127
Contract
"And I heard it hinted abroad that those who knew Nyarlathotep looked on sights which others saw not." – H. P. Lovecraft, "Nyarlathotep"
The pervasive unease in Tokyo had now begun to turn to panic. Strange things were happening. Earthquakes, and sudden drastic changes that no earthquake could account for. The fear spread quickly – remarkably so, since neither landline telephones nor cellphones could now be relied upon, and many televisions and radios broadcast nothing but static. Computers were also behaving oddly – everything that ran on electricity was affected in some way by the mysterious phenomenon.
Traffic had ground to a halt. Most vehicles could no longer be started, and those that had already been running seemed to be having trouble with their batteries. The trains would not run. Airline pilots found themselves deprived of their navigation instruments and communication with the ground. If the situation lasted long, emergency landings would have to made, and in that case the safety of crew and passengers would be in grave doubt.
Something had all but reduced Tokyo – and, though no one knew it, vast regions of the globe – to the pre-industrial era. Scientific experts and government officials were baffled no less than anyone else by the state of affairs. Could those Digimon be responsible? But there were no Digimon to be seen.
By now an unaccustomed quiet had fallen over the great city. Its citizens lived, talking to their family members and neighbors and coworkers, or glancing at the dead gray sky with apprehension, but the world about them was silent, eerily calm.
That calm was first broken where the streets of Tokyo met the waters of the Pacific Ocean. The gathering fear took definite shape when people who happened to be on the waterfront saw the dark objects that had begun to surface in the Bay. More of them appeared each minute, until the water was full of them. They were alive, swimming landward with ease and speed, and when they drew close enough for Tokyoites to see them clearly the commotion of terror began. When the dark shapes started to climb ashore, the commotion grew louder.
Hiraga Ayaki awoke in his darkened bedroom. A light sleeper by professional necessity, he woke listening intently, with the sense that it was a sound that had awakened him. But whatever the noise had been, it did not repeat itself. All was quiet. If anything, all was much too quiet. Thoughts of some intruder in the little apartment, holding their breath after some accidental misstep, occurred to him, but as he continued to listen he realized that the silence spoke of something more than that.
Tokyo was one of the world's largest cities. No higher than his apartment was (it was only the fourth floor), anything approaching total silence in the midst of that sleepless metropolis would seem unnatural. Yet he began to suspect that it wasn't any sound that had disturbed his sleep, but this unaccountable lack of it. Could this be the city that last night had been in the midst of a roaring panic?
Having taken in the room and determined that it was empty except for himself, Hiraga slipped quietly out of his bed and drew aside the nearest window blind just long enough to see outside. What he saw reinforced the idea that something was unusual. All vehicles were standing still in the streets with their lights off. He saw a number of pedestrians, which was nothing out of the ordinary, but their behavior struck him as strange. Most looked oddly harried, and the majority were moving in the same general direction. He could even see a police officer apparently doing his best to direct what appeared almost to be a panicked and confused evacuation.
Within the next minute Hiraga had gotten fully dressed and armed. He had no idea what was happening, but he wanted to be ready to move when the time came. Could the disturbance have anything to do with Sato and the Digimon? He'd rather expected the night before that Sato would contact him again in his dreams and give him new orders, but he couldn't remember dreaming anything at all. Maybe he should try to get in touch with his employer.
He would have called one of the numbers at which he'd previously reached Sato, but his cellphone had no reception whatsoever. That wasn't a problem he had ever had here before.
Hiraga debated with himself about what action to take, if any. The choice might be easy if only he knew what was happening. Returning to the window, he saw fewer people in the street, but saw also that other figures, black and sinister, had begun to appear. Then suddenly his attention was redirected upward as something the size of an aircraft – a dark, sinuous, living shape – flew swiftly past at a level only a story or two above him.
It could only have been a Digimon. Whatever was happening, his current job was connected to it. And yet he knew nothing about it. Everything that he had experienced since waking pointed to disaster on a larger scale than anything Sato and the rest had previously attempted, and Hiraga Ayaki had been given no role to play. All his previous doubts and anxieties rushed back in on him. Could he have finally outlived his usefulness, and been abandoned to perish amidst the common bulk of humanity?
Only last night he had been considering getting out. Perhaps the time to sever ties with his current employers had already come. Flight from the city, perhaps from Japan, would be a gamble, but he'd known for some time now that things would come to a head sooner or later. This had been one of the longest and certainly the strangest of any job he'd ever taken, and he was thoroughly sick of it.
