Less Than Human (21 page)

“Sure do.” Eleanor waved. “Bye.”

“Bye-bye.” The girl waved back cheerfully.

Masao didn’t answer his phone, he must be teaching. She left him a message, saying that she was going to meet Kazu at what
might be Mari’s new address. She hesitated to call the police yet—if the address was wrong, she’d look pretty silly. And if
she did find Mari, the girl certainly wouldn’t talk with policemen in the background.

Mari’s new address lay in a southwestern inner town, Ashigawara. Eleanor had to ask one of the station staff how to get to
the address. The area around the station was a mass of people, bicycles, buses, and stalls. It reminded her of the area near
Gen’s flat, but newer.

This wasn’t the Japan she knew. It was as far from the pristine surfaces of the Bettas as the stubborn ordinariness of Hirano,
where the Tanaka family lived. Canyons between buildings rose in tiers of electricity lines and advertising banners, garlanded
with lights. The asphalt below was almost invisible under passing feet, and makeshift hovels against every blank wall were
covered with blue vineel sheets.

The shop fronts looked authentic—Golden Pagoda Chinese Restaurant, Aquarium Karaoke, Fun Phones, more karaoke—but the interiors
were dark, and bouncers guarded many of the entries. Groups of teenagers gathered everywhere, talking, comparing phones, and
punching game machines. Many of them wore garish clothes and implants, or had shocks of dyed hair. Their faces carried more
definite expressions than she was used to, and many of their gestures were unfamiliar and un-Japanese. It made her uneasy,
as though she’d strayed into a foreign country where the people were unpredictable and potentially dangerous.

Free from the constraints of the double hegemony of big companies and government, small companies vied desperately for consumer
attention. Icons flashed in her eyes, vid-screens and billboards leaned from every wall, and recorded voices assaulted her
ears. Buy
me!
Buy
me!

Her heart beat uncomfortably fast, and she remembered Ishihara’s comment about the streets being unsafe. But she’d come this
far and—the irony gave her courage—her foreign features blended in quite well. She followed the station-master’s directions
into side streets, past a grassless park crowded with blue tents like an army bivouac, and found Mari’s new address. The two-story
concrete building looked nearly as old as Gen’s block of flats. It stood out from the other buildings because of the cats.

At least a dozen of the scrawny creatures stretched in the shade under the stairs or wandered between the house and the side
of the road. When Eleanor approached, these wanderers meowed and tried to wind around her ankles.

Stepping between them, she peered at the names on the doors of the first-floor apartments. Most of them were barely decipherable.
Takeda, something-guchi, Ikuno, Acupuncture Specialist.

Should she wait for Kazu to arrive? He said he’d ride the delivery motorbike, but it would depend on traffic how long he took.
She might as well confirm whether this was the right place or not.

She climbed the iron staircase that probably doubled as a fire escape. Two of the top-floor nameplates were new and not Mari’s.
The far apartment’s windows were boarded up, and advertisements clogged the mail slot. The remaining apartment had no nameplate,
but she thought she heard voices inside. Three mangy cats bumped their heads against her ankles, meowing plaintively.

She knocked. Whoever was inside must know she was there, from the racket the cats were making. Someone moved behind the closed
window next to the door. She knocked again. Should she call out?

Before she could decide, the door opened. Mari stood there, holding a roll of packing tape. She wore jeans and a T-shirt,
and looked more relaxed than on Sunday.

“Aunt Eleanor—what are you doing here?” Mari stepped back in surprise.

Eleanor shooed away the cats and stepped in. “I came to see if you were all right.”

“Of course I’m all right,” she said. “Why shouldn’t I be?”

“Your parents can’t contact you, you haven’t called. We were worried.”

There were only two rooms in the apartment, the tiled kitchen and the tatami back room. From where she stood in the entry,
Eleanor could see a couple of monitors and a slim, portable hard drive placed directly on the tatami against the wall.

