The Camellia Group
Tokio Metro
Taihei 37 (Year 2062)
"Thank you for coming at such short notice," Master Ishi addressed the elite gathering in the private room of the Nipponese teahouse. Holding back the sleeve of his kimono, he filled their shallow red lacquer bowls with hot sake.
"This used to be a 'kashiseki' inn back in the old days," the Old Man reminisced. His long yellowish-white hair was tied back in a ponytail. "A place where you could rent rooms in which to drink tea and compose haiku poems, and yes, even to engage in occasional dalliance."
His slate-black eyes gleamed like 'go' stones. "I was guilty of that pleasure myself when I was much younger. But it's been a long time since I was ninety."
Seated on cushions around the low table, his guests wondered why the sensei had summoned them to this quaint teahouse in the old-quarter of Asakusa. Usually, he preferred more nondescript forms of communication.
Random reflections in rain-puddles that sought eye contact. Noodles that slurped coded messages into your mouth when you sucked them in. A woman's hair blowing in a passing convertible that left no doubt in your mind that each strand of her hair was a living ideogram writing out its message.
Yet here they all were, as Master Ishi had requested. They were the unofficial brain trust for the Great Thrust Forward of New Nippon's East-Asian Co-Prosperity Sphere II. The guardians of the powerful secret known as 'Project Fingermoon.'
The omniplasm that would change world history into a proverb that Nipponese school children would recite in schools in the centuries to come.
But their own lives were in danger. The phantom stalker, that naked Butoh dancer assassin, could be anywhere. He might materialize at any moment. They had already lost several of their brightest members to this brazen defiler of the invisible.
Street noises filtered into the small room where they sat brooding. The clanging of street-cars driven by the networked 'ki' life force of Korean slave labor; the great big booming sound of the giant bell at the festively lit Asakusa Shrine nearby; the cries of fish-vendors, itinerant hot chestnut-sellers, palm readers, and the crimson wail of bloodtype balladeers.
The lonely plunking of the strings of a samisen player who was entertaining her inebriated clients a few doors away . . . .
As he shook his head dolefully, Master Ishi's ponytail swished and gurgled like water running over a pebbled trough. The cognoscenti immediately recognized the sound as the reverberation of ancient waves lapping on the shores of Oshima Island in the Inland Sea in the month of May, circa 1937.
How did the sensei manage that effect? wondered Marquis Takagi. He was the infocrat CEO of Idle Cherries Megacorp. Industries and the acting chairman of the Meta-Manga Association. His conglomerate manufactured the 'coffin-spindles' that were in such big demand by the Imperial Kwantung Army on the Manchukuo Front.
These AI silkworms generated the made-to-order body bags for the fallen troops on the battlefield. All an officer had to do was to pull the rip-cord thread on the infantry man's uniform, conveniently located on the left breast-pocket, and a decay-resistant pongee shroud would blossom from the dead hero's khakis, ready to ship him home with a pre-printed label.
Ah! Marquis Takagi traced the audio source of the Old Man's tidal ululations. It was his ponytail clasp. Made of ionized material cast from reprocessed brine algorithms that had been harvested from the undertow at Goza Bay.
Typically ingenious of the Old Man, Takagi mused. Quark-field resonators captured the geosynchronistically-targeted tidal movements of Goza through a time-warp oscillator. Then spat them out through a reverse-calibrated Robust Saikaku Pitch Detector.
The Marquis was aware that the sensei had manufactured only three such devices. One for himself; one for the Dowager Empress Mihoko; and one for the effeminate Crown Prince Zengu who, unknown to Master Ishi, used it as a cock-ring to ply his court favorite, Pretty Boy Henry Shibuya.
Takagi had his own well-placed informers behind the towering wrought-iron gates of the Crown Prince's palace in Akasaka.
Moreover, Crown Prince Zengu's 'Ishi clasp' was truly unique. Unlike the Dowager Empress' model, which was a variation of Master Ishi's 'sound of waves' prototype, Zengu's ring recorded the titillating gossip of high-ranking courtesans in Old Edo's Yoshiwara pleasure-quarters as necro-filtered through an eighteenth century woodblock print by Shunzan. An unmatched feat of architronic audio retrieval.
Marquis Takagi was glad that they were both on the same side. New Nippon would certainly deliver the decisive blow when it came to their final confrontation with the International Planetary Union.
The Marquis coughed politely. "I beg your pardon, sensei. Are we here to have a meeting or is this some kind of an organizational reshuffle?"
Master Ishi turned to him. "You're quite right to wonder, Marquis. We usually convene through anonymous channels. In this instance, I thought that a face-to-face would be a more appropriate medium. It seems that we have a traitor in our midst."
