by Wesley Chu
“And I let you go first to Singapore, a central Genjix territory, and now Tokyo. Do you know how careless and stupid this is?”
“I guess you’re going to tell me.”
“We’re heading back to Australia right now.”
“Yeah, I don’t think so.” Roen pulled out the note with the Keeper’s authority. “Remember, I’m in charge–”
Josie stomped up to him, knocked the tablet out of his hand, and then socked him in the face. For the second time in so many weeks, Roen’s dentures cracked.
Chapter Nineteen
Narrow Escape
The most important tool Ella Patel lacked – something which was crucial for all agents – were soft skills: emotional intelligence. The girl just could not get along with anyone. Amy Ng may have been her first roommate, but Ella went through three more before the end of her first year.
She was naturally suspicious and did not make friends easily, which only made others suspicious of her. She always angled for an advantage, which, while common on the streets, burned bridges at the Academy. Everything was stacked against her. It became obvious early on that she was not cut out for such a profession. No one expected her to succeed.
The Burglar Alarms parted ways shortly after the incident at the Japanese estate. Everyone had standing instructions to go to ground and lay low for a few days whenever a job went bad. Ella usually would let them know when to meet up again. This time was a little different.
Get back home. Pack your things. With luck, we can be out of the city tonight.
For Ella, the whole world now felt like enemy territory. During the train ride home she kept replaying her encounter with Nabin over and over in her head. She had always imagined that the next time they met, if ever, she would be rich and hardly even remember who he was.
Nabin? Ella would tap her chin deep in thought. That name sounded familiar. Oh yes, that guy, Nobhead or Nab-idiot or something like that. He was some guy she dated back in her younger years when she hadn’t known better. If she remembered correctly, he had told her that she would never amount to much. Ella would shrug and chuckle, and then sip her champagne as she lounged on the deck of her yacht while her really handsome and tall Australian boyfriend prepared lunch.
That was how Ella imagined it would be like the next time their paths crossed. Instead, when she actually did run into him, all she wanted to do was wrap her arms around his barrel-shaped body and bury her head in his furry bear chest and tell him how much she missed him. That, as much as she wanted to dredge up all the times he had infuriated her, all she could think about was all the many more times when he had made her happy. She recognized that all the flashes of bad memories were Io just being a jerk.
I was trying to keep you grounded.
“You were trying to keep me away from him.”
Technically, both were true. Ella wasn’t naive or blind enough not to see why. Although they had never spoken to each other directly, Io and Nabin held diverging views on life; their goals were direct opposites to each other. What they each wanted for Ella was very different.
Nabin was Ella’s first and only love, and she never thought she could love someone so much. When they first started dating, he used to fly down to Sydney at least once a month, no matter where he was or what mission he was on at the time. He was always so patient and caring and thoughtful with her. Nabin, who sat and listened endlessly as she ranted about the Academy. Who once hid in her dorm room for three hours to surprise her. Who spent his entire R&R tutoring her during her finals the first year.
He cooked the best pancakes and always made a big production of serving her breakfast in bed. She would curl into a ball and nestle into the crook of his arm as he drank coffee and read intelligence reports. They would spend the mornings jogging and practicing knife work, the afternoons eating ice cream and frolicking in the ocean, and the evenings counting stars next to a bonfire. That was when times were good. Great, even. It was fresh love and bursting hearts, and she was sure they were going to be together forever.
Forever was unfortunately far shorter than she had anticipated. Like all relationships, the honeymoon period eventually ended. Reality began to creep into their perfect life. Nabin had to eventually rededicate his focus back to being a Prophus agent. Ella slowly became, well, Ella Patel again.
It started with small things: Nabin leaving the toilet seat up, oversleeping and being late for date night, forgetting her birthday, etc. To be fair, Ella had her bad moments as well, since it takes two to start a fight: Ella picking out and eating all the wontons from the soup they were sharing, leaving the dirty dishes piled up, rummaging through his things out of boredom.
She could still hear his annoyed, snippy comment. “It’s not about the stupid wontons, babe. It’s about being considerate!”
Over time, their quarrels grew more serious and volatile. She missed him terribly when he was away on missions and begged him to stay. He chastised her for cheating on her tests and for stealing Academy supplies. That last incident hit Ella particularly hard. Nabin had yelled at her about embezzling tablets from the Academy and selling them on the black market. He told her that being a con woman was wrong, and that she was ungrateful to the Prophus.
He never once bothered to consider that being the con woman that he so disdained was the only way she had managed to survive Crate Town as a child, that scrounging and stealing was how she managed to stay afloat. That even though Ella was now living safely in an air-conditioned dorm, she was terrified that, just like everything else in her life, she could lose it all with a snap of a finger.
Which she did. Her nightmare came true.
Things came to a head when she was expelled. Nabin had taken a break from his mission to fly in specifically to see her. Ella had thought he was there to console her as she, weeping and beside herself, was ordered to pack her meager belongings and given a one-way ticket. Instead, he came and kicked her while she was down. He broke up with her. Ella could still hear his hurtful words.
