by Nyx Smith
Colonel Satomi continues. "The killers' cybernetics come from diverse sources, some of military grade, other of inferior commercial grade. This also applies to the devices used as cranial bombs."
"Have you discovered nothing of the killers' identities?"
"We have leads indicating that the Caucasian may at one time have been a hireling of the Maf, but possibly only for a single contract or series of contracts."
"Assassination contracts?"
"Certainly contracts of this general description."
"You have discovered no corporate connections to these killers?"
"Not at this time. However, I do have Security Service officers exploring a broad range of possibilities."
"What of the White Octagon?"
"That is a lead being developed by Adachi-san. The Security Service has nothing on that thus far."
Machiko thanks the colonel for his assistance, ends the call and looks back to the two-way mirror. So far the woman in the next room seems to have little or nothing in common with the assassins of two nights ago, or the bombing attack at Honjowara-gumi headquarters. Perhaps that will change. "What is her name?"
Ryokai says, "Poppy."
A plant that yields a gooey resin responsible for some of the Fifth World's most potent medicines, and lasting nightmares. Machiko wonders if this "Poppy" will provide cure or confusion.
She moves through the door to the room adjacent. Ryokai follows. Poppy is conscious now, slumped and exhausted, but conscious. She draws her head back as Machiko approaches. Her swollen, red-rimmed eyes widen as if with alarm.
"You have many enemies," Machiko says. "You have made a powerful enemy of the Large Circle League."
"You're not Triad," Poppy mutters.
"No. I am perhaps the reason you are still alive. You were given to me by Lau Tsang."
"Who?"
The indication of ignorance seems genuine. Machiko glances at Ryokai, who nods slightly, indicating that what he sees on the astral, Poppy's aura, gives no definite sign of a lie. "Lau Tsang is the chief enforcer for the League. He was most displeased to learn that a former soldier of the League makes war on Nagato Combine."
"What soldier?"
"Jank."
Faintly, Poppy smiles. "No one'll care once you're dead. You're the poison in the veins of humanity."
"I am that poison? Or corps like Nagato Corp?"
Poppy grunts. "Elves. Trogs. All the sub-races. We will exterminate you. Disintegrate you. Like poisonous isotopes. Bombarded by Gamma."
With one word, everything changes. The slurs and the anti-meta hate take on new substance. Machiko feels her own pulse grow strong, her spirit begin to churn, to rage. She exerts herself to give no sign, to remain calm. She focuses on details she has seen in security files. Gamma, a name she knows. Like many such terrorists, he is "alleged" to be a male norm. Reputed to have been a leading figure in the shadowy Alamos 20K anti-meta terrorist organization. Believed responsible for directing and executing innumerable incidents of anti-meta violence across North America. A campaign of violence that began in 2036, when Machiko was little more than a child, with the napalm fire-bombing of a small community in rural Ohio, announcing the arrival of the New Terrorism. Machiko still remembers seeing tridcast images, the sight of an elven girl running nude up a country lane, her face a mask of agony, her body blazing with a fire that would not die.
It brings stirrings of horror to her even now. Horror and outrage and a sorrow that bears down with all the weight of a mountain. "You look like a Sisters Sinister streetpunk," she says. "A nothing. You expect us to believe you are led by Gamma?"
Another faint smile. "He's my lover."
"Would you die for him?"
"Of course."
"Would you surrender your sanity?"
Poppy's eyes widen just slightly. The prospect of losing her mind perhaps disturbs her.
"You have undoubtedly heard," Machiko continues, "that we of the Guard are all physical adepts. Some of us are also mages. If you do not answer my questions willingly, I will summon a mage and he will enter your mind and extract the information I want. The process is not without danger. But this is to be expected. White Octagon makes war. There are always casualties in war."
The corner of Poppy's mouth begins twitching. "Stay out of my mind."
"Where is Gamma?"
"I don't know."
"He's your lover. You know."
"I don't—don't remember!"
Machiko glances at Ryokai. He gives a small sign with the fingers of his left hand. The sign indicates "confusion." A second sign suggests the influence of magic.
