Virtually True (23 page)

No. land speculation. My guess is he was involved with the yakuza, or maybe a
keiretsu
, and he lost a substantial amount of their money on a poor investment. The earthquake has most certainly diminished the value of assets he may have brokered. If you find out anything I would greatly appreciate it if you would contact me.

Usually you and your boys try to squelch my curiosity.

Times have changed, Reiner-san, maybe forever.

Reiner grins, tickled by this reverse in fortune.
OK. If I find anything out, I’ll call you. How’s your wife?

Togo switches on his halogen torch, and lost in thought, seeks a more elusive answer. When Reiner turns to leave, Togo calls to her.
My wife died a few hours ago. She was badly injured in the earthquake. Thank you for asking.

Out front. True: “It could be a new technology. Cops never know the ‘new and improved.’”

“Could be, rabbit. Too bad about his wife, though. I studied flower arranging with her for years. But the captain’s analysis is backwards.”

“Yeah. My guess is that Tamura was killed not because he lost money. He was killed because he
made
someone money—a
lot
of it, too—but he couldn’t be trusted to keep his lips fused. You think someone’s on to us, decided to shore up his or her defenses?”

“Odessa checked on surveillance. Zippo.”

“What if Odessa did the intrigue bit and sold us out?”

“Anybody who’d want us would want to lash that hacker’s ass with a rattan cane first.” The bus squeezes to a stop. True and Reiner climb aboard. She grouses, “Wish I had that fucking car.”

*          *          *

Hours and many bus rides later. At Reiner’s place.

She checks her messages. None.

True’s losing himself in her plants. “When are you going to harvest?”

“Don’t need to. It’s a new strain. Forever budding.”

“You should call Odessa.”

“What I’m doing right now.” She waits. Tries again.

True sniffs herbal-scented fingers. “Not there?”

The screen reads:
engaging
.

Reiner talking: “Scotty says ‘Transporter malfunction, Captain.’”

She pans his room with the telelink, eventually priming on a twitchy boot, then the whole. Odessa. There’s no way to revive him long distance. Off to Odessa’s, a few standing buildings away. By the time they arrive, Odessa’s groggy-wake, sipping coffee. He offers True and Reiner a cup of “El Exigente.”

“No, no coffee,” True says. “What happened?”

“Say nanu-nanu to a fuckup. I’m checking into your shit and get blind-sided.”

“What shit?”

“Doing my usual leaping over tall buildings, bending steel, and what have you. I got to the recent land transactions you wanted. Then this bright light hits me, discom-fucking-bobulates my ass. I could be dead.”

Reiner says, “Find out anything?”

“Yeah, yeah, didn’t come away empty-handed, you know? No doubt about it. Somebodies are buying up this lunar landscape.”

“A few corps?”

“Correctomundo.” Odessa kisses his fingers.

True: “You should check the banks. Find out which ones are funding this.”

“Did it, and no, they ain’t. These corps got bread baking in a lot of ovens. Streams of foreign assets are being sucked here. Dude could get steamrolled in data like that.”

*          *          *

Electricity has been restored in some sections, buildings are patched together or razed to earth, restaurants and stores reopening. Tokyo, bloodied, dazed, but not dead. And the news that the capital is staying brings renewed vigor.

True sits in a ramen shop, watches the shogun-old owner roll and flatten noodles by hand, take orders, fry vegetables, steam gyoza, boil noodles, and serve cavernous portions. There’s still an exodus from Tokyo, people whose homes are no more, whose land is marked by gaping tiger-striped cracks. There are too many homeless now, too many have-nots, and the government at a loss on how to act. Tent cities do not match the warmth and succoring of relatives in other cities or of friends abroad. It will take years to erase the physical effects, longer to rid the mind of the memories.

Eden arrives, harried, her hair slicking down into her eyes, her sundress crumpled. She rushes to True’s table and sits. She calls out her order. True orders the same, whatever that is. Eden’s not looking at him. She’s searching, True knows, for the right words. Looking bad. Very bad. Yet he can’t take his eyes off her. Her beauty tugs at True’s unfurnished soul.

Against his better judgment, he stabs the silence. “What is it?”

No words, no assurances, just tears and shakes. True reaches over, plants a hand on her shoulder. She pulls away, cries alone, in silence, and True feels wrenching emptiness inside. Their food arrives, the old ramen-ya staring, customers gawking.

Finally, Eden speaks. “Seeing you has made me question a lot of things in my life, True. And I wanted to give you another chance, really I did. But I can’t. Life has to go on.
My
life has to go on. I can’t turn back.”

“So this is goodbye?” The words barely stumble out of his mouth.

“It is.”

“Why?”

“I have to follow my own path, and it doesn’t cross yours.”

The lunch-hour crunch. Pans rattle. The old proprietor scoops up six gyoza, sweeps them onto a plate. Repeats. Empties tangled noodles into bowls, flicks in assorted roots, pressed fish cake, bean sprouts, corn kernels. He rushes over and places bowls in front of True and Eden.

