More applause. Connard Branleur was on fire.
He placed his arms on the podium, gripping it to show just how serious he was, just how important his next point would be. “All that being said, ladies and gentlemen, there is a threat we have completely overlooked, a threat which has the potential to do greater harm to the peace and revenue generating capacity of organized society than any simple terrorist network ever could. That threat?”
He paused for dramatic effect, sweeping the audience with his gaze as he carefully enunciated the next three words. “The Humandroid terrorist.”
THREE∞
Meme here.
MercSecure’s Japanese branch in Shinagawa is not the place I expected to be two days after Yeshi disabled herself with a Humgun disguised as a mascara bottle. I’m posted up in a hooded sweater in front of a Doutor coffee shop, scanning the entrance to the building through a pair of borrowed Leaks. FYI – Carloza’s stuffed enchilada body has yet to be replaced, something I’m not exactly happy about.
A Tokyo drizzle lashes against the window. All the raindrops, all the raindrops. If only water from the sky could wash away the day, if only it hadn’t come to this. The rain does nothing for my howling brain. My impedimenta is self-created, self-actualizing, self-convicting. I’ve become what I was once falsely accused of being. Still, life is a beautiful thing, or should I say, beautiful enough to warrant a tagline.
Thar she blows.
I watch calmly as two MercSecure representatives powerwalk into the main lobby. The sticks up their asses are evident through their garments. Thatcher ass-scratchers. My Leaks have been modded to allow me to see company rankings alongside vitals. With the glasses on I can see their hearts beat in their chests, their little pea-brains, their lungs inflate and deflate. These two are underlings, worker bees simply feeding the queen.
Down with the queen – something that should have been uttered at the dawn of humankind.
The croaking raven doth bellow for revenge. The narcissistic truthsayer doth wallow with the bends. I am Meme the righteous imprecation; the furnace that is my belly is piping hot, vying for foes to singe, minds to envenom.
Reader –the surprise attack is imminent. MercSecure has brought it upon themselves by transmuting a therapist into a terrorist. It officially takes one to know one, I suppose. They’ve made me a murderer.
From Therapist to Terrorist: A Memoir. It would be a bestseller on EBAYmazon.
I take quick sips from a cup of coffee, listening to the rain pitter-patter against the floor-to-ceiling glass window as I nibble on the corner of a sushi-infused biscotti, the worst thing I’ve had in ages but fuck it, we all need carbs. I’ve never thought of myself as an insurgent, but I suppose new labels are why we invent labels in the first place. The glass slipper doesn’t fit yet, but it will over time.
Focus old pal – I keep scanning the crowd, waiting for my target to appear. She’ll be here soon enough.
Here I come, Aya Hayashi, here I come.
FOUR∞
Just the lady I’m looking for. I watch as Aya Hayashi purchases a cup of coffee at Doutor. She’s dressed conservatively, twitchy in the way that many Japanese women are. No idea what’s in the water over here, but I’ll stick with my pollutes.
Me: She’s leaving Doutor now, heading to the main elevator through the lobby.
Yeshi: I’m on it.
Yes, Yeshi is alive and well after zapping her lights out with her mascara bottle-shaped Humgun. Seconds before disabling herself back at the park, she sent me a message that contained Madoka’s address (the weapons dealer who once employed the Humandroid Hajime the basket-head). Madoka was able to reboot Yeshi, making a rare appearance from his upstairs bedroom. The rest, as they say, is history.
Her hard reboot along with the installation of a few custom apps took almost a day, and I stayed clear of pollutes for once (yes, a first, thank you very much) and decided to go through my GoogleFace and iNet messages to see who had contacted me.
A disturbing message from Nelly is the reason I’m in Shinagawa – Meme, I don’t know where the fuck you are or if you will ever check your messages, but you owe me. I’ve been taken by Antimeria and MercSecure. They will likely disable my iNet access soon. You will find me through Noah (Hdroid #959728). Please help.
