by Jenn Stark
And then I ran. Down the narrow corridor, with only the sound of my own feet pounding in my ears, surrounded by concrete on all sides. The floor seemed to be slightly slanted, and after what seemed like forever and was easily a tenth of a mile, I finally found myself at a heavy metal door. I thought I could hear music on the other side, the thundering undercurrent of bass, anyway. I had no idea what time it was, other than night, but Tokyo was one of those cities that didn’t sleep until the sun came up. I tried the door, and to my surprise, found it was unlocked—at least from this side. I pulled it open carefully.
Music swamped me with a raging force, and I realized immediately I was in some kind of underground club. A club that pulsed with energy—not the energy of the Connected, but the straight-up, regular, humans-in-motion kind. Techno-lights swept the floor, bodies writhed on the dance floor, and holograms played on the stage in a sensory explosion so intense, I didn’t have to feign my staggering gait as I slipped through the doorway and into the throng.
“Deguchi! Deguchi!” I screamed at the top of my lungs, one of the few Japanese words I knew. Obligingly, a half-dozen teens and young adults—or they seemed like they were only teens and young adults—parted like the Red Sea and pointed me toward what I assumed was the exit, laughing at the silly American with her mouth opening and shutting like a guppy’s. This was my Six of Cups, no question. There didn’t seem to be anyone in this place over the age of twenty.
I made it to a stairway and pounded up, then was faced with the choice of another stairwell or exiting out onto the first floor. The door here was propped open, and I could hear what sounded like more techno-pop beats from the other side, so I figured there were enough people to act as cover. One of them would know how to get out, surely.
I plunged into the blue-and-green neon lights of the room beyond, taking a moment to allow my eyes to adjust. There wasn’t a party going on in here, not exactly, for all that it was wall-to-wall people and the nonstop, bone-jarring thump of the bass, audible over the screech of techno-music. But the real star of the show was the screens—dozens, hundreds of them. It was as if an ’80s-style arcade had been transformed into an enormous gaming hell, a casino with video games instead of slot machines, with each screen alight with a different stream of images, and each more lifelike than the last.
I’d been on the run during my formative years, and living with a crowd of retirees in RVs, so video games weren’t a reference point I could totally relate to. I’d heard of some of the bigger games, of course, caught ads here and there and overheard snippets of conversation, but none of them could have prepared me for this. If anything, it was worse than the dance-a-thon downstairs. At least those people were moving. The kids up here were sitting in specially made egg-shaped chairs, writhing and jittering like fish tossed up on the dock and desperate to return to the water, their fingers racing over control panels and keyboards. A few of them were even enmeshed in VR goggles, looking more like futuristic aliens than fourteen-year-old kids.
“Where’s your band?”
The question was shouted at me with authority, and I blinked down, and down still farther, gaping at the twelve-year-old girl who held a scanner and an attitude a mile wide. “What?”
“Band! Band!” she screeched, and I couldn’t decide if she was hitting that decibel level because of the crowd or because she hadn’t hit puberty yet.
Either way, I obligingly held up my hands. “Lost—I’m lost,” I said, widening my eyes for effect. I’d had plenty of experience with adults turning on me, but kids? I didn’t even know where to begin with that. “Deguchi? Exit?”
“Exit,” she rolled her eyes, telegraphing a level of disgust only a twelve-year-old could. She pointed to a far wall with a helpful red-and-white illuminated sign. “There.”
I shouted my thanks, but as the girl turned away, the kid behind her screamed in triumph, catching my attention. “We got her—we found Sara!” he howled, and more kids behind flocked forward. “She’s in mission control!”
“Get ready for Interpol!” another kid screamed.
I whirled around, searching the exits. No one seemed to be paying attention to me, but I wasn’t about to stand around and ask questions. I took off for the exit with long strides, pushing aside kids straining toward their computer monitors as I went. A huge video screen flashed above me with the name Mongol Horde bigger than life, and I blinked.