True scissors his noodles with chopsticks, blows then sucks hard, burns his lips. Profound desperation he doesn’t want to show. “Who is it?”

“What?”

“I said, ‘Who is it?’”

Eden mulls denial but knows there’s little reason to bend truth. “How did you know?”

“I don’t know, I just know. It’s been a year since I saw you, so I can’t be surprised you found someone else. But since we’re in the same place at the same time, let’s spend some time together. Get to know each other again. Let’s”—he’s the one searching for words now—“see if there are feelings, feelings we should explore, a future. Together. Despite what you may feel for someone else.” He drops his chopsticks in his bowl. Abandons them there.

Eden takes his chopsticks out of the bowl and places them on the table. “You’re making a mistake.” True’s not sure if she means his table manners or his words.

“One more chance, Eden.”

She pushes her ramen away, the steam winding into the air. “This is goodbye. For keeps.”

He’s too upset to reach out to her. All he can do is watch as she exits the restaurant and re-exits his life. Customers slurp stale noodles—one continuous giant sucking noise. True feels the life being sucked out of him, too.

Out front waiting for Eden, a suedey woman, who pulls Eden close, lips to lips. True’s heart spins down as Eden hugs another as she once hugged him. Eden’s lover glares through the steamy, depressed pane. At True. Then she and Eden, arm in arm, turn a corner and are out of sight.

As he eats, True stares at miso broth dripping from each glob of noodles. He finishes Eden’s ramen and orders a beer, three more after.

Seems to True, though, the times you most want to get drunk, you can’t.

*          *          *

True doesn’t want to be sitting next to Odessa, watching him jack a line into
Special Systems Control
, then run it through
Japanese land transactions
, cross-reference it with
corporate holdings
, thread it through two dozen other files, bits of info that could congeal into a coherent whole or come crashing down, showering them with electro-feedback, fuzz balls and jolts, energy that can kill.

It’s a risk, and the more True thinks about, not one he wants to take. Eden shattered his heart this time; the first time was just a dry run. The taste is formaldehyde in his mouth, old age suddenly around the corner. No amount of reconstructive surgery or steroid therapy could turn it back. True weighs death. Erupting into a fireball. Let those cyber-assassins or bosozoku, yakuza, ninjas, and Bong Bong have their way, let them collect their cut, because what the use of running? What’s the use in fighting?

He struggles against the tears that push at his eyes, but can’t even get that right. Soon, a droplet splatters the console, and more tears blaze a trail down his cheek. The loss of Eden overwhelms. He isn’t prepared for this intense feeling of unmet need and desire. She’s all he wants. She’s all he can’t have.

Odessa daubs a finger on the keyboard. “What the fuck is this? Water?” He surveys the ceiling, walls, gets to True, who turns away. The instinct:
No male, no cry
.

“That you?”

“Something in my eye.” True manages a whisper.

Odessa won’t accept that answer. True prepares for getting the hell out. He needs to reason this through.

But Odessa changes the flow. “Reiner ever tell you why I’m here?”

True clears his throat. “She just said you hacked the wrong people, like you said.”

“That all?”

True nods.

“Bitch can keep her lips krazy glued. Then you’ll appreciate what I’m going to tell you.” Odessa leans back in his chair. “I’d done this gig for the U.S. gov, one of the three-letter agencies. Can you imagine? Me working for the CyberCops? Now that’s some ironic shit.”

“What did they hire you for?”

“To play James Bond and get the goods on the Global Fortune 1000.” Odessa says this cool, like, no biggie.

“You hacked the Global Fortune 1000?” This rustles True awake, pulls him from his problems. Images of twisted steel and glaring lights, flooding walls of danger, cruel despair. Sneaking around Fortune 1000 databases is slightly less dangerous than chewing radioactive grit.

“That’s right. The data told me they were going to pull this corporate America shit, that they were going to form their own corporate nation, a business without borders. It was wild being in the inside of that ice, man. I was flying. I know you know what I’m saying. You’ve been inside. You come on to some motherfucking enemy troops and there’s a fire fight and you got to rely on your intuition and think fast or you’re meat. Now speed up the game a hundred times and that’s what it was like in there.

“I found out about an internal power struggle and they’d set up this tribunal to solve these disputes. So I go back to the CyberCops and they said it wasn’t enough. I told them to fuck off, cause that was all they were going to get, and those motherfuckers with their brass balls gave me some coordinates and said copy this shit. I said ‘Hell no.’ Chief said he’d tell the corps I’d hacked them; let it slip, like, accidently. So they had me by my balls. I mean, I guess I could have taken on every single CyberCop in the country, and lasted maybe a week before one of them shorted my brain. Or I could use the element of surprise, hope those corp bastards weren’t on my tail.”

True sees it now. “They marked you?”

“Yeah, the CyberCops set me up. I went in there, copied the info. It was hell getting in and worse getting out. But I did it.”