“Both of us?” I scoff. “What can they do to you? Showguns—”
The Geisha is shaking his head. “Showguns can’t give any safety against these men. They’re not like any normal person that you’ve met. They don’t have trackable chi signals. They’re not even human-looking. I know for certain that they don’t have any Akuma genes in them. And the things I’ve seen them do…it’s downright sickening, Hound. It makes assassination look like the holy path.”
I sit in muteness, brain whirring with all I’ve heard. Not human? No Akuma genes? People that not even Showguns can track and kill? A part of me wants to ask if they’re kitsune too, but that can’t be right. I’m a kitsune. Heaven is a kitsune. We’re one hundred percent human-looking. But if the Geisha’s employers aren’t kitsune, what could they be? “What do they look like?”
“Really pale. Red eyes you’d never forget. Most of the time they wear those face masks like people do during flu season. But I saw one without and they hide these feelers.” The Geisha brings his fingers to his clean-shaven face upper lip area and makes wavy lines like some kind of bizarre mustache. “Like the ones you see in those paintings of eastern-style dragons.”
That’s certainly nothing that I’ve never heard of. And nothing I want to find out in person either. “So, what exactly happens to us if I don’t do this?”
The Geisha is quiet for a bit. “They have this method of manipulating people like puppets. I’ve even seen them kill people that way, but that’s not the concern. I’m afraid that they might do something to my mother if I don’t comply.” He stares at his lap. “When I went to be there for my mother’s surgery, they said, one more incident like that and that’s it. Her Akuma genes are almost at their limit. And if they go after her…” The Geisha doesn’t finish and he doesn’t have to. Since her surgery, Mai’s life has always seemed like a fragile vase to me. Throw even the tiniest stone and she’ll shatter.
We sit side by side in the quiet for a long time while people come and go. Then the Geisha finally says, “It might not matter.”
I turn on him. “What do you mean it might not matter?”
“They told me, they’re looking for a particular woman, but they didn’t know how to go about looking for her. All they have information-wise is that she has some special immunity to Devil’s Disease and that she might be a Showgun because she was good about disappearing. And they don’t really care what they have to do to get their hands on her.”
A twinge of angry fire at his resigned look makes me elbow him in the ribs, but Genji doesn’t even wince at it. He just taking it like a rag doll and that sickens me. Where the hell is the man that tried to kill me? I don’t want this sad asshole. “Geisha, you’re not making sense anymore.”
He cuts his eyes at me and then puts his hands together. “Let’s see, Hound. Special Immunity to Devil’s Disease. Good at disappearing. Showguns. Oh dear me.” He smacks a hand to his cheek in over dramatic surprise. “Who could that be?”
“Mai.”
He tilts his head and closes his eyes. “Yes.” He adjusts his tweed cap to be a bit lower. “But last I checked, that’s not the only person that describes now.”
“Me? But I’m not that great at…” My voice tapers as I remember Mai’s words.
“You got lucky years ago because you weren’t old enough to be put in the tracking system. If they catch you now, they can track you almost anywhere in the world.”
I grip the arm of my chair. “Geisha, what’s the name of your employer?”
He opens an eye. “Name? I don’t deal with them on a first name basis. They use an alias. It’s—”
“CRISIS-D?”
“Ah, I see they need no introduction.”
“No.” I put my hands together. “They’ve always been a part of my life. It just took me a long time to finally get a name.” I get up from the seat.
“Does this mean that you’ll get the information?” The Geisha asks.
“Well, you see…” I bat my eyelashes at him. “My best IT buddy is kidnapped and I already nagged Ken for enough favors, so unless I get some support for this—”
He hops up from his seat. “Consider it done, Hound. Anything you want.”
I smirk. “Anything, huh?”
The Geisha raises his eyebrow again. “Be reasonable, Hound. Showguns or no Showguns, I’m a Geisha on a budget.”
I look him up and down, fixing my gaze on his butler-esque attire. “You look a little too well put together to be a Geisha on a budget.”
