The Black Swan: Chapter one

Winter; Year Zero


















It was cold that morning. The October air blew a stiff, unabated wind from the north, the great plains of Canada, that chilled the air to a crisp 40 degrees. But Rivers always loved the cold. He could play in the snow wearing a t-shirt, if his father permitted. This was warm to him. Even over the motor of his grandfather's pickup truck, he could hear the great water of the river cutting through the landscape like a hot knife.
The pickup bounced along the rough dirt road. The old seat rattled against its frame. The rain was coming down lightly, only in a drizzle. Rivers watched the raindrops accumulate on the passenger side window. His grandfather, Frederick Morrison, sat in the drivers seat across from him. Quiet as he usually was, especially in times such as these that lent themselves to silence.
River's eye turned to the sky, slowly. He barely registered the truck round a bend in the road, with his focus totally on the overcast sky as it flashed bright, brighter than he had ever seen a flash of lightning before. He blinked.
“Bad storm, eh?” Frederick's voice came from River's left side, but was barely heard over a low rumbling boom, shaking both to their core. Subtly, the bright flash of light was turning darker, into a yellowish-orange tinge. Rivers sat stupefied.
This time the movement of the truck to one side was enough to pull River's eyes away from the sky and onto the road, but only for an instant. The sound of air escaping his grandfather's lips in a soft grunt, and his body slumping a bit, registered in his ear. The truck took the next turn too wide, and slid off the road and into a tree on the driver's side door, bashing it in. Something must've hit him in the head, the world faded to black...


. . .


