3 Chapter 1.2
I relax a bit, taken aback by the odd question.
"Huh? What did you just say...?"
"If you're a knight...does that mean you slay dragons?
I take a moment, thinking over my answer.
If she's totally serious about there being some "dragon" that need "slaying," I know it can only mean one thing...
Although, am I really prepared?
Shrug. "Yeah. It's part of the job description."
At this, she slowly draws her hand away from me; and again, because of the mask, I can't read her expression: I'm not sure whether I should start running, or brace for a slap because she thinks I'm talking gibberish, or pucker up for an unprompted kiss, or--
Instead, she lowers her hood, to reveal a head of bristly, chestnut-brown hair.
Then, planting one palm across the face of her mask, I watch with a quickly held gasp as she proceeds to slowly peel it off, accompanied by a long, drawn-out, suctiony pop...until--
"I'm not joking." She says, as I'm gawking at her face:
At those sharp, intensely staring amber eyes.
That luscious, dark pair of lips, curled into a smoldering frown.
"If you're not full of shit, I could really use you."
Then, this mysterious girl, whom I met by complete happenstance, named Dusk Fujikawa, proceeds to unwrap a band from her arm and use it to tie her hair into a spiky top-knot, smirking as if she can already tell what my answer will be, when she asks:
"So...do you think you're able to help me, or is this where we part ways?"
Ah, I never thought she was joking at all:
On the contrary, I see this as a blessing! A golden opportunity!
Finally, I can prove my worth as Vorpal Knight!
Finally...after I've been labelled a loser legendary Z Rank all my career, never allowed to take on dangerous missions...
Today, that is all going to completely change!
"Yeah." I tell her confidently. "I'll do it!"
...
Dusk leads, and I follow: escorting me along with the herd of cattle through the maze of what is left of downtown Tokyo, deeper than I've ever previously dared to venture; as, every now and then, a face will appear out of the most decrepit, unseemingly of buildings and alleyways, to wave and offer Dusk a friendly greeting:
"Fujikawa! Good morning!"
"Fujikawa! Let's share a drink at the saloon later! My treat!"
"Fujikawa, I hope the herd's behaving!"
It isn't all doom and gloom here, after all: along the main street, there are ongoing renovations being made to every lived-in or operated building, performed by inexpert hands with limited tools using scrap as materials--imparting a shoddy, rustic charm, to what would otherwise be a dismal walk through destruction. Crowds of Old Tokyians hustle about, talking loudly and happily--as if 80% of the global population HADN'T recently been wiped out, and it was all just a faraway dream--with not a single gussied up little girl to be counted among the ranks! Just plain old, hardy folk, with wrinkles and suntans, dressed in ugly tattered suits and sundresses and top hats and and ten gallon hats and t-shirts and overalls.
Makeshift horse-drawn carriages rumble past, fashioned out of salvaged car parts. A pair of shirtless men, their backs and arms swollen with muscle and glistening with sweat, duke it out in the streets in front of a karaoke bar turned saloon, while onlookers cheer. There's a hotel. A brothels. A butchery.
Placed at the entrance, of this little patch of heck, is part of an old restaurant sign that simply reads, "STEAKHOUSE."
It's all so unapologetically crude; misshapen, and unruly. Unlike the Districts, or what was once considered rural Japan, which have fully embraced new technology--developing into a complete opposite direction...
A breath of a fresh air, if you ask me.
Meanwhile, Dust provides me with more details about this so-called dragon:
"We hear its roars at night. Some of the neighbors have seen it, though I haven't. We think it's responsible for the livestock that's being going missing."
"Couldn't you wrangle a mob together and kill it yourselves? Old Tokyians seem tough."
She sighs. "We've tried to a couple times, but the beast must have good senses, and thinks smarter than most. It hushes up and disappears, as soon as we bring out the torches and pitchforks. Almost like it can sense when it's outnumbered."
"You mentioned livestock, but has it attacked any people before?"
Frustrated, she casts her eyes downward.
"It does. When it knows it's not outnumbered."
After walking for quite a long while, we arrive at a park.
The grass is tall and unkempt; no longer maintained for the sake of aesthetics, but rather now serving the sole utilitarian function of providing the livestock a place to graze; serving as but another example, among many, of humankind's ability to adapt for survival in the face of adversity.
Dusk and I are sitting at a bench, in the shade of a cabana, letting the cattle roam loose.
"I have a lot of people counting on me to remedy this issue." She says, flashing the shiny gold 'DEPUTY' star pinned to the lapel of her brown cloak, that I had not noticed before, then looking at me expectantly. "You just happened to be the first tumbleweed I've seen passing through that wasn't a little girl, so I guess it's my lucky day."
