"Inevitable Fate", chapter two
Title: Inevitable Fate
Chapter: 2/??
Fandom: KAT-TUN
Character, Pairing(s): none yet
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: Language
Summary: We are the ones who will break the wall of fate. Kamenashi's life is the same as it always has been, until the day his transmitter shorts out and his entire existence is irrevocably altered, launching him into a rebellion he didn't even know existed.
Notes: My life is insane. Apologies!!
The first words Kame heard when he came to were “don’t freak out” which did very little to keep him from doing just that. He was on a cot in some sort of supply room when he opened his eyes, senses still in overdrive.
Whoever had spoken set a hand down on his shoulder, and he tried to bat them away. “Get away from me,” he lashed out, trying to kick off the blanket and shove the person away.
“Whoa, hold on, hold on.”
He saw a pipe running along the opposite wall, stains from previous leaks almost like blood dripping beneath it. There were crappy metal shelves with plastic bins and cardboard boxes, and he met resistance as he tried again to rise from the bed.
“Seriously, it’s okay,” the voice reassured him, and the hand tightened its grip to push him back down onto the cot. “We’re not going to hurt you here, Kamenashi.”
“How do you know my name?” Kame asked, turning to look at the man talking to him. The guy was tall with light brown hair and a friendly enough face. “Are you a rook? Where is this?”
“Hold on, one question at a time.” The guy smiled, trying to reassure him, and Kame still wasn’t feeling very calm. Was this a rook facility? Were they run by smiling, friendly people who killed for fun?
He turned onto his side, feeling behind him to run his thumb over his transmitter. Was it glowing? Was he completely turned off?
“I understand this is confusing,” the guy continued, pulling up a metal stepstool and parking himself on the top step. “This is why they have me do this.”
Kame rolled his eyes, sitting up. He wasn’t going to run anywhere since the guy had had little trouble getting him to stay put. They hadn’t taken his clothes, although someone had taken his boots off and set them neatly beside the bed. His hat was beside it.
“What was the first one again? The name thing, right?” Was the guy slow? Was this what rooks did? Play dumb? He’d rather take his chances in the street again. “We looked at your ident card when you were passed out. Don’t worry, we didn’t take your ration card or anything else out of your wallet. We don’t do that kind of stuff.”
“That’s nice.”
“I know, right?” The guy’s smile was almost ridiculous in its apparent sincerity. “So you’re Kamenashi. I’m Taguchi. I’m not a rook, I’m a messenger. And this is Tanaka’s casino, The Joker Club.”
He’d never heard of it. But there were plenty of places in the city he’d never been to. If he was still in Tokyo at least. “Taguchi,” he said, trying out the guy’s name. Not a rook but a messenger. “Why am I in a casino?”
“Ah, because it’s our base. Would you like the long or the short version?”
Kame didn’t always have patience for talkative types, and Taguchi seemed to be one of those types. But he was offering answers, and even though Kame’s body was still shaky with what had happened, it seemed liked the pain from earlier, the pain in his spine, had vanished. But he didn’t know these people, assuming there were more. At least there was a Tanaka.
“Short version, I guess. I just want to know what the hell’s going on. The last place I was...”
“Yeah, we found you. Well, Akanishi found you. He’s got a sixth sense about these things. Probably because he knows this city better than anyone I’ve ever met. I mean, I’m a messenger so I’m supposed to know where everything is, but Akanishi’s like this freaking Tokyo map kind of messenger and...”
Kame cleared his throat. He was getting a lot of talk and very little information that sounded all that relevant.
Taguchi scratched his head. “Ah. Sorry. Look, you noticed that your transmitter’s busted right?”
His fingers went to his back almost as a reflex. “How did you...”
“It’s what we’re about. We find people like you. We find you before the rooks do. We fix you.”
“Fix?” he asked, not seeing anything in Taguchi’s eyes that seemed to imply that he was hiding anything sinister or that they were going to turn him over to the rooks. “You can get my transmitter working?” He’d be normal; he’d blend right back in. He would get to move on with his life.
“Well,” Taguchi said, “that’s the thing.” He stood up and turned around, lifting his t-shirt so Kame could see the usual blue glow on his back. He tapped it with his finger. “By fix, we mean really fix. The transmitters are all busted. The system itself is busted. We make it look like you’re connected. We make you fit in again, but you’re disconnected.”
This was a lot to process. What the hell was he talking about? “What system? The transmitters? Everybody has one.”
“And you don’t think that’s weird?” Taguchi asked.
“Should I?” Everyone had one. Everyone had a transmitter implanted at birth. It was like having ten fingers and toes. It was like being apprenticed to a trade. They couldn’t assign you a ration card without it. They couldn’t keep a good count of the population without it. Everybody knew that.
“Kamenashi, they track you. They track everybody. It’s wrong.”
So Taguchi was nice and friendly. But he was also insane. People messing around with transmitters were like the people who stole or traded illegally. They were just asking for trouble. And they were going to get everyone else in trouble with them. Tinkering with a transmitter? Disconnecting it from the system? It was suicidal. He scooted forward, setting his feet on the floor, and started pulling his shoes on.
“And you guys mess around with that? You kidnap people to make them like you? I’m not getting involved with that sort of thing.”
“It’s a lot at once, I know that,” Taguchi said, standing up. The stepstool scraped across the concrete floor sharply. “But listen to me, it’s hurting you. There’s a lot that you don’t understand but if you just let us explain it to you, you’ll understand. It’s like having a bomb in your body, I swear. Look, I’m not the best person to do the whole science thing but...”
He tightened his laces and grabbed his hat. If it was a bomb in his body, why would everyone have them? Why would newborns get them if they were so dangerous? Why would kids argue about whose blue light was the shiniest? It was the way of things, and it always had been. “Look, thanks for saving me or whatever it is you thought you were doing. But I’ll deal with my own problems.”
