There is an issue with Izakaya. There are too many people with too much time on their hands. Not enough gadgets to keep them occupied while I work. Too many people who know other people who I do not want finding out I am here.
But the real issue with Izakaya is that the person I am looking for is not where he is meant to be right now.
He was meant to be at the party downstairs. He was not. He was meant to head to the rooftop of this building during the party and I am on my way up there to see if he, somehow, slipped by me. But these heels and this dress were not made for walking up 15 flights of stairs.
The window next to me lights up with the neon abomination plastered to the wall of the neighbouring building. I raise my free hand to cut the glare. As I have come to expect from this pockmark on the nation, there is no one watching. Not at this moment, at least.
In another life, I might have enjoyed this. The detachment. Living analogue, apart from the rest of the world. In another life I could also be a ballet dancer. A chef. We do not live in other lives though. We live in this one and, right now, this one is asking for a job to be completed. So, despite the protestations of my feet, and the inability for me to climb more than one stair at a time, I continue towards the roof.
I do not know why this building, with this roof was chosen. I also tend not to ask those sorts of questions. People with big noses tend not to last long in my line of work. That said, it is curious. It is a short building, relative to the rest of the neighbourhood. A mere 15 floors. The towers which climbed another two and sometimes three hundred floors dominated the city. My only assumption is that the shadows of the other buildings made this a good place for clandestine meetings.
The door to the roof is slightly ajar. This means nothing, of course. But it is something. Doors do not open by themselves.
I let my foot slide between the door and its frame and peer out into the open air. I cannot hear anything beyond the ambient noises of a living city. No whirring of drone engines nor hushed conversation. Using my foot, I push the door open slowly and it swings freely on well oiled hinges. The door being open is now more than something. Although they should have let it squeak as a warning system.
There is no one in my line of sight as I step out from the door. No one to the left or right and no one on the little hut that houses the stairwell I had just emerged from. But the roof was littered with air conditioning units and venting conduits. More than enough places for people to hide.
But he would not be hiding. He does not know I exist, much less that I have come for him. He might know that people are upset at him. Perhaps even to the point of sending someone like me. It is possible that his meeting on the roof is an attempt to mitigate that. It is too late. You do not send someone like me if there is anything to be done about your plight.
The edge of the roof is meters away. I cannot help but look down. The city street below is teeming with life. Mobs of people walking every which way, a few rickshaws and mopeds dodge the pedestrian traffic. It is a normal night in Izakaya.
I look up and I see what they call The Mess. If this building was another five stories, maybe not even that, my head would be surrounded by wild and untamed wires. Hundreds of them hung taut between the various buildings. Some even went directly into individual windows. This was why Izakaya is considered a curse where I am from. The wires are harmful. They hurt the children and they breed the people who live with them. These people who do not use the network. The ones who rely on others for jobs and food, not the AI machines that the civilised world enjoys. I should not have come here. My colleagues urged me to stay away. They were concerned about my own children. Or lack thereof, I should say. Perhaps they were right. I cannot stop looking at the web of cables and wires strung up like a spiderweb. A messy, incoherent spiderweb to be sure. But that is what this is. A web for people to be caught in.
I have been called many things. Some of them I even agree with. I have never been called easily tricked. I know what Izakaya is. What it really is. It is not a distraction from whatever is happening outside of itself. It is not a haven for people who want to return to a world where the technological was less. It is a prison. It brings people in and it makes them realise they cannot leave. It is the spider and once you are here, you are stuck in its web.
I will not have that for me. So I see the prison and in so seeing, I see its walls. I see its doors. I know which threads to walk on and which would alert the spider. My target does not and now must be extracted by force. I am that force and he will not resist.
But, again, he is not where he is meant to be. The roof, besides me, is devoid of life.
But it is not empty. In the northwest corner, the farthest from the stairwell door, lays a camera. It is not a new camera. This is old. But it still functions. As I approach I realise immediately that it is actively recording. I do the only thing that I can do in my unfamiliar moment of panic. I heft the pick axe that has been in my right hand since finding it in the ground floor stairwell and I throw it at the camera. My aim, unsurprisingly, is true and the tip of the pick shatters the camera into thousands of unrecognisable pieces.
Quickly I leave the roof. Quicker I descend the stairs. I re-enter the party which has not noticed my departure. I weave my way through the throngs of dancers who move in a way that disgusts me to my core to music which should offend every being with ears and making it look like I am still partying with them, I cross the dance floor and leave the building.
The safe house is a few blocks away. I consider my options.
“Taxi?” a voice calls. “You need a taxi pretty lady?”
I look at the pudgy, balding middle aged man sitting in a decrepit white car that had not seen the working side of a sponge in almost its entire life. He stunk of tobacco and the car smelt of other, more objectionable, things.
“Five credits, anywhere in Izakaya,” the man said. I glared at him. His look did not change, but I notice his eyes flick up and down my body quickly. “Two credits,” he says.
I realise that I have been staring at him and not the street. I quickly look around and immediately see three drones. They are separate and flying away from me in different directions, but I do not want to take the risk. I quickly get in the back seat of the car and received a cheer from the driver. I wordlessly hand him a piece of paper with the address and a card that read 30 credits on it.
“Just two,” he said, pushing the credits back into my hands. “Only two,” he held up two fingers.
“The rest is for never speaking about me to anyone,” I hiss at him and push the card back. “I will know if you do.”
“Ok ok, I will not speak about it,” he said, taking the card and pulling, violently, into the street.
The drive is quick and not at all gentle. I exited the car and it took off the instant the door was closed. I suppose 30 credits is a lot for a five minute drive. I entered the building. It was labelled a hotel, and perhaps it served as one when I was not looking, but for me it was sanctuary. A refuge.
I took the elevator to my floor, a far more civilised way to ascend a building, and exited it into a long, empty hallway. Flickering florescent lights illuminated the way to my room. Which was wide open.
Quickly I took my heels off. If there was to be a fight, I needed my feet firmly on the ground. The dress I would have to suffer with, however.
“It’s ok,” his voice said. “You dont have to do all that.”
I looked around. The hallway mirror that I had walked past several times since arriving here and had taken no notice of had been tilted slightly towards the elevator banks. He could see me the whole time. And now I could see him. Sitting on the edge of the bed. Dressed for a party he never attended. Waiting for me.
“Well, come in and close the door,” he said, his voice heavy with exhausting and frustration.
“What are you doing here?” I asked, placing my shoes on the floor, not taking my eyes off him for an instant.
“I figured you wanted to talk, so I made it easy for you,” he shrugged.
“I do not want to talk to you,” I said, stepping into the bathroom where I quickly doffed the dress and pulled on a tank top and loose fitting shorts that I had prepared earlier. “I thought I made that clear five years ago.”
“And yet youre the one who came after me.”
“You are a job,” I said, re-entering the hotel room. Like the taxi driver, he gave me a once over with his eyes. Unlike the taxi driver, his inspection of me had nothing to do with lust.
“A job,” he said. “From who?”
“Who do you think.”
He nodded. “Why you, though?”
“No one else wanted to come to this dung heap of a city. I drew the short straw, as you like to say.”
“More fool you,” he sighed. “You should have stayed at home. But its too late now, I guess.”
“Too late?”
“I saw what you were wearing. You went to the party. That means you went to the roof.”
“So? You were meant to be there. You were not.”
“Oh, I was. But I had a feeling I was being tailed. I was there an hour ago. I guess you saw the camera too.”
“I destroyed it.”
“Well, thats something I suppose, but its still too late. Those cameras arent monitored by the net.”
“What do you mean?”
“Someone real watches that footage. Someone real knows the two of us are in Izakaya.”