by Wesley Chu
And when those old warriors were alone in their studies with nothing but themselves, the sword and their memories to haunt them, they stared at it to reminisce about who they once were, and how they were once mighty and strong and full of purpose. Most of all, with reminiscing came the memories of friends who had fallen over the decades, some to that very sword.
Makita should just throw the damn thing away. He had gotten pretty tired of wiping and oiling the thing every few months. He considered letting it rust and wither, but something in him balked at the idea. Destroying historical relics felt like bad karma. Maybe he’d pass it along to his son one day. Who was he kidding? Nobody in his family wanted that cursed thing. He should just donate it to the Smithsonian, or sell it to a pawn shop. Whatever was closest.
A hand touched his shoulder lightly. “Are you all right there, old man?” said Josie. “You sort of spaced out for a second.”
Makita snapped back to the present just in time to see the vault door finish its intended course. He pointed. “This is a really good vault door. I wonder who makes it.” He took several steps into the safe house and spread his arms. “Now this is what a safe house should look like. A big storage room somewhere in the dank sewers designed by an architect who specializes in the aesthetics of prisons. Not that penthouse suite we were in yesterday.”
Nabin trailed in after Josie. “Yeah, what a dump.”
Josie harrumphed. “You two obviously have never lived in a military school dorm. This place is like the Taj Mahal.”
Three figures, two men and a woman, one at each corner, emerged armed with assault rifles and what looked like a sniper rifle in the far corner, effectively catching them in a crossfire. “Hands where we can see you. Identify yourselves.”
Makita remained un-fazed. He casually turned to Nabin. “Do you mind? I haven’t bothered with any of the recent field passphrases.”
“Not at all.” Nabin kept his hands raised and walked forward a few steps. He looked at the woman in the far corner, and spoke in a loud voice. “I love you.”
“I know,” she replied.
“Wait, what?” sputtered Makita. “What the hell was that? That’s the passphrase? When I was in the field, I had to memorize stupid philosopher quotes.”
Nabin grinned. “You must be still using the old books. We’ve been slowly phasing the stuff out over the past few years. No one has time for that any more, sir.”
The woman lowered her rifle and threw her cloak back, revealing a sharp pale face and a crop of short platinum hair. She motioned to the others to follow suit. The two groups met in the center of the room. The woman offered her hand. “Agent Hekla Einarsson, operating out of Osaka.” She pointed to the other two. “The ugly shaggy one is Tarfur Hilmarsson and the even uglier shaggier one with the glowing smile is Pedro Rafaeli. Asha Okande is in the back room recuperating from a bullet to the gut.”
“Colonel Josie Perkins, Chief at the Academy in Sydney.” She pointed behind her. “That’s Agent Nabin Bhattarai, out of Singapore, and Makita Takeshi, out of an old folks’ home.”
Makita let that slide. Barely.
“Well-met,” said Hekla, shaking each hand. “Apologies for the theatrics, but this safe house isn’t as secure as it probably should be. We had a run-in with some local thieves.”
“We saw your report on the break-in,” said Makita. “It’s why we’re here.”
After the pleasantries were concluded, everyone did their best to settle in. This particular safe house only housed four comfortably and the other team had already lived here for over a week, so that left the three of them to scrap for one sofa.
Nabin was obviously sleeping on the floor. Josie didn’t put up a fight either. She gave Makita one look and carried her sack to the space next to the younger man. To be honest, Makita was a little offended. Sure, he held rank and was the oldest, and of course his aching back was desperate for a cushion, but they should have at least let him put up a fight to save face.
“Excuse me, sir.” Tarfur saluted and shot Makita a wide smile. Hekla was right. There was something unusually bright and shiny about his teeth. “That’s an awfully lumpy couch. Would you like my bed? I can bunk out no problem.”
Makita’s pride almost prevented him from saying yes again.
“If you need your own room,” added Hekla. “I can take the double with Pedro. He snores like an earthquake. Our team is used to it, but he’s going to keep you up all night.”
Makita didn’t bother to hide the enthusiasm on his face. He somehow went from sleeping on the floor to his own room without saying a word. He felt like one of those people who parked in handicapped spots just because they could. “Being old does have its perks,” he hummed cheerfully as he picked up his duffel. Lo and behold, Tarfur was there to pick it up and help him carry it in.
Later that evening the two groups gathered to debrief on the situation in the city. They sat around the kitchen table and passed around a couple bottles of cheap sake Tarfur had scavenged from the supply closet. Hekla and her team were planning on staying here for another week or two while their teammate recovered, but otherwise had no objectives in Tokyo.
“You said this place was robbed,” said Makita. “And this happened while you were here?”
“We had just arrived at the safe house. Asha was minutes from bleeding out,” said Hekla. “The vault door was ajar, so the three of us swept the room. We were shocked to find the medical cabinet wiped bare. The girl got the jump on us and held a knife to Asha. All she wanted was for us to let her friend go.” She frowned. “After they got away, she returned with a first-aid kit.”
Josie raised an eyebrow. “She came back?”
“Held a knife. Robbed the place. Heart of gold. Sounds like Ella all right,” said Nabin.