If only she had said, help me Obi Wan Kenobi, you’re my only hope …
Me: Link me to your ocs. Enable audio.
Yeshi’s video feed appears in my Leaks. I watch as she follows the Japanese woman into the elevator and stands at the back. The thought crosses my mind that using this feature would be great for sex. I let the thought slip away, to be stored in some dark corner of the mind. Nothing like suppressing one’s feelings.
I send a message to Madoka, our weapons dealer friend. (Well, friend may be a stretch, but at least we share a common goal – revenge.)
Me: She’s in.
Madoka: Disabling all video feeds in the building. Yeshi has exactly one minute.
Me: One minute, Yeshi.
Yeshi: Got it.
The elevator begins its ascent. I can see the back of the woman’s head from my (Yeshi’s) perspective. There are two black-suited men in the elevator; one of them eyes Yeshi, his gaze lingers on her generous rack. He evaluates her, erroneously determines she’s not a threat, and goes back to watching the floor numbers light up.
Me: Are they MercSecure?
Yeshi: Of course. Low-level security staff.
Me: What are you going to do?
Yeshi: Watch and learn.
Yeshi’s oversize purse slides off her shoulder to the floor. She crouches to pick it up and in the interval between one heartbeat and the next launches herself at suit number one on her left, her elbow leaving a visible indentation in the side of his head. His bowels and bladder let go as he hits the floor.
She pivots out of her elbow strike, grabs the woman by her lapels and throws her into suit number two just as his weapon clears the holster. Yeshi peels the woman off of the suit and throws her against the back of the cab, hard enough to stun her. She traps suit number two’s gun hand under her arm, and with her other hand grabs his face like a bowling ball and hammers his head one, two, three times into the wall. She unhooks her hand from his face and he slides down the wall and settles in a heap like a sack of doorknobs.
His weapon thunks against the floor.
Yeshi tosses her hair, smooths her clothes, and smiles down at the weeping Japanese woman cowering in the corner. With one hand, she grips the woman around the neck and dead lifts her, pinning her against the wall with her toes dangling in the air. “Do exactly as I say if you want to live … ”
The woman nods, trembling with fear.
Yeshi releases her. “Press the button for the top floor,” she says in Japanese.
“I don’t have access,” the woman says in English.
“Don’t worry about that.”
The woman does as instructed, canceling her MercSecure floor by registering her fingertip.
Me: Madoka, enable access to the top floor.
Madoka: Enabled.
Me: Yeshi, you’re good to go.
She brandishes a small vial filled with yellow liquid and something inside that resembles a seahorse. “Have you ever heard of a DL agent? Good, don’t squirm.”
Yeshi pins her against the wall with her forearm and presses the vial into Aya Hayashi’s upper arm. The woman chokes back a sob as the DL agent wiggles through her flesh.
“Accept a direct message from Anonymous One,” Yeshi hisses at the woman. As soon as she does, I send a pre-written message in Japanese.
Me: Konnichiwa, Aya Hayashi! I am Anonymous One. After Representative Anonymous Two gets off on the top floor, you will behave normally and return to your office as if nothing has happened. You will find and transfer any and all the information MercSecure has on Nelly Mercer-Dodson, former wife of Antimeria Dodson to this secure link http://eepurl.com/bj9W25 d – You have fifteen minutes to accomplish this
or the DL agent detonates. If the information is incomplete, corrupted, or booby trapped, the DL agent detonates. If you fail to respond to any future communications from Anonymous One, the DL agent detonates. Are we clear?
FIVE∞
The elevator opens onto the top floor, which is an exclusive aeros parking garage. Note – I’m still receiving feed from Yeshi’s ocs, which means I’m privy to everything she sees. (I almost feel as if I’m playing some type of first-person shooter in a dive vat, lost in some Proxima World.) It’s weird seeing her hands in front of me, seeing the action play out from her perspective. I wish I were as badass as my sigother.