Spring- Year Two




The song echoed softly in Kataru's head, soothing himself as was his habit.
Sakura, sakura.
Apt, as the spring cherry blossoms dissolved into their petals, riding the crisp breeze and landing strewn about the city street. The old song was cooed to many a child by their mother, and it was Kataru's only lifeline to the world he once knew.
He whistled the tune to himself, echoing throughout empty alleyways. The sheer silence was overwhelming to some. Complete desolation. He had felt this feeling before, and so more often since the collapse. Humans, Kataru had found, were very social creatures, and it took much self discipline to learn how to live without others. Before the collapse, it seemed so difficult to get away from people, or even man made objects. Not so hard after the waning.
So many people died in the waning, as some had come to call it. Good people, bad people. Most of the ones he cared about. The good ones, most of them died. The ones who weren't willing to lie, cheat or steal just to survive. Anyone who needed the old spark of electricity just rolled over and died.
My grandchildren will call it magic.
Kataru shuddered. The leading edge of history had sharpened, and he was riding it right down to the chopping block. With such a great die-off, especially in such a place as Honshu, there was virtually no one around anymore. The city of Osaka lay totally empty, a shallow husk of remains. All the salvagers and pickers and straight-up thieves had already scoured most places clean. No point in staying in the city, with so many people to have to step on just to survive. What little open land Japan offered seemed to be the best chance for survival.
But if everyone thinks like that...
And almost everyone had. Herds of pilgrims came stampeding through the open plains within the first few weeks of the waning, thinking with all common sense they had to get out of the city. But winter's bite took many, marauder bands took many more, and those already occupying the land would not leave without a fight. More death. Stinking piles of human scattered across the landscape that second month, and no one even bothered to dig a grave.
That wasn't the worst of it. With no medicine and very few doctors, plague was inevitable. Kataru had seen firsthand what it could do. Whatever people didn't survive the fighting were taken by sickness. Kataru still didn't understand how he survived- for a while it seemed like everyone around him was coughing. He'd heard rumors of plague breaking out elsewhere on mainland asia, taking millions. How much of the stories were fictitious, he couldn't be sure. All he could be sure of was what he'd seen, which was not comforting.
But things were getting better. The die-off gave those who survived a much better chance, with more resources per person to be distributed. Not that anyone would share. The new owners of the farms were just as bent on keeping their land as the old occupants, if not more so. Kataru wished he had gotten in with one of those farming confederacies that had begun to spring up after the waning. But he didn't know anybody important, so by the time he learned that such things even existed he was nothing more to their founders than a glorified street urchin. But he had gotten good at salvaging, and managed to make a living selling hocked equipment to the farmers in their open markets.
Kataru found a sword a few months before. A full-on katana, new steel combined with the old art of sword making. Strict laws in Japan regulated the making and distribution of swords, but with the government in hiding and law in the toilet, no one really cared if one sword went missing from an abandoned smithing shop. The sword's blade was around two feet long, he judged, and its blade looked sharp enough to cut a piece of paper dropped on it. The weapon had a small disc of steel that served as a guard, right between the base of the blade and the top of the hilt. The hilt was made of some kind of rubber, maybe even shark-skin, and it had silk woven into it. He could grip the sword with relative ease, even with sweaty palms. Of course, he still had no idea how to use the thing, but he figured that sheer intimidation factor might help him avoid a fight.
The sun was getting lower now, only a few hours of light before sundown. The next building would probably be his last stop for the day. Kataru paused for a moment, pulling his map out from his backpack. The tattered and creased paper showed a map of the Osaka metro and its surrounding areas. It was divided into graphed rectangles by permanent marker strokes, with all but three blacked out completely. Soon, it would be time for him to move on to another area. Kataru figured Kobe might be a good start, being so close. For now, the next sky scraper lay ahead of him. He folded up the map and returned it to his pack.
He passed through once glass but now smashed double doors and into a massive lobby, illuminated crimson by the sunset spilling through the open doorway behind him. He saw a few tables and chairs overturned, papers strewn about the floor. He sighed. The looters had, as he predicted, already been through. Fortunately, most of them don't usually care to risk going up to the higher floors. This may not be a wash yet.
After a few minutes of searching the ground floor, Kataru managed to find a doorway marked STAIRS. He passed through a small doorway and into an even darker staircase annex. He pulled a lantern out from his pack and lit it with a small metal cigar box from his back pocket. The oil soaked wick began to glow a deep warm orange, just enough light cast for his eyes to adjust. He started up the stairs.
