Demon City Shinjuku: The Complete Edition (39 page)

“You suppose correctly. Buried beneath two thousand years of sandstorms, even the stone foundations are nowhere to be seen. It is now stored beneath this palace. Here is all the water left in the pool.”

Mephisto looked quietly at the man in the golden mask. “Only one man would call Semiramis his wife and Babylon Palace his home. You are that famous suzerain?”

“I am.” The monarchal mask answered with a dignified bow. “I am Nebuchadnezzar II.”

Sayaka was astounded. This was Nebuchadnezzar II, who twenty-five hundred years ago ruled the Middle Eastern kingdom of Babylonia. That fantastical personage was standing right before her.

“Semiramis reigned over ancient Assyria, which should have been Babylonia's sworn enemy. That being the case, asserting that the Hanging Gardens were built to assuage the ennui of a princess from a mountain kingdom was a fiction.”

“Worthless sentimentalism,” the mask answered Mephisto. “The queen of the abundant kingdom of Assyria would wish for nothing of the sort. A woman raised in the mountains comes to live in the deserts of Babylon; seeing her pining for the hills and rivers of her birth, the kind-hearted Nebuchadnezzar plants a giant garden in a corner of the capital brimming with water and greenery. Ha! Do you think in a world full of heroes, warriors and champions, where kingdoms were brought down and built up in the blink of an eye, that such nonsense would be tolerated for a moment? Nobody knows, then or now, why this great garden was built.”

“Hoh. Then instruct us.” Mephisto's eyes brimmed with a fierce light, unusual in its intensity even for him.

However, the answer would not be forthcoming.

“All is as Semiramis wished. Her desires then, her dreams now—best to hear them from
her
mouth.”

He turned to her. Sayaka felt like he'd dropped a cold ball of ice down the back of her collar. The green glow of the electronic lens, infused with a loathing that death could not extinguish, was like the fires of hell.

“The body of Semiramis lies there, but her soul resides in another woman, inside the girl called Sayaka Rama. The cunning of that damned Doctor Faustus, to seal up the queen of hell inside such a heavenly beauty.”

“Hoh,” said Doctor Mephisto. The name of this new doctor had obviously touched a chord, in an altogether intriguing manner. He was enjoying this strange and perilous situation all the more. For he was the Demon Physician. “Sayaka-chan,” he said.

“Yes,” Sayaka said hopefully.

“You said this man showed you a dream. Does it live on in your memories?”

Sayaka blanched and nodded. The terrifying memories had not expunged her courage and resolve.

And to such a woman, the beautiful physician dared to say, “Would you object to reliving them?”

Sayaka's eyes went wide in silent surprise. She could feel the mask's consternation as well.

“The restoration of ancient times requires a certain kind of elixir. Formulating it with this medical technology is not easy, and the amount necessary to produce a useful outcome has yet to be confirmed for her.”

“It does exist in
my
hospital.” Doctor Mephisto's words seemed to encase this grand temple in ice.

“What are you saying?”

“I completed it before setting out, in order to dispose of the monster known as Ogdora. Well, well. Shall we return not only to the rise and fall of ancient Babylon, but to the moment of her lunar birth as well?”

Flinging back the cape, his white hand produced a small vial. What struck Sayaka more than that though, was the smile that creased the lips of the Demon Physician. The evil smile that captivated a scholar of the Middle Ages must have appeared no different than now.

The handsome man of great learning who brought the gospel of life to so many in that enchanted city—and on this endless and eerie sacred ground, the mysterious doctor commanding that memories of terror and horror return to this sinless girl. Was Doctor Mephisto a child of god or servant of the devil?

He thrust the vial out in front of Sayaka. “Will you partake?”

His voice was as cool and soft and terrifying as ever. Sayaka took the vial of dark green liquid. She wasn't responding unmindfully to Mephisto's desires. She understood that they had to get to the heart of the matter here and now.

