Dead Man's Resolution Read Online Free PDF Page B

Nagoya for a few weeks, virtually, until he walked down the steps and the assassin stepped into his persona as if he was inhabiting a ghost.
    He fell into the wave of people flowing toward the open doors, and was swept inside, huddling against the side to avoid the press of people in the center. The busy train surprised him, since Nagoya, like most major cities, was on the decline. Fingertips explored chipped paint on the wall while the digital wall looked pristine.
    An advertisement sprang to life in the form of an attractive Japanese woman above the press of people as the subway train rattled back and forth. In his stock broker guise, he could have easily blocked out the ad, but a salaryman didn’t have the kind of disposable income needed to suppress the ad since the subway was sponsored by Ecoverse. So he endured it.
    “ Sumimasen ,” a polite Japanese woman said as she bowed deeply.
    Immediately his ARNet translated the words.
    “My most humble apologies, Wantanabe-san, for disturbing you on your wonderful trip. Our sponsors, Ecoverse, would like to take a brief moment out of your ride to explain the glories of our products. Our humble programmers have created a host of mods to enhance your life. We notice you have an older version of YenManager and KatoKatcher. If you wish to upgrade, please acknowledge the marker placed in your nimbus layer. Remember the Ecoverse motto, Conservation through digitization .”
    He scanned the riders: old, young, students, mothers. Mostly dark hair, except for a few wide-eyed foreigners along the far bench unknowingly taking up too much space. He did not pity them. They were sheep waiting in their digital cages, too numb to care, waiting for the slaughter. He was the Angel of Death among them.
    The train lurched to a stop. He slipped out of the doors ahead of the masses. The arrows pointed down the concrete hallways to the Higashiyama line, but he went the other way. As he crested the stairs, the sunlight broke through the clouds briefly illuminating the city around him. He stood at Sakaemachi Station. Reaching to the sky before him, the Nagoya Tower straddled the Hisaya Ondari Park.
    A strange hillbilly music drifted upon him. To his left stood a large blue fountain full of geysers that sprung from stone dolphins. Arrayed on the street side of the fountain, a dozen youths gyrated around on the bricks. He was familiar with such places. Youth congregated to showcase their allegiance—cosplay, yoshinko, debutante, Goth, furry; including styles he’d never heard of, and probably only existed for a few days. The young men strutted around with huge bulbous coifed hair. His ARNet whispered they were a form of Elvis impersonators of his early years. The assassin hadn’t heard of him.
    Across the street more performers strutted, cloaking themselves in outrageous styles only possible in the Sea. The performer before him defied classification, proving the point that physics didn’t matter in a digital world. He had transformed himself into a living squeeze box. His arms and legs were accordions and his hands drum tips. As he danced, music issued forth with fat notes floating upwards like soap bubbles. Around him, constructed of the digital mesh, drums hung in the air and were also set into the street. Drum tip hands pounded out the beat on the imaginary drums, as his arms and legs gyrated. The dancer’s mod projected the music out to all those nearby. He listened for a dozen heartbeats, then blocked the signal.
    Only fools dance in the street .
    He drew the veil back to watch him gyrating around with arms splayed out like a child’s doll hung from a dog’s mouth. The cracked concrete beneath his feet made him grin. Even the Nagoya tower had an orange mixture of rust and mold snaking up the supports. Everywhere it rotted. Beneath his mask, he sneered, licking his lips. The putrefaction of the world could not be avoided.
    Seven billion people couldn’t be pruned in a century without good