by A. Omukai
***
No matter how clean and modern the environment, filthy, rundown hotels existed everywhere. Niigata was no exception. He couldn’t read the name of the establishment, and it wasn’t even on his rogue system’s map. How had Nadya found this place?
They entered, and an old hag at the reception regarded them with a wary face.
Nadya handled it. They didn’t need language, her system did the work for them and the woman waved them through.
There was no elevator, only stairs, and the corridor looked just as bad as the first floor had. The rooms themselves seemed to be all right though. Simple, but at least they looked clean. The smell of disinfectant hung in the air, and the windows were open. Daniel walked over and closed them, then drew the curtains. Whether that was necessary, he didn’t know, but old habits die hard.
“We should leave the door open.”
She nodded. This hotel differed from the one where her friends had died like day and night, but he could see her discomfort in every movement.
Daniel didn’t have friends, but he understood her situation. When all this ended, and he had the choice between letting her go and taking her out, he’d look the other way. He didn’t know why he made this decision, and at such a weird timing, but—
He stopped and listened intently when the sound of footsteps outside caught his attention. He looked at Nadya and put a finger on his lips. Her eyes widened. He gestured for her to go into the other room, but she either didn’t understand him or stubbornly refused. Both were equally probable. He pulled his gun and waited with his back pressed against the wall next to the door.
The footsteps softened, then disappeared in the distance, and a door shut.
He exhaled slowly. They couldn’t be careful enough, after all they had been through, and with all the things still on their list.
“All right, it seems like—”
The door flew open and crashed against the wall. Nadya dived behind the door frame in the next room, Daniel raised his gun and pulled the trigger twice before he could make out a target. The bullets made the wooden frame burst under their impact. The attacker didn’t enter the room.
The soft sound of a whisper in a language he didn’t understand, then again the tip-tap of feet on the linoleum floor of the corridor.
At least two, and not quite as stupid as their friends last time. He reached for the light switch and turned it off.
The layout wasn’t so different from the hotel room in Frankfurt. A big bed dominated the place, there wasn’t much room to navigate. Daniel stood at the wall between the door and a dresser that reached him to the chest. He moved behind it without making noise. From his position, he could make out the black hole where the door was that led to the other room, right in front of him, just two metres away. The window on the left side didn’t let in any light from outside now. Good. He couldn’t see Nadya, but hopefully, she had taken cover, too. There was no other entrance, they’d have to come in if they wanted them. Unless…
The door of the neighbouring room flew open, but the enemy didn’t shoot.
Nadya was unarmed, but they couldn’t know that.
Even with a weapon, he doubted that she’d have been a big help. She was a diversion though, at least for a short while, and he had to make it count.
They were at a standstill.
How could they have found them this quickly? They had only just arrived in Japan. Getting here from Chiba in time would have been impossible, so these guys must have been locals. Hired guns, or the same organization? Either way, if he could catch one of them alive…
A shadow appeared in the door that led out into the corridor. They didn’t know yet where he was, unless they had checked the room beforehand and knew what it looked like. Daniel waited. A hand appeared and felt for the light switch. Daniel reached over the closet, grabbed the wrist with both hands and pulled, throwing his body backwards. The guy on the other side was surprisingly light. First his silhouette got dragged into the room, then he crashed into the closet with the full force of Daniel’s ninety kilograms flying backwards. He howled. Daniel took a step to the side while pulling his gun again, aimed carefully and pumped two bullets into the man. He couldn’t see where exactly he had hit, but his opponent collapsed and stopped moving.
Both wounds screamed, his calf and his wrist, but he couldn’t afford to go easy on himself. There was at least one more enemy outside.
He limped towards the door to the corridor, positioned himself next to it and waited. Someone outside breathed hard. Nervousness, no, fear. The second man had seen his buddy die and knew, one mistake and he’d be next.
“I’ll offer you a deal. You tell me who ordered you to kill us, and I’ll let you go.”
No answer, but the breathing got heavier.
Daniel waited. There was no way for the other guy to come in without catching a bullet, and he knew it. On the other hand, they couldn’t get out either, and if the gangster in the corridor had only one working brain cell left, he’d call for reinforcement and dig his heels in.
He heard a sob, then the sound of something metallic hitting the ground.
“Don’t shoot!” a young voice cried in a strange accent.
***
Daniel didn’t ask for his name. The haggard boy with dyed blond hair and face full of piercings was obviously on some sort of drug. His eyes were opened wide and his pupils dilated. He snivelled as if he was about to cry, but Daniel had seen enough of that sort. He looked young, maybe even younger than twenty, hard to say.
“So who’s your boss?” he asked, pointing his gun at the boy.
“If I tell you, I’m dead!”
“You’re dead if you don’t tell me.”
The boy twitched, avoiding eye contact.
“They’ll find out and come after me.”
