Megatokyo-Odaiba Spaceport, Private Runway #04
February 13, 2036
2:47 PM
"They're gonna kill me when they find out."
"I can guarantee we'll do everything in our power to prevent that from happening, sir."
Jimmy Chee knocked back another bottle of water, chugged half the thing in one go, wiped his forehead with a bar towel. "These things taste like plastic, every time," he muttered. "Anyway, I appreciate the sentiment, Zhao, but this is the Changs we're dealing with. Your effort would be wasted."
"That's awfully morbid of you, sir," Zhao Li Ru, the head of the Suan Tou Fung's various bodyguarding operations, said. "Are you drunk? Did you imbibe anything before we left?"
"What?" Chee spat, almost spewing water on her pretty face. "Fuck no. Check my biomonitor if you want. I'm clean. God, I kinda wish I wasn't. Get a little buzz and maybe-"
"Your mother was very explicit about her instructions for your meeting with the Chang's representative, sir. It would be a failure on my part, both as your servant and as the Triad's servant, to provide you with beverages."
Chee looked out the window of his limo, where the scramjet had landed. They sure were taking their sweet time getting the little staircase up to the front of the plane. He had the sense that he probably should have just gotten out of the car five minutes ago and waited.
Well, it was too late now, wasn't it? Besides, they expected disrespect from poor ol' Jimmy Chee. They wanted him to not greet them at once. It made it more fun that way, the way a tiger liked to play with its food.
He considered responding to Zhao. Tried to think of something clever to say, then decided against it.
"Fuck it," he said. "Gimme a Pocari Sweat. Or, or something."
"She said water, sir. Nothing else."
Jimmy considered that, then considered the auto-bartender control console that was right next to him. Considered that he was the head of the Triad. Considered that a mother commanding a son was against the Five Relations of classical Confucianism. Not that his mother cared.
Considered that if he pressed the button to activate that damn thing, Zhao would spring across the limo and break his traitorous hand. She was just a few years older than him, had played bullying older-sister in the name of his security for all of his childhood. Still called him sir.
The door in the side of the scramjet was opening out of the corner of his eye. He had no time left.
"Alright," he said. "Let's do this."
He got out of the limo, all but kicking the door open, adjusted his cufflinks, and walked down towards the jetway.
He waited. He knew Zhao was behind him from the click of her little red pumps on the tarmac.
And then he got a good look at Chang's representative.
Okay. He hadn't been sure what to expect from a representative of the Chang Tong. Someone important, okay, but how old?
He'd eventually settled on 'older than him'.
He hadn't expected - well. He hadn't expected her.
She was slim but just a little curvy where it mattered. Her measurements were doubtlessly enhanced by the way she wore her business suit, her black suit jacket framing her pink blouse-confined breasts, which in turn framed a little triangle-shaped bit of creamy bare skin that traced from her delicate little neck down to the deep valley of her cleavage. Not a lot, but a hint that she was well built.
Her eyes were wide and naive-looking, like how he had always figured a Japanese schoolgirl's would look (before he had met several actual Japanese schoolgirls and been severely disappointed). They scanned him with a look of concern - fear, maybe? Had he overestimated the kind of person the Changs would send? Her lips were small, but plump and glimmered with something like dew. Her facial ratios were fucking perfect. There was no other way to describe it. Doll-like, maybe? Maybe? Nah.
Perfect worked just fine for him.
She daintily clicked down the steps in strappy little high heels that left most of her feet bare. Her toenails were a glossy red, as were her fingernails. A man in a light blue jacket followed her. He looked young, boyish, borderline bishi in the style of the great E-Pop idols, and he would have pegged him as a companion to the beautiful woman - wasn't Chang's granddaughter said to be quite something? Was this her? - were it not for his ivory-on-graphne-grey cyberarms and a build that seemed like it could rip out of his fairly broad-shouldered jacket.
Well, now. He could deal with her pretty little 'borgy-guard later, send him on an errand for a few hours. The girl was approaching, her left hand reaching out. He bent down to bow, and then to kiss it.
Except the hand kept going, balled in on itself, and smacked straight into his jaw.
His tongue was trapped between his teeth. He tasted blood almost immediately as his head snapped back, then snapped forward as that same little fist buried itself in his solar plexus. Chee doubled over, vision spinning, but he held himself up. He opened his mouth, trapped a bit of blood and spittle with his tongue, tried to hock it back. Focusing on the tarmac helped. His vision cleared. He wheezed and gasped for air.
Once he didn't feel like he was going to pass out in the next five seconds, he straightened himself up and did his best to look the girl in the eye. Her hands were at her slim hips, and she had a look on her face that he wanted to call tsundere, as the Japanese put it, but knew that doing so would probably have her dislodge his teeth.
"Okay," he said at last. "What the fuck was that for?"
She cocked her head to the side, scanning him with her gase. Her tiny little nostrils flared out just a bit. "Sorry," she said in a melodic voice. "I may have overreacted there."
"May have," Chee muttered to himself, "hell. If this had been anywhere else, and you had been anyone else, my bodyguard would have shot you."