“I can’t be with you any longer,” he had said. “You will never change. You will endanger everyone around you. I won’t let you destroy everything I fight so hard for.”
His last words lingered in her thoughts. Ella sat still in her seat as the train rumbled along, tears welling in her eyes as she relived those painful memories as if they were newly fresh and raw. The minutes passed. She looked out the window as the cityscape flew by. Brightly lit skyscrapers gave way to warehouses, and to residential buildings in turn. Slowly, the city coaxed her back to the present.
She was going to miss Tokyo.
Io was right about one thing though. Ella could not stay here any longer. Maybe she should move to another part of Japan, like Osaka or just a little further out to Nagasaki. Kyoto was beautiful. Perhaps she should just flee Japan entirely. She could head out to New Zealand or Argentina or America, and hole up in a place where no one would ever find her.
Ella jumped out of the train as soon as the doors opened and pushed her way through the light crowds toward home. If she hurried, she could pack and be out of the city in an hour. Maybe even out of the country. She was halfway to her apartment when she stopped.
What is it?
Ella glared at the quiet streets of Nishi Kasai, the place she had made her home over the past six months. “Why am I the one who has to leave? I was here first, and I actually live here. In this custody battle, Japan is mine. Nabin’s the one who should go.”
Being here first is not relevant. What is important is they have found you and may try to forcibly take you.
“Kidnap me? They wouldn’t dare, would they?” Ella wasn’t so sure. Nabin definitely wouldn’t. She didn’t know about Cameron’s dad. “How did Roen Tan even find out I was here?”
The Prophus are after you. They must be tracking you somehow.
“You were right. I shouldn’t have sent him that postcard.” She made a sad face. “But it was his birthday.”
Ella crossed her arms. She had worked hard to make a life for herself. She had friends, a job – sort of – and people who were counting on her. Nabin should be the one to leave. She should talk to him about their breakup arrangement, like custody during a divorce. Except in this case, her custody was Tokyo.
Ella, this is about more than your boyfriend. If the Prophus are after us, they will not quit.
“So what?” she snapped. “The Prophus are all over the world. If they are looking for me here, they are looking for me in Peru and Tanzania. I shouldn’t have to scurry off and hide every time one of those stupid alien heads shows up on my lawn.” She paused. “No offense.”
I see your point. Maybe we should have listened to what they had to say.
Ella made a face and huffed. “Of course not. I want nothing to do with him. He said I was dragging him down.”
All her emotions bubbled up again. Ella quickly buried them. Nabin was the only person in the world who could set her off like that. As much as she hated him, she knew deep down inside it was just a protective shell. That meant Io knew as well.
My advice, if you choose to accept it, is to stay away from him. The Prophus obviously want to bring me back into the fold. They want to involve me in their war, and we want nothing to do with that. We dictate our own future.
Ella worked herself up and shook her fist in the air. “You’re right. We’re our own boss. We call the shots.”
We decide where to live and what jobs we work.
Ella nodded furiously as she stomped into her apartment. “I like this craphole. I think I’m going to stay here forever.”
It probably is not a bad idea to update your go bag in case things go poorly.
Ella shrugged and fell into bed. “I don’t think that’s necessary.”
Just in case.
“I’ll take care of it some other time.”
That is what you said last time.
“Well, next time.”
Ella’s adrenaline finally drained, and she found herself bone-weary. She yawned and curled herself into a ball, her back pressing to the wall. She reached behind her – yep, the dagger was there. “Can you check and make sure everything is all right?”
Sure, Ella.
In seconds, she was sound asleep.
Io sat Ella up a few minutes later. The girl was in a deep slumber. Io had been sorting through her emotions and knew they were in trouble. Ella was not physically tired. Stamina was one of her strengths. She was emotionally drained; seeing Nabin had sapped much of her energy.
Ella loved him. More than she realized. Io might not know humans well, but she could tell he loved her too. He held enormous sway over Ella. It had taken all of Io’s subtle and not-so-subtle prodding to split them apart in the first place. She couldn’t afford to go up against him again. Sooner or later, Ella was going to choose him over her.
Io knew that love was simply a series of chemical reactions in the brain; she had seen it firsthand in dozens if not hundreds of mammals. However, that didn’t mean it made humans any less foolish for following these emotions. Most of the greatest senseless acts in history were done in the name of love.
Io knew better than to allow that to happen. While she had come to an understanding with Ella and actually considered the girl her partner, or at the very least her ally, Io was still looking out for Io. And if it was to her benefit to keep Ella and Nabin apart, then that was what she intended to do.
The question was, how far could she push the girl? If it were up to her, they would be on a flight out of Tokyo tonight, fleeing to a rural area with few humans and even less Quasing conflict. Io had never been truly comfortable staying in heavily-populated centers in neutral countries.