He headed for the door, Taguchi’s voice ringing out just before he put his hand on the knob. “If you leave, Kamenashi, you’re dead. You know it. You’re flickering out. Your light’s going out.”
Kame shoved his hands in his pockets instead of opening the door. He stared at the aged wood, at the cheap construction and rusted hinges. The rooks would find him. These people taking him away had only put off the inevitable, hadn’t they? He could only run away from it for so long. He laughed. “I’m dead if I let you fix me, aren’t I? It’s illegal to alter your transmitter.”
“Not if they don’t find out,” Taguchi replied. “Ueda’s fixed people before. He won’t hurt you. And when you’re disconnected, you’re going to be alive. Your ident card says you’re what, twenty-four? Well, you’re twenty-four, and you haven’t lived yet. You’ve been tied to that little metal thing in your back, just like everyone else. They make everyone think it’s right, but it’s not.”
Kame felt quite alive, thank you very much. Although as soon as his transmitter had started acting up, those feelings had only grown stronger. What if there was an ounce of truth to what was happening here? Why would his transmitter fail when he was so young? Why would he be feeling so strangely? He turned around, eyeing Taguchi warily.
“If I leave, I’m dead. And if I let you guys fuck around with my transmitter, I’m dead too, legally speaking.”
Taguchi nodded. “Legally speaking. But Ueda’s good. You’ve got no reason to trust us, but I think you should anyway. Why would we go to the trouble of rescuing you if we didn’t want to help you?”
Would he be able to go in to work tomorrow? Scooping rice and finishing up that baseball game sounded almost irrelevant at this point. “You said I’ve never lived, huh? I can feel my heart beating. My shoulder still hurts from playing baseball.”
Taguchi approached him, hands out to show that he didn’t mean any harm. “Look, we’ve got some food here. I’ll let you talk to everyone. They’ll explain everything better than me. Please? Just hear us out?”
Kame’s options were limited no matter what. There was just something about Taguchi that Kame wanted to trust.
“Alright,” he said quietly. Food sounded better than running for his life anyway.
--
Food was slightly soggy rice and some canned salmon that was a bit warm. Kame's stomach didn't really want to take it, but he forced it down anyway; he'd be useless without something fueling him, anyway, and he'd rather tackle whatever was going on with all the energy he could muster. Taguchi had him sit on a cot in another small room without windows, surrounded by the largest machine Kame had ever seen outside the trains. He stared at it with unabashed wonder, looking at the wires curling around each other and the lights blinking in a slow rhythm.
"What is this place?" he asked, and he was a bit unsure if he was talking about the room itself, or the casino as a whole.
"Ueda's lab," Taguchi told him, and then offered him a small hand towel. Kame didn't know what it was for. "He's been building it for years, using odd parts we find or things we score on raids. He's pretty proud of it."
Ueda was the guy sitting in front of the machine pulling out a box of small, metal tools, who hadn't said a word since Kame had been brought in and had only looked up once to peer at Kame through the lenses of his brown-rimmed glasses. He didn't seem very talkative.
Kame wasn't sure what any of it meant. A man walked in with short hair that was going every which was like he'd run his hands through it and deliberately styled all of the strands up in the air. He gave Kame a wide grin.
"Oh, ho," he laughed. "This is a nice catch, isn't it?"
"Excuse me?" Kame asked. The man stopped right in front of Kame's seated position and then crouched down, elbows on his knees, peering at Kame after cocking his head to one side a little.
"He's like the puppy that followed us home. Can I keep him?"
From his position at the table, Ueda snorted. "Can you stop objectifying people we don't know? We'd like to make a good impression on him."
Kame's head was already swimming, and having someone up in his face wasn't helping matters. The guy seemed completely unphased by it and gave Kame a mock-salute, two fingers straight against his forehead. "Nice to meet you, Kamenashi. I'm Tanaka."
"The casino owner," Kame mumbled, recalling what he could from Taguchi's earlier explanations.
An even wider smile broke Tanaka's face then. "That's right! I knew you liked me, I could see it in your eyes."
Taguchi sort of shooed Tanaka away from Kame's position, giving Kame an apologetic shrug. "Can you take your shirt off? Ueda needs to be able to get to your transmitter."
"Oh," Kame said. He faltered for a moment, feeling exposed and nervous and like he was having an incredibly intense dream that he couldn't seem to wake himself up from. But he shrugged his shirt off anyway, because he didn't really have much other choice- he was damned if he did, damned if he didn't. "I... what are you going to do to it?"
"Rig it," Ueda said.
"Rig it?" Kame repeated.
Tanaka took a seat across the room, pulling a chair out and plopping himself down on it the wrong way, with legs splayed on their side of the tall seat back. "Make it so the system still thinks you are online. Make it look like you are connected."
"Can't you just put me back online?" Kame asked. The idea of no longer being connected to the thing that everyone else was- well, it wasn't done. It wasn't allowed. He'd be found out and killed for sure. The rooks had to be watching for things like that.
"It's an inhibitor," Ueda told him calmly, and he pressed his fingers against Kame's shoulders to sort of turn Kame's torso a little to one side, inspecting his transmitter. Ueda's fingertips were slightly cool to the touch, but not uncomfortable. "Your body rejected it, and that's the reason it went offline."
So there was something wrong with Kame after all. He swallowed, mouth very dry. "I... inhibitor?"
"It keeps your body from functioning at full capacity," said a figure striding into the room with the gait of someone who'd gotten what he wanted since he was young, hands on his hips.
"What?" Kame asked.
Taguchi leaned forward. "Didn't I tell you that you'd never been alive before now? I was telling the truth, you know. That thing has been screwing with your body’s levels since you were born, keeping you in check. Feelings and emotions. You know, all that good stuff."