“Do you know what she took?” asked Makita.
Hekla handed him a report. “We took inventory on what was missing and passed the information to Command along with a request to reset the safe house’s security systems. We’re cut off from the main network until then. The stuff they took looked pretty random, nothing specific.”
Makita read it over and whistled. He handed the tablet to Nabin, whose face went a little ashen. The Nepalese slid the list to Josie, who simply shook her head. “Oh my. Last time I caught her selling contraband, it was Taiwanese whisky and forged weekend passes. She’s playing in the big leagues now. Assault rifles can’t be common in Japan. They should be easy to track, no?”
“This isn’t the army, Colonel,” said Nabin, shaking his head. “Covert ops does not keep identifiers on anything we use. That would make us pretty lousy secret agents.”
Josie shrugged. “Then track weapons that don’t have any tags then. How many American-made military-grade assault rifles without identifiers can there be? One of these suckers has to show up in the hands of law enforcement eventually.”
Makita tsked. “Japan is neutral territory. We can make official requests through the government, but that will leave a paper trail the size of the Taiwan Strait. The Genjix will for sure pick that up. We might as well just advertise we believe Io is hiding out here.”
Hekla was conversing quietly with Pedro and Tarfur at the other end of the table. They appeared to reach a consensus. She leaned forward. “We have discreet contacts in Tokyo law enforcement. We can make some inquiries and offer support if your team needs.”
“That would be appreciated,” said Nabin. “It’s a needle in a haystack in Tokyo, but it’s all we’ve got. She likely chose to settle in the largest city in the world so no one can find her.”
“Are you guys in any position to assist?” said Makita gruffly. “What about your current mission?”
Hekla shrugged. “Our mission is red-lined and we’re currently benched. Once we exposed ourselves, we became in danger of blowing everything up and exposing our larger mission goals. Especially with Asha out. She was our sneak. Tarfur and Pedro can’t walk across a room barefoot without
attracting the attention of everyone within a klick. The best thing we can do is lay low until things cool down. Then we’ll reassess our situation and determine if we can continue.”
Her team was operating out of Tokyo tracking Genjix shipments in the Sea of Japan, a counterpart to what Nabin’s team was doing in Singapore. Their mission was to track and record the rotation encryptions from Genjix shipments passing through Tokyo Harbor and send the intel back to the Prophus codebreakers.
“What happened?” asked Nabin.
“We were discovered,” she explained. “We came across an unusual shipment heading toward North Korea, and decided to get a closer look.”
“It was an oil tanker with a veritable army guarding it,” said Tarfur.
“At first we thought it was a biological weapon of some sort,” continued Hekla. “Then, upon closer inspection, we discovered that it was filled to capacity with manufactured ProGenesis.”
Makita’s eyes widened. “You confirmed it? An entire oil tanker?”
All three nodded.
“What’s ProGenesis?” asked Josie. “Some sort of biological weapon?”
“The opposite actually,” explained Makita. “ProGenesis was invented by the Genjix a few decades back to emulate the Quasing home world’s atmosphere. It looks like translucent ketchup, and has the same texture as well.”
“That doesn’t sound so bad,” she said.
“It allows them to survive in it without a host, and more importantly lets them reproduce.”
She blanched. “I take it back. That sounds horrible.”
“Actually,” explained Makita. “You were right the first time. When the Genjix first developed the ProGenesis liquid, they had planned to breed billions of Quasing in order to inhabit and overwhelm all living creatures on the planet. The plan backfired when they discovered that the newborn Quasing, without the osmosis of the shared experience and knowledge from their Eternal Sea, were barely sentient. It would require thousands of years to develop to the same level of consciousness as the Quasing who had crash-landed on this planet millions of years ago. They abandoned those plans shortly after.”
“We haven’t seen this much ProGenesis in quite a while,” frowned Nabin. “What is it for?”
Hekla shrugged. “The disturbing thing, however, was that the vats weren’t empty. They were filled with life.”
“They’re breeding again?” Makita leaned back and furrowed his brow. “They’re growing something?”
“That’s what we were searching for when we were discovered,” continued Tarfur. “Asha took a bullet for our efforts. We fled Osaka with the Genjix hot on our trail. We finally lost them in Tokyo and made it here.”
“Barely,” grumbled Pedro. “Asha lost a pint of blood on the way over.”
“Well, if you’re willing to help, we’ll take all that we can get,” said Makita. “Do we have any other angles we can hit?”
“The yakuza, maybe?” said Tarfur.
Makita shook his head. “That’ll be like pulling teeth. The Genjix will likely have a stronger bond with the yakuza than the Prophus will. What about the Japanese Defense Force?”
Josie smirked. “Aren’t you the one with contacts there, considering you spent your entire career serving in the JDF?”
“Stop throwing my fake personnel file in my face.”
Nabin was still scanning the report. “It says here that the vault door was functioning normally and that there were no signs of break-in. She must have used the backdoor we had set up to track her to obtain access to our safe house network.”
“It seems everyone with a Wi-Fi connection can hack us these days,” grunted Makita. “I swear, the security for most governments and corporations are sieves. The entire world needs a systems overhaul.”
