Harpoons
by Jonathon Sullivan
Sunday,
1030 hours
Shinya Takeda began his theft by entering the
bathhouse reserved for Nihon-To executives, in
He disrobed in the anteroom, donning translucent
slippers and taking precautions against exfoliation. Then he entered the huge,
humid space, fragrant with pine needles, scrubbed skin and chlorine. The bath
was also a garden. Massive rocks jutted from the water. Waterfalls murmured a
pleasing white noise. Bonsai grew everywhere, disguising corners, distorting
perspective, creating the illusion of an outdoor paradise.
Shinya's target, Hidori Saito, sat naked on a
shelf of rock, above the fragrant water. Saito, Senior Vice President of Nihon-To
Bioinformatics, was a sleek, middle-aged man with a wiry build. He gossiped
with a colleague, a fat grayhair soaking in the pool. They were not quite alone.
Two men in suits lurked in the foliage, sweltering in the humidity. They
watched Shinya Takeda slip into the water, six meters from Saito's
position.
You must be uncomfortable. Shinya smiled to
himself. Nihon-To's security shouldn't be a problem.
His assault would be silent and invisible. But Saito would have to enter the
water before Shinya could begin.
Unbidden, his retinal monitors displayed a
translucent popup browser over the lower half of his visual field:
**FURUTA GENOMICS**
Your trial version of Furuta Genomics Molecular patch for
-Pancreatic Carcinoma-
has expired.
For continued relief from your symptoms,
you must
register the product.
Blink the link to register!
(Please have health credit info ready.)
Shinya double-blinked to
close, reminding himself to register later - perhaps using Saito's stolen
codes.
The patch wasn't helping much anymore. But it bought him a little time, and a
little time was all he needed.
Saito sat drying on his rock, chatting with the fat
man while the guards cast furtive glances at Shinya. How long before one of
them, out of sheer boredom, took the initiative to check him out? Shinya sank
deeper into the water, forcing himself to relax, resting his head on the deck
of blonde wood.
The ceiling morphed, a
holo of kaleidoscopic tesseracts, rendered in blue and white to generate a
fractal sky. The impossible geometries, six-dimensional spaces encoded in the
songs of the Minke whale, were at once hypnotic and impenetrable.
Shinya smiled. How beautiful. How appropriate.
He caught movement in his peripheral vision.
Without turning his head, he glanced to the right. Hidori Saito eased off his
rock, into the warm water.
Shinya released his bladder, spilling his
minions into the bath. When he locked his retinal crosshairs
on Saito and double-blinked, millions of aminanos spun their flagellae to zoom
through the water, like synthetic sperm racing to fertilize an oversized ovum.
Less than half would negotiate the currents and eddies of the bath to lodge in
Saito's flesh.
Now if only Saito would stay put long enough for
the aminanos to pilfer the encryption keys planted in his genome, without
having a toxic reaction. Shinya had made many improvements since FujiGene. His
chances were excellent. He opened his retinal interface and waited for the
data.
A suit stepped away from his guardhouse of
gelded trees, moving closer. Shinya stretched in the water, turning away. His
face might match the image on the counterfeit badge, but it would not match any
in the Nihon-To database.
He imagined his aminanos, the protein machines
secreted from his kidneys, burrowing into Hidori Saito. They penetrated his
nuclei, hooking onto his DNA, seeking out the restriction sites framing the
encryption keys in his chromosomes. Of the millions of tiny harpoons Shinya had
fired into the bath, perhaps a thousand would find their target. Now they
glided between the brackets, reading the nucleotides. And then the master
stroke: converting that melody of base pairs into the modulated vibrations of a
peptide flower with metallic petals. The electromagnetic vibrations penetrated
Saito's meat and sent a message to Shinya's retinals: paydirt.
Shinya verified the sequence, then
climbed from the water, forcing himself not to look at Saito. He dripped his
way across the polished wooden deck, and felt the guard's eyes boring into his
back. He almost made it to the anteroom before the ruckus began: choking and
splashing, cries of alarm and confusion.
Shinya turned to bear reluctant witness to his
handiwork. Hidori Saito convulsed, face down in the bath. The fat man gaped
helplessly at the spectacle, water sloshing against his girth. The suspicious
guard turned to his master's aid. His partner had already splashed into the
water. They grasped Saito beneath the armpits and pulled him to the deck.
Saito's face twitched through a cycle of grotesque masks. Bloody spittle boiled
over his chin.
Shinya ducked into the anteroom, frowning. His
chances of failure had just increased tenfold. Far better to
quietly lift the keys in Saito's genome without messy toxic reactions, and no
one the wiser. Now there would be questions. Now there would be hurry,
and with hurry, error. He seized his clothes and escaped to the street, naked.
He dove into the van waiting for him at the
curb. As it sped away, Takeda pasted Saito's stolen keys to his retinal
browser, to begin his assault on Nihon-To's mainframe.
Later, if he had time, he would register his
pancreatic cancer patch.
Sunday,
1145 hours
Kenji Ito could not imagine what it must be like
to have a retinal screen pop up just before an orgasm. Bad enough to have your
Te interrupt. Of course, normal people can turn these things off. His hips
rolled to a stop.
Michiko was close, too, and she cursed into his
chest. She clutched at Kenji as he pulled away. A vague panic rose, the
suffocating dread that had dogged him for weeks. He backed toward the end of
the futon. Her legs lay open, exposing the fragrant orchid of her flesh, where
aromas natural and synthetic were strongest. He imagined he could smell the
WedLock pheromone, interlaced with her native musk. She had taken the transfect
two months ago, engineering the scent into her tissues as part of her quiet, patient
campaign to harness him.
