by Nyx Smith
"Your instructions, Machiko-sama!"
Machiko motions at the bar. "Guard all exits."
The headman gestures. Kobun head down the alleyways flanking the bar. Machiko pushes through the door at the front of the bar and enters a cataclysm of noise, rant rock so loud it rises to the level of static. The air is humid with heat and sweat, but the glimmer of feverish bipedal bodies shows clearly against the dark, as though human and metahuman burn with an inner light, and skin and clothes, flush with heat, are merely the shades enclosing many lanterns.
She finds Lieutenant Enotori at the rear of the bar counter. He points to a dark passage leading to a door at the building's rear. "Women's lavatory!" he says loudly into Machiko's ear.
The door to this room is marked with a holographic image of a female lying spread-eagle. Walking into this room is like walking into a brightly lit open sewer. The air reeks. The only toilet has overflowed onto the floor. The walls, the mirror, sink, and floor are all covered with the evidence of former patrons' uncivilized habits. Yakei-san's dwarf female chummer kneels by the sink, giving service to a husky ork.
Kayabasuke. Joro. A whore.
Machiko takes hold of the ork's right wrist, applies pressure and twists, and sends him stumbling toward the door. Three kobun propel him forcibly through the doorway and out. The dwarf female, Choca, looks on incredulously, then curses, getting to her feet. She is little more than half Machiko's height, yet evokes an expression of impassioned outrage.
"What the frag? What the frag!"
And as these words are exclaimed, a knife appears. The attack is expected. Machiko allows it only to demonstrate that resistance is useless. She deflects the blade by driving the arm that wields it away to the left, striking, then snaring it by the wrist, and then drives the blade of her right hand against Choca's neck. Choca rasps. She staggers back against the sink and drops to the floor. Machiko takes the knife, tosses it aside, then goes to one knee and seizes Choca's left ear in a ruthless grip.
Choca shrieks, but the shriek immediately goes silent. She convulses, heaves herself out flat on the floor, and lies there jerking and twitching.
"You spoke of a chrome killer who works cheaply for a mage," Machiko says. "The mage was described as a brain-buster. The killer said he will make the world safe for crazies and destroy all corps. You will tell me more."
Choca screams out curses. She screams as one suffering agony when Machiko renews the pressure on her ear.
"Do not deceive yourself. You will talk. If you do not respond to pain, I will summon a mage and he will enter your mind. And when we are done you will desire only merciful death."
"Stop it! Stop! " Choca shrieks.
Machiko eases the pressure.
"You're asking me what I heard," Choca says hoarsely. "That's all I know. I heard this gillette in a bar talking all kinds of drek! I never seen him before. I swear!"
"Perhaps you gave him service."
"So what if I did."
"At his doss?"
"I don't remember!"
More pressure. More shrieks and convulsive tremors. "Okay! okay! okay! FRAG IT!"
"The killer's name."
"Jank! Jank!"
"His address."
Choca mumbles an address. Machiko stands and tells the kobun behind her, "This person will accompany us."
The kobun seize Choca. Machiko leads the group from the lavatory to the front door of the bar and onto the sidewalk. She sees at once that the scene outside has changed. Sirens whoop and wail. An emergency service van marked for the NYPD Inc. is just then turning onto the block, blue lights strobing. Several armored patrol vehicles are already parked up and down the block. Numerous uniformed officers are moving about, checking the bodies of the dead gangers, speaking into commlinks and shining flashlights around.
As she steps onto the sidewalk she nearly collides with a trio of officers.
All three turn to face her abruptly. All three look at her as if astonished. One commands her to halt. Another moves a hand to his gun. The third steps toward her, reaching out with both hands, but before he can close the distance, the headman of kobun steps in and shoves, and the officer staggers backward and falls.
All three officers draw guns. One shouts into a commlink, "Ten-thirteen! ten-thirteen!" The others shout, "We got a situation!"
"Get on the ground! Get on the ground!"
