Chapter 1

1. A Clockwork Ticket Mt. Fuji was black that morning. Yesterday, it had been white, covered in concrete, but the mountain’s surface had turned escalator black overnight. It was a sign that the long rainy season was over and summer had arrived. “It’s affected by the incline,” said the professor, who looked in the mountain’s direction as he sat on the shore. “The structural genetic field is written to form escalators where the incline passes a certain angle. At the same time, it deploys concrete roofing during periods of continual rain. Because of weather discrepancies between the peak and base of Mt. Fuji, you’ll see layers of escalator and concrete across its slope, like a piecrust. This is the principle behind White Fuji and Black Fuji.” “Uh-huh,” grunted Hiroto Mishima. He understood almost nothing of what the professor had said, but he replied anyway. Keeping the lonely old man company was one of his jobs. The partly senile man they called the “professor” had shown up in Ninety-Nine Steps about twenty years ago. Hiroto had been very young when he’d found the man crumpled up like a rag at the foot of the escalator, though he didn’t remember that anymore. Back then, the professor had sported black hair and a crisp mind, but they’d barely been able to understand each other. On the Inside, he must have lived in a region quite far from the cape. About the only thing Hiroto could understand was that the man had been a “professor” at a place Inside called the “Lab.” If he’d gotten kicked out of Yokohama Station, it must’ve been for a fraudulent Suika credential. Every now and then, the station would spit out unauthorized users like him, along with the waste goods, at the cape. Hiroto didn’t know for sure what the professor had done to get kicked out, however, and by the time the old man had grown accustomed to the language of the cape, his mind had started to slip. After delivering his speech about the layers of Mt. Fuji and the principles behind Yokohama Station’s expansion, the professor looked over to gauge his audience’s response. Only then did he recognize that it was Hiroto to whom he was lecturing. “You were leaving today,” he said. “Yeah. Thanks for everything.” “Same to you.” The cape where Hiroto lived was located at the foot of a long, long escalator—two lanes, both descending—coming from Yokohama Station Exit 1415, which is how it got the name Ninety-Nine Steps. The escalator actually had many, many more steps than that. If you stopped to rest while climbing against the escalator’s descending rotation, it would send you back down in no time. Climbing all the way to the top of the Ninety-Nine Steps was a test of courage for the children of the cape—proof you’d finally come of age. At the top of the escalator was a dump they called the flower field. After walking across it for a while, you would reach the ticket gates of Yokohama Station, the entrance to the Inside. To Hiroto and the other children, that was the extent of the world. They were born outside of the station and didn’t have Suika memberships, so they couldn’t get Inside. Aside from sailing a boat to trade with one of the other colonies dotting the shoreline, they were destined to spend their entire lives clinging to the cape. “Hey. You going?” Yosuke was at the top of the escalator. He was a cleaner here at the flower field, making use of the garbage dumped out of Yokohama Station. Every day, things like expired food and mechanical parts came flowing out of the station. The cleaners sifted through it for anything that could be used and sent whatever was salvageable down the escalator, tossing everything else into the dust chute near the entrance gates. Nobody knew where the dust chute went. “Signal’s strong today. A new tower must have grown nearby. Weather’s good, too. The right kind of day to leave on a trip,” Yosuke remarked, banging away on a terminal keyboard. The towers for Yokohama Station’s internal network, Suikanet, were only found Inside. If you were somewhere very close, though, like the flower field, sometimes you could pick up stray signal waves. Unfortunately, the tower locations changed from moment to moment, making the signal volatile and inconsistent. “Check it out. I got this picture from the net. A climber must’ve taken it,” Yosuke said, pointing at an image of a sign. It was one of the common internal guideposts. It read: YOKOHAMA STATION, HIGHEST ELEVATION - 4,012 METERS ABOVE THE SEA. “At the peak of Mt. Fuji?” Hiroto asked. “Yeah. The natural peak is only