His knees had taken a workout; they bitched as
he stood. His Te, a slim palmtop, lay on the dresser beside his gun.
"I thought you were off today," she
said, panting.
He forced a grin. "You know that doesn't mean
anything." He thumbed the Te. It displayed info his superiors would have
liked Kenji to get on his retinals - if only Kenji would take retinals. The
terse message was from Watanabe: a Nihon-To executive lay dead in a bathhouse,
full of toxic aminanos. Shades of the FujiGene caper.
Has Shinya Takeda finally re-appeared? Kenji tried to reign in
his growing excitement. Probably a false alarm. He
dictated to the Te: "You know what to do, Watanabe. I'll be right
there."
He slid into his trousers. A
fresh shirt from the closet. He felt Michiko's eyes on him, indicting
him from the shadows.
His hurry was overwhelming. What if it was
Shinya Takeda? He imagined his evidence degrading in the warm bath, like
vegetables overcooked to mush. And destructive proteases in the victim's flesh,
the final arbiters of death, would soon obliterate Takeda's microscopic
thieves.
Stay calm. His friend Watanabe was more than
competent.
He reached for his weapon, and a square of foil
on the dresser caught his eye. He stared at it as he strapped on the shoulder
holster, a movement as unconscious as his breathing. The black wrapper bore the
kanji for "Love," in broad yellow brushstrokes. As he picked it up,
the characters morphed into "Commitment." Then
"Forever." And back to "Love."
He turned. Michiko sat on the futon, rooting for
cigarettes in the tangle of clothes on the floor.
"Hmm. I thought we were
taking our time."
She lit up. "That," she said,
"was some time ago. I'm ready, Kenji. You?
You either are or you aren't."
Kenji fingered the packet, with its reductionist
manifesto for human sexuality. I'm not. Now
his panic and hurry swirled into a sickening tangle.
"This isn't the time."
Blue smoke streamed from her lips. "What a
surprise." Her eyes took on a dull expression of defeat. Her shoulders
slumped.
A silent shock overtook him. Michiko was a
prideful creature, radiant with strength and arrogance. He did love her. Something indefatigable about her – until this moment. She,
too, was a hunter. Kenji Ito was her prey. He had enjoyed the chase, because of
his own pride. A glance at Michiko would tell any man that she need not waste
her time at small game. He was a minor celebrity in law enforcement, but his
prospects were limited. He would never ascend beyond his current rank of
captain. He would always bear the taint of Korean lineage on his right cheek.
Michiko saw beyond all that. Her pursuit honored
him.
Now she was giving up the hunt. He had proved
too wild and cunning for her. She would seek less challenging prey. Kenji felt
an old loneliness descending. Worse, he feared he was breaking something in
her. Losing him, Michiko would be less than she was. And the world would be
diminished, because of Kenji Ito.
The thought struck him as arrogant. Even if true. More feelings to tangle.
He ripped open the packet, and the morphing
kanji froze like a dead thing, stuck between "Love" and
"Commitment." He withdrew the fleshtone patch.
She watched him, unblinking, ash growing on her
cigarette.
His heart shuddered. He released the foil and it
fluttered to his feet like a crushed butterfly. He removed the backing, slid
his hand into his shirt, and applied the patch to his belly.
The corner of her mouth twitched into a smile.
"You have forty-eight hours to change your mind," she said.
Forty-eight hours before the patch consummated a
molecular marriage, binding Kenji's desire to the subliminal scent of Michiko's
synthetic pheromones. He would never want another woman. She would never hunt
another man. They would be inextricably bound. WedLocked.
"I won't change my mind," he said,
turning to leave. It was already a lie.
Sunday,
1105 h
"Talk, dammit! Do you have it? Are you even
in?"
For Shinya, the macro world had given way to a
more vibrant reality: peptide linkages, protein folding, protease
cleavage domains. Jiro's voice buzzed like an irritating insect at the edge of
awareness. Shinya wished he would just shut up and drive the van.
Using the keys stolen from Saito's cells, Shinya
had already violated the Nihon-To mainframe. Nihon-To made
billions by offering highly secure macromolecular design solutions.
Those with the right licenses, the requisite security clearances, and a
mountain of cash could buy access to the software cultivated by Nihon-To and
her competitors, for the custom design of proteins, aminanos, or industrial
ribozymes. All under the watchful eye of the world's security forces. In the
age of molecular terrorism, computational protein folding had become a
dangerous technology.
Danger brought restriction.
Restriction brought profit.
Shinya manipulated side groups like tinkertoys,
twisting them with virtual hands. He sculpted his protein to fit between the
tight design parameters that jutted into his visual field like serrated spikes.
As he folded the winding peptide chain, selecting and discarding amino acids,
the globular protein grew like the embryo of a new creature, bristling with
spines that fit between the spikes, ready to occupy a weird ecological niche.
"I said talk to us. Are you even in?"
"Be quiet." Kiku's voice was softer,
but her smell was distracting enough. "Let him work."
Jiro fell silent, but he had a point. With Saito
dead, an alert policeman or Nihon-To security suit might void his codes. And if
somebody really clever came along, they would let Shinya work while they
triangulated his position. He couldn't get out too soon.
The world receded as the work intensified. His
parameters were exquisitely narrow. For a long, panicked moment he wondered if
his protein could even exist. Then he substituted a proline for a valine, the
chain made a hairpin turn, and his peptide creature was ready for birth.
