Grey Ronin (The Awakened Book 3)

by Matthew S. Cox

  Minutes later, the helmetless security man appeared around the wall. “Mamoru, wai―”

  The vibro katana passed through the armored chest plate before his brain could process the officer had spoken English.

  Glowing vapor seeped out of the man and coalesced in a blanket of fog that swam around behind him. Blood sprayed out of a diagonal cut from left shoulder to midway down his right side. The officer’s upper body slid from the rest and clattered to the street. Blood seethed and bubbled along the length of his vibro blade, crimson boiling off to gleaming metal in seconds, filling the area with the scent of burnt meat.

  Mamoru’s eyes widened as the mass of phantasmal energy roiled about for a few seconds before it took on the shape of a nude woman about six feet tall. She stumbled to her right, thigh-length lemon blonde hair swaying behind her. From height alone, she would stand out in Tokyo―even without skin the color of snow.

  She found her balance and glared at him. “Bloody hell. Now I’m going to have to find someone else to wear.”

  Several people passing the mouth of the alley stopped to gawk at her.

  He held the katana out, pointing it at her. The sight of her eyes, black onyx gems, stole the words from his mouth.

  “You are rather difficult, Mamoru.” She walked toward him, unconcerned with her lack of clothing. “When will you understand that I am trying to help?”

  “You are the oni who took Nami.” He shook the blade at her.

  “I’m no demon, sweetie. If I was, that would make you one as well. We are more alike than you know.” She glanced over her shoulder at the crowd. The appearance of her eyes changed lust to fear. “Do you like what you are staring at?”

  Most of them ran, screaming.

  She leaned back with a haughty laugh. Mamoru backed away.

  “Don’t tell me you are afraid of a woman, hon?”

  “You are unnatural. No shame. No respect. Go back to your hell.”

  “Call me Aurora.” Her hips swayed as she exaggerated her strut towards him. “Oh, don’t back away. You need me.”

  “I do not need you.” Mamoru lowered the blade, muttering under his breath. “Kami, take this oni from my sight.”

  Aurora tapped her foot. “For an intelligent man, you are a superstitious fool. Your abilities are not magic or some ancient mystical ‘chi’ nonsense. You are psionic. Your Shinto gods aren’t going to pop up and whisk me off to some dreary hell. Stop looking at me like that. I thought you preferred your women confident.” She folded her arms. “Besides, we’ve already more or less snogged.”

  “What is… snogged?” Mamoru raised an eyebrow.

  She laughed to the point of crying. When she recovered, she blew a kiss at him. “Don’t tell me you’ve forgotten already?”

  Mamoru closed his eyes. “Don’t mention that again. Nami was―”

  “Thinking about it for weeks.” Aurora made a dismissive wave. “Look, I enjoy pushing people off center. I thought it would be funny to watch you squirm. But in all seriousness, I am here to help you. Exactly how do you expect to get yourself out of Tokyo alive? You’ll do no one any good dead.”

  “Why should I tell you? How do I know you aren’t working for Minamoto?”

  “Well, first of all, I’m not Japanese. Your society doesn’t trust outsiders enough to give them any power or responsibility. Second”―she waved her hand over her nakedness―“I’m a bit underdressed for a formal event.”

  I must get to Sapporo. He glanced at the open alley, beckoning him to run.

  Her eyes narrowed as a trace of an amused smile formed. “What’s in Sapporo?”

  Mamoru backed up to the wall. She leaned against him, pinning him, straddling one leg. He could not help but study her curves. A woman taller than him, even by an inch, did something to his mind that left him speechless. Despite his best effort, he found himself staring at her breasts.

  “You can touch them if you want, but I don’t think you’ll have enough time to enjoy it.” She winked. “At least they’ll buy you some time.”

  Before he could say a word, she whirled about to face the street. The three remaining security officers skidded to a halt, gawked at their dead compatriot, and aimed rifles at Mamoru.

  Aurora struck a raunchy pose and jiggled her chest. The men did a double take, giving Mamoru the opportunity to move before they could fire. He roared, and the flame-like glow peeled along his arms. The alley smeared around him as he charged. In a flash of screeching plastisteel, the vibro-katana split the center man in half from crotch to skull. The other two broke to run, but the next managed only a step before the katana took his head.

