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Автор Project Itoh

Genocidal Organ

Originally published in Japan by Hayakawa Publishing, Inc.

Cover design by Sam Elzway

No portion of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means without written permission from the copyright holders.

HAIKASORU

Published by VIZ Media, LLC

295 Bay Street

San Francisco, CA 94133

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Itoh, Project, 1974–2009.

[Gyakusatsu kikan. English]

Genocidal organ / Project Itoh ; translated by Edwin Hawkes.

p. cm.

Summary: "The war on terror exploded, literally, the day Sarajevo was destroyed by a homemade nuclear device. The leading democracies transformed into total surveillance states, and the developing world has drowned under a wave of genocides. The mysterious American John Paul seems to be behind the collapse of the world system, and it's up to intelligence agent Clavis Shepherd to track John Paul across the wreckage of civilizations, and to find the true heart of darkness—a genocidal organ"— Provided by publisher.

ISBN 978-1-4215-4272-0 (pbk. )

I. Hawkes, Edwin. II. Title.

PL871. 5. T64G9313 2012

895. 6'36—dc23

2012023460

The rights of the author of the work in this publication to be so identified have been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

Haikasoru eBook edition

ISBN: 978-1-4215-5088-6

"According to esoteric calculations found in ancient Vedic texts, the divine tongue and the languages of man together represent only a quarter of all possible forms of linguistic expression. "

—from La haine de la musique (Hatred of Music)

by Pascal Quignard

So, there was this little girl’s head shoved face first into the tire tracks in the mud.

It looked almost like a scene from Alice in Wonderland—it was as though the girl were trying to enter the magical kingdom through the deep furrows in the mud left by truck tires. Only I don’t remember the back of Alice’s head being shot clean open or the contents of Alice’s skull glistening under the sky like a crimson flower in full bloom.

The next thing I laid my eyes on was a kid sprawled on his side in the mud. Less than ten feet away from the girl. Bullets had ripped his back open and had spun their way through his guts before exiting his body somewhere around his belly. His intestines flopped out, washed pink by the rainfall that had just stopped a couple of hours ago. His mouth was open a little, just enough for me to see he had an almost goofy-looking little overbite. It was as if there’d been something he had wanted to say before he died but never had the chance.

We followed the tire tracks and arrived at a small village, maybe twenty or so families in size.

A large pit had been dug in the area that could have been called the village green. At the bottom of the pit was a pile of bodies, charred and smoldering, all heaped on top of one another. There was the smell of singed hair and the smell of burning flesh. The heat had caused the muscles of the half-cooked bodies to contract violently, so the corpses were spread out in a whirlwind. Many of the bones were broken, defeated by the contracting muscles, and limbs were folded over and twisted in ways that no limb would or could ever bend naturally. A tangled web of bodies.