Now a few precious
minutes to put the molecule through its simulated paces. Express the protein in
muscle, and it sat inert on the inner membrane. No interference with
neuromuscular function. No metabolic derangements. No immune response. At low
pH, in a solution of proteases, Shinya's molecule split into two fragments with
exactly the desired properties.
Translating his protein into the language of DNA
took less than a second.
He logged off. The world re-assembled amid waves
of nausea and disorientation.
He lay in Kiku's room, on her futon, flat on his
back. His immersion had been complete. They had carried him from the van while
he worked.
Jiro and his two thugs stood at the threshold,
bouncing in the swell of Takeda's vertigo. Kiku knelt beside him, a question in
her eyes.
"Success," he said. Not a lie.
Kiku smiled.
Shinya sat up. His belly gnawed at him. He took
the Te from his belt and opened it. Linking to his retinal cache, he downloaded
the DNA sequence.
Jiro, a burly man with a
shaved head, a heavy beard and the kanji stain for Ainu heritage on his
cheek, stepped into the room. "Let's have a look at it."
Shinya shook his head. "We agreed: one
copy, my eyes only. If that's no longer acceptable, I can erase it all right
now." He held up his Te.
Jiro reached into his jacket. "That would
be a mistake."
"Stop it." Kiku unwound her slender
frame, sitting back on her heels and standing in one fluid movement. She turned
on Jiro. "He's right. We agreed. It doesn't make sense to have multiple copies
floating around."
"Somebody should check his work."
"You? You would look over his
shoulder?" Kiku laughed, and Jiro reddened.
Watching, Shinya fairly trembled with desire.
Kiku had that universal quality of spoiled, rich, beautiful women, to make men
feel like trash. Shinya knew he should be repelled, but Kiku had stolen his
heart. Literally.
"We can have it appraised by an
expert," Jiro muttered.
"Oh, good. Bring in more
people! That's your idea of security?"
Jiro glanced from Kiku to Shinya. "It
is."
"Well, it's not mine. McCoy's people will
check his work, before they buy." She put her hands on her hips, extending
her chin. "Now get out."
Jiro scowled. The kanji on his cheek folded into
angry distortion.
Shinya suppressed a smile. He had painted that stain
on Jiro's face, many years ago. Like millions of other Japanese, Jiro wore
Shinya's indelible genetic grafitti, the sign of mixed blood.
"Your money doesn't give you license to
make stupid decisions, Kiku."
"It gives me the option of hiring somebody
else, if you're no longer interested."
Jiro turned to leave. His two meaty associates
glowered at Shinya, then followed him out.
Kiku closed the shoji screen.
Shinya smiled. "This is the part where you
ask me if it really worked."
She knelt beside the futon, smiling, swiping a
string of blue-black hair from her eyes.
"And I have to tell you the truth, don't I?
It's difficult to lie to the one who's WedLocked
you."
Her smile dissipated.
"Of course," he said, "that sword
cuts both ways, neh? Did you really think I wouldn't find out?"
She took a deep breath. "I hoped that by
the time you did, you wouldn't care."
She was the most beautiful woman Shinya had ever
seen, or would ever see. WedLocked to her, he could see her no other way.
He nodded. "A
self-fulfilling prophecy. How?"
She looked away. "You can buy WedLock
knock-offs on the net, on the street. While we were making love, I..."
"I see. Why?"
Kiku sat silent.
He knew the answer. He was a clumsy lover at
best, especially now, as his own renegade cells devoured him. But it wasn't his
sex she wanted.
She stretched out her thin brown arm to stroke
his cheek, where Shinya had marked himself as part Korean.
"Was it you?" she asked. "Are you
the Kanji Bomber?"
Sweet Buddha, she is beautiful.
He took her hand and placed it over his heart.
"You WedLocked a man you hardly know,
without his knowledge or consent, to ask him that?"
Her fingernails scraped his chest, inoculating
him with arousal. "I suppose I could ask about the data in his
Te."
He nearly faltered. Telling her the truth would
be...orgasmic. Kiku's WedLock might be an illegal hack, but it worked. The
thought of lying to her filled him with a visceral moral dread.
"I succeeded," he said. "I can
assemble a virus that will infect an entire race." Not the whole truth,
but not a lie, either. Still, he felt queasy.
Her other arm wrapped
about his neck.
At this moment, he knew, she didn't care about the virus. She had forgotten
that he was a means to her end, just as he had forgotten she was a wicked
child, a bored and careless dilettante with pretensions to anarchy and
terrorism.
"Kanji Bomber," she whispered.
"You are, aren't you?"
Their noses Toched. Her breath smelled of
tea and boiled seaweed.
"Yes," he said. He had never confessed
it to anyone. "Yes, I am."
Her eyelashes fluttered against his. "I knew
it."
Sunday,
1225 hours
Kenji's squad had invaded the bathhouse,
defiling the garden with vacuum hoses, misters, and tarps. Lamp arrays spilled
a painful blue-white glare over the rocks and bonsai, shattering the cultivated
balance of light and shadow. Robots resembling armadillos prowled amidst the shrubs,
sniffing for evidence.
Sergeant Mitsuo Watanabe stood over the body,
waiting for him. Kenji negotiated an obstacle course of technicians, armadillos
and sounding stones. Hidori Saito lay supine on the polished wooden deck, naked
and doughy. Kenji squatted next to the body. The purple tongue swelled out of
the mouth, crushed by teeth during the seizure. Saito's dead eyes stared
upward, at the kaleidoscopic, n-dimensional music of the Minke
whale.