Mongol Horde? That was seriously the name of a game? There was something about the logo that pricked my attention, though, and I stumbled into a display stand of advertising crap for the game, grabbing several flyers and stuffing them into my bag, apologizing to everyone as I went. Just another disoriented American, struggling to get the hell out.
“Hey,” one of the gamers growled at me. The voice was quite a bit deeper than the twelve-year-old’s. The kid who’d made the noise was quite a bit bigger too. I glanced up only long enough to get a sense of long arms, legs, and a thatch of dyed blue hair as he hauled himself upright out of his chair. “Hey, wait a minute. You, there! You’re her!”
Crap! How was this happening? Nobody should even have known I was in Tokyo—hell, I hadn’t known I was heading to Tokyo until mere hours ago. Had Death ratted me out? Kreios? Did Interpol somehow get a tip from the asshats at Rift?
My mind was a whirl of questions, but it only barely kept up with my legs as I churned through the crowd and finally reached the far door. As advertised, it was an exit, leading to what looked like a crowded lobby and then out to the brightly lit streets of Tokyo, beyond.
“I got her! Sara Wilde!” someone new yelled behind me, but then I was through, disgorged with a knot of gamers who stumbled out onto the sidewalk as if they hadn’t breathed fresh air for days. All of them immediately started putting on masks, and I revised that. Hadn’t breathed outdoor air, anyway.
I didn’t have a mask, but I wasn’t staying here long. I ran into the street, nearly getting clipped by a cab, and waved my arms to try stopping another one. No dice. Everyone in the world was looking to stop Sara Wilde, apparently, except for a cab who could cart my ass out of here. I needed to get off the street, out of sight, and into the shadows.
A burst of a siren’s wail galvanized me into action again. It was down the street, not related to me—at least I was pretty sure it wasn’t related to me. Still, I couldn’t shake the feeling that there was someone on my heels, racing after me…too close, too close!
I glanced up, catching the briefest glimpses of the Mongol Horde insignia again—before it winked out of sight and I raced around the corner.
Chapter Ten
Running with a cow on your back is hard work. Especially through one of the world’s most densely packed cities.
After putting as much distance as humanly possible between me and the arcade disco, I slogged my way into a noodle shop and threw down my pack at the nearest table to the kitchen. I didn’t want to have to leave in a hurry, but if I had to, I probably wouldn’t be going out through the front door. It was three in the morning, but I wasn’t the only patron. A young woman sat huddled over her bowl of noodles in the far corner of the room, and a wiry old geezer in a threadbare suit snuffled up his late-night snack like a whale inhaling plankton.
A small man in a neat uniform bustled over to me and deposited a large stuffed hippo in the chair beside me. “You no eat alone,” he assured me brightly. I blinked at him, then at the other two patrons. Sure enough, the girl had a stuffed kitten next to her as big as a house cat, while the old man had to make do with a stuffed monkey. Probably the only toy that would put up with his slurping.
Returning my attention to the waiter, I pointed to a picture on the menu that looked vaguely like soup and broth, and looked up hopefully. “That?”
He nodded several times, as if to encourage me, and then turned and hurried away, bringing a kettle of tea out moments later with more nods and smiles.
Wearily, I dragged my pack toward me, pulling the flyers out of the pouch before feel
ing around inside the narrow opening for anything else. No bugs, at least not that I could see. The inside of the pack held the cases, still in their careful oilskin wraps, but otherwise, it was empty. The latched flap held a phone and an assortment of Japanese banknotes, as well as, to my surprise, documents for a Nancy Cartwright from the University of Iowa’s archaeology department. I smiled wearily, appreciating Death’s attempt—it made me think I hadn’t been tracked because of her, if nothing else. Still, if I had to explain to someone why I was dragging around priceless artifacts, I didn’t think Nancy’s bona fides were going to help me.
The waiter came and left, leaving my noodle concoction on the table and accepting my murmured thanks. I squinted at the price on the menu and then at my money, hoping that when the time came, the waiter would help me out with how much I needed to give him. If I was going to be flying Air Death more often, I’d need a translation app.
