Elfen Liner Notes : Inside Man

By Rob Morris

Anyone smart nowadays knows that private contracting is the thing to do, once your term of military service is over, and mine was. 2004 was a good time to get out, or so I thought. Stop-Loss was really starting to mess with the morale. Afghanistan may or may not have been thought through, but Iraq definitely wasn't, so I had no desire to go to either place under ROE that varied based on how much cover the boys in Washington needed and where they needed it. When my girlfriend back home vanished while visiting her lowlife deadbeat Dad on some godforsaken stretch of road, I lost my desire to see the USA for a while.

Thing was, going to one of the active theaters as a contractor also had little appeal, though the money was really good. So when someone I knew on the Kamakura PD mentioned the island job, I was in Heaven. After all, though I was former American military, I was Japanese in heritage, and bilingual is almost always a good in. Pay was fantastic, and all benefits were free. I'd gotten in good with the boys in blue in that area ( I call it area, because just like my native New Jersey, the shore towns there tended to be in clusters and the borders were such that they might as well have not been there) when I'd escorted a couple of our service's chickenhawks back to face the music. As it turns out, the schoolgirls 'don't' like being grabbed at and worse—imagine that. When I flatly told these losers not to take comfort from my being there, the local cops appreciated seeing the smiles wiped off their stupid faces. One of them actually had the nerve to ask for internet access so he could bid on a 'Haunted Nintendo Cartridge'. Yeah. That was going to happen. They didn't even spend that much time in stir – the two girls vanished while walking in some forest, a skinny dude wanted for questioning but also never found.

Japan is an island nation, and not just one island – small ones dot the coastlines. Somehow, the place they call Breakfront Island is not really on any current maps. The USAF, I later learned, had orders never to overfly it. The other guys on the transport were already hired, and in grand security tradition, had sport with the noob newhire. Turns out Breakfront Island was once known as Hell Island, the place where the armies chased the demon race in the area off to.

"Try Harder, Guys", was all I said, and then we laughed. I was in before I was in.

Anyway, the map thing told me the place was classified, so I knew that keeping your mouth shut was a good idea, again no surprise.

I was waiting outside of HR when the woman walked up. She looked like a secretary, but she was not the one who'd told me to sit tight. She sat down next to me, shaking her head.

"He thinks he's God, or he wants to become God. He paws at us like we're property. Well, I've made my travel arrangements. What they do here – it reminds me of those crazy stories about the Russians who never slept, and claimed to see an indifferent supreme being. It's that bad—twice so for those girls. He's bamboozled the government, all the people see him as an exemplar. I used to have a friend here—you know how she died? Head twisted off like a corkscrew, this dumb look on her face for all eternity. We all knew about the girls, but no one knew about the thing he kept in that vault. Painted the place in staff members' blood. Hearts plopping onto the floor. Well, no more for me. She should be here soon."

I didn't want to blow this job interview, but this chick looked inches away from pulling out a pair of scissors and making me sing soprano for the rest of my life. As her blather kept on, I ducked around the corner and watched her in a corner mirror that she couldn't see me in, from the angle.

Then things just got nuts. A young girl, fully nude, walked up to her.

"Hey. The codes worked just like you said. Do you have the cookies?"

The woman gave her the bag, and the happy girl munched her goodies down. The woman looked her over.

"Can we hurry this up? They're going to realize you're gone."

The nude girl nodded, and for some reason, I was even happier that she couldn't see me.

"Are you sure about this?"

The woman tapped her own chest.

"I need to get out of here and protect my family from reprisals. So this is it. Right here at this spot. Make it clean. I want something a decent undertaker can hide in the casket, OK?"

The girl just stared at her sponsor's chest, and then I heard moving air. The woman's heart plopped out, just like I was told about in the 'joke story'. My gasp was heard, and the girl looked about.

"Is anyone there?"

Someone was, but it wasn't me who found her.

"Here-chick, chick, chick-chick-chick-Daddy's in the house."