Anticlimactic action sequence – Yeshi drags both men out of the elevator. She turns and says something to Aya Hayashi. The woman bows, still trembling.
Me: Get the gun.
Her foot prevents the elevator door from closing. She steps inside the elevator again, as Aya Hayashi shrinks into a corner. Yeshi retrieves the weapon and stows it in her shoulder bag. Suit number two recovers enough to attempt to crawl away. Whumpf! She kicks him in the solar plexus and he loses interest in anything but trying to breathe.
Me: What are you going to do with the guards?
Yeshi: They do complicate things.
Me: Are you going to kill them?
Yeshi: Not my forté.
Me: Then what?
Yeshi takes both men by the collar and drags them over to a black Lexus aeros. The elevator door shuts behind her, sending Aya Hayashi on her way.
Me: You taking them somewhere? We need to get to the station …
She opens the door of the Lexus, tosses the first man inside. She throws the other on top of him, slams the door shut.
Me: Going for a joyride?
Yeshi ignores my message. She opens the driver’s side door and gives the autopilot instructions in Japanese. The system responds and the aeros starts. A wall on the opposite side of the private parking space twists open, forming a slot just big enough for the aeros to fit through. The vehicle rises into the air, exits the parking area and smoothly merges with traffic.
Yeshi: I’ve used the emergency controls to override the vehicle’s central command. It is taking them to a hospital in Kyoto, which should take five hours or so to reach.
Me: And they can’t get out?
Yeshi: I locked the command.
Me: Didn’t know you could do that…
Yeshi: I am an entity of many talents. Madoka, disable all alarms on the fire escape.
Madoka: Done. Has the information been transferred yet?
I quickly check the private link that I sent Aya Hayashi.
Me: The files are uploading now. I can’t believe this is working!
Madoka: As soon as it’s there, I’ll trigger all the fire sprinklers and override the power grid. This will add some chaos to the mix.
SIX∞
The Saudi Prince stormed back and forth in the suite at the Rashid Hotel, one of the oldest and longest surviving hotels in Iraq. The Rashid was unique in its design, easily the tallest building in the disheveled city. It was shaped like one of the swords at the Unknown Soldier’s monument, sharp and curved, thrusting into the sky.
The symbolism was lost on no-one.
Handsomely decorated blast walls and minaret-shaped weapons turrets surrounded the hotel. A stylishly designed encircling dry moat was complemented by an actual wet moat – a most ostentatious display of wealth and fresh water, especially in a place where potable water was hard to obtain. The outlying Hesco barriers and Khomeini gates were tastefully hidden from the guest’s view by carefully tended greenery, which in turn concealed the machine gun positions that covered the approaches with interlocking fields of fire. The Rashid Hotel claimed to be the best-defended building in the country. It was also a pleasant place to stay for those who could afford it, recently rated four-and-a-half stars in the Michelin-Hankook guide.
“How the fuck did he even get close?” Al Omid shouted for the hundredth time. The Prince was already upset about the fact that he’d been assigned two female MercSecure representatives. He hadn’t explicitly said it, but it was clear he thought the two women were at fault.
“From what we’ve been able to uncover, he was smuggled in several days before.” Clove answered for Monique and Rinchi.
The Prince punched his fists together. “Smuggled in? This doesn’t happen! This… this has never happened with your company before!”
Rinchi scanned his vitals, watching as his heart rate increased. She remembered how brutal Al Omid had been to her in LA. As an escort, she’d grown used to the demented and violent nature of men (especially men from the more sexually-repressed regions of the world like the Middle East and India). Still, the Prince was especially barbarous; it had taken an entire day for the Humandroid Maintenance and Repair technicians to repair the damage he’d inflicted on her during their salacious encounter.
It would be nice to kill him.
“There was nothing we could do about it.” Clove was Monique’s brother, representative thirty-one. He was broad-shouldered and quite serious. His skin was a shade lighter than his sister’s and he was a clean cut, the lower half of his body had been replaced with cybernetic prostheses.