I smoothed out the flyer, staring at the pictures. Well, the graphic, anyway. The Mongol Horde insignia I’d seen inside the club and again on one of the ad screens on the street was imprinted at the lower right corner of the flyer, which appeared to be an ad for an upcoming event, if the images of cheering crowds and laughing people swigging drinks was any indication. The logo showed two curved, crossed blades, with the similarly curved letters M and H in the center, topped by a set of mischievous stylized eyes. Pretty basic, but something about it screamed ’80s retro chic to me—maybe because of the way it had been bouncing across the video screen when I’d last seen it.
“You should eat.”
I glanced up to see my stuffed animal had been replaced by the old man from a few tables over, while the monkey now had my hippo to keep it company. I sat back, eyeing the guy. Beneath the cap and ratty gray wig, the concealer and highlighter powders, the thin kohl lines augmenting very good latex prosthetics, and some seriously yellowed false teeth was a very familiar man.
“I knew it was you. Nobody slurps noodles like that. It’s disgusting.”
Nigel leaned forward in his seat, his obsequious manner fitting his disguise. His words however, when they came, were crisply British. The top bodyguard of the House of Swords had started out his life as a sort of dark ops James Bond, and I was very glad to have him as my Ace, regardless of his eating habits. “Everyone eats noodles like that, if they’re polite, which I am. What the hell are you doing here so soon? Simon said you weren’t due in the city for three more days.”
I blinked at him. “How would Simon know where I’m supposed to be? I didn’t even know that.”
“Some predictive logic thing he’s working on, more of that tech folly he won’t shut up about.”
I frowned, my mind snagging again on the Mongol Horde logo. The Fool of the Arcana Council was different in a number of ways from his Council counterparts. For one, he was the newest member, having ascended in the mid-1980s, when he’d been a twenty-something slacker. That gave him a youthful demeanor he actually deserved: his loose, easy attitude belied a whip-smart mind and affinity for all things tech that had served the Council well during the technology boom that started in the nineties and hadn’t yet quit. The only power I knew for sure that Simon had was teleportation—with an unfortunate side effect of arriving at his destination naked. I knew about his fascination with technology, but… “What is he working on, specifically, do you know?”
Nigel frowned. “I don’t. I haven’t seen him in person in…probably a month, I guess. But I don’t have much call to see him or any of the Council.”
“Can you put Nikki on it?” I toyed with my noodles, trying not to think too much about whatever was floating in my bowl.
“Why?” Nigel was watching me, now fully distracted by the topic. “What’re you worried about? What did you see?”
I blew out a breath. “It probably has nothing to do with anything, but—I was just in one of those gaming arcades, and I picked up this. It made me think of him.” I pushed the flyer toward Nigel.
He made a face. “I don’t speak Japanese that well.”
“I don’t speak it at all,” I agreed. I pointed to the logo. “But that—caught me. It’s a logo for Mongol Horde.”
“The game?” He glanced up at me. “What about it?”
I stared at him. “You know video games?”
He lifted one shoulder. “I used to know a lot more. It was standard intel when I was at MI6, we had a rash of crimes connected to the cyberworld, and a lot of the guys we tracked were into gaming. You got used to seeing the names of the indie companies as well as the monster corporations who made the games. Spinning Top was one of the indies—and the name stuck with me, so I tend to notice when they put out something new. Mongol Horde launched a few months ago, sent the gaming community into a frenzy; now it’s everywhere. Standard role-playing game, with a goal of traveling across the continent amassing armies and gold, killing all who stand in your way. Usual stuff.”
I nodded. Usual. Of course. “How’s it work?”
“Very straightforwardly. Everyone logs into the server, plays the game. It’s more of a social and team-building thing. Entire rabid fandoms erupt in the gaming community, a lot of sharing, trash talk, strategizing. Mongol Horde got a big hype push from these communities without Spinning Top spending a lot, and the game took off. It’s an indie product, so that sort of organic promotion is key.” He pushed the paper back to me. “Why do you care?”