What walked up to the girl walked like a man, but there was something wrong. Dressed all in black, he looked like the worst thing you'd encounter in the worst neighborhood you could imagine, and at the same time like every spoiled brat you just know is going to start in with someone. He leaned in towards the girl, produced a hammer, and smacked her across the top of her head.

"Owww! Why would you do that?"

She rubbed her head in obvious pain, and the man in black spoke.

"Ruins your concentration, right? Lucky I got you before the guards did. You and me are going to get real friendly-oh-and a bonus to bone!"

He scooped the dead woman over his one shoulder, and then the girl over the other. He didn't even look that big, but he showed no strain.

"Why are you grabbing her, too? She's dead!"

The man smiled, one of those awful smiles you hear about that, if looked at too long, drains your sanity like a leaky bucket. I was sure as hell feeling it.

"Waste not, want not, chickie-poo. She's still warm."

The woman's heart was scooped up as an afterthought, and the man-monster left. The girl saw me as she looked up-and on top of her head-were some kind of cat ears, or sea shells-or something. She seemed to mouth a silent plea for help, but I was in no mood to have that creeping terror find out I was there.

I needed to be away from that spot, and like every other HR Office on Earth (at least the ones I knew of), they were late getting to me. I found the kitchen area, the wall loaded with signs warning a 'Miss Kisaragi' not to do certain common sense things. What shook me, though, was a frame surrounding all those signs that said 'In Memoriam'. I got my water and left. I passed an elevator repair man working by an open shaft with no car in it. He gave me a glance.

"Hey, Bro? I gotta pee. Just watch this shaft. Don't want anyone falling in. Looong way down."

It struck me that I could use this helpfulness as an excuse to my hosts if my wandering was found out, so I nodded and he went to the restroom. Curiosity got the better of me, and I poked my head in. This shaft really needed maintenance, because the smell was that of a wading pool too many little ones had done their business in-only magnified a few million times-and stinking also of despair. How something could really smell of despair, I had to wonder. But this shaft did-not to mention having an air pressure differential that was threatening to suck me in. Going a little bit crazy, I called out.

"Helloooo! Anyone down there?"

Even a little bit crazy, why I did this will always make me doubt my basic intelligence. Different voices, at different ages, different tones - a cacophony that was somehow all the same voice. It was the voice of the perfectly lonely little girl, left alone in the eternal dark and shadow for far too long.

*My name is Mariko.*

*My name is Mariko.*

*My name is Mariko.*

*My Name Is Mariko.*

*MY NAME IS MARIKO!*

*MAME MARKO!*

*mrko*

My brain must never have recovered from all the brewskis I downed my last night in the service-but the other guys were buying, so how could I say no? But still, even after being so stupid to start with, why I kept talking to this one-girl orchestra is just beyond me.

"How are you doing, Mariko?"

*Mariko is dead.*

*Mariko is dead.*

*Mariko lives, but I have no nose.*

*Mariko lives, but my nose is where my ears should be.*

*Mariko has four beautiful sisters who are also Mariko. Mariko hates them.*

*All Mariko hate them for being beautiful.*

*Mariko has eyes all over her face. She can see you with them. See all the way in.*

*Mariko will be up there with you one day.*

*Mariko says, the devil wants to become God, and has a plan for it.*

*Mariko will have her skeleton ripped out. Whitecoat says so. Kill Whitecoat and Whiny Lady-who need bath.*

*Mariko will come up there and kill all who move. Not move then.*

The repair man came back, and I got the hell away. But even as I did, an even more horrific smell came up. It was from an unassuming, meek little woman with glasses. She stared at me, so I bluffed. Thoughts of being disposed of were starting to crop up with some regularity.

"Can I help you, Miss?"

Dismissing me as staff, she shrugged.

"Not really. Not unless you are the stealthy college student boyfriend to the demon queen of evolution, or can tell me how to successfully displace a madman who wants to be God-or how to win a bet with a child molesting serial killer who enjoys sexual torture."

I ran off, back in the direction of HR. I could hear this psycho still going on her babble.

"Yeah, run! When this girl is God, you and every boy from my school days will be lined up around the planet for some of what I got! Did I really just say that?-geez."

