Bullet Train

by Kotaro Isaka

  ‘Probably. Two kinds of payment, cash and card. Pain in the ass.’

  ‘I wonder, if you used the cards then could the owner of the bag find out the location where you made the withdrawal …’

  ‘No way, they’re not the cops. Anyway, nobody involved with this bag makes a straight living, not the carriers and not whoever it’s going to. They probably have some arrangement worked out so one doesn’t screw the other.’

  ‘Hmm.’ The Prince thumbs through a few notes. ‘Hey, Mr Kimura, you took one of these, right?’

  Kimura’s face stiffens and his cheeks go red. ‘What makes you say that?’

  ‘I just have the feeling that when you saw this you’d want to try something, like take a note or two and tear them up and flush them down the toilet. Did you do that?’

  The Prince notices the blood drain from Kimura’s frowning face. Looks like I guessed right.

  Now Kimura starts to move his hands and feet. Unfortunately, they’re already all bound and taped up. If he was going to make a move, he should have done it before.

  ‘Mr Kimura, in this life, do you know what’s right?’ The Prince slips off his shoes and pulls his knees into his chest. He leans back in his seat and balances on his tailbone.

  ‘Yeah. Nothing.’

  ‘Exactly! That’s one hundred percent correct.’ The Prince nods. ‘In life, there are things that are said to be right, but there’s no saying if it’s actually right. That’s why the people who can say, This is what’s right, those people have all the power.’

  ‘Over my head, your majesty. Talk so that the commoners can understand.’

  ‘Like there was that documentary in the ‘80s The Atomic Cafe. It was pretty famous. There’s a part where soldiers are doing training for a stratagem involving nuclear arms. The soldiers have to enter an area where a nuclear bomb has just been set off. In the briefing before they go, a high-rank-looking guy is writing on the blackboard and explaining the operation to the soldiers. There are only three things you have to be wary of, he says. The blast, the heat and the radiation. Then he says, the radiation is the new threat, but it’s also the one you need to worry about the least.’

  ‘How could they not need to worry about radiation?’

  ‘It’s invisible and odourless. The solders are told that as long as they follow procedure, they won’t get sick. The nuke is detonated, and the soldiers start marching straight towards the mushroom cloud. In their normal uniforms!’

  ‘You kidding me? And the radiation didn’t hurt them?’

  ‘Don’t be ridiculous. They all got radiation sickness and suffered horribly. Basically, if people hear an explanation they want to believe it, and when someone important says with full confidence, Don’t worry, everything’s fine, people go along with it. When really, the important person has no plans to tell everyone else the whole truth. In the same movie there’s an educational video for kids, with a cartoon turtle in it. He says, when there’s a nuclear blast, make sure you hide right away! Duck down under the table and hide!’

  ‘That’s stupid.’

  ‘We think it’s stupid, but when the government calmly and confidently declares it to be so, we have no choice but to believe they’re right. Right? And maybe it even is right, for that time and place. Like, for example, asbestos. It’s prohibited to use it in construction now due to health hazards, but it used to be prized for its flame-retardant and heat-resistant qualities. There was a time when everyone thought that using asbestos when building buildings was the right thing to do.’

  ‘Are you really fourteen? How are you talking like that?’

  What a moron, the Prince thinks as he laughs through his nose. How’s a fourteen-year-old supposed to talk? If you read enough books and gain enough knowledge, your way of speaking naturally evolves. It has nothing to do with age. ‘Even after there were reports that asbestos was dangerous, it still took years until it was outlawed. Which probably made most people think, if it’s really dangerous, there would be more of an outcry and they’d pass a law banning its use, but since that hasn’t happened, everything must be fine. Now we use different materials, but don’t be surprised when you start hearing that those are health hazards too. Same with pollution, food contamination, unsafe medication. There’s no way anybody can be sure of what to believe.’

  ‘The government’s rotten, politicians are the worst, everything’s a mess. Is that it? Not the most original opinion.’

  ‘That’s not what I’m saying at all. My point is how easy it is to make people think that something wrong is actually right. Although in the moment even the politicians probably think it’s right, and they’re not actually trying to trick anyone.’

  ‘So … so what?’

