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  The short, skinny guy standing against the wall rattled a candy wrapper.

  Tomoko said, 'There was nothing enjoyable about it. You could've hired anyone. Why me?'

  Yang looked straight into the camera. 'Why not?'

  Kameko's sagging lower jaw moved slightly from side to side, as if trying to form words, the effect produced by the thousands of swimming bots, moving into her mouth and down her trachea.

  Tomoko gave the man with the fancy shirt the once-over, if only because he was doing the same to her. He had a straight beard growing from the tip of his chin, hair showing a little grey at the sides, blue eyes. He had a rugged appearance about him, like he should have been a cowboy riding a horse across some lonely frontier in the American Midwest.

  'I want my money,' she said.

  On the screen, Yang paused his page-turning. 'You haven't been paid? I'll give you a loan until it's sorted out.'

  Tomoko moved closer to the floating body in the tank. 'I don't want one of your loans, Peter, I want what you owe me.'

  The intestine sucked back into his wife's body. 'I'll have Giselle transfer you the money this afternoon.'

  'Why can't you do it now?'

  'Oh, please, Tomoko. This is hardly the time or the place for business.'

  Her gaze wandered to the floor, shiny white and cream tiles reflecting. Paul rose from his seat and stood alongside her, gazing at the naked figure in the tank.

  'Let me introduce you to the latest team player,' said Yang. 'He'll be working on special assignments. What's your name again?'

  The cowboy made a curt nod in her direction, arms folded across his broad chest. 'Martin,' he said.

  Tomoko gave him a glance and scratched the tip of her nose. He looked as though he wanted to say something, though all he managed was to unfold an arm and give her a little wave. She wasn't sure if 'Martin' suited him, not that she really cared. Taking notice of him now, he didn't look at all like one of those rugged long riders. More like a used car salesman.

  'Yeah, he's very nice.' She was looking up and down the tank, as if searching for some organ or limb she could communicate with, some part of Kameko that seemed in some way alive. 'Why are you keeping me here?'

  'What will you do in Japan? Your place is here, with me.'

  She pounded the side of her fist against the tank. 'You don't own me.'

  The glass reverberated and a triangle of liquid peaked at the top, rolling for several inches before levelling out. The tiny bots inside continued their work. Kameko's head wavered cobra-like on blue strands of veins and arteries.

  'You can only have one master. If I allowed you to go home, who knows what type of people you'd fall in with. You might listen to lies from my enemies.'

  'Why did you threaten Patterson?'

  Tomoko remembered the expression on Kameko's face when the first bullet hit her.

  'You need to be taught a lesson in servitude, Tomoko.'

  There was something in Yang's voice, a tone that made Paul suddenly lunge at her. She twisted, avoiding his hands moving for her throat. It took little effort to lean back, pat one of those hands away, and direct a quick, sharp kick into the side of his knee, buckling his leg. He let out a painful yelp.

  She should have seen the cowboy, knew that she was taking too much interest, even pleasure, in the expression on Paul's agonised face. What would Saigo say? He'd just shake his head and make her train an extra hour. The cowboy had grabbed hold of her, spinning her around to face him. Impact. Like a hammer.

  Two knuckles went straight into her cheekbone, the middle of three fingers ramming soft flesh across the sharp edges of her teeth. Her mouth filled with blood. Her vision swam red and black. She took a blow to the side, felt ribs strain and flex. He caught hold of her collar and pulled her into another blow, to the right eye, then to the nose. The tissue around her eye swelled instantly. Blood trickled in a steady stream across her mouth and dripped from her chin.

  She reeled back against Kameko's tank, straightened herself just as Paul hobbled into her. She felt blows pushing her back to the tank, managing to deflect a few. She heard Paul panting and gasping, dropping kicks and punches into her head and body. She toppled, leaving a red smear across the glass.

  'You like that?' Paul ducked his head from side to side and swayed his fists in the air, playful shadow boxing. 'I got plenty more. Tell me when you're done, Suzy, and I'll go easy on you.'

  She stood straight, hair covering her face. Red dots and smears marked the floor.

  'Is that all you've got?' And she smiled at him.

