Shadowrun, p.29
Shadowrun, page 29
The woman quickly looked around the living room and said, “It’s best if we move quickly.”
The bag was full of clothes. She’d made a bottle for the baby and even managed to scavenge some snacks from the kitchen for herself and Sumiye. She didn’t know how long they’d be in transit. She looked around her living room for the last time.
Three sets of samurai swords hung from the living room wall. Six swords in all. One set belonged to her husband when he was a child. Another he’d had made in Japan for their son when he turned old enough to begin training. The last set, the oldest, belonged to her father. The old man had given it to Takahashi on their wedding day; called him the son he’d always wanted. Jasmine thought about taking it with her. The blades belonged in her family, not here with this man who’d taken so much from her already.
Kenta began to fuss again. If Jasmine started taking everything that meant something to her old life, she would wind up taking her entire life with her. Besides, her father had chosen to give so much to Takahashi. It was time for her to make her own choices.
“I’m ready.” Jasmine scooped her son out of the crib. It was just her son, daughter, and one bag. Let the rest belong to her past.
“The boy isn’t coming with us.”
Jasmine stopped so quickly that Sumiye bumped into the back of her legs. The little girl flung her arms around her mother’s right leg and peeked out from behind it at the woman in the trench coat.
“Excuse me?”
“I’m sorry, but I was contracted to retrieve a mother and her daughter. No male child.”
“There must be some mistake. You can’t expect me to leave here without my children.”
Mika repeated the command.
“No.” Jasmine spoke louder this time and the baby winced, his lips quivering together in the vestigial stages of a cry. Sumiye wound her arms tighter around her leg and asked what was going on. “I’m not leaving him here.”
From behind them came the sound of tumblers spinning a lock free and the front door whooshed open. Jasmine knew who it was before she even saw the man step through the door. He was short and wide; his Vashon Island suit slimming him in all the right places, molding monster into man into executive. She drew in breath, afraid to let it out again that it might turn into a scream.
Mika said, “Shit.”
“Who is this?” Takahashi face was stern and stress-worn. He stared at Mika with small eyes and then looked at his wife. His eyes tightened to black points as he took in the scene. He saw the bag full of clothing hanging from the crook of her arm, the children clinging to their mother uncertainly. “Where do you think you’re going?”
Before she could open her mouth to answer, he was thundering across the room. Jasmine tried to get out of the way, but her daughter was behind her. She lost her balance and reached out with one hand to keep from falling. It wasn’t enough. She felt the baby slip.
The world went dark for an instant. When it returned her husband stood over her, red-faced, hands balled into fists. Then an arm appeared around his throat and he flew backward as if by magic, hurled into the couch. The shadowrunner flicked her wrist and a baton appeared in her right hand. She flicked her wrist again and the baton extended to three times its normal length. She pointed it at Jasmine’s husband. “Sit there and don’t move.”
Jasmine could hear Kenta crying, slurred and plaintive, like a siren winding up. He wasn’t in her arms anymore. She slowly sat up on her elbows. The back of her head throbbed. She tried to turn her head, but a lightning bolt of pain reminded her of her limits.
Her husband’s growl made her try again. Takahashi lunged to his feet, running toward Mika. The shadowrunner halved the distance between them in an instant, pistoning a knee into his midsection, then cracking the baton across the back of his head. Takahashi crumpled to the ground with a grunt.
“I told you to stay down. Final warning.”
Warily, shaking his head, Takahashi climbed to his feet and turned to the nearby wall. He pulled one of the six swords down, and Jasmine realized it was the blade that had belonged to her father. He ripped it from its sheath and lunged at the runner with a wild downward slash.
Mika raised the baton to block, dancing under the blow, and buried an elbow in his throat. Takahashi dropped the katana instantly, both hands clutching at his damaged windpipe. He never saw the next blow land across his temple, knocking him unconscious.
Kenta’s tiny hands pawed the floor near Mika’s feet, struggling to push himself up. Jasmine went to him, but froze when she heard the click of a gun.
“No.” Mika said. A black pistol was in her hand, leveled at Jasmine. “We’re past our window. You need to decide right now if you’re coming with me or staying with him.” She pointed to Jasmine’s husband, still unmoving on the floor. She looked down towards her son. His small arms smacked at the ground plaintively. She could see a knot of blue where his head must’ve struck the floor and her heart ached. She couldn’t move. She was rooted to the ground, unable to move forward or backward.
Mika shrugged again and turned to leave.
“Wait.” Jasmine gathered up Sumiye in her arms and whispered an explanation. The girl’s face scrunched up like she tasted something sour and she said, “But baba?”
“No, sweety. Not yet.” Jasmine kept the soft voice reserved for Sumiye, but stared directly at Mika when she said, “We will be back for him.”
Downstairs, a company car waited for the women. Jasmine recognized the driver as the man from the airport. He wore the same black suit and nodded pleasantly, just a chauffeur picking up his client. Both women climbed in back, Jasmine carrying her daughter, and Mika following with the bag. Her gun and baton had disappeared as if she’d never been armed at all.