  ‘So, the most important thing is to be one of the people who decide what people believe.’ But even if I explain this to you I doubt you’ll ever understand it. ‘It’s not politicians who control things. Bureaucrats and corporate leaders, they’re the ones who call the shots. But you’ll never see them on television. Most people are only familiar with politicians who appear on TV and in the newspapers. Which works out well for the people who stand behind them.’

  ‘Shitting on bureaucrats isn’t hard either.’

  ‘But say someone thinks that bureaucrats are worthless, they don’t actually know who the bureaucrats are, so there’s nowhere to direct any anger or discontent. Just a set of faceless pronouncements. Whereas politicians have to work in the public eye. Bureaucrats make use of that. The politicians absorb all the fire and the bureaucrats stand safely behind them. And if a politician causes any trouble, it’s a simple matter of leaking sensitive information to the media.’ The Prince realises he’s talking too much. I’m probably just excited about getting the suitcase open. ‘Basically, the person who has the most information and can use it to further their goals is the strongest. Like this suitcase, just by knowing where it is I can control the people who want it.’

  ‘What are you gonna do with the cash?’

  ‘Nothing. It’s just money, after all.’

  ‘Well, yeah. Exactly. It’s money.’

  ‘It’s not like you want it, Mr Kimura. No amount of money will help your stupid kid get better.’

  The lines in Kimura’s face deepen and shadows harden around the edges. Too easy, thinks the Prince.

  ‘Why are you doing this?’

  ‘You need to be more specific. What do you mean by “this”? Are you talking about the suitcase? Or my tying you up and taking you with me to Morioka?’

  Kimura doesn’t answer at first. He doesn’t even know what he’s asking, notes the Prince. He asks why without being sure of what he wants to find out. Someone like him will never be able to turn his life around.

  Finally Kimura settles on his question. ‘Why did you hurt Wataru?’

  ‘I already told you, little Wataru followed me and my friends up to the roof and just fell. Let me play, he said, let me play. Careful, it’s dangerous, I said. I warned him.’

  Kimura’s face turns so red it gives off heat. But he suppresses his rage. ‘Whatever. Not interested in your bullshit story. What I’m asking is, why Wataru? Why him?’

  ‘Well, of course, it was to get at you,’ the Prince says with great humour. Then he holds a finger up to his lips and whispers, ‘But don’t tell anyone.’

  ‘You know what I think?’ Kimura’s mouth hangs open in a half-smile. All at once the tension vanishes from his face, his expression comes alive, his eyes flash. He seems to be young again, a teenager, as if he too were in school. The Prince is overcome by the sudden sensation that he’s dealing with an equal. ‘I think you might’ve been scared of me.’

  The Prince is used to being underestimated. There is no shortage of people who look down on him because he’s a schoolboy, because he’s small and weak-looking. He relishes turning that underestimation into fear.

  But right now he’s the one feeling unsettled.

  He thinks back to that evening a few months ago.
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br />   In the park, among the trees of a small wood, at the bottom of a gentle dip in the terrain, the Prince and his classmates were getting ready to test the medical device. He proposed that they use it to shock Tomoyasu, that flat-footed dimwit. Although it wasn’t really a proposal, it was an order. Unlike an AED, if used on someone whose heart was still functioning this defibrillator could conceivably kill. The Prince knew this, but he didn’t tell the others. He only ever gave them the barest minimum of information. He also knew that if Tomoyasu did happen to die it presented an opportunity: the others would all panic, and in their discombobulated state they would look to him for answers.

  Tomoyasu was screaming and crying so annoyingly that the Prince agreed to use the dog as a test subject instead. At that point his interest shifted away from the effects of the defibrillator. Instead the Prince wanted to see how it would affect Tomoyasu to sacrifice his faithful dog, which he had raised since he was a boy.

  Tomoyasu loved the dog, but he was ready to subject it to pain and suffering. How could he justify it? No doubt he was casting around for justification, trying to convince himself he was not a bad person.