  The strange woman laughed again and arched her back before she vanished in a spectral haze that trailed after the remaining officer. Mamoru pursued until the man fell on all fours, clutching his chest and screaming. The odd seizure kept Mamoru a pace behind and to the left, katana held vertical.

  “Would you mind not killing this one, luv?” Her accent emerged in the man’s voice as he wobbled back to his feet. “I’ll attract less attention wearing someone.”

  “What manner of oni are you?” asked Mamoru, adjusting his grip on the katana.

  “I hope you’re not going to be this difficult all the time.” The officer, drenched in sweat, slung his assault rifle over one shoulder. “I told you already; I am psionic. As are you. Since Minamoto has declared you kill-on-sight, I imagine you need to get out of this prefecture as soon as possible. I’ve come to help. I’d rather not bother with asking, but I’m not fluent in Japanese and can’t make much sense of what you are thinking.”

  “You are… inside that man?” Mamoru mumbled a self-protection prayer to the Kami. “I am not the same as you.”

  “If you tell me what is in Sapporo, perhaps I can be of more assistance?”

  “It is the center of the prefecture governed by Yoshida-Nakano Corporation.”

  The officer adopted a decidedly feminine posture as he contemplated. Mamoru looked away. “They make hovercars. Is that all you need? There are plenty―”

  “No. Their ways are similar to the West. Their laws are not bound up in the traditions of old.” Contempt dripped from his voice. “Yoshida-san thinks it backward.”

  “It is backwards. You would be far safer with us, outside of Japan.”

  “I do not trust what you offer.” He relaxed, sliding the katana into its scabbard.

  Aurora’s puppet followed as he strode off. “I’m trying to save you some time, Mamoru. You’ll wind up in the West soon enough. Why can’t you accept that I am a friend?”

  He walked, not looking back at the entity following him. “There is no help you can give me. You cannot understand.”

  “A bit of a hard head, aren’t you?” The possessed security man grumbled. “Awright then, suit yourself. I’ll see ya in a couple of weeks.”

  A moment later, a shrill man’s voice shrieked commands to drop the katana and wailed for backup. Mamoru glanced over his shoulder. Panic-stricken hands fumbled to bring the assault rifle to bear. Past the officer, a barely visible presence receded off down the street. Mamoru lunged, shoving the rifle down with one hand while smashing the other into the officer’s helmet. Frustration and anger erupted in a brilliant flash of energy along Mamoru’s arm. The security man sailed backward ten meters before he hit the ground and slid to a halt against a parked car with an echoing whump.

  Mamoru gazed at his bleeding hand, once again studded with flakes of bullet-resistant plastic. He frowned as the strange woman’s words echoed in his thoughts. Psionic? Hmfh. I can’t read minds. What does an oni intend to do but trick and deceive? Some of the fragments fell out of his fingers as he clenched his hand into a fist. At the sound of sirens, he sent one last distrustful glare at the empty sidewalk and ran.

  A dozen security officers chased Mamoru down the hundred-meter long escalator to the subterranean tram system run by the Nippon Shōgyō-Kumiai. Citizens ignored the disturbance, heads down, walking as though nothing at
all went on―unless one of the participants collided with them.

  As the NSK guards at the main doors braced to stop him, Mamoru tapped his power. Everything fell into slow motion as he pushed himself out of the realm of human ability. The black jumpsuits seemed to freeze in time, their arms rising as if to command him to stop. He ran through, leaving them staring at the spot where he was before he blurred. Inside, he weaved among dozens of bodies twisting about in slow turns to see what all the shouting was.

  Mamoru kept the pace for six seconds, long enough to go from the entrance to the security checkpoint by the boarding platform. He let his mind rest. The clamor of the crowd rolled over him as the perfect silence of accelerated existence faded. Advertising jingles, squealing children, a thousand conversations, and the now-distant shouts of the security forces left him disoriented. He fell onto a bench between two potted bamboo plants. A five-inch orb bot hovered about, watering them.

  There, he sought stillness. He tapped another part of his mind, withdrawing to a state of meditation as he forced his breathing to even out. He did not move as the security team arrived. Their full-face helmets reflected the ceiling lights, stripes of intense white crept over glossy beige. Mamoru fixated on the camera dots at their temples that fed pass-through view screens.