about 3,800 meters, I hear. The station keeps piling up higher, though, and now it’s over 4,000,” Yosuke replied. Black Fuji was visible from the windows of the flower field. The mountain had once been a volcano with snow, soil, and all the rest. In the two hundred years since Yokohama Station had started expanding, however, there were virtually no natural mountains left on the island of Honshu. “So did you find what I asked you for? Detailed maps of the station and stuff?” Hiroto inquired. “I tried but had no luck. All this system does is trawl for packets coming off the Suikanet, so I can’t tell it to look for specific information. If I had proper Suika authorization, I’m sure I could do a lot more,” Yosuke answered longingly, switching the image on the screen. It displayed a diagram. “This is the latest map I’ve found. Just a partial layout from twenty years ago. Based on the location names, I think it’s around the Oshika Peninsula in Miyagi. Want to take it?” Hiroto only grimaced. “Yeah, you’ll have better luck looking for one in there. I’m sure the information for Inside residents is much better than out here,” remarked Yosuke. “That’s true,” Hiroto said, scratching his cheek. Yosuke took a slug of flat cola. “Yosuke, you should go back down sometime. Your mom’s worried.” “No way. All I do is eat and sleep these days; my legs have gone soft. I’ll never get back up the escalator if I go down now.” Yosuke’s body was much rounder than it had been the previous time Hiroto had seen him, at the end of last year. It was impossible to recognize the boy he’d once raced to see who could get to the top of the escalator first. “What about you?” Yosuke asked. “You’re just going to leave Maki behind? You could have asked her to come with you.” “An 18 Ticket lasts five days for one person. If I split it two ways, the time is halved. That’s what Higashiyama told me.” “Uh-huh. Well, if you never come back, I’ll take care of her for you.” “How about you take care of yourself first. Find something else to do with your life aside from eating what comes out of here,” Hiroto said. “Nah, it’s fine. We’re the ones supporting life in Ninety-Nine Steps. The people below get it,” Yosuke insisted, cackling. Those living on the cape farmed what little land they had and sent out boats for fishing and trade. Like Yosuke, some also cleaned the garbage, but there wasn’t nearly enough work to go around. For one thing, the amount of food dumped from Yokohama Station was far more than needed to support the number of people on the tiny spit of land. Hiroto didn’t have a steady job there, so he typically spent his days staring out at the sea and keeping the professor company. One constant concern was the relative uncertainty around the food that Yokohama Station dumped. If the flow of garbage changed due to some whim of the station, it could mean the end of the food supply in Ninety-Nine Steps. Stories told of more than a few colonies that had died out this way. “A life independent of the station,” the village elder liked to urge, but in reality, the food they produced on their own was just a pittance, a way to pass the time. Several of the villagers sardonically called themselves “Yokohama Station livestock.” Hiroto thought livestock were supposed to serve a purpose for the station in that case, but he couldn’t begin to imagine what would be considered meaningful to the megastructure. Hiroto left Yosuke’s side and headed for the entrance. The automated turnstiles threw up their arms to block his way in. “Suika not recognized. Please present your Suika credentials or a valid entrance ticket,” demanded the six turnstiles in unison. The feminine voice did not match their stark, metallic bodies. “I’ve got this.” Hiroto removed a small box-shaped device from his pocket. “18 Ticket detected. It will be valid for five days from this point on, once activated. When the five days are over, you will be removed from the station. Please touch the screen to indicate that you agree to these terms.” A button reading, I AGREE TO THESE TERMS AND CONDITIONS, appeared on the turnstile’s face panel. Hiroto tapped it. “Welcome to Yokohama Station,” it said. “Thank you for your visit.” The arms of the turnstiles slowly, heavily lowered. Hiroto squeezed through and went Inside. It was his first time entering Yokohama Station and the first visit for any Ninety-Nine Steps resident in decades. The man from the Dodger Alliance showed up at Ninety-Nine Steps about a year before Hiroto left. The fishermen had rescued