Kenji stood, turning to Watanabe.
Watanabe bowed. He was a tiny man, impeccably
dressed, with wrinkled features. He looked like a monitor lizard in a suit. "Kenji-san. You familiarized yourself with Mr. Saito on
your way here?"
Kenji returned the bow. "Yes."
"No evidence of trauma. Convulsions started
in the bath, and continued for several minutes, followed by cardiopulmonary
arrest."
"And no history of
seizures."
Watanabe smiled and held up his Te. "Mr.
Saito's only health problem is an acute aminano infestation."
Kenji linked his Te to Watanabe's. The synthetic
creature resembled a sperm cell, with foreclaws. But aminanos were protein
machines, much smaller than cells, cobbled together from Mother Nature's
off-the-shelf technology. The disposable flagellum was hacked out of Trichomonas.
A motif stolen from the transferrin receptor functioned as a forged passport,
signaling the victim's cells to swallow the machine. A localization signal
borrowed from MAP kinase shuttled the invader to the nucleus. There it scanned
the genome with a module plagiarized from RNA polymerase.
The only novel part of the machine, its crowning
glory, bore the trademark of Shinya Takeda: an unnatural amino side chain, rich
with metal ions. It vibrated at a different frequency for each DNA base,
transmitting the stolen sequences.
Kenji's neck itched. "So our thief got what
he wanted?"
Watanabe nodded. "Somebody used Hidori
Saito's encryption keys to violate the Nihon-To mainframe just after he died.
They accessed seven databases: accounts information, operations logs, legal, personnel-"
Kenji shook his head. "Camouflage.
He wanted computational folding."
Watanabe smiled. "Tap the link. See the
protein?"
Kenji frowned. "Hmmm.
You've sent this downtown?"
"Nihon-To's
working on it, too."
Kenji started to object, then
nodded. "Yes, of course. Good thinking."
Watanabe bowed deeply. "You are too kind,
Kenji-san."
Kenji smiled at the formality, a private joke.
Kenji was Watanabe's superior, but years of working together had made that
distinction nearly meaningless.
"So far, it doesn't make sense."
Watanabe's reptilian features pulled into a scowl. "The protein sits on
the inner leaf of the cell membrane. Just...sits there. I'm not sure how it
could harm human tissue."
"This is Takeda — who knows what he's up to? We'll figure it out, old
friend. Will somebody please turn off that damn whale
music? I can't think."
The groaning and clicking ceased; the sky holo
died, exposing the ceiling of rough white plaster.
"That's better. Just tell me we've got some
evidence. Cells, security footage - something?"
Watanabe shook his head. "We're still
looking, but the bath water is warm – and voluminous. If he left anything on
the deck, we haven't found it yet. No prints, no exfoliated cells, nothing. The
bath is private. No cameras. One of Saito's bodyguards snapped the perp through
his retinals. He got fuzzy images of the back of his head."
"So we've got nothing on Takeda."
"We have the aminanos."
"Not enough – even if we knew where to find
him. Get Hiro and Mori on customs. Maybe he's cooking it up for a foreign
buyer, like he did for the Kurds."
"Already on
it."
"Good. Takeda needs a missile for this
payload. So you and I will work every bug shop in
"A lot of
territory."
"I want Takeda found, Watanabe, before
he deploys a vector for this..." Kenji shook his head at the Te. "Whatever this is."
He closed the palmtop and looked down at Saito.
"I think I know Takeda. He didn't want to do this."
Watanabe frowned. "Do what?"
"Kill this man. He wanted to steal the
codes quietly. He failed, and gave us our one chance to catch him. Let's not
waste it."
Monday,
1325h
In the Toya-ku district, where the sewers still
ran open, Kenji entered a noodle bar. A wave of silence rippled through the
place. The patrons, all men, turned on their stools and cushions to gawk at the
invader. Silver tendrils of cigarette smoke interlaced with the obligatory
whale song pattern on the ceiling, a cheap commercial holo with faded colors,
cycling to an ad for Kirin Extra Dry. Wood paneling rotted in the shadows.
Kenji had been up all night, and the air in here made his stomach churn. The
place smelled of fish paste, cheap sake and urine.
A dozen stares followed him to the kitchen. A
husky young man in a dingy tee-shirt emerged from a rice curtain. He blocked
Kenji with a growled warning, then an outstretched hand. Kenji captured the
wrist, twisting the radius and ulna into a configuration not intended by nature.
"Police."
"Fuck you!" The bouncer turned away,
trying to unwind his forearm. Kenji grabbed a fistful of hair and shoved. The
bouncer kissed the wall. As he crumpled, Kenji turned toward the patrons and
produced his sidearm. Closing time. The noodle bar
emptied quickly.
In the squalid kitchen, Tango Kogawa stirred a
pot of bonito broth. She was a tiny, bony woman, with large eyes and thick
black hair piled high. Once beautiful, she had long since gone to seed. She
perched on a stool beside the stove, like a scrawny, ancient crow.
"Kenji-san," she said, stirring
cigarette ash into her broth. "I wish you wouldn't do that."
"Who's your new apprentice?"
"He's not my 'apprentice.'" Tango set
down her spoon and walked to the curtain. "He's my dipshit nephew from
"Not even particularly talented
muscle."
"Nepotism has its drawbacks." She
thrust her head through the curtain. "Put some ice on that. And get out of
my sight."
She brushed past Kenji on her way to the stove.
"I'd like you out of my sight, too."
He showed her the image on his Te. "Cook
some noodles for this man?"
