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(Chapter Two continued...)

        “I know I pissed off the wrong people in some sense, but they deserved it,” Miki pleads from her now unfamiliar position in the passenger seat of the 750i. Sally can clearly see that she’d rather be driving, but isn’t about to concede to the upstart. “I didn’t set out to bust up their prostitution ring, but you can bet I’ll be thinking of ways to do so in the future.”
        “I don’t doubt it, and I’m not even opposed in principle,” Sally confirms, pleased to be speaking her native language once again. “You’ll notice that’s something I don’t dabble in. It’s one thing to provide people with the tools by which they might wreck themselves – and some do, while others do not. It’s quite another to pay them to wreck themselves for you. It’s just that if you’re going to do this, you will need to be very careful and very specific, and make sure other people have your back the whole time. It sounds like we were able to recruit this help quickly enough, but it’s a much wiser policy to secure it first. Right, Jōji?” The last bit is addressed toward the back seat passenger.
        Like all of the syndicate’s operatives, his name is not actually Jōji or George, but he picked up the nickname organically while still in school, which is a little bit unusual. “Right, boss. Go-tsume has friends, but it would have been wise to have confirmed this ahead of time. There is a time for valor, but also a time for discretion.”
        “I think I like you already, Jōji.” And you’re still young enough, I think I could make this work. If he catches the true meaning of her seemingly casual remark, and of the repeated glances in the mirror, he pretends not to. “Do you have any experience working with animals?”
        “Yes, but nothing so majestic as a horse,” he says, first making then averting eye contact via the rear view mirror. “I mostly raised rabbits.”
        That still entails the responsibility of keeping your charges alive, and cleaning up after them, so I’d say it counts. “Well if you’re willing to learn, it seems like we have some openings, and I’m quite amenable to the idea of versatile employees who can take on more than one role. I always have been. Can you cook?” His lack of a response and continued aversion to eye contact might as well be a ‘no’. “Oh well, I can’t have everything. I just thought I’d ask. Making a proper martini is a mandatory skill, but we’ll provide the training.”
        That likely settles half our re-staffing problem, and I’m not even home yet. It was a blessing in disguise when two of the ranch hands decided to find positions elsewhere – somewhere without an electric fence and a shotgun-wielding boss. Now they can be replaced by qualified bodyguards. It’s much easier to teach a skilled soldier to do a mundane task competently than it is to ask a common civilian to become a soldier. He’s also loosely bound to his native syndicate, who have yet to give him a role of any significance. I’ll have to watch his loyalties carefully, but it can’t hurt to have some common bonds between us.
        I also have to start thinking ahead to what I’m going to do about Ben. It has become obvious he would prefer to take on more responsibility for the restaurant and less for the ranch. Thus, every prospective employee is asked if they can cook.
        Sally’s phone begins to vibrate, so she quickly passes it to Miki. “Is it important?”
        “For you, or for me?” Miki snorts. “Yeah, I think you want to take it.”
        Sally thumbs the button that connects the phone through the sound system. “Hello?”
        “Hi Mum.” No introduction is required, Sally only has one daughter. “I’ll keep this short, Hisao’s arms get tired. I’m done with my appointment. I won’t be bringing home any new body parts just yet, but it wasn’t a total waste of time. I also picked up some leads that might be of interest to someone else.”
        “Oh?” Now Miki is paying attention. “Like what?”
        “I guess I shouldn’t be surprised you’re right there. I don’t want to get your hopes up too much, but plan on joining me for my next visit, 17 September. It will be worth your time. In any case, are you still in a position to swing by and get us, or did I call too late?”
        “How many of you?” Sally asks. “We already have three in the car.”
        “Just the two of us. Which car, and who’s the third person?”
        “The Bimmer, and Jōji, who most likely will be joining us long-term. You might as well get to know him. Are you still downtown?”
        “Yeah, we haven’t even left the building yet.”
        “Right. Stay put, and I’ll ring you again when we’re close so you can stay inside as long as possible. See you soon, dear!”
        “You too, Mum. It’s good to have you back.” The call drops. At least the two cultures have that in common. It’s bad form to say goodbye to someone you expect to see soon.
        Sally leaves the phone in the center console, knowing it will soon be needed again. Neko’s announcement included ‘don’t want to get your hopes up too much’, but seems to have done exactly that just the same. Miki is working over her bandaged arm, and may not even realize she is doing it.
        “Hey Jōji, what do you think we should re-name Go-Tsume if she gets the other five claws?”
        He doesn’t miss a beat. “Renkinjutsushi.”
        Alchemist. Presumably he means the kind made of steel. Yup, we’re going to get along just fine.

