Red Data Girl - Series 1 & 2

My First Familiar - 19

Red Data Girl: My First Familiar
By Noriko Ogiwara
A Translation

Things are starting to get crazy! Enjoy!

Notes on this week’s translation:

I considered writing a comment about this in the last piece, but then I decided against it because I wasn’t sure how I would explain. It’s just so awkward to translate though that I still feel like I should comment on it. In the last piece, Miyuki reads most of Yukariko’s address off the email she sent them. You may not have even noticed that’s what it was because Japanese addresses are set up so differently than they are in the US and a lot of other countries. Basically, there isn’t a street and house number. Instead, towns/cities/etc are cut into small areas of blocks called wards. Yukariko lives in the Nagano ward of Tokyo. These wards are then cut into smaller areas and numbered. Yukariko lives in Nagano 2. From there, each house gets a set of numbers to describe its position in that specific area. (Yukariko’s number isn’t mentioned in the book.) This set up can make it hard to find buildings if you aren’t familiar with the area you’re going to. However, it’s necessary seeing as in general, only major roads are named in Japan. Instead, they name intersections. So, when you give someone directions in Japan, you have a number of ways to tell people how to get from Point A to B but it usually doesn’t include street names.

Red Data Girl: My First Familiar
Chapter 3: Yukimasa
Part 3 (2 of 2)

This was also the first time Izumiko had ridden in a taxi.

The way the payment meter in the taxi recorded the fee was strange to her. Mr. Nonomura didn’t use a GPS in his car, so it was the first time she had seen one of those as well. The driver might not have known where they were going, but the moment he entered the address into the device, he was able to bring them straight there. Again, it was the first time Izumiko had seen anything like it.

“We’re here,”

They got out of the car to find themselves on a street lined on both sides with twenty story apartment buildings. They didn’t see any standalone houses. Every structure was built much like an office building.

“When Mom said house, I guess she meant an apartment…”

“Strange. If that was so, wouldn’t she have given us an apartment number?”

Miyuki flipped open the cellphone and glanced at the screen. Then he said doubtfully,

“She never sent us another message after telling us to come here. Well… If we walk around, we’ll probably figure it out,”

When they tried walking into the closest apartment building, they noticed the address was wrong. They weren’t in the second part of the central Nagano Ward, they were in the first. One of the apartment managers walked out with them and then pointed them in the right direction.

“It looks like we got out in the wrong place. Weird. I checked the GPS.”  Miyuki gave a half smile. “This was probably another interference. Whatever’s going on didn’t want us to go to Yukariko’s, so they messed with the navigation.”

Izumiko didn’t hear the joke Miyuki was trying to make. An icy rush was traveling down her spine.

No matter how she thought about it, the amount of time it was taking to get to her mother’s house was strange. All she could think was that something was happening. Something was blocking their way and preventing Izumiko from getting to a safe place. It was obvious that it had found her.

It’s so close… There’s no mistake. It’s not just watching from a distance anymore. It’s gotten so close and now it’s come out to stop us…