The rain had stopped, but the sky above Tokyo remained a bruised, sullen gray.
It didn't matter. Here, on Takeshita Street, the sky was irrelevant. The world was a canyon of pink, teal, and electric yellow, a sensory riot of cotton candy clouds and synthesized beats that pounded against the eardrums like a second heartbeat.
"It's... a lot," Akemi murmured, adjusting her sunglasses. She was driving her black sedan at a crawl, navigating the narrow streets on the outskirts of Harajuku. The car, sleek and menacing, looked like a shark swimming through a coral reef.
"It's perfect," I said, leaning forward from the back seat. "Too much noise. Too much data. The System's tracking algorithms will have a seizure trying to filter through all this bio-static."
"Or they'll just scan for the only three people who look like they're going to a funeral," Liza pointed out.