"Where do we find the members of White Octagon?" Machiko asks.
A torrent of words bursts from Poppy's swollen, bloodstained lips, rising into shouts, shrieks, incoherent ravings, seeming as if incited by a hysterical fear.
This continues unabated for some minutes.
Machiko turns to the door to the room adjacent and uses the telecom there to again contact Colonel Satomi.
23
"We're here. Doctor."
"Where?"
The place Kron names is of no particular interest. They have come here, wherever that is, because Yoi was asked to do so. It is not where he had been going when he first set out in his car, but that is of little import. Any time spent away from his library is so much wasted time, anyway. The time may be pleasant, diverting, or entertaining, occasionally informative, but ultimately it is a waste. Perhaps he will catch up with the fellows of the Logos Society later this afternoon, or sometime this evening. Whether that thought is realized or comes to nothing is only of very modest significance.
Yoi closes the covers of a privately published volume entitled, Nandyavarta in the Sixth World, an investigation of mystic labyrinths as guides to the inner mysteries. He looks to the massive ork leaning in through the limousine door. "Taking your ritual kit. Doctor?" Kron asks.
Yoi replies, "It would seem indicated."
Kron takes the hard-shelled case of the ritual kit. Yoi takes up his bag, like a medical bag, and follows the ork to the sidewalk, through an entranceway guarded by a crowd of males with agitated auras, and into a small lobby area. Here he is met by three members of the Nagato Green Serpent Guard. Kron assists with introductions. The female among the three Guards appears to be in charge and greets Yoi with great formality and respect. She is an interesting specimen of female, elf female. Her aura burns like magma, full of hardened resolve. She is also tall and long of limb and possessed of an elf's natural elegance.
"What is your name?"
"Machiko," she replies.
It is occasionally useful to know such things.
"This way please, Doctor," says "Machiko."
They take an elevator down. They come to a room with a window looking into another room. The female, Machiko, explains that the female in the next, confined to a chair, is to be the subject of an examination. Machiko uses the term "interrogation," but this of course is inappropriate and misleading.
"What do you wish to learn?" Yoi asks.
Machiko says, "I must learn the whereabouts of an individual, a mage, known as Gamma."
"This is some form of sobriquet?"
"An assumed name, yes. So it would appear. I must also learn where to find the membership of Gamma's terrorist group, known as White Octagon."
"This is a racist group? opposed to metahumans?"
"You are familiar with the name."
"I conjecture, based on the use of the octagon. The octagon, or octagram, is a mystic figure, the subject of some speculation, as it has eight termini or points, yet is formed of a single, unbroken line. In various contexts it is often said to represent the concept of regeneration. Given terrorists with symbols of regeneration, or rebirth, and the color white, which may be said to represent death or purity, I conjecture that racists may be involved. And what are racists but those opposed to metahumans?"
Machiko appears to regard his comments with some degree
of uncertainty, as though the chain of reasoning, admittedly tenuous, does not appear plain to her. Yet her aura shows only determination, resolve. A very interesting specimen of female indeed. "In any event," she says, "please begin your examination."
Yoi considers. "There is some slight possibility of my techniques causing damage to the subject. Is this of any concern?"
"I must have answers to my questions," Machiko says in a definite tone.
Yoi nods. "I will need tea."
A cup of tea is soon brought. A pleasant oolong variety, warming and mild. Yoi has a few sips and carries the cup into the room where his subject awaits. A norm female. Chinese. Poppy, she is called. She appears to have been beaten rather severely. Yoi sips his tea and looks to the woman's aura. This reveals that she is tired, nearly exhausted, clinging to consciousness in the wake of a fatiguing episode, full of stress and emotion, probably hysterical. Her aura also makes plain that she is mundane and that she is the subject of metamagic, the spell or spells of an initiate, presumably Gamma, mentioned previously.