Machiko crosses her arms and waits. Through it all, she hears the footsteps of the kobun exiting the bar, fanning across the sidewalk behind her. She sees the NYPD officers' surprise and uncertainty swelling rapidly toward panic. For every kobun that exits the bar, the NYPD officers shift back another step, then another. They move to take cover as the kobun from the side and rear exits of the bar join the group on the sidewalk. More excited calls over commlinks. More sirens arising from all around. Before long, Machiko and the others are staring into the guns of some twenty to twenty-five NYPD officers, some in heavy armor.
Machiko waits, arms crossed, spirit settled.
The men of Yoshida-kai follow suit.
"Oh, drek!" Choca mutters. "Drek! drek! drek!" Inevitably, one man steps forward. His uniform is marked by gold braid and a captain's insignia. He comes to within about three meters and pauses. He pops something, candy or perhaps a nut, into his mouth, chews, then pops another. He conceals an anxious spirit behind a mask of nonchalance.
"My name's Burke," he says. "We got ourselves a little situation. Suppose we try to talk it out before somebody does something stupid and we all do a lot of shooting."
Machiko replies, "I have no objection."
The captain steps closer. Pops another small something into his mouth and chews. "Busy night for Nagato. For the Guard especially. You got the whole plex in an uproar. What gives?"
It is unfortunate that this captain and his officers wear the uniform of the NYPD Inc. Of the three major corps making a business of law enforcement in the plex, the NYPD Inc. ranks as the least corruptible, perhaps because the union that owns and controls the corp ruthlessly excises any members found to be corrupt. Machiko therefore expects that this Captain Burke will act in accordance with police regulations, and that he would be unlikely to accept a bribe as a solution to his "situation."
"We are engaged in proprietary operations involving a known corporate terrorist," Machiko says. "You need not involve yourself or the NYPD corporation in these activities."
"Not get involved?" The captain affects surprise. "You got this whole damn street littered with dead men."
"You have witnesses to this?"
"Take a look around. I can see three or four meatjobs from right where I'm standing."
"Corpses lying in the street are not my concern."
"You got nothing to do with this? Is that what you're telling me?"
"The corpses of gangers lying in the street is not a matter concerning Nagato Combine. Therefore, I will have nothing to do with it. That is what I am saying."
"You will if you say I you will."
"Do you wish to negotiate or to make threats you may come to regret?"
"You did notice this isn't Nagato property, right?"
"Indeed. It is part of the whole megaplex, which must be defended from the violent criminal elements that threaten all our people. Our respective organizations share responsibility for meeting that threat, as do all corporate citizens."
The captain spends a moment gazing at Machiko steadily, perhaps considering what she has said. "Lemme explain something. I'm the police. That makes me the legal authority here. And the law says you and your people are civilians. That's my point."
"Like you," Machiko replies, "I am a corporate officer, and I am engaged in the business of my corporation. That is my point."
The captain chews another of his small treats. "Let's cut the hype. You're a yak. Nagato's a yak operation. Those boys behind you are yakuza muscle."
"I am GSG. You should know what that implies."
"I'm well aware. I've seen phys-adepts
in action. That's why we're standing here having this talk. But what you better know is that I can't have civilians shoving my cops around. That doesn't wash. Comprende?"
"You mean that something must be done."
"Dead scoots are a problem. Cops come first."
A wise philosophy. "What do you propose?"
"It's your move. Make a suggestion."
Machiko considers, then turns her head slightly as if to look back. "Shoeo."
One of the kobun comes striding swiftly toward her. He pauses at her side and bows. Machiko extends a hand.
"Your weapons."
Shoeo hands her a heavy automatic, nunchaku, two knives, and a taser. Machiko passes these to the headman of kobun, then looks back to Shoeo.
"You should not have pushed the NYPD officer. This disreputable act has caused embarrassment not only to Nagato Combine, but also to the NYPD corporation. The captain will hear your confession."
Shoeo bows, then turns to the Captain and bows again. "I confess to the dishonorable shoving of the NYPD officer.
Please arrest me at once."
