Hanzai Japan: Fantastical, Futuristic Stories of Crime From and About Japan (13 page)

I quickly paid for both of us. By the time I had finished, Hiraku was already on the street. The ground was now shaking enough that it was difficult to keep our balance. Then came a strange, raucous cry, deafening us, shattering the glass of the windows. We caught a glimpse of the creature’s hideous reptilian head over the row of buildings on the other side of the street, watched it cough out a gout of flame.

“Gojira!” yelled Hiraku.

Paralyzed, we watched it stalk past. The top of a building exploded as it was hit by the creature’s gigantic tail, and we fled back into the ramen shop to avoid the rain of debris. Hiraku was still yelling the creature’s name, over and over. If the American were here, I thought absurdly, would he tell us that this particular tail strike would decrease the chances of a similar one striking the bank? Would he compute a new percentage using his laptop and then quickly create a new PowerPoint?

And then the creature was past, moving up the street and away from us, leaving destruction in its wake. The name died on Hiraku’s lips.

“Come on,” I said. “The army will be here soon. Hurry.”

We rushed to the corner and ran a block over, entering the street that Gojira had taken just in time to see his back and tail looming farther down through the smoke. He was enormous. The street itself was devastated, buildings broken, cars overturned, things on fire, alarms going off everywhere. The few people visible were screaming and running.

“Where’s the bank?” I asked. Hiraku had the map out, examining it like a tourist.

“There,” he finally said, pointing. We rushed up the street, toward the monster, moving in the opposite direction of everyone else.

The building was so broken, most of the façade spread out all over the street, that at first we didn’t recognize it. But then, running past, I caught a glimpse of the vault door and dragged Hiraku back to it.

We slipped ski masks over our heads and entered. The vault door was intact, but the reinforced concrete panels of one of the vault walls had been cracked and split, the rebar broken far enough up that it was possible to squeeze through.

“You see,” said Hiraku, smiling. “The American knew.”

I just grunted. “Hurry,” I said again.

I took out a flashlight and squeezed my way in. Inside, the air was full of dust, the floor cluttered with rubble. The safety deposit boxes we were looking for, 1760 and 1761, proved to be on the other wall —the wall that was undamaged.

I picked up a lump of concrete off the floor and hammered the door for one of the boxes. It didn’t leave a dent. I hit it a few more times. No luck.

“Now what?” asked Hiraku.

I shrugged.

“You didn’t bring any explosives?” he asked.

“Did you?” I responded.

I thought for a moment, then passed the flashlight to Hiraku, directing him where to point it. I took out my picks and tried to open one of the doors. The locks were tricky, I could tell immediately, but far from impossible—the bank had depended on the vault for keeping people out. It would take a few minutes, but it could be done.

But as I worked on picking the locks, I made the mistake of letting my thoughts wander.

I was thinking,
If the wall is undamaged and only these two boxes have been emptied, the clan will know they have been targeted and robbed. And if they know they have been targeted, they will have a list of likely suspects in mind. And Mr. Matsuo’s clan will be very high on that list. If I open these boxes and remove anything, I will almost certainly bring war upon Mr. Matsuo and his clan. Even if I preserve the contents as they are but pass along the information, how can we use such information without the clan knowing what has happened and bringing war upon us?

I moved the picks, insinuating them deeper into the tumblers.

What is my duty here?
I wondered.
Am I to do as Mr. Matsuo has asked and by so doing destroy the clan? Or am I to obey a higher duty?

One lock snapped open and, a moment later, so did the other. I slid the door open and pulled out the box inside, tucking it under my arm.

“We don’t have time for the other box,” I said to Hiraku. “It’s a shame, but it’s too much of a risk. Either the police will be here soon or the monster will be heading back the other way. Either way, it’s too much of a risk.”

For a moment he seemed poised to argue.

“I will take responsibility for this decision with Mr. Matsuo,” I quickly said.

Tightening his lips, Hiraku nodded.

“You go first,” I told him. Once you’re outside the vault, I’ll pass you the box and then come through myself.”

He turned and crouched to go through the crack in the wall. And that was when I brought the metal box down hard on his head.

He did not go down immediately. He swayed and, confused, started to turn, and so I struck him again, harder this time, and then a third time. Finally, he collapsed. Once he was down, I hit him a few more times for good measure.

He lay there groggy and glassy-eyed as I slid the deposit box back into its slot. I closed it and used the pick to relock the tumblers. Behind me, Hiraku groaned.