Kron opens the ritual kit and prepares a recording device so there will be a record of anything the subject may say. He turns on a Sony player and an enchanting Viennese melody, played with precision on a harpsichord, fills the room. Kron then begins lightning pots of incense. The incense has little significance, as Yoi expects he will have no need of conjuring elementals. The incense, like the pleasant-tasting oolong tea, like the music, merely aids him in becoming centered. Focused.
Poppy lifts her head and looks at him with eyes that grow wide. "Stay outta my mind," she says. "Stay away."
Yoi lowers his hand over her eyes.
Poppy grunts, "Huh! I can't, I can't see!" she blurts. "Oh frag, what... ? I'm blind! I'm blind!"
A common misconception. In fact, Poppy's eyes are merely closed, cloaked so that no light reaches her eyes. The tendrils of glowing mana that surround her mind like a lattice, woven so precisely into the structure of her aura, guard her mind but do nothing to protect her eyes, or the major muscle groups of her body.
Poppy grunts plaintively. "Huh, huh ... I can't move . . ." Her aura ripples with terror. She whispers, "Help me . . . oh, god!"
Yoi pours a fine stream of crystals, crystals so fine they seem like powder, over the woman's brow. "You are under the onus of a dark power," he intones. "A power which veils your mind. This power controls your actions, your thoughts. I will help you resist this power. I will show you the way. You must grow tranquil, serene. Fearful thoughts subside. Emotions wane. All fear ends with me. My voice, my touch, my presence. I am the way and the light. The alpha and the omega, beginning and ending. There is no other."
On the astral, a tide of pulsing mana rises around the lattice guarding Poppy's mind. Yoi's ally, clothed in the form of a surgeon, reflecting Yoi's own self-image, naturally, rises with the tide and adds mana to the gathering spell. Poppy's aura grows calm. It grows crimson with resolve, the resolve to do as Yoi instructs. Many of Yoi's colleagues would argue that the will of a mundane can by definition have no effect on mana, and perhaps they are right. Yoi has found, whoever, that beginning an examination by exerting mere "hypnotic" influence possesses value. It will make the demands on other skills less profound.
The spell weakens, Yoi's ally informs.
The lattice guarding Poppy's mind begins to fray. It unravels like a snake suddenly lunging toward prey. The mana lances upward and with a flash vanishes from sight.
On the material plane, Poppy breathes hard. Her lips struggle to smile. On some subconscious level, perhaps, she is aware that the first operation has been a success. Perhaps some sympathetic link between mage and subject provides her with shadings of intuition that suggest what is in fact occurring.
"I am the way and the light," Yoi intones.
"Yes . . ." Poppy whispers. "The way . . ."
On the astral, a new lattice of mana forms, interpenetrating the higher functions of mind. Yoi's ally provides the mana. Yoi guides it precisely into proper form and position. "Certain questions must be answered," Yoi intones. "You will answer truthfully."
"Yes . . ." Poppy whispers.
"Where is Gamma?"
"Cannot tell . . ."
"Where are the members of White Octagon?"
"Cannot. . . cannot tell..."
Another spell, Yoi's ally informs.
Yes, obviously. He gazes onto the astral and soon detects it, another spell woven cunningly into the woman's aura. Easily missed. A spell of influence. Perhaps this prevents the woman from telling what she knows. Yoi pauses to take more tea, to breathe the pleasant aroma of incense, then begins examining this spell, undermining it, dispelling it.
"Answer truthfully. Where is Gamma?"
"Don't... I don't. . . don't know . . ."
Is this possible?
Poppy's aura waxes blue with uncertainty and wavers with confusion. Yoi prepares his most invasive tool, a spell he must wield like a scalpel, his probe into the inner convolutions of mind. He extends his hand over Poppy's head. The mana coils around his fingers and descends from the tip of his index finger like the focused beam of a laser. The power of the spell is sufficiently great that Yoi feels the strain of keeping it focused. Yet, the woman's surface thoughts come to him clearly, a voice echoing across the etheric.
I don't know, I don't know, I don't . . . Poppy thinks. Where is Gamma . . . ? Where IS he . . . ? Where . . . ? WHERE. . . ?
The question, Master, says Yoi's ally.