I laugh. Ironically, those "little girls" would probably be far more capable of dealing with this creature than I was; but still, I would try. I already have an idea of what this 'dragon''s true identity must be...
"Dusk. I need to know if there are any active sleeper pods in the vicinity."
She raises an eyebrow. "Why is that?"
"Crazy as it sounds, it might have some connection to the attacks."
I couldn't be too sure, just yet, but I had been carrying a suspicion about the true identity of the creature since she first asked for my assistance, and everything she'd told me thus far only served to further prove it.
All that was missing was this one final piece of the puzzle.
"Your dragon...may really be a Jabberwock."
She blinks, looking at me strangely.
"A Jabberwock." I repeat. "Let me explain..."
Though rather than give a full explanation, and thereby risk making her think I'm completely crazy, I settle for a simple one:
"They're nocturnal, and prefer to hunt alone."
"They're smart. They're fast. They're vicious, and won't hesitate to kill if they think they can."
"They feed on prey...including humans."
Dusk goes pale--the normal response, I should think, of someone being informed that human beings aren't necessarily at the top of the food chain--
As finally, I finish off by adding:
"They can sniff out sleepers, from miles away."
...
...
Dusk agrees to take me to the sleepers.
So, from there, we return the cattle to their pen--at a farm and ranch converted from a former baseball stadium--before we set off: to a department store, with a heavy patrol of armed guards, marching along the perimeter and across the sunbleached parking lot.
"Once we're inside--"She says, pointing at the twisted, massively tall structure. "Be sure to stay close to me, if you don't want to be made into swiss cheese."
I ask her what she means by that.
"You'll be seen as an intruder, and be shot and killed on sight."
Oh.
We enter by squeezing through a narrow gap between the unpowered automatic doors, as I'm thinking it's crazy to imagine that such a place still served a function just a few years ago where now, all that's remaining in the rubble are empty, broken shelves, and faded poster ads.
It's as if Dusk can read my mind, as she starts to explain, "within days of Wonderland being opened to the public, there was rioting all throughout the city. Looters ransacked and torched this store, as they did many others. People became desperate, because they thought the world was ending--between Tea Time and so many opting for sleeper pods at once, our society collapsed in on itself."
"It's...amazing, just how quickly everything went to shit."
Damn. So that's how it went down.
I guess I was lucky to have been living in a rural district, back then. In my village, there wasn't so much a sense of panic as there was a sort of shrugged acceptance--that things were different now, so there was nothing else to do but to buckle down, and adapt.
Dusk would've just been a child around that time, like I was.
It must have been terrifying.
The name "Tea Time virus" might sound funny, though it was anything but--as the large numbers of infected became a special kind of mad: prone to laughing and babbling incoherently, flying into random fits of rage.
Worst of all, was the "congregation" factor.
Essentially, a Tea Time sufferer would be insatiably compelled to associate with large groups of others, often observed by way of arranging or attending a celebration, a party, or social gathering, thereby furthering the spread.
Someone could throw a fundraiser luncheon one day, and everyone who attends...would be dead within a week, as well as their family, their friends, any random acquaintance...
"It's a miracle we didn't all catch it, except maybe the ultra-NEETS."
"Right." Dusk says' cracking up. "Well, I got vaccinated when the trucks started going around, picked up a gun and started sticking up for people; then, next thing I know, I'm Sheriff and my life's been one whirlwind to the next, ever since."
From the ground floor of the department store, we travel down an ominous stairwell.
As we reach the bottom, we're met with a tough-looking guy: with a big beard and a ten gallon hat, a duster cloak, leather boots and carbine rifle; rising from a schoolchair with a irritated grunt to meet us, set behind a barricade of barbed wire and salvaged scrap, basked in the glow of a dim, red flourescent emergency light.
He appears to be guarding the pair of sealed, iron doors behind him.
He also appears to be cosplaying a cowboy.
"Fujikawa." The guy says stiffly, tipping his hat at Dusk--to which she responds with a shy giggle, abruptly turning away. Chuckling softly, he then sets his sights on me.
"Who's this wimp? Tonight's dinner?"
I bristle under his reproachful stare, swallowing timidly.
This guy could chew me up and spit me out.
"Maybe not for us, Erebus, but perhaps our noisy neighbor." Dusk interrupts--gently smoothing his shoulder, smiling warmly, before awkwardly correcting herself: "Erm...or Jabberwock, as he calls it."
"Jabber-what?" The tough guy looks at me, grinning. "Kind of nonsense is that?"