He had turned himself partway over, struggling to get up. I picked up the chunk of concrete. Hefting it like a grapefruit, I stood over him.

“Why?” he asked, whispering from the floor.

“It’s in the clan’s best interest,” I told him. “The clan is only as strong as its weakest member. But I can’t say it doesn’t give me pleasure.”

“We’re brothers,” he said, his voice a little clearer now.

“Clan brothers,” I said. “But yes.”

“Would you kill your brother?”

I didn’t answer.

“Is this Mr. Matsuo’s wish?” he asked. “Does he know you’re doing this?”

I did not answer. It is a mistake to lie to a man before killing him. But it is also a mistake to continue speaking with someone who is, for all intents and purposes, a ghost.

When I saw the muscles in his shoulders tense as he prepared to try to tackle me, I brought the lump of concrete down hard. Then again, and again, until his head was spongy and soft and bits of it were mixed with the debris on the vault floor.

I crushed his fingers to make him difficult to identify. When that was done, I pushed him out of the vault, forcing him through the narrow opening and out into the bank proper. Then I dragged him out into the street, where I left him leaning against a smoldering car.

In the distance, perhaps a half mile away, the sky was lit by flame as the army made its stand against Gojira. Soon the creature would be returning the way it came. Life in our clan would go on as before, with peace between the clans and easy profits for all. But it would go on without Hiraku.

I would not tell Mr. Matsuo what I had done. No, better to tell him that the calculations of the American scientist were slightly off, but that the error had been magnified by the complexity of the equation, and so when we thought ourselves huddled safe, waiting for the monster to pass, we had been in its path, and Hiraku had lost his life as a result. It was, I would say, a miracle that I had survived. As for the safe deposit boxes, because of the miscalculation the vault was not sufficiently cracked to allow us to pass through and reach them. And then I would offer to perform an act of contrition as acknowledgment of my role in the failure of the scheme, my failure to bring explosives, my failure to stop Hiraku from bringing the American to meet Mr. Matsuo. Perhaps I would chop off the tip of my finger and present it to him, or perhaps Mr. Matsuo, a kind and sensible boss, would dissuade me, but either way the clan will have been preserved and my own role in its future assured.

Indeed, Mr. Matsuo needs me. He is getting old. Who is there to fill his shoes now that Hiraku is gone, if not me?

It was the third of August, five in the morning. When Satoshi Muraki arrived on the scene at Inokashira Park, two Asian vampires were beginning the task of blockading the area by spreading out a set of translucent curtains printed with the phrase
Metropolitan Police Department
in Japanese, along with the English word
Police.

Muraki’s slight build gave him a boyish appearance, but he was confident of his strength. As a police officer he relied on his physical prowess, and had survived more than a few violent altercations. Nevertheless, the activity of the vampires in such close proximity gave rise to a curiously unsettling feeling.

It’s difficult to distinguish between vampires and humans. At a glance, one might have pegged these two men as nothing more than migrant workers. But thanks to his line of work, Muraki grasped that they were vampires. It was the same intuition he felt on his beat downtown, upon discovering people behaving suspiciously.

Muraki wondered if they had sensed that he was a cop. Wearing expressionless faces, the two vampires idly went about their work. Across the breast of their yellow coveralls swung tags that read
No Feeding!
in both English and Japanese.

The vampires residing in the metropolitan area had vowed never to attack humans. In point of fact, however, if the mood struck they could kill a mere human being with minimal effort. Muraki unconsciously used his right hand to double-check his holstered pistol.

Had Muraki’s ID tag reacted? The grinning visage of an old man peered through the translucent curtain, and then the man himself pushed through the slit to greet Muraki. However much they resemble a human being, a vampire can’t pull off that thing they call a businesslike smile.

“Great work here—thank you.”

The man likewise wore yellow work coveralls. Across his breast hung a tag that read
VLC Masato Yoshida
, absent the phrase
No Feeding!

“You’re early, too, eh?”

As Muraki spoke the VLC man adeptly used the reader he was carrying to verify Muraki’s identity. Modest and affable, Yoshida was a veteran of the public welfare department. It seemed he had retained the competence and amiability he had acquired during his time there.

Five years prior, coincident with the launch of the vampire employment agency VLC, a round of recruitment had taken place within the Metropolitan Police Department, and Yoshida had transferred. Whether the VLC was an auxiliary organization that assisted with police operations or a private enterprise undertaken by a retired police bureaucrat was an open question. “It’s because we want to avoid unnecessary trouble with the neighborhood. Our work here is not yet finished,” was a typical answer.

