Taki, as he prefers we call him, claims to orbit a certain otaku-coven in Tokyo, a group that knows itself as "Mystic," though its members never refer to it that way in public, nor indeed refer to it at all. It is these Mystic wonks, according to Taki, who have cracked the watermark on #78. This segment, according to Taki, is marked with a number of some kind, which he claims to have seen, and know.
What she's confronted with here, she decides, is an extreme example of Japanese geek culture. Taki is probably the kind of guy who knows everything there is to know about one particular Soviet military vehicle, or whose apartment is lined with unopened plastic models.
He seems to be breathing through his mouth.
Catching the eye of the barman, she points to a poster advertising Asahi Lite and nods.
"Keiko's told me a lot about you," she says, trying to get into character, but this only seems to make him more uncomfortable. "But I don't think she's told me what it is that you do."
Taki says nothing.
Parkaboy's faith, that Taki has enough English to handle the transaction, may be unfounded.
And here she is, halfway around the world, trying to swap a piece of custom-made pornography for a number that might mean nothing at all.
He sits there, mouth-breathing, and Cayce is wishing she were anywhere else, anywhere at all.
He's in his mid-twenties, she guesses, and slightly overweight. He has a short, nondescript haircut that manages to stick up at several odd angles. Cheap-looking black-framed glasses. His blue button-down shirt and colorless checked sport coat look as though they've been laundered but never ironed.
He isn't, as Parkaboy has indicated, the best-looking guy she's recently had a drink with. Though that, come to think of it, would be Bi-gend. She winces.
"I do?" Responding perhaps to the wince.
"Your job?"
The barman places her beer on the table.
"Game," Taki manages. "I design game. For mobile phone."
She smiles, she hopes encouragingly, and sips her Asahi Lite. She's feeling more guilty by the minute. Taki—she hasn't gotten his last name and probably never will—has big dark semicircles of anxiety sweat under the arms of his button-down shirt. His lips are wet and probably tend to spray slightly when he speaks. If he were any more agonized to be here, he'd probably just curl up and die.
She wishes she hadn't had all this fabulous fanny stuff done, and bought these clothes. It hadn't been for him, but really she hadn't imagined she'd be dealing with anyone with this evident a social deficit. Maybe if she were looking plainer he wouldn't be as spooked. Or maybe he would.
"That's interesting," she lies. "Keiko told me you know a lot, about computers and things."
Now it's his turn to wince, as if struck, and knocks back the remainder of his beer. "Things? Keiko? Says?"
"Yes. Do you know 'the footage'?"
"Web movie." He looks even more desperate now. The heavy glasses, lubricated with perspiration, slide inexorably down his nose. She resists an urge to reach over and push them back up.
"You… know Keiko?" He winces again, getting it out.
She feels like applauding. "Yes! She's wonderful! She asked me to bring you something." She's suddenly experiencing full-on London-Tokyo soul-displacement, less a wave than the implosion of an entire universe. She imagines climbing over the bar, past the barman with his pockmarked, oddly convex face, and down behind it, where she might curl up behind a scrim of bottles and attain a state of absolute stasis, for weeks perhaps.
Taki fumbles in his sport coat's side pocket, coming up with a crumpled pack of Casters. Offers her one.
"No, thank you."
"Keiko sends?" He puts a Caster between his lips and leaves it there, unlit.
"A photograph." She's glad she can't see her own smile; it must be ghastly.
"Give me Keiko photo!" The Caster, having been plucked from his mouth for this, is returned. It trembles.
"Taki, Keiko tells me that you've discovered something. A number. Hidden in the footage. Is this true?"
His eyes narrow. Not a wince but suspicion, or so she reads it. "You are footage lady?"
"Yes."
"Keiko like footage?"
Now she's into improv, as she can't remember what Parkaboy and Musashi have been telling him.
"Keiko is very kind. Very kind to me. She likes to help me with my hobby."
"You like Keiko very much?"
"Yes!" Nodding and smiling.
"You like… Anne-of-Green-Gable?"
Cayce starts to open her mouth but nothing comes out.
"My sister like Anne-of-Green-Gable, but Keiko… does not know Anne-of-Green-Gable." The Caster is dead still now, and the eyes be-hind the dandruff-flecked lenses seem calculating. Have Parkaboy and Musashi blown it, somehow, in their attempt to generate a believable Japanese girl-persona? If Keiko were real, would she necessarily have to like Anne of Green Gables? And anything Cayce might ever have known about the Anne of Green Gables cult in Japan has just gone up in a puff of synaptic mist.
Then Taki smiles, for the first time, and removes the Caster. "Keiko modern girl." He nods. "Body-con!"
