Her shadow fell silent as she made her way to where Mister Pan was considering a fence post and what he might do with it. She could tell they were brooding and that was not the last she had heard on the matter, but at least they were quiet.
San Francisco, CA, 24th March.
Dressed in a hoodie and dark jeans which had seen better days, Mink walked the streets of San Francisco trying to keep the worried look off her face. Well, she did not try too hard because her current persona lent itself to worried looks. Someone had picked up the drug business in the City.
Ever since she had taken down the Nine Kings tong along with Cygnus and Twilight, the drug supply in San Francisco had come in through bit players and the cops had been very diligent in dropping the hammer on any such group they found. It had been too good to last, obviously. Someone had been bound to move in eventually and there had been rumours of such an organisation operating for a while. It was just that they had really stepped up their game in the last week or so.
It was going to have to stop. The only problem was finding out where the supply was coming from.
5th April.
Almost two weeks of investigation had netted Mink next to nothing in the way of information. Suspecting that Diamond was somehow involved, she had tasked the Stars with seeing what they could get out of some of the street dealers. Lament could be a pain in the ass, but she could be really useful when she wanted to be. For all the charm of Lament’s singing and all the dealers Fuego and Bonehead supplied for her to work those charms on, they had got about as much as Bianca’s various personas had got: nothing much.
So, direct action was called for and Mink was on the prowl. All that effort had suggested a couple of locations where the drugs were being handed out at the street level. Mink was watching one of them, a place in the Tenderloin off Larkin Street. It worked well for Mink’s general mode of operation: find somewhere high nearby to watch from. She lay on the roof of a four-storey building – with a deli down at street level – and watched the comings and goings in the car park across the way.
There were plenty of dealers, but she was not really interested in them. There were three men in street clothes hanging around a ten-ton truck who did not really bother Mink either. It was interesting that they were not bothered by police in all the time they waited around, handing out packages and collecting other packages. That was likely low-level bribery rather than the institutionalised corruption which had plagued portions of the SFPD before the Nine Kings had been removed from the picture.
Settling down for a long wait, Mink once again considered the advisability of the huge vent in the front of her Mink costume and wondered why she never remembered to bring blankets on stakeouts.
San Jose, CA, 6th April.
Finally, the hours of general discomfort and having to fish grit out of her costume had paid off. It was also lucky that she had not brought a blanket, but she did have her car not far from the parking lot she had been watching. The men with the van had packed up not long after midnight, Mink had put a tracer on the roof of the van with her rope dart, and now she was following them south.
As befitted a little-seen heroine such as Mink, she was not following them directly. She followed her beacon, the car’s computer plotting her a route along side roads while the truck took the freeway. For quite a while, it looked like they were heading for San Jose and, at least technically, that was where they ended up. It was just the southern edge of San Jose around Coyote.
Mink stopped a couple of blocks away from where the truck had come to rest and made her way there on foot. She was not entirely sure what to expect when she got there, but what she found was another parking lot. This one belonged to Aces Shipping. One quick internet search later, she knew that Aces Shipping was a privately owned company registered as operating in Los Angeles. Their San Jose location was simply a local distribution centre. There was nothing especially interesting about the listing for the company. They seemed legitimate. Well, aside from the fact that they appeared to be distributing drugs to dealers in San Francisco and maybe a few other places in the Bay area.
It was after one a.m. and the place seemed to be shutting down for the night. Mink smiled. A little breaking and entering seemed to be in order. Maybe she could find some information on who was running this operation. And if not, she could try the Los Angeles offices later.
Los Angeles, CA.
The L.A. offices of Aces Shipping were in the Canoga Park area. They consisted of a short office block attached to a warehouse and beside a parking lot. It all looked very legitimate, but Mink’s computers had been doing some work on the organisation while Bianca Fullerton had been out being a CEO during the day. Aces Shipping had been floundering for the last three years and had recently been bought out. Most of the original staff had been given severance packages and happily walked away, and someone had pumped a lot of money into the company to get it back into operation, but only with its L.A. and San Jose offices.
Mink finished picking the lock on a side door and slipped inside. For a transport company, Aces operated a pretty strict nine-to-five schedule in L.A. That was particularly weird, given that the San Jose office was open until one a.m. From Mink’s point of view, it just meant the only thing she had to worry about was a pair of guards who patrolled the building about every two hours. Though, considering she thought the company was up to no good, the lax security seemed a little odd too.
She located a computer and plugged in one of her hacking devices. She was on her way to the office door to keep an eye on the corridor when the device gave a soft beep. It had got in? That quickly? The security on this place was lax for a shipping company; for a drug distribution operation, it was criminal. Mink allowed herself a smirk at the internal pun and began going through the computer’s filing system.
Jokes aside, there was something not quite right about Aces Shipping. They were clearly shipping drugs into San Francisco, but it was almost like they were a smokescreen for something else. It had been a little too easy to discover them and certainly too easy to get at their secrets. It was a good thing Mink had brought along some surveillance gear. A few bugs in the right places might well uncover a few secrets whoever was behind Aces did not want known.
Zhongwei, China, 15th April.