“You could have thought about that before you chose them as friends. Now spit it out, my patience is coming to an end.”
The gangster snivelled again, and Daniel was tempted to hit him with his gun. The boy irritated him.
He muttered something under his breath.
“I can’t hear you.”
“Chiba-kai,” he repeated. “The name of the syndicate.”
Daniel had never heard that name, but he had never operated in Australasia.
“Who’s your boss? Give me a name, or the last thing you’ll hear is my gun going off.”
The youth twitched again and held his hands up.
“His name is Uehara. Don’t even think about going after him, you’ll be—”
The muffled pop, pop of the gun cut off his speech. His eyes looked surprised, and blood began to run from two holes in his head. Parts of its contents sat at the wall behind him. He fell over and landed on his face.
“Why did you kill him?” Nadya’s voice sounded shrill, probably her nerves.
“He was already dead when he arrived here. Remember what he came here for.”
“Yes, but we already had him, he wasn’t armed anymore.”
“He was a sinner, he deserved death.”
That was no lie. Daniel believed it himself, even though it wasn’t the true reason. The young gangster had seen too much of them. He’d also been right, they’d kill him if he walked out of here without completing his mission.
The Russian didn’t say a word, but she squinted her eyes. She was pale and trembled.
“Come. We need to get away from here. They’re on our track now, and god knows when they’ll be breathing down our necks again,” Daniel said.
He stood up and offered her his hand, but she marched out of the room without so much as a glance.
Daniel had no time to worry about that now, but the look in her eyes had warned him to watch his back. He stood up and followed her.
24
Makoto
So much to think about, but I’d been trying my best to completely avoid slowing down and reflecting on my situation since I had left the labs. Today was my day off, so thinking about whethe
r to return to work as if nothing had happened was not yet an acute problem. It meant that I had one whole day to figure out how to go from here. Uehara wouldn’t miss me today, and this meant they wouldn’t have a reason to check their files for anything unusual.
I had been restless all day. Inoue had sent me a reply in the morning, but I had been putting off answering her. I didn’t know what to write, or how, but there was still an hour to go, and I was sitting in the restaurant of a shopping mall.
Not many people were eating here, it was still too early. All seats in this corner, except for mine, were empty. Tables with holos were available, mostly offering menus and entertainment. I could access news feeds from here without using my own device. I didn’t have time for any of that under normal circumstances, and no interest in it right now. All I wanted to do was pass some time undisturbed and decide how to go on.
A call notification interrupted my brooding and dragged me back to reality. Daisuke. I pushed my thoughts aside and accepted the call.
“Hey man, what’s up?” he asked.
The background noise was loud, I assumed he was at some train station.
“Daisuke! I need to meet you in person, this isn’t something I can talk about here.”
He frowned, collided with someone, apologized, then faced me again.
“Okay, when do you wanna meet?”
“I’m in a restaurant right now, west end of town. I’d come over to your place, if that’s alright with you.”
“Yeah, I’ll be in office all day today, once I get there. Ran into a demonstration on my way to the station.”
“A demonstration?” I echoed.
“Yes, anti-war demos are popping up all over the place, haven’t you heard about it?”
“Ah sorry, I’m kinda busy with my own stuff right now, not watching news.”
Taking a look at his surroundings, I now noticed the signs people held up and waved around. The call filter blurred everything to some degree, except for Daisuke.
“Yeah, I know what you mean. What time are you gonna come?”
I was checking the clock. I’d eat something, then get some fresh clothing from one of the stores here. Going home right now was a gamble, I had no idea if anyone had already found out what I had done.
Getting to Daisuke’s office would then take me another twenty to thirty minutes, maybe more if I was unlucky enough to run into a demonstration, like he was right now.
“How about four o’clock?”
He got pushed around quite a bit there, masses of people had gathered.
“That’s okay. Like I said, I’ll be there all day today. Just call me before you arrive, then I can make sure you won’t have to sit around and wait for me to finish a meeting or something.” He laughed.
“I’ll get in touch when I leave here.”
Shouting and chanting in the background. His system did a great job filtering all this out and keeping the focus on him, but I could see it was fighting hard.
“Great. See you then.”
He ended the call.
Hearing his voice, I gained back my confidence. We’d been working together for three years now, since the Summer Court had first implanted me in Uehara’s organisation. Daisuke had started his server farm at the same time. This hadn’t been a coincidence. If anyone could help me clean up the chaos in my head, it had to be him.
***
I entered the office building in Asahigaoka, a mostly commercial district of town, ten minutes too early. Daisuke’s server farm was a rather large company, even though it made do with just a handful of employees and a simple office that occupied only one floor of the tower. This was by design, less people involved in his business meant less risk of losing his cover.
The Ellyll greeted me in his foyer. His security systems must have informed him that I came.
