messiah novel (drive me crazy, part 3b)

[devilism]

He came.

Just now Eiri had spotted the email that had arrived on his cellphone that he had been given for that purpose. He was walking down the slope past the Marukogawa stream.

It showed that he had been contacted by the boss, but there wasn't much in it.

The usual. If it came from Ichijima and there was some sort of content, it was very likely that it was a trap. It's a policy for Sakura to not leave any detailed mission instructions on paper or on electronic devices. When you had to go, where you had to go, with who you had to go, all of that was something you found out while getting on the move. It's an ad hoc way of doing things.

As he left the Shibuya Tokyo railway station, he headed straight to the assigned location. He walked on the wide road along the Yamanote line, the exhaust gasses paralyzing his sense of smell. It's why foreign spies hid themselves in the city. For them the exhaust gasses were a cover that would cancel out at least one of the five senses.

He headed towards the diagonal crossing at the intersection. After about five seconds the crossing signal turned green.

Ring, the mobile phone rumbled. It was an email from an address he didn't recognize.

Find him.

Being able to find a foreign spy in a moment in the city full of diagonal crossings. It was one of the basis tactics of counterespionage that members of public security often had to do.

In this case he didn't know whether he had to find a spy from the North or a member of the official staff. But considering Ichijima's test still continued, it seemed the target was one of the Japanese Sakura staff members. From that person he should be able to get some sort of message.

----He had to grasp the crowd as one plane rather than as individuals. He divided the image in his head in nine equally big parts, like he saw it on TV screens. Then he had to find the target in there. Not person by person, but part by part. That way it's over in only a moment.

The first half year in Maru school he studied martial arts, foreign languages and the customs of other countries, and this TV-like way of dealing with large numbers. After seeing an image for only one second, he had to find the photo of the same person. After he got used to that, the actual hands-on training started at the intersection. While having a stakeout at the crossing at the Shibuya intersection, more than 1000 people passed by per minute, and he had to find one person, not knowing when that person would show up.

Eiri looked up. He had long ago predicted that these kind of orders would come.

(... That man. I'll have to check him out.)

As he crossed the pedestrian crossing, he casually walked on the right side of it. A man approached from the other side. He had taken perfect measures against the cold in this wind with earmuffs, a scarf and a long coat with a hood. He was completely covered.

Eiri had a feeling that the man seemed out place. He had already been looking that way ever since he came out of the station's ticketing gate. Would he really have been riding the train like that all this time, even though it was pretty crowded around this time? There's even some trains that have heating. Not to mention, the man was only not wearing gloves.

To other people he might not seem suspicious, even though they might remind him as slightly standing out from the crowd. The man's excessive protection against the cold would not cause an uncomfortable feeling for ordinary people.

But if Public Safety would spot such a human, they would make them the target of a thorough check.

(I found him. It's this guy.)

Ring, again an email showed up.

Flash.

Flash is handing over a memory stick or something like that while passing by each other through a crowd. Eiri has also practiced this many times. Of course he's also practiced to catch spies from the North in the flash act by taking a picture of them.

The man with the thick clothes slowly shoves both his hands into his pockets as he walks. Eiri blows hot breath on both of his hands, acting like it's cold as the man approaches.

It's so obvious with how the guy isn't wearing gloves despite being so overdressed that it's almost funny. There's no way for Eiri to not notice it. Of course it's to help out the flash.

The man nonchalantly dropped a memory stick from the sleeve of his long coat.

The moment they passed by each other, he received the memory stick. As if nothing had happened, Eiri put it into his pocket.

At that moment, the phone started ringing.

Slip away with the goods.

(... Somehow it almost seems like a review of homework.)

He didn't have any instructions from Ichijima about what to do with the memory stick or where to go with it. He had only gotten a message about slipping away with the goods. In other words, right now Eiri had been surrounded, and it just had that he had to escape from that.

(Two people from the east. One person approaching from the west. It's a wall.)

His feet spontaneously turned to the south. There were two roads. Before long someone approached from the right side. It was another way overdressed man.

He entered a side street. The overdressed man approached a vending machine. He bought some drink. Eiri turned to the right again. From a sidelong glance he could see the man hurriedly taking out a bottle, and since he didn't drink it, Eiri could confirm he was following him. He was obviously tailing him.

(I need to shake them off.)

He quickly went to another street. At the same time he noticed that the people tailing him had divided into two groups. When he went into a one-way traffic side road, he immediately noticed a multi-storied apartment building and went inside. Because he could see that the super home delivery had come. In other words, the front door was open. Although recently you needed a key to open the door of those places to keep out people who didn't belong there, janitors had to open the door on a daily basis for home deliveries and the like.

After pressing the button to the elevator, he jumped out just before the doors closed after the box came down from the top floor. He figured that the people that were tailing him would have to split into two groups once more to confirm whether he went up with the elevator or not.

After this, there should only be two people tailing him.

As he took out the cellphone, he inserted the memory stick he had received during the flash to read what's on it. There was only one short word on it.

