Chapter 3
It was quite chilly outside. Cold exhaust fumes seeped in through the open spaces above the narrow railings.
I closed the creaking door of my room, Kabuki Condominium unit 0973, and looked towards the window.
The sky beyond the window was the color of a television after broadcast.
*...Just something I'd always wanted to say.*
I shoved my hands into my pockets and headed towards the building's elevator hub.
“Yo, Masked Asian.”
From my left, a cocky voice and a pungent smell wafted over. It was someone calling out to me.
Masked Asian, that was my nickname.
Not many people wore such a conspicuous Anti-Dust Mask, and among them, 'real Asians' like me were even rarer. That distinctiveness became a sort of moniker for me within the complex.
I turned to see a Hispanic man with bronze skin and a yellow mohawk leaning against the railing in front of the apartment door right next to mine, looking my way.
On his forearm, a Yakuza carp tattoo glowed with a purple argon sign, seeming to pulse.
It was skin-implant cyberware. Organic light-emitting diodes embedded in his flesh purely for aesthetics. I've never understood the appeal of those tattoos, then or now.
“Whoa, still got that stuffy mask on, huh? When are you planning to take it off?”
As he spoke, the man took the cigarette from his mouth and *whooshed* out a puff of smoke. The nicotine-laced aerosol hit my face directly. Thanks to the mask, I didn't feel much.
That wasn't a real cigarette. Of course not.
In this world, cigarettes made from actual tobacco leaves had long since become a luxury item reserved for the rich.
That was a fake cigarette, an e-cigarette, made to look quite similar to a real one.
Inside that fiber, there would be a liquid cartridge and an atomizer. The nicotine, too, would be a chemical compound, not extracted from tobacco.
It was the kind of flashy cigarette a Gangster would use, and that was also natural. Because that man *was* a Gangster.
The man's name was Shimizu Dick.
As his tattoo clearly showed, he was Yakuza. This neighborhood, Asian Town, was firmly controlled by Japanese Mafia.
Though they were called Japanese Mafia, only the names and formalities were Japanese; in reality, they were all Westerners.
What organization did that guy belong to again? Shimizukosan, was it?
*Probably. That's why he had 'Shimizu' attached to his name. They say there's a culture where you have to change your surname to become a member, a 'family' of the organization.*
Anyway, that man, Shimizu Dick, was my next-door neighbor, living in the room to the left of mine.
My place was unit 973 on the 10th floor, so he lived right next door in 974.
In short, my next-door neighbor was a Gangster. In Dusk City, that was pretty common.
Even for a Gangster, he wasn't *that* bad. Just a bit annoying with his punk-like antics. At least, that's how it seemed from our interactions so far.
Since the building was so cramped and the rooms were packed tightly together, I was bound to run into my neighbors at some point. At first, his glowing tattoos and rough way of speaking intimidated me a bit, but after a few conversations, we actually got along pretty well.
He was surprisingly humorous and sociable for someone who made a living from crime. You could say he was a natural-born extrovert.
*For an outsider like me, his style was a bit much, but what could I do? He was a Gangster, after all.*
*What if I ignored him and he held a grudge and shot me? In this city with its terrible public safety, that was entirely possible.*
For that reason, I made an effort to be as friendly as possible, and we ended up getting somewhat close.
Not friends, but the kind of casual acquaintances who'd greet each other and exchange a few words if they met in passing.
That was the relationship between me and that mohawked Yakuza, Shimizu Dick, who was called the Rooster Comb Man.
The reason he was called the Rooster Comb Man was simple. His mohawk was styled like a rooster's comb, and it was bright yellow, drawing everyone's attention.
*He didn't seem to like it, but what could he do? You can't choose your own nickname.*
People in this neighborhood had a culture of calling each other by nicknames rather than their given names, so just as I was 'Masked Asian,' Shimizu became the Rooster Comb Man.
*Whoosh—*
The Rooster Comb Man blew smoke at me again. The white stream of vapor enveloped my mask's goggles.
*Seriously, why does he keep rudely blowing nicotine in my face?*
I frowned and waved my hand to clear the smoke, and only then did he stop blowing it, grinning.
“Ah, my bad. You weren't answering, just staring blankly into space, so I thought maybe you were high or something.”