Of course. The question asks what the woman does not know. Sloppy, very sloppy. "In what place did you last meet with Gamma?"
"What place . . . ?" Poppy murmurs.
More uncertainty, more confusion. Yoi probes deeper. He glimpses bits of mind-pictures, dark images, dark buildings with weathered faces, gloomy interiors. Poppy gives up these images without resistance. She knows the place where she last met with Gamma, but does not know where this place may be found.
She rode there in a vehicle, a van. She spent much time talking and little paying heed to landmarks.
Unfamiliar territory.
Tracing the route through her mind will be difficult and very costly in time and energy.
"Where might the members of White Octagon be found?"
"Queens . . ." Poppy murmurs. "Most in Queens . . . dosses in Queens ... a loft in the Bronx . . . some bars . . . restaurants . . ."
She yields names and addresses.
24
The sweep begins at three p.m. Teams of Honjowara-gumi and Yoshida-kai kobun, led by Machiko, Ryokai, Gongoro, and several others fan out across Brooklyn and Queens. They hunt the membership of White Octagon.
By seven p.m. they have rendezvoused at a Honjowara-gumi warehouse in Jamaica, Queens. Only Gongoro's team returns without prisoners. Several members of his team are wounded. Gongoro himself appears smeared with soot. "The punk was chromed!" he growls. "He gave fire, then took a hit and his skullbomb detonated!"
"Where is the body?" Machiko asks.
Gongoro waves a hand and walks off.
Kobun drive a Toyota Tornado into the loading bay at the end of the warehouse and open the trunk. Machiko surveys the corpse lying there on a dark stained tarp. It is the body of a male norm, a Caucasian, outfitted with as much apparent cybernetics as Jank and the other assassins. This one. though, bears the tattoo of an octagon at his left temple, the words "Alamos 20K" in bold letters across his chest, and, on his right upper arm, the catch-phrase, "Reach out and snuff somebody ..."
Machiko wonders if this is the last of the five assassins who attacked Sukayo-san and her and the other GSG. If so, then they are avenged. The killers are all dead. The thought brings her a tender tickling of grief over the madness of purpose that has shed so much blood, but she cannot let this weaken her resolve. The threat against Nagato Combine remains to be neutralized.
She begins the interrogations at once. The members of White Octagon appear to be enemies of Nagato Combine, so she does not hesitate to speak cr
udely, in tones of menace, or to threaten the use of physical methods. Where threats alone do not suffice, she manipulates pressure points and applies varying degrees of pain. Where mere pain is not enough, she allows Gongoro to temporarily take her place and inflict actual wounds.
The members of White Octagon are diverse: Caucasians, several Asians, two blacks, one Hispanic. Nine males and three females. Their similarities begin with the fact that all are norms and most bear symbols of anti-meta hatred, designs on jewelry or clothing or shorn into slash-cut hair, if not actual tattoos. Several possess only minor bits of chrome. Several have none at all. Only two are equipped with cranial explosives.
They appear less an army than a small militant group with the capability of waging armed conflict.
"You make war on Nagato Combine," Machiko says. "Why? What is your ultimate objective? Who is your leader? Who is Gamma? Where may he be found? How many others belong to White Octagon? Where do you get your weapons and supplies?"
Some spit. All of them curse. All of them speak as though elves and other metas are the greatest abominations ever to walk the planet, a twisted malignancy afflicting humanity, a malevolent aberration inspired by some diabolical conspiracy, fiends that must be eradicated, slaughtered, massacred.
Machiko has heard talk like this before—what meta hasn't?—but rarely with such conviction, such fanatical fervor. She finds it unsettling. She is at pains to understand how anyone could regard her, or others like her, as the enemy of all that is human.
Even were she not born of a human womb, or raised by a man and woman as norm as norm can be, she could not view all norms as her enemy. As Kuroda-sensei himself reminded her, there is no room in the warrior spirit for any such bias.
Enemies are enemies. They must be evaluated for their strengths and weaknesses. Whether they are norm or meta is irrelevant, except as this may influence the conduct of their aggression.