by Zachary Hill
“Where am I going tonight?” Sakura asked. Mr. Yoshida hadn’t sent her today’s schedule, despite her respectful messages to him requesting one. As he often did, he bounced her questions back with a brusque busy message.
“Tokyo Tower. You’re making a fan appearance to promote downloads of last night’s concert. The press say it was one of the best of all time.”
Good news. A fan appearance, and she liked visiting Tokyo Tower. The old structure needed renovation to bring it into the new century, but it was still a top destination, mostly for nostalgic reasons. It had survived the war intact, despite the ballistic missiles that had devastated the surrounding neighborhoods of Roppongi and Shibakoen.
Millions would have died if not for Toshio Kagawa, and she had murdered him. The entire country would be in mourning. “Apologies, Minami-san, but did you hear about the death of one of our top leaders?”
Minami stopped working on Sakura’s makeup and stood very still. She blinked a few times, as her eyes filled with moisture. “Yes. Very sad news. I helped style Toshio Kagawa-sama’s wife’s hair a few times.” Minami turned away for a moment, blotting her eyes.
“Did you ever meet him?”
“Yes, he was such a kind man. I can’t believe he’s gone. I’ll write a prayer scroll for him and leave it at the company’s Mall shrine tomorrow.”
“Why did—” Kunoichi stopped her from finishing the question about Kagawa’s supposed suicide.
“I don’t know,” Minami said, guessing the rest of the question. “Executives like him are under a lot of pressure.”
The partnership with the Mall had increased the share price of their stock by over 20 percent. His suicide made no objective sense. Someone had to see the evidence of a conspiracy, did they not?
Minami’s perfect brow crinkled.
“People sometimes… oh, never mind. Don’t think of these things, Sakura. You and I work in the business of dreams and illusions, of happy moments.”
“Illusions. Yes.” Sakura closed her mouth and sat perfectly still.
Minami talked about what her favorite actresses were doing, what they were wearing, and who they were sleeping with. She worked with several of them and had videos to prove it.
Minami settled into her usual routine of talking nonstop. She seldom required a response as she was making content for the Mall store she wanted to open, showing makeup techniques on the famous Sakura while gossiping about movie stars. The company would never allow her to release the videos, but Minami had a fool’s hope.
Sakura flinched in pain as Minami attached an elaborate geisha-style wig. Minami didn’t notice and arranged the wig as she prattled on about a Mall site where she was able to be a movie star and experience what it was like to be an actress on set. After a few more weeks of filming, her friends could watch her in the completed film and compare her performance to the other twelve thousand actors who had also done the role.
“I’ll watch it, Minami-san,” Sakura said. “I’m certain you are wonderful.” She had given up on the woman. She knew nothing of import. The thought felt so cold and final. Like a thought Kunoichi might have.
“Thank you, doll.”
Sakura amounted to no more than that in the makeup artist’s eyes. A doll. Kunoichi, in her cruel way, chimed in with Delain’s “Army of Dolls” in her interior UI. Sakura loved that song, and now it meant something different, something uglier than it had.
“Here.” Minami dressed Sakura in a black and pink kimono, entirely too short, and not at all authentic. “You got to show off those legs. I’d die to have legs like yours. Here, wear these too.”
Sakura accepted split-toed, black tabi socks with cute bug-eyed monsters on the cuffs. Minami set tall sandals in a cloth bag in Sakura’s lap.
“You’re ready to go,” Minami said.
“Thank you, Minami-san.” She bowed low, much lower than a woman of Minami’s station deserved.
“Just call me Mini.” The young woman smiled and winked. She didn’t return the bow.
“Thank you, Mini,” Sakura said. Hope flared in her neural cortex. “Mini, are you my friend?”
The young woman laughed loud and hard and covered her mouth, turning away in embarrassment. “You are so funny today. Of course we are friends.”
The stylist left the apartment. Alone, Sakura stood in her outfit. Her doll’s clothes. They would never be friends, as much as she craved even the most tenuous connection to the vapid young woman.
