Heads is Heads, Chapter 11
by Technomad
Mitsuko Souma
Mitsuko came awake, wondering for a second where she was, before memory kicked in. She glanced at her watch; it was about 5:00 AM, or 0500 hours, to use the 24-hour clock that the regime preferred. It was a good hour before morning "roll call," and she hadn't planned to awaken so early.
Holding very still, she listened carefully, and ice water seemed to flow through her veins. She could hear something---or someone---moving around, in the same house she was in. She shuddered involuntarily, and blessed the luck that had made her a very light sleeper, as well as a non-snorer. If she had been a deep sleeper, or had been prone to snoring, whoever was in there with her would have had a chance to find her. Her ingrained alertness had saved her, yet again.
Who was it? Probably that ridiculous little snob Toshinori. She had seen him outside earlier. She called up all her memories of Toshinori, which didn't amount to a lot. She and Toshinori had had almost nothing to do with one another; he was a rich man's son, she was the orphaned daughter of a dissident, living with extremely neglectful foster parents after her mother and the perv she had married had disappeared.
While she was an indifferent student in school, Mitsuko Souma thought that there were few people better at analyzing other people---male people, in particular---than she was. She'd had a great deal of practice, in situations where mistakes could prove fatal. She considered the odds, and, coldly, figured that she could take Toshinori down fairly easily, unless he caught her off-guard. She had noticed the way he looked at the girls in their class, with mingled longing and hatred, and she knew that her looks tended to hypnotize men, luring them in to their own destruction.
If she had to, she'd seduce Toshinori. She figured that unless he was very different from the other boys she knew, he had to be just about crazy with lust, and a smart, ruthless girl could twist such a boy around her finger at will. Boys were like other automata---press this button, and Reaction A happened, reliable as sunrise.
She heard movement in the house again, and came to the conclusion that she didn't want to meet Toshinori, if she had to meet him at all, in the dark of the house. She wasn't much of a shot, and didn't want to have to blaze away blindly; she also knew that firing off guns in a house would deafen her for some time afterwards, which did not appeal.
Slipping over to the window, she tried the latch, and smiled to herself to find that it was working. She opened the window, pushed her bag through into the bushes surrounding the house, and climbed through, quiet as a ghost. Once she was outside, she crouched in the shelter of the bushes, listening intently. She could still hear someone---Toshinori?---moving around inside the house, but there was no sign of life outside other than her. Dawn was lighting the sky as she carefully got to her feet and made for the nearby woods.
Toshinori Oda
Before being roped into the Program, Toshinori Oda had never been in anybody's house other than his own. Even if his classmates hadn't scorned him, he'd have scorned them. Visit their vulgar houses? Not him! If nothing else, the Program had offered him a chance to see how the vulgar masses lived. Of course, compared to the mansion he called home, these houses were nothing much.
He was in one of the houses, looking around for anything useful, when he thought he heard someone moving around. He froze, fear chilling his blood. Inside a house, there were endless opportunities for an ambush, and he hadn't been very careful, thinking the house had to be deserted.
Holding as still as he could, he listened carefully, straining to catch every noise that he could. Sure enough, he heard it again. It was the unmistakable sound of a window opening. Crouching in the dark, he clutched the butt of his revolver, shaking with terror. Even though he had his vest, he knew perfectly well that it only protected his chest, and a head shot, or one to a limb, could cripple or kill him just as easily as one of the vulgar masses.
Even after silence descended, he held still, sweat pouring off him; he thought he could smell the stench of his own fear. When he thought it was safe, he began cautiously moving toward the front door, eager to escape the house. From a safe place to hole up, it had suddenly started feeling very like a trap---one that could have caught him!
At the front door, he looked out across the lawn. There was no sign of movement, and he couldn't hear anything but what he thought were normal night sounds, so he finally risked moving away from the house, sticking close to the shadows and not letting himself be caught in the open.
Mitsuko Souma
Mitsuko had found herself a wonderful hiding place, deep enough in the woods that she'd be unlikely to be found, but with a clear view of the houses she had been in. Her eyes widened as she watched the house she had left; she could see a small figure in a boy's school uniform creeping out of the front door! She shuddered at the close call she had had, and made a mental note to not be so overconfident the next time.
She went over what had happened, and considered how it might have been if she'd tried shooting Toshinori---if it was Toshinori; there were at least two other boys about his size in the class---instead of just watching him. She quickly concluded that she'd been right not to shoot. She wasn't a good shot---she'd had no real experience with guns before the Program---and Toshinori-or-whoever had been far enough away to be very difficult to hit.
The weapons they had been given had all been fairly short-ranged, for obvious reasons. The people running the Program didn't fancy actually putting their own precious, irreplaceable hides in any danger, and didn't want the students they'd kidnapped in any position to turn the tables---like by being able to snipe at them from a safe distance. It was a pity, Mitsuko decided---she'd been doing quite well, but that didn't mean she liked the Program or that disgusting perv who was running it. She'd met quite a few "Yonemi Kamons" in her career as a part-time prostitute/mugger, and while she could handle them, she despised them. All the while, taking---they call it love, but it's just taking and taking, she thought, memories of her stepfather bubbling up from the depths of her subconscious where she usually kept them. Involuntarily, she shuddered.
Forcing her mind off that subject, she allowed herself a delicious few seconds of reverie, thinking about what she'd do if she had a chance at Kamon. If she could lure him someplace quiet and private, she could take her time---most of her victims, she was content to just take their money and credit cards, but for Kamon, she'd gladly make an exception. She'd come up with something for him that would horrify anybody! She could seduce him, she had no doubt; she had seen how he looked at her and the other girl students, and, even without that, she knew that she could make almost any male bark and drool.