The women did not speak. Jasmine held Sumiye the entire trip, whispering sweetly in Japanese. The girl asked about her father once and then about her brother several times after that. Jasmine glared at Mika, but gave no answer.
Finally they came to a dark stretch of forested road that ended at a fence line, beyond which Jasmine could see an airstrip. The car drove on through, towards a Gulfstream parked at the end of a runway, its engines quiet. An Asian man in a suit stood at the base of the stairs leading to the plane.
Mika was climbing out of the car before it completely stopped. She exchanged words with the man standing in front of the plane while the driver came around to help Jasmine from the car. He took the bag and tried to help her with Sumiye. Jasmine pulled her daughter towards her protectively. The driver bowed and said, “I’m sorry this was so difficult for you and your daughter, ma’am. Its never easy moving on.”
Ignoring him, Jasmine called to the man by the plane, the who looked like he was in charge. Mika walked past her and got into the front seat of the car. As Jasmine watched in horror, they powered up the engine and sped away.
The man from the plane approached Jasmine, reaching out for a handshake. She held her hand up for him to stop. “You, what’s your name?”
“Mrs. Mitsui, My name is Mr. Tanaka. I—”
She huffed impatiently. He might as well have called himself Mr. Johnson. “I want your real name. In fact, I want your supervisor’s name!”
“I do apologize if the service did not meet your expectations. We are grateful to have you with us. My organization has much to thank you for. Your husband has been a disruptive force to our corporate growth for some time.”
Jasmine turned and pointed. “You want to thank me? Get that woman back here and tell her to go get my son!”
“I’m sure this is a matter best discussed on the plane.” Tanaka’s smile never wavered. He placed a hand on the small of her back and turned her toward the plane.
“That woman left my son!”
“Yes, I was informed of that issue. Unfortunately, your sacrifice was deemed necessary. We felt leaving the boy would provide further damage to Mr. Mitsui’s personal reputation. After all, how much of a cockroach must he be if you were willing to leave your only son just for a chance to get away from him.”
Jasmine smacked his hand away. She said, “Get her back here now, or so help me God…”
Tanaka looked apologetic. She recognized the expression as the one she’d been tutored to use when she told a department head they were going to miss their quarterly projections. “I’m afraid I’m have to stop you right there. Turning back is not an option. I believe our operatives made that clear.”
“What’s clear is that you recruited me. You need me, not the other way around, and if you want—”
He raised a finger. “Again, perhaps you are not entirely up to speed on the nature of this arrangement.” He paused thoughtfully before adding, “Do you know what a placebo effect is?”
“What does that have to do with anything?”
“Of course you do, like when you give your daughter a sugar pill and tell her it is special medicine, and she feels better. The effect isn’t due to the drug itself, because the drug doesn’t matter. The drug isn’t real. It is what you believe about that drug that makes the effect happen.”
The car was gone now. She could no longer see taillights in the distance. Jasmine pulled her daughter closer to her. Sumiye was cold and scared. She was asking to go home. She was asking for her brother.
Mr. Tanaka said, “Conversely, the absence of a drug one believes to be effective can have terrible consequences on the user.”
“I’ll go back. I can go back.”
“Can you, now? My associate explained what happened at the apartment. I am willing to bet this isn’t the first time he’s hit you. What do you think he’s going to do to you if you go back now?”
Further down the airstrip, a small plane rocketed down the runway and banked into the night. Tanaka started up the stairs of his own luxury jet. He paused near the door, waiting for her to follow.
She momentarily imagined overpowering the man, pulling out a gun and forcing him down the stairs, down the runway, and back to the city, where she would force him to get her son. The moment passed, replaced by the rattling hum of jet turbines spinning to life in the near-darkness.
Jasmine scooped Sumiye into her arms and started toward the plane, doing her best to hold back her tears over her son. It was just her daughter and one bag now.
Let the rest belong to her past.
OVERWHELMING PERFORMANCES
(ace of cups)
BILL AGUIAR
Denver’s skyline was a dramatic backdrop for the Shinto shrine’s outdoor reception, but only two things were on Officer Kale Nakai’s mind. The first was the habitual annoyance of a dwarf having to almost run, even with his cyberlegs, to keep pace with his human partner, while the other was the hope their LandRover patrol van wouldn’t get into trouble as it endlessly circled the surrounding streets in autodrive mode.
“You sure that Shiawase exec is still here?” Officer Ripley Addison asked, trying to project professionalism despite his short-cropped hair giving him a boyish look as they entered the reception. Unlike his partner, his thoughts were scattered, trying to remember a half-dozen things at once, his eyes also flicking to the skyline every few moments.
Nakai resisted a sigh. “Anything interesting up there?”
“What? No, just some spirits on patrol.” Addison’s abilities as an adept were useful, but still meant that sometimes he was easily distracted by sights only he could see.
Nakai waited until Addison focused back on him. “Fujita is responsible for the PR coup—I mean gift—this example of corp excess is celebrating. He won’t leave until he’s received jealous promises of revenge by every person here who now has to top it.”