*You're the one who's always high.*
*Still, at least today it's just a regular cigarette, not weed.*
*Anyway, an answer, huh? Come to think of it, Rooster Comb Guy asked me something earlier. Was it about my mask?* It was a trivial matter. I replied in a gruff voice.
“If the air quality in this neighborhood ever gets better, then maybe I'll take off my mask.”
*And that day will never come. In other words, I wasn't taking it off.*
The level of environmental pollution in Dusk City was horrific. It wasn't called 'world-ending' for nothing.
Water and land were so contaminated that even ordinary agricultural products became the exclusive preserve of the rich, almost impossible for common folk to access. A thick smog covered the entire city, and fine dust levels had shot through the roof.
Fine dust concentrations routinely exceeded 1000㎍/㎥ every day. In the old world, that would have been headline news as the worst fine dust ever, but here, it was just everyday life.
Even this was relatively better because it was inside the city's boundary, within the Shielding Dome. I'd heard that the Outside beyond the city wasn't just polluted; it was practically a land of death where human survival was impossible.
So, wearing this Anti-Dust Mask—which had multiple filters, a small air purification device, and face-protecting goggles, and was ridiculously large and thick, almost like a Gas Mask, drawing a lot of attention—was unavoidable for me.
It wasn't a choice, but a necessity. To survive, I absolutely had to wear a mask when going outside. I also had to have air purification systems and clothing sanitizers installed at home.
Otherwise, my lungs would be shredded in real-time. Since the air wasn't just ordinary exhaust fumes but filled with heavy metals and toxic substances from military factories, going outside without a mask? It was practically suicide.
*Of course, many people didn't.*
“Ha, what a coward. The machines filter all that out for you.”
The mohawked Yakuza, a prime example, said this while pointing to his neck.
His throat, nose, mouth... that guy had Air Purification Cyberware built directly into his respiratory system.
It was one of the essential Body Modifications needed to live in such polluted air. Thanks to it, most people could walk around perfectly fine even in this filthy air, without wearing an uncomfortable and stuffy mask like mine.
*It would be great if I had such an automatic purification system built into my body. No need for a mask every time, with mask filters already lining my respiratory organs—how revolutionary!*
*However, I couldn't enjoy that innovation. I wasn't called Masked Asian and constantly walking around with a suffocating Anti-Dust Mask for no reason. I didn't wear it because I wanted to. I wore it because there was no other way.*
*This thing was also ridiculously expensive. Not just the unit itself, which blocked pollutants almost perfectly, but the cost of replacing the purifiers every time was substantial. For me, getting a respiratory Body Modification would be better. If I could have gotten it, I would have.*
*Which meant there was a reason I couldn't.*
*First, that purification cyberware, which city dwellers typically paid to have installed at birth or upon immigration, simply didn't exist in me. Because I was born in 21st century Korea and had never undergone any Body Modification.*
*Of course, I wasn't the only one without a purification device; many among the Poor couldn't afford even this basic respiratory Body Modification and scraped by with cheap masks.*
*They'd live like that, then work hard, save up money once they could afford to live, get the purification device implanted, and be freed from masks. Though such cases were probably less than 0.1 percent of the total.*
*The bottom line was that even if you hadn't received respiratory Body Modification yet, you could always get a new implant if you had the money. In my case, while I was lower class, my situation was much better than the Poor. I had managed to scrape together enough money from what I'd saved.*
*The problem wasn't money, though. It was something else.*
*My identity. That damned Bio-ID, Nanomachine. Normally, it was fine. I had a fake ID.*
*But if I underwent a detailed physical examination for cyberware implantation, I'd be exposed immediately. That I had no Nanomachines in my body and my ID was fake. Fake data wasn't foolproof, after all.*
*So, I couldn't get an implant at a regular facility. I'd be reported right away.*
*That left the irregular medical facilities, commonly known as Underground Clinics... but was I crazy enough to go there? Places that sold human organs.*
*Of course, if I searched hard enough, there might be a clean Underground Clinic somewhere, but I didn't have the ability or connections to find such a reliable irregular medical facility.*
*Plus, Underground Clinics were disgustingly expensive for surgery.*
*In the end, it meant I had no other choice but to keep wearing my Gas Mask.*
*...But I couldn't just tell the mohawked Yakuza all that straight out.*