by Wesley Chu
Ella instinctively reached for her dagger, but then she gave Asao the benefit of the doubt. He really wasn’t threatening her, because that would be foolish.
Be patient with the itchy finger. Just in case, he has a bad leg and cannot turn quickly. Take out his other leg and he will become a beached whale.
“He better get his hand out of my face before he becomes a beached whale missing a flipper.”
“Why are you mad at us?” she protested. “We’re the ones who chased off those yakuza gangsters while you were eating a snow cone.” Ella tried to sound more conciliatory. “Look, you’re upset. I get it. We can work this out.”
He pointed toward the street. “Get out. Get out. You and your stupid kids. I never want to see any of you here again.”
Ella considered arguing, and then shrugged. “Fine. We’ll just get the rest of our loot and leave. Have fun cleaning up yourself.”
“No,” he raged. “Whatever is left stays. Hand over whatever money you’ve made so far. That pays for repairs.” She didn’t realize he was being literal.
“What?” Ella’s voice went up several octaves. Her dagger slid halfway out of its sheath. “Over your dead body.”
Fortunately, the other Burglar Alarms were there to separate them. There were more shouts and threats. Words like “police” and “idiotic foreigner” and “lousy udon” were hurled back and forth. In the end, it didn’t matter. Asao wanted them out, so they were out.
The two sat opposite each other at the only table still upright and haggled. How were they going to divvy up the business the Burglar Alarms had done so far? Ella was willing to pay him what he was owed and not a yen more. Asao wanted all of it to pay for his repairs.
What about the remaining goods, and all those promises she had extracted for the bar? She was the one who had arranged for the World-Famous to stay out of the Bakka’s crosshairs. She was the one who had found a steady supply of American bourbon embezzled by the dockworkers, and she was the one who had found the super-cheap Indian handyman who Asao used daily. Ella felt she should be compensated for all of that. Asao couldn’t care less.
“I’m serious,” he yelled. “If you don’t give me my share, pay for the damages, and then get out, I will call the police. That’s my final offer – it’s more than fair, considering how much business I’ve lost.”
“How about I stab you in the gullet and dump your body into the Arakawa River, Asshole?” Ella’s eyes shot lasers at the bar owner. The fact that he wanted her share and to kick her out too was downright greedy. It felt very much like a bad divorce.
I would not know. I have never been married.
“How is that possible? You have been around for billions of years, and none of your hosts have ever gotten married? That does not bode well for me.”
Emily’s parents were together for decades but were too busy working for the Prophus to bother. The life of a host is difficult, not usually conducive to marriage.
“That or you just pick a lot of unlikable hosts.”
That appears to be true.
It took Ella a second to realize she had just owned herself, which she got over quickly. She never wanted to get married anyway. The only guy she had ever really liked wanted to change everything about her the second they got serious. ‘Stop breaking rules, Ella.’ ‘Don’t commit any more crimes, Ella.’ ‘Stabbing someone with a dinner fork is not a good way to resolve arguments, Ella.’ She crossed her arms and slouched in her chair, her glare at Asao intensifying even though her anger was now actually aimed at someone else.
It became a battle of attrition and a very long night. At dawn, they were still sitting there arguing out of sheer stubbornness. It wasn’t until Io did the math and explained to her that the difference the two of them were quibbling over was the price of a nice dinner, that Ella finally relented.
By breakfast, the Burglar Alarms were out of the World-Famous Bar & Udon. Ella’s mind was numb as she glanced back one last time. Asao, standing in the doorway with his fists on his hips, kept his glare on her all the way until she turned off the block.
What would they do next? Where would she go? Most of the money the Burglar Alarms earned over the past few months had been wiped out. She barely had enough to pay the team, let alone cover her rent and food. They were also homeless now. There was no way the Burglar Alarms could operate without a base. They needed a place to meet, negotiate their business and store their loot. Her tiny apartment couldn’t even fit everyone, let alone store any goods.
You are working yourself up. Worry about it tomorrow. Go home and get some sleep for now.
“But Io. It took us months–”
Go home. Sleep.
“Fine.”
That was probably the best advice Io had ever given her. Ella was so tired, she barely made it to the train station. She dragged her feet into the first train car heading home and plopped down in a corner seat, falling into a deep slumber by the time it began to rumble down the tracks.
Io didn’t bother waking Ella when the train pulled into Nishi Kasai Station. When it came to a complete stop and the doors hissed open, she decided to do the girl a favor and let her get some much-needed sleep. She had been running pretty hard lately. Io took control of the body and walked her out of the station. It was a bold move for her, who usually could barely walk a host upright for more than a few steps before falling over. Most of her experiences in mammals prior to humans were of the aquatic variety.
The short trip to Ella’s building felt like a marathon, and the walk up the five flights of stairs to her apartment climbing a mountain. By the time Io finally walked through the door, she was exhausted and vowed never to do the girl a favor again. She was tempted to park the girl in bed and just let her sleep for the next Earth day cycle. However, that would mean Ella would wake up the next morning refreshed and probably with nothing to do. Without direction, she would mope, then get bored and get into trouble. The girl needed goals.
