Outside the tank, Aku performs quality control; he gives a thumbs up only after his third pass at the numbers on the terminal screen. Inside the tank, Taga begins the offboarding protocol by turning the valve to stop the flow of blood being drawn from the person in his shop like he is doing nothing more than a routine oil change.
Emi of course, still in hibernation mode, neither sees nor hears any of this as she stays fully unaware of her present surroundings at AkuTaga’s. But she’s not the only one in the dark…
Little do Aku and Taga know, there’s a bug in the system; the wire connected to Emi’s skull labelled Terminal Two is not showing the programmed experience. The possibility has yet to occur within the narrow-minded thinking of the overworked small business owners that a BCI might be capable of using terminal technology to unlock a host’s core memories. Busyness: the death of more than a few promising startups over the years.
Instead of a tutorial on how to perform her newly assigned job responsibilities, in Emi’s mind, Queen Bee recalls a job from another life. There, she floats in another tank, on display for all to see. There, at least they look at her as more than human.
Outside the glass, a procession of people moves down a long aisle—none of them wearing overalls because this is a sacred place—each stopping to say the same quiet prayer before her floating form: "May the womb that was our tomb, hold you close once more."
"Whoops, wrong job," Bee corrects herself. "We'll let it play...maybe she's ready for more than I give her credit for."
In both tanks—past and present—at once, Emi raises her hands, feeling for the intrusive straps and mouthpiece of the facemask strapped there. A beeping sound echoes through the water, like a warning from the future.
A hand, Taga’s hand, snatches her wrist, pulling it away from her head before she can disconnect anything else in the incorrect order like she just did when she removed the red wire from her left nostril prior to first removing the green one going up the other side.
Her nose burns, so she takes a deep breath through her mouth, calming her lungs with a refill of oxygen.
In her blue glow, the man at the back of the reverant line, a handsome but hardened man in Service Dress Blues, steps to the tank and stands at rigid attention with his sharp blue eyes pointing up at her.
Why are you crying?
He doesn't wipe away his tears, choosing to let her see how proud he is of her.
She lets herself sink in the water until she might reach out and touch his face--or steal his heart--if not for the glass.
BEEP-BEEP-BEEP
[HEART RATE: 180BPM]
"Shit...too soon." Bee cuts to an older scene.
Aku pounds on the glass, throws up his hands to ask Taga what the fuck he just did. Taga gives him a middle finger, then tells him to calm down by pointing to the screen where Emi's heart rate is quickly decelerating.
Emi spins backward in the water of her memory, pushed by Bee's presence in her mind and Taga's shoulder--which sends beeping from a different monitor that indicates faulty connections.
Taga ups the beta-blockers entering her bloodstream, sedating her so he can reinsert the oxygen tube she just pulled from her throat at his nudging.
Queen Bee switches the memory Emi is reliving to something less traumatic, the girl’s reaction having indicated she is not yet ready to remember too much too soon. Human minds are like that: they drain just as fast as they flood...which is both an enigma and a paradox.
More water. But at least now it's only on her hands.
Bee has taken her back to her first job. She stands alone at eight years old shaking and waiting. Emi, whose name tag misidentifies her as Hana, washes her hands in the empty school restroom to give herself something to do.
She checks her watch. He's late. Why is he taking so long?
Off to her left, short urinals line the wall while behind her, a line of stalls squat unoccupied—the door of the one nearest hangs open from when she vomited into it only a few moments ago. After drying her hands, and rinsing her mouth, she looks at her dark hair in the glass. She removes the tie and lets the ponytail fall onto the shoulders of her dark blazer.
After rolling up her pleated skirt a few times, enough for the scabs on her thin knobby knees to peak out, she takes a meditative breath that calms her pulse but doesn’t stop her hands from shaking.
The knock is so soft it can’t be anyone but him. She reaches under her shirt and pulls the blue nitrile gloves from her waistband, snapping them as tight as possible over her pencil-thin forearms before opening the hard pencil case waiting on the sink.
She tosses the case in the trash before heading to the door and turning the lock with a loud thump, being very careful to only touch the door with the opposite hand of the one now holding the murder weapon.
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The boy takes his time entering, giving Emi plenty of space to step out of the shadows and into the light. As if on a stage, she stands with her hands behind her back, glowing beneath the fluorescent overhead light that bathes her pale skin in flickering white.
The door clicks shut behind him. He stares at the swaying girl, returning her mischievous smile with an uncertain frown of his own.
She says, “Lock it.”
The lock thumps. The boy jumps. He hides his flinch by turning back, only to be caught looking at the skin on her knees. His eyes bulge in a mixture of surprise, excitement, and fear while her hands continue to shake for the same reasons.
They both stare at his feet, Emi noting how the black penny loafers appear to be glued to the well-waxed tile. He says, “You shouldn’t be in here, Hana. You'll get me in trouble again."
Making the mistake of assuming all boys can be seduced the same way, regardless of age, she tries to distract him using the most obvious of the many methods her assassin training taught her. She stands on her toes, the heels of her black clogs leaving the ground as she sways just fast enough for her skirt to flutter flirtatiously.
He is more concerned with the repercussions of what might happen if he is caught alone in the bathroom with a girl to notice her attempts to seduce him. “Why did you make me come in here?”