the thirty-year-old man and brought him to the cape. He was small and pale—traits shared by many Insiders—with narrow eyes that made him look like a fox. He called himself Higashiyama. Yokohama Station pushed up against the coast everywhere around the cape, but there was enough space to walk along it during low tide. Despite being tagged for Suika violation, the outcast had managed to evade the automated turnstiles, until they’d eventually caught him near Kamakura and spit him out at the shore. He’d walked all the way to Ninety-Nine Steps from there, in search of civilization. “I’m one of the lucky ones. The rest of my alliance got caught by the turnstiles inland. I managed to escape all the way to the coast.” “What happens if you get caught inland?” Hiroto had asked. Higashiyama’s expression had twisted in disbelief at Hiroto’s ignorance as he answered, “The turnstiles don’t just kill you for unauthorized use. They’ll knock you out with tranquilizers or tie you up with ropes, then toss you into the nearest spot outside of the station. That’s what makes it so bad if you get caught inland.” Even now, when Yokohama Station covered nearly all of Honshu, there were places inland where the ground gave way into holes unoccupied by the structure. These were known as “station hollows.” When automated turnstiles caught unauthorized visitors, they mechanically transported and ejected them into the nearest hollow. In most cases, these were barren, mountainous regions with nothing to eat. Once stuck there, one’s only option was to wait to die from cold and hunger. If you were exiled at the coast, however, you stood a chance of happening upon a human settlement by walking along the shoreline. That was why this man had snuck past the automated turnstiles and fled for his life toward the coast. “My crime was rebellion against Yokohama Station,” Higashiyama had boasted. He seemed to think he was better than your average violator. It wasn’t rare for Suika exiles to wash up at Ninety-Nine Steps. The most common reason for getting kicked out was “causing trouble for employees or fellow guests” by harming or killing other people. The second-most common crime was “destruction of property.” Many of these exiles were from the bottom rung of Inside society, and while people like the professor—who couldn’t even speak the same language—were rare, most of them didn’t want to talk about their stories once they were at the cape. Consequently, the people of Ninety-Nine Steps barely knew anything about what went on Inside. Higashiyama was a rare exception, as he was exceedingly chatty. Plenty of people, including Hiroto, had gathered to hear him talk at first. He informed them that he was a member of a group called the Dodger Alliance. “So what’s the point of that alliance?” someone had asked. “What’s the point? What else would it be? To free humanity from Yokohama Station’s control,” Higashiyama replied. Hiroto didn’t understand why that was so obvious, but he was willing to take the man’s word for it. “What does that mean, ‘free humanity’? You’re not talking about just going outside of the station? You had a Suika, so you could come and go as you please.” “You might find it difficult to understand,” Higashiyama began, “But originally, humanity controlled the station. Our leader always said, ‘Let’s put an end to this life of being dominated by the station.’ You’ve got to move past this miserable existence of sifting through the refuse it dumps on you.” Higashiyama always talked down to the people of Ninety-Nine Steps like this, and those who’d initially been fascinated by his stories eventually lost interest. After a few months, only Hiroto would go to listen to him. Eventually, winter arrived, and Higashiyama’s health deteriorated. It was common for people who came from Inside to have trouble bearing the outside environment. The professor gave some complicated explanation involving the term “immune system,” but all Hiroto really took away from it was that the people who grew up in the ideal Inside environment had weak constitutions. “I need to ask you to do something.” Higashiyama made a request of Hiroto when things really took a turn for the worse. “I want you to save our leader, who’s still in Yokohama Station, hiding from the turnstiles. Everyone else has been caught. You’re the only one I can ask.” “Help? What do you mean?” Hiroto prompted. Higashiyama pressed a little palm-sized box device into Hiroto’s hand. “That’s an 18 Ticket. We found it on one of the older floors Inside. With