The second floor was just as he predicted- offices. The entire floor was practically one open room with desks and chairs, papers strewn about everywhere. Some bodies, but none of them the original workers of this building. Move-ins. During the collapse, some of these old office buildings were turned into refugee centers- when the government was still functioning, that is. Safe zones where people could live without fear of the plagues.
What good it did them...
This floor already having been stripped by thieves, Kataru made a quick sweep before beginning his slow ascent up the building. Room by room, floor by floor, turned up empty. Finally, after six floors of nothing, he stopped at the next flight of stairs, nearly ready to call it and head for home. Out of curiosity, he went over to the directory pasted to the far wall and scanned it as he caught his breath. One floor peaked his entrance, number 43. The label for this number read; 'Server Room'.
His eyes stopped over it, he read it over and over again, wracking his brain to place the word. Server... server. Then it clicked. Server- like a computer. Maybe, just maybe, one could still be working. If he could scavenge it- or better yet, take the whole working thing. It could make him rich. He checked the sunlight by a window in the last room he had searched. Maybe an hour left. If he hurried, he could make it there and at least investigate. He made the decision and bolted up the stairway.
This floor was visibly less disturbed then the others, being so far from the ground. Cobwebs abounded, a thick layer of dust coating everything. Kataru made a mental note to be wary of his footing- the iron girders of these sky scrapers should be good for a few more years yet, but he liked to be safe.
This floor was different. The room was divided by huge columns running its entire length, with rows in between them. He moved in closer to investigate, holding his lantern up to the columns. The columns were in fact, to the best of his knowledge, computers- he could see large fans and circuits in between panels of glass. With no time to waste, he got to work trying to remove their components.
It proved harder than he thought. At first, he was hesitant to try and break the glass, fearing that he might damage the computer's guts. But he soon realized that there would be no chance otherwise, and so he began to hit the glass. Hard. It took several whacks with the crowbar strapped to his side to shatter the unusually strong glass. He began pulling out anything that would come out, unscrewing anything that would unscrew, and dropping it in his pack. In a few minutes he was carrying a heavy load of circuit boards and other electronic paraphernalia. Proud of himself, he began his journey down the forty flights of stairs and back to the ground floor.
Once he was out of the building it dawned on him how long he had stayed. It was pitch black now, the sun far beyond the horizon. The moon hung in the sky as a sliver, casting a little light on the deserted city-scape. He cursed himself. It was too dangerous to get to the market and back at night, with marauder bands regularly patrolling the main road. He would have to wait until the next day. Kataru sighed, slung his pack around his shoulders and headed for home.
It took about fifteen minutes to get to his home in the upper city district. He had made a small den for himself in an abandoned subway tunnel. More specifically, in the carcass of a dead subway train. He had been lucky to have his home mostly undisturbed by humans, who typically preferred to stay above ground, though sometimes wild animals came through. With no people around, the wildlife was making a comeback even in the inner city, and possums and foxes were not an uncommon sight.
The stairs at the east shinano subway station led down to a maze of tunnels cut through the Osaka bedrock, laid out in a grid pattern twenty feet below ground. He took a right and two lefts before coming upon his train, and found his den the way he'd left it in car three. He took his fire-starter to the lanterns he'd hung from the ceiling, illuminating the car in a faint orange glow. He lit a fire in the pit he had built in the walkway between rows of seats, a hollowed out dip he filled with ashes and embers, loaded with wood he stored in the back of the train. Blankets hung in the open windows, trapping heat from the fire. He opened a can of beans and set it on the embers, letting it boil, then ate his supper and lay down. A mattress covered in blankets and pillows lay on one side of the fire, in an empty space where he'd torn the seats up to make room. He'd learned to become used to humble living conditions in the past few months.
He pulled out a book from under one of the nearby seats and started to read. The book was very old, very worn. It talked a lot swords and honor, old things. He could use the sword part at least. He'd been exercising, trying to sharpen his senses. With nothing to gauge it against, he wasn't sure how well it was working out. He hoped to not have to use this information, but in the pit of his stomach he knew someday he would end up in a fight.
This particular chapter was focusing on what it described as ‘sickness’, or focusing the mind exclusively on one thing for too long. It was interesting reading, and helped Kataru realized that he needed to learn to use reflex more, and think less. He yawned and stretched.
Maybe tomorrow.