That was why all of their passports were from several third-world countries. Io had almost succeeded getting Ella to go to Tanzania the first time around, her preferred outcome. The girl just couldn’t bear being so far away from people. The compromise had been Tokyo, a city so densely populated that it would be just as difficult to find someone there as in the middle of a rainforest. An urban jungle was the next best thing. At least that was what Io had reasoned. Apparently she had been wrong.
The question now was, how had Nabin located them? What else did he know? What was Roen Tan, a very important and influential human, doing with him? His presence obviously made it important Prophus business, especially if he was being supported by a full team of agents. The Prophus wanted something from them, but what? It had to be from Io; what could they possibly want with a street kid like Ella?
Io set herself to find out. She moved the girl over to the table and powered up the laptop. A few keystrokes and authentications later, she was back in the Prophus network. The first thing she did was tap into the missive about the safe house under construction. Everything looked by-the-book in the report. However, Ella did make a very good point; that was an awfully strange safe house, far too nice. Which meant it wasn’t one. And that the whole thing was a setup.
Io began to cross-reference the background information on the estate where they had run into Roen Tan. The first unusual thing that popped up was the lack of relevant information regarding it being in such an affluent part of the city. That meant the Prophus had scrubbed it. That made sense, since the location was being re-purposed, but again, why was such a relatively extravagant and ostentatious location chosen in the first place to be a safe house?
It took several layers of sleuthing for Io to find out who owned the address. It wasn’t the Prophus, but the Rafaeli, a wealthy Brazilian family that operated the revived Kolynos Oral Care Company, the largest toothpaste company in South America. The Kolynos also happened to be one of the large corporate backers for the Prophus.
It didn’t take too much more digging for Io to discover a certain Agent Pedro Rafaeli, five years out of the Rio De Janeiro Academy. Report: Hekla Einarsson’s field scout team. Specialty Operations: surveillance. Current location: classified. Recent reports: classified. This was strange. Emily Curran’s status as an active host agent should have given Io full access to Pedro’s personnel files.
None of the background information mattered. How had they tracked Ella to Tokyo? More importantly, how had they known Ella would try to raid that estate?
Io stopped typing. Of course. She slammed the laptop shut. Emily Curran’s account being left open was not an oversight. Tao never did trust her after India. She really hated to prove that smug low-standing Quasing right.
Io looked at the go bag haphazardly tossed in the corner. She could be on a plane to Africa – anywhere on the continent – by the time Ella woke. Actually she doubted that. It had been hard enough maneuvering Ella’s body from the train station home. Trying to move her body to Narita from here would likely get them both run over by a car.
No, there had to be another way.
Io began to formulate another plan.
Chapter Twenty
The Other Law
Training at the Academy was not without its merits. There were areas in which Ella excelled. She was deadly with knives, possessing quick reflexes and having a natural talent for gauging range and reactions. She had training from Crate Town in Escrima, but she took these skills to new heights at the academy.
Ella also developed a sharp eye for detail and was quick on her feet. She was decisive and adaptable, and rarely cracked under pressure. She often thought outside the box and found unique solutions and effective angles to problems. In essence, she possessed the intangibles that were important in a good agent. She just did not possess any of the tangibles.
It took less than a day for every door in Tokyo to shut in Shura’s face. Every government agency that Shura had ever engaged with canceled their scheduled meetings. All attempts t
hrough her Genjix and Indian government channels were met with silence or outright hostility. Shura was not only completely cut off from the Japanese government, but any attempt to establish new lines of communication were likely to get her arrested.
Rurik had laid a clever trap. If she had failed to escape it, Kitaro would have delivered her. But since she had escaped, she was now wanted by every major agency in the country. He had outmaneuvered her. He may have even succeeded in trapping her in Japan. She had to hand it to her rival – he was thorough. Frankly, Shura was more impressed than angry. She didn’t think Rurik had it in him. She appreciated cleverness, something he had failed to display again and again over the past few years.
Now that the government was closed off to her, Shura turned her focus to the other ruling structure of Japan. In every country, every province, every city, there were two rulers: the elected officials, and the crimelords. If Shura had any hopes of finding the girl – especially in a maze as dense and massive as Tokyo – she would need to enlist the yakuza.
The Genjix had historically not worked well with the criminal elements of human society. Too messy, too inefficient and too difficult to control. Those tended to be more a Prophus sort of relationship.
It took a few days for her to leverage Abbi’s contacts to request meetings with all four of the major crime families in the country. Shura was beginning to understand and appreciate the power and advantages of a strong and resilient spy network.
She was disappointed but not surprised to learn that Rurik was also a step ahead of her here. The two largest yakuza families, the Yamaguchi-gumi and the Sumiyoshi-kai, flat out refused to meet with her. She was not given the opportunity to plead her case or outbid her opponent. They offered their apologies, and told her messenger that honor would not allow it. Chances were it was also because the Japanese crime families were notoriously conservative and careful, and a civil conflict between two powerful Genjix brought too much heat for them to bear. At least they were polite about it, which was more than she could say for the Japanese government.