  A jab straight into her face, twisting her upper lip and crunching the cartilage in her nose. Paul did a little dance on his toes before he lunged forward and got his meaty hands around her throat. He lifted her off the floor and threw her against the tank, kicking her in the stomach as she started to fall. He kicked her again.

  She curled into a ball, hearing the man called Martin say, 'She's had enough.'

  She saw Paul leaning closer through the hair that had fallen over her face, thinking about how she'd repay him.

  Paul said, 'I thought you were supposed to be tough.'

  'She's got the message.'

  'You fucking pussy. Fucking bitch, she's laughing at me. Got ourselves a slap-happy-Jappy.' Paul grabbed her by the collar and dragged her to her feet, making a back-handed slap across her face that started fresh blood pouring from her mouth.

  'Didn't you hear me say she's had enough,' said Martin.

  'Maybe she has, maybe she hasn't. You've gotta watch this one. Turn your back to her, she'll bite your head off.'

  Paul raised his hand and the cowboy caught his wrist. She could see the anger on Paul's face, then the surprise when he couldn't break free from the guy's grip.

  The new guy leaned closer. 'Let her go before I go to work on your fat fucking face with my boots.'

  Paul swallowed. 'Yeah, yeah, okay.'

  She whispered, 'You won't get this one for free, Paul.'

  He threw her away from him, sending her sprawling across the floor. She leaned sideways on her elbow, blood and spittle staining her clothes. A sickening dizziness came over her and she thought she must have passed out for a few minutes. The next instant two security guards were pushing hands underneath her arms and lifting her up.

  Paul and the cowboy were facing Peter Yang's wife, floating there like a sideshow freak. She saw the skinny man move from the wall and give Paul a small box, Peter saying something she couldn't hear because of the drumming in her head.

  Tomoko snatched her arm back from one of the men, staggered for a couple of steps, then puked on his shoes.

  5

  Tomoko Locomotive

  When Tomoko was fifteen she had a job in a fish market in Hiroshima. Not quite as glamorous as the jobs that followed, like the one in the carwash where she could get extra tips if she let her uniform get wet and soapy, or the one as a waitress in a Yakuza bar.

  She'd cycle to the market every morning, then spend five hours gutting and selling fish. Round eyes staring up at her, slippery fish guts between her fingers. She would come home to the dōjō, see Saigo up on the balcony, and hold up a bag of something, perhaps fish stew or tempura that night. It was a smelly job, the type of smell that no matter how hard you scrubbed, you always took it home with you.

  She didn't feel that much different when she arrived at Jimmy Ho's place after Yang's thugs threw her onto the street. She'd tried to get herself cleaned up in a public toilet but when she tapped on Jimmy's aluminium door the smell of her own blood was still with her. She felt it gritty and slimy around her ears and neck, like old motor oil. Like the feel of the slippery fish.

  Little Kid, Jimmy had called her. Just like they had called her in the yakuza bar, where they always introduced her as Saigo's daughter. She collapsed into a chair. Jimmy had those big wicker chairs with the round, soft cushions in the seat. Two of Jimmy's men were at the cottage, personal bodyguards, although Jimmy always called them executive a
ssistants, usually with a smile on his face. Hu brought her a drink and Jun set to work on her bruised face, wiping antiseptic-soaked cotton wads over her cheeks and nose. She felt like she was wearing a mask, painful to touch. She trusted Jun enough to know that he wouldn't hurt her. He wiped the blood from the corners of her mouth, working quietly while his boss, Jimmy Ho, poured out advice and ideas like he'd rehearsed the conversation a hundred times. Kill Peter Yang, he kept saying.

  Tomoko thought about killing Peter while she slept on Jimmy's bed, the curtains closed and the air-con humming softly. She imagined killing him at the birthday party instead of Kameko, those same bullets tearing through Peter's body instead of her mother's. Only Kameko wasn't really her mother, she was a simulant clone. Tomoko's mother had died in a car crash when she was four, driving back from Peter Yang's apartment to return to her father.

  Jimmy told her that Kameko had left Saigo after having an affair with Peter Yang, then for some reason she'd decided to return to Saigo and the daughter she'd left behind. She'd never made it. Sometimes in her dreams Tomoko imagined herself in a car crash, looking back from the road to see her face smeared across a shattered windshield.

