Wight

by Dorien Vincent

  The twinkle did not leave his eye until he realized Tset was not in a humorous mood, 'Is he pregnant? God, Hiroshi wasn't ever this bad in her mood swings.'

  "Dargent, you have no place in this world yet. You're an embarrassment. I'm giving you such leeway because of what I've heard you're capable of. If you slip my trust, know you won't be found useful here anymore."

  There was a long, crackling pause, and Yoto said, "Suffice to say, don't countermand me. Jacqueline has her place, be glad it's this and not something less. Your friend Magnum would pay quite a penny to own her, but out of love I keep her near."

  Tset had to calm himself, and quickly; if he opened his mouth to speak now, he wouldn't stop until the three others in the room were dead.

  He nodded instead, his blood boiling and his pulse quickened.

  "Good. Now come and watch..." Yoto pulled a seat out for Tset, who took it, and then Yoto sat next to him.

  Everyone stared up at the security monitors - one iris was focused on Jacqueline, and followed her. Tset assumed it was some sort of spy camera as it would move from room to room, and eventually into her van, as she went about getting prepared. It would fly in and peeking over her shoulder when she worked with her hands.

  Tset noticed with dismay the only weapon she took, aside from her grapple and a few Ninja-esque smoke bombs, was a Katana.

  "Does she get a gun?"

  Yoto shook his head, "Too small."

  Tset stared back to the monitors, awed.

  Jacqueline went through the motions of securing her equipment while thinking totally other thoughts.

  About him, of course - would he approve? Would he care? But also about herself, if ordered, would she go through with it?

  She'd gotten through some tough spots in the past.

  And Yoto had said this could just be intimidation.

  She sighed and cocked her head in thought while lacing her sword to her back.

  Then, privately, 'No matter what they do, I won't kill anyone. I won't.'

  She found this to be particularly illogical - who cared what the foreigner thought?

  She hushed herself. She wasn't old enough, she thought, to have figured out that fate and destiny were entirely fiction, so she held to the hope that they weren't.

  "Just so you know, if she gets into trouble out there, I'm going to go and back her up."

  Yoto-Oro scoffed and looked from the monitor, "As if she would." But there was something in his face...

  Tset thumbed Papillion. She felt ill-at-ease in his hands.

  Jacqueline left her transport and began making her way over rooftops. She was Ninja, and none witnessed her ghostly passing.

  She was going to go deep, only her radio and her fly cam to support her. 'And some support that'll be.'

  Tset was watching Jacqueline flip her way across Japan - she had made better than a mile in an hour using rooftops and her grapple. Tset was impressed.

  "Who's she going to go kill?"

  "Hm?" Yoto was musing, one hand on his chin.

  "Who's her hit? Her target?"

  Yoto cleared his throat, "Oh..."

  "... oooh?"

  "No one, this is just a test run."

  One of the others, Tset had dubbed him Odd Job by his bowler hat, removed the hat and lay it on the chair, he said something in Japanese and laid some bills on the brim. He was grinning at Tset evilly.

  The other said something back, an obvious negative, and laid some of his own bills within the bowl.

  Tset found himself worrying, "Test run?"

  "Just... watch, Dargent."

  Tset did, and his blood started to pound. 'You, f-'

  Jacqueline noticed a strange concentration of police vans near her target location.

  Her camera caught where she was looking and Yoto spoke, "Ignore them. It's inconsequential. Move to target location."

  Tset had half a mind to take the mike and tell Jacqueline to get out, but he didn't. If things did go wrong, he was prepared to run the distance to where she was. He watched as she skirted the air above the vans several stories and moved into an empty elevator shaft. Her nightvision saw deep into the guts of the building she was on, it was abandoned.

  "Daimyo?"

  "Just go. Your target is within. Follow the point."

  'The point' was a red blip in her goggles - showing her to go near the center of the building, probably bottom floor.