Guàiwù had not been to Zhongwei, but someone had. The monster had passed to the north, wading through Yinchuan, but then sticking to the desert as it headed toward Xining. That was interesting, because that was where the people who had come to Zhongwei had come from.
Andrea was keeping her presence in the city a lot more quiet than she had in Ordos. It was like living in an occupied country. Troops in almost-Army uniforms patrolled the streets and stood guard around the local power station. The uniforms had once been regular Army uniforms, but each of them now had red epaulettes and any flag patches had been removed. Camouflage gear with bright red shoulders just looked wrong.
From what Andrea had been able to work out so far, they were in Zhongwei to secure the Tengger Desert Solar Park. The place was almost seventeen square miles of photovoltaic cells, the largest such site in the world. There were military engineers busy stringing heavy-duty cable across the landscape toward Xining. No one in Zhongwei knew what would happen to them when the project was completed, but it seemed like there was more than just Guàiwù to be worried about in this corner of the country.
Los Angeles, CA, 17th April.
The mansion – well, certainly a large house built on a large plot of land off Mulholland Drive – was staffed exclusively by young, attractive women with vacantly happy expressions. From Mink’s current viewpoint, this was not entirely a bad thing since none of the girls appeared to care much about a stranger walking through the corridors past them. They all had their jobs, and they went about them with single-minded determination.
Clearly, Mink’s target for this evening had psionic abilities, but that was expected. Sooner or later, Mink would need to deal with what was going on here, but th
at would have to wait. In all probability, no matter when these girls were freed, they were going to need help from psychiatric professionals. Waiting a while longer would not make that much difference, even if it made Mink grind her teeth to do it.
She made her way to a huge lounge at the back of the building, and there she found the man she was looking for. His name was Randal Totteridge, and he was possibly the most odious individual Mink had ever laid eyes on. It was not just that he was morbidly obese, though that was certainly a factor. His body was a misshapen lump with thick arms and legs. His cheeks hung as flabby jowls and he had at least three chins. His eyes were sunken and dark. And with all that mass, he was watching TV with a bowl of candy and a bowl of potato chips within easy reach. Beyond the gross mass, Totteridge smelled. It was like being in a hot room with the contents of a fast food restaurant’s dumpster, an unholy combination of BO and rot.
And then there were the two girls waiting on him, dressed in little white aprons and high-heeled pumps. They were there because Totteridge had done something to them. And because of what he had done, they just stood there while Mink walked across the plush carpet and out in front of the fat man.
His piggy eyes narrowed. ‘You. What are you doing in my home?’
‘I’d love to say I was here to put you behind bars,’ Mink replied. She did not flinch as Totteridge launched his bowl of sweets at her, missing by four feet. The bowl hit the wall under the TV set, leaving a dent in the plaster. It seemed that the fat man was quite strong, even if his aim was lousy. ‘That is no way to greet a guest, Mister Totteridge. Or do you prefer Belphegor? The Prince of Gluttony?’
‘I’d prefer you got out of my house.’ He reached for the second bowl.
‘I came all this way to tell you about a competitor, and you just want me to leave?’
Belphegor paused. ‘What competitor?’
‘There’s a new game in town in San Francisco. They seem to be calling themselves the Four Queens and they’re shipping drugs in, in bulk. They’ve taken control of the old networks the Nine Kings operated.’
‘So? We’re not interested in–’
‘Please don’t take me for an idiot, Mister Totteridge. You’ve been trying to move in for a while, but that’s not the problem we have. These “Queens” have gone to a lot of effort to make it look as though you are behind the new shipments. Their main distribution facility is in Los Angeles, a company called Aces Shipping. Security there is just bad enough to make it easy to get into and all the obvious leads end with you. I only found out the truth because I’m far better than your average vice cop. They want me or the cops to come battering down your door. They want me or the cops to take down the Princes so they can move into L.A.’
‘And you’re telling me this, why?’
‘So that you can take care of their distribution channels, of course,’ Mink replied.
‘I do that, I have a way of getting drugs into San Francisco.’
‘Not really. I can shut it down any time I want. Cards on the table, Belphegor. The Princes are weak and in no position to push into my turf. You’re the L.A. Angels’ problem. I know exactly what you’ve got on them, by the way, so I know they won’t be doing anything about you, but that’s not my problem. The Four Queens are my problem, but they’ve made themselves your problem too.’
‘Are you trying to start a war between us and them?’
Mink laughed and started back the way she had come. ‘I doubt I’ve got that much good karma coming my way. Next time we meet, I doubt it’ll be such a civil experience. So, if I were you, I’d do my best to avoid us having to meet. Keep your grubby little fingers off San Francisco and tell your friends to do the same.’
‘Or?’
‘Or I’ll see to it that you go on a diet of prison food for the rest of your natural life.’
Ordos City, China, 22nd April.
It was dark when a warp portal dropped Cygnus, Frostburn, and Lán Yǎnjīng off in the centre of Ordos. For a second, it was hard to believe they were actually standing in a city since huge sections of it were rubble.
‘What happened here?’ Cygnus asked. ‘It looks like a war zone.’