this, even someone without a Suika implant has free access to the station.” Hiroto took it. The 18 Ticket was hefty for its size. The little screen read, “Valid period: Five days after activation.” “Our leader’s a genius. If anyone can find a way to free the Inside and this village from Yokohama Station, it’s them.” That was the last thing Higashiyama said before he died. The first person Hiroto told about the 18 Ticket was the cape’s elder. He thought that if the valid period was five days for one person, perhaps they should find someone better suited for it than he was. However, the elder had insisted, “You’ve always talked about wanting to see the Inside world, ever since you were a child. You should go.” No one else argued for the ticket, either. If any of them were curious about Inside, the thought of the terrifying faces of the turnstiles caused them to shrink from the idea. The only person who expressed displeasure at the notion of Hiroto’s journey was the elder’s niece, Maki. When he told her about the scheme at his house, she’d asked, “Why would you do something so dangerous? You don’t owe Higashiyama any favors.” She was furious that Hiroto had decided to go off on his own without her input. “It’s not out of obligation. I just want to go. Helping his group’s leader or whatever is just the cost of admission. I don’t even know where this ‘leader’ is,” Hiroto admitted. “I see. You always hated this cape. You were just waiting for an opportunity to escape, and here it is.” “…I’ll come back. I mean, I can only be Inside for five days.” “You should find some other exit, then, and spend the rest of your life over there. It’s what you’ve always wanted,” Maki had spat. Then, she stormed out of the house. Not a moment later, Hiroto’s neighbor, the professor, appeared. The shouting had roused him. Hiroto told him about the 18 Ticket and his decision to go Inside. “Oooh. So you’re going on a journey Inside,” the professor had remarked. Typically, his mind was distant and his eyes stared far away, but in that instant, he was sharp and present. “Yeah.” “Will you be back for dinner?” “That’s the plan. I just don’t know which dinner.” “When are you going?” “Once I’m ready for it.” “Where are you going?” “I haven’t decided yet. I’m supposed to search for someone, but I don’t know where they are.” “Go to Exit 42.” “…42.” “You’ll find the answers to everything there.” Hiroto didn’t know what it was the professor was talking about. His mind was very soft these days, and he often spoke nonsense. There were moments like these, when his words carried great certainty, however, as though delivering a prophecy. “Exit 42. Where is that?” Hiroto asked. “Yokohama Station.” “Yokohama Station is everywhere.” “That’s right. It’s everywhere. It’s there, too,” the professor replied, pointing at the escalator. Following his finger led the eye to a sign for YOKOHAMA STATION EXIT 1415. Hiroto gathered up his belongings—which didn’t take very long. He looked for anything that could be used as a weapon, but he owned nothing that would help him against the automated turnstiles. Even the fishermen’s harpoons wouldn’t do him much good if they alarmed the Insiders. Ultimately, he just took enough food and water for the trip, a few personal items, and his favorite shoulder bag. “You wanna use the elevator, it’s five hundred milliyen,” said the annoyed, fat, middle-aged woman before the door. These were the first words Hiroto heard uttered by a human being Inside. “Eight hundred for a round trip. That’s a deal—it’ll take you two hours to walk all the way to Kurihama.” Hiroto had been walking north for thirty minutes, up Yokohama Station Corridor 5772156, which led away from Ninety-Nine Steps. He’d imagined Inside being a bustling, active place, but nothing could’ve been further from the truth. The only things wandering around besides him were the automated turnstiles. He was starting to get worried when he finally came across a living person: this elevator manager. “Elevator?” Hiroto asked her. He was looking at a metal door with a glass window, through which he could see a small coffin-like room, about one meter tall and three meters wide. The door opened up and down, apparently. A placard read, OCCUPANCY: 6, but it was sideways, for some reason. “It’s a vehicle?” Hiroto asked. “That’s right. You never been on an elevator before? Get in this, and it’ll take you twenty minutes to get to Kurihama. Less than ten years since it grew, so it’s an easy ride, not much shaking.” Hiroto had heard