Demon City Shinjuku: The Complete Edition (7 page)

As a result, top-grade espers were required to register with the World Federation. Some insisted on freedom and rights and refused, and an “illegal esper” movement began. Obtaining their own equipment through back channels, they amped up their abilities to frightening levels and began to pull off daring and dastardly crimes.

Shinjuku, a den of thieves the law couldn't reach, was perfectly suited for their purposes.

In due course, law enforcement organizations around the world united for the purposes of imposing law and order on Shinjuku. Except that when they attempted to reconstitute the regular police force from before the Devil Quake, the nightmarish incidents slowed activities to a crawl.

By this point, garrisons had been located on the borders between Shinjuku and the outside wards, staffed by a small number of regular police and commando units.

Demon City had already transformed into a city of super-criminals beyond their ability to manage.

Confronting cyborgs equipped with ultrasonic weapons that could reduce ferroconcrete structures to dust in seconds—degenerate espers who could turn an opponent's brain to mush through thought alone—yakuza wearing the World Federation Army's prized multi-functional fighting suits—against the likes of them, the ordinary beat cop armed with 9 mm semiautomatics with ten-round magazines and high-voltage nightsticks could accomplish next to nothing.

And so, with the scars of the disaster clearly in view, Shinjuku detached itself from civilization, practically from time itself. Now in 2030, in the center of the huge megalopolis of Tokyo, this strange and terrifying crime-ridden city continued to exist in its own twilight world.

The pale moonlight shone down on the road snaking through the reeking ruins. The shadow of a slight figure made its way from the old JR Yotsuya station to Yotsuya Sanchome. The outlines of her body glimmering faintly in the darkness, there was enough light to make out a young and pretty woman. Sayaka.

A look of worry and unease passed across her determined face. Her last hope—Kyoya—had turned her down. After a moment of anguish, she'd bolted from the Information Bureau.

To what end? To confront the sorcerer and defeat him. All she had in order to accomplish that goal was a laser ring on her right hand. Out of concern for the activities of anti-Federation factions, she wore it in self-defense. From the outside, it looked like a BB-sized ruby set into a gold mount. Inside was a tiny nuclear reactor and energy converter. Together they could spit out a laser beam powerful enough to melt glass.

Sayaka never liked the idea of having on her person a weapon that could kill people. She had it retrofitted with a paralyzing mode and usually kept it on that setting.

No matter how powerful, defeating the sorcerer Ra—of whom it was said there was but one in the world his equal—would prove well-nigh impossible. Knowing that full well, Sayaka felt she had no choice, both for her father's sake and the sake of the world.

When she'd met with Kyoya at the Information Bureau, saving her father was the only thing on her mind. But as the Master explained the sorcerer's true motives, it kindled in her a renewed responsibility toward the world as a whole.

She couldn't say if this was because she was the daughter of the president. When she was younger, she'd been on a relief mission to a refugee camp with her mother when looters shot her dead without a second thought. The blood her mother spilled for the good of others undoubtedly spurred her on now.

But however heroic and high-minded her resolve, she hadn't given any consideration to tracking down her target. She'd sallied forth on the spur of the moment. For a well-bred young lady like herself, this was a bridge too far. She hadn't acted in haste so much as without thinking. The state of her dress and high heels—the same as before—and the way she stumbled and tripped down the road strewn with chunks of concrete and boulders, painted an all too precarious picture.

Nevertheless, she managed not to fall and arrived at the Yotsuya Sanchome intersection, the result of not only good luck but sharp senses and reflexes. The same skills that made her captain of her high school Aikido team. She came to a halt in the middle of the intersection.

“Go straight and I'll end up in Shinjuku's old High Street. If I turn right, I'll cross Akebono Bridge to the Defense Agency. Left, I'll end up at Shinanomachi station and Keio Hospital. If I were the bad guys, I'd probably go straight.”

Before setting out, she'd at least taken the time to make quick use of the autosuggestion machine that Kyoya hadn't, and flashed her memory with a detailed geographical map of Shinjuku.

“All right then,” she said to herself. “I'll keep on going in this direction.”