"That's..." Kame started, struggling to find the words. His heart was starting to pound again, and the last thing he wanted was a repeat of his earlier episode. "That's not possible. I'm not... I'm not a robot."
"Not a robot," Taguchi said. He shook his head. "Just kept in line. That’s what it does- it keeps you numb."
Then Ueda's fingers were back, poking a bit at the transmitter on Kame's back and the skin surrounding it, and then wiping it with a cool, damp cloth. He'd pulled his hair back from his face with a clip. When Kame watched him out of the corner his vision, he could see the man's lips pursing in thought as he studied Kame's back.
"Suddenly, your heart is beating faster," the figure who still hadn't introduced himself said. "Everything's loud and overpowering and you can't breathe."
Tanaka laughed and slapped one hand against his knee, holding a finger up into the air. "The ultimate rush."
Having a name for what he'd experienced didn't really make it any better, Kame found. He shifted uncomfortably under the weight of their gazes, feeling like the world was folding in on him. The only good thing about the entire ordeal was hearing that he hadn't been dying or going crazy- that others had experienced the same thing and come out alright, even if they all seemed a bit... off.
"What now?" he asked. He wasn't sure he really wanted to hear the answer.
"We fix the signal on your transmitter so it looks like you are still part of the system," Ueda said. There was something calming about his voice, about the way he said everything. It made Kame feel a little better that he was going to be the one doing whatever it was that needed to be done. "The rooks don't come after you, and you remain free from the influences."
"But I can't go back?" Kame asked. "I can't go back to the way it was?"
"Would you really want to?" Tanaka inquired, and Kame thought suddenly, fiercely- yes. To have everything be normal again, to wake up the next morning and find out everything was just a bad dream. Not to worry about whether or not he was going to get carted off by the rooks at any given moment once they figured out what was really going on with him. But the word died on his tongue, and he couldn't force the answer out.
He remembered how vividly he'd been able to smell, to see. How colors had seemed brighter and sounds louder. He remembered the rush of blood so strong it made him dizzy. He didn't want to believe what they were telling him, because it was horrifying- but it was too much to be a story. It was too elaborate to be a lie, and he could taste the sting of truth in the back of his throat anyway.
"Then- then what?" he asked.
"Then you are one of us," Tanaka said. "You'll help us figure out how to shut the whole system down, so nobody is on it, and-"
"Koki, shut up," Ueda interjected.
Tanaka shrugged a little. "Yeah, yeah. Akanishi will fill you in later. He's kind of the big man around here, but he's out playing messenger right now."
Ueda moved again, back to Kame's transmitter, and instead of a cool cloth, Kame felt the slight jab of something sharp against his skin. He drew in a quick breath, because it had been more of a surprise than a sting of pain; Ueda took a step back, nodding. "I'm ready to go, whenever you are."
That was it, wasn't it? He was about to let someone he'd never met before do something that was explicitly not allowed to his transmitter, all because of some crazy talk they'd spewed at him. Kame stared at Taguchi, who gave him a reassuring smile, and then at Tanaka, who grinned lazily at him. The figure in the doorway moved to leave.
"Nakamaru can't watch," Tanaka said, following Kame's gaze to the man's retreating back. "Pussies out and gets all queasy. Squeamish, that one."
"I have many helpful talents!" Nakamaru called from beyond the door. "I am very useful and important!"
"Keep telling yourself that!" Tanaka replied.
Kame stared at his hands, at the lines on his palms. "I- I don't know if I can do this."
"Yes, you can," Taguchi said. Kame hated how much he wanted to believe him- he hated how much he wanted to believe all of them, to let them take care of him. He didn't feel so alone despite the fact that he was very much that- alone. Disconnected, or whatever they'd called it.
"I could just go back," Kame tried one last time, lamely.
"The rooks will find you," Ueda said. "They'll kill you."
Was this better? Trusting his fate blindly to strangers? Taguchi stood up and put a hand on Kame's bare shoulder, squeezing his arm a little. Kame wondered when everything had fallen apart. When had his world fallen so far off its rotation? He was drowning in surging emotions he couldn't quite name, all battling for dominance in his thoughts. He couldn't even get his breathing to even out.
"Okay," he whispered. The single word seemed to dissipate all the tension that had been building in the room around him. "And you'll...?"
"Knock you out, yes," Ueda told him. "You won't feel anything."
"Except sweet, sweet freedom," Tanaka added.
It didn't feel much like freedom to Kame- more like damnation, like a mark he'd carry around that would separate him from everyone for the rest of his life. He knew it would. But he didn't have another choice. Ueda was right; the rooks would find him otherwise, and whatever they did would be far worse. No one went offline- unless they were dead. And Kame didn't know if death happened before or after the light on the transmitter flickered out of existence. He didn't feel much like finding out the answer.
"Akanishi will explain more, okay?" Taguchi offered. "When you wake up."
Kame just nodded. He wanted them to get it over with before he changed his mind. "Okay."
"Lay down on your stomach," Ueda ordered.
Whatever they gave him was a liquid, and Kame looked away when the needle pierced his skin. He tried to think about baseball. He imagined wrapping his fingers around the laces, fingers sliding over the rough surface as he contemplated what pitch to throw. He thought about the wind-up, the coiling of the muscles in his shoulder. He closed his eyes and put himself on the diamond, where the smell of dirt was familiar and comforting.
"That's right, just think about me and my pretty face," Tanaka said.
"Could you just find something else to do?" Ueda asked, and his voice sounded slightly further away, like he was standing by the machine against the wall again. "I mean, somewhere else?"
Tanaka just laughed. There was a touch of fingers against Kame's elbow.
"I promise it'll be okay," Taguchi said.
Kame was facing a left-handed batter. He knew his fast ball would go inside and give the batter an opening. He'd go with the slider and make him chase it, stretch out long. His fingers found the position on the seams as he held the ball behind his back, turning the ball over and over in his palm.
