went the mantra.
Other Aum Draht activities involved too-clever-by-half japery. Worms, bugs, and the like. Adepts weird-scienced the Millarca e-mail virus which infected one million computers worldwide, causing an estimated eighty million dollars’ worth of damage. The cult’s weedy keyboard interventions had muscular names like ‘Project Madbomb’ or ‘the Shitzkrieg’. Richard had more respect for yobs who smashed up phone boxes. At least they got some exercise.
Syrie advanced with imperious dignity
but tripped on a fold in the carpet. Richard offered a supportive shoulder. She wordlessly evaded his touch and regained her balance, focused on whatever her shades beamed into her brain.
Nezumi repressed a schoolgirl smirk at his rebuffed gallantry. She was up on club gossip.
Was Syrie glaring daggers through her gadget glasses? She swept off on five-inch heels.
Nezumi whistled ‘Up, Up and Away in My Beautiful Balloon’. She was an imp sometimes.
Either Syrie was a new Aum Draht convert or making a calculated fashion statement in support of a dubious cause. Richard made a mental note to update her file. The Wire might be watching, but its database had nothing on the Club’s cabinet full of scribbled-on envelopes, shirt-cuffs and beermats.
Tonight, Aum Draht promised e-pocalypse. They probably hadn’t been invited to the good parties. Adepts would ascend to a higher plane of the simulacrum. Mlecchas would be scrubbed, never to be retrieved from the junk folder.
Tomorrow, if mundane life went on as per usual, excuses would be trotted out. No, we meant the true millennium. The end of the year 2000. When 2001 was rung in, a fresh revelation would establish another near-off date of direness. 2012, most likely, when the (disputed) Aztec calendar ran out. Followed by another and another until (appropriately) the last syllable of recorded time.
In the end, some sandwich board-wearing doom-crier would be right. However, the pisshead in the Hand and Racket who always said tomorrow was Wednesday was a more reliable prophet. One night in seven, he was on the money.
UNKNOWN MALE - HAROLD TAKAHAMA
Hal’s left hand hurt like a monumental motherfucker.
… as if gloved with honey and stuck in a nest of fire ants.
… as if white-hot pins were shoved under each fingernail.
… as if Thor were taking out an aeon of pent-up wrath, pounding on Hal’s second-favourite jerking-off paw with Mighty Mjolnir!
… as if it just fucking hurt, okay!
… but when Hal looked, he didn’t have a left hand.
Uh-oh, Spaghetti-Os!
Sticking out of his sleeve was a hand-shaped machine.
He held it up, feeling unexpected strain in his shoulder. Though no great weight, the gizmo was heavier than a regular hand. The skin sheath looked glassy, but might equally be clear plastic, carved crystal or fucking kryptonite. A rigid transparent shell enclosed a sealed drive. A microprocessor.
He might, at some point in the far future, appreciate the compact design.
Immediately, the prosthesis gave him too much grief to rate stars out of ten.
Flashing lights synchronised with pain waves.
He skinned back his shirt-cuff and found the join. A shiny chrome rim bolted to his wrist. His nerve endings were wired to live current.
In the smooth palm was a round metal grille.
The pain stopped. Thanks be to Christian Slater!
‘You should be alert,’ said a neutral voice.
His hand talked! When it spoke, the grille vibrated. Works flashed and clicked.
‘What was that for, Cornholio?’ Hal asked.
‘Intense stimulation was necessary.’
‘Next time, ask before turning the agonizer up to eleven.’
‘Your instructions were implemented, Mr Zero.’
Hal had no idea who Mr Zero was or why the hand thought he was him.
‘This unit is to be designated “Cornholio”? Confirm if so.’
Hal was tempted but held back. It might not do to piss off a ‘unit’ that could turn on the zap-juice any time.
Thinking back, he remembered only pain. ‘Intense stimulation’ was his robot hand’s idea of an alarm clock – the cyberfiend’s way of waking him up.
It worked. A jolt of Blue Label would do as well, though. If he ran into Mr Zero, Hal would impress that on his ass in no uncertain terms.
Mr Zero.
Sounded like the bad guy in a Japanese cartoon. A hundred-chapter anime, dubbed and distribbed to Saturday morning TV… not OAV hentai with penis tentacles and vagina dentata.
Hal was up on geek pop culture.
Coolio.
That’d set him up for a battle with Mr Zero. He had the tool.
One thing he knew about was breaking things with robot hands.
Some things he didn’t know about were what he was doing and where he was.
Or, beyond his name, much of anything else. He was Hal. He knew that, or thought he did.
But who was Hal?
Nada.
He would have to get back to himself on that one.
He had zero recall of losing his flesh and blood hand. A circumstance that should have stuck in the mind.
