He lost focus, unsure of where he belonged.
A rush of air drew his attention to the little vault. At the back wall of the twelve-inch cube, beyond more stacks of paper, a whirling portal yawned into a shifting tunnel defined by a honeycomb pattern of blue lines. Mamoru held his hand inside the chamber, feeling around. It appeared to be a hidden point-to-point connection outside of the normal GlobeNet rules. The remaining data tiles yielded information on a number of other British citizens. None had the same long-term observational notes as existed for Anna, but all of them appeared to be prisoners. As best he could tell, they all still lived―none of them had tried to take their children and run.
Mamoru frowned at the electronic rabbit hole. The Silver’s internal security was in the midst of going haywire, red lights flashed in the corridor outside the data vault. They could not tell where the breach was, only that there had been one. Since he had teleported in without disturbing the outer door, their defense constructs and living operators had no clue where he was, and fell back on the old standby of a methodical node-to-node search.
He stuck his hand into the spiral and it drew him in. The rest of his armor melted, becoming a stream of white enamel flakes spiraling along in a horizontal tornado devoured by the portal. Azure light engulfed his vision as he plunged through a serpentine tunnel. Radiant bands whipped past every few seconds until the last flash blinded him. When vision returned, he found himself in a huge data storage chamber. It had the appearance of a two-story room with endless rows of refrigerator-sized black cabinets. Behind him, a now six-inch portal swirled on a plain wall.
The hardware in which this virtual place existed felt different. Another manufacturer, different transmission protocols, and even the ‘flavor’ of the electricity changed. He meditated, sweeping the system for any mention of Pixie. In reality, back in his apartment in Private Sector Boston, Mamoru’s eyebrow lifted. His feeler in the room told him his consciousness had reached a server cluster in Britain. Based on data he sifted through, the system was once part of MI6, but now bore the identification of an outfit designated as the CSB.
Clandestine Service Bureau? He grumbled, in and out of reality. Dishonorable.
Mamoru’s real body broke out in a sweat as he exerted himself in the virtual world. More information than he had ever tried to assimilate at once flooded through him, but only in snapshots. His search came back empty save for a small file pointer lurking in a trash management buffer. Someone had deleted a file containing the word pixie.
A momentary query based on the image of Heather Morgan brought up an identification photo of a mid-ranking CSB operative by the name of Allan Charles. He looked older, bald and in his later forties, but had the same self-absorbed smirking smile he’d worn the night he’d murdered Anna’s mother.
His concentration ceased, breaking the link between his mind and the Matsushita Oni deck beneath his hand. Mamoru shifted, unconsciously making way for Nami to place tea in front of him the way she always did when he left the network.
At the dark, empty room, he sighed.
Strictly Professional
amoru narrowed his eyes at the wind, leaning back to watch a half-dozen silver capsules slide up the mirrored face of Interchange Tower to hovercar parking forty stories up. The early morning sky brimmed with shades of amber and blue, the surrounding city too bright to look at wherever it reflected the sun. Distant, dark shapes, other private sectors, loomed like miniature castles perched on a bed of diamonds. East City seemed to favor expansion for width rather than height. In the west, enormous century towers, hundred story buildings, dominated much of the space. For no reason Mamoru could discern, the west did not section off its ‘Private Sectors’ with walls. On the other side of the country, the rich preferred to use prohibitive cost to create a bubble of exclusivity around their homes.
The thought of it made him long for Japan. These people, separated from the Earth by millions of tons of plastisteel, thought it a rare privilege to set foot upon true ground. Everything here is artificial.
He crossed the ledge of the patio café and leaned on the railing. Ten stories down, a nest of elevated roadways ferried ground vehicles as far as he could see. Eight such roads met at this building, each parallel pair ran at different elevations around the octagonal tower, braced to the structure for support. Around where they attached, openings led to a multi-level parking area. Above and below, the tower held some of the most expensive office space in all of East City. It also housed a governmental body referred to as The Interchange, some manner of commerce watchdog. Mamoru grumbled at the thought of ‘government.’ An extra layer of bureaucracy on top of corporations seemed wasteful and ponderous. Corporations created products and services while all government did was consume.