"I understand," the girl said. "You are James Yi Chee, correct?"
At any other time, he would have said something along the lines of you can call me whatever you like. But his survival instincts had hijacked his brain and were busy beating his already bruised libido into submission. "Sure. You are…"
"Reika Chang," she said. "This is Kou. I'll just remove the element of surprise and say that yes, I was Vision for a time. Currently on hiatus. You understand."
Chee looked her over. Huh. Yeah. He could see her in that strappy little getup, maybe some auto tune to disguise her voiceprint, the big hoop earrings and whatnot. Somehow he couldn't bring himself to give a shit. This was the Doctor's granddaughter he was dealing with here. It was probably best if he just took his dick and stuffed it in his penthouse freezer until she left.
"Alright. It's nice to meet you, Miss Chang. Obviously it would have been nice to meet under different circumstances, but…"
"But there is so much in this world which we cannot control. Of course. I understand. If you could bring me up to speed in your limo that would be desirable."
"Of course."
2:53
"So how much do you know, Miss Chang?"
"Not much, admittedly. Nemesis entered Megatokyo several days ago intending to strike the Sleeping Dragon Yakuza, you attempted to capitalize on Sato's weakness along with several of your rivals, and in doing so incurred the vigilante's wrath. You almost had him, but he was rescued, and much of your combined forces destroyed, by the Knight Sabers. Is that accurate, Mister Chee?"
"Yeah," he said, "yeah."
They were driving out to the civilian causeways that linked the airport, a mass of landfill, sand, and concrete, to the mainland. It was perhaps the dullest part of Megatokyo, and that was saying something. Orbit-capable spaceplanes lined the runways or hid in hangars scattered across the rectangular landmass, an office or two for larger transport companies like Maersk and DHL poking out of the ground. Chee tapped a button and cut off the camera feeds that substituted for windows and turned on a soulless strip of LED's on the ceiling of the limo.
He sucked in a breath. "Trouble is, this morning Sato seems to have gotten around to actually finding Nemesis. Drove right into Skeeter Karns' territory with a bunch of anti-tank Boomers and started killing people until the bastard came out. ADP moved in with probably the heaviest contingent of force I've ever seen them use, but the Knight Sabers bailed him out again all the same. No one knows where those hardsuited whores are now, but like I told your father, I've got people looking. Everyone does."
Was it his imagination, or did Reika's left eye twitch just a little bit when he said 'whores?' Nah. Paranoia. Had to be.
"So," she said, her words just a little slower and more casual than the clipped Cantonese she'd used to address him on the tarmac, "has your war against the Sleeping Dragon benefitted at all from Sato's losses? Not to mention crossing a man such as Karns…"
"No. If anything, this whole morning I kept getting reports of drive-by shootings in Chinatown. Nemesis hurt us more than he hurt Sato, really. Bastard still has a small army of Tankmen at his estate, as best as we can figure. He can just keep going and going, you know? We, we just can't."
"By 'we' you mean your alliance with Smirnovski, Iwasaki, and Chung?"
"Yeah. I guess. Smirnovski brought his A game, buncha UFV's to protect the restaurant. Same with Chung. Iwasaki held out and" -here he ground his teeth just a little bit- "he's not sorry he did. 'Cause now Smirnovski's a couple UFV's short, I barely have enough Sabertooth Boomers to make a whole pack, and Chung went back into the favelas near the Fault to rustle up a bunch more Boomeroids. Fuck if I know what he's doing. He's creepy."
"I see," Reika said. She cocked her head to the side. "I have a fireteam of customized GD-42 Battlemovers moving into the city through the cargo maglev from Osaka. That, so Grandfather tells me, is only the beginning of our boundless generosity towards our mutual interests. So-"
"Whoa whoa whoa," Chee said, waving his hand to cut Reika off. "Mutual interests? Where the fuck do you get off saying we have mutual interests? Fuckin'-" He stopped there, bit his wounded tongue just before Kou made a strange motion with his ivory hand. "Fuck. What do you mean by mutual interests."
She sighed as though she had been expecting him to say that. She probably had. She looked at the opaque window as she spoke.
"On one level-" she stopped. "I mean, Mister Chee. Our families - our organizations - have been allied for centuries. How could we not have mutual interests? We both want Sato removed from power. We both want to see the Chinese people of Megatokyo thrive and prosper. We are both uniquely placed in positions where we can see these dreams realized. There is nothing more to it."
Chee shrugged. "Sure. 'Kay. Fine." He considered what he was going to say next. He wasn't sure if he was going to enjoy it or not. As canned as Reika's little spiel had been, he knew what it meant when the Hou Bang employed rhetoric involving dreams and thriving and the Most Glorious Nation of China In Exile. It was when the Hou Bang were at their least blunt that they were the most ruthless.
Because there were limits to business. You didn't kill over business. You killed over the Most Honorable Heavenly Sustained Prosperity of the Chinese People, the Most Noble Goal Enshrined in the Seven Ancient Scrolls of the Jade Tiger. Or something like that. Killing was so much easier, his mother had told him, when you believed in something.