Fire.

Finally he was being pointed at the final destination. How to interpret the word "fire." Whether it's about the destination itself, or whether he needs to get in touch with someone who has fire. It's certainly an established tactic to get in touch with someone by asking for fire at a smoking point. But...

After thinking for a little bit, Eiri went straight away to a specific location.

His cellphone vibrated. With the instructions and his thoughts combined, he was sure his interpretation of "fire" was the right one. That place was right.

Examination.

This time the orders told him to shake off the two men that were following him about ten meters behind him. Eiri quickly raced across the pedestrian bridge in the direction of the department store. The men had split up, keeping in contact through cellphones.

He quickly ran past the cosmetics department on the first floor and took a taxi. After telling the driver the destination, he'd say he would pay him more if he could get him there in five minutes.

— — — — — — — — —
On top of the pedestrian bridge, a sweet potato cart was slowly passing by. After buying two sweet potatoes although it was completely past the season for them, Eiri gazed at the good view of the road ahead. From here he could see someone standing ahead on the pedestrian bridge.

It was Ichijima.

As he went up the pedestrian bridge, he approached slowly.

(It's not far away. It's the chief.)

He squinted his eyes. The wind was intense.

The pedestrian bridge over the road near Shibuya park allowed you to see far into the distance, which meant that you'd instantly see someone coming. Since it had an elevator, it meant that strollers could use it as well. This was the place Ichijima would use to get in contact with him, Eiri knew it for sure.

"You can even see the sea."

Eiri started talking to his boss in the beige trench coat. Everything was according to his orders. The man only moved his upper body as he laughed.

"Quick, aren't you?"

Ichijima Harumi. A man in his late thirties. Although his build is a little bad, his face has finely chiseled features, and he wears thin glasses without a frame. With one glance he could pass for someone from a trading company as he'd pass an intersection with a mobile phone in one hand. But the first thing you'd notice about him instead is the state-of-the-art wheelchair he's sitting in.

Eiri held out the baked sweet potato without hesitation.

"Oh my, it looks delicious."

"I bought it since the orders said something about "fire"... was there some sort of special meaning to it?"

"There was. It's since I felt like eating."

Ichijima took the sweet potato from the hands of Eiri, who was looking rather sullen, and started biting into it after removing the aluminum foil.

Eiri looked at his wristwatch.

"One hour and twenty-eight minutes after getting the orders. It's not bad."

Ichijima, with the area around his mouth covered with yellow thanks to the potato, looked at his own wristwatch by lifting his cuff.

He had received the message in his dorm room at sixteen minutes past eleven in the morning. From there he went to Shibuya with the Tokyo railroad, getting instructions along the way, and he went to look for a place or a person related to the word "fire." And when he walked across the Fire Street, he came across a sweet potato shop. He bought two, since they were related to the word "fire", and when he lifted his face after that, he had spotted Ichijima.

"Well, the sea, right. Did you want to escape the heat at the sea together next week?"

"... I said that because I was following the orders."

When getting in contact with staff outside, it's section five's rule to use a character from the other's name. That's why Eiri said 'you can even see the sea.' After all, this place is Shibuya. Of course you wouldn't be able to see the sea.

(Harumi, huh. It's an elegant name.)*

After having trained for one year at Maru school, had gotten to know some things about this guy. The old man liked handmade soap and would buy caramel ice cream made out of pure, condensed milk whenever he got the chance. It'd make him line up among high school girls.

After knowing each other for a year Ichijima had become "the old man I often don't understand" to Eiri. He operated the wheelchair skillfully and his way of speaking didn't exactly give you the sweetest impression of him, but he didn't seem like the kind of man who was feared by spies all around the world because he'd turn people into minced meat.

But his achievements around the world from before the "world reform" shoved that he was a hardcore spy. He was called the "special mincer" and was a man who had set a drugs plantation on fire overnight in the northern peninsula.

Once he had been freely going in and out of secret places and moving around as he pleased, but now the state of his foot left him in a wheelchair.

But even now he's retired from active duty, there are no spies that don't know Ichijima as the "wheelchair mincer." In every country there are spies who have had their sworn friends turned into minced meat by this man.

"Have you gotten used to life at Maru school by now?"

In the blink of an eye there was only half left of the sweet potato in Ichijima's hand as he spoke.

"It's been a year now since I picked you up out of that ditch, right?"

Eiri was silent. Somewhere in his head the image of a middle-aged man and a high school student eating baked sweet potatoes together in a friendly way on the pedestrian bridge that crosses over Fire Street seemed strange to him.

"Well, slowly you're resolving yourself to the sniper duty, aren't you?"

At Ichijima's words, Eiri slowly stopped eating the sweet potato.

(Sniper, huh...)

It somehow sounded nostalgic.

( back to index. )

notes:

* ichijima's first name, "harumi", has the character for sea in it - it's the "umi" part. hence why eiri was talking about the sea.