  She couldn't just go up to Peter and pull a trigger. Too easy, too final just to end it so fast. She had to make him suffer, make him wait and know that she was coming. She had to push him to the edge and see how far she could go before he finally snapped, and then ask him if he felt the same way she did when she had to kill Kameko for birthday entertainment.

  Fourteen rounds had entered her body, splintered bone, ruptured a kidney and split her gall bladder, leaking poisonous green bile into her body. Peter had found the edge and then nudged her over. Tomoko was going to kill him. Her dreams were different now, this time she saw herself killing him, and she knew how she was going to do it.

  When Tomoko awoke she already had her phone in her hand and was tapping the fast-dial. She kept her eyes closed and breathed slowly through her mouth. She sensed the faint glow of the cell phone in the dark, when Kiyoshi's face appeared on the screen.

  'What? What? Who the fuck is this?'

  'It's Tomoko.'

  'Huh? Tomoko? Are you in Japan?'

  'I'm still in Malaysia.'

  'Shit. I was sleeping.'

  'I need you to do something for me.'

  'You sound funny,' said Kiyoshi. 'You been to the dentist?'

  It hurt to speak, put pressure on the bruising around her jaw.

  'Information,' she said.

  She pushed her head deeper into the pillows, heard Kiyoshi munching something like potato chips.

  'You know what I want.'

  'Don't worry, I'm good for it, you know that.'

  'So tell me.'

  'I need to know the whereabouts of a man. I don't know his name. I don't know who he is or what he does. I can tell where he was this morning and the people he's connected with. I can give you a physical description.' With her eyes closed and the room dark it seemed like he was typing on a keyboard right next to her. 'He's about five-seven, short black hair, shiny like he uses hair gel or something. Half Asian, half Western.'

  The tap of the keyboard seemed to echo what she was saying, telling him the address of the hospital and Kameko's room number, the time that the man was there.

  'That all?' he asked.

  'Another. Western. Called Martin. He was at the hospital as well. He works for Peter. Find everything you can about him.'

  The information broker said leave it with me and I'll see what I can find. She let the phone slip out of her hand and went back to sleep.

  Tomoko returned to her apartment several hours later. She began taking her clothes off as soon as she was inside, naked by the time she reached the bathroom door. Cold shower. Teja watched the water run red around her feet.

  She held out a big yellow towel.

  'Dry me,' said Tomoko.

  Teja ran the towel down Tomoko's arms and shoulders, across the curve of her back.

  Tomoko dressed in loose pants and a T-shirt. She was throwing clothes into a bag while Teja sat on the sofa, watching her moving from one place to another. She paused only once, to twirl her hair into a bun, holding it in place with a chopstick left on the low table.

  'I'm leaving, Teja. You should get your stuff together.'

  'I don't have any stuff.'

  Tomoko was on her hands and knees, her head in a cupboard. She dragged out a long, narrow box. She lifted the lid to show Teja the weapon inside. She remembered her father used to keep it above the kitchen door, resting on a shelf like a giant utensil. The box still smelled like the kitchen, rice and soy sauce, fish and oil.

  'What's that for?'

  'My father's katana. He told me it's been in the family for generations. He lied, he found it going cheap on a market stall.'

  'Why do you say that?'

  'He lied about everything else. What happened to my mother. What he was up to when he was out at night. He'd go out when it was dark and take this with him. It doesn't matter now.' She closed the case and placed it next to the canvas bag she'd filled with clothes, then got to her feet and carefully slipped on a pair of sunglasses. 'I've got everything I need.'

  Teja fumbled with a button on her blouse. 'Tomoko . . . what happened?'

  Tomoko heaved the canvas bag and rested the box with the sword inside on her shoulder, making for the door and going down the stairs beyond. Teja followed.

  'Why do you need the weapon?' asked Teja.

  'For a quick job.'

  'What ya doing?' Billy watched her pulling open one side of the garage doors below her apartment. 'Are you going somewhere?'

  'Yeah, Billy. Think you, can pull out my car? Just grab hold of the front and pull.'

  He yanked back the other door, the wood scraping across the ground. The small four-wheel drive Mitsubishi barely fit inside, just big enough for it to be pushed in and left there with the handbrake off. Once he started the tyres rolling it came out easily.