***

        “I haven’t done the cooking around here in almost two weeks,” Ben points out as he provides Sally with a Shanghai menu. “I’ve been just a wee bit busy with minor issues like security and staffing and trying to keep morons alive, little things like that. Sorry I let it fall through the cracks.” Besides, if they follow directions – and they’d better – then it’ll taste the same anyhow.
        “Point taken. I’m sure this will be perfectly acceptable,” Sally concedes. “It’s just that home cooking was one of the things I was most looking forward to.”
        “Don’t worry, once things calm down I’ll get back to running the Utility Muffin Research Kitchen. I’ve found a pretty good crew, but all they do is follow orders. It’s up to me to decide what those orders will be. I may want to bring in a consultant or two, I’m starting to run thin on styles of cuisine I actually know first-hand.”
        “Don’t worry, Mum,” Neko reassures, “you won’t be disappointed. They’ve been quite a blessing for me, since I haven’t been able to come back here until today. I hope my bed is still where it should be?”
        “It is,” Ben confirms, “but we’ll have to change the sheets again. We’ve needed every available bed during this crisis, so yours was not spared.” Actually, the guys would gamble to see who got your bed for the night. They loved it.
        “Alright then,” Sally says while glancing around, “since the two of you are both experts, what do I want? There are a lot of choices.”
        “If it’s in there, it’s because they know how I’d do it,” Ben proclaims with obvious pride. “And with enough lead time, which we currently have, they can make any of it even if it’s not the correct night for that style. The closer we get to dinner hours, the more limited the options become.”
        “Hmm. I’ve had Korean food on my mind for a couple days now, although I don’t know why. The rest I’ll leave to your discretion.” Sally closes the elaborate catering menu and hands it back. “Will we have to go get it?”
        “Nah, they’ll bring it up – in your car. We’ve been so swamped I was forced to use the Fit for catering deliveries. Don’t worry, they’re leasing it. It’s not an act of charity.”
        “Mmm, I don’t really care what they do with that one,” she points out. “It’s my car solely in a legal sense. I didn’t buy it for me. I was much more concerned when you told me about the blood in the Bimmer, but even then just because I thought it might be out of service for a while. The entire interior could have been replaced and it wouldn’t make much difference to me, as long as it was as nice as before. Excuse us though, I need to do a bit of new hire training.” She exits to the kitchen with Jōji following behind her.
        “To show him how to put olives in her martini, I’m sure,” Neko says, rolling her eyes.
        Like you’re in a position to pass judgment.
        “Umm, dear, I don’t want to cause a fuss,” Hisao meekly intrudes, “but I didn’t pack for an overnight trip.”
        “Sure you did. There are still a couple batches of pills in my nightstand, right?”
        “True, but I didn’t pack any clothes or anything.”
        “Then we’ll wash the ones you’re wearing and give them back to you. As for toiletries and such, have you actually looked in my medicine cabinet? There had to be ten spare, unopened toothbrushes in there the last time I looked.”
        “Umm, that would be five now,” Ben notes. “We’ve had a lot of visitors.”
        “That’s still four more than required. See, no problem.”
        Hisao is not quite out of steam yet. “What about your pills?”
        “Mmm, a valid point, but I suspect we have something suitable around here. Maybe even something identical.”
        “It wasn’t just pain pills I was worried about…”
        “I’m not taking those pills this week. Do you even know how they work?” She grins a bit, and he just looks embarrassed.
        “Does anyone else have access to your room?” Ben asks before things can become even more awkward. “If so, all they have to do is drop off a package at the restaurant, and it can be delivered with the food.”
        “Sadly, no,” Neko sighs. “We’ve been more vigilant about locking doors lately, after a certain untimely visit.” Hisao blushes, but she pushes on. “At least she couldn’t see us, though I don’t think we were fooling her any.”
        “Actually…” Hisao goes into deep thought mode. “Is Kenji back from building a fallout shelter or whatever it is he does on break?”
        “I’m not going there,” Neko declares emphatically. “I’d rather go without my pain pills than have him poking around in our room unsupervised.”
        “We wouldn’t need him, just his key, but you’re right. It’s best not to remind him he even has that capability. He sure hasn’t been discreet about his newfound mastery of the phone system.”
        Miki wanders through the dining room on the way to the wine cellar, giving Ben the opportunity to question her.
        “Miura, have you moved out of the master bedroom yet, and changed the sheets?”
        She freezes. “Fuck. I knew I was forgetting something.”
        “Best get on it. I have a feeling it will be occupied sooner rather than later. Change the sheets in her bedroom while you’re at it.” He tips his head in Neko’s direction.
        “Right. Master bedroom first. I’ll change the other as well, on the condition that I have someone to talk to while I do it.” She locks eyes with Neko. “I think we have a few things to discuss.” Abandoning the wine trip, she heads through the kitchen for the master bedroom.
        Neko shrugs. “I guess I volunteered myself. No sense in fighting it.” She follows.
        “Looks like it’s just us,” Ben says to Hisao. “What in the world was that about? They don’t seem to have much in common these days.”
        “It started as a bit of a misunderstanding. The tech at the prosthetics office thought she was there for a leg and an arm, and when she informed him this was not the case, he basically convinced her that maybe it should be. She went from skeptic to convert in about fifteen minutes.”
        “Ah. That would be something that still ties them together, and probably always will.” That, and a taste for other girls. I really hope that doesn’t come up to bite you – again. “In any case we’d better get moving. You worry about coffee, I’ll worry about food and wine.”

(Chapter Two continued...)

