After your host forks over the credits for the lengthy bill, the four of you, Ke included, cram into the Yugure-half-moon-emblem-emblazoned, antique combustion microvan, itself guarded by two slouching, cheap finto-linen sport jacket suiting gangsters. They sit in the beltless front seats, past the soundproof plastic divider, the opaque screen scratched with high-heel marks and fogged with aerosolized opium, discussing holographic pop stars with a lascivious levity. The driver, shirt unbuttoned, scratches his groin, careful to avoid the Sapporo Special snub-nose, loaded, barrel facing an emasculating trajectory. Erhu pop music bursts like bubblegum from his three-dimensional auditory interface, its stereo turned lower, at Boss Shishito’s insistence, vibrations forcing the divider to dance.

This leaves the four of you alone to stare at one another, rows of lavishly stuffed seats barely a meter apart, recently disinfected.

Ke brings a lighter to the lips of his bossman, lighting him another cigarette before leaning back—only a few centimeters—into the worn falseleather seats. The microvan’s forty-five-millimeter-thick windows and reinforced frame does little to offset the bumpy tungsten-, broken glass-, garbage-pecked ride from Madame Soonyeong’s inn back to the Yugure compound. At the microvan’s suspension’s every jolt, the red-gold bodhisattva charm on the driver’s dashboard jingles with an obnoxious plastic clack, the idol’s animalistic fangs chomping, hundreds of arms flailing, embracing the minor goddess on its lap in yab-yum.

Bossman Shishito seems far less amiable than Ke. His lieutenant feels the tention, and attempts to look away, out the window, at the passing coolies and nightclubs, Tiangong’s night as brightly lit as day. Like you, Ke’s cramped. Knees bent. Nearly in a fetal position. So close to the window that he’s fogging it with his breath reeking of soju, belching.

His long hanten sleeve wipes at the glass, breaking the semi-alcoholic perspiration, giving him a view of two coolies arguing over ownership of a rickshaw fare, their shiroi done-up possible patron slouching, pink plastic parasol in hand, flat face panting, arms crossed, kimono of sunflowers and starfish poorly sized and ending above her bare calves and curly tail.

“What’s your problem now?” Ø breaks the silence with a huff. “Mad you didn’t get a few minutes with the pretty lady, Shishi?”

“You neglected to mention the events following your visit to the Yaomo’s girly bar.”

“So what? We can’t follow up a lead?” she sneers. Her hand disappears in her kimono’s neckline, jostling around for the few loose cigarettes she’d stashed before you visit with the Madame. “You said you’d cover us.”

“I said I would cover your investigation. Not your murders.”

“Hey, ‘seeds not sown won’t grow.’ You used to say that, right? In between when you’d get the tar beaten out of you?”

“The Settlement Police are not to be trifled with,” he hisses. “They’re not some knuckle-dragging sharif’s men, or ad hoc clock-punchers guarding warehouses, or whomever you deal with regularly as you jet-set through the galaxy.” He glares at you both, a drunken look of hatred creasing his mouth, crinkling his nose, letting soot fall to the van’s bright red shag carpeting. “And you’ve made me a fool in front of my peers. Madame Soonyeong is one of the most revered entertainers in the arcology. I’m telling you now, if you don’t get me a murderer, some heinous butcher, whether or not they’ve done it, before my meeting tomorrow,” he lets his voice trail off into some unseen threat.

“Or what, Shishi?” Ø’s hand traces her thigh, resting on her holster, her shortened tomesode tastelessly riding up, scarred calves bouncing with every pothole the microvan hits. She’s sober, for once, no matter how much sokgot she’s showing. “Choose your next words carefully.”

“Ke’s asked around. He says you stumbled on a meat house and spaced the owner.”

“Thank you, Ke,” you interject. “We provided him with an ID card we found, of the gangster we were chasing.”

“So, yeah, he’s asked around, Shishi. We told him to, after all,” Ø spits, cigarette dangling from her lips. Ke dutifully leans forward, lighting it for her. Bossman Shishito scowls at his hospitality.

“Meat house?” you ask the subordinate.

Ke’s eyes perk up for his first and only chance of speaking for the next few hours. His pitch is high, almost girlish, eyes soft and enthralling, a real pretty-boy as he brushes the long black hair out of his vision.

“It’s what it is. You know, where a Family keeps their meat. Everyone’s got one or two houses down Below. If heat’s on, you dump the bodies for a bit. Then, when the heat’s off, you bury everything all quietly. Like, if you’ve got a foundation in a new building down Below, you can get rid of a few bodies by throwing them in the foundation. But only the men, on account of the bone density. The women, you need to be more creative. Walls, sure, but never a supporting one. That, or you can get them mulched—which can be a real pain, time-consuming, just a bit messy—and upcycle them to fertilizers. The farms outside the walls pay big, depending on who you’re upcycling. Some think girlies are good, others want gangsters, some tourists, apparently it changes some products’ tastes,” he explains with an air of professionalism, handing you back the ID, now worthless.