Yoshida and Muraki were already acquainted, but it was procedure to present one’s ID. Yoshida ushered Muraki through the curtains and handed him two vinyl pouches. Muraki placed them over his shoes and fastened them with elastic.

The task of barricading the area looked to be completed. With a
swish,
the translucent curtain became transparent from the inside.

The curtain enclosed a small boat launch approximately thirty meters in diameter. The boats had been deposited tidily, and those in the perimeter of the area were especially neatly arranged. Atop the lawn that led to the pier a man in a filthy jersey was lying faceup with a stake driven through the left side of his chest.

At his side, Cadaver Investigator Yatsuyanagi was beginning his work.

Criminal Procedure Code Article 229 regulates “death inquests,” but only from human beings. When such crimes concern the undead they are not subject to an ordinary autopsy, but rather demand the specialized knowledge of a Cadaver Investigator.

Yatsuyanagi was a head taller than Muraki. He was an amateur judoka and incredibly handsome, and had even graced the cover of a sports magazine. Muraki was a man who otherwise rarely experienced jealousy.

“Good morning.” Muraki made sure he was the first to issue a greeting. Try as he might not to, he was crumpling in the Cadaver Investigator’s dignified presence.

“Good morning,” he replied. “Is it just you?”

“Hashimoto’s been in touch to say he’s running a little late. He’s monitoring the demonstration, so he’s coming via that route.”

“The anti-vampire rally? How unfortunate—for Mr. Hashimoto, too.” As he spoke, Yatsuyanagi proceeded to record his observations of the cadaver in his tablet. “A vampire, huh? Figures.”

A number of lacerations were visible through the cadaver’s torn jersey. The victim was an East Asian male in his thirties. The stake driven into his chest looked to be the fatal wound.

“Suspicious. After all, a stake through the heart would kill a human being too.”

“That’s not our concern—it’s a matter for criminal affairs, isn’t it?”

“Just check out the data.”

Muraki produced his government-issue smartphone, down-loaded the specified file from the Metropolitan Police Department server, and read it. Simultaneously, his phone transmitted its GPS data—a security measure.

“Sudden rigor mortis, with a remarkably decreased quantity of blood—definitely distinguishing features of a vampiric crime,” said Muraki. “He’s quasi-positive for the W Factor? The W Factor test is a medical screening, so it’s no surprise it’s highly sensitive, right?”

The W Factor test measures one’s antigen-antibody reaction to a retrovirus. Because all vampires carry this antigen, for a time it was believed that the virus was responsible for human-vampire metamorphosis. Thus the virus had come to be referred to by the English phrase “Vampire Virus,” and the authorities had combined these two Vs to form the W. From that point onward, it had come to be called the W Factor.

These days the hypothesis that the Vampire Virus was responsible for human-vampire metamorphosis was uncertain, but because of its high correlation with vampirism the W Factor screening exam continued to be widely deployed.

“What you’re referring to is a ‘false-positive,’ ” Yatsuyanagi replied. “That is, a false positive response despite the absence of the antigen. But I prefer the term quasi-positive—a dubious result, neither positive nor negative.

“Naturally, because the test is a screening, it’s theoretically possible to come up with a quasi-positive result. But this is, at least, my first time seeing it. I wonder if the peripheral blood reaction was weak owing to the stake through the heart …”

Up until that moment Muraki had been confirming the facts of the case for a second time on his smartphone. The first person to discover the body had been a salaryman out jogging around four in the morning. He hadn’t seen a vampire, but because of the circumstances—the stake through the victim’s heart—he had reported the incident as a vampiric crime.

“Doctor, is this stake something one can buy off the shelf?”

“I can’t say for certain they won’t investigate it at the lab, but it seems unlikely, eh? It’s the sort of thing you’d get ten of for a thousand yen at a home-improvement store.”

The vampires in Tokyo were afforded legal protection. But opposition among residents had been strong. In Japan—where, unlike in America and elsewhere, one cannot carry firearms for self-protection—the Internet had a great deal of influence, and many people had taken to carrying stakes for self-protection.

Of course, marketing products designed to exterminate vampires was prohibited, but one could acquire such goods in the form of gardening tools and the like at home-improvement centers. In light of public opinion, the Metropolitan Police Department seemed to grant their tacit approval.

Thirty minutes later, Muraki’s partner Hashimoto finally arrived on the scene.

“Sorry I’m late.”