        “So did you bring back anything interesting from your trip?” Jōji is fishing for a topic, being so new to the ranch that he doesn’t have the faintest clue how they conduct business. He only knows what they don’t do, which is anything relating to human trafficking or prostitution. It’s safer than not talking, but I still need to watch my step.
        “Not exactly,” Sally says. “I had a bunch of neat stuff shipped from Bolivia, my last stop, but who knows when it will get here. I wasn’t inclined to carry it myself. I like to travel light.”
        “I can’t say I blame you. It’s one thing to drag something around for a few days, or a week. It’s another entirely to have to haul it everywhere for a month. If the load just keeps growing, that’s even worse.”
        “Oh, there was no shortage of people willing to haul things for me while I was there. I just meant I didn’t want to fly with it.” She pushes the stable door open and beckons him to step inside. “Just walk through and make eye contact with all of them, maybe talk to them a little. I just want to see if they get some weird vibe. It doesn’t happen often, but it’s still something I need to check for.”
        The horses don’t seem terribly interested in Jōji one way or the other. They show no particular skittishness or fear of him, but they also don’t seem particularly curious, as might be expected.
        “They’re distracted,” he observes. “I don’t know by what, but they’re clearly paying attention to something that escapes our notice.” He leans in over the rail of a stall housing a fairly docile mare. “What is it? What’s bothering you?”
        The mare makes eye contact, snorts, and resumes being slightly agitated over nothing in particular.
        “Something isn’t right. Does this happen often?”
        “Never, as far as I know,” Sally says, shaking her head. “I mean they often display various emotions as individuals, but I’ve never seen them all in one state like this.”
        “Then there’s probably one cause, or a few, that is affecting all of them. Maybe we should find out what in their environment or routine might have changed lately, and see if that is it.”
        “You’ve been here the last couple weeks, right?” Sally waits on his nod before continuing. “Then you know better than I do what has changed.”
        “I don’t know what their routine was like before I arrived, but it certainly must have been upset by the events going on. The construction and the extra security couldn’t have helped. Then again, maybe they’re just sensing our disquiet and adopting it as their own. If they think we’re their leaders, and we’re scared, maybe they feel they should be scared too, even if they don’t know why.”
        “It’s as rational an explanation as any I can think of,” Sally says, accompanied by quite a bit of nodding. “I’ll have Ben fill me in on the new installations. There may be something that is perceptible to them but not to us, much like a dog whistle.”
        “What about that?” He points out a motion detector.
        “Oh, we’ve had monitoring equipment in here as long as we’ve owned the place. I doubt that would suddenly start bothering them now.”
        “Hmm. You’re right, we probably should be methodical about this, and try eliminating one new thing at a time. Only after we run out of new things should we start worrying about old ones.”
        Then they get to Clyder, who doesn’t seem vaguely agitated, but outright pissed off. “Don’t worry, he’s usually like that,” Sally says, just as the horse takes a step to the side, away from them, revealing a shape in the stall with him. “Holy fuck, what’s that?”
        “I don’t know, but whatever it is, it’s not in very good condition.” Jōji extends a hand toward Clyder, who quite unexpectedly ducks his head in submission. “He seems to know we’re here to help, so maybe I can walk him out and you can take a look. Come now, boy,” he says in gentle tones, “give us a little space to operate and we’ll see what’s going on. That’s good.” He opens the gate, and leads the horse into the aisle, where much of the agitation vanishes – not just from him, but from all of the others as well.
        Sally steps into the vacated stall and sticks to the side where it is unlikely to contain little presents for her to trod upon. “It’s… it’s a dog, a German Shepherd or something similar. And it’s dead.”
        “If it’s not too much for you, can you make any sort of guess how long it’s been dead?”
        Much to his surprise, Sally crouches in front of the body and presses the back of her hand to it. “Long enough to be cold. Not long enough to have maggots. I’d better call Ben.”

        Nearer the house, where it is unlikely to disturb the horses any further, Ben stops the electric cart. “Help me get it up there,” he says, indicating a plastic picnic table is going to be their improvised necropsy site. He grabs the front legs, one of which is clearly shattered, and Jōji grabs the back legs.
        “If you’ll excuse me, this is all very interesting and I will rejoin you as soon as I can,” Sally explains, “but I think my time would be better served going through the surveillance records. I’ll send someone out to act as your gofer.” She heads inside.
        “Gopher?” Jōji asks, perplexed.
        “Go-for. You know, go for coffee, go for a sandwich, go for my tools.”
        “Oh! A lackey. Yeah, we could use one of those. The lackey I mean, not the sandwich.”
        Instead of one, they get two – both Hisao and Miki. As usual, Moron is the first to run her mouth. “Whatcha need? She tried to send all three of us, but Neko claimed she’d be less than useful and begged off.” She gets a glimpse of what’s lying on the table. “Oh God, what happened?”
        “That’s what we’re here to find out,” Ben says. “If I had to guess, I’d say Clyder stomped it to death, but we’ll know soon enough.”
        “I’ll uh… go find you some gloves and aprons,” Hisao volunteers, looking rather pale. He vanishes quickly.
        “Little chickenshit,” Miki mutters.
        “Then I suppose you’d like to do the honors?” Ben snaps.
        “Why the hell not? Let me round up some knives.”
        “Uh-uh.” Ben shakes his head. “I know what you’ll pick, and you are not using my good kitchen set for this. You stay here and I’ll get the tools.”
        Inside, Neko is proving other than useless. At least she’s directing traffic and telling Hisao where to find things. “Forget aprons, take the ponchos. We can just hose them down.” She waves her hook at the coat closet near the front door.
        “What did we do with my second-best set of blades?” Ben asks her.
        “I think we sent them down to the restaurant.”
        That’s what I was afraid of. “Okay, how about my third-best?” I am not using ceramic to butcher that carcass.
        “I have no idea.”
        Dammit. It takes a few minutes to assemble a kit, and some of the steel is in need of sharpening, having been neglected for the past couple years, but it will have to do.
        Outside, Jōji and Miki have already suited up for the task, and Ben quickly dons a poncho, mask, and gloves as well. Hisao vanishes again.
        True to her word, Miki starts making an incision down the centerline of the animal, the empty fingers of one glove flopping around absurdly, as Jōji looks on. The blade catches in a few places, and she gets a bit too aggressive for his tastes.
        “Please, allow me,” he says.
        Laying the blade on the table, Miki steps back with a flourish and a bow. Thirty elegant and efficient seconds later, Jōji has the skin on the torso completely flayed back and the abdominal cavity laid open, revealing horrific internal injuries and the unmistakable smell of perforated bowels.
        “Oh God…” Miki has just enough time to get a couple meters away and unmask before vomiting in the bushes.
        “At this point,” Jōji addresses to Ben, “I think your guess is pretty well confirmed. Do you need to see any more?”
        “I don’t, but Sally might want a look.”
        “I’ll go get her,” Miki says from behind her sleeve as she heads for the door.
        “Don’t drag that bloody garb through the house! Leave it out here.”
        “Yes sir.”
        Once she’s gone, Ben takes the opportunity to dispense a little advice to Jōji. “One day, you’ll probably have to take orders from her, but right now, you don’t. I highly suggest you take the opportunity to remind her of that every now and then. Otherwise she won’t hesitate to steamroller you.”
        “She won’t hold it against me?”
        “Maybe a little, but remember, she’s eighteen. Her opinions on a lot of things are going to change before she actually has the power to act on them.” If I’m wrong about that, we’re all fucked anyhow. “Besides, you should do what she asks when it makes sense. Just don’t hesitate to point it out when it doesn’t – like letting her spread who-knows-how-old dog blood through the house. For that matter, don’t hesitate to point out when I don’t make sense. I may get mad at you, but if you’re right, I’ll get over it.”
        “Let me get this right,” Jōji says. “You actually want me to think for myself and question authority?” Ben nods. “You guys are weird, but I think I like working here already.”
        “It has its moments.”

