Loups-Garous by Natsuhiko Kyôgoku Read Free Book Online Page B

the road at the edge of Section B was an old-fashioned personal car, one not to be ridden. Did it still run?
    â€œHer entrance is on the second floor. The ground floor is a store. Only people from China in there.”
    â€œWhat do you mean store? Is it a Real Shop?” Ayumi said that it wasn’t.
    â€œIt’s a deli that resisted the trend of distributing legal drugs like alcohol and tobacco. Even though they’re legal, people didn’t look favorably upon them, so it was impossible to get vendor licenses in the commercial zones.”
    â€œAlcohol…drug-related then.”
    Ayumi chuckled for some reason and said, “That probably wasn’t all.”
    â€œIt used to be that kind of place,” Yuko said. “…since it used to be a red-light district and all.”
    Hazuki didn’t quite understand.
    As Ayumi dithered, she had already started heading toward the buildings.
    Yuko was still getting wet from the rain.
    Hazuki selected and without inputting any more words, followed Ayumi.
    She felt Yuko’s pink lenses on her back all the way down to the corner of the block. Something was making an unrecognizable cracking sound. She turned and looked over her shoulder to find Yuko still standing there. In the distance behind her, the concrete wall was ablating, slowly falling apart.
    The city was decaying.
    No, buildings from the twentieth century weren’t made with proper materials.
    The design was passé. The windows didn’t match, and on top of it all, strange ornaments with ancient messages decorated the walls.
    She’d heard that those were called “advertisements.”
    Are advertisements like notifications? she wondered.
    Exposing so little data to the outside, and in that dirty way, making it stand out, exactly what kind of notifying purpose was it serving? Hazuki could not fathom. She could not fathom the way people in the past thought.
    The middle of the poster was blackened. There were several women in outdated fashions sitting on chairs.
    â€œYou shouldn’t peek in.”
    Ayumi circled the building as she spoke and stood by a glass door that looked like an entrance.
    She said, “This place looks old-fashioned. I wonder if we can go in,” and poked the keyboard she found at the entrance.
    â€œWe can’t use our ID cards.”
    â€œThere’s no card reader. We can’t even connect our monitors? What about vocal recognition readers?”
    â€œI’m pretty sure they had PINs back then. Otherwise we have to actually get permission from someone on the other side of the door.”
    Ayumi said what an ordeal that would be and stood in front of the door.
    The door creaked open.
    â€œIt’s open. There’s no lock.”
    The building lobby was lined with well-worn cheap imitation marble. The old elevator had long been out of service, and beyond a sliding door left open were scattered plastic utensils and empty glass bottles. Some of the walls had long since collapsed and exposed all the cables, some of which had been yanked out and connected to what looked like a golden box on the floor. There was yet another thick cable coming out of the box as if crawling on the floor and along the wall. Ayumi looked at it nonchalantly. Then glanced at Hazuki. “Let’s go?”
    â€œIsn’t it kind of amazing?”
    â€œMaybe.”
    To come all the way here just to go back? It wasn’t like the rain was going to let up anytime soon. Their uniforms wouldn’t get wet, but their hair was already soaked. Hazuki pulled the disc out of her bag.
    â€œHere,” Ayumi said as she followed the cable on the floor with her eyes.
    â€œBut…Tsuzuki has severed communications on her monitor.” Which is why we came here , Hazuki thought.
    In other words.
    She doesn’t want to see us.
    â€œIsn’t that what you were thinking?” Ayumi said. She hadn’t said anything but probably read the look on