  Jacqueline breathed deeply. She had a very bad feeling in the pit of her stomach, and instinct howled.

  She went forward anyway, deftly flipping from the roof three floors down and landing silently in her heavy-soled boots. Scans showed nothing. She raised her nightvis snoops and took a look, scenting the air.

  It smelled like one of Dargent's scents in here, but she couldn't pinpoint which.

  Outside a silent helicopter circled closer, officers and mercenaries armed their automatics. Their squads spread out to every alley and rooftop within seven blocks.

  One of the police glanced over his warrant - one of Yoto's operatives was nearby, and the mayor's small task force was here to stop him, in addition to some unseemly but cooperative Yakuza goons - most of them were in fact with the mob.

  The officer smiled, "Gotcha." He said to the dead-faced building.

  "Dargent."

  Tset tore his gaze away from the security monitors showing Jacqueline, silent as a moth, creeping through the dust of the abandoned building.

  He only glared.

  "This is a test. We can't have you ruining the results."

  "I hear you."

  She hopped down, lightly. A polymer nearby brushed against metal. Her scans said zero, her senses told her otherwise.

  Bullets exploded from some dank direction and tore past her, a number of them gouging her armor and bruising her small body.

  She scuttled and ducked to put herself behind cover, her scans still showed zero.

  "Bastard." She whispered.

  Her senses showed her again more men, more guns, moving from a hallway towards her. She was exposed.

  She heard more combat boots coming from another quarter.

  Dargent flashed through her mind - his face, his words, and the smell - his guns it'd been.

  Would he want her to die? Would he excuse and understand even if she was truly a murderer?

  Yoto-Oro's visage took over her imagery. She seethed hotly and deeply, and just as her camera and connection were exploded, probably remotely, she quoted her favorite European, teeth clenched, lips parted, "Asshole."

  Her sword was sprung and her emotion flared. The first six had no idea what had befallen them - they were moving down the shaft and death's specter moved up, with vengeance.

  "What!" Tset glowered down at Yoto-Oro, "You're trying to kill her?"

  Yoto nodded, "We've tried a few times. Your friends here are taking bets."

  Odd Job and his lackey chuckled.

  "That's it."

  "Dargent... sit down."

  Tset hesitated, and then did - Jacqueline, her tiny form tinier on the CRT screens was an artist and a dancer - she flowed...

  ... and slashed - she was too close by the time anyone knew where she was, and too fast to track. Her movements were fluid and perfect, each balanced step and shift of weight like a careful ballroom waltz, at double, triple, quintouple time, each line and movement blurring together into one perfect form and coalescence.

  She was going to escape, but where to?

  And she was struck...

  Tset grimaced when Jacqueline took a bullet, but she stood up.

  He watched the others in the room become engrossed more and more with the hypnotically flawless girl on the screen.

  Yoto grunted and Tset checked the screen - a certain Yakuza in a brown leather coat with his hair spiked out was sneaking through the carnage towards where Jacqueline was fighting.

  'If it wasn't it before, then that's it.' He tensed - decision calming his nerves.

  Yoto turned to address T
set, but he wasn't there - the door swung shut on its pneumatic arm.

  He chuckled, "Good."

  Straight up a fire escape and over the rooftop - he had a mile or more to make before he reached her and the efforts were getting worse to bring her down. His last image of her on the screen and she was bleeding - her skinsuit even stretched and welted in places. Now there were massed black suits in front of him, a way away, but blissfully faced in ignorance.

  He rushed - the space between structures was nothing to him and he lunged, in plain daylight - invisible still to those transfixed by the nearby gunfire.

  Magnum spun his cylinders and smirked at the approaching object he had in his scope. But from here, wouldn't work.

  No, Magnum wanted a draw. Wanted to let the boor see his face before he died.

  A brown blur occurred to Tset, around a corner and below - he realized it was Chrome too late to care, he was already jumping his next thoroughfare. His knee smashed Chrome's face and Chrome was lost - going over the lip of the building and plummeting with a yell of pain.