of the place called Kurihama. It was on the coast if you sailed east from Ninety-Nine Steps by boat, but Yokohama Station cramped the land tightly to the water thereabouts, and no one would dare settle there. There was only a shed where the cape’s fishers stored some tools, and in the summer, residents from Inside sometimes came out to swim. “No, I don’t want to go there. I’m looking for directions. Do you know where Exit 42 is?” “Forty-two? I’ve never even heard of a number that low. If you want directions, you should use that terminal there,” the woman explained, pointing down the corridor. There was a machine there, like one of the automated turnstiles without arms. Its legs were attached to the wall, so this was not one of the mobile types. “There’s plenty of people in Yokosuka, so you could try asking there, too.” “Yokosuka. Is there an elevator to get there?” “Not that I’ve ever seen. Elevators never grow where you really need them, and if they do, the big companies and yakuza fight over them.” The large woman sighed. “My husband was the first person to find this one, but hardly anyone comes here. It’s an easy job, but we get almost nothing from it. My husband was a station explorer, and he was so excited about finding treasure buried under here. Now I wish he’d found himself a better job, because this elevator was about the only useful thing he discovered.” The woman had probably been guarding this elevator all on her own and was dying for someone to talk to again. “You shouldn’t wander around too much, dressed all strange like that. The staff is all on edge lately, what with the saboteurs from the north around.” “Staff? What’s that?” Hiroto asked, much to the woman’s surprise. “You don’t know what staff are? They’re the ones who capture people who do bad things,” she explained with a tone one would’ve used with a child. “You mean the automated turnstiles?” “What? What are you talking about? Why would the automated turnstiles be staff?” “Oh, of course. I get it now. Thanks.” Hiroto ended the conversation there. He didn’t want to expose too much of his ignorance and reveal that he was from outside, without a Suika. Perhaps an update in wardrobe was in order as well. His outfit was a patchwork of clothes dumped from Yokohama Station, so it was probably old-fashioned by Inside standards. The fixed terminal had grown a long time ago. The paint was peeling from its cabinet, and the metal parts were rusting here and there. When Hiroto touched the screen, it came to life and displayed a colorful menu title that read, YOKOHAMA STATION SUIKANET KIOSK TERMINAL. Below this were two touch-screen buttons. USE AS A PAID MEMBER (SUIKA MEMBERSHIP REQUIRED) USE FOR FREE (AD VIDEO WILL PLAY) Hiroto hit the free option. Bright, happy music began blaring loudly from the speakers on the side of the screen. On the display itself was a video of the familiar sight of Black Fuji. The escalator steps were clearly visible. The footage had been taken from somewhere much closer to the mountain than Ninety-Nine Steps. “This summer, why not take the whole family to Mt. Fuji? Its elevation rises year after year and it currently stands at 4,050 meters. If you’ve climbed it before, why not set a new record? Escalators along all routes make it easy for children and seniors! We offer plans with food and lodging included, starting at 35,000 milliyen per person. For more details, reach out to Suikanet #0120-XXX-XXX.” With obnoxious fanfare, the commercial ended abruptly, and the screen switched back to the menu. “How can we help? (1) Looking for an object (2) Looking for a person (3) Looking for a place (4) Looking for work (5) Keyword search (6) Return to the home screen.” Hiroto mulled over the idea of searching for Higashiyama’s leader with the second option, but if that person was on the run from the automated turnstiles, Suikanet probably wouldn’t find them, and doing so might put Hiroto himself in danger. Instead, he chose Looking for a place. “Tell me where Exit 42 is,” Hiroto spoke into the mic. “Searching for Exit 42…” An hourglass icon spun on the screen for ten seconds before the results showed up. “1 hit found.” The map it displayed was straightforward. It seemed to be a topographic chart of a mountainous area covered with dense, contoured lines. Right in the middle was a dot marked EXIT 42. There were no other facilities or points of interest around it. Pressing the EXPAND button until it zoomed out as much as possible only made the details harder to discern and provided