* * *

The next morning Kataru awoke, well rested. After a light breakfast it was time to head to the market. He had been there before, on many occasions, to sell his finds and buy needed supplies. But he brought his map just in case. The journey would take several hours on foot, through the lightly forested hills to the north and east. He judged he wouldn’t be home until the late evening.
He found the barely traveled yet still visible trail leading out of the city and into the woods. Using his memory, combined with the map and marked with his own landmarks and notes, he followed his normal path through creases in the hills. These served as a less taxing, albeit roundabout route.
It was late afternoon by the time he reached the outskirts of the trading post. The gate to the fenced in city of sorts was guarded by a group of particularly intimidating men, all armed. That wasn’t what worried Kataru. No matter how hard he tried, his eye always seemed to gravitate to the large sheet of tin posted to the barbed wire fence, which read:

HATSURO’S POST
-RULES-
ABSOLUTELY NO
1; CAUSING TROUBLE
2; STEALING
3; CHEATING
4; SNEAKING IN WEAPONS
BREAKING THESE LAWS WILL RESULT IN CAPITAL PUNISHMENT

The sign was emphasized by two fresh bodies, hanging from ropes twenty feet above the sign. He shuddered. One disadvantage to surviving the apocalypse. Sometimes he wished he’d been one of those on life support in the hospital. At least they went quickly.
He tore his mind away from the grizzly scene and walked on toward the gate. The gruff guards gave him the standard pat down and took his sword, stowing it in the tent where they kept lost items and weapons of visitors. It was tagged with his name to identify it. As if anyone else would have a genuine Katana. He passed through the gate otherwise undisturbed.
Kataru checked the directory sign and map in the center of the market to find the vendors locations for that week. They took turns, buying weekly slots at the post. He found the one he needed without a problem. Siegen’s Scrap Metal and Electronics. He approached the vendor and waited in line for a few minutes before getting to the teller.
“Welcome to Siegen’s scrap metal, what do you got?” The voice of the teller gave Kataru a strange feeling, as they all did these days. He decided it was their tone. Disinterested, yet still slimy somehow.
“I’ve got some things you might be interested in. Electronically. What are your rates?”
The teller eyed him somewhat suspiciously. Then jabbed his thumb over his shoulder and towards the sign behind him.
“Don’t you read? Of course you don’t’ you’re a scavenger!” He guffawed a smoky rasp from his nicotine lined throat. Kataru glanced at the sign board, taking it all in in one look, as he had learned he could from a young age.
“Even if I couldn’t read that I could still tell that five koku for a pound of scrap metal is a joke.”
The teller spat on the ground.
“If you don’t like it,” he hissed, his tone dripping with hardly veiled acid, “then you can go talk to the guild. Otherwise, get out of the damn line.”
Kataru didn’t flinch.
“Like I said, I’ve got some sensitive equipment I want to sell, and I don’t read any rates for computer parts. What do you give for them?”
The teller was getting tired of talking without seeing profit, Kataru could perceive. The tone said it all.
“Not unless you’re willing to sell it as melt metal. Which is the same standard, flat rate you just saw. Five koku a pound.”
Kataru paused, and leaned forward, lowering his voice. He could feel, without even looking at his expression, that the teller was taken slightly aback by this move. Kataru was practically whispering when the words escaped.
“What if they’re working?”
A moment of silence.
Then outright laughter. The teller literally spat in Kataru’s face as he spoke.
“The thought! Working computer parts! Ha!”
Kataru mentally cursed the fool for yelling his secret.
“That’s fine, that’s good. But I haven’t seen a working computer since the back end of the waning. Unless you have proof, I’ll say the same thing that I told you twenty seconds ago-”
The last sentence somewhat trailed off as Kataru dropped five pounds of computer parts onto the wooden counter separating them. The teller’s eyes lit up a bit. He started to pick the pieces up and finger them, weighing them in his hands as if he knew what he were doing. He muttered something about the condition, something else about data ports, or something else that Kataru didn’t quite understand.
The teller looked up. “Of course, you won’t mind if I verify these claims by taking these back? Testing them?”
Kataru shifted. The idea felt uncomfortable. But he saw no other option.
“Of course.”
The teller scooped the pieces up in his grease caked arms and waddled to the back of his vendor tent, behind a barrier of beads hanging from strings. Kataru waited for several minutes, then a few more. People started to get antsy, crowding in around him, trying to get to the teller that wasn’t there. He swore he felt something brush against him , but dismissed it. His attention was taken by nearby commotion. He strained to make out the voices that stood out to him above the clamor of the market. Once he found them, it didn’t take him long to figure out was going on. He swallowed.
A posse of about a dozen men, all dressed in the same kind of somewhat tattered, military-esque uniform, complete with various melee weapons. He swore he even saw a handgun. And they were heading towards him. He had to fight the instinct to turn and run. They’d surely gun him down in a moment. He could do nothing but stand there with a dumb look on his face.
Waddling behind them was the fat, slimy teller, struggling for breath and yet all the while shouting.
“That’s him! That’s the little rat who tried to con me out of koku!”
The most leader looking one of the men approached Kataru.
“This man accuses you of cheating him. Do you have anything to say for yourself, boy?”
Kataru steeled himself.
“What the hell are you talking about? I offered to sell him computer parts. Then he said he’d test them. Where are my parts, anyway, scum?”
The teller acted taken aback, then flustered.
“See! See his insolence, the little rat! Tried to cheat me. Told me these parts were working and took three thousand koku from me! Then I test them and they’re dumb. Broken! What am I supposed to do with broken computer parts?!”
“Melt ‘em. Five koku a pound.” Kataru felt the man, if he could be so called, deserved a bit of spite. From the tellers expression, Kataru swore he would have a stroke right there, his face bright red.
Before the teller could open his mouth, the leader of the gang pulled out a nightstick looking thing and beat Kataru senseless in one stroke to the side of the face. Kataru stumbled, spat blood, and stood up again, twice as fast as he fell.
“You will show respect, child.” Kataru rolled his eyes.
“Now, let’s sort this out. Search him.”
For the second time today, Kataru was patted down by a bunch of hulking men with hands as rough as sandpaper. One of them proclaimed a find, and took a small money purse from Kataru’s back pocket. Kataru nearly had a stroke himself as the leader was handed the purse. It all made sense. The tingling he felt in the crowd. No one had been pick pocketing him. They were planting him.
The leader untied the purse, and about twenty or more 150 nickel-koku pieces poured out onto his hand. He looked up at Kataru.
“Would you believe me if I said that’s not mine?”
The leader motioned, and the men seized Kataru by the shoulders, dragging him along towards the west wing of the trading post. Soon, they reached the guard shed near the west gate of the fence. Kataru was forced through a barracks and into a series of jail cells in the shed. He was tossed into a particularly foul and blood stained cubicle and put under lock and key. The leader spoke.
“We’ll conduct a full and standard investigation within the hour. Tomorrow, the judge’s guild will pass their verdict, and you’ll either be free to go with your parts, or you’ll end up on the wrong end of the noose. Do you understand what I’ve told you?”
Kataru didn’t respond. The man tried repeating his message again, but gave up midway the third time and left. Kataru lay down and just slept his way through the rest of the day as a prisoner.
There wasn’t much commotion until early that morning, or late that night, whichever one preferred to look at it. He awoke to loud screaming and the stench of burning… something. He sat up instantly. Several armed men ran past him, equipping weapons.
“Hey… Hey! What’s going on out there!? Talk to me!”
No one answered. His cries were interrupted by a gunshot, followed by more volleys and some distant screaming. He shut up, crawled back to one portion of his cell and waited hours. He fell back asleep to the sound of distant yelling.
When he awoke, it was to the sound of his jail cell door being unlocked. He heaved a sigh of relief.
“Finally, what the hell is going on out there? Sounds like a damn firefight…”
He cut himself off. His gaze met two large men standing over him, and a third, smaller yet more muscular man between them. The smaller man was dressed in white robes, open, with nothing covering his bare chest. Displayed proudly upon his chest and stomach was an intricate body tattoo. It looked familiar to Kataru somehow, but he didn’t make the connection until a moment later. One character of the tattoo, he did notice. It was a surname. It belonged to the Yakuza.
The last thing he remembered was a chemical smelling rag being jabbed into his face, and some mumblings about how scrawny he was, before blackness drenched his vision, and his body went limp.