A man in a Whitesuit stares with empty eyes. Height, 1.63m. Age, twenty-nine. Sex, male.

Name, something you can’t read without a translator.

“But, anyways, today you smashed up the White Axes’ place,” he reports.

“Who’re they?”

“Small-time gang. Wouldn’t call them a family. Taxonomically,” he sounds out, “they’re a crew at best. They run a couple gigs Below, a spezie scam and dice game or two. Used to be a bigger clique. Actually, used to be kind of friendly to us and the Yaomo. Don’t know what happened there. Maybe their new bossman, Big Jay, he ain’t man enough for—”

Shishito brings an open hand to the back of his subordinate’s head, splattering his top-knot tie. The bossman is not to be upstaged, his intelligence not to be divulged. His muscle seen and not heard.

Ke once more watches the cascading bicyclists outside the van, a look of horror plastered on his face. You keep your mouth shut, realizing that the veneer of hospitality you had shared for the past few weeks has finally evaporated.

Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on Royal Road.

“Shishito,” you attempt civility, “we’re trying to work within your parameters while getting your job done. Ke’s been very helpful to us. Just think, what happens if we don’t catch your target?”

“Let me guess,” the mare sneers, “you meet the stiff tomorrow downtown, dick in hand, and tell the heat you’re getting sliced-and-diced? Might bruise your ego, ‘bossman.’”

“Conjecture is not needed,” he spits. “As evidenced by my subordinate’s outburst, the longer you remain, the more I risk. Both will leave the Settlement immediately.”

“Boss Shishito, that’s not necessary. Be reasonable—”

“And leave our cash behind? The money you’ll owe me? Way I see it,” Ø leans forward, her smeared red lips smacking within centimeters of your host, half-bragging, “you can either show up tomorrow like the village idiot, yowling with your little hand fan, having a conniption like always, or you win back a smidgen of respect with someone’s head in your hand. Maybe someone like Madame S. would give you a dance or two for avenging a few pretty girls. Who knows?”

The microvan comes to a startling halt. The driver, mustachioed and intoxicated himself, leans into the horn, rolling down his window to chastise the disabled delivery quadrotor that blocks the road, bicycles and carts spilling around it like a great wave making landfall.

A stench reeks in Ø’s nostrils, a memory from the kill house Below. It agitates her, smelling like Sulphur and sterility.

“Shishito,” you continue, “I don’t think this animosity is necessary—”

“Shut up, already,” the mare growls at you. She salivates, pressing further. “Shishi, I know you said you wanted to keep things quiet, so you outsourced your chore to me. But I’ve seen your muscle. The goons in this town aren’t worth the big funerals you throw when one of ‘em slips on an empty beer can and cracks their head. You know what professionals look like, because professionals like me beat you to a little persimmon pulp all through your childhood. And through all that, you paid hand-over-fist just to trick me to show up knowing what I do.”

“I question the wisdom of my contact who recommended your services,” he grits his teeth.

“You want to tell that to Officer Jagoff tomorrow? Let’s try that play, that you made a mistake. You took the advice of someone you don’t know, representing an organization you can’t name, to hire two traveling criminals to track down a psychopath on the loose. Oh, and you know one of them—she’s ten times your better, used to bash your head in—”

“Or,” you add against the mare’s huffing, “you could have a body for the Police to review.”

“If you don’t leave this evening, there will be only two more bodies,” Shishito snarls.

Ø’s hand jerks, producing the sidearm attached to her upper thigh. Unsurprisingly, your host sits in place, unmoving, intentionally Zen in his anger as Ke fumbles beneath his jacket. Both you and the subordinate arrive nearly five seconds late to the back-seat standoff with guns in hand.

“Shishi, I’m bringing in whoever you hired me to get. They’ll be alive, but if I had to guess, they’ll just barely be alive. Tomorrow, when I show up with whatever pearl I had to dive for, are you going to have my money?”

The Boss sits in silence, the blaring of the horn intermittently interrupted with slurred insults being hurled outside the armored van. Ke’s pistol, unable to choose a suitable target, circles the area between the shoulders of you and your mare. You wonder if his snub-nose is even loaded, the way his other hand steadies his thin wrist.

“It sounds like this can be a big PR move for you,” you add. “Get the murderer, avenge your girlies, hand over a scumbag to the police. And, thanks to our hard work, between finding a serial killer and pruning the local criminal population, it seems like a win for everyone involved. Maybe the Lieutenant would be grateful, and let us help you with further issues,” you suggest with an exasperated civility.

