Defying the Taboo

When Beat found Gum, she was naked and alive, and there was only ten minutes left before their time ran out.

Huddled into a corner inside a grimy old shack of a house, with windows coated in a thick, green film as a result of being battered with sea-salted winds over years, Gum had her knees drawn up to her chest and her ankles crossed, leaving more than enough exposed for the imagination to fill in the rest. Even her feet were bare; the only article that she had on was the collar – a metallic monstrosity clinging to her neck, with little flickering lights on that served one purpose or another.

Onishima had told them that it served as a homing beacon and could send vital signs back to a computer in that police-sanctioned building at the top of the hill in the middle of this damn island. That they would explode if somebody tried to remove them or if they tried to escape or if they stumbled into a forbidden zone or if more than one person had survived until the end and, well, that was unfortunate but there could only be one winner. That it'd be a way for him to know who was left alive, and who hadn't been so lucky. That he used the data he received to send those reports every hour and three quarters over megaphones scattered throughout the island – that, with ten minutes left on the clock and counting, Beat and Gum were the only ones still surviving.

Beat had no way of knowing if Onishima told the truth; if the person in charge had been somebody the Rudie had trusted in the past, then maybe, but Onishima was a slimy eel of a man and there could just as easily be one Rudie left out there. That regardless of what happened here, now, both Beat and his trusted, broken right hand girl could wind up with a terrible, fatal migraine.

"Hey," he said, unsure of where to start. He felt grateful for his goggles; they obscured his eyes entirely, kept her from actually seeing his eyes wander (even though he – he tried not to, he knew the inherent immorality of what he was doing, but he felt like his morals and all the Good Things that he stood by twenty-three hours and fifty minutes ago had fallen on its side and taken him with it). But Gum was crafty, she was smart – even if she did look likes he wasn't all there at the moment. She probably knew anyway.

"Hey." Her voice came back quiet and alienated – not at all like the Gum he'd known Way Back Then, but he wasn't surprised that she had changed, either. Her blonde hair had clumps of dried blood in it, and he could see some smears and mottled patches of the stuff on her skin here and there; he wondered, idly, if she played, if the blood had belonged to their friends and she really had decided to play after all.

"Are you…" Beat didn't move closer, though instinct told him he ought to. To, to, you know – hug her, at least, show her that he was concerned for her, to be the friend that he had been back when there was a gang for them. But what if she was playing, and she had a knife pressed between her belly and her legs where Beat couldn't see? No, he preferred his innards where they were, and decided that distant awkwardness was not that out of place, given the implications of Gum's current state. "Are you okay?"

"…no," she admitted, shaking her head, glancing at a rickety table that had been overturned nearby. Even in the poor lighting of this ramshackle house, he could see the shadows under her eyes, huge, dark crescents that added to her sickly appearance. Swallowing, she continued, her voice wavering as she spoke. "The blood. It was – it was everywhere. I had to get rid of the clothes, Beat, they were just warm and sticky and not mine anymore, and…" she trailed off, finally looking up to meet him in the eyes again. "You're not playing, are you?"

"No," he replied, and he surprised himself with how quickly the answer came. He shook his head gently, almost bringing his arms up to cross them over his chest – but he just couldn't manage it right, and let them drop back to his sides. "Are you?"

"No."

Beat frowned – trying to think how to manage this right. If he went too fast, Gum might suspect that he was playing…could probably hurt him if this was all an act (and was it an act? It could have been but Gum didn't seem so desperate, so shallow…then again, a lot of people he had known and trusted and loved had shown darker and secret sides of themselves here). If he went too slow, then the collars would explode and he wouldn't get proper resolution, and he needed that more than anything else.

Tick, tock, went an invisible clock between his ears and just past the base of his skull.

Gum's breasts were mostly obscured, but not quite; she hugged her legs too close to her body, so they swelled out around her knees. If the circumstances were any different, Beat would have gotten hard off it (friend or not, Gum did have a classy sex appeal to her), but all he could really do now was – was just take it in and acknowledge that, less than ten minutes from now, he wouldn't get to appreciate the sight ever again. Sometimes you had to face facts, and this wasn't an appropriate time to feel bad about it.

"Have you seen any of the others?" Beat probed. It was a natural question, one he had been asked several times in the past day, one that wouldn't cause too much suspicion in his friend.