Clicking boots on sunlit tiles brought his attention around to the rear. Anna, bundled in her white coat, walked up and pulled dark glasses away from her eyes. He gestured to the side and they took a small table at the edge.
“That was fast. I expected you’d take more than one day.”
“Their security was impressive, but it was designed to defend against someone who has poisoned their body with metal.” Mamoru tapped behind his ear. “They were too focused on trying to kill the operator rather than attack the deck. Such countermeasures do not work against me.”
Mamoru fiddled with the terminal embedded in the table, ordering a light breakfast.
In a low, clear voice, he explained the bulk of what he had found regarding her. “…Agent Charles was the one who killed your mother. She was younger than you are now.”
Anna’s eyes reddened, though her expression seemed more taken with anger than sadness. Murmurs spread through other patrons in the café as various electronic devices flickered out and failed. Tiny spiders of blue lightning leapt off her hand and crawled across the table towards the terminal. Mamoru leaned away. Sparks burst out of a console two tables behind her.
She rubbed her face, trying to knead serenity into the bridge of her nose. “You destroyed the records?”
“I erased everything I found inside the Silver. Records on the other side, in Britain, were gone already. Someone named Gordon deleted those years ago.” He reined in his contempt at the recent topic, softening his face and voice. “You have my condolences on your loss.”
“Was there any mention of my father? My real father?”
“Nothing I was able to find beyond several terabytes of medical information on DNA manipulation done on the egg post-fertilization. If they had records of him, it was lost when Gordon scrubbed the files.”
“Bugger all.” She snarled under her breath, folding her arms and looking away from the hovering bot that dropped off their food. “Mum had shacked up with this spackhead who I grew up thinkin’ was me dad. Not sure how those CSB tossers missed me.”
“She had assistance escaping… An SAS man, Lieutenant Jack Pritchard.”
“Ol’ Jack?” Anna’s eyes reddened.
“You know him?”
She sniffled, dabbing at her face with a napkin. “He took up outside where I was livin’… I thought he was CSB. He said Heather when I knocked him senseless.” She choked up. “I never knew my mother’s name.”
Mamoru looked off to the side. “It seems unlikely he would work for the CSB after helping her escape. Perhaps he felt shame over her death and decided to watch over you.”
A torrent of flickering lights and sparks swept from one side of the café to the other. “I’ve made such a mess of my life. Damn it all.”
“Seems like you managed all right.” Mamoru cut his omelet. “I have much respect for your resilience.”
“Oh, don’t let me fool you. I fell pretty damn far. Archon nicked me from the gutter and propped me up, not for want of me tryin’ to fall on my face.” She met his stare, sensing his question. “He’s the one trying to protect us all.”
“Archon?” Mamoru cocked an eyebrow. “Yes, Aurora mentioned him. Interesting parents.”
“Oh.” A smile crept through her gloom. “He chose that name to represent his commitment to our kind.”
Mamoru finished a mouthful. “Sounds like he is full of himself.”
“All of us have the right to be confident, Mamoru. The world has never seen the likes of us.” She leaned on her elbows, lowering her voice as a fleet of delivery bots visited various patrons, bearing replacement gadgets. “And they’ll not take too kindly to it. As powerful as we are, we cannot stand against the whole world. We have to keep our heads down for now. You’re not in Japan any more. You need to be careful.”
“Let them come. If I am not strong enough to prevail, I do not deserve to.”
Anna leaned back, tracking one of the bots gliding off among the clouds. “At least try to avoid drawing too much attention to yourself. We need your help again.”
He tilted his head, pausing his meal to give her an exasperated look. “More data retrieval? What about our arrangement?”