no help in deducing Exit 42’s general location. It seemed that the station map’s guidance system could only display up to one kilometer in each direction at the most. Hiroto considered his options and said, “How do I get there? Tell me the route and travel time.” “Searching for a route from your present location to Exit 42…” the screen replied. Within a second, it changed to, “Route does not exist.” “What does that mean? Is it too far?” The terminal did not answer. Hiroto hit the START OVER button to go back to the menu, and another loud video ad played. Hiroto repeated the process several times in different ways but never arrived at any information about how to get to Exit 42. Over time, the ads became more attractive to him than what he actually sought. After thirty minutes of grappling with the machine, he had gleaned the following: - Exit 42 was in a distant mountain range somewhere. - The primary tourist spots for Yokohama Station were Mt. Fuji, the colossal sea wall in Iwate, Ise Grand Shrine in Mie, and the ruins of the ancient city of Nagoya, among others. - The famous traditional dish of the Yokosuka area was curry rice. A new restaurant called Kaiji had just opened last week, with an unbeatable grand opening special on its extra-large plate for only 400 milliyen, a total steal. - Yokohama Station’s popular animated series, Mr. Shyumai, would be getting a new feature film next week titled Mr. Shyumai Goes to Space. - Mr. Shyumai was a shumai dumpling–shaped robot (foodroid) from the future. After children abandoned him, he died and became a ghost. Whenever he spotted a child being a picky eater and leaving food behind, he blasted them with a million-volt shock of lethal electricity. The important thing was that Yokosuka was the central city in this area. According to the sign overhead, it was 12,000 meters to Yokosuka (150 minutes). Hiroto was used to walking on the craggy ground of the cape, so a distance like that, over flat pavement, was an easy task for him. The corridor heading north from Ninety-Nine Steps was piled high with dust. The braille blocks had fallen off the walls, and the ceiling lights flickered constantly. Eventually, the sunlight filtering in would grow scarce, and Hiroto wouldn’t be able to see without a flashlight. Like the guard at the elevator had said, there was no one walking this hall. “I thought Inside would be cleaner,” Hiroto muttered. He’d imagined the entirety of the station would look like what Yosuke had pulled off the Suikanet—a major city with people coming and going. In a metropolis like that, new corridors were continually growing and grouping into thick bunches like overworked muscles. But the area around Ninety-Nine Steps held nothing of interest for the people Inside. It was like the appendix of Yokohama Station. The only ones who ever emerged here were swimmers on their way to Kurihama and railroad geeks. The latter would look at the signs and advertisements the station walls grew and bask in the historic atmosphere they created. I guess I should go to Yokosuka. I’m sure I’ll find something there, thought Hiroto. “Now then, let’s hear your explanation for this,” said the staff member in the long-sleeved uniform to his two subordinates. It was two o’clock in the afternoon. The temperature outside had reached eighty-six degrees, but the Yokosuka security station was as cool as an underground basement. In the busier, urban parts of the station, the growth of new corridors stacked the structure in layers, but the sun’s heat didn’t reach the lower areas. “Yes, sir. This man just ordered a curry rice plate at the recently opened Kaiji in the restaurant district on the third floor,” replied a thin staffer. SATO, NINTH-CLASS EMPLOYEE, was written on the name tag on his chest. “Uh-huh. And?” “This dish is a popular item at Kaiji. It’s intended to conjure images of the era when curry first made its way from India to Yokohama Station,” offered the heavier ninth-class staffer. His name was Shio. “That’s hardly pertinent.” “Yes, sir. Sorry, sir.” Hiroto was at their mercy. He looked at the thick, heavy uniforms of the employees and thought they’d suffer heat exhaustion if they wore them outside. There was a machine that looked like an air conditioner in the room, but the plug and pipes were removed. It obviously hadn’t been used for a long time. “The price of the curry rice, including food sanitation tax, consumer tax, and station heat use tax, is 400 milliyen,” Sato continued. “Uh-huh. And?” “The food sanitation tax the