        “I have good news and bad news,” Sally announces as she comes out to see the evidence first-hand. “The good news is that I see no sign that there is an ongoing danger from the security breach that happened here. The bad news is that you were just plain lucky the scout investigated the stable first, and Clyder kicked the shit out of his dog. We need to inspect the entire perimeter fence for cuts. I wasn’t able to tell where he came in or exited.” All is forgiven, old boy, even that time you bit me. You just saved us a lot of trouble.
        “I don’t get it,” Ben objects. “We have perimeter motion detectors and lights, and none of them sent out an alert.”
        “Better check them when you check the fence then, because they failed and you need to determine how. If both of you get on it after we start the disposal process on that,” she says while waving at the flayed dog corpse, “you can probably be done before dark.”
        Hisao appears, driving the electric cart. There is a plastic tub with ropes for handles, and inside it sit three boxes, all plastered in an array of hazard labels.
        “Thanks, love,” she tells him with a nod indicating he is dismissed. “The job is usually bigger – a lot bigger – but if you didn’t know why we keep hydrofluoric acid around before, you do now.” She turns her attention back to the ones who are actually going to carry out the task. “Let’s get this mess away from the house – or anything else we particularly want to keep intact – before we start.”

(Chapter 2 continued...)

        Back in the wine cellar, Neko and Hisao pore through the surveillance footage in excruciating detail. Sally was satisfied with an initial quick view, but expressed hope that more could be discerned, and if Neko couldn’t lend a hand to the effort, she could damn well lend her eyes and ears. Hisao was selected to be her hands because he already knows about the extensive network of cameras and how everything is stored.
        “There!” She waves her hook, and he pauses the video. “Back it up about fifteen seconds and turn up the sound.”
        On the next pass, he hears it too – the crack of small arms fire. At the same moment, and almost certainly as a direct result, one of the perimeter motion detectors goes offline on the accompanying status bar.
        “Well I think we solved that mystery. They shot the damn thing from a distance before it could spot them. It sounded like a .22 to me.”
        Hisao shrugs. “A gun sounds like a gun to me. I wouldn’t know.”
        “Real guns go pow or boom, peashooters go snap or splat. I think we should let them know this much, even if we’re not done. It may help.”
        Hisao nods and calls Sally, then activates speakerphone mode since they might both want to talk to her.
        “News already? We haven’t even finished the disposal yet,” she says by way of an answer.
        “Yeah, we thought you’d want to know this as soon as possible,” Neko starts. “We think we know how they got past the sensors. They shot it out from a distance, probably with a .22 rifle or something similarly dinky. Wherever the fence is cut, you’re probably going to find a very unhappy sensor nearby.”
        “So why didn’t the loss of a sensor get detected?” Ben asks. It must be speakerphone on both ends.
        “It did. The status bar on the footage shows it going offline, but if it was supposed to sound an alarm, it obviously didn’t. Sensor four is still offline, whichever one that is.”
        “North central,” replies Ben. “That would have been my first suspect anyhow, given where they ended up.”
        “Want me to go check it out?” That sounds like the new guy.
        “Not alone,” Sally interjects. “For all we know, there may still be someone out there with a rifle. Darling, send Go-Tsume to come watch my back so I can release these two to go check out the damage.”
        “Who?” Hisao whispers.
        “The Moron,” Neko whispers back. She obviously doesn’t mean me, and how many other five-clawed girls can you think of?
        “Uh, yeah, I’ll go track her down,” he says loud enough to be heard on the other end of the call.
        “Thanks. Don’t pack it in just yet, in case you can find out more, but you’ve done great work already. I gotta run.” Sally disconnects.
        Before Neko can stop him, Hisao has set down the phone and charged up the stairs, so she slowly and painfully pokes and prods it into redialing for her.
        “You again?” Sally asks testily.
        “Me again. You dropped off too soon. Why should we risk encountering a gunman when we can check it out first, at least sort of?”
        “What do you mean?”
        “Just finish up what you’re doing out there and give us a few minutes to track down my radio-controlled helicopter and a camera. It may not want to cooperate, in which case you can go with your original plan, but I think we should at least try it first.”
        “Are you sure you don’t want to take over the family business when it’s time?”
        Neko snort-chuckles. “We can have that discussion later. Right now, let’s worry about making sure we still have one by then.”
        “Right. Is it okay to hang up and wash the dead dog off of me now?”
        “Do what you need to do.” Dead puppies aren’t much fun.
        Once Hisao returns, Neko fills him in on the plan, and they set about rummaging through her highly disorganized closet.
        “Oh, what’s this?” She taps something with the side of her foot that sounds and feels like a cardboard box, but she can’t be sure because it is buried beneath piles of clothing – much of which probably no longer fits.
        He digs through the pile, and if there was any pattern to it before, there no longer is. He retrieves a box perhaps fifty centimeters long, and much smaller in all other dimensions.
        “Aww yiss!” She leans over and gives him a kiss on the forehead, then trots off for the kitchen, assuming he will follow. He does. “Dig out the charger and the batteries first. We need to get that started right away. It’ll take about fifteen minutes to load one up.”
        He does, and they abandon the rest of the kit on the kitchen table in search of some adhesives. They have to wait for Sally to return before they can get any further – the pen cameras are her toys, and are locked in the office.