"Never saw him. Get lost."
Kenji began a rambling inspection of the
kitchen. An anonymous appliance dominated one corner, draped with dirty linen.
"Buy a new fridge?" Kenji pulled away
the sheet. "Wow. Looks like a peptide translator."
"I use that to make fish paste."
"Yummy. You're under arrest."
"It's not illegal to own that!"
"No." Kenji opened the translation
tank. "But the law is a curious thing: without a permit, you can't buy,
transport or operate it. And since you're a felon twice over, you don't have a
permit - any more than you did last time. Neh?"
Kenji peered into the tank, where corrugated
rows of plastic membrane glistened with oily moisture. The surfaces were
peppered with ribosomes, microscopic robots that translated RNA into protein.
Just add amino acids, and the ribo-robots would make your molecule by the
gallon. If you wanted a complex mixture of molecules - like, say, fish paste or
"You can't prove I transported or operated
that machine."
"Actually, I can." Kenji sampled the
tank with a tiny syringe from his Te. Then he booted the translator's
interface. "Assuming I don't find any residual protein in there—"
"I run a clean kitchen."
"I can see that. Assuming I don't find any
residual protein in there, I believe the cpu logs will indicate recent operation."
Tango puffed nervously. "I thought you and
I had a working relationship."
Kenji caught the scent of his prey. "All
bets are off on this one. You want to hack Joy Flu and WedLock pheromones? You
want to brew neuropeptides for the Yakuza? That's one thing. This is something
else."
His Te sang out. "Well, look at that
residue." He plucked the syringe from the port. "Just
what we were looking for."
Tango blanched. "That bastard!
He said he cleaned it out!"
"The man I showed you?"
"Maybe. He was older. Longer
features, thicker brows."
Kenji nodded, his heart
pounding. Takeda had probably changed his appearance many years ago. "When?"
"All night, this
morning.
He left two hours ago."
"What did you make for him?"
Tango stared at her cigarette, fuming.
Kenji swiped at a shelf. Mixing bowels and
ladles clattered onto the floor. She let out a little shriek.
"Wake
up, Tango!
You just hit the big time! What did you make for him?"
She gaped. "He wouldn't let me! He paid me
extra to use the translator himself. And he said he'd clean up!"
"Don't tell me you didn't peek."
"Probably a virus. Maybe
a mycoplasma. I can't be sure. Look at your damn residue!"
Kenji pulled out his cuffs. "You're coming
with me."
"I'm cooperating!"
"Like you said: we
had a working arrangement. Some stranger dances in here, cooks up a bug,
and dances back out. And I don't get a call!"
"An oversight. You want to know where
he is?"
His head buzzed. The scent was strong now. He
dangled the cuffs in her face. "I've been up all night, Tango. I'm out of
patience."
She slumped. "I did make noodles for him.
Soba and tea."
Kenji rattled the cuffs.
"Very special soba noodles." She
retrieved a Te from her apron. "The kind that really
stick with you."
Kenji took the GPS link. If Tango was telling
the truth, Shinya Takeda was on the northern waterfront, a half-kilometer away.
"Why?" he asked her.
"Some stranger danced in here and cooked up
a bug. Thought he might be a man to watch. Thought he might have interesting
connections. Thought his smell might drag you into my noodle shop."
Kenji stared at his Te. Takeda is right around the
corner. The
cuffs went back to his belt. "This had damn well better check out,
Tango."
"Fuck him. He said he'd clean it out."
"He did." Kenji showed her the
analysis. "Your fish-paste machine is clean."
Monday,
1410 hours
Crouched behind a stack of rotten palettes,
Kenji watched the man named Shinya Takeda amble along the wharf at Konohana-ku,
the northern port district. Beneath a sky like salt-bleached denim, a fleet of
whaling ships lumbered into port, hulks of grime and
iron heavy with slaughter from the sea. Refrigerated warehouses and grubby
packing plants lined the wharf, waiting for the meat like hungry dogs.
This man is Shinya Takeda.
Kenji Ito had taken down bioterrorists, peptide
hackers, blood bombers, prion freaks. He'd met the fanatics who poisoned food
and gassed subways. He'd taken confessions from people who spread madness by
corrupting retinal servers with neural tanglers, or hacked pharmacogenomic
databases to taint child vaccines.
As always, it amazed him to see his prey as
human. Not a monster. Not a demon. Just a lanky middle-aged
man in a threadbare sports coat, watching the ships roll into harbor.
But among all those Kenji had hunted, this man
stood as a giant. This man had marked the Japanese people with their own genes.
Kanji Bomber. This man had fashioned a selective bio-weapon
for Kurdish nationalists, giving them a sword to carve a new nation out of
After changing the map, Takeda had stolen
encryption keys from the Chairman of FujiGene International, using a more
primitive but no less lethal version of the aminano that had just killed Hidori
Saito. He had then published FujiGene's databases on the net. Revelations that
FujiGene planted protein "cookies" in patients' chromosomes had
brought down the largest pharmogenomics company on earth. But not before Takeda
had commandeered her resources to design a lethal new aminano. Even now, that prolific nanobot stood guard over
The
Just a man — but this man's crimes had changed
the shape of the world. Now Kenji had him hooked, thanks to the tiny
transponders planted in his flesh by Tango's tainted noodles.
He opened his Te. Watanabe's face looked even
more reptilian on the tiny screen.
"His features are altered, but I'm sure
it's him. You have the signal?"
Watanabe nodded. "We're tracking him, yes.
What's the setup?"
"Unmarked units,
rotating tails.