Emi, who the boy knows as his classmate Hana, asks, “You got my note?”
He reaches into the pocket of his black trousers, feeling the paper with his fingertips before nodding. “The secret better be worth it."
She continues to sway; he continues to pretend not to stare as if he might be caught at any moment.
“I like you," she giggles, careful to keep the eraser end of the pencil far from her skin as she places the lead tip against her bottom lip. “You won’t tell, will you?”
He looks at his feet, face flushed and beginning to mimic her swaying.
She steps toward him, lifting his chin with the eraser end of the pencil to force him to look at her. She moves again onto her toes, matching his height before leaning close enough for him to think she is about to make skin-to-skin contact. He jumps back, his hands shooting back into his pockets but not noticing the paper has suddenly gone missing.
She smiles, as if embarrassed by not having her premature feelings reciprocated. She hands the pencil out to him, “I got you this…the eraser tastes like chocolate.”
He hesitates, reaching out a hand and taking the gift as if someone has a gun pressed against his head and is making him. “You honor me, Hana."
He steps back, still horrified at their private closeness, but reflexively doing the polite thing and bowing with the pencil before rushing from the bathroom.
After relocking the door, Emi stretches out her arms and slowly pulls off her gloves by turning them inside out to ensure the fabric that touched the pencil doesn’t contact her skin. She drops the gloves in the trash—along with the note she picked from his pocket that's still in the palm of the left-hand—before scrubbing her hands, arms, face, and mouth out with water and soap for longer than most kids ever have in their entire lives.
Satisfied, she checks herself in the mirror, re-tying her hair high and tight and unrolling her skirt until it scrapes her shins. She returns to the stall one more time before leaving, causing herself to have to rinse out her mouth again in a different sink.
Back in class, though he does his best to hide each stolen glance from the entire room, Emi feels every one. She hides her smile in her work when the teacher corrects the boy for a second time, adding a harsh slap to the top of his head to get across his point about focusing...and keeping the pencil out of his mouth.
By the time the chimes ring to signal the end of the school day, his overactive metabolism has long since transported the poison through his insubstantial body mass. He spends the night in the restroom.
The next day, he is too ashamed, too tired, and too scared he has caught radiation poisoning to report the severe gastrointestinal distress that has consumed his insides.
It’s only after chunks of hair come out in the shower, forcing him to wear an embarrassing hat, and the bottoms of his feet started feeling like they’re walking on hot coals despite the cool ground, that he decides to stop for a quick swing under the cover of an Okinawa pine tree to find relief from his shame.
They don't find him until lunchtime.
Three days later, Emi’s class takes the ferry to the mainland to attend his funeral. She bows deeply to the grieving family, having already placed the black and silver envelope stamped with the Takumi family seal containing ￥424,944 in condolence money that doubles as a bribe coded with a threat of further violence against what remains of the Minister of Defense’s family if he doesn’t give the arms contract to the correct bidder.
When Emi returns home at the start of summer break many weeks later, she arrives not knowing if she passed her test. She enters the tearoom wearing her white haori jacket over her white hakama to protect her from the unseasonably cold weather caused by the lingering nuclear winter, her heart racing and hands shaking.
Her father is waiting for her with a card in his hand and no tell on his face. He hands it out for her to read:
Takumi-sama,
Thank you for your generous donation to the memory of our son. I look forward to your continued good relations/favor.
Emi bows, handing the card back. “I failed, then, Sensei?”
He almost smiles, hands her another paper, this one carrying the weight of a legal document. She unfolds the contract, her attention drawn first to the red-stamped seal at the bottom that she notes is a perfect match to the one on the torn envelope of the thank you card.
She ask, “How big is the order?”
“Bigger than anticipated.”
“She bows as much to hide her proud smile as to show respect.”
“You did well, Takumi-san.” When The Devil heads to begin his work, the tail of his red haori trails behind him, revealing the all-black hakama hiding beneath it. “There is much work to be done.”
She stands, the red-horned full-face mask she hurries past watching her every move from its place on the wall.
Everything goes black. Probably because Taga just ripped the wires providing the image from Emi's skull. Her T10 ocular implants display the message nonetheless while her body curls into a limp ball at the bottom of her now empty glass display case:
[CRAFT ITEM UNLOCKED: THALLIUM].
Taga attaches a handle to the front pane of glass via two suction-cups at each end, then pulls hard as if opening a heavy door. He drags Emi’s dead weight into the black body bag waiting on the ground and zips it shut...as if that will keep the animals out.
The bag drags over the jagged floor until it comes to a stop at the ladder where Taga takes the steel clamp hanging from the winch that will soon start pulling from outside the open hatch twenty feet above. He attaches the clamp to the one just like it already hanging from Emi’s bag at the same time as he steps on top of her with both feet, like a surfer awkwardly learning how to ride a wave on the beach.
He gives a big wave. Aku presses a button that sends the end of the rope, along with everything it holds, speeding straight for the circle of light overhead. Taga stands tall, helping gravity crush Emi into the bottom half of the bag while he rides atop her, spinning like a drunken captain riding an anchor headed for the wrong ship.
Should Emi poison the buyer when she has the chance (and suffer the consequences) or let him live in order to let him help her pay off her debt?