        “This was a great idea and all,” Sally says to Neko, “but how are you going to fly it?”
        “I’m not. He is.” Neko tips her head toward Hisao, who is busy taping pen cameras onto the landing skids of the helicopter at two different angles. “We only have enough juice for a few minutes per battery, so it has to be someone who has done this before.”
        “We may not even have that,” he points out. “With this extra weight, we’re going to have to keep a very careful eye out if we don’t want to risk losing it in a field somewhere. We should probably make a very short pass just to make sure it gets useful images, then go for an area sweep.”
        “Whatever you think is best,” Sally defers. “You guys thought of it. Just hurry, we’ll need all the daylight we can get if this fails.”
        They grab the subnotebook for viewing the footage, and the tiny helicopter itself, along with its blocky remote and charger, and head out. Taking up a position inside the stable to get as close to the perimeter fence as possible without being exposed, they fly a quick excursion of a minute or so around the vicinity of the presumably shot-out sensor four.
        Hisao tears through the tape holding the cameras on, and accepts two more from Sally, while Jōji changes the battery and puts the first one back in the charger. They’re already back in the air before the first results can be confirmed.
        “It’s working! I don’t know quite what I’m looking at, since it seems to be going by so fast,” Sally rambles, “but it’s definitely something!”
        “Sweet!” Hisao says from the back door, without turning to face them. This time he flies a two minute route, and spends fair amounts of it hovering and rotating in place so that everything won’t just be a blur. Then they’re tearing the cameras off once again, and reattaching the first pair. Once again, they’re airborne even as the second set of videos is being examined.
        This time there are no celebratory cheers, only a somewhat ominous request from Sally. “If you could, fly it as far northeast as you dare, then bring it back. Don’t hover.”
        “You got it.” He focuses intently on the task, rather than thinking about the reason he has been asked to do this specific thing. Just the same, he’s pretty sure he understands why he was instructed not to hover when he hears a crack!, at which point he just hopes there’s something left to respond to his command to return.
        Fortunately, while the shooter may be good at hitting stationary targets atop fenceposts from a distance, one shot wasn’t enough for him to hit a moving, airborne target only slightly larger. They hurriedly tear away the cameras and set to examining the footage, with no effort made to prepare for a fourth run.
        “Right there, do you see what I do?” Sally circles a region of the screen with her fingertip.
        “Tire tracks,” says Neko, with a very heavy heart.
        They keep watching, and their fears are confirmed. A blue Nissan comes into full view, having been driven around the ranch and beyond it, and they see one of the two men within step out and point something, presumably a rifle, in the direction of the helicopter. Then he lowers it and starts to slide back the bolt, just as speed blur sets in as Hisao must have heard the shot and hightailed it for home.
        “Well, we know where they are, and we know how they got there. We even know what they’re packing,” Sally points out, “and a bolt-action rifle is somewhat less of a threat than I was fearing. Just the same, that’s about it for the good news.” She embraces Neko, but it’s questionable who is supporting whom. “Darling, you may have just saved a life today.”
        “Yeah… but now what?” comes Neko’s muffled voice from within the embrace.
        Jōji chimes in. “They know we’ve spotted them. They may leave. Even if they stay, they know they have lost the element of surprise. I can have more friends up here before nightfall, with considerably more heat than a bolt-action varmint gun – and night vision.”
        “Very well,” Sally says with a resigned tone. “How many?”
        “Three or four, most likely. I’ll have to pay them, of course.”
        “Of course. I want them to answer to you. Ben will remain in charge of the technology, but he’s going to have his hands full, with a known dead sensor and a probable cut fence.”
        “We should be able to sneak up to the fence after sunset and take care of both, if you have a replacement sensor.”
        Sally’s apparent confidence returns. “Make it so.”
        He nods and steps away to make some calls.
        Still holding onto Neko, she turns to Hisao. “Unfortunately, it’s probably not a good idea for you to be here after dark. I have to assume that they are either looking for their girl, or coming after Miki directly. Either way, there’s no sense having the two of you in harm’s way. If possible, I’d like to sneak you out when they bring the food in.”
        Hisao just nods sadly while Neko sobs audibly. “I love you, Mum.”
        “I love you too darling, but don’t worry about me. I’ll be fine. If you’ve got anything to say to Miki though, you’d best make it quick. You may not be seeing her for quite a while.”
        “Wh–what are you going to do with her?”
        “Same thing we did with the other girl. We’re gonna send her to your Pops.”
        Arrangements are hastily made to have the catering brought up by two specific people rather than the usual one. The car is unloaded, and soon driven back toward the restaurant. What has hopefully escaped the notice of anyone tracking movement is that the two people driving away are not the same two that arrived.
        “Are you nervous?” Neko asks, her cast hidden beneath a ludicrously oversized sweatshirt.
        “Hmm? Not really,” Hisao answers. “On the minimal chance we do get pulled over, we just go quietly and let your Mum’s lawyers sort it all out.”
        “That’s… not exactly what I meant. I really don’t like being sent off like this.”
        “Oh. I don’t either, really, but if they’re replacing us with two actual guards, it’s probably in everyone’s best interests.” Ben had feared there might be an attempt at some sort of retaliation aimed at the restaurant, and had quietly hired on personal friends in the dual roles of cook and security. “What about Abe? He’s been hiding out with Suzu, but what’s he going to do when classes start up again?” Would they send him off to Australia too?
        “I had been wondering a bit about that myself. There just wasn’t time to discuss it. Uh, you’re turning into…”
        “The driveway for the school, yes. The least I can do is carry you up the hill before I drop off the car.”
        “I’d rather we stay together, if you don’t mind.”
        Hisao nods. “If you can handle the walk, that’s fine with me.” There is no option but to drive all the way up the hill, loop around, and head back down.