Hashimoto had been recruited to work security at the anti-vampire demonstration that had arisen in Shibuya, and though he would have been up nearly all night there wasn’t a single wrinkle in his suit. Perhaps owing to his youth, he showed no trace of exhaustion.

“You’ve been working hard,” I said. “How was Shibuya?”

“Nothing major went down. But they didn’t need to carry on so late into the night just because they were protesting vampires,” Hashimoto said.

“That’s how demonstrations work—masochistic pleasure gives rise to a sense of accomplishment.”

“If only there were lots of diurnal vampires …”

“There are, but people believe what they read online over the police reports! Though I suppose the Internet does have its uses. Anyway, have you looked at the data?”

“No, I caught the first train so I didn’t look at them, as per regulations.”

“Ahh, good call.”

Muraki showed Hashimoto the data he had downloaded. For security reasons data transfers between terminals had been prohibited. It was required that they always utilize the server.

“Muraki, this says it’s not clear whether the victim is human or vampire, but he has to be human, no?”

“What do you mean? He’s quasi-positive for the W Factor. We can’t determine whether or not he’s human.”

“Well, if he were a vampire, the assailant couldn’t have so easily driven a stake through his heart. A human is no match for a vampire where brute force is concerned. And even assuming the victim was overtaken by a group, I think at least one human perpetrator would have been taken out in the process.”

Muraki stared at Hashimoto.
The guy has a surprising grasp of the situation, doesn’t he?

“Suppose the assailant was also a vampire—what then?”

“In that case I think the scene would have been a lot messier. That stake would have been broken, no? But that’s not the case. We’re led to consider all sorts of scenarios involving humans and vampires, but based on the crime scene the victim, at least, was wholly human.”

“I take your point,” Muraki said.

Yatsuyanagi approached the two men, one hand still working his tablet. “You’re assuming that this is the scene of the crime. But Hashimoto, you haven’t considered the possibility that the perpetrator transported the body here and then drove the stake through his heart. Granted, it’s unlikely that a human could have overtaken a vampire …”

“We’ll know more after we transfer it to the lab, eh?”

“Indeed … Ah—excuse me!”

Yatsuyanagi took out his cell phone. It was his personal one, not government issue. He walked away from Muraki and Hashimoto.

In Yatsuyanagi’s place arrived a team of scientists who began preparing the body for transport. Multiple cameras documented the process, transmitting the photos to the Metropolitan Police Department server in real time.

“Muraki, hypothetically speaking, if the perpetrator were a vampire, why would he have driven a stake through the victim’s heart?”

“Humans can’t comprehend vampire mentality. And since we don’t know, we’ll gather up the evidence and perform an honest criminal investigation.”

Twenty-first century Tokyo. Population thirteen million, with 102,654 declared vampires among them. And the Metropolitan Police Department had a team of specialists devoted to vampire-related offenses: The Vampiric Crime Investigative Unit.

Imagine a sociologist.

We are well into the twenty-first century.

The advent and suffusion of surveillance states, the sociologist explains, is what led to the discovery of vampires.

The use of regulatory mechanisms to monitor every aspect of modern life had been a subject of controversy since the twentieth century, but the issue had been confined to the discussion of hypotheticals. This had nothing to do with good intentions, ethical questions, or the like—the technological infrastructure to implement a surveillance state had yet to come into existence.

Circumstances had changed dramatically in the early twenty-first century. The problem of fraudulent food labeling necessitated measures to ensure transparency at every stage, from food production to distribution. Or perhaps it all began when it was recommended that schoolchildren be issued personal GPS devices to ensure their safety. There were even countries in which individuals with a history of sexual crimes were likewise made to wear a GPS device, enabling authorities to regularly monitor all of their movements.

Following the terror attacks of 9/11, support for national efforts to monitor each and every citizen had strengthened. Moreover, a rash of terrorist incidents that crossed national borders further bolstered this trend. A great number of terrorists cultivated false identities, after all, and there were more than a few examples of them posing as law-abiding citizens.

The incident that had decisively suppressed opposition to ubiquitous surveillance, however, concerned something other than terrorism. By some fortuitous accident, the pandemic spread of H5N1 Influenza across Asia had been averted thanks to biological border checks. The system used to maintain surveillance states prevented potentially millions of deaths. And in the face of this reality, discourses of dissent subsided.

Developed nations across the globe assigned their citizens ID tags and enacted surveillance policies that extended down to the individual level. From a public health standpoint, it became essential that not a single blank space be left on any ID tag issued across the globe in the interest of containing viruses with a high mortality rate.