“Who’s that?” said a voice. A young man, no more than twenty, with a dark, arrogant face, emerged from the back room and took
the tape from Mari. He stared rudely at Eleanor.

“This is my aunt, the one I told you about.” Mari glanced anxiously at him.

The boy ignored Eleanor after that first stare. “What’s she doing here?” he said to Mari. “I thought you didn’t tell anyone.”

Mari avoided his glare. “I didn’t. Well, only Chee.”

“Good thing we’re leaving then.” He went back into the other room.

“Where are you going now?” said Eleanor. “You need to let your parents know what’s going on. They’re worried sick.”

“Come and get your stuff,” called the boy.

Mari looked at Eleanor, her expression unreadable, then turned and went into the other room.

“They’re not worried,” she said over her shoulder. “They just don’t want the rest of the world to know they failed as parents.”

She knelt in front of a long table and began to put things into a cloth bag—a hairbrush, some books, and a Buddhist rosary.
The boy put the hard drive into a cardboard box and began to tape it shut, pulling the tape out with a sharp, tearing noise.

Eleanor felt a flush of irritation. She would have to argue with a stubborn teenager. Where was Kazu? She knelt at the table,
too, and dumped her own bag on it.

“Mari, the police have been to your home. They say you might be involved with some pretty strange people. Is this true?”

The boy narrowed his eyes at her. “What did the police say?”

“Do you mind?” Eleanor said coldly. “I’d like to talk to Mari, please.”

He opened his mouth to retort, but Mari reached over and patted his leg. “Taka, please.” She turned back to Eleanor. “Tell
them I’m going away with friends.”

“Why don’t you tell them where you’re going?” said Eleanor.

“Because it’s none of their business. It’s none of your business.”

Eleanor looked around the bare apartment. Dust coated the sides of the old tatami, and one of the grime-dark windows had long
ago been taped shut.

“What do you really know about these ‘friends’?” she said. “Did you know that four students died? They fooled around with
implants. Are you going to do that?”

Mari dropped the bag on the table and the contents spilled out. “Implants?” She turned to Taka. “But you said …”

“It was an accident,” he said. “These are new techniques. She wouldn’t understand.”

“Don’t patronize me,” snapped Eleanor. “I was wiring circuits before you were born.” She leaned closer to Mari. “They failed,
and now they’re dead. Do you want to be like them?”

“It’s too late now.” Mari reached up and pulled at her fringe. Her hair came off neatly, leaving her with a wig in one hand.
Her shaved skull shone softly. On the side of her head, an implant reflected the light with a colder gleam. It looked like
the new compound type, with both retinal and cochlear attachments.

“You see?” Mari was almost pitying. “Mother and Dad wouldn’t understand.”

“Don’t tell her any more.” The boy reached past Eleanor roughly, and pulled Mari up. She fitted her wig and bent down for
her bag.

“Sorry, Aunt Eleanor. Say hello to Uncle Masao for me.”

“Wait,” said Eleanor. She had to keep Mari here until Kazu came. “Please don’t go yet.”

“Why, so you can call the police?” sneered Taka.

Eleanor stood up, too. “Her father’s on his way. At least let him see you’re all right,” she appealed to Mari.

“He’s coming to see me?”

Eleanor nodded. “He only wants you to be safe.” She reached for Mari’s hand, willing her to stay.

Taka shoved Eleanor backward. Her foot caught on the table. She lost her balance and fell backward, her head and shoulder
hitting the corner of the table with a crack that filled her vision with bright dots and set her ears buzzing.

“Taka!” Mari cried.

“We don’t want parents or cops here.” He went to the kitchen and picked up the box.

Mari’s face blurred in front of Eleanor’s eyes. “Are you okay?”

Eleanor sat up unsteadily. “Don’t go. Please.”

“Mari, hurry up!” Taka called from the doorway.