The captain looks briefly to Machiko, then turns and motions two of his officers forward. They approach warily, but with guns in holsters. They put Shoeo in handcuffs, conduct a cursory search, then lead him away. The captain looks to Machiko. He watches her a moment, then says, "I don't want any more incidents tonight. Whatever you're doing, keep it discreet. And move it the hell outta my precinct."
Machiko bows politely.
Corporate honor is satisfied.
Machiko motions her group to the Infinitis. She moves to the leading sedan and puts Choca into the rear seat ahead of herself. They drive a total of nine blocks in the shadows of the elevated subway line, past shuttered stores and grime-smeared bars, and come to a halt in front of a blackened brick structure, five stories tall, bearing the sign, "Fulton Ave Hostel."
Lieutenant Enotori enters through the battered gray metal door at the front of the hostel. The headman of kobun sends several of his men to watch the decrepit-looking fire escape dangling over one alleyway and to check for a rear exit. Devil rats dart away from their feet, fleeing piles of rubbish in search of safer refuge.
Enotori returns looking a bit disheveled. "I had to get rough with the clerk."
"Jank is registered?"
"Room four-two-three."
Machiko wastes no time. She moves to the entrance, pursued by the headman and some number of kobun. The metal door opens on a lobby that is little more than a corridor, sided on the right by the service counter of the hostel clerk. The clerk meets Machiko's roving eyes with a look of shocked alarm, but holds himself motionless. This reaction is mimicked by the sundry dozen norms and orks camping on tattered cots and filthy blankets along the left wall of the entrance corridor.
Squatters' quarters. Sleeping space for the destitute, the SINless, the dispossessed, the victims of ever-advancing technology and intercorporate war. In them, Machiko sees the cost of defeat, the fate of all persons who lack the resources and determination to face their enemies and fight. The mere thought of the people of Nagato Combine ever suffering such a fate only strengthens her resolve.
She finds stairs just past the service counter, a stairway of steel mesh and rickety, rusting supports. The entire structure rattles and rings with her every step. She has no need for stealth.
On the third-floor landing, a trio of males, two orks, one norm, see her coming and flatten their backs to the walls, hands uplifted, palms open.
One of the orks affects a bow.
Machiko seizes his nape, but gently. "You know a one named Jank?"
She speaks in English. The ork affects another bow, deeper this time, very respectful, and replies in accented Japanese, "Yes, honorable one! Yes, I do! Jank is one floor up!"
"Show me."
The ork leads hurriedly up the stairs. The fourth floor corridor is lined with more indigents, sitting, sleeping, sometimes two or more to a blanket or cot. The doors to rooms are barely three meters apart and only a rare few are marked by any numbers, and even these are scrawled like so much graffiti.
The ork indicates a door. Machiko gestures. The ork backs away and kobun move to either side of the door.
Machiko drives her fist against the door lock. The flimsy macroplas surrounding it shatters. The door bursts inward. Machiko reaches for the grip of her katana, moving forward, but then lowers her hand to her side.
The rank stink that meets her nose is almost overpowering. She must settle herself, focus, before moving forward.
The room is a squatdoss, an enlarged coffin: no window, no telecom, no accessories. The walls are brown with stains and the scrawlings of former tenants. The floor is ancient blackened tile that crackles underfoot. A small army of roaches darts across the floor and dives under the mattress lying along the right. Opposite on the left lie a backpack and duffel bag. Machiko signals the kobun to remain at the doorway and steps cautiously, quietly to the "bed."
Lying on the bed is a male norm, nude. Jank. He lies in a putrid pool of his own filth. His features are obviously Chinese. He does not look tall, but his physique is huge, his muscles like braided cables, bulging beneath the skin, his chest like a massive dynamo, even in repose. His skull is bare but for a wedge of hair arcing over the top and data-jacks at his temples. A polymer armored sheath, bonded to his flesh, covers everything beneath the level of his jaw. Both lower arms scan like cybernetic replacements, bulging with compartments and accessories: a tactical comp, a gyro-stabilizer for weapons fire.