Io grudgingly moved her to the table and pulled out the laptop. She began combing the latest Prophus reports in the region, looking for something, anything, that could earn them a little breathing room. They needed to land a quick job, preferably an easy score, and lucrative enough to make it worth their while. It also had to be a job that did not require the use of a storage room. Most importantly, it had to be close by. Io wasn’t confident she could find something like this, especially on short notice.
Easy, fast, and good. Just two of the three would do.
To Io’s surprise, a very promising opportunity presented itself in just a few minutes of searching. Io looked the report over and double-checked the corroborating data. She ran an online background check and then mapped out the location. Everything matched up.
“This girl is lucky to have me,” smirked the Quasing. At least she tried to smirk. The symmetry necessary for a proper human smile was difficult to pull off. The best Io could manage was make Ella’s face contort with a lopsided upward curve of the lips, as if she were suffering a stroke.
She gave up after a few attempts. There were more important things to worry about than stupid smiling. It was time to plan their next move.
Chapter Sixteen
The Law
For the first year, Ella tried to play by the rules. She attended classes and studied hard. It was a difficult and frustrating time. She had to learn and train while simultaneously studying English.
She chafed at the limitations imposed on her, but tried her best to stay within their bounds. She was someone who had grown up in the streets, unused to the rules of a structured life. She often complained that living at the Academy was worse than being one of Wiry Madras’s girls.
In the end, no matter how hard she tried, the experiment was doomed to fail. The real Ella Patel could only be locked up for so long.
The announcement that Shura was backing Abbi in the raised vessel’s claim for control of the South China Sea Islands came in the morning. T
his partnership, as Abbi insisted it be framed, whipped up a storm. Many among the Adonis vessels considered it no less than a full betrayal of their status as the gods’ chosen. Shura spent the rest of the day inundated with calls from dozens of outraged Adonises, each begging or threatening her to reconsider her position.
Rurik was already leveraging this news to his advantage, rallying the bulk of his kin to him, further isolating her from the rest of the Genjix. Even her Hatchery siblings, those she had grown up and struggled side by side with, had publicly denounced her.
Before the creation of the Genjix Hatcheries, the eugenics programs that bred and trained the Adonis vessels, all vessels were raised from ordinary humans. Now, Adonis vessels were the preferred method of transition for all Holy Ones. The success of this program had created a caste system among the vessels, the Adonises and the Raised. In a time when dozens of young and newly blessed Adonis vessels were clamoring for opportunities to serve the Holy Ones and lead, her support for a lowly raised vessel was bound to earn her many enemies.
As if these unproven Adonises consider themselves a whole other species.
Shura didn’t necessarily disagree with her Hatchery brothers and sisters. “Are we not the next evolutionary step?”
You are still human. As you were raised to be an Adonis vessel, you can also fall from grace.
Fortunately, Shura had insisted on a condition to her agreement with Abbi. Their partnership would only go public if the spymaster actually found actionable information leading to the location of the Receiver. The spymaster quickly proved as good as her reputation.
Shura had an advantage over Rurik: she knew what the Receiver’s vessel looked like. As they said, a picture was worth a thousand words, especially in the spy business. Shura was able to provide Abbi with a detailed and accurate description, which was fed into her networks.
Within a matter of days they got a hit with facial recognition, flagging a certain Victoria Khan matching the description of the Receiver’s vessel traveling from Sydney to Ninoy Aquino, and then to Tokyo. From there, security cameras placed at the train stations were able to confirm the girl traveling throughout the city as recently as a few weeks ago.
Shura was able to further corroborate the information when they intercepted a Prophus report citing a robbery at one of their safe houses beneath the city. One of the culprits was a short, scrawny girl of mixed Indian descent.
Abbi had passed the information to her contacts within the Tokyo Metropolitan Police and was able to arrange a secret meeting for Shura with the police superintendent-general. Getting the local law enforcement on her side was a big boon in finding the girl.
The die was cast.
Shura was in the air within the hour. She arrived at Narita Airport in the dead of night, again by commercial liner and shrouded in secrecy. She brought only Kloos and four trusted bodyguards. Any more, and she risked alerting Rurik, which was likely inevitable no matter how hard she tried to mask her movements. His network was far too extensive for someone of her standing to escape notice.
If she wasn’t detected at the major transportation hubs, she was bound to have been sighted by one of the many security cameras or facial recognition scanners, or even by a checkpoint officer on alert. For all she knew, Rurik could be having her tailed constantly. Still, time was critical, and every advantage counted.
Shura changed cars twice before departing the airport in an unmarked sedan. She headed immediately toward the Keishichō, the police headquarters of the Kasumigaseki district. There was no time to waste, and no such thing as business hours when dealing with the Genjix.
She changed cars once more and entered the underground parking garage in a utility van. Shura and her people emerged in the darkened garage and proceeded through a maintenance elevator. They exited on the sixth floor into the main hallway where they were greeted by an honor guard of twelve police officers in full uniform.