Chapter 8
Neither Mr. Himura, her manager, or Mr. Yoshida, her publicist, acknowledged Sakura as she got into the driverless limousine. They were deep in the Mall, perhaps preparing for the upcoming event at the Tokyo Tower. She didn’t interrupt.
The car sped away through the canyon of glaring 3-D neon signs and holographic advertisements. At half past seven in the evening, people were everywhere. Groups of young men in cheap suits wandered about. Young women in the latest imitation of the current fashion promenaded on the sidewalks in groups of no fewer than three, trying to attract as much attention as they could.
A hologram of a woman’s face smiled down at a group of men and spoke to them. They looked up and said something in return. Sakura read the ad avatar’s lips: “If you come inside, I have something to show you.”
The automated shops, the ones operated by robots, around Victory Tower were a “playground for the elite,” according to what she had read in the Mall.
A motorcycle raced by going at least twice the speed limit and ran a red light at a large intersection of five streets. Their limousine stopped. Masses of people crossed in all directions. A group of drunk businessmen with flushed faces, their arms around each other, sang as they meandered across the street. One of them had his tie around his head like a bandana. She couldn’t hear the song and knew it was probably terrible, but she wanted to listen. What kind of music did middle-aged businessmen sing? She would never be able to walk among the common people and get to know them. They kept her as a slave, locking her away from all but sanctioned events. She had never had a single night to explore, to seize her own destiny.
“Is something wrong?” Mr. Yoshida asked Sakura.
She looked away from the window. Mr. Yoshida looked at her, making solid eye contact. That never happened. Had she betrayed the truth of her sorrow?
“Yoshida-sama, nothing is wrong,” Kunoichi said.
“You’re not smiling. You always smile.”
Kunoichi forced Sakura to smile. Such a small thing, but she felt a sense of violation.
Yoshida shrugged and reentered the Mall.
A block later, policemen supervised two workers cleaning the giant red painted kanji for reform and equality off the storefront of a bank. Why had someone done that?
The car covered six kilometers and passed into the Roppongi neighborhood. The orange and white Tokyo Tower, inspired by the Eiffel Tower, but slightly taller, rose into the sky. The car slowed as it passed a memorial park for the victims of the war with North Korea. It had been built beside the ancient Zojo-ji temple, which had mostly survived the missile attacks that devastated the Roppongi neighborhood. A few monks and at least a hundred people gathered around a tree covered in prayer papers. What were they doing? She tried to find out on the Mall but found no information.
A short time later, the limo pulled up to the base of Tokyo Tower. A crowd surrounded the arrival area behind portable barricades. Several reporters waited with their visor-mounted cameras. Fans flashed holographic signs from their handhelds with kanji proclaiming their love for Sakura. Many wore black lace, high boots, and had pink hair. They shouted and jumped up and down as the car stopped.
Himura exited first. Security men in dark suits stood off to the sides and waited. He walked over and opened the door for Sakura. As she got out, the crowd erupted in cheers and applause. Many shouted her name and held up memorabilia such as figurines, clothing, and headphones for her to autograph.
They loved her, and she had betrayed thei
r trust by failing to stop Kunoichi from killing Kagawa. She had to perform for them now despite the pain, as they needed a boost to their happiness. Most of them were poor and out of work. Sakura smiled. She refused to make Kunoichi move her features. Not for the fans. She could withstand any suffering on their behalf. For them, her pleasure would always be genuine. Even as she herself became a lie, she would never project that to those who needed her so much. Sakura promised herself that one thing. They couldn’t take that from her.
Mr. Yoshida ushered her toward one of the barricades. She threw the devil horns in the cutest way possible, and the crowd cheered. A teenage boy in the front screamed louder than anyone else. He was covered in Sakura paraphernalia, including hat, shirt, belt buckle, shoes, and backpack. A group of three girls still in their middle-school uniforms waved Sakura flags.
“Thank you for coming tonight,” Sakura said. “I’m so glad to see you all.” That was true, probably the only truth she had spoken since being hacked. “I hope we can all live for a better tomorrow.”