Our guys, not Osaka PD."
"That'll take longer."
"I've got him until they get here. I want
the buyers, everyone he's working with. If we take him now, we'll lose them, and
the virus. We'll keep our distance."
He cut the connection. Takeda stood twenty
meters away, watching the whalers ease into their berths.
Kenji's throat was dry. This man is Shinya Takeda.
The fresh image on his Te matched old photos in important ways.
Maxillo-mandibular ratios were a spot-on match. Same
inter-ocular distance. Same height. Not enough
for an arrest, but...
This man is Shinya Takeda.
Soon he would make his move. Kenji would stop
him.
And that will be the end of you, Takeda-san.
Kenji wondered why the thought was so unsettling.
Abruptly, Takeda stiffened. He whirled about,
scanning the wharf, frowning. For a second he seemed to look straight through
Kenji's blind of rotten palettes.
Kenji's heart pounded. Takeda could not possibly
see him, but something was amiss.
Kenji watched him withdraw his Te and affix a
syringe to the hub. Takeda thumbed the palmtop while his eyes scanned the pier.
He removed the syringe and injected himself in the forearm, sub-cue. The procedure
took less than half a minute.
Maybe it's dope. Or medicine.
Kenji scrabbled for optimism. He knew it wasn't
medicine. He checked his Te. The transponder beeped once, twice...and stopped.
Lost. Takeda's retinals had
detected Tango's bug, and the injection had neutralized it. Kenji's mouth went
sour. Now what do I do?
Watanabe connected. "Kenji! We just
lost—"
"I know! How long before
your guys get here?"
"This time of day? Twenty-five
minutes."
"He'll be gone in twenty-five
minutes!"
Watanabe shook his head. "He's right there.
Take him. I can send Osaka PD to--"
"Take him for what? Hacking
noodle surveillance?"
"Illegal use of a
peptide translator."
"That machine's clean. I want Takeda for Saito!"
"Maybe he's still got the bug on him."
"He's not stupid."
"He's got the data, at least."
"The moment we seize his Te he sends an
emergency signal from his retinals and wipes it."
Watanabe opened his mouth to speak, then shrugged.
Takeda wasn't admiring whaling ships anymore. He
strode along the pier, toward the city, moving briskly.
"Fuck!" Kenji chewed his lip,
thinking. He clipped the Te to his belt, stood, and strode out onto the pier.
His prey saw him coming, stopped. Kenji fought the
urge to draw his weapon. A few more yards, and he stood face-to-face with
Shinya Takeda.
Just a man.
"Konnichi wa,"
Kenji said, and flashed his badge.
Takeda blinked, then
read the ID.
"Konnichi wa,
Ito-san," he said, bowing his head. "Shigawa
Akira desu. Hajimemashite. Is
something wrong, officer?"
Kenji returned the bow. "I couldn't help
noticing that you just gave yourself an injection."
"I did."
"May I ask what it was?"
"Medicine." Takeda smiled.
"I'm rather ill."
"Few medicines still require injection. May
I see your permit?"
Takeda blinked several times, staring at him.
Kenji recognized the look — Takeda was trying to send a retinal link.
"I don't have retinals," Kenji said.
"How
interesting."
Takeda retrieved his Te, and showed a file to Kenji. "Doesn't that
interfere with your work?"
"I want to be alone when I close my eyes.
It says you take regular injections of cletherol, Mr...Shigawa."
Takeda nodded. "For
pain."
"Unusual. May I see your pharm
log?"
Takeda sucked air between his teeth, shaking his
head. "Do I have to?"
Kenji cleared his throat. "Technically?
No. But-"
"Then I'd rather not. Good day,
Ito-san."
Takeda turned to go.
No. I've waited too long. You can't just walk
away!
Kenji clenched his teeth. I'm blowing it.He fumbled through
his panic for options.
"I meant no offense! May I buy you
lunch?"
Takeda turned, bemused.
"I know a place right there." Kenji
rolled with his own madness. Maybe Takeda would bite, out of curiosity or
arrogance. "They take their cut right off the boat. Very
fresh."
Takeda
took a deep breath, shaking his head.
"I would very much like to speak with you,
sir," Kenji said softly. Nothing to lose.
"Please."
Takeda examined him for a long moment, then smiled.
Kenji escorted him to a dilapidated
establishment down the pier, redolent of green tea, fresh fish and whale fat.
The rough wooden walls were a cluttered display of old whaling gear: ancient
pulleys, oars, nets, and antique harpoons. It always struck Kenji as
superfluous. A restaurant on the wharf dressed up as a restaurant on the wharf.
Business was slow. The only sign of life was a
vibrant holowall where the kitchen should be. The fractal rainbow was
shockingly incongruous with the décor. Arabesque patterns rolled and morphed,
shifting colors tuned to a melody of whines and clicks. Kenji guessed the song
and its hidden mathematics came from Sei whale. Michiko had collected some of
the wildly popular holos, and she played them often.
A pudgy man in a pristine apron emerged from the
holowall to take their order.
"I'll have the whale bacon," Kenji
said. "Aka miso. A bottle of
Yebisu."
Takeda shook his head. "Aka
miso and tea for me."
The waiter bowed and disappeared into whale
space. Takeda leaned forward. "Sou ka? What shall we
talk about, officer?"
Kenji chuckled. "I'm tempted to ask you for
an autograph."
"And why would you do that?"
Kenji pointed to the melanin calligraphy on his
cheek. "You've left your mark on me, Takeda-san. And the
nation."
