by C A Gleason
The currency that was now hidden, located deep underground. Whether Ito knew it or not, Ito had invested in the future version of his son.
Well spent.
“So you know and to avoid confusion in the future, I give these boys permission to take what they need.”
Boys? A way to camouflage how dangerous they really are.
“It’s the way it has to be. I shouldn’t have to remind you of the benefits of our protection.” Bloomfeld waited, and then smirked. “You hear me?”
“Yeah,” a different deputy said. “You hear him, Shop Owner?”
“Shut up,” Bloomfeld said to him. “But you obviously disagree?” he asked Ito.
Ito nodded.
Bloomfeld pushed off the counter, pretending to be in thought. His deputies watched him wickedly, their mouths hanging open like hungry predators from Earth.
“Let’s start over.”
Bloomfeld’s deputies worried all of a sudden, which pleased Yohiro, as he could see their every move better.
“What do you mean?”
“Today, I’d like you to make it up to us. Give up what you got. All you have. All the currency currently in your possession, everything, no more holding out, and then we start fresh. Start over.”
The deputies’ worry vanished and they turned predatory again. They even spread out. Yohiro wondered if they might pull guns.
Ito swallowed nervously. “No. I refuse. I will not give up any more of what...I’ve earned.”
Ito almost said ‘we.’ He was protecting him. Thinking about his son. Believing him to be in danger.
“I’ve worked too hard for what I have.”
“No, huh?” Bloomfeld’s face darkened. “You’re trying my patience. This is my town—”
“A town doesn’t belong to one person. A home does.” Ito paused as they all grew much more intense. “I lived here long before you, Overseer. Before all of you. Easto will never be yours. Will never belong to any one man. And neither will this store. It is a place of business of Easto and I run it. I will continue to do so.”
Yohiro was so proud.
“You’re wrong. Now I’m taking it over and I’ll appoint a man of my choosing.”
“You can’t.”
His deputies leered. One of them said, “He was elected overseer. He can do whatever he wants.”
“No he cannot. That is not what his position means. An overseer serves the community. He or she doesn’t own it.”
“She?” the black bearded deputy said. “Easto ain’t Westo!”
Their laughter crackled with arrogance and ramped up so suddenly, it could probably be heard outside the store.
Bloomfeld shook his head, doing his best to stifle his own laughter. “I was elected. I get to make the rules. And I’m going to make an example of you. For your disobedience.”
Yohiro calculated their every move. Because of his proximity, they couldn’t ignore him any longer. Bloomfeld glanced in his direction.
Because they made the mistake of barging through the door of his father’s store, one too many times, Yohiro planned for this.
“Your son?”
“Leave him out of this.”
Bloomfeld suddenly reached out and grabbed Ito by the shirt, held him there, and then with his other fist, punched him in the nose. “Everyone present is involved in this!”
Ito backed out of Bloomfeld’s grasp and covered his bleeding face with a trembling hand. It didn’t hide the trickle of blood running down his lips. “Yohiro.”
His father’s tone communicated that he wanted him to leave the store for his own safety. Something terrible was about to happen to him and Ito didn’t want his son to be involved or hurt the same way.
The anger coursing through Yohiro nearly caused him to drop the broom too early, especially after seeing the embarrassment and uncertainty on his father’s face by the sudden attack. And the blood.
Those men had done that to his father. One man in particular, a violent outlier wearing the guise of authority like a transparent mask.
Yohiro’s anger rippled down his arms and legs and settled into his stomach. What was anger changed into power.
34. Yohiro
Ito gave him a hard, fatherly look, one meant for him to leave the store immediately. He was about to say his name again in an even more demanding way.
But Yohiro wouldn’t stop sweeping, even if commanded by his father. He didn’t want to give the deputies any reason to suspect what he was about to do.
Ito never acknowledged Yohiro during the harassment before. Maybe he sensed the difference in him now. Suspected that Yohiro was going to try something. To help in some way, but didn’t want him to get hurt.
