Going Shogun (2 page)

RollerNinja is this three-dimensional,
black market website where you can find anything from pipe bombs to sexual
deviants peddling their bodies, from marijuana to lab-produced cocaine, from
unwanted babies to rare gems like graphite pencils.  Remember uPay?  Think of a
sick, twisted version of that archaic web flea market, then multiply that by
the amount of numbers in an R2’s yearly salary and you have RollerNinja.

Wishful Thinking’s recipes, those
made specifically by Dorna, are highly sought after—people keep breaking into the
restaurant trying to steal them, and the customers are
constantly
begging for them.  Every time Dorna shows up on TV promoting the place, it
triples the amount of bribes offered to the waiters.  We hear things like, “I
know an R5 that can get you Ascending, pal, so how ‘bout it?”  Or, “My grandpa
is a Board Member.”

As if. 

Like I said, only Dorna and the
three chefs know the ingredients,
and
know where she keeps the Top
Secret Recipe Book.  The first time somebody broke in, the cops caught this R12
creep a couple blocks away with nothing but a backpack full of Chocolate
Pumpkin Veal Mini-Muffins.  He was sentenced to five years as a P13. 

My plan—Forklift’s plan, rather—involves
high risk of becoming a Sustained P.

We’ve got a meeting with this R12
called LX so we can get everything prepped for the following night’s criminal festivities. 
He’s a hacker Forklift knows from his sub-11 days, and this guy supposedly can
get us access to RollerNinja and according to Forklift, claims he’s got a radio
DJ friend that’s willing to broadcast this information live so we can alert the
public and sell the hell out of Wishful Thinking’s recipes in a short amount of
time. 

LX is working on this virus app on
the side that’ll get him enough cash to pretend like he’s an R3.  It could
work, but he’s running out of funds, which is where we come in.  We pay him for
access to RollerNinja, and he gets enough backing to support his project.  It’s
a hefty sum, but with the money Forklift and I have saved up, we can afford it
and still have sizeable resources to get us started on Dream Chasers with the RollerNinja
profits.

The beauty is in the simplicity.  Steal
some recipes, sell them on an underground website, and then Ascend up The
Board’s ranks like a rail gun projectile.

***

We take Forklift’s car, this neon-green
manhole scalper he calls
Machine
.  Fluorescent lights the color of Wishful
Thinking’s Sushi Yogurt flash underneath to the rhythm of whatever music he’s
playing, which is currently a gravity-defying, techno, house, garage, folk
medley by this band called Grime & Punishment.  The beat raises the hair on
my neck and makes my cheeks throb.

Forklift pounds his thumbs on the
steering wheel while the rest of his body tries to restrain itself from an
all-out rave dance attack.  He’s an ADHD poster-child, with a super capital H. 
I don’t know how he does it, but he manages to eat a taco he found on his
doorstep and maneuver through traffic like those drivers used to do when NASCAR
was around.  I’m always nervous when I’m riding with him, so I cinch the
seatbelt harder and tighten my grip on the door handle.

White-knuckled, I yell, “You said he
wants three thousand?”

Forklift hurls the unfinished taco
out the window and eases down the volume.  “What’s that?”

“Three grand for access?”

“Yep.”

“And you’ve already gone over all
the details with him?”

“Yep.”

“This better be worth it.”

“Don’t go geisha.  It will.”  He
lights up a cigarette then tosses his mini-flame to the floorboard, still
burning. 

“Aren’t you gonna turn that off?”

“
Nein
.  Burn water is sitting
on E.  No worries.”  He tucks the smoke stick between his roach clip teeth and
thankfully, puts both hands back on the wheel.

“We don’t even know how much people
will pay for her recipes.  And what about the secret ingredient?”

“It’ll be with them, deffy def.”

“I heard that it’s up here,” I say,
tapping my head.  “Dorna won’t let anybody write it down.”

“Who told you that?”

“Fireball.”

