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3
MANNY’S DEAL
Mangjeol sent his driver to Ross’s hotel at nine o’ clock the next morning. Ross had been up since five checking over a few projects from back home and working out. He shaved and showered then went down to the waiting car, towards Shibuya.
The driver asked if he could turn on the radio. Some of that new pop music they liked over here came blasting out. Ross stared at the passing city, absorbing the new sights. As they stalled in traffic, the swirl of humanity and technology hypnotized him.
Advertising…everywhere. Lights glowing through the thick early-morning mist. The mist was heavier here than in Virginia.
He settled into the seat, relaxing as the sun broke. Doll-like faces blinked at him from skyscraper billboards, promising everything.
Tokyo.
It was a far cry from his corner of Virginia. No nested tangle of roads, grubby gas stations, mounds of random trash blowing across bare cracked parking lots. No churches, no pastures. No empty space. Constant motion, like an ocean reef.
Here, somebody could disappear forever.
At one of the crossing points Ross’s eye landed on a black woman in a Yukata, laughing in a group of similarly-dressed Japanese women.
His phone rang.
“Ross-kun,” Manny said. “Forgive me, I will be twenty minutes late.”
“Take your time. It’s no trouble.”
“My assistant will show you to my office; I’ll meet you there.”
The car pulled up smoothly to Manny’s building.Joon Future Industries.Interesting architecture. The building was shaped like an egg.
A woman met Ross at the door, speaking to him in English. “Mr. McCall, you must come this way please.”
“Thank you,” he said.
She walked up to the side of the egg, and it opened into an actual doorway. Then Ross and the Madam were moving swiftly through the building, which looked surprisingly like a regular office, but just…round. Workers milled about in the uniform black-and-white suits of Japanese professionals.
His guide whisked him through the building down a series of passageways. She wore a lanyard around her neck with a ring of laminated cards. He tried to covertly read them, but his Kanji was rusty and the movement of her figure made it difficult.
Nobody in this part of the building.
The place smelled of glass. If glass had a smell.
Ross strained for any other sound but the dainty click of the woman’s heels on the linoleum. When she spoke, he nearly jumped.
“This way, please.”
The woman pressed her index finger to a random door. The lock turned green and the door opened. Ross wondered about getting those for the office.
Since the woman, like the driver, was not talkative, Ross turned to his own thoughts. He hadn’t actually processed this deal with Manny in a sober mind. As he walked down the long hallway, which branched off into other hallways full of strange noises and clamor, he admitted he might have waded too deep into this joke.
Manny was gonna find him a girl.
Mangjeol, Mr. No-Pussy-Getter.
By then they had come to the last door, which she opened with a thumbprint.
Ross followed her through the door. Immediately he was attacked by sensation, color, and strange scientific sounds that had been muted by the door. He was inside the building’s laboratory. Churning, hissing noises came from pipes, beakers, and self-automating systems pushing different colored liquids into different colored bowls.
Ross had begun to sweat. The temperature had increased. He had no idea where they were going now. He had lost his sense of direction. He followed the assistant. Some rooms were in near-perfect darkness. Dim lights along the floor guided them. Ross put on his phone’s flashlight to see what they were passing, but the woman was suddenly on him like a hawk, jerking down his wrist firmly.