Being father and son made a unique communication possible. Because Yohiro was always respectful and obedient, disobeying his father let him know there was a plan. And a plan against harassment was indeed necessary.
“I’d hate to hurt the boy because of what you refused to do.”
“Son,” his father pleaded.
It was the way he used to speak to him when he was a child. Ito knew Yohiro was up to something, but a father often had difficulty thinking of their boy as a grown man.
Ito didn’t want to endanger his son no matter how corrupt the circumstances, especially if he thought it wasn’t Yohiro’s problem to deal with. Or his responsibility.
Except his father was wrong in this case.
Ito pointed to the back of the store. Away from the corrupt men who surrounded him. “Sweep in the corner, my son.”
The corner was closest to the back exit. Again Yohiro didn’t react to his father’s disguised plea except to continue to sweep close to Bloomfeld and his men.
Ito couldn’t make any sudden movements. Couldn’t yell at Yohiro to further obey him or point, though he surely wanted to. The deputies were ready and might react with more violence.
“Listen to your dad,” the black bearded deputy snarled at him.
Yohiro simply nodded, and out of the corner of his eye, he saw the nod was enough to please them.
The other deputies turned away, which meant they were still dismissing him as a threat. A short man sweeping with a broom was not dangerous to men such as them.
Yohiro sensed his father’s feelings, his anguish, his frustration and embarrassment, but also his disappointment. Yohiro didn’t do what was demanded of him. He believed Yohiro was disobeying him.
But abandon you in your time of need? Impossible.
The deputies defiantly ignored the man—who they perceived as a boy—who they believed continued to sweep.
No guns in town didn’t mean no weapons at all. Bloomfeld hadn’t specified.
None of them noticed when he stood the broom against the nearest wall and snatched the sword he’d placed on an aisle shelf if they barged into the store again. Not even his father noticed.
Before leaving the bunker, and at the end of the Sword-bot’s MULTIPLE ATTACKS training program—training he barely survived—Yohiro had decapitated the Sword-Bot.
The relic had sparked, its arms lowering, and all mechanical movement faded until it was as still as a statue once again.
If the sword was sharp enough to cut through armored metal, think what it could do to a man?
Yohiro ripped the sword from the scabbard and strode toward them, sword raised in perfect form.
The black beard cracked open. “Hey!”
Grasping the sword handle with his right hand over left, he closed the distance, sword held high. From behind the counter, Ito flew himself back against the wall.
Bloomfeld’s eyes widened at the lengthy blade. “Drop it!”
One deputy yanked out a pistol but it fell out of his hand and clattered to the floor. He reached for it, but got knocked over as the rest fumbled for their own guns.
It didn’t matter. Even for those who successfully got a handle on handles and aimed, in the blink of an eye, two of those hands were on the floor.
There was scream
ing as blood spurted out of stumps. Painful shrieking caused panic. None of them wanted to be next. That made them bump into one another giving Yohiro ample time for his next strikes.
Blood already dripping from the shiny blade, and to the horror of the wide-eyed overseer and deputies, Yohiro went after them one at a time.
Each stride a slash, each slash opening a man up from throat to groin. Those who fell, fell dead.
Three left. Including Bloomfeld.
Yohiro slashed and sliced through the black beard, lunged and stabbed a stomach, pulled his sword out, spun, and then decapitated Overseer Bloomfeld as he was turning to dash out of the store.
Yohiro’s blade held straight out, splashing red over the nearest wall.
The overseer’s body landed near the door and his head bounced off the floor with a sickening squish, spraying blood across Yohiro’s shoes.
Yohiro stood up straight, wiped the bloody blade in the crook of his arm until it was clean, and re-sheathed his sword.
None of them even got a shot off. The only sound was blood trickling out of corpses.
The guns, what they mistakenly believed gave them power and control over Easto, were scattered around them.
Ito stared at his blood-spattered son.
Yohiro looked over the dead men. Then his eyes flicked up. “This town needs an honorable overseer, Father.”