"Erebus...please be civil..."
"This twinkle-eyed varmint doesn't even have a gun!"
"I don't know, either." Dusk abruptly confesses, as my heart promptly sinks with a bitter feeling of betrayal. "Seems pretty confident, though, so I figuree he must have something up his sleeve."
"That, or he's suicidal!"
"About that..."
While the two proceed to bicker about me, as if I'm not there, my sweaty hands reach for my Charm Ring--the only weapon I could ever need--that I keep hanging from a necklace, connected to a chain worn around my neck.
As I do, I hear a teasing girl's voice, sounding like it's coming ftom the ring itself:
"Oh, too bad! Those two are totally fucking."
My startled gasp alerts the other two-- immediately ceasing their bickering, and turn to stare at me. I look between them, awkwardly, then at the door behind Erebus.
Sweat is pouring down the sides of my face. My hands are clammy, and I feel I might puke.
"It's...just beyond there, right?"
"Shall we, then?"
Erebus looks to Dusk, who gives him an affirmative nod; and so, with some minor grumbling on his part, he retrieves a ring of keys from his belt and uses one to unlock the iron doors.
"Here you have it." Dusk announces, at the unveiling of what lie within:
Sleeper pods, they're called. They're these slabs, contained within cramped, egg-shaped domes, just wide enough to support a single adult person lying in a folded, fetal position; and the department store basement is packed full of them: rows upon rows, stretching from wall to wall.
"Last I counted, there's 500 in total." Dusk says, trailing behind me as I walk breathlessly between the aisles, of what appear to be softly glowing, translucent white yolks.
I lay my hand against one, feeling it gently--despite its glassy appearance, it feels more like rubber, and warm to the touch. Kind of like jelly. And there, cradled within each pod, is a person--an individual that willingly chose to sacrifice their existence in this world, to become fully immersed into the Wonderworld. Each pod is self-sustaining: the cellular structure of the sleeper's body reconfigured to become more like a plant's, maintaining their life through careful temperature, recirculated air and moisture control; powered by a nuclear battery with a lifetime of several centuries.
Inside of each sleeper pod, only the brain and nervous system of a person still exists, fully intact and unchanged--their consciousness linked to an avatar they control in the Wonderworld virtual reality server, or so all the instructional pamphlets would say...
In truth, to this day very little is known about Wonderworld: including the story behind its creation, or who was behind all the pink fliers that were being handed out, dumped from the tops of buildings and blimps--promoting these public 'mass sleeper events,' during the midst of the Tea Time panic. It was at these events, where, with no way of knowing for sure whether the pods even worked as advertised, or that a 'Wonderland' even truly existed, many people still took the gamble--in a last-ditch, desperate effort, to escape the chaos and interminable dread. All those people are gone, now; but to where, exactly, is anyone's guess--with all that remains left behind, for one to view when peering into an active sleeper pod, as if planted there in memoriam...
Is a clustering of beautiful, white roses.
Dusk walks up beside me.
"Alex. Earlier, you mentioned that sleeper pods attract Jabberwocks." She looks at me sharply, with urgency. "How is that possible? Can it be fixed?"
"It's not due to an error. The root cause is a natural part of the sleeper bloom life cycle."
"So there's nothing that can be done?!"
I wag my finger at her. Nuh-uh-uh!
"Don't be disheartened! There's nothing we can do about it for the time being, but the fix is really as simple as an upgrade to the room's ventilation system."
Her mouth hangs in shock. "Eh?! Is it really so simple?"
"Hah! Like I told you, it's my job."
She smiles back, seemingly reassured.
"I can never thank you enough, Mr. Strangelove."
Ah! She's so pretty, smiling serenely like that...
I swear, I'm not blushing at all!
It is at this moment, I'm reminded of the simple reason why I became a Vorpal Knight in the first place: before I knew what a Charm Ring even was, or Charm Ranks, or promotion matches...all that extraneous junk that had nothing to do with the core purpose of being a hero...which is to help people.
Helping people is the main reason I became a Vorpal Knight.
It's...what I live for, and yet...
My stomach growls, reminding me that I haven't eaten in quite some time.
Dusk laughs--no doubt, she definitely heard it
"It's alright." She says. "We've got plenty of meal pills to go around."
Ah, meal pills. The modern take on eating.
They're an entire meal's worth of nutrients, combined with any flavor imaginable--like, say, all the nutritional value of a hearty bowl of chicken udon, merged with the taste of cotton candy, for example.
Okay, so maybe that's a bad example, but I think I've explained it well enough.
I'll need all the energy I can get for tonight.