“So much for a secret meeting under cover of darkness,” she muttered.
A proper sign of respect for someone of your standing. I am sure it is not often the police superintendent-general receives a visit from a high-ranking Genjix vessel.
“Nice of them to scrounge up so many bodies in the middle of the night.”
The officers saluted sharply. Shura did her best to mask her irritation and walked past them in a manner expected of someone in her position. She was greeted by two more officers, women this time, also dressed in uniform. Shura noted, approvingly, that both women carried batons at their hips. They saluted and then gestured for her to follow, flanking her. The two rows of officers fell in behind them down a long brick corridor with large glass displays on one side with the uniforms of the Meiji Restoration and vending machines on the other.
The entourage continued up a set of stairs, through traditional wooden double doors, and right into an open central area filled with desks partitioned by glass walls. They passed several rows of low benches and lounge tables, two rows of waist-high bookshelves dividing the open area in half, and then entered a meeting room with all glass walls.
Five more officers stood at attention on the other side of a long table as Shura and her people walked into the aquarium. The fourteen officers who had accompanied them spaced themselves along the walls with their backs to the glass. They saluted together. It was all quite dramatic.
“A nice touch,” murmured Shura.
The man standing in the center of the group inside the aquarium took charge. He was older, and obviously more seasoned than the fresh-faced officers. If nothing else, the extra shiny badges on his chest gave him away. Shura always thought such ribbons silly. All it did was give her a clearer target of who to assassinate.
While the military in the governments under their control did employ such rankings, the Genjix did not. Their ranks simply had a natural way of falling into place. It was said one could always decipher an individual’s standing by was to simply seeing how they carried themselves. Shura didn’t have to know the identifications on his uniform ribbons to know that this was not the superintendent-general.
“What is the meaning of this?” she exclaimed loudly.
The officer bowed. “I am Captain Kitaro Miko. Superintendent-General Hitashi sends his regards and apologizes for not greeting you in person. He has served for many years and is of limited health.”
That is a plausible response.
Shura reluctantly agreed. “Send him my regards.”
Kitaro waited until she sat down before joining her. “To what do we owe this honor, Adonis vessel?”
“I seek a fugitive residing in your city,” she said. “Expat, likely hiding under several aliases. The Genjix require your force’s cooperation.”
“Has this individual committed a crime?” asked Kitaro.
“Irrelevant.” Shura adjusted her tone. Unlike most Adonis vessels, she understood the power of not-being-an-asshole. “It is an internal matter. You would have my deep appreciation for your aid and discretion.”
Kitaro pondered her words, and then nodded. “Very well. Please pass along all relevant information regarding your quarry. Do you have a photograph or description of this individual?”
“I do,” she replied.
“That would be most useful. If you transfer that data to me, I can have it processed quickly.”
That was easy.
“Indeed. Too easy perhaps.”
Shura tapped the screen on her forearm and was about to cast the data file to Kitaro.
Hold. Something is amiss. Look to your sides.
Shura pretended to be busy on her comm and then casually glanced to her left and then her right. An image flashed in Shura’s head: a female officer walked to the double door that they entered from, closed and locked it. Another quick flash: outside the aquarium, the hands one of the officers standing watch were shaking. He rubbed his fingers together, his palms sweating. One more flash: one of the officers mouthed silently to the man next t
o him. The words formed on his lips: get ready.
The final flash: it was a small gesture, barely perceptible, but Tabs missed nothing. Another officer moved his hand and loosened the straps of the baton holster around his waist. He gripped the handle as if preparing to swing. Shura could only come up with one reason. A gun was too lethal, a taser too limited.
They mean to take you alive.
For the police to attack a Genjix official, even during an unofficial visit, especially one with her standing, was no less than an act of war. Even Shura’s most hated rivals would see it as a personal affront to their religion and their gods. The Genjix countries would likely have the island blockaded within a week.
That is, unless a higher power was providing cover. Shura should be as safe here as if she were soaking in her own tub at home. Though in all seriousness, she had survived assassination attempts in the tub before. That could only mean one thing. This was sanctioned. Only one person in the entire world would have the knowledge, wealth, and desire to arrange this trap.
Kitaro looked up expectantly from his tablet. “Is there a problem, Adonis? I am still waiting for the image. We can proceed immediately.”
Shura stared the officer down. She was still puzzled. If this was a trap, and the police were about to arrest them, then why the charade? Why not simply arrest them at the airport or the parking garage? Why lead them up here with this elaborate ruse?
Of course…
“Rurik needs an image of the Receiver,” she remarked matter-of-factly. “He ordered you to get it before you captured me. How much did it cost him? I hope it was a princely sum, and I hope he paid in advance.”
Kitaro was not a great actor. “I do not know what you speak of–”
Shura scrambled onto the table and kicked a heel out, shattering his orbital bone. He flew backward out of his seat and into the glass wall with a heavy crack. Shura’s momentum carried her off the table. She landed on one knee and shot her hands outward, grabbing ahold of the two officers who were sitting adjacent to Kitaro. She torqued her body, pulling both men out of their chairs.