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  She wasn't sure how space monkeys grabbed breasts, but that's what it was like. She drank alcohol. The space monkey had hold of her hand again and was leading her somewhere, dark, then light. The corridor seemed to go on forever. A man was on his knees in front of another man. She didn't think he was praying. Tomoko wanted to watch, but Patterson was insisting she kept moving.

  The snake moved, and she laughed at the sensation. Its tongue flicked out and tasted her. She thought she must taste good. Her back arched, her shoulders twitched inwards. The space monkey came up from between her legs, his lips and chin glistening with a liquid honey shine. She couldn't remember arriving at the room, where she'd stumbled-fell onto a bed. She groaned, laughed, sighed. She felt for one of the guns, her arm flopping down to retrieve it from the floor. She couldn't reach, so she pulled the space monkey closer instead.

  He went to roll her over then slipped, and his face crashed into a pillow. His head seemed to disappear. How long he stayed like that Tomoko couldn't tell. It seemed like a while. The space monkey grunted, righted himself. She watched a swirl of butterflies move across the ceiling before she rolled over onto her belly. Her arms were at either side of her head, long black hair wrapped around her neck. Legs parted. Space monkey on top of her. There was some fumbling back there, and then a space monkey penis was inside her. At least it felt like a space monkey penis.

  She felt a wetness between her legs, though it wasn't a good wetness. It felt like a greasy wetness. Dirty grease. She closed her eyes, panting softly, trying not to think of that little girl at the bottom of Otagawa river. Memories had a habit of coming back at the most awkward times.

  Like the guards flying away from her in a red haze. Bullets ripping into bodies, tearing through organs.

  3

  Head-on-Nistic

  Tomoko would have liked to have said that growing up on the streets of Hiroshima was tough, but it wasn't. When your father happened to be Saigo Iwamoto, the guy with the little beard who ran the local dōjō, life was easy. Though not without complications.

  Some memories were as fragile as the wing of an insect, others stayed with you until the day you died. Whenever Tomoko went home it was the steps at the front of the house that held the most memories for her. Climbing them on unsteady, infant legs. Using them as a canvas for chalks.

  The house was the largest on top of the hill, at the end of a road that wound its way through unfathomably knotted land. The road ended in a circle, just big enough to park two cars. To the right, a sheer wall of lush vegetation just in front of a concrete irrigation ditch with no barrier or cover plates.

  The house stood opposite, old, paint flaking, Saigo's dusty Mitsubishi pick-up under a corrugated rain shelter. When you first entered the dōjō, after removing your shoes in the genkan, you were aware of the coolness. It was a large room, four cedar beams supporting the ceiling, the floor shiny.

  Saigo and Tomoko lived in the rooms above the dōjō. He gave classes four times a week, the other days he worked as a telephone engineer. Tomoko often worried when he had to check installations or microwave links close to the wastelands, but he always had a Beretta 92 under his seat and a knife in his belt. Short and wide, it could put a man down as quick as a bullet. Thrust. Twist. Little gurgle. Everybody gave her father face, not always because of his connections.

  He'd sit up on the balcony on a battered wicker chair, watching Tomoko and the other kids with falcon scrutiny. She had a friend called Clark, kid with glasses, from Germany. Saigo hated him, like he hated all the Americans and Europeans who'd fled to Asia after their own part of the world had turned to crap. Worse than cancer, he'd say.

  Clark was a good friend. Made her laugh. They'd sit on those steps talking and playing games for hours, watching the students come and go.

  'I want to learn,' she said one day.

  Saigo drank his tea, reaching for more rice. 'It's not for you. Too small and too skinny.' He tapped his finger to his temple. 'You lack discipline.'

  'Then teach me discipline.'

  It always made him uncomfortable when she stared at him, forcing him to accept that she was there. A cough was the answer. They finished the meal in silence, and afterwards he went out onto the balcony to watch the neighbourhood, and to puff on his pipe.

  Clark was always there. Everything was either 'fucking weak' or just 'cool'. He watched her from the dōjō steps, where the old paint and chalk marks had long since washed away.