  The first step in gaining control over his classmates was to destabilise their sense of self-worth. He made them realise how flawed they were as humans. The quickest way to do this was to exploit their sexual urges, find out their secret desires, expose and humiliate them. Or in some cases he would confront them with their parents’ sexual activities, sullying their image of the people they depended on most. Even though there’s nothing unusual about sexual desires, having them exposed never fails to make someone feel shame. The Prince couldn’t help but be surprised at how well it worked.

  The next step was to get them to betray someone. It could be a parent or a sibling or a friend. When they turned on someone important to them, their self-worth plummeted even more. This was what the Prince was hoping to do with Tomoyasu and his dog.

  But just as they had the dog tied down and were ready to administer the shock, Kimura showed up.

  The Prince immediately recognised him from the time they met at the local department store. He had struck him as a grown-up juvenile delinquent with a kid, vulgar and boorish, the sort of man who can only think in straight lines.

  ‘Hey now, what do you think you’re doing to that dog?’ Kimura simply seemed to want to rescue the dog and the boy. ‘There you go, get mad, kid. I’m messing with your mission – if you don’t do something quick his highness the Prince’ll be angry. Hey, where is the Prince anyway?’

  He didn’t like the way Kimura was laughing. ‘Wow, sir, you sure seem pleased with yourself.’ Then he threw a rock at the man’s face. It hit full force, knocking him over backwards. ‘Shall we try to hold him?’ the Prince said quietly. His classmates obediently sprang into action.

  They hauled Kimura up and held his arms on both sides. A third came from behind and clamped an arm around his neck.

  ‘Ow, that hurts,’ the man bellowed.

  The Prince moved closer. ‘I guess you didn’t notice me there, sir. You should pay better attention.’

  The dog started barking, drawing the Prince’s eye. Tomoyasu and his dog stood off to the side. He must have got up while everyone was busy with Kimura. His legs were shaking. The dog didn’t try to run away, it just waited loyally by its master, barking bravely. So close, the Prince thought bitterly. It would have only taken a bit more to shatter the bond between them, just a bit more pain, a bit more betrayal.

  ‘Hey, your majesty, you get off on ordering your friends around like this?’ Even though his assailants were just schoolkids, the two boys holding his arms and one gripping his neck made it difficult for him to move.

  ‘Look at the position you’re in,’ the Prince replied. ‘And you’re still talking tough? Hilarious.’

  ‘Positions change. It all depends on what happens.’ Kimura appeared totally calm, unfazed by the fact that he was being held fast.

  ‘Who wants to punch this old man in the stomach?’ The Prince eyed his classmates. A gust of wind blew through the trees, kicking up the leaves on the ground. The schoolkids, confused by the sudden command, looked at one another warily, then all at once pushed to be first in line to attack Kimura. They punched him with glee, one after the other.

  He grunted with what sounded like pain, but then he said, ‘I been drinking, you’re gonna make me puke,’ and his voice was quite relaxed. ‘You guys know that you don’t have to do what he tells you.’

  ‘I’ve got an idea. Why don’t you be our test subject, sir?’ The Prince looked over at the defibrillator on the ground. ‘How do you feel about an electric shock?’

  ‘Sounds great,’ Kimura said lightly. ‘Happy to give my body to science. I always thought the Curies were cool.’

  ‘I wouldn’t be so laid back if I were you.’ What an imbecile, thought the Prince. How has he survived this long? I bet he’s never worked hard, never suffered, always just done whatever he felt like.

  ‘Yeah, you’re right, I should take it more seriously. Oh no, I’m scared, your majesty!’ Kimura’s voice went up an octave. ‘Save me, your majesty! Then give me a kiss!’

  The Prince didn’t think it was funny, but neither did he get angry. He was mostly just dumbfounded at how Kimura had made it this far in life.

  ‘All right, let’s give it a shot.’ The Prince looked at his classmates again. After punching Kimura, they had just been standing there dumbly, awaiting the next instructions. At the Prince’s word several of them moved to pick up the defibrillator and carry it closer to Kimura. They would need to affix the electrode pads to his chest. One of them leaned in and pulled Kimura’s shirt up, about to stick on the pad, when Kimura spoke again.

  ‘Hey, you should be careful of my legs. No one’s holding them, I’ll kick the shit outta you. Your highness, tell these idiots to get my legs!’