Mari shook her head. “I have to do this. I know you don’t understand but … Look, when I was little, I used to have this strange
dream. I was falling into a huge white
nothing
that swallowed me out of existence. Then I’d wake up screaming.” She paused, her eyes focused on something not in the room.
“I think that’s what dying’s like, and it scares me. If there’s a way not to fall into that nothing, I want to try it.”

“How can I contact you?” called Eleanor.

“You can’t.” She picked up a book that had fallen off the table and slipped it in her bag.

“Mari, come on!” Taka reappeared in the doorway and glared at Eleanor.

“Sorry, Aunt Eleanor. Tell Dad I don’t really think it’s his fault.”

She left without looking back. The door closed, and Eleanor was left alone with the peeling wallpaper and flat, gray screens.

I
shihara frowned at the blank computer screens, willing them to show him something useful. Two forensic teams, one from West
Station and one from Taiho Ward, swarmed over the dusty apartment room. McGuire had called him at West Station, and this incident
was linked to one of their cases, but the apartment itself was in Taiho Ward territory, which meant ward police got called,
too, as courtesy. A couple of their detectives had dropped in at the apartment, then rushed off on another case, leaving the
forensic teams and the West Station detectives to get what they could from the empty rooms.

“You looked at the computers, I suppose?” he said.

McGuire raised her eyebrow quizzically. “They’re only monitors, generic hardware available at any retailer. The kids took
the hard drive.”

He cleared his throat in embarrassment. “Ah, yes. I meant, if you touched anything we’ll need your fingerprints. For comparison,”
he added, seeing her expression.

“They’re in the Immigration database,” she said.

“I know, but that one’s hard to access.”

“It’s linked to NDN.”

“The police can’t just poke into anyone’s affairs,” he said, stung. The public seemed to think that database was solely for
police convenience.

“Not unless we’ve done something wrong?”

“Exactly.” He wondered why she grimaced at his reply.

“Assistant Inspector.” The man next to McGuire, the missing girl’s father, Kazu Kitami, blinked his prominent eyes nervously
and held his motorbike helmet in front of him like a shield. “Do you have any idea where my daughter might have gone?”

Ishihara kept his face bland. He hated doing this to people. “We don’t have any information at present.”

Slow footsteps clanged on the iron stairway and Beppu panted into the flat. The man needed to diet.

“No sign of them.” He wiped his upper lip and forehead with an already-soaked handkerchief. “Two constables are doing a house-to-house.
Why didn’t you keep them here?” he reproached McGuire.

She glared back. “They’re both bigger and younger than I. What was I supposed to do—lock the door and swallow the key?”

“Aren’t you smarter?” retorted Beppu.

Before McGuire could answer, Ishihara’s phone buzzed. The text message said Prefectural Office detectives were on their way
over.

“Are you sure she went willingly?” Kitami asked McGuire. The man looked stunned. It was always difficult for the family to
accept that their loved one might
want
to join the cult; might want to leave them. He still had trouble believing it himself.

“You can go now,” he said gently. “We’ll contact you if we hear anything.”

“Do you need me here?” McGuire said.

“No, we’ve got your statement,” said Ishihara. “The kids didn’t say anything about where they were going, right?”

“No.”

“You mean, they did say something?” said Beppu, puzzled.

“No, I mean they didn’t.” McGuire was puzzled, too.

“Why didn’t you say yes, then?”

“Because they didn’t say anything.” She eyed Beppu warily, then inclined her head in farewell to Ishihara. Kitami bowed low
over his helmet.

“Please tell us if you hear anything, Assistant Inspector.”

“We will. Next time, call us earlier,” he said to McGuire.

Her face clouded, and she nodded, unexpectedly contrite. “I will. I’m sorry.”

He was so surprised she should be sensible that he didn’t push the point, and the two of them left. He could hear Kitami’s
voice as they walked away, apologizing for not getting there in time to … Nice bloke. He didn’t deserve to lose his daughter
like this.

“Bloody gaijin, can’t understand what they mean half the time,” grumbled Beppu.

“Shaddup,” said Ishihara.