Back at HR, I caught a break. My absence had never been noticed, and the Hiring Manager came out just after I returned.

"Sorry to take so long. I had to consult with the Chief, here. He's going to sit in on our interview. Don't worry, he's simply thorough and likes to observe his manager's technique. You're all but in."

The man was a giant, by any country's standards, and he looked imposing. His hair, while perfect, seemed off somehow. His eyes looked me over the way someone might do for an animal they suddenly found in their home. After the HR Manager asked a few standard questions, he spoke up, and it was like a stone statue coming to life.

"Your background and heritage impress me. I am inclined to simply sign off on this. But I must ask about your discretion in certain untoward and odd matters you may encounter while working here."

Problem was, working there was something I no longer wanted to do. So how to blow an interview I had in the bag without being suspicious? After a moment, I had the answer. Maybe my brain was finally back on.

"Chief Kakuzawa, I can only tell you what I told my first base commander. I don't believe in keeping quiet, and sweeping things under the rug. If my buddies, or if any of my co-workers are doing something corrupt, from stealing pencils to the flatly unimaginable, I will not hesitate to report them to my superiors, even all the way up to you. If somehow I am blocked from telling the appropriate people here, I would even consider reporting it to civilian authorities. I have a mania for that kind of order, and it will be made to keep your site safe, secure and transparent."

I was on the next transport out. Playing it like I thought his question was testing my honesty got me away from that island that must have been built straight above Hell itself. As I hit Gokurakuji Train Station, the only odd thing I saw was a college-age anime fan who'd dyed her hair pink. Harmless sweet kid carrying some fish she'd bought back to her housemates for tomorrow's breakfast. In other words, as normal as normal gets.

Once out of Japan entirely, I made my next big mistake.

"Son-the Kakuzawa Zaibatsu provides a lot of high-tech equipment for our ongoing efforts in this war on terror. There can't be any way such odd characters live and work at the old man's personal project. The Japanese revere him for building The National Institute On Human Evolution at his own expense. I think the staff was messing with you, is all."

I should have seen the signs, when they let me talk to a general of some rank, an aide to one of the Joint Chiefs.

"Sir, I will swear that something very bad is going on in that island facility. Some things that should not ever be."

Yeah, I was promptly locked up as a nut, in a mental facility high-security enough that getting out before they're ready to let me is not even a consideration. My attorney explained the real joke of it to me. They weren't covering up what I told them. They considered that the purest bullshit imaginable. No, they were afraid that, as big as Chief Kakuzawa's corporation was, there was likely some corrupt practices somewhere, maybe even big enough to derail a needed supplier of hardcore high technology-some crazy stuff that can do things no machine should be able to. They weren't worried about what I actually said, but feared that it could raise questions that caused an actual investigation that might go somewhere.

So I wasn't locked up as part of a actual and specific cover up, but a general and potential one. Irony is nothing, as they say.

Time passed, and suddenly Kakuzawa was not only dead, but being defamed as a monster and deceiver. But they still can't let me out. Again, while no one believed me and they could honestly say no story as crazy as mine could be believed, no one anywhere wants to admit they had any inkling about what is now happening, all over the world.

If you watch the news, or even if you don't, you just know it by now : Mariko's sisters have come out to play, and those aren't cat-ears or sea-shells on top of their heads. Anyway, why would I want to leave here? I have no family, no friends left. I'm in a facility with thick walls, with armed guards and some very nasty fellow inmates who know how to improvise an attack rather well with what's available.

Until those girls come here-and did I mention how isolated it is?-I have plenty to keep me occupied. For starters, I rewatched every last kids' show I ever saw when I was little, even that really nutsy one with the pirate puppets and the monster that stole skin from children-who thought of that?

I also hit web original stuff a whole lot. Everyone keeps referring me to this one site, calling it 'modern-age horror campfire stories on steroids'. I think they called it-Weird Spaghetti?

Well, it's something like that, anyway. I wonder about myself, smiling all the while my nation and the world burns. So maybe I am where I belong.

By the way, that island I was on? It sunk into the ocean.

But on some nights, I can still hear the Marikos. One of these nights, I'm thinking of responding.