He shrugs, turning his nose in the air and adjust his suit-vest. But there’s a hint of smile on his lips as he says, “Excuse me for working at a butler cafe.”
“You work at one of those places?”
“It’s a Geisha requirement.”
“Excuse me then. Now, do I take this to mean that we’re sort of acquaintances now?”
“Only acquaintances?” The Geisha puts a hand over his chest, pretending to look hurt. “Did I not buy the appropriate amount of train tickets and refreshments for friendship status?”
I scoff. “You still have a long way to go for that, Geisha.”
“I’m willing to wait, Hound.”
“Alright.” I glance at the clock above the ticket booths. I should be getting back. I spent way more time here than I should have. “My fiancé is going to be wondering about me.”
“Ah yes. Him. He’s…” The Geisha’s smile fades. “A very fortunate man.” He straightens and clears his throat. “I hope you have a good evening, Hound.”
Before I can wish him one back, he’s off toward the ticket booths, leaving me to wonder just where the hell the fire is.
I get home and find the lights in the living room are off. I turn on the dining room lights. A styrofoam container sits on the table with a baby blue sticky note on top that has my name in Regi’s loopy scrawl. Stomach rumbling, I take the plastic fork inside and sit down.
Three skewers of beef tri-tip rest on a bed of feta-sprinkled salad, tomatoes, and thin half-rings of purple onion. A tiny container of olive oil sits on the side. Each mouthful pumps a surge of energy into me, erasing the exhaustion I didn’t even know I had, as if meeting with the Geisha—no, this whole week added twenty years worth of age and stress. And I realize, quite ironically, that my entire life I’ve never been allowed to act the very age that I was. As a kid, it was always act like an older kid to try and fit in. In my teens it was always mirroring an assassin’s cold stoicism. Now, I feel like I’ve missed the bar of being twenty and I’ve been dropped into my thirty somethings where everything is supposed to be together already. At this rate, I’ll be seventy when I’m really forty, dead inside already when I’m just fifty.
I shave the salad down to one skewer and half salad before I put the rest away for later. I linger at the open fridge door, tingles rippling through me. What do I tell Regi? The Geisha didn’t specifically say it, but with him not blackmailing me anymore, I’m free to go back to Showguns now, aren’t I? And breaking into the lab is practically a Showguns job minus the money. My shoulders sink with a sandbaggy weight. I’m a Showgun again. He proposed to me because I told him I quit, but if I applied to go back now, would he take it back?
I close the fridge door and fill King’s water and food bowls. The pellets’ rattle brings him down in a red furry flash. As I watch him shove his face into it, I can’t help but envy his enthusiasm. King is as much of a hound as I am, but it’s his honne while I still don’t even know what mine is.
I bend down and stroke his back slowly for a bit, then I go upstairs. Elbows on the desk, headphones in, hands at his mouth, Regi squints at pictures of houses on his laptop. With a glance at me, he moves one ear cup away. “Everything okay?”
I lean in the doorway. “I’m hoping it will be eventually. It’s hard to say these days.”
“What’s wrong? Who was at the train station?”
I puff one cheek, then the other. The tide of words surge at the back of my throat, wanting to
explain CRISIS-D, my mom’s murder, my blackmail, everything, but I just can’t bring myself to tell him. Instead, I think of the safest thing to say. “Mai’s son. He’s worried about her because of her condition.”
“What condition?”
“She had surgery because she was shot,” I say. “If anything else happens to her, we might not have a Mai anymore.”
Regi stands and embraces me. “But right now, she’s okay? She’s alive?”
“Yes, I saw her the other day. She looked better than she was at first. But still, she really is at her limit this time.”
"And what about Megumi?" Regi asks. "What about her?"
"I don't know. It's still being looked into right now."
"What about you?"
The question lightning-strikes me. "Huh?"
"Are you okay, Jun?"
"What do you mean?"