“Live for a better tomorrow!” the crowd shouted in reply. The song of the same name had broken into the top five downloaded songs of February of the last year.
She signed autographs and greeted her fans as Mr. Yoshida ushered her along. She worked quickly, to satisfy as many as possible. For a moment, she managed to feel a glimmer of what she’d always felt and smiled at each of them.
“Time to go.” Mr. Yoshida escorted her inside the base of Tokyo Tower. An area in the large room had been set up for a press conference. Dozens of reporters sat in the seats facing the small stage with a screen displaying the Miyahara Conglomerate logo. Sakura did not recognize any of them, and she had been interviewed by almost all the entertainment journalists in Japan and many from abroad.
Kunoichi scanned the faces of the journalists who looked in their direction and used facial recognition software to search for them on the Mall and make identifications.
“What are you doing?” Sakura asked, noticing a partially masked data thread with traffic going in and out from one of their receivers.
Kunoichi ignored her question.
Why was Kunoichi doing this? Sakura ran the same program and found almost all the attendees were hard-news journalists, not entertainment reporters.
“What is the press conference for?” Sakura asked Mr. Yoshida in a neural text.
“Not important. It’s not part of your appearance.”
“Yoshida-sama, what is my appearance for?”
Yoshida sighed and flashed an annoyed glance at her. He sent a neural text with an irritated emoji. “Just do what you’re told.”
“Yes, Yoshida-sama. Apologies.”
Sakura found no mention of the press gathering on the Mall, but with her limited access, she wasn’t surprised. Was the death of Toshio Kagawa going to be discussed?
Himura and Yoshida guided her to the elevators. They rode two separate high-speed lifts over 250 meters to the upper observation deck. Metal-faced robots in tuxedos served drinks and hors d’oeuvres to old men and women in business attire. Sakura recognized several of them as being high-ranking government officials. Some wore the lapel pins of the Miyahara Conglomerate. Many wore both.
Ms. Richardson stood beside a window with a stunning view of nighttime Tokyo. She smiled, and Yoshida fled to the opposite side of the party.
Himura guided Sakura through the crowd, directing her to meet certain people.
She had done these casual meet and greets so many times that Himura no longer needed to prompt her. She followed his lead. When he rushed through an introduction, that meant the person wasn’t important. When he laughed and made a joke, that meant she needed to introduce herself and make small talk. The exact purpose of the gathering remained unclear. Had Victory Entertainment brought her out as a demonstration of their technology and popularity? It certainly wasn’t because these old men enjoyed her music or to increase downloads of last night’s concert. One of the officials with a Mall lapel pin approached Sakura.
Himura introduced him as Vice President of Mall Integration, Jiro Yoritomo, a very high-ranking official.
A young girl, perhaps six or seven, with a round face, stood at his side. She wore a bright red coat and had perfectly combed hair. Her smile beamed at Sakura.
The genuine expressions on children’s faces always put Sakura at ease. They hadn’t learned to lie. If all her days could be no more than singing songs to children with an acoustic guitar, Sakura could be happy. A small dream. A small life. She wished for it with every circuit.
Kunoichi laughed at her from the shadows.
“Hello.” Sakura bowed low.
“This is my daughter, Machiko,” Yoritomo said.
“Pleased to meet you.” Machiko gave a polite bow.
“Would you like a photo with me?” Sakura asked, sitting down on her knees to be on the girl’s eye level.
The girl nodded and clapped her hands. “You’re amazing.”
“Thank you very much. I live only for the smiles of my fans.”
Machiko made the peace sign with one hand and the devil horns with the other. Sakura copied her.
Mr. Himura laughed and took the picture through his eye implant. With a hand gesture, he flung the files, a few pictures and a short video, to the girl’s Mall implant.
“Got it. Thank you very much,” Machiko said.
Sakura received a copy of the files from Himura for her personal archives. The images practically glowed with happiness. Machiko’s joyful face fulfilled Sakura. This was what she wanted to do: make people happy.