Josie reached for the sake and poured a glass. “Well, here’s to new friends and bad networks.”
The group toasted. They spent the rest of the night swapping stories and sharing news, which was a tradition among agents passing by in the night. Being a secret agent was lonely work. It was good for morale when two teams discussed their experiences. It reminded people that they weren’t fighting the war alone, even though it felt that way. It often just degenerated into a grousing session to let out steam.
Josie talked about the reconstruction of Australia after the war, how many of the mines throughout the northern and western coast that formed the blockade were still in place, and that the government was seriously considering following in the footsteps of Japan and Switzerland in regard to this conflict.
“Those fools in Canberra,” spat Josie. “Acting like scared babies, as if we had lost the war.”
“I honestly can’t blame them,” said Makita.
“How can you say that?” she fumed.
“Just because the war ended in a stalemate doesn’t mean there weren’t winners and losers. The war had clear winners. Japan won by not being involved. Australia lost badly by taking the side of the Prophus. Now the neck of the entire country is under the Genjix’s boot. Self-preservation is a powerful tool, even against the right thing.” Makita picked up a freeze-dried ration bar and bit into it. “Hmm, pizza-flavored. I actually really miss these things. Look, I’m happy they fought for us. I totally understand if they don’t the next time around.”
“You really think there is going to be a next time, Mr Takeshi,” said Pedro. “Wasn’t the last time enough?”
“Well, until the aliens find a new common enemy, they’ll keep fighting. And if you remember, before they were fighting each other, they were fighting us.”
The atmosphere grew somber. A global stalemate with no end in sight, with the only resolution being another war, was rather disquieting news.
“What do you guys think about the Keeper retiring?” asked Josie, obviously trying to change the topic.
The conversation bubbled back up as everyone offered their personal analysis and predictions about the years ahead. Was Jill Tesser Tan pushed out? What was going to happen with the Prophus moving forward? Were they going to finally move Command out of Greenland?
Makita was the only one who didn’t join the conversation. He became very interested in his pizza-flavored ration bar. Eventually, he tuned out and his mind wandered to a dark place, as it often did when left to its own devices.
Had he made a huge mistake in accepting this mission? Was he going to die romping around Asia looking for this girl? That would be the worst. In his surprisingly long life, Makita had been with the Prophus for longer than he had been without. He was honestly pretty shocked he had made it to pasture. It would be a fantastic and terrible irony if he died while on a mission after he had officially retired.
Makita felt a tinge of homesickness, which was strange, because his career as a Prophus operative kept him away from his home for longer than he had ever spent in his official residence. He still missed the swing; he should have rocked in it more. He missed the morning fog that drifted down from the mountains and curled around the trees in the forest like ghostly tentacles. He missed the dirt between his fingers when he gardened… what was he talking about? He hated gardening.
That really wasn’t the point. None of it was. Being homesick was just a representation of the real worry running through his mind. Was he ever going to see his wife and kid again, or had Makita, like many of his long-dead friends, taken on one mission too many? What if…
He came to attention. A new concern hit him. Was he getting paid for this? He should be; he was so bored at home and eager to do something other than sit on his couch that he had just said yes. At least some sort of hazard pay. His thoughts continued to wander. Since this was an off-book mission, could he even call for an extraction?
Makita had had enough. He needed to go for a walk, clear his head. He stood up abruptly. The conversation around him died immediately.
“Is there a problem, sir?” asked Nabin.
“I just need some fresh air,” he replied. �
�Is there by chance another way up to the surface that doesn’t involve ankle-deep sewage?”
Everyone shook their head.
Makita sighed. “Of course.”
He turned to leave. Just as he was opening the vault door, Nabin came running up to him with the tablet in his hand. “Sir. I have an idea. I think I may have another way to find Ella. Instead of looking for her in a city of millions, what if she came to us?”
“Why would she do that?” asked Makita.
“Remember how I said Cameron and I made a back door to keep tabs on her?”
“What about it?”
Nabin grinned. “Have you ever heard of a honey pot?”
Chapter Fifteen
Square One
Ella had come from a vastly different world from most of the other students. To make matters worse, the Host Protection Program meant she would never be able to speak freely of her past. This isolated her even more from her peers.
In hindsight, Cameron Tan made a mistake. He should have constructed her background in such a way that the Academy would have been more supportive of her situation. Instead, neither the Academy nor Ella were prepared for each other.
As expected, Asao threw a complete fit when he saw the state of the World-Famous Bar & Udon. He staggered through the wreckage of his establishment in a daze, soft moans escaping his lips every few steps as he fondled this broken frame, touched that shattered mirror, or stared at the cracked bottles slowly bleeding liquor.
Ella tried to look on the bright side. “We’ll help clean it up. You’ll be back up and running in no time.”
“Clean. It. Up?” Asao’s grief turned into rage, which he channeled at the Burglar Alarms, Ella specifically. He shook his fist in her face, spittle shooting from his lips as they curled into a misshapen snarl. “This is all your fault, Beektoria! You punks have ruined me. You’ll pay for this!”