Regi pulls back to look into my face. “It’s just that you always seem on edge these days, babe. Like somethings eating at you. I want you to feel okay.”
“I’m fine, Regi. Really. Work was just a bit tougher than normal today.”
But Regi’s hold on me slips. I’m not fully sure that he believes me. Yet he says nothing more. I change into my clothes and slip into bed while he stays at the computer, body aglow with the whitish computer light.
I fiddle idly with my phone. A notification from KillChat pops up.
Miss Jun Mei Akiyama, our records indicate that you still have PoleControl equipment checked out. Please make arrangements to return the items as soon as possible.
That’s right. I still need to pick up the gun from Ise Shrine and talk to Amaterasu like Mai said, but Ise is so far out of my normal commute. I might not get to do that until the weekend. On top of that, I need to keep up my visits to the reservation. And who knows when the Geisha is going to ask me to do the break in. But my guess is that there's a good chance that I'll be doing it sometime this week.
The next morning comes quick. I walk into the Review Room to find Ken, Blunts, and Tempest eating in quiet. Naggy Bish is nowhere in sight thankfully. Ken gives me a quiet wave. “Today’s going to be a quiet day. No simulator.”
“Good.” I shed my jacket onto the couch. “I could use a nice chill…” My voice trails as Vampire strolls in from the the back. She stops in the doorway and our gazes meet for a heartbeat.
Her eyes thin up like a cat’s pupils, yesterday’s hostility clearly hasn’t gone anywhere. Vampire sticks her hands in her pockets sitting at the opposite end of the couch. “Don’t let me stop the conversation.”
I open my mouth to say something, but I catch the silent pleading in the eyes of the others at the table and decide better of it. “Some quiet would be great. My week’s been rough.”
“I hear ya,” Blunts says. “Seems like hell’s been throwing a party all this week.”
Tempest nods in agreement, but makes no answer. Her gaze is distant as if lost in her own troubles. It makes me wonder if trouble is contagious like Devil’s Disease, and maybe we’re all somehow catching each other’s.
I check my Gene Watch to make sure that I’ve still got a magic training session with Heaven. The schedule looks the same as yesterday with the exception of the Simulator session slotted out for a gameplay review session, whatever that is. Though after yesterday, I can’t be sure what we’d do this session. I can only hope that this means that she’s found some kind cure for my magic problems. If the Geisha’s words aren’t an exaggeration, and these CRISIS-D guys really aren’t human, there’s no way I’m banking my hopes on just ordinary weapons to protect myself.
As soon as I close my schedule, the Review Room door chuffs open again. A man in an olive green dress shirt and a smooth-gelled quiff comes in with a handful of what looks like CD cases and a stack of sheets. He flashes a bright smile. “Hello.” He sticks out a hand to me. “Take Yamaguchi. Safe to assume you’re all the Beta team?”
“You came to the right place,” Vampire says.
I shake Take’s hand. “Nice to meet you. What brings you here?”
“Heaven wanted me to deliver these to you.” He gives me everything in his other hand. “These are the games for you all to critique. The critique sheets are on the bottom. Also, just a mini-FYI…” He lifts a finger. “Heaven won’t be available until about 3 in the afternoon, so if you have any questions or concerns that you need to talk to someone about, I’ll be the one to help you out. You can all find my office on the second floor.”
“Sounds cool,” Ken says.
Take dips briefly and leaves us all alone. I take the CDs and critique sheets to the table.
"Wonder what's up with Heaven?" Tempest asks.
“Last time I talked to her, she was worried that someone was missing,” I say.
“Really?” Blunts rubs his chin. “Earlier I heard some of the staff talking about something wrong with the security of the simulator. I thought it had something to do with that.”
Ken’s spoon stops at his lips, getting oatmeal on his face. “Wait a minute. Security problems like what, Blunts? Someone broke in?”
He shrugs. “I don’t think so. I think they just found holes that could be exploited. No actual breach.”