"A traitor! Impossible!" protested Madame Eiko Yamaguchi, one of the two women members of the Camellia Group. She was the company president of Tenjin Antimatter Softologies, a Kioto-based consortium that specialized in mining alternative energy sources.
She had pioneered a scheme to harvest "fossil fuels" from the desert wastelands of Old Cyberspace. Automobile engines on the assembly lines at all the major car manufacturers in New Nippon would soon be guzzling extinct Java code in its new combustible form.
An ascetic woman in her seventies, she was dressed in a severely cut blue suit that complemented her mannish haircut and straight-backed frame. Her knuckles were scarred from her daily exercise of battering wooden pillars wrapped in thin straw-mats.
When she was much younger, she had been the lover of a Taoist sage named Guntai who had initiated her in the forbidden 'Mao Shan' system of black arts. He pronounced her to be the reincarnation of Wei Hua Ts'un, the woman who had founded the mystical Mao Shan Shang Ch'ing sect in 142 A.D. This was a notion that she did little to dispel. There was a psi-link to one of the deceased sage's orgasms (when he had blurted out the news about her lineage) on her company business card.
"Impossible, Madame Yamaguchi?" Master Ishi 'tsked. "News about 'Project Fingermoon' has certainly leaked out. Yet only our inner-circle is supposed to know that the project exists. I've shown all of you samples."
Madame Yamaguchi retorted. "You can't seriously believe that one of our group would . . . ."
"It's not for me to think," Master Ishi interrupted her. "It's for me to conclude. And I conclude that we're bedeviled by this Butoh assassin because he has tasted the power of Fingermoon for himself. That's what makes him so dangerous. His movements are still clumsy judging from the Tokko secret police reports of his kills. Which indicates that he's in the early stages of becoming."
"So one of us is feeding information to this Butoh assassin? I presume he's an operative for the Asian Resistance Movement? Yes, sensei, your theory does sound plausible."
The comment came from Daigo Kennedy who sat opposite the table from Master Ishi. The middle-aged man had been quiet until now, observing everything with a shrewd eye.
Dressed like a Ginza dandy in a powdered black opal suit from West Australia and a nineteenth-century ruffled French lace collar, he was the godfather of the Blue Light-gumi, the largest organized crime syndicate in Northern Nippon. He ruled over the bosses of The Forum, the unified coalition of the New Nippon underworld.
Daigo glanced idly around the old-fashioned room with its painted dragon screen and the scroll hanging in the alcove. He wasn't accustomed to holding meetings in such mausoleums.
He ran his organization out of a revolving underground fortress in Sendai that was psi-tron bomb and earthquake-proof. The 100-foot high windows were an architectural marvel that exposed the colorful geological strata of the Early Triassic period. Carved out of deep subterranean rock, the entire complex pivoted around massive diatomaceous earth beds that were filled with dancing schools of giant fossil fish. Blue spotlights illuminated the display. Hence, the name of his organization, 'The Blue Light-gumi.'
"Well," Daigo Kennedy looked Master Ishi in the eye. "Are you going to keep us in suspense? Which one of us here is the weasel?"
The members of the Camellia Group shifted uneasily on their cushions as they awaited the Old Man's answer.
Master Ishi was about to reply when he felt the incoming message on his sonic ponytail clasp. "Excuse me-" he addressed the group. "I've got to take this call. Hai?" he grunted into a strand of his yellowish-white hair.
"Colonel Tanaka of the Tokko reporting," the subsonic voice tickled the Old Man's eardrum as the assembled guests looked on. "Our man Rocky Ikkyu, the bio-manga agent, transmitted the material he received about Jake Hill from his London contact. That file from his therapist's office. There is a definite link between the American and the Butoh assassin. Apparently, they morph together through some psi-channel. Unfortunately, we couldn't track the Butoh's movements once he left the clinic. As for Hill, he seems to be in the process of physically incubating the Butoh. Or-vice versa."
"I see, very well," the Old Man replied tersely. "Maintain surveillance. The American will crack eventually, then we'll have our chance--" Master Ishi turned to the group again. "I apologize for the interruption. Where was I?"
The yakuza godfather reminded him. "You haven't answered my question. Which one of us is the traitor?"
The Old Man peered at his wristwatch. A miniature cuckoo clock was mounted on a sundial on his wrist. "We're going to find out in a few minutes, I think. When our next guest arrives. He's running late."
"Who's that?"
"You'll see."