  When Clark had eventually become bored and frustrated, constantly seeing her on late night dates with other boys, she'd given him a hand job in the back of his car. Then they were friends again. It was a strange thing to do - like proving that she found him attractive - but reserved him for a deeper, more special friendship. Last she heard, he'd joined one of those militia groups somewhere in China, out to salvage the last of humanity from the wastelands.

  When she thought back, even the bad memories were good when she lived at the dōjō. People paid for lessons with whatever they had. It gave them extra food and gas for the pick-up. The fat French girl who lived down the street who always smelled of cooking oil. Taki, the local thug who really wasn't that bad once you got to know him. Old man Hirohito's dog at the back of the house constantly yapping. Saigo had made a call one day and a man from the yakuza came round and shot it.

  Polishing the wooden floor of the dōjō had been back-breaking work at times. It was how Saigo shut her up when she spoke her mind too much. Or when she'd stayed out way too late and had sneaked back into the house, trying to avoid that fourth step with its betraying squeak. He wouldn't shout, wouldn't raise his hand to her. He'd just gaze into the distance.

  'Polish the floor.'

  On her knees. Shiny floor reflecting.

  She remembered that stupid dog's head flying off and landing amongst the cabbages.

  'Cool,' Clark had said, then puked.

  Funny how memories came back the same way.

  Tomoko awoke with a long, deep groan. She sat up, mouth tasting foul and eyelids sticky. The thin bed sheet, draped halfway from the bed to the floor, formed a white water rapid between her naked legs.

  A shuffling sound came from a corner, where the slats of bright sunlight bleeding in through the closed shutters didn't reach. She heard a bicycle on the street two floors below, children kicking a ball.

  Tomoko saw a shape in the gloom. 'Teja?'

  The shape moved forward into the light.

  'I was worried about you.'

  'Maybe you're programmed to worry.' Tomoko eased her head up, wiping away strands of hair stuck to her face.

  'If you want me to leave, I will.'

  'You wouldn't last a day.'

  'Do you care?'

  'Stay. Go. Do what you want, Teja.'

  Some memories came back faster than others, usually the bad ones you wanted to forget. Tomoko groaned and doubled over, her head in her hands. She kept her eyes screwed tight for a moment, past events like a dirty cloak she couldn't shake off.

  Oh, yeah. Here's ya cream, kitty.

  'Jesus,' she moaned. She took the glass of iced water Teja held out to her, taking a slow drink. Anything cold was good in a room with no air conditioning, when you woke up feeling like old flypaper.

  'You were gone for a long time.' Teja scratched the stump of her left arm through the material of her shirt.

  'I don't remember . . .'

  'An autocab brought you back.'

  'Was I alone?'

  'Yes. I put you to bed.'

  Tomoko pulled the sheet round her shoulders, across her breasts. 'Did you undress me?'

  'You came undressed.'

  She felt like a pig farm whore. 'I need a shower,' she said.

  She let the water run cold, hard and fast, pounding her skull like fine needles. When she emerged, her hair damp and drying quickly, she didn't think she could get much cleaner.

  She found the clothes from the previous night outside the door. She didn't know how they got there. Maybe s
he had them bundled in her arms when she staggered out of the cab. She put the shoes and lingerie in the trash, the overcoat back in the closet, after a good shaking to clear out any bugs. She thought the guns must still be at Yang's.

  Teja had opened the shutters, mid-afternoon sunlight filling the room. Old furniture, a sofa with broken springs and lumpy cushions – where Teja slept and somehow managed to make herself comfortable –- a painting of a galleon at full sail on the wall. Junk left over by the previous tenant, before he moved Off World, or saw the futility of life and shot himself in the head. Two pots of noodles were on the chipped coffee table.

  Tomoko sat on the floor and picked up her chopsticks, tapped the tips on the table to make them straight in her hand. The sim looked worse this morning, her skin more pale and blotchy than usual.

  She was hiding in an abandoned building when Tomoko found her, yellow eyes glinting from a dark corner. She said she had a place where she could stay, get cleaned up and maybe find her original owner. No owner, no ID, no registration.