She shook her head, slowly. "I…I met with Garam and Jazz right as soon as we left the building, but Cube – she must have got a, a knife in her kitbag and hid beside the place because before we could wait for anyone else, she attacked us – stabbed Garam – I think, I think he died there but I never went back to make sure, Jazz and I just ran."

Beat nodded, keeping his mouth in a solid line. "What about the others?"

Gum drew a deep, shuddering breath. "Jazz and I stuck together. I wanted to find you and Tab, but going back to the building was dangerous and – and if Cube could decide to start playing, what was there to stop people like, like, Clutch, or Slate? I don't know. Maybe she was cool with being a lapdog. But if she hadn't played, then maybe we could have all gotten together and solved things normally, like we shoulda done." She closed her eyes. "Sorry, I'm – it's so much to take in."

"It's okay." He tried to make his voice soothing. Wasn't sure if it worked, but he got the niggling suspicion that it sounded more feeble, or pathetic, than anything else.

"It's not. But thanks anyway." She folded her arms over her knees and bowed her head. "After that…bumped into Piranha a few hours later, but she wanted to go it alone."

"That must have been before two last night, because I found Piranha's head in the bushes when takin' a leak." Beat felt a grin crossing his lips, but the expression was so hollow that he would have had trouble convincing a blind man it was real. It was an expression of desperation more than anything else, because – he could still remember the girl's eyes staring up at him from between the foliage. "Couldn't find the rest of her. My bladder became a desert."

Gum made a noise that could have been a chuckle. Beat wasn't sure.

"I've also seen – Yo-Yo, and Mew. I don't know what happened to Yo-Yo, but he was dead when I found him. Mew was awful, though." She swallowed, and Beat noticed that she looked suddenly pallid in the grimy light. "Somebody hit her head, or something. Hit her so hard that her skull split open, and I could – I could see inside."

Beat would have shuddered Way Back Then. Not now, though. It sickened him to realize that he'd become accustomed to his friends dying like this.

Tick, tock.

"What about…what about you?"

Beat sighed and slumped over a little bit. "Combo took a bullet for me. He was okay for a few hours, but – I guess it was too much on him. He laid down to take a catnap an hour ago, get some energy back…and didn't wake up."

"Who shot at you?"

"Clutch."

"Oh." She seemed neither disappointed nor shocked at the revelation, and that apathy affected Beat greater than anything else that had happened in this meeting.

"Combo fought back – he didn't have his stereo, but you know how much of a moose he is." He paused. That wasn't right. Drawing a deep, shuddering breath, he amended himself. "Was. Punched Clutch so hard in the throat that it crushed his windpipe."

"And you still stuck by him after he killed like that?" Gum's eyes glittered, and she shuffled her feet on the rough, dirty floor.

"He wasn't playing!" Beat held up his hands and shook his head. "He – he only did it in self defense. That's different. You know?"

Gum sighed and nodded. "Yeah."

"After Clutch – we bumped into Cube, too. Dead, her throat slit."

"Ah."

"Which means Tab and Slate are unaccounted for."

Gum's eyes flickered away and she said, "We have Onishima's reports. He said they both died two hours ago-ish."

Beat felt his brow furrowing, and this time he did cross his arms over his chest. "You're awfully confident in those things. Why do you trust Onishima enough to not lie to us, 'specially after everything we put him through?"

"What'd the point be otherwise?" She scowled. "Those announcements get broadcasted all over the island. He said Tab and Slate were dead, and if they were really alive, they'd hear it too and know something was fishy. I mean, for all we know, Slate didn't use that steak knife he'd been given to – "

She froze, and Beat felt a wave of nausea threatening to overcome him. "You did see them."

She sighed and, for the longest time – too long – said nothing, keeping her gaze on the floor.

Tick, tock.

"Gum…how did you and your clothes get bloody?" Beat felt such a weight in his voice that he wasn't surprised his tongue didn't fall out his mouth right there.

"I – Slate. Jazz and I found him just as he was about to – to kill Tab, he'd already cut him so badly, and there was just blood everywhere. And I know we're not supposed to be afraid of blood – we get hurt all the time, it's part of the Rudie thing, but, but, it was coming out of Tab so fast and heavy and I could see steam rising up from where he'd been cut…" she heaved a little bit, sniffling, and, to Beat's surprise, wiped at her cheeks – tears had begun to fall, tracing crystalline trails down her face.