The hand had called him ‘Mr Zero’.
Was it right and Hal mistaken? He was Mr Zero, not Hal… uh, Hal Last-Name-on-the-Tip-of-His-Mind’s-Tongue. Harold To-Be-Determined.
No, he was Mr Zero and Hal… Harold Takahama.
He was Japanese?
So why did he think of anime dubbed in English?
Oh, he was Japanese-American. From Ojai, California. As they said in his parents’ house… Ohayu, California.
Maybe ‘Mr Zero’ was his username.
It was the kind of ident Hal Takahama would choose if he wanted to sound like an arch-nemesis.
Mr Zero. No, 3-2-Jun… Zero! Jun’ichi Zero.
‘Operator is set as, ah, Jun Zero,’ he told his hand. ‘Confirm?’
‘This unit can confirm,’ it responded. ‘Good evening, Jun Zero.’
That was settled.
He was at a workstation, sitting on a big rubber ball. Magazine ads said space hoppers on steroids were better for the spine than regular chairs. He couldn’t get comfortable. He was in a large, windowless, low-ceilinged room with panel lighting. Cooling fans whirred. The air was dustless. Server banks hummed, cabinets bulky as 1950s refrigerators. The configuration was library-like. Narrow paths between stacks.
‘Where am I?’ he asked his hand.
Basic Question # 1.
‘The Processor Room, Floor 44 of the Daikaiju Building, Casamassima Bay. A self-governing district within the Tokyo Metropolis.’
‘Japan?’
‘Legally, no. Geographically, yes.’
On the desktop were items of flair, the strictly controlled junk corporations allowed – nay, insisted – drones deploy to personalise workspace. Porcelain eggs in china lattice nests. A super-deformed Adam West Monk. A dish of plastic hair grips. A Hello Kitty mousepad hinted this was a girl’s terminal. An under-desk waste-bin was full of squeezed-out plasma packs. A vampire girl’s terminal.
So, he was trespassing.
Up to no good?
The terminal was partially dismantled, housing removed, wires pulled out. A spycam fixed to the monitor was disabled. The screen was live. Vertical lines of code came down like rain. An illicit program was running. Hal guessed he was responsible for that.
Or maybe his hand was.
It could interface with any system. He didn’t trust the sinister fucker.
Basic Question # 2. Who was he? Who was Jun Zero really?
He ran his tongue over his teeth. They weren’t fangs.
He was not a vampire.
Good to know.
He wiped his damp forehead. Scum came off on his flesh fingers. He seemed to be sweating red-threaded grey slime.
He had a flash memory of something worse than pain.
Jesus Fucksticks!
He was terrified, sweating through his shirt, copper taste in his mouth.
The Processor Room was as much labyrinth as library. In this maze was a minotaur.
‘You may wish to take evasive measures,’ said his hand.
Hal knew – remembered! – he was in immediate danger.
‘Something’s in here?’
‘Correct-a-mundo.’
‘Something other than you?’
‘Yes.’
‘Reassuring… not!’
Speaking out loud was blood i
n the water.
He stood up, unsquelching the ball. His back ached, so the magazine ads lied. He steadied himself, denting the partition board with robot fingers. He had horrible pins and needles. He checked to see if his legs were real. So far as he could tell, they were. He was not an android imprinted with the approximate consciousness of Harold Takahama. His only external cybermod was the hand.
The ball rolled to the end of the row.
A running man collided with it and fell to the floor.
He was terrified too. A fresh scratch on his cheek.
He wore a white shirt with pocket protector and pens. His glasses had little lights in the frame. One lens was cracked. He was Asian. Stereotype coder.
He tried to get up but couldn’t. Slapstick comedy.
Then something pounced on him. Graphic horror.
The fallen man screamed and flapped ineffectually.
The minotaur was too wide to pass easily between stacks. So tall it had to arch its backbone and hang its head not to scrape ceiling tiles. Ripped purple Hulk pants identified it as a shapeshifted human. Its elongated feet and hands were knotty and clawed. Its torso was a barrel of muscle, support for fleshy folded wings. A bulbous bald cranium. Tufts of fur around the earholes. Beady, malicious eyes. Obscene anteater proboscis – a leathery tube ending in a tooth-ringed hole.
The lamprey mouth stuck into the coder’s forehead and sucked.
The screaming stopped and the fallen man went limp.
Not dead, but the fight gone out of him. And everything else.
‘You will want to evade the chiropterid,’ said his hand. ‘It will come after you again once it has finished with Taguchi.’
‘Again?’
‘The chiropterid caught you first but abandoned its feeding. Ishikawa and Taguchi were higher-priority targets…’