Of course he believed in nothing. Made a point of it. He was pretty sure Reika was just spouting that shit because she had too, anyway. She just had this look to her. He knew that look. He'd worn that look plenty of times himself.
"It's for the best, isn't it?" Reika continued. "This Iwasaki person, he will likely see you as having lost face. That will be rectified when he discovers you have military-grade Battlemovers of your own."
"Which were gifted to me in a moment of weakness."
Reika looked back at him. "You can lie. Say you had them in reserve but did not see fit to bring them into play yet. Doubtless Smirnovski and Chung will be telling similar lies as they contact their own outside help."
"Huh. Okay. Good point."
He regretted those words the moment he said them, of course. When had he gotten so soft? Not like it wasn't a good point, but to admit it, he might as well have signed over his control over the Suan Tou Fung to the good Doctor Chang right then and there. Oh, yeah, and the other thing…
"You think they'll call in outside help?"
"We know they have already called in outside help. Our moles in their respective patron organizations suggest that Chung is leaning on old contacts, militant exiles from the former North Korean government, Smirnovski has placed covert calls to industrial parks in Vladivostok, and so on and so forth."
"Iwasaki?"
"We don't have contacts in the Red Willow, unfortunately, but allied organizations in Singapore have been undergoing several transfers of personnel we were able to observe by satellite." She nodded. "For my part, I hope a good contingent of overwhelming force will convince those other groups not to get too greedy. I doubt we'll be able to put together a more lasting coalition with the international branches of those organizations, but the point is if we can force a peace which is in our favor, you and I will be amply rewarded by my grandfather."
"Welp." Chee shrugged. "Can't argue with that. I liked my autonomy, but that was all just an illusion, I guess."
"It was. Grandfather gives his people freedom only if he thinks it will benefit him. Your freedom benefited him. My freedom benefited him when I came here in '33. That's all that needs to be said."
"Besides," Kou said, "Isn't surrendering responsibility in exchange for the money needed to be a Master of Vice a good move in your book? I should think I would take the offer if I was in your position-"
"Oh fuck off," Chee barked. "I'm good at my job. I was good at my job as long as the peace held. You can't expect a reasonable, normal person like me to suddenly become a fucking Wolf Warrior in the space of three days. I'm doing my best here."
Silence. Kou looked impassive, but he could tell he was itching to palm-strike Chee's nose into his frontal lobe.
"There's an old Western saying," the cyborg said at last. "In times of peace, prepare for war. In times of war, prepare for peace. You did not do the former. So now we must do the latter."
"Fine," Chee said, throwing up his hands at last. "We do what we have to do. So we bring in the big GD-42's, and we go for a decapitation strike on Sato's mansion. We deal with Nemesis when he bothers to show up. Then we make it clear that if they have a problem with our terms, our carving up of territory, they can take it up with Doctor Chang. Sounds good to me."
"Yes…" Reika seemed to be thinking of something. "I'll contact the Knight Sabers and convince them to stand down."
Wait.
What.
What the fuck.
"Oh come on," Reika said. "You must have kept an eye on the affair on GENOM's big artificial island back in '33. I have a working relationship with them, I suppose."
"You suppose."
"I'm unsure if it will hold. If they'll listen to me. But, Chee, you have to understand that the Sabers are folk heroes of a sort. They aren't invincible, but the media galaxy that follows them wants them to be. If the blame for killing the Sabers is placed on us, we will be the killers of martyrs. There will be pressure. Working this way — removing one threat nonviolently so we can focus on larger threats —- I think it's expident. If we can get them on our side, even…" She paused. "We're no friends of GENOM, they're no friends of GENOM. We can negotiate."
"We?"
"Fine," Reika said. "I will negotiate, and you can focus on mobilizing your remaining forces with Kou's help. If Nemesis hits Sato's estate tonight, and there's no reason to think he won't, then we need to be there too. We need to pre-empt him."
Chee wanted to scream. "But the Sabers are working with Nemesis. They — they bailed him out. What makes you think you can talk them out of that plan of action? Actually," he went on, "You know what? They're playing him. They want him dependent on their good graces. Get their hands on his hardware, maybe redirect him to hurt GENOM. That's the only thing that makes sense. They're not going to change that course of action just because you try to wine an' dine them and ask them nicely! That doesn't work!"
He stopped. Realized everyone was staring at him. Zhao, Reika, Kou. Was that a Hololens HUD flickering behind Kou's eyes? He sucked in a breath.
Finally Kou spoke again.
"I think, Mister Chee," he said in a voice Chee figured he reserved for young children and torture victims, "You do not know what you are capable of. What we, together, can do in this city. I think that is a reasonable thing to think about."
"Alright," Chee said. "I'll contact the other bosses. You call your friends in the Sabers."
Silence. Then:
"Thank you," Reika said.
Eyup. A year later… and then some… This is still kicking. More chapters of Divine Patronage coming down the pipe soon enuf.