  Billy squinted at her. 'What happened to your face?'

  'Somebody hit me.'

  'Who did it?'

  'Nobody you can handle, at least not yet.' She gave him a set of keys, attached to a little rubber dolphin. 'Help yourself to anything in my apartment. You might be able to sell enough of that junk to buy the parts you need for your bike.'

  'Huh? Won't you need it?'

  'I don't plan on coming back.'

  'Will I see you again?'

  'Maybe.'

  He watched Teja coming down the steps. 'Is she going with you?'

  Tomoko popped open the car's rear door and dumped the bags inside, closed it and moved round to the driver's side. Teja stood in the doorway.

  'Get in,' Tomoko said. 'You don't really think I'd leave you here?' Teja slid onto the passenger seat and Tomoko started the engine. 'If anybody comes round here asking for me, Billy,' she called through the open window, 'just say I left.' She engaged the car's autodrive and leaned back into the headrest. The window slid up. 'The MTL building,' she said.

  The car rolled forward, picking up speed.

  'Did you miss me?' Tomoko closed her eyes, licked under her swollen lip.

  'You were gone for a long time. What happened to you?'

  On the main road now, low beams cutting through the gloom.

  'I've been at Jimmy's all day. He gave me a lot to think about. We'll be there soon. Try to relax.'

  'Where?'

  Tomoko slept all the way there, for one hour fifty-three minutes. The car navigated the holes in the road and avoided gangland disturbances, sniffing up the white lines, hooked on a cocktail of asphalt and splattered flies. It notched up a wild dog and swerved to avoid a fallen tree. Tomoko rocked in her seat, but she didn't wake. She dreamed of herself standing naked in front of Mt. Fuji, covered from head to toe in blood, cherry blossoms filling the air. And then Peter Yang, climbing from a jade coffin and walking across a lake of mercury, dried, withered arms reaching out for her.

  Tomo
ko mumbled her father's name, a fragile whisper. He was always in her memories when she needed help, though he never actually said anything. She remembered people and instances from the past, but very rarely words. Probably because Saigo seldom spoke to her. She'd cooked the rice and fish, and they'd eaten. She'd practised in the dōjō and Saigo would either nod or say nothing. Then he'd turn to the balcony and reach for his pipe. What Jimmy Ho had said kept coming back to her.

  And then the car stopped.

  The MTL building was a square slab of light in the centre of immaculately maintained lawns. Over the main entrance the rain canopy welcomed sim pilgrims in the shape of glass hands, palms down to the ground. The receptionist's desk, a block of dark marble, glowed with lights and built-in virtual screens. The white walls of the lobby stretched up to the lofty ceiling, where projected birds made projected nests.

  Appointment with Dr. Foster, Tomoko told the woman. She paged him. A voice said he'd be right down.

  Teja crossed her arms over her chest.

  The sign behind the receptionist read 'More Than Life' in gold letters, and then in blue 'Simulant Sales, Service and Treatment'.

  Dr. Foster arrived. He was short, overweight, wearing square telematic glasses. He reached out and took Tomoko's hand, made a firm shake.

  'Miss Iwamoto, glad to see you. My office is on the next floor.'

  He studied Teja for a moment, then motioned for them to follow him to the elevator. He was wearing a white lab coat and bright yellow running shoes.

  Dr. Foster's office was large. He seated himself behind his desk and Tomoko made for one of the big leather chairs. Insects tapped nervously against the tall windows overlooking the floodlit lawns. Teja stood in the middle of the floor, passing her gaze absently from one place to another.

  The doctor's mild voice filled the room.

  'I'm glad you came when you did. She's obviously in a bad state of genetic decay. Even from here I can see she needs work on almost every external feature. She'll probably need replacement kidneys -- they're usually the first to go -- and a complete flush of her blood and replacement with the latest type. Her arm needs to be regrown, there's injury to the face and the left eye. There appears to be a slight curvature of the spine, maybe some damage to a nerve cortex.' He leaned an elbow on his desk. 'Sims are extremely expensive, I'll be the first to admit that. Quite often it's better to buy a new one. We'd take her on a part-exchange deal.'