Two or three steps later, she stopped. She sensed something around her. Several things. Her eyes scanned the darkness to her left and right. Crimson points of light—eyes. And not just two or three pairs. The low growls revealed the rapacious nature of these carnivorous beasts.

Not man-eating leeches or giant rats. That left two-headed dogs, and put her in a very tight spot. When it came to dangerous animals, Demon City had its share of completely unique species. Rumor had it that specimens released from a joint public-private gene research laboratory during the Devil Quake had been further mutated by the magical miasmas.

Among these creatures—that would attack anything that moved—the two-headed dogs reached a good six feet in length and would take on a North American grizzly bear. From the prey's perspective, an attack by one was not different than by two, making more than one quadruple the trouble.

Shinjuku Ward was surrounded by a fissure hundreds of feet deep and twenty yards wide that effectively kept the beasts penned up inside. One “good” side effect of the Devil Quake. Traffic between Shinjuku and the outside wards was controlled through a series of large gates in Yotsuya, Tsurumakicho in Waseda, and Yonchome in West Shinjuku. The gates were open twenty-four seven, as were the numerous watch towers equipped with a full array of electronic monitoring equipment and particle cannon emplacements, turning Shinjuku into the world's most vigilantly guarded zoo.

The encroaching circle slowly tightened around Sayaka, trembling with the pleasurable promise of the kill and appetites sated. The growls ceased, perhaps due to that heightened sense of anticipation. The wild, feral smell struck Sayaka's nostrils.

One pounced on her from the right. As she expected, a two-headed dog. The twin sets of fangs gnashed at her throat.

But Sayaka's throat was no longer there. However prim and privileged she appeared from the outside, she dodged the attack with an unexpected quickness, focusing a paralyzing ray as the dog landed. The big frame toppled over.

Sayaka took off before the second one completed its leap.

Her memory proved true, and the road sloped down toward the entrance to the Sanchome station on the Tokyo Metro Marunouchi line. The roof had fallen in but the steel shutters were up. The thinking was, rather than staving off a concentrated assault from the street, it was safer to fall back and ambush invaders from within.

Dogs came at her from both sides. She hit them with the paralyzer. They fell unconscious, blocking the road.

Sayaka leapt like a trout scaling a fish ladder, vaulted over the big canine torsos, and tumbled head-first through the entranceway. She hit the stairs, somersaulted, and stuck the landing. The rush of air lifted up her dress, revealing her well-formed legs and thighs. She hastily pressed it down again.

The move backfired. Raising dreadful howls, a two-headed dog clambered down the stairs. Its two mouths gaped wide, red tongues flicking out like flames from between its fangs.

Her aim was true but late. Struck by the animal's body, Sayaka tumbled across the tiled floor, striking the back of her head. Her consciousness wavered. Before her eyes, the pair of mouths and their spiky fangs closed on her. And the head of a different creature behind them.

Father—!

As hope vanished from her thoughts, her father and the face of a young man sprang up in her mind's eye. The raw breaths hot on her neck, Sayaka fainted.

She was suddenly resting much easier. Along with the smell of burning flesh, the primal screams faded to silence.

Someone patted her cheeks. “Hang in there, Miss.”

Sayaka opened her eyes. Three men bent over her. Two of them wore leather jackets in the street gang style—they were human beings—and the other was a cyborg with a hairless metal skull, the heavy-duty interstellar type with especially wide shoulders. A space cyborg.

The shorter and smaller of the two gangbangers helped her to her feet. Four two-headed dogs lay on the ground around them, their bodies all scorched, with one still smoldering. A strange smell shrouded the cramped ticket area that made her sick to her stomach.

She was still a bit spaced out. She rapped the side of her head and said to her rather rancid rescuers, “Thank you very much.” She meant it from the bottom of her heart.

“Hey, no problem. Wanted to test-fire the little bugger. Turned out pretty handy for black market shit.”

The short man held up the heater gun in his right hand. He had a kindhearted face compared to his companions. Though that could be because he wasn't missing his eyebrows and nose like the other human. Their clothing and black market weapons identified the three as being with one of the many street gangs that ruled Shinjuku.