"Heart rate is stabilizing," Ueda said.
First pitch was a strike. The batter spat on the dirt behind the batter's box and fell back into a ready stance.
"Almost in normal rhythms."
Second pitch was a foul, upping the count. Kame let his fingers find the position for a change-up. The batter expected a fast ball with two strikes; he'd surprise him. Throw it just above his waist and ride the strike zone low.
"Don't worry, Kame. I promise it'll be okay."
He let the ball go and knew it was perfect the moment it flew from his fingertips. He watched it arc towards home plate, barely rotating. He watched the batter try to adjust his stance to hit the projectile moving slower than he'd expected. The batter swung, and-
--
The next time Kame opened his eyes, everything was very dark. His eyes felt gummy, like the insides were sticky and slow to react to his commands. He blinked blearily at the ceiling- everything felt very far away, almost like he was floating, and even when he opened and closed his eyes a few more times, the sensation remained. It was sort of like waking up and still clinging to the remnants of a vivid dream.
His mouth was dry and felt fuzzy, tongue so lacking in moisture that it stuck to the roof of his mouth when he tried to open his mouth to breathe.
"You're awake," a voice to his left said. The room was still dark, but bits and pieces of his surroundings were sharpening, edges solidifying against one another. The only light source he could identify was what seemed to be a small oil lamp on the bedside table- he didn't remember there being a bedside table.
He remembered the lab; he remembered lying down, and Taguchi telling him it would all be okay. He remembered what they told him, and then there was nothing.
"Am-" he started, and his mouth was too dry to get anything further out. He ran his tongue over his bottom lip, feeling cracked and brittle skin crinkle beneath the pressure. "Am I better?"
"Better?" the figure asked. It didn't sound like Taguchi. Kame could only see the outline against the light until the man shifted and moved in, elbows to knees as he bent forward. It wasn't anyone he recognized, and it took him a little while to put that together with the pieces of information he was slowly recalling.
It seemed the man was waiting for Kame to elaborate. "Did- the surgery...?"
"Oh," the man said. "Yeah, you're all rigged up now. Rooks won't be able to catch a thing. Your transmitter is broadcasting at the same signal as everybody else's now, but your mind is still free."
Free. They'd used that word before, and it still rang false. "What now?"
The figure laughed, sort of a sharp, bark of a sound, and leaned back again, raising one hand to stroke his chin. "You're a weird one. Cut right to the point, don't you?"
"The point?" Kame asked. He couldn't think of anything else he needed to know; his mind was still hazy. He was still struggling to make sense of everything they'd told him, and it was an information overload in his head.
"Now you're one of us."
It sounded like a death sentence. Kame closed his eyes and tried to steady his breathing. Never before had simply maintaining a sense of calm been so difficult. He tried flexing his fingers, one digit at a time, feeling them pop.
"It'll get easier, you know," the man said.
"What will?"
Kame opened his eyes a crack to see the figure shrug, necklace glinting in the flickering lamplight. "Dealing with all that stuff. The rushes. You know, all that pounding heart crap. Ueda says it's like your body has to figure out how to regulate it since it's never had to."
"You're Akanishi," Kame said. It had taken him awhile to remember the name they'd mentioned; the one they said was the "leader".
"Yeah," Akanishi replied. "That's me."
Kame's chest constricted suddenly, heart forced up into his closing throat. He tried to push himself up, but he still didn't have the muscle strength back, and his vision was shaky. "Oh god. Work- I was supposed to go to work. How long have I been out? If they find out... oh god..."
Akanishi's hands were pushing back, forcing him back down to the cot. "Whoa, whoa, just calm down. I called you in sick- takes a day or two to really recover from it. It's alright, okay? You're covered."
"How did you know where?" Kame mumbled, but he didn't try to get up again- once had been enough. His stomach was churning from the exertion.
"Didn't Taguchi tell you?" Akanishi sounded surprised. "We checked your ID card."
Kame did remember Taguchi saying that, once Akanishi mentioned it. He was finally recalling everything else, too. "They said you'd explain things. About what was going on."
"You mean, about the transmitters?"
"Yeah," Kame said.
Akanishi shrugged again, hair catching in the collar of his shirt. It was pulled back away from his face, long and past the top of his jacket. "Things are put there when you’re born, and they keep you from feeling everything. Not entirely, but keenly. They just sort of dampen everything. That's why when your body rejects it, it feels like everything is going crazy. Like you're dying- you've never really been alive before."
Kame shook his head, but the action was weak. "It's not possible. Why me?"
"I don't know," Akanishi admitted. "We haven't figured that out yet. We think it's just a gradual sort of process- maybe... well, I don't know. Something is off. Your body just rejects the programming."
"And you can't go back?" Kame asked.
Akanishi leaned in, eyes sort of wide. "Do you want to live like that? Without really feeling anything? There's so much out there to experience, don't you know that?"
And so many ways the rooks and bishops could catch on, so many ways they could exterminate Kame without even causing a fuss. He was terrified of being caught, terrified in a way he'd never been before. That alone made him pause- because maybe Akanishi was right. Maybe all of them were right.
It was too much. He had to take a deep breath to try and steady himself again.
"You're still messed up from the meds," Akanishi told him, and rose from the rickety chair he'd been sitting in. "I told you it takes a couple of days to get back to normal. You should probably rest up some more."
"Been sleeping already," Kame tried to argue. Even as he said it, his eyelids were starting to droop. He'd never been so tired.
"Yeah, yeah," Akanishi said.
He dimmed the lamp, and the rest of the shapes blurred beyond recognition in the resulting shadows. Kame wanted to stay awake. His mind was racing, and his world was spinning, and he wanted to know everything. He had to know- he had to save himself. But his body acted of its own accord, and he couldn't fight the darkness when it overtook his senses.