  For a while she seemed about as useful as the apartment's old furniture. She made decent soup and kept the place clean, and that was good enough reason to keep her around. If only she wasn't so damned ugly.

  Most of her left arm was missing and she had a gash that never seemed to heal going from chin to temple. It made a right angle across her eye, looking as though the whole eyeball might fall out of its orbit at any moment.

  'I'm fine today,' said Teja. She slurped noodles and licked the corner of her mouth.

  'I met a man at the party, he said he might be able to fix me up with an Off World ticket.'

  Teja said, 'That's nice.'

  'If it turns out he's genuine.'

  'And if he's not?'

  Tomoko shrugged. 'I'll find another way.' She could see the sim was worried. 'You'll be fine. I'll leave you the apartment, some money, some clothes.' She sucked more noodles into her mouth. 'I can't do much more. You don't even have a licence.'

  'Yes.' Teja's yellow eyes blinked rapidly. 'I understand you would never want to break the law.'

  'Don't push it,' said Tomoko.

  'I don't think I want to talk to you today.'

  'I'm sorry.'

  Tomoko's cell phone buzzed. She found it on the floor. It was Travis, Peter Yang's right hand man.

  'Good afternoon, Tomoko.'

  'What do you want?'

  'Mr. Yang would like to see you at the hospital. He feels you should pay your respects to Mrs. Yang. We'll see you there at three.'

  'Fuck you.'

  She terminated the call and threw the phone onto the bed. She should have expected this, Peter Yang playing out the game to its limits, seeing how far he could go before something snapped. Teja kept quiet, eating her noodles. Tomoko felt sick, needed to hurt someone, to break something valuable. There was nothing here that wasn't already damaged, including Teja. She rested the chopsticks across the top of her bowl and got to her feet.

  She'd only worn a robe when she came out of the shower, and now she dressed quickly. Short skirt, loose blouse, white with red piping around a breast pocket, ankle socks and Reebok running shoes. She picked up a light cotton jacket from the back of a chair.

  'I'll get back soon as I can.'

  4

  Sucker Punch

  Outside, the sun blazed down through the blue sky, as usual.

  Billy and Carl waved to Tomoko from the yard facing her apartment, their hands stained with oil from the latest bike they were trying to fix. She waved back.

  'You thought more about what I said?' Billy propped his forearms on the fence and grinned at her. 'About us going steady?'

  Tomoko kept on walking. 'Don't you boys ever think about anything else?'

  She heard Carl laughing. 'Told you, man.'

  The platform for the monorail was only a five minute walk down the crumbling carriageway, past the burnt-out cars that had been abandoned years before. Brown husks of rust with weeds growing in the seats. The authorities didn't do much out here, never repaired the roads and Tomoko had only seen the police once.

  The monorail had a plastic rain canopy where you usually found a couple of long-tailed macaques sitting in the trees at one side. They took food from the passengers, although today Tomoko had nothing for them. She made her way to the drinks machine and fumbled in her pocket for some change, slipped a few coins into the slot and selected ice tea. It rolled down and hit the tray with a clunk.

  Only three people waited, a man with a brown suitcase and two women, one constantly looking at a watch hanging from her neck on a piece of string. The train appeared, a white caterpillar. Tomoko got on and found the seat nearest the driver's compartment. The train climbed into the sky, supported by the grey concrete line.

  Tomoko thought about the party, the way it turned out after she'd done what Peter had hired her to do. She wanted to be in and out, fast, but she'd met Patterson and that seemed to have started a chain of events, most of which she couldn't remember.

  Travis had told her the day before what Peter wanted, supplied her with the two old guns. These are loud and make a lot of smoke, Travis had said. Much better than those new guns that fired the flat metal pellets. She'd been playing with Patterson's business card in her pocket for the last five miles, flexing the plastic between her fingers.

  J. W. Patterson. That was the name on the card. She wondered what J stood for. James? Joshua? She watched the green slopes go past the window for a moment then got up and made her way to the telephone, slipped the card into the front.