Al Omid continued pacing in front of his bed, his feet practically leaving a scrape mark against the floor. He wore a white keffiyeh tied off with a thick black agal. His hairy body was covered by a matching thawb, a one-of-a-kind piece made for him by Ralph Lauren of Arabia. “One of you … ” he glared at the three representatives. “One of you needs to get as much information as you can out of the prisoner before I … deal with him.”
The unfortunate driver and would-be martyr from earlier was locked in a cellar beneath the Rashid Hotel, which wasn’t a service the hotel normally provided for their clientele. Being one of the most powerful men in the Middle East had its advantages.
Clove: Who wants to interrogate?
Rinchi: That’s my specialty.
“She’ll take care of it.” Clove nodded at the Humandroid.
Al Omid nearly spat on the ground. “Her? She’s the weakest of the three of you! What’s her ranking?”
“Two-hundred twelve,” the Prince’s assistant said from across the room.
“This is beside the fact that she is a woman. I assumed … ” his voice dropped as his eyes fixated on Clove. “I assumed you’d be taking care of it as the man in charge.”
Clove said, “Your opinions, prejudices and assumptions are of no importance to me. Rinchi is the most qualified; she will conduct the interrogation.”
The Prince’s mouth dropped upon hearing her name. He locked eyes with Rinchi, who was still wearing a black burka that exposed only her eyes.
“Wh-what did you say her name was?” he asked.
“Rinchi,” Clove repeated.
“Nice to see you again, Al,” Rinchi grinned. “What’s it been? Six months?”
“Al? You will not address me in that way! You can’t … ! You are just a … !” he turned away from them to hide his righteous outrage and indignation. “Fine, go!” he said over his shoulder, seething. “But do not kill the man. DO NOT kill him! I have … plans for him.”
Rinchi handed her weapon to Clove and exited the room. An immaculate hallway led past a string of Al Omid’s personal security detail. Paintings of an Iraq once upon a time hung from the walls, constantly reminding hotel guests that the city wasn’t always a shithole.
“Where are you going?” one of the men demanded in Arabic. He was a burly man, with a cybernetic arm. He barred her path as he waited for her answer. She locked eyes with him, and he blinked at what he saw there. His mouth opened, closed and he backed out of her way.
She took the elevator the bottom floor and was greeted by the concierge, a Humandroid. “As-salāmu “alaykumā,” he said.
Rinchi didn’t say anything about the gender he chose in his Arabic phrase. There was no point in arguing with a sexist Neunbolt. “Take me to the cellar.”
&nbs
p; “As you wish,” the droid said curtly.
She followed the concierge into the kitchen, past a sous-chef butchering an enormous carcass. In the center of the kitchen, a visibly distressed French chef put the finishing touches on an elaborate crepe dish. Negative waves radiated off him like gamma radiation from the Chernobyl melt-down – it was clear that he was unhappy with his situation.
The concierge stopped in front of a single door, a few paces away from an enormous refrigerator unit. “Shall I accompany you?” he asked in a clipped voice. His behavior struck Rinchi as odd; it was always interesting how much Humandroids adapted to their current environment.
“No, you shall stay right here and wait for my return. Is there another key?”
“There is.”
“If you hear any screaming, stay put,” she instructed the droid. “Don’t let anyone into the cellar, and don’t let anyone out but me.”
SEVEN∞
A celebration is in order – Aya Hayashi didn’t call my bluff! I’m sitting on the train next to Yeshi, Anonymous Two, her bangs a mess on her forehead yet looking hella fine as always. Outside the window, the Tokyo underground whips by in a wide array of colors.
Me: I still can’t believe she didn’t check the DL agent.
Yeshi: How could she have known to? Madoka was right. We now have the info we need, Anonymous One :-p
Life is a Beautiful Thing (4-Book Box Set) Page 32