"Slate saw us, lunged – I got out of the way, but he got Jazz across the throat and I didn't know people had that much blood inside them and – and, there was a gun and I shot Slate and he fell on me and…"

A twinge of sympathy tugged at Beat as he watched his friend, his former lieutenant, finally crack and fall apart. The GGs had been the best gang of rollerblading, spray-painting punks Tokyo had seen in ages, and now they were all but decimated.

"So. Tab and Slate died."

"Tab bled out while I was trying to get Slate off me." Gum sniffled and buried her face in her knees. One hand snaked between her legs and her stomach. "Oh, God, I'm gonna be sick…"

"I…" Beat felt the urge to close his eyes. Of all the GGs, he'd known Tab the longest – they'd been friends since elementary school. None of the death and violence that had come from the past few hours would ever settle in properly, at least not for years to come…but Tab's would be one of the most difficult.

Tick, tock.

"So…what now?" Beat asked, but that was a silly question. He knew what came next, and Gum may have already figured it out by now, too. She was clever, after all.

"You're going to kill me," Gum replied, no hesitation, no bullshit – just cutting right to the truth. Beat felt pride welling up inside him, but it was a sickened, twisted pride writhing with leeches and oozing venom. "Because I lied about something else. I found Combo and Clutch together, and both of them had been shot. You have been playing. Right from the start."

Beat nodded, and reached into the band of his pants, withdrawing a heavy, cold pistol, the grip rugged beneath the palm of his hand. He'd been lucky. Some kitbags had – useless stuff, Clutch had gotten a toothbrush and Combo had gotten a roll of duct tape. It made them easy pickings. Other kitbags had knives, or grenades, or – or guns, and Beat had started with a gun, he started with one and he would end it all with one, too.

Tick, tock.

"Just answer one thing for me," Gum asked, meeting Beat's eyes again and biting her lower lip. "You – you were our leader. You should have been watching out for us. Trying to save us. So why? Why did you play?"

"Because…" Beat frowned. "Tons of reasons."

"Once more, with clarity."

"I guess…" The GGs' leader shrugged and felt a cold, stabbing pain develop in his chest that had nothing to do with knives. "I guess I gave up. I didn't see any way for us to escape, and I feel a little validated in thinking that knowing Cube and Slate played, too. That some of us could be corrupted, could fall to this balls-ass crazy situation we're all stuck in and not be able to find our way out." He lowered his head just a little bit, and murmured, "I killed Clutch and Combo and Mew and Yo-Yo because I didn't want them to have to be the ones bearing the burden of their sins. I would have done the same for the others if they hadn't done each other in first. The winner gets to leave this place alive, remember? I can – I can take responsibility for what I've done here."

"That's awful sweet of you." Her voice was bitter now, biting. "Save your friends by killing them."

"It's the only out I could see!" Beat protested, throwing his free arm out. Everything from the past twenty-three-and-change hours – all the atrocities he'd committed – started to rear their heads, and he, too, felt like vomiting. "Even though I'll win, I won't really win because I'll be carrying all of you around for the rest of my life! And that's assuming Onishima actually has the decency to let me go after we get back to Tokyo which, in my opinion, isn't very likely."

"…You're such a dummy," Gum murmured, shaking her head and chuckling in earnest this time, although it was a sad, dry sound. "I guess I should come clean, then, with my time running out."

Before he could register, a flash of light – tiny and shaped like a Christmas light – sparked from between Gum's thighs and shins, and there was a thundercrack in the air so close that his ears rung from the feedback, and searing pain roared up his right arm, and he fell back and and and –

Rolling, ignoring the fact that he was shouting, he knew he was shouting, and he couldn't hear it, he felt two more bullets ricochet off the dusty, gritty floor beside him saw the dust kick up into the air, realized Gum had clambered up to her feet and she held a gun in her hand as well, and it was pointed right at him –

He kicked out at her, caught her right ankle, made her stumble backwards – but she caught herself, firing two more shots (or was it three? Can't tell, can't tell), and his hand began to burn, covered in warm stickiness, and he went to pull the trigger of the gun but his fingers wouldn't respond and he could see that, that she had hit him again, that she'd blown off his trigger and middle finger with a lucky shot and the gun lay useless in his palm.