It didn't take him long to pack – in his profession it didn't do to be rooted too securely. In an emergency like this, a single suitcase was enough, if perhaps not ideal.
Hiraga met only one or two people on his way down to the apartment building's lobby. He took the stairs, since it wouldn't have surprised him if the power had gone out for some reason, and he didn't care to get trapped in an elevator. He tread as lightly as possible, but his footfalls still seemed loud in a continued silence that was quickly becoming oppressive. He listened for movement in the lobby before leaving the shelter of the stairwell, but heard nothing.
The lobby proved to be devoid both of humans and of anything else. He wondered which of the building's several exits it would be safest to take. The street visible from his apartment windows was clearly not an option. But before he could reconnoiter further, a sound stopped him dead. Somewhere a door had opened, and unless his ears deceived him it was one of the doors abutting the very street he had ruled out. The large lobby's irregular layout prevented him from seeing who had entered, but he could hear unhurried footsteps coming his way.
The doors to the restrooms were only a few meters from where he stood, so as quickly and quietly as possible he slunk to the men's room and let himself in, taking care not to let the door close audibly.
He waited a moment, facing the door but standing quite clear of it. There had been nothing strange about those footsteps, but he didn't trust them, and their leisurely air in particular. His handgun was in his shoulder holster. If danger threatened, he wouldn't hesitate to use it. Should he draw it now? No. The new arrival might be harmless, and if he needed the gun he could have it ready in a moment.
The restroom door opened without a sound, and someone entered. Hiraga recognized him at once, though in the present circumstances he felt no sense of reassurance. It was Sato's "Dark Man." He smiled placidly and stopped just inside the door. Despite the bright fluorescent lights his features were dim.
As Hiraga stood there rapidly going over all the reasons this person could be here, and calculating how many of them meant disaster, the newcomer spoke. The voice was friendly and reassuring, though the effect was undermined somewhat by the mischievous and almost literal twinkling in the dark eyes.
"I was hoping I'd find you here, Hiraga-san. I come bearing what you may or may not consider bad news. You see, we're both out of a job. Sato's dead."
"…I see," Hiraga said after a moment. "That's too bad," he lied. If Sato's death really meant he was out of a job, then he had no remaining obligations. But he didn't trust this strangely foreign man, and couldn't help but think that actually some more sinister purpose had brought him here in person. "I suppose that means I'm free to relocate to some less volatile country, then?" Hiraga asked, attempting to force the issue.
"I suppose so," the other answered. "Though I don't think it will matter much in the end."
"I'll be going then," Hiraga said, though he felt the commonplace phrase sounded a little ridiculous in light of whatever was happening outside. In spite of his statement, neither of them moved. Hiraga shifted his weight a bit to reassure himself of his gun's presence. "I wish you luck in making sure you're paid," he added, just to say something.
"Paid?" the Dark Man repeated, as if the thought had never occurred to him before. "Oh. No, no. The work is its own reward."
Hiraga's gaze flickered over the room. He was becoming more uncomfortable by the second.
"Come to think of it, though," the Dark Man continued, speaking slowly, "there was one little thing Sato promised me for my services…"
Hiraga wasn't really listening. He was in no mood for small talk.
He happened to glance aside at the long restroom mirror.
A terrified gasp escaped him, and his gaze snapped back to the Dark Man. He had suddenly gone very pale. His lips working but unable to form words, he looked again at the mirror, and again back to the figure before him.
"Something wrong?" the Dark Man asked softly, smiling.
Hiraga's right hand flew to a place beneath his suit jacket. The gun came out and his finger pulled the trigger twice in quick succession. The reports sounded oddly muffled. The Dark Man only grinned and walked forward, heedless also of the three bullets that followed.
The next moment Hiraga felt himself lifted off the floor, and with the weapon fallen from his numb fingers he stared down in incredulous terror at the shadowy face upturned below him. Its teeth were white, its eyes wide, black, and twinkling.
The room seemed filled with the roar of chill winds. Hiraga's ribs felt clutched by burning ice. The black eyes continued to widen, the glittering specks in their depths shone more fiercely. All the world was becoming a great black hole, the boundless depths of outer space. Now the room was gone, the terrible hands were gone, Hiraga was alone and falling, falling. Falling into the stars.