Tobacco-Stained Mountain Goat Read online

  After a stint in the el blando waiting area, someone would eventually wander in. They’d exude a completely indifferent air, ignore you, neaten up the magazine pile you’d just disheveled, then put on this show of noticing you, and mumble something none-too-welcoming. I don’t know if they practiced the routine—or had to abide by some obscure bureaucratic code (like us). In turn you’d get up, stretch your stiff legs, waggle your sore bum a bit, maybe say something—usually to yourself as these people never listened—before giving up and following them.

  This time my usherette was a beanstalk of a woman with a tag that read Ojike Kyoufu—which could’ve been African or Japanese in origin, though she looked Russian. She led me to my room, which might have been the same one every time, but the place was a bit of a maze and it’s hard to spot the differences between one spartan closet and another. Located slap-bang in the centre of the room was a tiny, claustrophobic coffin—a jigsaw of dull aluminium plating, multicoloured cables, an uncomfortable post-modern recliner complete with bondage straps, and a canopy of opaque, greasy-looking plasti-glass. Cleaning seemed anathema to these people.

  Sometimes, if you were really lucky, they’d quip a lame joke right about now, and whether or not you laughed, they’d strap you in nice and too tight, attach the monitoring devices, swab your arm, shove in the needle—with all the dexterity of a jack-hammer operator—and slam the canopy shut over you. It made me feel like a rushed and bamboozled Spitfire pilot in the midst of a Luftwaffe fly-by during the Battle of Britain, without the joys of flight or of gunning down a Messerschmitt Bf 109.

  So, imagine complete and utter silence beyond your own breathing. The air was stale and humid, you straight away broke out in sweat, and you could never shake the sensation that the oxygen was being vacuumed out while you waited. And it was dark in there—sometimes I suspected that they had an infrared video camera installed and that they deliberately took their time so they could get some cheap thrills by watching you stress out.

  I was on the verge of hyperventilation. The thought occurred to me that I really ought to suggest on the feedback sheet that they pipe in some old-fashioned muzak—maybe Rachmaninoff or Vangelis—while we killed time in that tin sarcophagus. Then, without warning, I felt like I was suddenly pitched forward.

  I knew what to expect, but that didn’t save my arse one bit. A severe combination of vertigo and nausea ripped through me as I went into free fall with pavement rushing towards me and I can’t even throw out my arms to shield myself.

  Hell, I’ll admit it—I pissed myself the first time and I’m guessing I wasn’t the only one to do so, judging from the aroma of the sardine can I was stuck in. I never actually hit the concrete, of course, but there was always some new surprise.

  This time, I wound up spread-eagled and face down on something padded and a bit prickly. After steadying my nerves and twisting my shoulders a bit, I raised myself to my hands and knees, all the while totally aware that in reality I was doing none of these things.

  This knowledge was a very good thing. In some Tests, like this one, it was no secret that you were in a Test environment. But the Admins didn’t always play so nice, and it was those other gems, the ones that mimicked life so well that you couldn’t tell real from sham, that could fuck up your head proper. Or even kill you.

  I peered around, but, of course, there was no longer any sign of my sardine can, nor was I in a whitewashed closet. Instead, I was on a floor covered in tatami woven straw mats. At a quick tot up there were twenty or so of these mats, and surrounding them were closed shoji sliding screens—decorated with painted landscapes and animals—that seemed, in effect, to act as the walls of the room. It was a bloody big space.

  At the other end of the room hung an enormous banner with what looked to be hand-painted calligraphy on it—one single image, the kanji character for winter, fuyu.

  I knew this, because I had the same character tattooed on my right deltoid muscle, etched there during a winter of particular discontent. Were they aware of this? Was I stupid? Of course they were. The physical check ups left nothing to the imagination.

  The scene was immaculately conceived, right down to the subtle stains here and there on the well-worn tatami, a slight crack in one corner of the ceiling, and a thumbtack stuck in the wood above one of the doors. An over-sized cockroach scuttled in a corner. There was a small square table in the middle of the room, upon which rested a porcelain teapot, a pair of red and black lacquer cups, a tin, and various odd utensils. On closer inspection the tin appeared to be filled with ground green powder.