Chapter: 2/??
Fandom: KAT-TUN
Character, Pairing(s): none yet
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: Language
Summary: We are the ones who will break the wall of fate. Kamenashi's life is the same as it always has been, until the day his transmitter shorts out and his entire existence is irrevocably altered, launching him into a rebellion he didn't even know existed.
Notes: My life is insane. Apologies!!
The first words Kame heard when he came to were “don’t freak out” which did very little to keep him from doing just that. He was on a cot in some sort of supply room when he opened his eyes, senses still in overdrive.
Whoever had spoken set a hand down on his shoulder, and he tried to bat them away. “Get away from me,” he lashed out, trying to kick off the blanket and shove the person away.
“Whoa, hold on, hold on.”
He saw a pipe running along the opposite wall, stains from previous leaks almost like blood dripping beneath it. There were crappy metal shelves with plastic bins and cardboard boxes, and he met resistance as he tried again to rise from the bed.
“Seriously, it’s okay,” the voice reassured him, and the hand tightened its grip to push him back down onto the cot. “We’re not going to hurt you here, Kamenashi.”
“How do you know my name?” Kame asked, turning to look at the man talking to him. The guy was tall with light brown hair and a friendly enough face. “Are you a rook? Where is this?”
“Hold on, one question at a time.” The guy smiled, trying to reassure him, and Kame still wasn’t feeling very calm. Was this a rook facility? Were they run by smiling, friendly people who killed for fun?
He turned onto his side, feeling behind him to run his thumb over his transmitter. Was it glowing? Was he completely turned off?
“I understand this is confusing,” the guy continued, pulling up a metal stepstool and parking himself on the top step. “This is why they have me do this.”
Kame rolled his eyes, sitting up. He wasn’t going to run anywhere since the guy had had little trouble getting him to stay put. They hadn’t taken his clothes, although someone had taken his boots off and set them neatly beside the bed. His hat was beside it.
“What was the first one again? The name thing, right?” Was the guy slow? Was this what rooks did? Play dumb? He’d rather take his chances in the street again. “We looked at your ident card when you were passed out. Don’t worry, we didn’t take your ration card or anything else out of your wallet. We don’t do that kind of stuff.”
“That’s nice.”
“I know, right?” The guy’s smile was almost ridiculous in its apparent sincerity. “So you’re Kamenashi. I’m Taguchi. I’m not a rook, I’m a messenger. And this is Tanaka’s casino, The Joker Club.”
He’d never heard of it. But there were plenty of places in the city he’d never been to. If he was still in Tokyo at least. “Taguchi,” he said, trying out the guy’s name. Not a rook but a messenger. “Why am I in a casino?”
“Ah, because it’s our base. Would you like the long or the short version?”
Kame didn’t always have patience for talkative types, and Taguchi seemed to be one of those types. But he was offering answers, and even though Kame’s body was still shaky with what had happened, it seemed liked the pain from earlier, the pain in his spine, had vanished. But he didn’t know these people, assuming there were more. At least there was a Tanaka.
“Short version, I guess. I just want to know what the hell’s going on. The last place I was...”
“Yeah, we found you. Well, Akanishi found you. He’s got a sixth sense about these things. Probably because he knows this city better than anyone I’ve ever met. I mean, I’m a messenger so I’m supposed to know where everything is, but Akanishi’s like this freaking Tokyo map kind of messenger and...”
Kame cleared his throat. He was getting a lot of talk and very little information that sounded all that relevant.
Taguchi scratched his head. “Ah. Sorry. Look, you noticed that your transmitter’s busted right?”
His fingers went to his back almost as a reflex. “How did you...”
“It’s what we’re about. We find people like you. We find you before the rooks do. We fix you.”
“Fix?” he asked, not seeing anything in Taguchi’s eyes that seemed to imply that he was hiding anything sinister or that they were going to turn him over to the rooks. “You can get my transmitter working?” He’d be normal; he’d blend right back in. He would get to move on with his life.
“Well,” Taguchi said, “that’s the thing.” He stood up and turned around, lifting his t-shirt so Kame could see the usual blue glow on his back. He tapped it with his finger. “By fix, we mean really fix. The transmitters are all busted. The system itself is busted. We make it look like you’re connected. We make you fit in again, but you’re disconnected.”
This was a lot to process. What the hell was he talking about? “What system? The transmitters? Everybody has one.”
“And you don’t think that’s weird?” Taguchi asked.
“Should I?” Everyone had one. Everyone had a transmitter implanted at birth. It was like having ten fingers and toes. It was like being apprenticed to a trade. They couldn’t assign you a ration card without it. They couldn’t keep a good count of the population without it. Everybody knew that.
“Kamenashi, they track you. They track everybody. It’s wrong.”
So Taguchi was nice and friendly. But he was also insane. People messing around with transmitters were like the people who stole or traded illegally. They were just asking for trouble. And they were going to get everyone else in trouble with them. Tinkering with a transmitter? Disconnecting it from the system? It was suicidal. He scooted forward, setting his feet on the floor, and started pulling his shoes on.
“And you guys mess around with that? You kidnap people to make them like you? I’m not getting involved with that sort of thing.”
“It’s a lot at once, I know that,” Taguchi said, standing up. The stepstool scraped across the concrete floor sharply. “But listen to me, it’s hurting you. There’s a lot that you don’t understand but if you just let us explain it to you, you’ll understand. It’s like having a bomb in your body, I swear. Look, I’m not the best person to do the whole science thing but...”
He tightened his laces and grabbed his hat. If it was a bomb in his body, why would everyone have them? Why would newborns get them if they were so dangerous? Why would kids argue about whose blue light was the shiniest? It was the way of things, and it always had been. “Look, thanks for saving me or whatever it is you thought you were doing. But I’ll deal with my own problems.”