After the memory restoration treatment at the World Federation Government Information Bureau, Chief Yamashina had told her that the procedure failed. When she asked, Kyoya said the same thing.

It was a lie. Chief Yamashina and Kyoya couldn't fool her. She was beset by the worry that what she couldn't tell herself had been rekindled inside of her. That must have been why Chief Yamashina dispatched the bodyguards.

Along with what the woman in the coffee shop said—
I have been with you always
—what did that mean? An infinite state of unease reached out to her from a bottomless pit and wrapped around her like a spider's web. She wished to sweep it all into the clean light of day, and so agreed to take the drug.

“Doctor,” she said firmly.

“Yes?” Mephisto said, leaning forward slightly. This was the Mephisto the patients in his hospital knew. The calm smiling countenance that even those suffering from the most severe of mental disorders would, very much despite themselves, react to with their own expressions of calm and relief.

Those same reassuring currents filled her own heart. “Um, nothing.” She shook her head. She wanted to ask whether he knew about the relationship between her and that woman, or if he was just keeping quiet about it.

But it didn't much matter at this point. To this doctor, human doubt and worry was a world away.

Sayaka opened the lid of the vial and drank down its contents.

At the same time, Chief Dai Yamashina of the World Federation Government Information Bureau, Japan section, received—with a raised eyebrow—an unannounced, undisclosed visit from the mayor of Shinjuku and the assistant energy comptroller.

They met in a conference room reserved for such occasions. On the table between them was a holographic display of the materials the visitors from Shinjuku had brought with them.

“I am familiar with the data,” said the Section Chief, hiding his qualms with a smile. “What shall we do about it?”

“Let's not play dumb,” the mayor said impatiently, thumping a big fist on the table, making the holographic waver.

The assistant comptroller jumped to his feet. “You may only be a chief in the World Federation Government Information Bureau, but you have been nominated for the top post in the past. There's no way you wouldn't know what this data means at a glance!”

“Well, then,” the Section Chief said, in a deeply troubled manner, his graceful features darkening.

“In any number of ways, the ordinary rules of government in the neighboring wards don't apply in Shinjuku. Illegal espers, cyborgs, assassins, spies from every corner of the world make their nests here. Fine. Let's get down to business. Over these last five days, active energy levels have soared five times. Five times the normal amount of energy is spilling onto the streets of Demon City, of Shinjuku. Even a child would understand the implications!”

“I don't know. Abilities vary so widely when it comes to children,” said the Section Chief, intent on playing the straight man to the end.

The mayor was mad enough to spit. He was going out on a limb with such an important official in the World Federation government. But there was no way anyone could carry off the duties of Demon City mayor without a few pints of piss and vinegar flowing through his veins.

The kind of people who showed up at city hall weren't just law-abiding citizens, but gangsters looking to launder their ill-gotten gains, drifters and grifters and cyborgs with fake green cards demanding the rights of legitimate residents, and so on and so on.

Turn them away politely, the usual threats and blusters, and if push came to shove, using all means necessary, up to and including overwhelming force—these were the mayor's minimal conditions.

The first mayor had thrown down with three killer robots hired by an organized crime family, got badly hurt in the exchange, and resigned. When the first lady of a particular world power opined in an unguarded moment that Demon City was a blot on the natural beauty of Japan, his replacement knocked her flat, in the process felling the president and his press secretary like tenpins. He was out too.

The third and current mayor was rumored to swear blood oaths with his city managers while puffing on a cigar in an underground bunker surrounded by high explosives. At least that was the reputation he'd fostered. In the end, the prime minister gave his predecessor a covert pat on the back and rewarded him with a hefty ministerial portfolio.

“Do you understand what we're talking about? These numbers don't refer to the energy output of the local industry—the large-scale greenhouses, the synthetic food processors, the illegal arms manufacturers and the rest. The energy generated by human activity, all the inertia arising out of mass transit, the states of organic and inorganic matter, the sum total of energies emanated in all forms living and dead—the energy balance of Shinjuku
in toto
. That has risen five fold. Five hundred percent. What in the world could account for this expansion?”