Tempest’s eyebrows scrunch close. “How does a security breach even work? A person could just break in on our session?”
“Sort of,” Vampire says. “It’s not really that a real person would break in. It’s more like they can add in unauthorized game assets, or alter the ones that are already in the game. Most game assets that can directly affect us have a safety cap in their code that corresponds to a hidden coding map that goes over our simulator gear. If the coding mismatches, then the safety field doesn’t activate and those weapons could hurt us for real.”
Tempest’s eyes widen. “Wow, I didn’t think virtual reality worked like that.”
Vampire’s lips make a thin line. She folds her arms. “You’re right, bish. It doesn’t. Which is why it’s a good thing they monitor the simulator so closely here. And what did you think those health waivers were for?”
Ken chuckles. “Who really reads those anyway?”
Blunts rubs his hands together. “Doesn’t matter. We’ve got games to watch and stuff to fill out. We ought to get that done before our exercise session.”
We all move to the couch. I can barely focus on the Lords of Earth play. In between games, I keep checking my phone for messages, in case the Geisha might’ve sent something. But not a single notification comes.
Ken peers over from his critique sheet. “Expecting an important call?”
“Sort of,” I say, lowering my voice. “Getting info for a job.”
Ken’s eyes dance with a bright mischief. He leans in and lowers his voice. “Does this mean, I’ll be seeing you at the Hound meetings again?”
My face warms a little. “I don’t know about all that. I’m thinking about it, but after being gone for so long I don’t know if I want to go through all the re-admittance bullshit.”
Ken looks at his sheet, then back at me. “What if you didn’t have to go through all that?”
“What do you mean?”
“If I could arrange it so that you don’t have to do all the lengthy re-admittance stuff, would you come back for good?” Ken asks.
“I really don’t know Ken. My fiancé didn’t like me being a Hound in the first place. I don’t think he’ll go for me coming back.”
“But Jun, you’re already taking a job. What difference would it make if you just had the label?” Ken says. “All we add is the title and the benefits.”
Blunts nudges Ken with his elbow. “What are you two whispering about over there? If you’re going to be all up in each other’s faces like that, get a room.”
“Hey, don’t look at us like that, I already have a fiancé,” I say.
Blunts looks amused. "Alright Miss Fiancé. I'm gonna put on the next game. Try to pay some attention to that, and less to him."
4-8 'Ah'
By the time afternoon hits, there’s still no word from the Geisha about a IT crew for my task, or any information about Shig. As much as I hate to even think about admitting it, I hope that something didn’t happen to him. He may be aggravating but still…haven't I lost enough people already? If I can’t even keep my enemies around, I’m going to start thinking that I’m cursed.
Back on the ground floor, I stop briefly at the Akuma room I spotted earlier and check it. The entry pad says: Authorized Personnel Only. Please put finger below to begin.
I put my finger on the pad. Genji didn’t mention that the research would be in here, but it can’t hurt to check.
Reading chi sample. Please stand by…
…This chi sample is not Authorized Personnel. If you believe you got this message in error, please see the Admin for details. I try to pull up the emergency chi-guard function, but it only repeats the please see the Admin for details.
I lower my hand. That’s new. I guess it makes sense that normal people wouldn’t be allowed, especially if there is a genuine original Akuma cell in there.
Room B85 is empty when I get there, but I catch wind of Heaven's peachy scent. She's been here recently, probably ran in and out to get ready. But there's a desk that wasn't here before with an indigo tote bag on top. There’s a script on it that I can’t read, but the loopy squiggles look like Pua Velu. A strong vegetal smell wafts from it.
Herbal medicine maybe? I hope it’s not for me. It smells like it wouldn’t go down well or stay down for that matter.
Before long, Heaven enters the room.
A dark Pua Moana man with the physique of a rugby player follows, carrying a briefcase. His arm stretch the limits of his doctor’s coat. And his hands are so big, that it seems impossible that they could handle the instruments of his occupation without hurting the patient in the process.
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