  He'd misestimated Tset's speed and attacked too late.

  'Amateur.'

  Tset would think back later and realize how anticlimactic he'd been.

  One of the Yakuza was breathing heavily - how many bullets could one little girl take? Would anyone live out here so high above the streets?

  But of course - she was wearing down. She was only human.

  They heard her cowering behind an A/C unit, she was weeping, almost, just little sobbing gasps. And that red handprint near where she sat was too small to be any of their's. Bleeding, good.

  He signalled them to move in, and the ones across the way, with their rifles, to watch, scopes ready and searching.

  He took one careful step but something landed on the rooftop behind him, something heavy - immediately it was pounding towards him and the flooring shook with its terrifying approach.

  Confused, he turned and became acquainted with Papillion, briefly, as she slashed upwards into his rifle, and continued up through his chin and skull, cleaving his face to a crimson Rorschach of her own title.

  Before any of his comrades could react, and before he had really died, she curved back around and bit flesh again, twice, three times. Limbs fell and lives were extinguished.

  Tset spun and fired - his gun to his hand and his demeanor relaxed, blood-soaked sword in one fist and belching, coughing Colt in the other. His ammunition cut through their number and blew them apart, sundering their ranks. The snipers across ducked or died - the gun would flip and point as Tset's eyes would point if he'd deigned to face every kill, the gunmetal ring solid black and empty inside, until the blaze.

  He knew exactly where Jacqueline was, and before they had begun to resist, he ran to her side, coming down sliding.

  She looked up at him, and he flashed her a smile. She felt her heart lift, and pushed herself up.

  He took her hand and hoisted her to her feet, she felt so light in his grasp she almost cried out.

  The Yakuza wearily regrouped at the new threat.

  Tset looked behind he and the girl to see another several stealthy killers hop over the roof's edge and slither towards them.

  "Hmph." He said, arrogance in his voice.

  Jacqueline, truly worried and hurt, looked up to him and found her confidence bolstered by the stern, uncaring expression he regarded their adversaries with.

  The rifles went down on the floor, slowly, carefully, and the Yakuza stood again, drawing their Katanas.

  Tset and Papillion purred together and out of the corner of his smirk he told Jacqueline, "You take the guys from behind when they rush us, and I'll handle those guys. Can you take five straight on like that?"

  "Yeah, but can you take twelve straight on like that?" Her rejoinder.

  "They'll never know what happened. Ready? They're tensing."

  The two held their swords, Jacqueline in an updated and refined version of classic Bushido stance and Tset jauntily at his side.

  The rush came, both took one step forward, their rear ankles staying next to one another.

  Tset's men met and bounced, one being disembowled before Tset had spun to decapitate another - blades came near but he was always just outside their wicked arcs. Or if he wasn't, and they drew their lines of red, he didn't notice or care. He held his ground.

  Jacqueline ducked under the unslaught on her side, slashing knees.

  Her boot came up under her sword, and she followed the boot through in a full backward somersault, breaking a jaw and cutting another attacker wide.

  When she landed, she dove and feinted, her lithe body and lithe weapon striking out and taking another down.

  Meanwhile Tset was unstoppable - Papillion deflected carbon steel, cut through bone, flesh, body armor and anything else. Wide, devastating sweeps, Papillion never stopping and ever blazing a flowing trail.

  When one slipped around his defenses to get to the backfacing Jacqueline, Tset's fist or grasping hand would come out, and fingers would lock around a limb or a throat, twisting and breaking until Papillion made her rounds.

  In no time at all Tset had the last man to take down, and this one came on with a yell of anger blaring from his throat.

  Tset still had his jaw taut since he'd stopped smirking, and didn't relax now. The man rose his sword and met a kick with his pelvis. The kick threw him off balance, and by the time he'd regained it, gasping and throwing wild cuts Tset's way to stop Tset's calm advance, he'd slipped off the edge of the roof and dropped to his death.

