pulse.txt

I

A city has a pulse. Like the rhythm of a heart that has seen too much love. Like the beat of a boombox on a delinquent's shoulder. Like the alternating current that surges back and forth above and below the streets. A pulse. An energy that ebbs and flows. From person to person. From sidewalk to sidestreet. To and fro, pulsing, pounding, constantly consistent and constantly changing.

This pulse exists in every city, in every ward, from the oldest edges like the mountains in Rengedai, to the failing centers like the alleys in Hirasaka, to the vibing, thrumming hotspots that pull the kids these days to Yumezaki. Even here, in Narumi, the new, the powerful, a brand new playground for the rich and fabulous, built out of nothing like Port Island in Iwatodai and grown artificially with cold glassy concrete and steel rather than feudal forest trimmings and prayers. Even here, in Narumi, where the wealthy can pay hundreds of thousands to have their newest fantasies come true. Even here, in Narumi, that pulse finds a way to flow. And flow it does.

It is a power, and like any other it only exists in the transfer. In the phone call of an old friend blowing into town, and couldn't you find some time to see them. In the news that you haven't heard yet, but are about to find out. In the surreptitious glance that meets over the shoulders of the real dates you came in with. In the keystroke on a message board. In the whispered words between parents, can't we make sure that our child doesn't find out. In the chatter that rises only barely above the sound of the glass clinking on the bar, and shouldn't we keep it down, but we don't because the only person that can hear is the bartender, and what the bartender hears is confidential, isn't it.

"And as if on cue," she says, the flavor of gossip in her shaker, pouring into a glass rimmed with rumor, "in walks my favorite customer."

"Everyone's your favorite customer, doll," says the man in the mustard-colored suit. His long black hair falls over his shoulders and his round lenses are opaque with the glint of the atmospheric dimness that illuminates Ebony, the most intriguing bar in the ward. Narumi, the most intriguing ward in the city. Sumaru, the most intriguing city in Japan.

"Well of course they are," the bartender replies, after handing the martini to a man in the corner of the room, who silently thanks her with a wink from under his keffiyeh. "Everyone is so deeply, endlessly fascinating in their own way. It's why I do this. There's nothing I love more than people."

"There's nothing you love more than rumors," he corrects her, the corner of his mouth curling up in an almost feline smirk. "Let's not get confused as to what you're really after."

"Rumors are people, sweetheart," she returns as easily as she straightens her vest. "Rumors are what people believe, what they hear, what they know. Like Salam," she says, nodding to the older gentleman drinking her martini. "What everyone knows about him is only what everyone says. He says so little on his own, how could you get to know him otherwise? Would you believe he is a millionaire who collects maps? I believe that I would. Rumors are what make people so interesting. It's how they relate. How they pass on their personhood. It's the pulse that keeps a city going."

"Yeah, well, a city like this, that sort of pulse can register on the Richter scale. It's dangerous."

"It's exciting," she lobs back with a smoky-yet-electric languor, "and you of all people know it. Or was I mistaken in thinking I had Mister Dark-Side-of-Sumaru-City sit down at my bar again?"

He laughs in a soft but sardonic baritone that seems to rise from the pit of his stomach. "Touché," he admitted. "But don't tell me that you read my message board, because I won't believe you."

"Not at all." She sets a glass of whiskey gently on a cocktail napkin in front of him. Any bartender worth her salt knows what the regulars want before they ask. She adjusts her bow-tie with a gentle tug. "But word travels. And you know I know everyone that comes in here."