‘They call it Guàiwù,’ Lán Yǎnjīng replied. ‘The word means monster, or freak. It was used as a common name for Ultras, but now it has a specific meaning.’
‘We heard rumours of something coming out of the crater in Beijing.’
‘The same monster. I have only read reports, and those appear exaggerated in many cases, but when you see the devastation first-hand…’ The Chinese cop gave herself a shake. ‘It will be some hours before we can talk to civilians, but we should be able to talk to the police before then.’
‘Okay, let’s get moving.’
~~~
The local chief of police had decided that important foreign visitors were worth getting out of bed for, even if one of them was actually from Hong Kong. His English was far from perfect, but Lán Yǎnjīng was not actually needed for translation, mostly.
‘I did not meet the woman personally,’ he explained, ‘but this picture matches the description my men gave me.’
‘Do you know what she was doing in your city?’ Jacob asked. Of the three of them, the policeman seemed most nervous of Jacob. Maybe it was the glowing eyes. Unlike Hong Kong, Jacob was well at home in Ordos. The outside air temperature was around thirty-five and he was only wearing his armour for the heated police building.
‘I know what she did. We were having trouble with bandits raiding our supply shipments. Since Guàiwù came through, we have had trouble feeding our people and there were those who decided robbing the relief convoys was a prosperous way to live. I did not have the manpower to take them on, but she… She went alone to their camp. They either died there, or they are still running. One of them ran to us! He demanded that we lock him up “to save him from the demons.” I’m not a superstitious man, but I believed him.’
‘Did she give you a name?’ Cygnus asked. ‘Or do you know what name she was using?’
‘No. No one mentioned her name, but you should go to the north.’ The policeman produced a notepad from his pocket and jotted something down. ‘She was living in this neighbourhood. I’m not sure exactly where, but you can ask around.’
‘Thanks,’ Jacob said, nodding. ‘This means a lot to us.’
‘It is my duty,’ the chief said, ‘and she did us a very great favour while she was here.’
~~~
Mrs Pan was obviously not comfortable having the two foreigners and the woman from Hong Kong in her home, but she had frowned at Jacob and then said that, yes, she did know the woman in the picture. She spoke no English, so Lán Yǎnjīng was translating.
‘She says that their… guest was calling herself Mù,’ Lán Yǎnjīng said. ‘It means ‘twilight.’ Andrea does not translate well into Chinese. Midnight would be Wǔyè, so it seems that she has gone back to her original nickname.’
Jacob nodded. ‘That sounds good. Can you ask what she was like? How she was behaving?’
‘She was here for almost a month,’ Lán Yǎnjīng translated as Mrs Pan spoke. ‘She was very good, helping with chores around the house and going to the market for food. She was… private. She spoke little of where she came from. She did mention that she had a boyfriend who was tall and strong, and that he had blue eyes which glowed.’
‘It sounds like she’s back to being Andrea, or Twilight,’ Cygnus said, frowning. ‘Did she say why she was not going home?’
There was the pause for questions to be asked and answered. ‘No. Mrs Pan thinks she was worried about something. She heard her talking to herself on several occasions. Arguing with herself. She thinks Mù is very troubled. She thinks that Mù is trying to atone for something. When she left, she said she would be following Guàiwù west.’
‘She’s following a monster? Why?’
Jacob gave a slight shrug. ‘If she’s trying to atone for what Midnight did in Hong Kong, maybe this is how she hopes to do it.
’
‘I can’t help but think it’s something more specific than that, but… Okay. She’s gone. We’re trailing behind again.’ Cygnus smiled at Mrs Pan. ‘You’ve been a great help. If there is anything we can help with before we leave…’
Mrs Pan’s eyes widened upon hearing the translation. Lán Yǎnjīng smirked on hearing the reply. ‘She says that her husband has been moving sacks of seed and fertiliser to the back of their land for a couple of days. He could really use the help.’
Cygnus grinned. ‘I think we can probably handle that.’
‘Yeah,’ Jacob agreed, ‘but when you’re doing that with one hand, what are you going to do with the other one?’
New Millennium City, MD, 27th April.
‘Landslide victories across the board for Senator Roger Kilmer last night in what is being called Super Tuesday Three.’ The presenter had a happy sort of voice, though ACPN tended to try for a balanced political viewpoint. ‘The Senator from South Carolina is now showing an almost insurmountable position for the Republican nomination. The Democratic race is closer with Francesca Hart continuing in the lead. Supporters of Senator Sanding still believe that he can rally enough support for a win.’
‘I’m not sure I thought she’d get that far,’ June said as she buttered her toast.
‘She’s the obvious reaction to Kilmer,’ Penny replied.
‘Senator Kilmer made further news last night at a rally in San Antonio, Texas, where he called for the construction of a new maximum-security prison for Ultrahumans in space.’
‘Mute!’ Penny yelped. ‘What is that man smoking? We don’t have the kind of technology necessary to build something like that. Well, not in general use anyway. I know the Fortress was cutting edge, but this would be bleeding edge. It would be “raw and bleeding stump of a severed limb” edge. It would–’
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