  Her cell phone wouldn't work out here. Nothing much worked anymore. Everything was old, nothing was being manufactured. She waited, picked up the handset and thumbed the call button. A woman on the seat nearby wiped her face on a small towel. It had a picture of Minnie Mouse on it. The carriages were air conditioned, though it took you a mile or two to start to cool down.

  'Hi, can I speak to Mr. Patterson please?'

  'Speaking.'

  She knew what to say, glad he couldn't see her face so she didn't have to say it with a smile.

  'It's Tomoko. We met at the party.'

  'Oh, hey. Right. I tried to find you. You - you just disappeared. How's things?'

  Mindless pleasantries. How are you? I'm fine, but I'd really like to get off this dying planet.

  'I was wondering if you'd like to get together sometime. I don't want to sound like I'm just calling for a favour, but I'm interested in the stuff you told me about, the cheap Off World flights and jumping the list.'

  A pause. Tomoko reached out and grabbed hold of a rail. The woman carefully folded the little towel and placed it into her bag.

  He breathed, and he seemed to exhale more air than he'd taken in. 'I can't. Peter had some of his people come round to my office this morning. They said they'd kill me if I helped you. Yeah, they went into a lot of detail about how they'd do it. I'd like to help, but these guys were serious. You know, I'm . . . you know . . . yeah, not about to cross Peter Yang.'

  She pushed her hair behind her ear. 'It's okay.'

  'Can I see you again?'

  She hung up, returned to her seat and popped the ring pull on the can of tea. She twisted to look out of the window behind her. Green hills in the distance, South China Sea way beyond.

  The train arrived at Kuala Lumpur station, skyscrapers thrusting out of the skyline like huge antennae. Out on the street, a guy in pyjamas shouted a speech about the end of the world. She took a leaflet, read it quickly, trashed it before moving to the curb to hail an autocab.

  The hospital wasn't far, maybe a fifteen-minute ride if the traffic was light. When she arrived, she caught the elevator to the private wards on the top floor. A couple of Yang's flunkies paced the corridor. Mrs. Yang's room was spacious, more like a hotel suite than anything else.

  'Look who's appeared.' The man sat in a low chair, love handles bulging out of the wooden frame, elbows resting on the armrests. 'Heard you got banged last night. Was he a big boy?
Was he, Suzy?'

  Tomoko said, 'Yeah. His dick was so big I could barely get my hand around it. It's a shame you weren't there, Paul. I could've done with something small to plug my butt.'

  There were two other men in the room, and the one wearing the shirt with the girl on the back sniggered, started coughing when it seemed he was about to choke. Tomoko had never seen him before. The other man was short and thin, standing against the wall, almost as if he expected his pin-striped suit to merge with the wallpaper and make him invisible. Tomoko had seen him before, at Yang's party, doing pretty much what he was doing now, just standing. He had black shiny hair, face like a rubber mask stretched over his skull.

  'Bitch,' Paul mumbled.

  'Please, please . . . I won't have such talk,' said Peter. The voice came from a speaker, just below the monitor where Peter's head and shoulders could be seen. He was sitting in a big armchair and idly turning the pages of a magazine.

  'I thought you'd be here, Peter. Looking after your wife.' Tomoko approached the large tank where Yang's wife floated.

  'Rather busy this morning, Tomoko,' said Yang. 'I knew you would come.'

  'You told me to come.'

  'To visit your mother.'

  'The simulant of my mother.' She felt like the noodles she'd had for breakfast were alive in her stomach. 'My mother is dead.'

  His wife's head, on a cable-like length of arteries and tissue, bobbed toward the glass, and half-closed eyes seemed to peer out. Nanobots swirled in the water, like shoals of miniature shrimp. A grey pipe of intestine was being repaired, and her nostrils flared as the tiny bots swam in and out of her head. Data screens flashed from the tall consoles stacked all the way to the ceiling. A nurse came and checked a read out, then made a note on a graph and left.

  'Excellent work at the party, Tomoko,' said Peter. 'Glad you came back and enjoyed yourself.'