Gum marched over to the downed leader and (oh God oh God it hurts make it stop oh God) snatched the gun away from him with her free hand. She planted a bare foot against his chest and shoved him against the ground, pinning him there.

She was – she was strong. Years of doing the skating thing had made her tougher than the average girl. One arm throbbed, the hand on the other had gone numb with burning pain, and as he lay with his back pressed to the grit, his goggles gone askew, he found himself with the best view a man could have on his deathbed.

He laughed, a dry, earnest sound that reminded him of sandpaper being run across rusty pipes. A grin crossed his face, and Gum, pointing two different pistols down at his head, stared down at him from over her breasts and wore a warm, sad smile that belied just how fucked up, how passionate this moment was.

It was their last.

"While I…while I can't complain from this position…'cause I know I'm toast…" Beat shook his head, feeling shards of glass from a broken window digging into his scalp. "At least tell me the truth. Please. Last gift for a good friend."

"Men," Gum said, shaking her head as well, her smile never fading. "I knew there wasn't a way out from the start, either. But I wasn't going to give up just like that, either. So I compromised…I promised myself I'd win the game, I'd play and I'd win, and…and I'd make sure it never happened again. I refuse to become a lapdog, like Cube would have done, like Slate might have done. Call it fucked up if you want, but…this way, at least I know Rudie values won't be compromised by what's happened here. I'm going to unite all of the remaining gangs and lead them against the Keisatsu. I'm going to make sure your deaths aren't in vain. If returning to Tokyo-To alone is the price I gotta pay to guarantee it gets done right…besides. You said it yourself. You don't want any of the others to have to shoulder the burden."

"Heh," Beat chuckled, closing his eyes and drawing a ragged breath. "I knew I made you my lieutenant for a reason. Who did you wind up killing, anyway…?"

"Garam. Jazz. Piranha. Slate." Beat could hear the clips in the pistols rattling as Gum leveled them at his head, and he grinned. "You."

Thunder split the sky again, and then, nothingness.

- - -

"Five minutes and thirteen seconds left to spare," Onishima said, nodding in approval, making no attempt to mask the fact that he was ogling Gum from the opposite side of the desk set in the derelict police building. It didn't make a difference to her. Let him look, because she had done what was necessary in order to get this far. And besides, her clothes really had gotten soaked with the blood of her – of her friends, her former gangmates, and that was another sacrifice she'd been willing to make. "Your kind really do like to live on the edge. Impressive. And to kill your leader while so…undressed, well. I'd be lying if I said it didn't take stones."

"I wanted to live more than he did," she said, looking at his eyes (his wandered, of course, so making it a gesture of defiance held little point), keeping her tone strained, restricted – monosyllabic, because then the head of the Keisatsu would only think she was being recalcitrant. She hated the fact that while, on the surface, she told herself it was a lie…but the truth was that, yes, it boiled down to that in the end. Gum had put more resolve behind her reasoning, had validated herself successfully, where Beat had failed.

Two men dressed in riot gear patted her down to ensure she carried no hidden weapons (no doubt for their own entertainment, and no doubt that it would become a more invasive process, but let it be what it would be), and would shortly remove the explosive collar from around her neck.

"And vicious, too…I think I like that about you, girlie." Onishima's gravelly voice carried a stench of perversion to accompany that of cigarettes, his teeth crooked and yellow, and Gum found the man far creepier when he had something to lust after.

"Like I told you and your lot at the beginning of our little activity, you'll get to return to Tokyo-To and you'll be given a clean slate. New identity, no criminal record, a falsified history so you can obtain gainful, legal employment…and stay the fuck outta my hair." He finally brought his eyes up to hers, narrowing them with an unusual cold efficiency. "You won't tell anyone what happened here, or else it'll be the last thing you do…understand? You'll get to watch at the sidelines as we deflate your precious culture. Rudies will become a taboo, and I hope you choke on that."

"Oh, don't worry," Gum replied, scowling. "I don't plan on making your life difficult at all once I'm out of here, Captain Onishima, sir."

Onishima gave an oily grin, and mentally, Gum painted a huge bulls-eye in the center of his sleazy face. It would take time and planning…but she would make sure that no other Rudie gangs would endure the same loss she and her friends had endured over the past day.

They'd regret having fucked with the GGs.