He headed for the door, Taguchi’s voice ringing out just before he put his hand on the knob. “If you leave, Kamenashi, you’re dead. You know it. You’re flickering out. Your light’s going out.”
Kame shoved his hands in his pockets instead of opening the door. He stared at the aged wood, at the cheap construction and rusted hinges. The rooks would find him. These people taking him away had only put off the inevitable, hadn’t they? He could only run away from it for so long. He laughed. “I’m dead if I let you fix me, aren’t I? It’s illegal to alter your transmitter.”
“Not if they don’t find out,” Taguchi replied. “Ueda’s fixed people before. He won’t hurt you. And when you’re disconnected, you’re going to be alive. Your ident card says you’re what, twenty-four? Well, you’re twenty-four, and you haven’t lived yet. You’ve been tied to that little metal thing in your back, just like everyone else. They make everyone think it’s right, but it’s not.”
Kame felt quite alive, thank you very much. Although as soon as his transmitter had started acting up, those feelings had only grown stronger. What if there was an ounce of truth to what was happening here? Why would his transmitter fail when he was so young? Why would he be feeling so strangely? He turned around, eyeing Taguchi warily.
“If I leave, I’m dead. And if I let you guys fuck around with my transmitter, I’m dead too, legally speaking.”
Taguchi nodded. “Legally speaking. But Ueda’s good. You’ve got no reason to trust us, but I think you should anyway. Why would we go to the trouble of rescuing you if we didn’t want to help you?”
Would he be able to go in to work tomorrow? Scooping rice and finishing up that baseball game sounded almost irrelevant at this point. “You said I’ve never lived, huh? I can feel my heart beating. My shoulder still hurts from playing baseball.”
Taguchi approached him, hands out to show that he didn’t mean any harm. “Look, we’ve got some food here. I’ll let you talk to everyone. They’ll explain everything better than me. Please? Just hear us out?”
Kame’s options were limited no matter what. There was just something about Taguchi that Kame wanted to trust.
“Alright,” he said quietly. Food sounded better than running for his life anyway.
--
Food was slightly soggy rice and some canned salmon that was a bit warm. Kame's stomach didn't really want to take it, but he forced it down anyway; he'd be useless without something fueling him, anyway, and he'd rather tackle whatever was going on with all the energy he could muster. Taguchi had him sit on a cot in another small room without windows, surrounded by the largest machine Kame had ever seen outside the trains. He stared at it with unabashed wonder, looking at the wires curling around each other and the lights blinking in a slow rhythm.
"What is this place?" he asked, and he was a bit unsure if he was talking about the room itself, or the casino as a whole.
"Ueda's lab," Taguchi told him, and then offered him a small hand towel. Kame didn't know what it was for. "He's been building it for years, using odd parts we find or things we score on raids. He's pretty proud of it."
Ueda was the guy sitting in front of the machine pulling out a box of small, metal tools, who hadn't said a word since Kame had been brought in and had only looked up once to peer at Kame through the lenses of his brown-rimmed glasses. He didn't seem very talkative.
Kame wasn't sure what any of it meant. A man walked in with short hair that was going every which was like he'd run his hands through it and deliberately styled all of the strands up in the air. He gave Kame a wide grin.
"Oh, ho," he laughed. "This is a nice catch, isn't it?"
"Excuse me?" Kame asked. The man stopped right in front of Kame's seated position and then crouched down, elbows on his knees, peering at Kame after cocking his head to one side a little.
"He's like the puppy that followed us home. Can I keep him?"
From his position at the table, Ueda snorted. "Can you stop objectifying people we don't know? We'd like to make a good impression on him."
Kame's head was already swimming, and having someone up in his face wasn't helping matters. The guy seemed completely unphased by it and gave Kame a mock-salute, two fingers straight against his forehead. "Nice to meet you, Kamenashi. I'm Tanaka."
"The casino owner," Kame mumbled, recalling what he could from Taguchi's earlier explanations.
An even wider smile broke Tanaka's face then. "That's right! I knew you liked me, I could see it in your eyes."
Taguchi sort of shooed Tanaka away from Kame's position, giving Kame an apologetic shrug. "Can you take your shirt off? Ueda needs to be able to get to your transmitter."
"Oh," Kame said. He faltered for a moment, feeling exposed and nervous and like he was having an incredibly intense dream that he couldn't seem to wake himself up from. But he shrugged his shirt off anyway, because he didn't really have much other choice- he was damned if he did, damned if he didn't. "I... what are you going to do to it?"
"Rig it," Ueda said.
"Rig it?" Kame repeated.
Tanaka took a seat across the room, pulling a chair out and plopping himself down on it the wrong way, with legs splayed on their side of the tall seat back. "Make it so the system still thinks you are online. Make it look like you are connected."
"Can't you just put me back online?" Kame asked. The idea of no longer being connected to the thing that everyone else was- well, it wasn't done. It wasn't allowed. He'd be found out and killed for sure. The rooks had to be watching for things like that.
"It's an inhibitor," Ueda told him calmly, and he pressed his fingers against Kame's shoulders to sort of turn Kame's torso a little to one side, inspecting his transmitter. Ueda's fingertips were slightly cool to the touch, but not uncomfortable. "Your body rejected it, and that's the reason it went offline."
So there was something wrong with Kame after all. He swallowed, mouth very dry. "I... inhibitor?"
"It keeps your body from functioning at full capacity," said a figure striding into the room with the gait of someone who'd gotten what he wanted since he was young, hands on his hips.
"What?" Kame asked.
Taguchi leaned forward. "Didn't I tell you that you'd never been alive before now? I was telling the truth, you know. That thing has been screwing with your body’s levels since you were born, keeping you in check. Feelings and emotions. You know, all that good stuff."