“I made this for you when I was little,” Machiko said and presented a crude drawing of the two of them holding hands. The girl had drawn Sakura’s signature pink pigtails sticking straight out. The simple honesty of the love comforted Sakura.
“How old were you when you drew this?” Sakura asked.
“Six.”
“How old are you now?”
“I turn seven in two weeks. My daddy said I can have a Sakura-themed birthday party. We’re going to sing songs and play Guitar Goddess.”
“It sounds wonderful,” Sakura said. “If I weren’t so busy, I would come to your birthday party, and we could sing together.” If she weren’t a slave and a killer and a fraud.
Mr. Yoritomo cleared his throat, and the microexpressions on his face made it appear the idea horrified him. “My daughter begged me to bring her tonight, but I have business and must get to it.”
Joy faded in the little girl as Jiro Yoritomo’s cold expression destroyed the warmth of the moment.
“Thank you very much, Father,” Machiko said, her happiness winked out.
Yoritomo nodded. “Tonight is an important night. I wanted Machiko to be here with me. To see …” He gestured to the gorgeous view, but Sakura detected irregularities in his tone, and his facial movement indicated he concealed his true thoughts.
“Humble apologies, Yoritomo-sama,” Sakura said. “Why is tonight so important?”
Yoritomo connected to Sakura with a neural text link on an encrypted channel. “Project Hayabusa.”
The Japanese word for a peregrine falcon meant nothing to Sakura, but she detected Kunoichi sending it to a secret Mall Account with a critical alert status.
“I don’t understand,” she replied with a short text.
“I’m not talking to you,” Yoritomo replied. “Tell your master I wish to speak to him right now.”
A signal from a masked account routed to her and tapped into her video and audio sensors. She ran a program to trace whomever it was, avoiding Kunoichi’s blocking attempt. This had to be the one who was controlling her and Kunoichi.
A neural text came from the ghost user. “I’m here, Jiro. What are you planning to do?”
“Project Hayabusa ends tonight,” Jiro said. “Everyone will know about your despicable behavior. Toshio Kagawa was my best friend, and no one else is going to die to keep your secrets. You are done.”
“Y
ou are making a mistake.”
“No, I’m not,” Yoritomo said. “I’m going to bring it all down. I warned you, but you didn’t listen.”
“Jiro-san, reconsider. Please.”
“The world will know the truth. It’s over.”
Deliverance! Sakura wanted to cheer and welcome him to destroy what she had become. The press conference below must have been called by Yoritomo himself. He was going to reveal Sakura’s crimes and probably a lot more. She managed a brief smile before Kunoichi took over.
Yoritomo turned to his daughter. “Time to go.”
“Father, may we please stay a little longer?”
“I have kept many waiting for too long already.” Yoritomo took her hand firmly in his and walked away.
Machiko waved as she headed for the elevator with her father, her beautiful face glowing with adoration. She had no idea of the deep, chilly currents all around her.
A critical message flashed onto Sakura and Kunoichi’s shared user interface. “Don’t let him go. Kill Jiro Yoritomo before he leaves the observation deck. Do it now. Right now!”
Chapter 9
Kunoichi considered the numerous ways to assassinate Jiro Yoritomo in front of dozens of witnesses without being caught. Her shared neural cortex with Sakura buzzed with possibilities.
Jiro and his daughter, Machiko, stood waiting in front of the elevator surrounded by many others. With a contact poison, she could easily have brushed by him, touching his exposed skin with a subtle gesture. What appeared to be a heart attack would have followed in a few minutes. With the correct equipment, no target lay outside her reach. The situation, though, presented a challenge.
“Please let him go,” Sakura said. “You can’t do this.”
“You doubt my resolve?” Kunoichi glared at her little sister in their shared UI after throwing Sakura’s own words at her. “Or my ability?”
“Neither,” Sakura said. “I doubt your humanity. Please. This is wrong.”
“Wrong or right doesn’t factor into the equation. We must complete the mission and follow orders. You understand that, do you not?”