  Tea? Damn. Why they couldn’t conjure up a bottle of sake or, even better, twenty five percent strength shōchū, is beyond me. Don’t get me wrong, I kind of dug the themes. Last time it was a Russian one, complete with crazed Cossacks. Exotic themes like this one pushed it further from reality, which in turn made the whole experience a trifle easier to get through.

  I partly expected a bunch of gung-ho Edo period samurai to hack their way in through the washi paper screens and swarm all over me. I’d watched my fair share of Akira Kurosawa epics like Seven Samurai and Kagemusha, and I didn’t see them having the imagination to conjure up anything more surreal—like, say, Seijun Suzuki’s Tokyo Drifter. If I was lucky I’d get a group of rambunctious yakuza with god-awful bouffants of spiky bleached hair, wearing 1980s-era black suits, toting Uzis, and masticating on toothpicks.

  But instead the clock ticked and nothing happened at all. They were taking their time on this one. The cockroach made itself scarce and then there was absolute silence—aside from the incidental sounds I made myself, including a long yawn. A quick search of my pockets depressed me to no end—they’d stranded me both barefoot and without cigarettes.

  They were creating their own little scenario where they could play god—benevolent or tyrannical—and mess with the head of the poor sod wired into their game-console—in this case, apparently, by boring the participant to death. It could be worse. After the first couple of Tests I felt that they’d watched a few too many episodes of Rod Serling’s original black-and-white series of The Twilight Zone, but the more I underwent this process, the more sadly certain I was that they’d instead just copped one or two episodes of The Outer Limits—and probably the ho-hum colour remake from the 1990s, at that.

  Still, in spite of such imaginative bankruptcy when it came to plot development, the visual renderings of the location were mind-blowing. You’d swear that you were really there—even when you knew for a fact that you couldn’t possibly be. The crisp, realistic nature of the Tests are also why they could be so dangerous. The machine could short circuit your synapses so well that you wouldn’t know you were even in a Test, with the environment such a dead ringer for one you were used to that there was almost nothing to undermine the con. This meant if something gnarly went down it could mess you up in real life—and a little thing like dying could fry your brain sunny side up.

  Finally, the shoji doors parted, and a tiny, hunched-over elderly woman appeared, dressed in a drab-coloured formal kimono. I was smitten. I’d never met a Japanese fossil before and this little old lady was perfect for the role, looking like she’d just stepped out of a film. She bowed right down to the floor then rose, padded in quietly, bowed again to me, spoke a few words in Japanese—and then embarked on what I recognized to be a tea ceremony.

  She was silent and austere as she worked her magic, with only the rustle of her kimono and the occassional sound of clinking china. The scent of the tea was making me thirsty, but the ceremony felt endless. Finally, she bowed and passed me a cup. I felt like chucking it back into her face to see if she’d react to the hot liquid—that’d be something unexpected, and a modicum of fun to boot—but I thought twice, retreated from the inclination, and instead sipped at the brew.

  It was warm. And it was actually pretty good—albeit somewhat bitter.

  I nodded my thanks and the woman smiled, bowed again, said a few more incomprehensible words, and shuffled out. T
he door remained ajar, which I found vaguely ominous. I could see a dim, wood-lined hallway beyond.

  So what now?

  I surmised that I was supposed to stay right where I was and I abided by the notion, as there’s really no point exploring these stupid extravaganzas. They’d get down to it when they’re good and ready. I sat back on my haunches on the tatami, propped against a door, and cradled the cup between my hands. I bet I looked rather Zen, but, to be honest, I was getting impatient and feeling bloody tense. Hell, I even had that annoying shoulder stiffness I always get in these situations—I just didn’t want them to know that.

  Very casually, I pushed up the shirtsleeve on my left arm and noticed a detail they’d neglected: my cheesy Doraemon watch was missing. Then again, cheap Japanese anime timepieces might be considered far from the objet d’art they would’ve preferred here.