“Um—?” The assistant comptroller poked his cucumber-like face into the mayor's tirade. “Though the total energy output has increased, the sources and composition of the life energies, inertial energies and projected latent energies haven't changed. It's as if an energy radiating device suddenly appeared in Shinjuku five days ago.”

“I could live with that.” The mayor frowned and took a cigar from his pocket and stuck it in his mouth. “Hey, a light. Forget the editorializing just now. Only my assistant's opinion. Not officially shared by the ward government. Our theory is, it's a catalytic phenomenon, not some other energy source that sprang into being. Demon City itself is exacerbating the increase, catalyzing it and sending it sky high at a whack.”

“But even in the case of Demon City, whatever the nature of this energy, the sources you mentioned don't exceed the sum total. If the separate energy increases zero out, it's not physically possible for the totals to increase, no matter what the catalyst.”

“It's right here in the figures,” the mayor said with a triumphant expression.

“But then where do you imagine this impossible five-fold increase came from?”

Section Chief Yamashina looked into the mayor's eyes. The mayor's face twitched. He knew the man wasn't posing the question as a simple formality. The assistant comptroller gulped down his tea and yelped upon scalding his lip.

“We—” the mayor started to say, when a warning buzzer of some sort interrupted him.

“What is it?” Yamashina asked, turning to an invisible microphone.

What looked like an underling wearing sunglasses appeared in the holograph on the table. “We just received an emergency communication from the Shinjuku Disaster Management Center. Their sensors forecast an earthquake directly beneath us that matches the one that destroyed Shinjuku.”

Sayaka knew she was really two. The eyes perceiving the scene reaching out before her were her own—and also those of another woman.

Semiramis. The evil queen who once ruled ancient Assyria. As had so many of the rich and powerful before her, she bound the authority of the secular and sacred into a single weapon of uncompromising might, claiming each new bounty with a fresh tide of holy blood.

What Sayaka was looking at was the miserable state of those sacrificial victims.

This was the city of Babylon.

No building was safe. Even the brick houses were consumed in fire. Those that weren't coughed up black smoke, charred human skeletons clinging to the skeletal remains of the consumed buildings.

The streets ran red, turning into rusty splotches where falling bricks covered up the blood. The dead were young and old, men and women alike. All of them were missing their heads and hands and feet, and many had their bellies ripped open.

Sayaka felt like throwing up, while her other self was drunk with joy. They both knew that this was their doing.

The scene changed. Sayaka was standing on a large stone platform. In front of and behind, to her right and left, was a solid phalanx of Assyrian soldiers holding spears all pointing at a great line of people some distance away from them.

Prisoners of war. Their arms and legs were bound to shackles and balls and chains, their faces clouded with presentiments of their impending fate. Sayaka raised the staff in her right hand.

No
, she cried out.
This isn't right!

But another voice commanded,
Do it! They are heretics, fools who raised a sword against my god. The least they can do is atone for their sins by spilling their blood upon this altar
.

Stop!

Kill them!

The staff came down.

Three knights appeared among the prisoners. One held a long lance. One had unusually long arms and an equally long sword. The third had six arms. The three horses kicked up a curtain of sand and dust as the three knights attacked the defenseless wave of humanity.

Every flash of the lance speared three or four, flinging them groaning through the air. The sweep of the sword beheaded women and children, cleaved skulls in two, and stained the sky with blood.

Some tried to flee. Despite the iron balls and shackles and chains, the fear of death propelled them forward foot by foot. Several hours later, by then thousands of feet from the place of the slaughter, they may have even felt a sense of relief. And then came steel arrows flying from so far away, and yet piercing their chests like paper.

One arrow shot through ten at a time. After five arrows, the slaughter was over. The remaining people scattered in a different direction—guarded by no one—in the direction of a cliff.