“Yeah, Shishi,” the mare flicks the barrel across his nose, wrist contorting with a bully’s intimacy, “you need us. You need me. Just like you needed me as a kid, except now I get paid for keeping you alive. Think things like that change? You’re dead wrong,” she flicks towards Ke. His posture is unstable, both moisturized hands clutching his snub-nose in a display of filial piety. His arms are bent at the elbows in the cramped van, barrel nearly against Ø’s breast with the lack of space. “Look at him. Your crew? Can you rely on kids like this to protect you? We know the answer, because I’m here. Again,” her toothy hiss turns into a smile. “How’s it feel knowing that once things start getting tough, you’re all alone, again? Huh, Shishi, big bossman?”

“At the end of all this,” you huff, mouthing apologies to the subordinate, who returns nods of hospitality, “are you going to uphold your end of our bargain?”

The bossman licks his lips, jaw contorting open. He inhales, preparing to answer the mare’s tirade with his own. If his Whisper is that good, he would’ve heard a tenth of what Ø thinks.

Vivid re-imaginings of their shared life under the artificial atmosphere of Agapito, their bunks next to one another among another fifty. The nightly beatings, childish hazing rituals delivered with adolescent intensity, forgotten names of unimportant casualties—sacrifices—laid upon the Spartan altar of martial primary schooling. Although it was one of her first few months of youth freed from the tank from which she was planted, outside the compound from where she was cultivated, Ø’s hand was unshakable, her aim true, superiority unmatched.

You assume he can Whisper, because Bossman Shishito’s mouth finally closes, and thankfully, he keeps it shut.

“Yes.” The words are ripped out of him, like a still-twitching corpse’s diaphragm, or a handful of blood-soaked, silver-filed ribs, false eye sputtering, clinging to synthetic life. Guns remain drawn, and the rest of the ride is silent. Softened erhu bass continues to play, the front-seat bodyguards none-the-wiser, their semi-shouting, slurring conversation discussing their Family’s pornographic media distribution tactics. Unsurprisingly, at your destination, you are not invited into the Yugure compound, and sent away by Ke after a respectful—hurried—bow.

You’ll need to sleep elsewhere.

---

“Rose Love Hotel,” Huhu recommends from behind the doorframe, her vulpine head jutting from the red plastic bead curtain. “Near Elevator 40.”

Unsurprisingly, her work location this evening is under the suzerainty of Boss Shishito, the gangsters watching you with suspicion as you interrupt her and Kathi’s work at the thinly-packed Play Ground, with its subpar assortment of appetizers—tempura mystery meats and boiled daikon for the girlies watching their figures—and limited array of non-fleshy entertainment options.

You can’t see anything past the dangling, clacking beads, no matter how much your eyes drift from southward from Huhu’s lips, blackened and sparkling with plastic-based besswax, hair pulled back in haphazard ponytail with a periwinkle rubber band, stolen off the base of her own tail’s collection of charms. Her breath reeks of imported lager and frozen red bean desserts, the doughy residues still caught between her serrated teeth.

“It’s cheap, but not that bad for somewhere Below.”

“Good place to eat next door, too,” Kathi joins in, the jindo’s head a few centimeters shorter, wet snout slowly emerging from the plastic, geometric reeds, pupils dilated to an extreme, jaw salivating where a discolored black-pink speckled tongue pants. “But,” she swallows, “you know, you guys can always stay here, right?”

“She’s right,” Huhu adds coquettishly. “After this, we don’t have any appointments for the rest of the night. If you want to pay the fee, that is. Room, board, food, it’s just a few expenses,” the two of them let the implication sit, floating the notion of them earning a few hundred easy credits each from their sensei. Their bodies press slightly into the dangling plastic reeds, providing outlines of their forms against the low-lit crimson lighting while an artificial stench of vanilla pipes through air conditioning. Huhu flashes a coy smile, Kathi a blank face of near confusion, the same visages saw used on their marks earlier today, their salesmanship bold, gaudy, and disgustingly tantalizing. You feel your mare’s desire unfold.

It’s a desire to hoist the curtains in both hands, jolting the pair of courtesans upwards into impromptu nooses.

“Hey! Huhu! What’s the holdup?”

“Who’re ‘ya girls talkin’ to?”

“Grab me another beer, already!”

Two familiar voices tear into the conversation. The courtesans’ offer has expired, the sale turned sour, their allure returned to platonic. With an air of friendliness, the vixen gives shrug, followed by a departing goodbye wave, fingers wriggling, saying, “tell them you’re with Huhu and Kathi. They’ll treat you well.”