  Doraemon, a blue, dysfunctional mechanical cat from the future might seem pretty tacky to you (and to them), but he boasted a magical, four-dimensional pouch, the envy of any marsupial, and the saga also had some serious psychological eccentricities that appealed directly to me: for starters, aside from regular panic attacks, our motorized feline suffers from an ongoing musophobia that stems back to the future—to a time in the twenty-second century, when his ears were consumed by a robotic mouse.

  Yeah, yeah—maybe my watch offended their sensibilities. But I had a hunch that its absence had a deeper meaning than that of just differing aesthetics. Maybe they wanted to keep the concept of time at bay? It sounded just like one of their glad-bag ruses.

  Regardless, I’d been cataloguing these oversights, intentional or not. They say if you’re not sure if you’re dreaming you should try flicking on (or off) the lights. The trouble was that in a Test, the lights worked just fine. But these tells—a missing watch here, the wrong shoes there—might someday clue me in when it counted. Not that it has paid off yet, but it never hurts to be mindful.

  A different woman stopped at the opened doorway, stepped out of her clogs, and entered my room. My room. Sheesh. I’d already grown attached to the place. She was a looker, sheathed in a silk kimono of brilliant colours where her predecessor’s had been so bland. Her obi sash was super-taut around one insanely narrow waist.

  By the way, don’t fret—I don’t speak Japanese either. Who does these days? It’s a dying lingo. But it’s amazing what vocab you can pick up when you watch enough flicks in their subtitled form rather than dubbed. Household words like obi, shoji, tatami, and other references such as kampai, kawaii, and hentai—otherwise known as ‘cheers’, ‘cute’, and ‘perverted’, in that exact order—pop up so often that you can get the gist, carve them up then toss ’em towards strangers at posh dinner parties.

  So—kampai.

  This new woman bowed to me and kneeled on the opposite side of the table, her head down. Then her face lifted to show a stereotypical young maiko (an apprentice geisha) with the white facial make-up, the red lips, cherry coloured eye-shadow, and lacquered hair with sewn in paraphernalia—a wide-tooth comb and what appeared to be silk cherry blossoms.

  This was another fun time for the programmers and shrinks. They got to play any role that they felt like. Maybe, in reality, she was a corpulent old female quack with six chins and a huge Roman nose—or instead an equally beefy Father Christmas type, with a beard to hang onto and a repressed childhood hankering to dress up in exotic girls’ clothes. Who knows? To my mind, a sumo wrestler would’ve been a more inspired, quirky choice, but at least this woman was a doll to look at. I copped the boring role—I got to play myself. I’d just mark her down as a girl and hope and pray I never found out to the contrary. It was easier that way.

  I was a tiny bit disappointed when the skirt began proceedings in English. They could’ve stuck to the theme and done it in Japanese, with English subtitles popping up. None of this was real, anyway. What would it matter?

  “Good afternoon,” she said in a melodious voice, with no discernible accent except for what sounded to me like educated arrogance.

  “Konnichiwa.”

  “Oh. You speak Japanese?”

  “Not really. I just collect learn-kanji-on-the-go trading cards.”

  “Kanji?”

  “You’re the one sporting the kimono, lady, you should know this. Chinese characters used in the modern Japanese writing system. Like you have on the big banner up there.”

  “Ah. Now, on to business. Seeker Two-Seven-Two-Seven, correct?”

  “Yeah, at least that’s what’s on my badge. Honestly though, I’ve never actually verified it—I mean, it could be a misprint. Me, once I’ve run out of fingers and toes I’m lost.” This was just formality, they knew who I was—it’s not like some bludger off the street would wander in and submit themselves to this farce.

  “I see. Welcome to In House. Are you comfortable?”

  “Cozy.”

  “I’m glad to hear that. Just to fill you in, today’s exercise has been specifically developed in accordance with Special Training, as per the auspices of Seeker Branch. Are you familiar with the rules and requirements of In House?”

  “Yep, not a problem—I’ve done this before, remember?”

  “Ah, yes. And what are your thoughts on undergoing In House training?”

  “Eggs in the coffee.”

  “I’m afraid I don’t follow you.”