“We should go for a walk.”
I nodded, and we stepped right back into the elevator with which I had just ascended nine building floors, three city floors, all the way up to a district by the name Hiregasaki.
When we exited the building, we were in Asahigaoka again, as if we had travelled through an Einstein-Rosen bridge.
The contrast between the shopping district on one floor, and the office buildings on the other, was less drastic.
I had grown up in both Chiba and the Otherworld, and neither was more confusing. Both had surreal geographic features that led to surprises for the non-native.
Today’s weather had been set to slightly chilly, and neither he, nor I wore clothing for the occasion. Neither of us worried about it.
A taxi capsule stopped right next to us. Daisuke was prepared well. We entered, and the vehicle shot down the deserted road.
“Not much traffic today,” I said to break the silence.
“Everyone’s at work, or at the demo.”
I had seen the masses from the train window. My own train had been one of the few lucky lines not impacted, other trains had been stuck inside the stations.
“How serious do you think the whole war thing is?”
“Dead serious.” A shadow wandered over his face as we passed by a large advertisement. It accented his sour expression perfectly. “I sometimes wonder if we’re on the right team.”
I looked at him and he smiled. “Seems like the Summer Court has been too naive. The humans will actually kill themselves. They can’t be trusted to look after themselves after all.”
I could see his point, even though I didn’t share his opinion.
“Where are we going?”
“Shopping mall in Imadomi.”
I didn’t have to ask why, and he wouldn’t explain his reasoning anyway.
The taxi took us there in record time. He had been right, everyone would be at the demo now, except for the few people still at a workplace, mostly service personnel of expensive shops that hadn’t replaced their staff with tech, such as the mall he had programmed the taxi to bring us.
We got out and stepped inside what seemed like a different world and reminded me of Uehara’s waiting room. Indirect light, soft piano music playing at a low volume. A young female greeted us with a perfect bow, product of lifelong practice. This place was one or two levels above what I could afford. Daisuke had been blessed with a very nice cover identity.
I had already forgotten the name of the mall when we walked through the clean, white entrance area. Before us, a huge, open space with two floors, connected by escalators that ran tirelessly.
“Where do you want to go first?”
He shrugged. “How about some window shopping?”
Without waiting for a reply, he walked down the path to the right, past a display window with traditional clothing. The words ‘Castle Wedding’ glowed in discreet italic letters above the entrance. Nobody here needed shrill ads or bright lights. Whoever came here to shop knew already where they wanted to spend their money.
“I got it in my head,” I said, and Daisuke glanced at me. He nodded at a bench a bit ahead, next to a water basin with goldfish swimming in circles.
“The whole thing? Did anyone notice?”
“The whole thing. This version has no brakes either, we took them all out and didn’t install new rule sets yet.”
He muttered something under his breath, then leaned in on me.
“Your damn head is worth a lot of cash right now.”
I laughed, but it wasn’t a happy laugh. He was right.
“That’s the reason I got in touch with you. I need to dump this somewhere, before someone else comes to the same conclusion.”
I heard a suppressed curse from his direction and stretched out my legs. I hadn’t slept much, only about an hour in the train, while sitting, half awake, so I wouldn’t overshoot and land somewhere else. My head felt hollow and my legs were stiff.
Daisuke’s face seemed distracted, a sure sign of him paying attention to his system.
“You have to keep your head down for a while, until I can arrange something.”
&nb
sp; Enough with the head metaphors already.
“How long?”
“I don’t know, this kind of thing takes time, and we’re in the middle of an upcoming apocalypse.”
“Ishida’s missing.”
He closed his program and returned to reality.
“Makoto, I’ll hurry up, but you really need to go into hiding for a while, until I can sort it out.”
An old woman turned her head around and looked at us. We might have been a bit loud.
Daisuke cursed again.
I stood up.
“I’ll send you a message with contact info later,” I said and left.
25
Nadya
Nadya went through her shopping bag, as she rode the elevator. She had been to a drug store and replaced some of the things they had lost when they left the Trans Siberian Railway. She just hadn’t been able to support the American and carry his bag at the same time, and he had been utterly useless at the time. Going out and getting some fresh air had also been necessary to clear her mind. Collins was still recovering, even though things progressed nicely. The prospect of sitting in a hotel room with him for a week though wasn’t inviting.
There had been plenty to do and see on the ferry from Vladivostok, and the train ride had been a nightmare, but now that there was real downtime, she needed some distance from time to time.
Their new hotel was near the station. It was more expensive, and more exposed, but the traffic was high, both inside and outside the building. They were unlikely to get attacked again in the way it had happened at the last place, but they were also more visible. She was anxious to move on. Being a sitting duck for an enemy she couldn’t see was a worst case scenario for her. She thrived in the shadows. Hidden somewhere, working in secrecy was how she got things done. But she had no choice.