        He parks in the spot reserved for take-out orders, figuring they’re unlikely to call the tow company on their own car, and walks around to help Neko out. They walk in together, intending to drop off the keys and let the staff re-park the car wherever they want, but Yuuko stops them just inside the door, looking even more worried than normal.
        “What’s going on up there?” she asks.
        Neko looks toward Hisao, who turns to look at her, and they just nod at each other.
        He tries to hand Yuuko the keys. “Let’s go for a little drive.”
        “O-okay… but you drive,” she says, refusing to take them.
        “She’s as legal as anyone else to watch you,” Neko points out.
        No point in arguing. They drive at a casual pace around Moniwadai, though he is constantly checking the mirror to make sure they’re not being followed, while Neko explains the situation to the best of her knowledge.
        “They have guns?” Yuuko looks flabbergasted.
        “No,” Neko explains as calmly as she can from the back seat. “As far as we can tell, they have a gun, and not a particularly good one at that. It’s pretty obvious they didn’t come with the intention of shooting anyone. They just used it to shoot out our security measures.”
        “But why? This sounds so… military.”
        “It’s anything but military. It’s more like espionage. It’s just two guys, and all they apparently brought was a rifle and a dog. They don’t have the dog anymore.”
        “I see.” It’s pretty apparent she doesn’t, but is stuck for how to continue. After a few moments, she comes up with a single word. “Why?”
        “That’s what we’d like to know too. Mum thinks they’re either after their girl, or after the one that stole their girl, or both.”
        “What.”
        Hisao shoots a glance at Yuuko, but is a paranoid driver and can’t stand not to be scanning the road and the mirrors every possible instant. He’s glad to have it as sort of a defense against having to talk, though.
        Neko sighs deeply from the back seat. “What do you already know? I’ll pick it up from there. I mean, do you know why we had to go on lockdown in the first place?”
        “Something about a business dispute that got ugly. That’s all I was told.”
        “Well, that’s one way to describe it. A particularly bad way, to be sure, but it’s a way. No, it may be business for them, but for us, it’s personal. You know Miura is a frequent guest of ours up there, right? Has been since she arrived, pretty much. To put not too fine a point on it, she was trying to get some action, and ended up inadvertently rescuing a Russian whore, who they want back. They shot out our security measures, busted through the fence, and poked around in our back yard. One of our horses killed their dog, otherwise we never would have known, and now Ben is recalling the two agents he had quietly defending the restaurant, since he guessed wrong on where they would attack. Don’t worry, he’ll send them back as soon as things resolve.”
        “Buckle your belts,” Hisao says suddenly despite the fact that everyone is wearing them already, “the ride is about to get a bit bumpy.” He downshifts, accelerates suddenly, then brakes hard and slides around a sharp corner into a quiet residential street before flooring it again.
        Yuuko’s phone beeps to life, and she nearly jumps out of her skin. She connects but says nothing. “Oh! Yessir!” The call drops. “They’re uh… ours. He said to stop trying to shake them.”
        “They could have just done that in the first place,” Hisao grumbles, but slows down to allow the other car to catch up, and slides to the right to allow them to pull up alongside his window.
        “We need that car, so hurry back, would you?” announces the other driver before rolling up the window and speeding off himself.
        Back at the restaurant, his composure breaks, and he finds himself shaking and flushed. He readily concedes the vehicle as five others pile their way into it, along with an ominously heavy red duffel bag. He feels a tremendous need to purge at the moment, and heads inside toward the restroom, pausing only to make sure Neko is being taken care of.
        Once his heart rate and blood pressure have dropped to something approaching normal, he spots Neko by the front door. As he heads that way, he finds Yuuko in her usual spot to greet the new arrivals and escort them to tables, but she is being quietly lectured by a man in chef’s garb.
        “I get it. You trust them as friendly. You could have at least taken the ten seconds necessary to let us know they were friendly. We thought you were being abducted!”
        “B-but I thought you knew who they were,” she says meekly.
        “We do now! We didn’t get a good look at them before.”
        The chef has a point. Between his braced and taped face, and Neko practically being swallowed whole by a red sweatshirt, they hardly look their typical selves.
        “I’m sorry about that too,” Hisao says with a bow. “I – I panicked.”
        “Don’t be too hard on yourself,” the chef says. “You didn’t know either. You do need some evasive driving lessons. Never, ever try to lose someone by turning onto a smaller street where you might get trapped. That’s another problem for another day, though. Here and now, we’ve still got a business to run, and we’re now four men short.”
        “I’m pretty sure we can scramble up at least two for you,” Neko suggests. “Shall I?”
        “Who do you have in mind?”
        “Oh, people you already know.” She pushes the front door open with her foot and emits a shrill, rising whistle at the building across the street. Seiji looks up from his ‘business transaction’ and puts one finger in the air. A minute later, business concluded, he crosses over.
        “Yeah, boss,” he says to Neko.
        “Not me, not today.” She tips her head at the chef. “Him. If you know what’s good for your future business prospects, you will postpone the remainder of your afternoon and evening appointments and pitch in over here.”
        “Yeah, boss,” he repeats. “I’ll need a moment to make arrangements, but it will be done.” That’s one, who else does she have in mind?
        “Would you mind giving Abe a call and seeing if he’s available,” she says to Hisao.
        The call goes to voicemail, and he leaves a message. “Doesn’t look like it, but we’ll see.”
        “Try Kenta.”
        “What’s he going to do?” As far as Hisao is aware, Kenta has never worked in a restaurant before.
        “He has a car, and in case you hadn’t noticed, we’re a little short on those right now.”
        This attempt works out better, although he can’t come on duty until his brother gets off work and brings the car home.
        “I promised at least two, and I haven’t fulfilled my promise yet,” Neko says, tapping Hisao on the shoulder with her hook. “Sorry babe. It’s only for a couple hours.”
        “I’m not much of a cook,” he points out.
        “You can set a table, right? Even that will help. Besides, I don’t know about you, but I’m in no hurry to go back to the room and do nothing but worry.”