I shrugged. “Coincidence, mostly. I was in the arcade and thought I heard my name. Then I saw that logo on a couple of screens in this one area, grabbed this flyer. Right around then, someone bumped into me, saw my face, and reacted. A couple of minutes after that, someone else absolutely shouted my name, and I took off.”
“A native speaker, American? European?”
“I—there was too much going on. But male, loud. Gruff. Could have been a Japanese guy, but maybe not. Anyway, I got out of there and noticed the logo again on one of those rotating billboards, and it just seemed like an awful lot of Mongols were running around in a very small amount of space.”
“And you like Simon for that because of his new friends.”
“Like I said, coincidence.” Earlier that summer, Simon had drawn the attention of a group of extremely dedicated and long-lived Mongols whom I’d inadvertently liberated from their underground watch duty near Lake Baikal, Siberia. I hadn’t thought about those men since they’d imprinted onto Simon and he’d moved them into his residence on the Strip, but the timing fit with the launch of a Mongol-inspired video game…assuming Simon was the mind behind Spinning Top, and why not? He’d ascended in the 1980s, the launch of the medium, and he probably had a lot of time on his hands.
Still, an awful lot of this was supposition and speculation. I sighed.
“We need to do a way better job of keeping tabs on the Council.”
Nigel eyed me. “They’re demigods. That makes it a little difficult.”
“Exactly my point. They’re arguably the most powerful players on earth right now, bigger than any government or multinational group we’ve got tabs on, bigger than the Houses of Magic. But we don’t follow them.” I grimaced. “Hell, I don’t even know if we can follow them. They’d know they were being tracked.”
Nigel tilted his head, considering that. “Maybe, maybe not. We’re adding more Connecteds to our House every day, at your direction. Beyond that, the House of Swords has had systems in place for decades to track other groups. A combination of the two…”
“Work on that. I don’t like not knowing what’s going on with the Council. Something…just feels off.” I waved off Nigel’s snort. “I mean beyond the usual. With war of some kind coming and government groups starting to cast a spotlight on the Connecteds, we need to know where all the players are.”
“And Simon is where you want to start with that?”
“Why not? Consider what we know. The Hierophant and Hermit are placing themselves deliberately on the outskirts of the Council, ditto Death. The Emperor is aggressiv
ely anti-Magician, as is the Hanged Man. The Magician can rely on the Devil, while the Emperor has the High Priestess in his back pocket. That leaves Hera, who isn’t quite the Empress yet, so her abilities aren’t all that relevant. She’s more of a wild card. Then maybe Zeus, who’s a god without a point right now, assuming they’ve even tracked him down.”
I paused. Zeus had come through the veil at the behest of Rangi, head of the House of Wands. “The Council does have him under wraps, right?”
“According to the Magician, yes,” Nigel said. “But…Magician.”
“Right.” I rubbed my forehead. “Let’s pretend Zeus isn’t an issue right now, for the sake of this conversation, anyway. All of that leaves us with the Fool, who’s definitely not on the outskirts of anything, yet I don’t quite see him as a general in Armaeus’s army. He’s more the grinning idiot happily wandering through the minefield, somehow managing not to get blown up.”
“Then why should we worry about him? Seems to me we should continue tracking Viktor’s actions. The Emperor’s our biggest issue.”
“And he doesn’t go anywhere or do anything but sit and rot in his little black tower. So—not super helpful.”
“Fair enough,” Nigel conceded. “The man stays busy, but mostly shoring up his contacts around the world to no apparent purpose, all done through remote contact. Plenty of cyber activity, little actual action. He’s waiting for a trigger.”
“Or he’s putting the guns in all the right hands,” I agreed. “I just want to make sure Simon isn’t one of those guns.”
“Noted. We’ll look into it.” Nigel waited while the waiter came by with another tiny pot of tea, then continued. There’s another problem too. We’ve got bad weather happening.”