"You've mistaken me for somebody
else." Takeda pointed to the word on his own cheek: Korean. "A long-lost brother, perhaps?"
"You are Shinya Takeda. Son of Fumihiko Takeda and his Korean wife,
The waiter brought soup and tea for Takeda,
whale bacon and beer for Kenji. Two bowls of rice.
"It is unfortunate." Takeda's
expression was blank. "Racial prejudice runs deep in our society."
His covered soup bowl had sealed shut by condensing the steam within. He tilted
the lid and a fragrant cloud billowed out, smelling of soybean and seaweed.
"We still have a long way to go."
"Even after your
object lesson."
Takeda shook his head.
"Isn't that why you did it? Your kanji
epidemic exposed the ugly truth. Top executives were marked as Ainu. Chinese. European. The Prime
Minister himself wore the Korean stain, like you and I. You shattered the myth
of Japanese racial purity." Kenji took a bite of whale bacon, sliced thin
the way he loved it, succulent with fat. "I wonder if you're happy with
the results."
Takeda frowned. "How can you eat
that?"
"Because it's good. I take it you're one of
those...?"
"Make up your mind." Takeda laughed.
"Am I the Kanji Bomber, or a whale-hugger?"
"Maybe you're both. Takeda's crimes include
several acts of green terrorism."
Takeda pursed his lips, then
nodded at the whale-song holo. "Look at that...beautiful. It's like
playing Mozart at a restaurant where they serve boiled composers."
Kenji took another bite. "From what I've
read, there's no proof those patterns represent intelligence."
"According to
'whaling scientists' who get paid by the kilo. Do you really believe
that? Besides, intelligence isn't the point."
Kenji raised his eyebrows, chewing. Keep
him talking.
Takeda leaned forward. "It's been two years
since we discovered the beautiful dimensions encoded in those songs. And we're
eating more whale meat than ever before. Do you know why?"
"Because it tastes
good?"
"Maybe. Or maybe we just love
thumbing our noses at the world. But I think it's something else. I think we
hunger for the magnificent and mysterious. We have to possess it." He
nodded at the holo again. "The more beautiful the creature,
the more awesome or terrible, the greater our hunger. We have to conquer
it. Consume
it. Decorate our walls with heads and holos. We even do it to each other. We
find somebody strong and free, and we want to possess them. Even
if it means destroying them."
Kenji stared at him. Michiko's WedLock patch
itched on his belly. He reached for his beer. "Does this somehow justify
what you're doing?"
Takeda sipped his tea. "What am I
doing?"
"I'm going to find out. Make no mistake,
Takeda-san. This time is different. You've tipped your hand. We're on to you. I'm
on to you. I've studied you for years."
Takeda looked up from his tea. Their eyes
locked. "Really. Why?"
"Official answer: you're the best, if not
the worst."
"I see. And your answer?"
Kenji looked out the window. The whaling fleet
crowded into port. An army of robots and dock workers lashed them into berths
with a net of steel moorings.
"My answer? My answer is that, yes,
soon my superiors will force me to take retinal implants, and I'll own a little
less of myself. You're right. Everyone is hunted, my friend.
We're...enmeshed in each other. We move in orderly patterns. Our Tes and
retinals tell us what to do. Corporations tell us what to buy, how to live. Men
and women enslave one another with money, sex and WedLock patches. We've all
lost our freedom by bits and pieces. All but a few.
Like you, Takeda-san."
Takeda smiled. "You might be
surprised."
"I've romanticized you, certainly. Still,
you are outside. Wild. It always gave me a
strange comfort that somebody like you could exist."
"A
hunter prefers to think he still has game. That he hasn't destroyed the spirit
of his prey."
Kenji's heart skipped. Takeda had nailed him.
"It's true," he said. "If I woke
tomorrow with nobody to chase... But my feelings don't enter into it. Yes,
Takeda-san. To me, you are that creature. Awesome. Terrible. Wonderful." He fingered his plate of whale
bacon, then pushed it away. "But it's my job
to hunt you down, no matter how much I admire you."
Takeda smiled.
"So...I hope you let it go." Kenji was
shocked to hear himself say it. "I hope you just disappear."
"And deny you the kill? You don't sound
much like a policeman."
"I'm not just any policeman. You're not
just any criminal. Retire, Takeda-San. Vanish. Because if you
don't, I'll do my job."
Takeda rose, looking out the window. "We
are we what we are, brother."
Kenji followed his gaze, and knew his quarry had
escaped.
"My cab is here," Takeda said, and
tapped at his temple. "Retinals can also set a man free. Thank you for
lunch. Good luck hunting for this Takeda person."
As Takeda went out to the cab, Kenji contacted
Watanabe on his Te. The tag team was still three minutes out. The cab disappeared
around a corner, and Takeda was lost.
He gave Watanabe the cab registry. Futile. "He'll dump the cab immediately, and call
another. He's gone. Sayonara."
"Sorry, boss, but -"
"I know what he's after, Watanabe. He's
going to strike right here! He's going after the whaling industry, my friend.
Maybe he'll plague the whaler crews...or maybe the packing plants. I know
Takeda, and it feels right. It's his kind of score – big statement, a blow for
the underdog. Anti-corporate, environmental. For all I
know, he's already planted the bug. Get down here with your team. We've got
work to do."
Watanabe shook his head, grinning. "Gomen
nasai, Kenji-san, but you're finally wrong."
Kenji frowned. "I am?"
"We found the buyers!"
Monday,
1445 hours
Shinya Takeda had done his post-doc at
That's how Shinya felt now. He wandered the city
like any other human molecule. But he'd been tagged. Radiolabeled. Marked for study.