  Tset checked on Jacqueline, and when he saw she was fine, he lit a cigarette.

  His Zippo snapped shut and he strode her way, to tell her it was over, it was fine; because Jacqueline's final opponent shivered and cowered under her gaze and blade, he was disarmed and missing fingers and an eye. He was doomed and, in Tset's mind, not worth the girl's time, or the tears later.

  But Jacqueline held his wild stare, her black eyes fierce behind her weapon, her poise had a sense of inevitability.

  Just then, Tset five yards away, there was a buzzing.

  Jacqueline looked up and was hauled from her feet before she could work out what the sound was.

  "Go!" He yelled, and the silenced helicopter loosed an unending salvo of small explosive shells from its Gatlings.

  The remaining swordsman was swept away in the deluge and the roof was a molten river of fire at Tset's heels as he sprinted, dragging the small girl.

  She cringed at first - the direction he was moving was the roof's edge - and was swept up in his arms as he ran.

  She gasped when he vaulted over the gap, her breath left her as they took flight, forty feet from end to end and over the three hundred feet down.

  He thought and said nothing of it when he landed easily on the opposite side, already running again - heels hammering and pounding as the copter came in for another strike.

  Bullets rained across space to find their marks and Jacqueline could feel them striking her bearer. She counted at least four. And he stumbled under the impacts.

  At this, Tset held Jacqueline with one arm, and his Colt was out again, bucking and hurling shells to rebound from the armored assault copter.

  When the gun clicked empty, Tset jumped into a spin and ejected the magazine, ramming it against the cockpit glass before it bounced into the rotors to be shredded.

  His obscene curses were lost to the mechanical onslaught of the machine no longer in stealth.

  Jacqueline was too frightened and too beaten to do anything more than bloody his tie in her fist and tuck her head into his chest.

  Tset was a blur to their attackers in the helicopter, and Jacqueline was breathless by the acrobatics and thudding beat.

  They made it several more rooftops when she heard his Italian soles slide out over the tar and gravel.

  They had nearly dropped over an industrial precipice - they'd reached the end of the tower. The Atlantic was the nearest exit, several miles below.

>   "Oh shit."

  He ducked - making himself a smaller target - the whine and whip of bullets was ever present, though how many struck she didn't know.

  "Jacq?"

  "Yes?"

  But the building they were on rattled, boomed, and tipped, throwing them both out over the edge of the tower's platform.

  He stepped forward, "Hold on." He said, already dropping through space.

  When Jacqueline came to she was still being held.

  She opened her eyes and saw the jawline she liked so much. Then his sunglasses when he looked down at her.

  She had smiled. But she remembered, sharply, what had happened. What she'd done. And she started to cry, "I- I. ... I killed them."

  He cracked a grin, "That you did." His eyes left her and went back to watching out.

  She tried to keep her eyes open, but he was quiet and she was exhausted.

  'But I got so many questions...' She almost muttered.

  Jacqueline dozed off at the steady rocking motion of Tset's walk, her small cheek against his tearstained shirt.

  She slept soundly, dreamlessly.

  Tset hid himself on a shipment train bound for the neighborhood of the original house.

  By the middle of the afternoon the next day, Tset was walking up the steps with a still sleeping Jacqueline draped over his arms. She was covered in a blanket he'd stolen.

  Tset kicked the door buzzer and it jammed, making an irritating chiming sound that went on and on.

  Hiroshi opened the door, and when she saw Jacqueline under the blanket and limp, her disposition caused her to collapse and sob.

  Tset himself was too tired to console her so he simply cut through the entryway and was about to head up the stairs when someone called his name.

  "Dargent."

  He turned. Yoto stood at the foot of the staircase, leering up at him.

  "I got her out. Please excuse my insolence." Flat.

  Yoto chuckled and wheezed, "You misunderstand. I told you it was a test."

  Tset remained stonily silent.