A crowing cry brought their attention to a faux bamboo cage in front of the shrine and the bird preening within. Its plumage was magnificent, starting with bright, orange-yellow feathers shaped like a rooster’s comb on the head, and deepening to a rich crimson on the tail, so the creature resembled a living jet of fire. In the weak sunlight, it was so bright it seemed to glow slightly, and as both cops watched, it called again and spread its wings, which stretched more than three meters. The cage that secured it wasn’t really made out of bamboo, but the oddly-familiar bird didn’t seem interested in testing it.
“I still say that doesn’t look like a phoenix.” The paranimal’s arrival here was the reason for the celebration, and for Fujita to be in public, where they could approach him. Addison knew he wasn’t as experienced a cop as Nakai, but thought he could at least sim a wiki entry correctly.
“It’s a Ho-o, a phoenix metavariant native to Japan, which happens to match the description of some important critter in Shinto belief. I’m surprised that one is so calm, they’re supposedly cranky.” Nakai scanned the crowd, trying to spot Fujita even as the Shiawase security guards shadowing them glared at their backs.
“Cybergear.”
Nakai stopped to look at his partner. “Really?”
Addison was still focused on the brilliant bird. “The spiritual damage is barely visible, but I can still spot it. Must be high end gear.”
Nakai grunted and went back to his task. “I wonder if the shrine knows? They probably weren’t expecting that.”
“Got him, moving toward the shrine.” Addison started ambling toward their target, slow enough that Nakai’s shorter legs could easily keep up with them.
With their direction clear, their shadows tried to close in without making it obvious. Fortunately, the crowd was dense enough that they couldn’t hurry.
“Remember, since the shrine is on Zone land, this is a public event, and security couldn’t deny us entry. But once we start ‘harassing’ guests, they’ll have reason to chuck us. So we need to follow the plan.” Addison merely nodded as Nakai finished his reminder.
They intercepted Fujita, a tall and lanky beanpole, by a nearly empty table with just a few sake cups and a serving jug on it. He felt the grimace on his face when he noticed their Eagle Security uniforms, but Fujita smoothed it away with practiced ease.
“I’m sorry gentlemen, but if you contact my office—”
“We have, for the last three days,” Addison began, according to his part of their script.
“My partner and I are with Paranormal Animal Control, and are investigating the incident at the Sioux Sector’s Denver International Airport, where the import records of all the quarantined paranimals were lost,” Nakai continued.
“I’m afraid I don’t know anything about that—”
“Oh, we know. In fact, your division is the only one of the regular importers that didn’t have any animals currently in quarantine.”
“Yes, we were very lucky.”
“We noticed, and if we noticed, I’m sure your competitors also noticed.” Addison smoothly worked his way back into the conversation, as if they hadn’t practiced on the drive over. “They were upset to learn that with the records lost, all of their quarantines would restart—”
“Well, there was that one record,” Nakai interrupted.
“There were surviving records?”
“Oh no, this was from one of the air transport firms, your Heavy Lift division, in fact. They had a fireproof animal enclosure missing from their inventory.”
Addison couldn’t believe in the great timing, and later would wonder if it was purposeful, but just then the Ho-o let loose a cry, louder than any other it had made so far.
They just looked at each other, the PAC officers purposely drawing out the silence until Fujita said, “The Ho-o came from a domestic source, so it never needed to go through a quarantine.”
Nakai and Addison gave each other an exaggerated look before Nakai continued, “I’m sure all the records are in place for that to be considered true. Not even a question about that.”
Addison continued, “But there were a lot of upset reps from the other firms.”
“Very upset. I’m just glad that you’re not among them.”
“What?” For the first time Nakai was certain he got something close to an honest emotion from Fujita, which was the whole point of this show.
“With the records lost, we’ve had to go to every importer and reassure them that we will do our best to find out who is responsible. The fact that you haven’t lost any records makes this meeting the most pleasant one we will have.”
“I appreciate being kept in the loop, but if that is all—”
“Well, we said this would be the most pleasant meeting, not that there wouldn’t be any problems.”
The guards had arrived by now, and looked like they were about to interrupt, but now Fujita was more concerned with where this was leading, so they held off, probably instructed by commlink message.
“What is the less pleasant news?”
“Since all of your competitors’ inventory will have to spend additional time in quarantine and since your division currently does not have any inventory at risk, well, there is not going to be any room for your inventory.”
“For at least a month.” Addison had reached his part of the conversation that he was determined to enjoy.
Fujita actually sputtered, “You can’t do that, I’ll lose—”
Nakai smiled. “You’re right, we can’t do this. But your fellow importers had a vote earlier today. They demanded all the evidence we had...”
“And our suppositions.” Addison’s attempt at studied casualness was not very convincing, but it got the message across of just what those suppositions were.
“They made their own decision from there.”
Fujita allowed himself a bit of righteous anger. “They can’t have a vote without contacting me.”
“We tried to contact you for three days, remember?” Now Addison wasn’t trying to hide his glee.
“But your secretary wouldn’t return our calls. Maybe because we mentioned we were also investigating the quarantine data loss? Funny how that works out.” Nakai knew it wasn’t very funny, but still forced a too-wide a smile on his face.