  Soldiers glanced at each other and turned in a circle. A moment later, they split up and ran off in different directions. When he could no longer hear them, Mamoru made his way to the checkpoint at a slow gait so as not to disrupt his concentration. Two women and a man in NSK jumpsuits sat behind the checkpoint station, staring at screens linked to a massive walk-through scanner. A large screen on the far wall presented a digital recreation of everyone as they went through, calling attention to cybernetic implants and any weapons.

  Mamoru ducked through the sensor tunnel, dragging his fingers along the dark glass inside. Be a good boy and pay no attention to me. None of the three security people looked up from their screens.

  Mamoru strolled to the tram, head down and mind racing.

  Coffin

  ithin the dingy streets of downtown Sapporo, Mamoru walked among a mass of people that could have existed in the West. They spoke Japanese, though much of the formality was absent. They dressed in the clothing of other cultures, listened to the music of other places, and few respected anything but money, the latest fad, or the newest designer narcotic. Even the smells that rolled by carried shame. Hamburgers, pizza, Indian spices, and other things all with the cloying undertone of OmniSoy.

  At least, despite the incessant bump of careless shoulders, he was safe from Minamoto’s misplaced wrath. To go after him here, they would have to contract through NSK. It was foolish to hope he would be safe for long. Minamoto’s influence could affect the whole of Japan, despite his direct power being limited to the area around Tokyo. Mamoru did not care about building a new life here… all he wanted was enough time to repair what had been done.

  Yellow-bordered green kanji flickered in the air up ahead, threatening to go dark at any moment when ancient wiring gave out at last. Tanoshī Yoru Economy Hotel, according to the sign, stood at the end of a U-shaped street filled with dirt-covered, shoeless children. Laundry fluttered in the air from an adjacent high-rise tower, the lack of electricity apparent by the darkness within. Torn barricades around the door indicated the building as condemned, which meant the hundred or so families that lived within it squatted.

  Some of the kids noticed him, attracted by his clean, untorn clothing and general lack of grime. He walked past them to a dark, dusty space full of the smell of over-salted ramen. Hospital green overwhelmed the room, elevating the concept of drab to an art form. Yellowing plasfilm posters adorned the walls of a short entry corridor: missing kids, ads for off-Earth jobs, people looking for work. A dozen or so cheap tables occupied the center of a section set up like a restaurant. Left and right of the entry, stairways led to the upper floors. Two old men played cards at one of the tables, a few prostitutes clustered at the opposite side. A middle-aged woman busied herself behind the counter, disinterested in anything going on outside of her immediate vicinity.

  Mamoru walked among the empty tables, sending a casual glance to the roof forty stories above. A central shaft about the same size as the dining area allowed a view of thirty-nine floors of coffin-sized beds. A handful of the children from outside followed him at a safe distance. The most forlorn, wide eyed, and dirty led the way. He approached the counter, standing under the flickering shadow of a ceiling fan.

  “Yeah?” asked the hunched figure.

  He did not respond until the woman looked at him. “I am in need of a place to sleep.”

  She squinted, annoyed at the disruption of her routine of nothingness. “By the night, by the week, or by the month?”

  “I will start with a week.”

  The troll threw a glance in the general direction of a NetMini reader and fiddled with a terminal. “Two hundred an’ forty.”

  Mamoru took a credstick from his pocket, and swiped the tiny three-inch device over it, causing a chime. No one looking for him would notice an untraceable transaction here. The presence of small bodies getting too close made him whirl. Five children jumped back. “You shall find my pockets contain nothing of value.”

  They offered well-rehearsed pouts. One girl surreptitiously pulled on her tattered dress to accentuate her bare shoulder peeking through a rip.

  “Nabeyaki Udon.” He glanced back to the troll. “For them as well.”

  A little boy broke away from the end of their group and ran to the door.

  She flung her arm out, pointing at a dented silver appliance, an old atomic reassembler. “What do you think this is? I got shrimp or chicken.”

  “Shrimp.” Mamoru grumbled, squeezed buttons on the credstick, and swiped it again.