(Chapter 2 conclusion...)

        Both cars roll up to the gate in tandem, and Ben lets them in. There is the usual confusion on where to park, but they find their ways to already-dying patches of grass.
        Jōji meets them out front and laughs. “You said you were bringing friends, but I didn’t know you were bringing the entire bullpen!”
        “Yeah?” says the driver of the white car. “I had to pick ‘em. Everyone wanted to join Operation Fuck The Russians. Are they still out there?”
        “If they left, it wasn’t by the way they went in,” Ben says.
        “Good,” says Jōji with a nod. “We strike just after sunset. Worst case, there’s nobody there and we all get a good night’s sleep.”
        “If that’s a worst case, what do you consider best?” Ben asks as he wonders when exactly he missed a strategy meeting.
        “We grab them, haul them back here under guard, and find out what the hell they were trying to accomplish.”
        That sounds like Sally’s idea, but I can’t exactly say it’s a bad one. “What’s my role in all this?”
        “What it always was. You and I are going to fix the fence. They’re almost certainly going to be watching, but unless they’ve moved their camp, they couldn’t hit an elephant at that distance. At the same time, my friends here will be tightening the noose on them.”
        As they unpack and head inside, Ben whispers, “Isn’t this going to get expensive?”
        “It shouldn’t – unless you have a moral objection to us repossessing their car. Spoils of war, ya know?”
        Ben nods. “They can have the rifle too. We don’t want it here.” If we’re going to risk being caught with an unlicensed firearm, it better not suck.
        Not long after the sun slips out of the western sky, and stars tentatively begin to poke their heads out of the deepening celestial background, ‘the bullpen’ sets into action. Ben drops the power to the fence, apparently to allow it to be repaired, but also to allow them to slip through in several places, while the white car is parked to block any attempt to escape back to the main road. He’s prepared to dive for cover if shots are fired, but none are forthcoming. He places a new sensor on top of the fencepost as well. Confirming that it actually works is not quite as important, but he fidgets with it to give the impression that it is. Even after his phone vibrates, and a glance reveals a text indicating that the sensor is being picked up, he continues to act busy.
        The more they watch me, the less they’ll watch their backs, he figures, and if they aren’t watching him then there’s not much else he could be doing to assist the effort anyhow.
        In the east, a signal flare suddenly lights the sky, its ‘pop’ coming a couple seconds later. It’s green. Relief washes over him. A yellow flare would mean their assistance was needed, and a red flare would mean the shit had hit the fan.
        He heads back toward the front gate with Jōji behind him, but has to break into a run to meet the two cars at the gate. That was just a little too easy.
        The two Russians, hands bound behind them and mouths taped over, are led into the house and down into the wine cellar. The look in their eyes is that of condemned prisoners. They think we’re going to execute them. We have other plans, but why not play on their fears for a while?
        “Did you catch that look?” he whispers to Miki, stationed around the corner in the kitchen, just out of view of the captives.
        She doesn’t answer, but she doesn’t need to. Those are the eyes of vengeance incarnate.
        In the cellar, the only thing being executed is her plan. The captives are further bound, their ankles taped to the legs of chairs, their arms taped to the frames. Then they are left alone in complete darkness, as the cellar door closes in its cold, uncaring, mechanical way.
        Above, in the dining room, Sally, Miki, and Ben start raising a ruckus while watching surveillance footage of the captives below. It may be dark for the captives, but there’s plenty of light to go around for infrared cameras.
        “They’re not uncomfortable enough!” shouts Sally, knowing full well that only the tone of her voice will make it to the level below.
        “Then I guess we’d better yell at each other some more!” shouts Ben in response. One of the temporary help starts chuckling. “Knock that off, it’s not helping!” he barks.
        “Yes sir!” snaps the soldier. “Anything you say, sir!” He stifles his laughter with his arm.
        “Is there any way to make them suffer more directly?” Miki asks at top volume. “Like, make it freezing cold, or sauna hot?”
        “That would be bad for the wine, which costs money!” shouts Sally. “No, I’m afraid you’ll just have to go take care of this yourself!”
        “How long do–” Ben starts, as Miki begins her own uproar.
        “Alright, fine! I know how to make them sweat!” She bangs on the wall with her fist three times, then starts the door opening with the remote control.
        As she descends the stairs, she shrugs off her white bathrobe. There is nothing under it but the bandage on her arm.
        She would take that approach, wouldn’t she. I should have guessed. On the handheld screen, Ben and Sally can see the captives’ eyes go wide, and it looks like they’re doing their best to scramble backward, though quite unsuccessfully, as she descends the staircase lit only from behind by the light entering through the doorway.
        At the bottom, she clicks the remote again, and the door starts to close. Another button press on the remote brings up some faint illumination, and the camera shows her scrambling for something in one of the wine racks – a baseball bat. The door slides into place with a click.