He raises an eyebrow.  “Wonky.”  We
pass an R11-3, Security-for-Hire sedan.  Forklift flips him the bird, then dive
bombs down the exit ramp.  “Fireball ain’t got the know, man.  She’s a Maxine
that does whatever Dorna tells her.”

“She’s not a Maxine.” 

Maxine is this self-aware robot on a
TV show called
White Hearts
.  She’s the maid to an R6 couple (they’re
Board Agents) that does a lot of heavy petting while they’re fighting crime. 
The wife is way too attractive for the ultra-nerd-alert husband and I suppose
it’s an attempt at reaching us geeks as a valuable advertising demographic, but
it’s too much of a contrast to be believable.  Doesn’t matter. 
Everyone
watches, every single Tuesday.  On last week’s finale, they saved the Board
Leader from an assassination attempt then got busy in the Hexagonal Office
afterwards. 

It’s pathetic, but addictive, and I
can’t wait on Season 18 to start in the fall.

Forklift says, “Look, I know you
want that stank on your cane but, to speak for real, I wouldn’t throw her very
far.”

“You don’t know her.”

“Whatever.  She’s Maxine to the
max.  The secret ingredient will be there, trust.”

“And if it’s not?”

“We’ll skatepunk Dorna’s office ‘til
we find it.” 

He cranks the radio and my eyelids
begin to vibrate.  I make an attempt at defining
skatepunk
, already
dreading what it might mean for Friday night. 

Chapter
2

The twenty-minute drive takes ten as
Forklift powerslides into a parking spot in front of this R12 gold SUV.  He
shimmies
Machine
around until he’s satisfied then flips a number of
different switches.  The car winds down like a jumbo jet as he hops out.  I pry
my cramped fingers loose and follow him up the sidewalk.

What Forklift does...he doesn’t
really walk.  He sort of
agitates
wherever he goes.  You know those
things they have in hardware stores, the paint mixers that shake the gallon
cans at about a million wobbles a second?  That’s what he does.  That’s how he
moves.  Like he’s about to explode with every step, like if you turn the
pressure up one notch, his head and arms will pop off and a surge of energy
will erupt out of him like a busted fire hydrant or a star gone supernova.

He tries to ease up when he’s
waiting tables at Wishful Thinking, but more than once I’ve seen a Milk
Chocolate Duck Ball quiver off a plate he’s carrying.

This neighborhood is strictly R12
and down.  The kind of place where an R15 nighthoney will tweak your weasel for
a five-spot.  You have to be careful with a nighthoney though.  I’ve seen
pictures of the stuff you can get from one, and they make a badly skinned knee
look like decoupage.

We pass buildings with Swiss cheese
windows.  Rats the size of babies do a hedonistic Hanta Virus mambo beside piles
of garbage, illuminated by the glow of trashcan fires.  And if there was a
level below R15, the bums hovering around the warmth of the flames would have
it.  They’ve been out of touch with The Routine for so long, most of them
aren’t even on The List anymore.  On Paper, they’re legally dead.  From the
looks on their faces, I’d say they feel that way too.

We walk through an alley, stepping
over stray diapers and other refuse.  Forklift stumbles on this guy covering
himself with a plastic tarp blanket.  Further down, a nighthoney wearing a ragged
business suit and six-inch stilettos struts out of the shadows.  She’s stained
and dirty, but could’ve been pretty once.  Her hair shimmers from going months
without a good washing.

She says, “Looking for me?” and smiles
through split lips and gutter teeth.

Forklift pulls a ten dollar bill
from somewhere, hands it to her and says, “Get yourself a nose job, sweetie.”

She yells, “Build any dams lately,
beaver face?” and we keep walking.

At the fire escape, we climb.

We can’t go in the front because our
R11 ID cards won’t let us enter. 

“To preserve bloodlines,” The Board
says.

If they think this minor security
clearance issue impedes any commingling between the levels, they’re dumber than
I thought, but mostly it’s an exercise in Authority.  A façade to pretend they
actually have some control over what happens below R11.  I lived down here
while I was R12, and I don’t know how many times I saw R7s and 8s waiting on
someone to open the door so they could slip in and buy whatever designer drug
was currently helping them deal with The Routine.