  “What the hell?” She slapped the terminal twice, not believing what she saw.

  “That should be enough to feed the little ones about to flood in the door.” He leaned toward her with a face of iron. “See that you do. It would be unwise to cheat me.”

  Cherubic faces smiled at him, though he did not stay to bask in their gratitude. After receiving his bowl of OmniSoy noodles, disposable chopsticks, and a bed assignment, he went upstairs. On the sixteenth floor, he left the switchback staircase in search of bunk 16-82. With the shape of each level being identical, and square, he needed only to follow the narrow corridor until his number came up.

  The sleep chambers were stacked three high, some had their awning-like doors propped open while their occupants sat with dangling legs. A few people ran merchant stalls out of them, selling cheap electronics, quasi-legal drugs, performance enhancing derms, and holo-vids from artistic to pornographic. One even had an inventory of handguns and knives. A scrawny teen girl with bright pink hair, cat ears, and nothing else on, sat on the edge of a sleep pod, painting her toenails the same shade as her hair. Panties, a torn skirt, other clothes, and trash sat piled up against the foot-end wall inside. She looked up as he passed, and gave him a wink that said she was for hire.

  An emaciated man rounded the corner. Too many nights sleeping in alleys had stained his clothes, and his eyes were unfocused. He waved his arms as if flying or swimming, and made sputtering engine noises as he wobbled past, oblivious to Mamoru’s existence. A used yellow autoinjector dangled between the fingers of his left hand.

  He ignored the lot of it until he found his bed, mid-level along the wall near the front right corner. The wireless fob the creature behind the desk gave him beeped as he waved it by the handle, and the door creaked up with a pneumatic hiss. The space offered barely enough room to sit up, being about eight feet long and about as wide as needed to lie down in. A thin Comforgel pad lined the bottom with a chintzy plastic-foam pillow at one end. The inner wall contained a tiny common-use terminal with basic access to the GlobeNet.

  That would be all he needed.

  Mamoru set his weapon inside, followed by the Matsushita Oni deck. After removin
g his coat, he tossed it over the pillow and sat on the edge to choke down the pitiful excuse for food. The thin broth tasted like fish salt more than shrimp, and the noodles were mushy. One small squiggle of whitish matter floated in it, supposedly a shrimp. It had the consistency of a rubber band, and about as much flavor. The only good thing about the meal was that it had been convenient.

  The cat-eared girl, not bothering to put anything on, walked up to him and struck a pose. A bright pink cat tail swished around her legs. “Hey, handsome. Wanna play?”

  Mamoru didn’t look up from his soup. “How much for you to cease pestering me?”

  “Huh?” She twirled her finger through her hair and bit her lip. “I’m eighteen.”

  He set his chopsticks in the bowl and removed a credstick from his coat. A mere Ͼ7813 remained, but to her it would be a fortune. She had the reflexes of a cat, catching it as soon as he tossed it at her. Mamoru resumed attending to his soup, disappointed she didn’t have to go chase it. The girl gawked at the figure on the display. When she started to crawl into his bunk, he palmed the top of her head, holding her back.

  She grabbed his wrist, trying to pull his hand down. “What? You’re not supposed to pet me.”

  “Go buy some food. I did not pay you for sex.” He twirled a mouthful of noodles around the chopsticks, and ate.

  The girl stared at him for a long moment. Confusion gave way to shame. Her tail dangled limp and straight. Her eyes reddened. She bowed. “Thank you.”

  “Mmm.” He busied himself with his meal, half aware of the girl racing back to her bunk and getting dressed.

  Expensive silence.

  When the soup was gone, he reclined and pulled the hatch closed, careful to secure the lock. With one hand on the deck at his side, he sneered at the dull green metal above him. This tiny chamber was not his dojo.

  He wanted to go home.

  The White Samurai glided down a deserted street toward a familiar factory. Indistinct shadow figures drifted past him wherever the citywide surveillance system detected a person. None of the random debris or decay existed in this world. Glowing yellow barriers cordoned off the facility. In the entry gate, a large yellow triangle with rounded ends and silver edges bore a black exclamation point, rotating above a redirection notice that the company had moved to Shōrishima. He disregarded them, entering what appeared to be a furnished and functional reception area.