  The Prince couldn’t tell if Kimura was trying to seem unconcerned or if the man was just crazy, but he took the suggestion and ordered one of his classmates to hold Kimura’s legs.

  ‘Don’t you have any girls in your gang? I’d rather have girls grabbing me. You guys all reek of jizz.’

  The Prince ignored this and told them to stick on the pads.

  And if this kills him, he thought, we’ll just tell the police that this drunk stranger showed up with a defibrillator and hooked it up to himself. He guessed that no one would bat an eyelid if a slovenly alcoholic were to wind up dead.

  ‘Here we go,’ said the Prince, gazing at Kimura. With the way the four boys were holding him, he looked like Jesus nailed to the cross.

  ‘Wait a second,’ Kimura said mildly. ‘Something’s been bothering me.’ He turned his head to face the schoolkid holding his left arm. ‘I think I have a pimple on my lip – does it look bad?’

  ‘Huh?’ The kid blinked in confusion and leaned in. Kimura spat violently at him, hurling a gob of saliva right into his face. The kid flinched and pawed at the spit on his face, letting go of Kimura’s arm.

  Kimura immediately swung his fist downward, bashing the kid holding his legs on the top of the skull. The kid squinted hard and held his head with both hands, freeing Kimura’s legs.

  Then Kimura kicked backwards, smashing his heel into the shin of the student behind him. Last he punched the kid holding his right arm straight in the face. In just a few moments he was free, leaving four schoolboys moaning with pain.

  ‘Ta-daaa. Did you see that, your majesty? Send all the classmates you want after me, it won’t matter. Look, not even a scratch. Now it’s your turn.’ He advanced on the Prince menacingly.

  ‘You guys, take care of this old man,’ the Prince ordered. ‘Don’t be afraid to hurt him.’

  Aside from the four hapless kids Kimura had just shaken off, there were three more.

  They were clearly terrified, after seeing what he had just done to their friends. ‘Anybody who doesn’t fight like they should gets to play a little game later. Or maybe I’ll make your brothers or si
sters or parents play.’

  It was all the Prince needed to say to get them moving. At the mere hint of getting an electric shock they followed orders like programmed robots.

  Kimura dealt with them easily. Two of them had knives, but he administered swift beatings all round, handling them roughly, yanking them by their collars into his fists, sending the buttons from their uniforms flying. He didn’t hold back. One went down, bleeding from the mouth, but he kept smashing the kid’s face with his elbow and palm heel. The two others, he purposely broke their fingers. By the end his legs were wobbling, either from alcohol or from fatigue, but it only made him look even more monstrous.

  ‘What do you say, your majesty? You think you’re so fucking tough, but you can’t even handle one old man!’ Kimura’s face shone here and there, as if flecked with spittle.

  Before the Prince knew what was happening, Kimura was on him. He grabbed two fistfuls of the Prince’s uniform and wrenched it apart, tearing the fabric in two. Suddenly he was about to affix the electrode pads to the boy’s naked chest.

  The Prince flailed his arms in defence.

  ‘Yeah, I think you might’ve been scared of me.’ Sitting here now in the Shinkansen, Kimura sounds almost triumphant. ‘That’s why you came after my kid. You wanted to get me back for scaring you.’

  The Prince almost sputters That’s not true! but he swallows the words. He knows that showing emotion is a sign of weakness.

  Instead he stops to ask himself, Was I scared?

  It’s true that Kimura’s berserk rampage in the park cowed him. Kimura was strong and raging and not the least bit bound by propriety or common sense. Encountering such purely physical dominance came as a shock to the Prince, who relied on book-learning to make up for his lack of life experience. The sight of Kimura beating his classmates bloody made him feel like he was observing humanity in its true form, while he himself was just a painted prop in a cheap stage production.

  That’s why he turned and ran. At the time he told himself he was going after Tomoyasu and the dog.

  Naturally it wasn’t long before he regained his composure. He knew that Kimura was nothing but a loser who easily resorted to violence without considering the consequences. But that moment of terror and confusion Kimura made him feel, that stuck in the Prince’s craw, and his desire for revenge grew with each passing day. He knew he wouldn’t feel satisfied until he had terrorised Kimura in return, until he could bring the man to his knees.