Or rather like a whale. The irony forced a grim
smile. Most Pacific whales bore the brand of
Shinya knew better. They were like any other
hook. A prelude to harvest.
He dissolved himself in the city, changing cabs,
disappearing into malls, reappearing onto crowded streets. Stupid
and careless, to eat from the hand of that noodle woman. He had
eliminated that tag. But what other markers did he carry? Had Kenji Ito planted
another hook?
How bizarre, to take tea with the man who hunts
you. How very Japanese. We are a strange people. A good play for Shinya,
but it wasn't over. He'd had a chance to access Ito's record on his Te. Now he
knew the mettle of the man who stalked him. They were well matched.
As if he needed his Te to tell him that. Shinya
had seen himself in those eyes. It would not do to underestimate Kenji Ito.
He wandered the city's capillaries for hours,
running diagnostics on his Te and retinals, searching his body for label. He
visited a bus station. The subway. The
airport. He moved through medium-security checkpoints, washing himself
in magnetic fields. His retinals panned over the crowds and he taxed the limits
of his Te to search for recurring faces. None.
When he was certain he'd freed himself of the
world's hooks and nets, he hailed another cab. For a long moment he sat silent
while the driver demanded a destination. Why not back to the airport? His work
was done. His masterpiece complete. It would be safest
to disappear now.
No. He gave the cabby the address. If he had
somehow failed to shake Kenji, it would be best to lead him to the decoy.
Exposing McCoy and the
He grimaced with a sudden flash of pain in his
belly.
Don't lie to yourself. There's only one reason
to go back.
Her scent bloomed in his mind, calling him. He
wanted to be with her, as he had never wanted any other. Kiku's counterfeit
WedLock was strong.
He shook his head as the cab pulled out into the
street, another corpuscle of rubber and iron. Kiku. Kiku. There was still one hook left in his flesh.
Monday,
1445 hours
"Three guys." Watanabe spoke through
the link in Kenji's car, minutes after Takeda's escape. "Americans.
Came in through Osaka International this morning.
Thank heaven they didn't arrive earlier. Hiro and Mori have them tagged.
They're at the Radisson."
Kenji took the expressway. The graceful donjon
of
"Passports were issued by the
Kenji glanced at the heads-up on his windshield:
mug shot of a red-faced man with a walrus mustache. "Customs let these
guys through? I'm not complaining, but-"
"McCoy's traveling under an alias, but the
security neural matched his mug to the database. Mori was on the ball, and made
sure they let him walk."
"Tell Mori I owe him a beer. Any action?"
"Mori says they made a call from an airport
booth — couldn't
trace that. We have them covered now – hard line and wireless. But they're a
quiet bunch."
"But why here? Why would they–"
"The US and
Kenji shook his head. Sitting with Takeda, he'd
been so sure. "Maybe you're right, old friend. Racial genetic markers are
Takeda's specialty. So...he's cooking up a race weapon for these Aryan
Nationalists."
Watanabe nodded. "Evil shit, neh?
Could be bad."
Kenji swallowed his disappointment. Perhaps he
didn't know Takeda so well, after all. "McCoy will move soon. Stay on
him."
"Something else,
Kenji.
After Hidori Saito croaked, somebody — presumably Takeda — used his ID to
register an expensive pancreatic cancer patch with Furuta Genomics. Maybe he's
trying to go out with a bang."
Kenji didn't know how to feel. "Keep in Toch."
He went home to change. After the open sky and
sea of the wharf, the apartment felt stuffy and restrictive. He found one of
Michiko's whale-song holos and put it in the player. The wall became a pulsing
fractal of greens and blues, and the somber, groaning music of a humpback
seemed to purify the air. Michiko came out of the bedroom, irresistible in a
short blue silk yukata. He kissed her, and she made tea and noodles for him
while he showered.
She frowned when he came into the little
kitchenette with his weapon strapped to his flank.
"You're going out again." She
tightened the belt on her yukata.
He nodded, sipping his tea. "Sorry."
Michiko sighed. "Did you take it off
yet?"
He blinked at her, flushing with anger. He
stood, unbuttoned his shirt, and showed her the patch on his belly.
"Happy?"
She checked the clock on the stove, grinning.
"Not yet. Nineteen hours to go."
Kenji stared at her. He tucked in his shirt.
"Shit, Kenji, that didn't come out right at
all."
He pulled on his jacket and turned to go.
She seized his arm. "Kenji, I'm sorry! I
didn't mean it like that." She spun him around. Her eyes were full of
panic, the eyes of a starving hunter who had just spooked her prey.
He felt sick. Her smell billowed in his head. He
wondered if the patch had prematurely WedLocked them in some subtle way.
Her hands closed around his face. "I'm
sorry, Kenji."
"It's alright." He backed away.
"It's not alright. Shit! I was an asshole.
I'm sorry. Don't go now, not like this. Let's talk it out."
He licked his lips. "I can't."
Her face darkened. "You have
to go. The world falls apart if you don't leave this minute."
"Maybe."
"Maybe. Because
it's so
fucking important. More important than..." She shook her
head.
"This is me, Michiko. You know that."
"Yeah. I know that." She
turned away. "Go save the world."
She retreated to the bedroom. He took a last sip
of his tea, shaking. Then he left, closing the door on the sad love song of Megaptera
novaeangliae.
This story is still on the market. To prevent it
from being considered "published," only this partial version is
available here. If you want to see the whole thing, you can send me an email.