My hand slips in something gooey
climbing up the fire escape and I almost fall.  It looks like blood, though it’s
hard to tell with the soft light of a distant streetlamp.  When Forklift pauses
to ask if I’m all right, I reach up and wipe it on his gi.  Then I tell him to
keep going.

When we’re at the right floor, we
climb over the railing and shuffle down the ledge, digging our fingers into the
mortar crevices above each brick.  This is some real cloak and dagger type
stuff, and I can’t tell if I feel like that antiquated superhero Spider-Man or
an oversized sparrow.  I’m scared as hell, because if I fall, there’s a chalk
outline waiting for me thirty feet below. 

It appears that Forklift has done
this before, and for a guy that spills more of Wishful Thinking’s Cranberry
Buttermilk than he sells, he’s surprisingly nimble when it comes to this R15
kind of activity.  He’s already got the hallway window open by the time I catch
up.

“There’s gotta be easier ways to do
this,” I say, following him in.

“You ain’t spiked by this freeroam?”

“I’m definitely not having fun,” I
answer, but happier now that my feet are on a wider surface.  I put my hood
down and let the stale air dry the sweat.  Forty degrees outside and I feel
like I’ve been sitting in a sauna for an hour with a bunch of R7 CEOs, smoking
cigars and talking about humping the secretary.

There’s no doubt about it, we’re
rolling in the nether regions of the levels.  If these people were ranked higher,
they wouldn’t have to deal with water stains on the walls and doors that won’t
close and ripped up Board memorandums preaching the benefits of Ascension. 
“Apply Yourself” is the latest catchphrase; sort of a double entendre on the
little used alternate method of leveling up.

All of the litter in the hallway is illuminated
by bare bulbs overhead that are so bright my eyes feel like they’re getting an
enema.

Apartment 333, belonging to LX, is halfway
down, and the door is decorated with a collage of newspaper and magazine
clippings.  Words and photos that seem to follow a logical sequence, but put a
strain on comprehension. 

I mention this to Forklift and he
says, “It’s his interpretation of
Gravity’s Rainbow
by Thomas Pynchon. 
Like, it’s all psychedelic and profound at the same time.  Personally, I think
he needs to defrag his synapses.”

Forklift thinks someone is crazy? 
Pot, say hello to Kettle.

He knocks and we wait.

I’m looking at a picture of a woman
screaming, followed by a rocket, then some men in uniform when Forklift knocks
again.

“Think he forgot?” I ask.

“Doubt it.  He rarely jettisons the
cork.”

There’s music coming from inside. 
An angry guitar riff from a band called Finnegan’s Quake.  Or maybe it’s Wart
& Peace, but I can’t really tell.  Those shankmetal guys all sound the same
to me.

“Knock again.  Maybe he can’t hear
us,” I say.

He tries the doorknob.  It opens a few
inches then comes to a stop, blocked by something on the other side.  Forklift
pokes his head in and retreats a second later, his face as white as a glass of Wishful
Thinking’s Sugar Garlic Milk.  “There’s a Ricky on the floor.”

“A fish?”

His skin tone matches the color of
his gi.  He says, “Huh-uh.  A dead body.”

“What?”

“Belly up.”

“Is it LX?”

“No.  I’m going in.”

“Don’t, man.  Let’s fly before
somebody thinks we did it.”

Forklift doesn’t listen.  He
shoulder-smashes the door, noisily, as I stand back and scan the hallway for
any curious onlookers.

I hear an audible squish/crunch when
he gets the door open far enough for us to squeeze through, only I wish I’d
spent a few more hours on the treadmill.  I shut the door behind me and look
down at the bloody heap.  He’s a young guy about our age, and there’s a knife
stuck in his Adam’s apple.  His
Ascension Sux!
t-shirt is ripped in five
different places, all of them bloody from visible stab wounds in his chest. 
Blood coagulates on the floor around him.

Forklift says, “God, somebody went
shogun,” kneeling over the corpse.