"That's..." Kame started, struggling to find the words. His heart was starting to pound again, and the last thing he wanted was a repeat of his earlier episode. "That's not possible. I'm not... I'm not a robot."
"Not a robot," Taguchi said. He shook his head. "Just kept in line. That’s what it does- it keeps you numb."
Then Ueda's fingers were back, poking a bit at the transmitter on Kame's back and the skin surrounding it, and then wiping it with a cool, damp cloth. He'd pulled his hair back from his face with a clip. When Kame watched him out of the corner his vision, he could see the man's lips pursing in thought as he studied Kame's back.
"Suddenly, your heart is beating faster," the figure who still hadn't introduced himself said. "Everything's loud and overpowering and you can't breathe."
Tanaka laughed and slapped one hand against his knee, holding a finger up into the air. "The ultimate rush."
Having a name for what he'd experienced didn't really make it any better, Kame found. He shifted uncomfortably under the weight of their gazes, feeling like the world was folding in on him. The only good thing about the entire ordeal was hearing that he hadn't been dying or going crazy- that others had experienced the same thing and come out alright, even if they all seemed a bit... off.
"What now?" he asked. He wasn't sure he really wanted to hear the answer.
"We fix the signal on your transmitter so it looks like you are still part of the system," Ueda said. There was something calming about his voice, about the way he said everything. It made Kame feel a little better that he was going to be the one doing whatever it was that needed to be done. "The rooks don't come after you, and you remain free from the influences."
"But I can't go back?" Kame asked. "I can't go back to the way it was?"
"Would you really want to?" Tanaka inquired, and Kame thought suddenly, fiercely- yes. To have everything be normal again, to wake up the next morning and find out everything was just a bad dream. Not to worry about whether or not he was going to get carted off by the rooks at any given moment once they figured out what was really going on with him. But the word died on his tongue, and he couldn't force the answer out.
He remembered how vividly he'd been able to smell, to see. How colors had seemed brighter and sounds louder. He remembered the rush of blood so strong it made him dizzy. He didn't want to believe what they were telling him, because it was horrifying- but it was too much to be a story. It was too elaborate to be a lie, and he could taste the sting of truth in the back of his throat anyway.
"Then- then what?" he asked.
"Then you are one of us," Tanaka said. "You'll help us figure out how to shut the whole system down, so nobody is on it, and-"
"Koki, shut up," Ueda interjected.
Tanaka shrugged a little. "Yeah, yeah. Akanishi will fill you in later. He's kind of the big man around here, but he's out playing messenger right now."
Ueda moved again, back to Kame's transmitter, and instead of a cool cloth, Kame felt the slight jab of something sharp against his skin. He drew in a quick breath, because it had been more of a surprise than a sting of pain; Ueda took a step back, nodding. "I'm ready to go, whenever you are."
That was it, wasn't it? He was about to let someone he'd never met before do something that was explicitly not allowed to his transmitter, all because of some crazy talk they'd spewed at him. Kame stared at Taguchi, who gave him a reassuring smile, and then at Tanaka, who grinned lazily at him. The figure in the doorway moved to leave.
"Nakamaru can't watch," Tanaka said, following Kame's gaze to the man's retreating back. "Pussies out and gets all queasy. Squeamish, that one."
"I have many helpful talents!" Nakamaru called from beyond the door. "I am very useful and important!"
"Keep telling yourself that!" Tanaka replied.
Kame stared at his hands, at the lines on his palms. "I- I don't know if I can do this."
"Yes, you can," Taguchi said. Kame hated how much he wanted to believe him- he hated how much he wanted to believe all of them, to let them take care of him. He didn't feel so alone despite the fact that he was very much that- alone. Disconnected, or whatever they'd called it.
"I could just go back," Kame tried one last time, lamely.
"The rooks will find you," Ueda said. "They'll kill you."
Was this better? Trusting his fate blindly to strangers? Taguchi stood up and put a hand on Kame's bare shoulder, squeezing his arm a little. Kame wondered when everything had fallen apart. When had his world fallen so far off its rotation? He was drowning in surging emotions he couldn't quite name, all battling for dominance in his thoughts. He couldn't even get his breathing to even out.
"Okay," he whispered. The single word seemed to dissipate all the tension that had been building in the room around him. "And you'll...?"
"Knock you out, yes," Ueda told him. "You won't feel anything."
"Except sweet, sweet freedom," Tanaka added.
It didn't feel much like freedom to Kame- more like damnation, like a mark he'd carry around that would separate him from everyone for the rest of his life. He knew it would. But he didn't have another choice. Ueda was right; the rooks would find him otherwise, and whatever they did would be far worse. No one went offline- unless they were dead. And Kame didn't know if death happened before or after the light on the transmitter flickered out of existence. He didn't feel much like finding out the answer.
"Akanishi will explain more, okay?" Taguchi offered. "When you wake up."
Kame just nodded. He wanted them to get it over with before he changed his mind. "Okay."
"Lay down on your stomach," Ueda ordered.
Whatever they gave him was a liquid, and Kame looked away when the needle pierced his skin. He tried to think about baseball. He imagined wrapping his fingers around the laces, fingers sliding over the rough surface as he contemplated what pitch to throw. He thought about the wind-up, the coiling of the muscles in his shoulder. He closed his eyes and put himself on the diamond, where the smell of dirt was familiar and comforting.
"That's right, just think about me and my pretty face," Tanaka said.
"Could you just find something else to do?" Ueda asked, and his voice sounded slightly further away, like he was standing by the machine against the wall again. "I mean, somewhere else?"
Tanaka just laughed. There was a touch of fingers against Kame's elbow.
"I promise it'll be okay," Taguchi said.
Kame was facing a left-handed batter. He knew his fast ball would go inside and give the batter an opening. He'd go with the slider and make him chase it, stretch out long. His fingers found the position on the seams as he held the ball behind his back, turning the ball over and over in his palm.