Shorty's big counterpart said, “Looks like the rest took off.” He glanced up the staircase. He looked a lot meaner and held a heater as well.

Shorty added helpfully, “You gotta be careful about going outside. No telling what could be creepy crawling around out there. You should take a break in here for a while.”

Sayaka followed the three onto the Marunouchi station platform. She recalled that the subway system was hit hard by the Devil Quake. This station, though, seemed to have come through relatively unscathed. Such were the whimsies of the Devil Quake.

A portable stove sat in a corner on the Yotsuya-bound side of the platform. Beer bottles and pressurized food containers were scattered about. The fire from the stove lit up the immediate environment. The three must have bivouacked here for the night.

“Want something to eat?”

Shorty held out one of the food packs. It was illustrated with a generic picture of stew and had a tiny fork attached. Despite having just narrowly escaped being eaten to death herself, Sayaka was suddenly very hungry.

“I appreciate it,” she said with a nod. She pulled on the ring. With a soft pop, the frozen, pressure-sealed synthetic meat and gravy began to swell and simmer as the chemicals in the thermal pad fused and heated. The pack expanded to the size of a dinner plate.

The other two men eyed Sayaka suspiciously as she ate, but didn't interrupt. When she was finished, she got out her wallet, and then realized that she didn't have any cash on her.

“Um,” she said apologetically, “is there an ATM around here?”

The three blinked in surprise. Shorty grinned. “What, for the food? Naw, it's on the house.”

“No, I really want to compensate you.”

The big man leaned in and said, “In this city, keeping these heater guns of ours charged costs a pretty penny, you know. Fifty-thousand credits for the meal.”

“Hey,” Shorty said with a scowl. “Don't give the little lady a hard time. We're talking fifty tops for that.”

Big Man ignored him. “How about it? Gonna pay up? Or maybe you can work it off.”

Sayaka stared back at him blankly. Saviors turning on a dime into extortionists was a new experience for her. She'd grown up in the harsh environment of the Moon colonies, where cooperation and good intentions were synonyms for survival. She had no personal understanding or practical experience with people who were bad on purpose. She couldn't imagine that Big Man and Cyborg contemplated selling her into the sex trade.

She'd followed her father to Earth only six months ago, so it was no wonder. “I don't mind working for my keep, but I'm in a bit of a hurry today. If you tell me your address, I'll see to it you're paid back later.”

“What kind of fools do you take us for?” said Big Man, stepping toward her.

“C'mon, knock it off. She's just a kid.”

Shorty interposed himself between them. And then floated skyward as Cyborg grabbed him by the collar and lifted him up. “Back off!” And tossed him off the platform. His arms flailing, Shorty hit the tracks and slumped unconscious between the rails.

“What did you do that for? There's no need for such violence!”

Sayaka rushed to the edge of the platform. Big Man grabbed her arm. Sayaka screamed—not a scream, but a
kiai
, a martial shout. Followed by a grunt. That came from Big Man, his wrist wrenching painfully as he fell onto the platform in an Aikido joint lock.

“Prick.” Cyborg grabbed for her.

“I am not a man,” said Sayaka. She slipped through the alloy steel arms and fired her paralyzer.

The next scream came from her as well. She had misjudged the separation between them and the angle of attack. The beam reflected off Cyborg's chest and hit her squarely.

“Stupid bitch. My skin and skeleton can withstand a thousand g's of force. That toy ain't gonna work on me.”

He easily hoisted her onto his shoulder. The reflected power of the paralyzer was significantly diminished, so Sayaka was already regaining consciousness. She tried to resist, but her body was too numb to move.

Out of the frying pan and into the fire
. She really was coming to her wit's end. Paying no mind to Sayaka's struggles, the Big Man walked up, rubbing his sides.

“Damn, what a pain in the ass that chick is. Still, nice piece of work. She'll go for a pretty price. Easy living for a year, minimum. First thing in the morning, we head to Kabuki-cho and—”

“That's not going to happen,” interrupted a voice from the shadows. “There will be no tomorrow for you two.”