  “It’s just an expression. Don’t fret. It means I’m fine. A-okay. That sort of thing.”

  The woman raised her head a notch. “Allow me to be frank here—you do appreciate that this is a very serious matter, don’t you, Two-Seven-Two-Seven?”

  “Hey, yeah—of course. I’m a very serious person.”

  “I see.” She clicked her tongue, probably a habit she had in reality. “As you know, In House training is intended to hone your skills and develop your response times in difficult situations that involve Deviant elements. While the principle purpose here is to better prepare you for the unexpected twists and turns fieldwork can take, In House also gives us the opportunity to gauge your current psychological status—and to revise your employee profile accordingly.”

  “I’m cool.” I’d heard the speech too many times before and it still made no sense. Who cared? “I understand why we’re here. What d’you have for me this time? An axe-wielding Dev on the rampage in a pet shop, or maybe a pair of them bludgeoning kids at a pedestrian crossing—?”

  “That is completely out of order, Two-Seven-Two-Seven. I’m beginning to believe that you don’t appreciate the importance of this training, or the impact our assessment can have upon your career.”

  Her comment hung in the air like a good slap in the face. I knew what she’d intimated. See, the math was simple even for me: if I botched a Test I’d risk cooked up charges of Deviancy and find myself Relocated away to a Hospital. This constant fear of being classified a Dev is precisely why a Seeker could never stop being a Seeker—thanks to our very own Catch 22 the only possible reason (at least, according to management) we’d want to stop going on Activities is because we had crossed the line and now identified with Deviants—which in itself was a Relocatable offense. As such, we couldn’t quit and weren’t expected to survive till retirement, though that didn’t stop the bastards from waving a surprisingly generous farewell-you-old-fart package—gold pocket watch and all—in front of us like a carrot. Our only legitimate exit strategy was a bullet.

  “I’m sorry. I guess I’m just dead-tired.” Pushing the envelope is one thing, but getting yourself Hospitalized over stupid banter is a whole other kettle of rancid fish.

  “And why do you feel tired?”

  “Lack of sleep?” Be careful, I warned myself—this frail was shaping up to be a definite wrong number. “Okay, well I’ve had a few late nights in a row, including an Activities. It’s messed up my sleeping pattern, but I’ll adapt. The odd hours kick me round a bit.”

  “And other than feeling tired?”

  “Other than that, everything’s solid and hear
ty.”

  “Do you ever have any doubts?”

  “Doubts about what exactly? Put me wise.”

  “Well, to start with, regarding the job you do.”

  “Let me see now—Hmm. I think I’m coping pretty darned well. How ’bout you? Do you enjoy your work?”

  “Please, Two-Seven-Two-Seven. We’re here to talk about you. Is that understood?”

  “One hundred percent. That’s the crop.”

  “The crop—?”

  “The whole truth—and nothing but.”

  “I’ve perused your personnel file and see that you’ve a rather commendable record with Seeker Branch. In fact, you have an unusually high success rate, but I can’t help noticing your line manager has taken issue with your attitude—and then there is the overuse of sick days and repeated dress code violations. Would you care to comment on these matters?”

  “I’d say it all comes down to perspective. I do my job well. You said so yourself.”

  “Did I?”

  “You’re the one who threw the word ‘commendable’ into the mix.”

  “So I did. Please continue.”

  “Okay. Well, sometimes the rules aren’t clear-cut—and the same goes for the situations we’re tossed into.”

  “You appear to have misunderstood our point—we’re more interested in the other concerns.”

  “Such as?”

  “The attitude. The sick days. The breach of dress code.”

  “Hey, everybody gets sick, don’t they? We’re all human. As for the clothes issue, I wasn’t aware of that complaint. What do Seekers need with a dress code, anyway?”

  “Would you say that the rules or guidelines are inappropriate?”

  “Regarding a dress code?”

  “No, in general.”

  “Well, no—I wouldn’t say that. It’s just a matter of theory lilting a little when you put it into practice in the field.” I breathed in, then commenced parroting what I knew they really wanted to hear: “In answer to your original point, I’ll take the criticism on board and strive to do a better job.”