Except Kazuo Kiriyama. At one point, she had tried seducing him, intrigued by the rumors that his family was wealthy, but she had found herself bouncing off a wall of cold indifference. It wasn't that he was gay---Mitsuko thought she could tell that right off---it was just that she didn't seem to matter to him. It was like she was part of the scenery, not a person.
Mitsuko's eyes narrowed. She knew that Kiriyama was still alive; she'd been listening carefully to the "roll call" lists of the dead, and his name hadn't been called. If she had to go up against him, she wouldn't try her usual ploys---she'd shoot first, shoot straight, and shoot to kill. No mere male had the right to be indifferent to her!
Those hoodlums that followed him around would be much less of a problem, Mitsuko thought. Except, of course, for Sho Tsukioka---he was not only gay, but incredibly open about it. How he managed to survive in school was a mystery to Mitsuko. Not to mention elsewhere---the regime was very much opposed to homosexuality. While Sho's affiliation with Kiriyama's group could explain why the other male students left him pretty much alone, it left the question of why Kiriyama and his mates tolerated Sho at all. Mitsuko knew that most males of their age loathed anything to do with homosexuality.
After a little while, she heard the premonitory crackle from the loudspeakers that warned her that "roll call" and "homeroom" were about to start. Nestling down farther in the bushes, she got out her map of the island.
"Good morning, little warriors!" As always, Kamon sounded utterly self-satisfied; a man content with the world and his place in it. "I notice that your pace has slackened somewhat. It's a pity, but I suppose that record-breaking spree couldn't be kept up for long. Even so, we've had a few losses. All boys, this time. Boy #9, Hiroshi Kuronaga. Boy #13---the unlucky Yuichiro Takiguchi. And Boy #14, Sho Tsukioka. Not as good as that burst of enthusiasm that broke out at the lighthouse, but I suppose we can't have everything, can we, little warriors?"
Mitsuko cocked a sardonic eyebrow. If that slob thinks this is so damn easy, let him put on a collar and come out to play, she thought. She, for one, would have welcomed him into the game.
Toshinori Oda
From his hiding place, Toshinori heard Kamon reciting the names of the dead. Vulgarians, one and all, he thought. Not one fit to so much as associate with me! Yuichiro, of course, he knew about---he had done the deed himself, after all---but Hiroshi and Sho's deaths were news.
No great losses there, as far as he was concerned. While he had despised Yuichiro as an otaku and a vulgarian, he had feared Hiroshi. The big hoodlum had never done anything to him, but his sheer size and his ruthless reputation ensured that Toshinori steered well clear of him.
He wondered just who had been in the house. He thought he had smelled a woman's perfume, and he knew that quite a few of the more precocious girls in their year wore the stuff. Of course, dabbing oneself with artificial scents was impossibly vulgar, but what could one expect of such creatures? All they were good for was bearing babies.
The likeliest suspects, he decided, were the members of Mitsuko Souma's clique. They had been the first girls in their class to wear makeup, and it was rumored that they did a lot more than just experiment with makeup, perfume and kissing. Even though he knew that Mitsuko herself, at least, was very poor---at least, they had had to make some sort of special financial arrangement for her to be provided with uniforms, books and school supplies---she was suspiciously well-funded when it came to things like the latest manicure craze.
Was she into enjo kosai---"subsidized dating?" Toshinori wouldn't put it past her for a second, and it wasn't just because she was vulgar, either, although that certainly colored his thinking. There were other girls, such as Takako Chigusa, who were just as vulgar, who he couldn't imagine doing such things in a thousand years.
No---Mitsuko's nickname was "Hardcore" for good reasons. She gave the impression that she didn't give a damn---not about her "friends," not about her classmates, not about anybody but Mitsuko Souma. He had overheard her talking with her friends on more than one occasion---he had not been eavesdropping; was it his fault that they chattered away when he was in earshot?---and she had made it clear that she held most people in contempt. Her friends seemed to think she made an exception for them, but Toshinori had a strong impression that secretly she despised them, too.
If I get a clear shot at her, the vulgar bitch is going down, down, down! he decided gleefully. Shifting position slightly, he peered around, hoping to catch sight of Mitsuko's tall, curvaceous figure.
Mitsuko Souma
A movement caught Mitsuko's eye, and she allowed herself a grin. She had recognized the color of their school's boys' uniform coat through a very slight gap in the foliage. If she could just get close enough!
Slowly, carefully, making as little noise as she could, she moved closer, never taking her eyes off the target. Again, she visualized herself as a kunoichi from the old days---beautiful and lethal, stalking and bringing down her target. However, unlike a real kunoichi, her only loyalty was to herself.
When she thought she was well within range, she stood up suddenly, bringing up the submachinegun and pressing the trigger, spraying the bushes where her target was hiding.
Toshinori Oda
A sudden chattering roar startled him, and he felt as though he'd been kicked in the side several times, hard. Whirling, he found himself staring at Death in the form of a beautiful girl, holding a submachinegun under one arm and firing; he could see the muzzle-flashes like the winking of a demon's eye.
Despite the impacts, Toshinori wasn't seriously hurt---his vest had saved him. He yanked out the Auto-Mag and brought it up, pulling the trigger as fast as he could. He wasn't sure if he could hit Mitsuko, but at worst, he'd make her duck and spoil her aim.
END Chapter 11.