Beside Jank's head lies the squat gray plas of a sensedeck, a deck obviously modified or repaired, held together by macroplas tape. The yellow cable descending from the data-jack in Jank's left temple connects to the deck. Beside the deck lie a number of simsense chip-carriers colored in bright reds and yellows and labeled as BTL, with names like "Bustout," and "Trogbash," and "Dirty Brown Scum."
The sensedeck is running, a chip is loaded.
Every few moments Jank twitches and murmurs, like an antique CD spinning around and around, outputting the same data endlessly.
The twitching turns convulsive. The murmurs rise into shouts. "Stinking trogs! Weed-eaters! Take it take it take it! GONNA GET YOU ALL! EAT YOU ALIVE! BURY YOU! YOU AND ALL THE DREK-SUCKING SCUM-"
Abruptly, his eyes snap open and gaze straight up at the ceiling like a man gone blind. He is nearly sitting up with the violence of the convulsions wracking his entire body.
"Machiko-sama?"
She finds the headman of kobun standing beside the foot of the bed, looking to her with an expression of startled amazement, amazement turning to revulsion, horror, and suddenly it all clicks.
She feels it in her belly.
"COVERRR!" she roars.
She turns and propels herself forward, away from the bed, into the headman of kobun, into him bodily, driving him back, away from the bed, toward the doorway, toward the corridor and safety. The headman's look turns to mindless astonishment. The kobun standing in the doorway seem to move as if encased in mud. She has time to see surprise registering on their faces, the sudden tension of alarm spreading through their bodies and limbs. Then the explosion erupts.
She hears the dull rumbling of its beginning, rising into a deafening roar. She feels the shock wave batter her feet, sweeping up the length of her legs, catching her up like a fist, lifting her, hurling her forward.
The headman falls beneath her as if driven down by the breaking crest of a wave. The corridor wall comes at her. She prepares to fall against it, to break the impact, but then the impact is upon her and she feels the filth-smeared surface giving way beneath her chest.
Then nothing.
19
The rear compartment of the SDF medical van is lit brightly. Equipment beeps and hums. The air smells of disinfectant.
Machiko is a while persuading her eyes to open. The level of pain she felt in the wake of the explosion outside clan headquarters, little more than twenty-four hours ago,
was nothing compared to what she feels now, like she has been pummeled by several shots from a rail gun. Her skull feels as fragile as the shell of an egg, her ribs like frail sticks. Sitting up takes an immense act of will. Medtechs speak of bruised bones, micro-fractures, concussion effects, but she ignores them. She pulls sensors from her temples, her chest, her wrist, and adjusts her clothes. Fortunately, the medtechs have made no attempts at treatment other than basic first aid. Any form of invasive treatment would likely do more harm than good.
She struggles to her feet, fighting the weakness and pain that make a haze of her vision and threaten to lay her out flat.
Outside the side door of the medvan she finds a scene of controlled chaos: a line of people laid out on blankets on the sidewalk, coughing, moaning, sobbing, armored SDF troopers and NYPD police, shouting, gesturing, security vans and fire-rescue vehicles, blue lights strobing, a chopper thumping by overhead.
Immediately to her right, she finds the headman of kobun, his head swathed in bandages, his cheek bruised almost black, his left arm in a sling. His black, blue-trimmed jacket lies over the arms of the kobun standing beside him. Machiko's swords lie over the jacket.
Both men bow deeply. Machiko accepts the swords and returns them to their places, katana behind her shoulder, wakizashi at her waist. "Tell me what has occurred," Machiko says. "Since the explosion."
The headman bows. "Please excuse my ignorance,
Machiko-sama. I was knocked unconscious by the blast. When I awoke, I found that the Nagato lieutenant had summoned help."
"Where is Lieutenant Enotori?"
"Here, Machiko-san."
Machiko turns to find the man approaching from behind her. His voice, so near, comes as enough of a surprise that she momentarily forgets herself and turns without regard for injury or pain. A new wave of feebleness sends her swaying backward, off-balance, bumping into the side of the medvan. Abruptly, she discovers herself sitting down, sitting on the metal step beneath the side door of the medvan.