station management agency collects represents the minimum cost needed to support a secure and healthy food system Inside,” Shio, the other subordinate staffer, explained. “Again, hardly pertinent.” “Yes, sir. Sorry, sir.” “Consequently, when the waiter presented this man with a bill for 400 milliyen after his meal, he handed back this metallic token,” elaborated Sato. “Uh-huh. And what is it?” asked Sixth-Class Employee Motosu as he peered at the item in question. It fit into the palm of his hand and had the number 500 stamped on it. “Ah, I know what this is. It’s called a coin. They used to settle payments with pieces of metal like this in the days before Suika. I didn’t know they still existed.” “I am impressed by your erudition and the generosity of your knowledge, Mr. Motosu,” said Sato. From Hiroto’s location, he had a glimpse of Motosu’s device screen in the mirror. The man seemed to be distributing points to Sato and Shio for each of their comments. That last one had earned Sato five points. “So based on his physical currency and clothing, I can only assume this fellow has time-traveled here from the past. I’ll call him Samurai Man,” Motosu concluded. “Yes, sir. Very good, sir,” chimed the subordinates. “That was a joke. You were supposed to laugh.” “Aha-ha-ha-ha-ha!” they roared. Motosu took ten points away from them both. “Anyway. There’s nothing wrong with presenting an antique like this at an eating establishment. It doesn’t violate the law. So what’s the problem?” Motosu inquired. Shio answered, “Well, sir, according to the employee at Kaiji, after presenting this currency, the man fled the restaurant. I caught him later, but there was an error with his Suika payment device, and the transaction couldn’t be completed.” “In other words, he ate without paying due to lack of funds,” Motosu reasoned. “Well—” Shio started to say, but Sato eagerly cut him off. “That’s right, sir.” Hiroto was unaware that physical currency wasn’t used Inside. He knew from talking to exiles that transactions were conducted through Suika, but he mistakenly assumed the money used outside the station would also be valid Inside. He’d brought five days of rations just in case, but his desire to eat curry in Yokosuka had been his undoing. About an hour earlier, Hiroto had just finished his curry and handed the waitress his coin. She gave him a confused look, but said, “Thank you,” and slipped it into her pocket. After that, another employee brought Hiroto a Suika terminal and stated, “Here is your bill, sir.” Hiroto, thinking he’d already paid, didn’t want to submit to a Suika scan and tried to flee the restaurant. Shio happened to be nearby and caught him. When he pressed the Suika reader to the back of Hiroto’s head, the device gave an error: Suika brain waves not detected. Neither the waiters nor Shio had ever seen that error before, so Shio called Sato at the station for help, and they’d brought in Hiroto together. “The crime of eating without payment means that we must confirm this man’s identity,” Sato stated. “Uh-huh. And?” Motosu said. “But to use Suika’s personal information cross-reference function, we must submit a cross-reference approval form, stamped by a station employee of fourth-class or above,” Sato continued. “Uh-huh. And?” “Because today is Saturday, no fourth-class or higher staffers are working at the management agency, so we cannot request the form,” Shio finally finished. “You are the very model of a station employee for reporting to work on the weekend, Mr. Motosu,” praised Sato. Hiroto was impressed by their ability to talk so promptly on demand while saying so little of importance. “Uh-huh. And?” “Therefore, I believe we will need to keep him in the holding area until his treatment can be determined. That will require the permission of a seventh-class or higher employee, which is why we have called upon you, sir,” said Sato. “Uh-huh. Well, go ahead and do that. Carry on,” Motosu responded as he pressed the SEND button on his device. On the screen were the words, Employee Ninth-Class Sato: 520 pts remaining until promotion to Eighth Class. Employee Ninth-Class Shio: 143 pts remaining until termination. “As for you, Samurai Man, you’re going into the holding cell for eating without payment,” Sato declared, pulling Hiroto up by the cuffs. Only the chain linking the cuffs was metal. The parts around his wrists were made of hardened rubber. “You’re lucky,” Shio whispered into his ear. “Last year, an employee hurt a prisoner with the all-metal cuffs, and