"Heart rate is stabilizing," Ueda said.
First pitch was a strike. The batter spat on the dirt behind the batter's box and fell back into a ready stance.
"Almost in normal rhythms."
Second pitch was a foul, upping the count. Kame let his fingers find the position for a change-up. The batter expected a fast ball with two strikes; he'd surprise him. Throw it just above his waist and ride the strike zone low.
"Don't worry, Kame. I promise it'll be okay."
He let the ball go and knew it was perfect the moment it flew from his fingertips. He watched it arc towards home plate, barely rotating. He watched the batter try to adjust his stance to hit the projectile moving slower than he'd expected. The batter swung, and-
--
The next time Kame opened his eyes, everything was very dark. His eyes felt gummy, like the insides were sticky and slow to react to his commands. He blinked blearily at the ceiling- everything felt very far away, almost like he was floating, and even when he opened and closed his eyes a few more times, the sensation remained. It was sort of like waking up and still clinging to the remnants of a vivid dream.
His mouth was dry and felt fuzzy, tongue so lacking in moisture that it stuck to the roof of his mouth when he tried to open his mouth to breathe.
"You're awake," a voice to his left said. The room was still dark, but bits and pieces of his surroundings were sharpening, edges solidifying against one another. The only light source he could identify was what seemed to be a small oil lamp on the bedside table- he didn't remember there being a bedside table.
He remembered the lab; he remembered lying down, and Taguchi telling him it would all be okay. He remembered what they told him, and then there was nothing.
"Am-" he started, and his mouth was too dry to get anything further out. He ran his tongue over his bottom lip, feeling cracked and brittle skin crinkle beneath the pressure. "Am I better?"
"Better?" the figure asked. It didn't sound like Taguchi. Kame could only see the outline against the light until the man shifted and moved in, elbows to knees as he bent forward. It wasn't anyone he recognized, and it took him a little while to put that together with the pieces of information he was slowly recalling.
It seemed the man was waiting for Kame to elaborate. "Did- the surgery...?"
"Oh," the man said. "Yeah, you're all rigged up now. Rooks won't be able to catch a thing. Your transmitter is broadcasting at the same signal as everybody else's now, but your mind is still free."
Free. They'd used that word before, and it still rang false. "What now?"
The figure laughed, sort of a sharp, bark of a sound, and leaned back again, raising one hand to stroke his chin. "You're a weird one. Cut right to the point, don't you?"
"The point?" Kame asked. He couldn't think of anything else he needed to know; his mind was still hazy. He was still struggling to make sense of everything they'd told him, and it was an information overload in his head.
"Now you're one of us."
It sounded like a death sentence. Kame closed his eyes and tried to steady his breathing. Never before had simply maintaining a sense of calm been so difficult. He tried flexing his fingers, one digit at a time, feeling them pop.
"It'll get easier, you know," the man said.
"What will?"
Kame opened his eyes a crack to see the figure shrug, necklace glinting in the flickering lamplight. "Dealing with all that stuff. The rushes. You know, all that pounding heart crap. Ueda says it's like your body has to figure out how to regulate it since it's never had to."
"You're Akanishi," Kame said. It had taken him awhile to remember the name they'd mentioned; the one they said was the "leader".
"Yeah," Akanishi replied. "That's me."
Kame's chest constricted suddenly, heart forced up into his closing throat. He tried to push himself up, but he still didn't have the muscle strength back, and his vision was shaky. "Oh god. Work- I was supposed to go to work. How long have I been out? If they find out... oh god..."
Akanishi's hands were pushing back, forcing him back down to the cot. "Whoa, whoa, just calm down. I called you in sick- takes a day or two to really recover from it. It's alright, okay? You're covered."
"How did you know where?" Kame mumbled, but he didn't try to get up again- once had been enough. His stomach was churning from the exertion.
"Didn't Taguchi tell you?" Akanishi sounded surprised. "We checked your ID card."
Kame did remember Taguchi saying that, once Akanishi mentioned it. He was finally recalling everything else, too. "They said you'd explain things. About what was going on."
"You mean, about the transmitters?"
"Yeah," Kame said.
Akanishi shrugged again, hair catching in the collar of his shirt. It was pulled back away from his face, long and past the top of his jacket. "Things are put there when you’re born, and they keep you from feeling everything. Not entirely, but keenly. They just sort of dampen everything. That's why when your body rejects it, it feels like everything is going crazy. Like you're dying- you've never really been alive before."
Kame shook his head, but the action was weak. "It's not possible. Why me?"
"I don't know," Akanishi admitted. "We haven't figured that out yet. We think it's just a gradual sort of process- maybe... well, I don't know. Something is off. Your body just rejects the programming."
"And you can't go back?" Kame asked.
Akanishi leaned in, eyes sort of wide. "Do you want to live like that? Without really feeling anything? There's so much out there to experience, don't you know that?"
And so many ways the rooks and bishops could catch on, so many ways they could exterminate Kame without even causing a fuss. He was terrified of being caught, terrified in a way he'd never been before. That alone made him pause- because maybe Akanishi was right. Maybe all of them were right.
It was too much. He had to take a deep breath to try and steady himself again.
"You're still messed up from the meds," Akanishi told him, and rose from the rickety chair he'd been sitting in. "I told you it takes a couple of days to get back to normal. You should probably rest up some more."
"Been sleeping already," Kame tried to argue. Even as he said it, his eyelids were starting to droop. He'd never been so tired.
"Yeah, yeah," Akanishi said.
He dimmed the lamp, and the rest of the shapes blurred beyond recognition in the resulting shadows. Kame wanted to stay awake. His mind was racing, and his world was spinning, and he wanted to know everything. He had to know- he had to save himself. But his body acted of its own accord, and he couldn't fight the darkness when it overtook his senses.