“I’m sorry, Mamoru.” Anna studied her lap. “That last request wasn’t official. It was me. I had to be sure I disappeared completely from their records. Your abilities were too great a temptation not to ask. Archon wanted me to verify you could do what we were told you can do. He did not specify the manner in which I was to do it.”
For some minutes, Mamoru gazed off to his left at a distant stream of passing hovercars. The sky had lost all traces of amber, leaving a muted sapphire dotted with a handful of clouds. Every so often, a windscreen caught the sun in a painful flash. Beeps from the table came with each touch of Anna’s finger on the interface as she ordered a small pastry and coffee. Mamoru forced the image of the dead woman from his mind, still at a loss to explain his feelings at the sight. Omura, his former associate at Matsushita, had killed a man for bumping him on the street. No one batted an eyelash. Of course, such things did not happen everywhere. Sapporo was too progressive, too much like the West. They had not adopted the old ways.
What sort of man would I be if I had lived there? How would I behave if my parents had not died?
“I will do as your Archon has asked. The original agreement is still between us. I require your assistance in locating the one who poisoned Minamoto against me.”
Anna offered a curt nod, and slid a small case from her pocket. “Of course. This nodge contains an overview of what we are looking for. Two separate things. We would like you to gain entry to the Division 0 network, personnel files. Aurora’s been insisting we look at one of their officers. Some of our people tried to go in, but they’re only kids. They did make it in far enough to access his evaluation profile.” She grumbled. “The man doesn’t look the least bit Awakened. They said he’s an unremarkable telekinetic. I’ve no idea why she’s got such a keen interest in him, but she’s gnawing on Archon’s ear about him no end, and won’t let it go. He’s asked me to see if you can dig up anything deeper that perhaps they’re keeping hidden about him. Everything you need is in the nodge.” She leaned back as a bot set her order on the table, and smiled at it. “Thank you, little one.” It flashed a happy response before zooming off. “The other request may prove a bit daunting, even for you.”
Mamoru set his utensils on the empty plate and dabbed a napkin over his mouth. “I would be most impressed if that were the case.”
“See, you’ve got a little confidence too.” She winked. “The other data we are looking for is a file reference code. We believe it is in a portion of the GlobeNet owned by the UCF military intelligence group. I’ve heard stories that people’ve died from trying to break in there.”
“Even if they somehow manage to disable my interface deck, there is no way for them to harm me. The programs have no capability to send a fatal shock over my mode of connection.”
“Well, at least you’re sure of that. Hopefully, that data is more than a big bag of wank. Shall I meet you here again tomorrow?”
“I will contact you when it is done.”
Mud oozed through Mamoru’s toes as he eased his way down the banks of the Sumida River. His little sister made faces at him from a few paces ahead where she had gone knee-deep. Her black silk kimono gleamed in the mid-afternoon sun. At the sight of the white orchid embroidered at the center of her back, he realized the dream. The child’s teasing little voice sounded distant and muted, calling out to him as if a mile away.
He glanced down where his legs vanished up to the ankles in muck. Back in the apartment, his electronics waited. Why had father chased him out into the world? Mamoru plodded up to the girl, who turned her back on him and pointed at the way the light hit Tokyo’s skyline.
“I think it’s pretty,” she chirped.
“The water’s too cold. We’re going to get sick.”
She held both hands as a visor over her eyes as she turned, grinning. “They clean the river now. The poison is gone. We won’t get sick. Papa said you need to meet Suijin-sama.” She spun, tracing her fingertips through the surface of the rippling brown water.
He gathered his hiked pants in one hand and stooped to mimic her gesture. “Do you believe in such things, sister?”
“Uh huh. They’re everywhere. Sometimes at night, I can hear them whisper.”
Mamoru frowned. “How come we never see them? There’s a river dragon in Honor Blade VII based―”
“You’re always playing games.” The girl’s face twisted with sarcasm. “You’re going to get eaten by a computer.”