he got arrested by the turnstiles. That’s why we have these now.” The two employees escorted Hiroto to the holding cell. While Shio was the larger of the two, he was still more compact than Hiroto. From walking around Yokosuka, Hiroto had observed that the people Inside were just smaller in general. It made him wonder if living in cramped interior environments had made their bodies shrink naturally. According to the staffers, Hiroto wasn’t going to be released for at least another two days. Given it would take that long just to get his personal information verified by Suika, he couldn’t begin to guess how long they would keep him locked up once they learned he didn’t have a Suika at all. It was only the afternoon of Hiroto’s first day Inside, but his journey was already in danger of ending. The holding cell was a space about the size of a bedroom. It was also already inhabited. “Yo. Look at this young fella! What’d you do to get thrown in here?” asked the man, who looked to be around fifty. Like all Inside residents, his skin was pale, but his hands were dark and dirty like he was used to doing hard labor. “Just eating without paying,” Hiroto replied. “Ahh. That’s unfortunate. You a student?” “You could say that.” Hiroto didn’t know what a student was, but going along with the other inmate’s assumption seemed for the best. He could see that Shio was standing outside the door. He didn’t want to talk too much and give away information that might identify himself. The room held four beds and one toilet. The metal door bore a sign that read, EMERGENCY EXIT. It was the kind that locked from the inside, but they’d stuck a padlock on the outside. It must have been a generic room the station had generated that the staff had turned into a holding cell. There was one light on the ceiling, and the walls and floor were concrete. “Well, they won’t do too much to ya for an eat-and-run. If you need work, I can help you with that,” the man offered. “What kind of work?” “Sellin’ cigarettes.” He explained how his job worked. First, the spelunkers found the vending machines that grew here and there in Yokohama Station. They were station property, of course, so if you destroyed them, the automated turnstiles would come. You could, however, buy their wares legitimately with your Suika and then sell them to the right customers for several times the machines’ base price. Smoking was against the law Inside as a general rule and could get you arrested by the automated turnstiles, but not if you went to the designated smoking areas. Separate from the turnstiles, however, the staffers also forbade smoking—including at the smoking areas—and would levy fines on you. “They just wanna make rules and boss you around, whatever it takes to do that. ‘Oh, we’re upholding the safety by following the code of Yokohama Station and the automated turnstiles,’ they say, but they’ll make up rules the turnstiles don’t care about so they have somethin’ to do. And they demand taxes for every little thing. They’re the worst,” the man grumbled. While he was talking, Hiroto worked on formulating an escape plan. They were in a concrete room without windows. The door was locked from the exterior, but the padlock itself probably wasn’t station property, so the automated turnstiles wouldn’t care if someone broke it. How could Hiroto break a padlock without damaging the door, though? “Believe it or not, I’m a well-known cigarette carrier. Pretty much any vending machine spelunker in the Yokosuka area works for me,” the middle-aged man bragged. “But you got caught. What are you going to do now?” asked Hiroto. “Not a problem for a guy with connections like mine. The second-class staffer here is a real heavy smoker, you see, and we got a nice arrangement goin’. One of my boys brings him a carton tomorrow, and he’ll see that I’m released.” Then that would be his opportunity to escape, Hiroto decided. Sato was thin and small. Alone, he could easily be overpowered. If it was Shio, who was larger, or both of them at once, though, it would be more difficult. It didn’t seem like the staffers carried weapons, but there was still the chance that someone with an 18 Ticket was subject to the same laws against violence that the automated turnstiles enforced. In any case, if there were a chance to escape, it would be tomorrow. For now, Hiroto would rest and conserve his strength. He got into one of the beds and pulled up the blanket, which smelled of tobacco. Surprisingly, the chance for a jailbreak came sooner than expected.