Sixty meters above the clogged streets and back-alleys of Asakusa, a young man was searching the ground for a place to park. Damn! Too many crowds, not enough space. And the Nipponese inn that Master Ishi had chosen for this evening's rendezvous had an inhospitable rock garden in its backyard. Not convenient for an easy landing.
He'd have to land on a rooftop again. That was one of the hazards of the sport.
Breeze Saito traveled aboard a mini-hot-air balloon to which he was strapped with a shoulder harness. 'Balloon-kiting' was all the rage among the young people in New Nippon. You navigated the contraption with a wing-like sail affixed to your back.
The advantage was no speeding tickets. The disadvantage was, like its forerunner the Zeppelin, these things tended to explode in mid-air.
There! That'll have to do . . . the young man concluded when he located the right spot on which to bring down his BK flying machine. I hope those tiles aren't too slippery. It rained today.
He came in for an auspicious landing. Fuck, it was a beautiful night! Tuck-in flaps, disengage harness, padlock the chassis to the chimney. Lots of thieves around who might want to cop a BK. You never know.
Careful now as you shimmy down the drainpipe. The sensei's going to be pissed if you're late.
Master Ishi's wristwatch cuckoo clock announced the arrival of Breeze Saito. Cuckoo! Cuckoo! The wooden bird sprung out of the sensei's wrist-platform.
"Our informant is here," the Old Man announced to the members of the Camellia Group.
A few minutes later, a sheepish looking Breeze Saito was escorted into the room by one of the giggling teahouse girls he'd obviously been flirting with. He was a handsome youth in a mauve Ralph Yamamoto kamikaze jumper-suit.
"Sorry, I'm late, sensei!" Breeze Saito exulted, a ruddy complexion on his cheeks. He removed his aviator's cap and shook out a mane of long black hair. "Traffic, you know."
"Never mind. Come in, my boy!" Master Ishi beamed at the young man. "Did you bring it with you?"
"I've got it right here in my pocket."
"Good!" Master Ishi turned to the members of the Camellia Group. "This is a protege of mine," he introduced the young man. "Breeze Saito. The son of an old friend, the Nikkei 'Miko.' You all know who she is. The Oracle of the New Nippon stock market. You see her face on every psi-screen as she predicts the rise and fall of the Nikkei 500 a full sixty minutes before the points know what hit them. Three million subscribers to her service, which is worth every future penny."
"An honor to meet you," Breeze Saito grinned at the circle of somber faces around the low table.
Grunts and coughs acknowledged him. The tension in the room rose.
"Let's have it then, Breeze," the Old Man stretched out his hand. "The damning evidence." The young man handed it to him.
"What the hell is that?" Daigo Kennedy demanded. "It looks like a condom to me!"
Master Ishi held up the small rectangular package for everyone to see. "It's a type of interactive condom. Brand-name, 'Genius 'Gasm.' Identical packaging to what was found on the scene of the Butoh's last kill in that love-hotel in Shinjuku. Where that idiot bio-anime artist Ando was psi-casting his next 'Mr. Asia' REM-serial. The one that resulted in the massacre of 25,000 Imperial New Kwantung Army troops in Manchukuo. Ando confessed to using one of these things in his story foreplay. His assistant Sister Junko didn't survive to see how the episode ended."
"What's a condom got to do with anything?" Marquis Takagi asked puzzled.
"It will lead us to directly to the traitor," the Old Man explained.
"How?" Madame Yamaguchi inquired. "If it fits, you mean?"
"Watch this--" Master Ishi announced. He tore the foil off the package, and immediately a crystal cloud of nanobes fluttered into view.
"Good heavens!" Marquis Takagi shuddered. "They look like those nano-organisms that feed Fingermoon!"
"Exactly," Master Ishi declared. "Except that these have been reverse-engineered for use as French ticklers."
"Where'd you get this thing from, young man?" Professor Buntsu addressed Breeze Saito. "Don't you know, these . . . er, French ticklers . . . are protected under the National Security Act?"
Breeze Saito shifted from one stockinged foot to another. "Do I really have to answer that question, sensei?" he asked Master Ishi.
"I'm afraid you do. But you're under my protection. Nothing will happen to you."
"My mother will kill me if she finds out."
"Speak."
"Well," Breeze Saito scratched at his head. "It's like this, I've been dating this virgin miko priestess from Yasukuni Military Shrine. Hana's her name. Please don't tell her superiors. She might lose her job."
"Don't worry, virgin mikos are known for their promiscuity. Go on."
"Anywise, Hana told me that some of her girlfriends at the shrine had learned about this new sex game from their patrons. The guy wears a 'Genius 'Gasm,' and it's like nothing else in the whole world. It makes old-fashioned sex feel like a cement-mixer."