“Technology is our world. This”―he gestured at the water―“is ancient and boring. It’s a dirty river that people ruined and now we struggle to fix.”
“Shh,” she whispered to the surface. “Don’t listen to him. He’s just a boy.”
“Why are you such a brat to me?”
The honesty in the unexpected question chased away her condescending frown. She looked past him at the bank, over the narrow strip of too-green RealGrass where a tiny park clung to existence at the edge of the city. A tiny grunt of exertion came out of her as she unstuck her foot from the river bottom and stepped closer.
“To fool Mother.” Her gaze fell to the ripples at their legs.
“Why would you need to fool her?”
“Shh. Not so loud.” She put a finger to her lips. “Suijin-sama can hear you. Mother thinks you will go away, and does not want to be sad. Father says you must become a warrior and you will leave us. She said I should not care about you, so if you go away it will not hurt.” Grinning, she met his stare. “I like you anyway. I say mean stuff so Mother thinks I don’t.”
Mamoru stared at his wavering face on the river. “Mother does not love me?”
“She does. She asks the gods to let you stay so she will not cry. She asks them to spare her the pain of losing her son.”
The girl reached as if to embrace him, but froze at a distant voice.
“Sadako!” called Mother, “Come in out of the water. It is too cold.”
She pretended to trip and hugged him anyway.
Sandalwood incense wafted through dark silence, calming Mamoru’s mind. The tatami mat beneath his thin hakama did little to soften the floor, but he did not yield to discomfort. He opened his eyes, focusing on a thin strand of smoke rising from the bowl at the center of a square, wood table. Tightness gripped the back of his head from where a servant had bundled and folded his hair. The shadow of a man drifted over the rice paper squares until it reached the wall he faced.
Noiseless, the panel slid to the side to reveal Kutaragi-sensei.
White socks flashed at the base of a charcoal-grey hakama as the elder walked in. Mamoru bowed low, forehead almost in contact with the table.
“I am prepared, Sensei.”
He had the voice of a teenager. Mamoru shifted in his sleep as a part of his subconscious objected to this memory.
“You are to present yourself to Minamoto-heika today. I have deemed you ready. This is the day you shall receive your daisho.”
“I shall be eternally grateful for your training, Sensei. Minamoto-heika shall have my u
ndying gratitude for all he has done for me.”
“It is regrettable what happened to your parents,” said Kutaragi, his words preceding a grim sigh.
“Father knew others may come for me. He should have been better prepared. My family made the mistake of not being ready. Mother was too passive.” Mamoru shifted in his sleep, wincing. “She should have fought back. Father was too weak to save himself. I was but a boy. It is fortunate that Minamoto-heika had the foresight to intervene and save my life. I live because of him.”
Kutaragi emitted a mmm sound in time with a short nod. “Continue to center yourself. We will leave within the hour.”
“Sensei?” Mamoru asked as Kutaragi turned to leave.
“Yes?”
Mamoru hesitated at the visage of his trainer, long hair spilled like a waterfall over flared shoulders. Both bushy eyebrows raised, moustache twitching in anticipation of an inappropriate question.
“Out with it, boy.”
He bowed again. “Sensei, I am possessed of the utmost gratitude for my training and patronage.”
“Your tone betrays more. Ask the question in your heart, Saitō-kun.”
Mamoru let his gaze fall to the burning coals and flakes of incense. “What became of my sister?”
Kutaragi perched a hand on the katana tucked under his belt as his stance slackened. “I am sorry. It is quite likely she was killed soon after.”
“I am grateful for your effort to make me feel no guilt. With utmost respect, if they had desired to slay her, they would have done so without carrying her off.”
Ichirō Kutaragi moved around the table and squatted near him, resting one hand on his arm in one of the few moments where he seemed more like a grandparent and less like a master.
Grey Ronin (The Awakened Book 3) Page 25