"So she asked you to get one for her so you two could . . . uhhmmm?"
"That's right. They're not so easy to find. Strictly black-market stuff. I mean, they're not even illegal because they're not supposed to exist."
"How did you find a dealer?"
"You swear you won't tell my mother?"
"I promise she won't hear a word about this if you tell us everything. But if you don't . . . We'll cross that bridge when we get to it."
"All right, sensei. I got it off one of my friends, Pretty Boy Henry Shibuya. You know, he's the unofficial boy consort to the . . . ."
"Don't you dare mention His Imperial Highness the Crown Prince Zengu's name in connection with this sordid business!" Madame Yamaguchi reproached him.
"And where did Pretty Boy Henry say he got it from?" Master Ishi pressed the young man.
"From one of those exclusive clubs in Roppongi where the royals mix with the yakuza. Some pimp gave him a box, complimentary-like."
"I see, an ordinary pimp gave it to Crown Prince Zengu's unofficial boy consort. And the boy gave it to you, is that right?"
"That's the whole story, sensei. I swear it's the truth."
"And you used it on your girlfriend."
"Exactly."
"But this condom was still in its original foil until I opened it."
"OK, he gave me a couple of them."
"How many?"
"Three 'Gasms.'"
"Where are the other two?"
"Umm."
"Damn it, Breeze! Where are they???"
"In my pocket."
"Hand them over!"
Breeze Saito dug in his pocket and came up with two more 'Genius 'Gasm' condoms. Master Ishi snatched them from him. "Hmm, interesting." He was impressed by their novelty value. "How did you know how to get them to work?"
"Pretty Boy showed me how to get it started. And I used the other on Hana-chan."
"You may go now, Breeze. If you breathe one word about this to anyone, I warn you, there will be consequences. Ugly consequences."
"Hai!" Breeze Saito bowed swiftly, then walked backward on his stockinged feet until he reached the sliding door. He abruptly swiveled around, slid the door open, and disappeared into the corridor where the cute teahouse girl was waiting for him.
Locking his arm into hers, Breeze whispered into her ear. "Sugarmochi, you won't believe what I've got to show you . . . It's better than hextasy. Got an empty room nearby?"
After Breeze Saito exited the room, Master Ishi stared at Daigo Kennedy with a look that could have shriveled a thousand bonsais.
The yakuza boss was covered from head to toe with a gauze shift of tremulous vibrating crystal moths.
"Do you wish to plead guilty to war-profiteering from illicit sales of our ultra-secret weapon?" the Old Man spat at him venomously. "You've turned Fingermoon into a sex toy for decadent high-society. No doubt, you'll be corrupting the morals of ordinary citizens next."
The other members of the Camellia Group glared at Daigo Kennedy with icy disdain.
He sat immobile on his cushion; his expressionless face a stone-bridge that led to nowhere.
"What is your verdict, honorable brothers and sisters?" Master Ishi addressed the group.
Madame Yamaguchi piped up. "This is such a grave offense, sensei. I think we should let our Honorable Founder pronounce the sentence herself."
"Are you all agreed?" Master Ishi asked the members in good standing.
They all nodded, then turned their eyes to the head of the table where the Honorable Founder of the Camellia Group was seated.
She had not spoken a word the entire evening. Indeed, she could not speak in the language of humans. Only in the language of deadly beauty.
The Camellia Group had been named after her. She sat in a three-hundred-year old pot filled with fertile dirt from the old capital of Nara. The pot was placed on top of a stack of zabuton cushions in order to give her proper elevation and a view of those who sat at the table. A metal halide lamp was positioned by her side, giving her rootball, stems, and leaves the warmth they needed to endure time.
Her name was Karma Camellia (camellia japonica) and she was more than 800 years old. Her blood red blossoms still enjoyed their lustrous proximity to eternity. Sentient, wise, she had seen the revolutions of Old Nippon come and go. She had lived to see New Asia sprout from her nettled stems.
"What sayest thou, Mistress Camellia?" Master Ishi asked, bowing his head deeply in her direction. "What shall we do with this traitor who has despoiled your glory and postponed the taste of our victory?"
The potted camellia on the floor took a long time to respond in the closest language to human that she knew. A solitary petal dropped from her spindly branch, and zigzagged in the air until it touched down like a butterfly on the tatami-floor.
She had passed her sentence. Now the nanobes that cloaked the body of Daigo Kennedy, the godfather of the Blue Light-gumi syndicate, went to work, burping up the powdered black opal that shimmered on his suit until they reached his bones which offered no resistance.