        Miki pulls the tape off the mouth of the captive on her right viciously. “How does it feel to be the prisoner, to be at my mercy?” she sneers at them. He doesn’t answer, so she raises the bat and swings it horizontally, striking the frame of the chair solidly and missing the bound captive by just a couple centimeters, causing him to flinch. “I said –” She uses the knob end of the bat to rap him on the knuckles painfully. “– how does it feel? Have you given even a moment’s thought to how your ‘girls’ feel?” She pokes him in the abdomen with the bat, causing him to gasp for breath but doing little actual damage.
        His eyes are wide with panic, but he remains silent.
        Miki clips him across the shin with the handle of the bat, making him yelp, but still not inflicting any real injury. “If you talk, maybe I’ll listen,” she sneers as she brings the bat down vertically, heavy end first, directly on his foot, “– instead of showing you –” She deftly tucks the bat under her handless arm and slaps him across the face, continuing her tirade “– how not to treat a woman.”
        She pulls the bat from beneath her bandaged arm as if unsheathing a sword, and swings it backhand, making solid contact with his upper right arm. “One word. That’s all it takes. Just say ‘stop’.”
        She continues to get blank stares, and is starting to tire of her game just a bit, so she decides to work the other guy. She paces in front of him, holding the bat on her shoulder, before tearing the tape off of his mouth as well.
        “What about you?” She lowers the bat to the floor and leans on it like a cane. “Do you see what you like? Do you like what you see?”
        She still isn’t getting a response, and although this is amusing, and she intends to leave them as marked as they left Mira, they really do need to start talking.
        “Talk to me!” Holding the bat toward the center to limit the damage, she nonetheless swings it as hard as she can, directly into his kneecap. This draws a yelp and damp eyes, but no verbal response.
        “«Thick as a fucking brick,»” she mutters.
        “«Yes!»” shouts the captive she had worked over first.
        “«What was that?»”
        “«I talk! Not think you understand.»”
        “«Ah, I see. Well now you know, so start talking.»” She goes back to leaning on the bat like a cane.
        “«We sent to look. Not to hurt.»”
        “«I see, that would explain why you brought a rifle and an attack dog. To look, not to hurt. Who sent you?»”
        “«So sorry, we just look for girl, not to hurt...»”
        In a single motion, Miki grabs the handle of the bat, raises it to shoulder level, and viciously slashes the captive on her left across the jaw, sending a spray of blood and saliva into the face of the other as he slumps into his bonds, unconscious.
        “«I’m sorry,»” she says to the now-cowering captive who has been doing all the talking, “«did I break your concentration? How rude of me. Please, explain how you were only here to look. What was that? Oh, you were finished! Well then, how did you think we were going to feel, finding you and your puppy snooping around our yard and carrying a rifle, having shot out our perimeter sensor and cut our fence? Were you expecting milk and cookies?»”
        “«What?»”
        “«Where are you from?»”
        “«What?»”
        She gets right in his bloody face and shouts. “«‘What’ ain’t no country I ever heard of! They speak English in What?»
        “«Wh-what?»”
        “«English, motherfucker! Do you speak it?»”
        “«Yes, yes!»”
        “«Then you know what I’m saying!»”
        “«Yes!»”
        Miki steps away and turns her back as if exasperated. Actually, she’s trying her damnedest not to bust out laughing. “«Describe what ‘your girl’ looks like.»”
        “«What?»”
        Spinning on her heels, she’s in his face in a blink. “«Say ‘what’ again, I dare you, I double dare you motherfucker, say ‘what’ one more Goddamn time!»” She topples him and his chair over backward with a drive from her shoulder, and raises the bat over her head.
        “«Stop!»” comes Sally’s voice through the intercom.
        “I’m not going to fucking kill him. I’m just going to give him a hundred little lessons in not fucking with us.”
        Ninety minutes later, she helps roll two blanket-wrapped and badly bloodied (but breathing) figures from the bed of an opalescent El Camino into a back alley in Natori, while the blue Nissan vanishes into a nearby warehouse, never to be seen in one piece again.

***

        “You can argue all you like,” Sally emphasizes, “but at this point, there is no way we or anyone else can protect you here. You made quite certain of that last night. I suppose if you wanted to be confined to the ranch for the next few years, we could, but otherwise you’re dead meat. They’re going to wait, they’re going to watch, and sooner or later they’re going to grab you – or just snipe you from a distance.”
        “You only live once,” says Miki with a shrug.
        Sally knows what was intended, but decides it fits her lecture better if she takes it at face value. “Absolutely correct. And that is why we’re going to make sure some hothead rosuke don’t make that life any shorter.”
        “But Australia? I mean really, it’s not like these guys have a presence anywhere but the north.”
        “If you want to go back to Okinawa and live out the rest of your days on a farm you’ll never inherit, just say the word.” Sally hesitates to let this sink in, but Miki’s face throws no tells. “I didn’t think so. Would you prefer to be our emissary to the Mexican Mafia? They’ll cut off your head for less than what you did to the Russians, and then play football with it just for spite.”
        “Won’t this throw a wrench into that education you keep telling me I so desperately need?”
        “On the contrary, dear. We may have influence at Yamaku, but we don’t control their schedule or the curriculum. There is this little school Down Under that will take orders from us, you know – possibly because we own them outright, which tends to have a surprising amount of persuasive effect. Back up their certification with good test results, and there won’t be any problems.”
        Miki’s arguments are crumbling, but she presses on. “I still lose what, four months?”
        “That’s entirely up to how hard you want to work. You could instead start at UNSW in January, and gain three. They have the finest science and engineering departments you could ever hope for. Probably not better than the elite schools here in Japan, but up there with them – and let’s face it, you aren’t getting into one of those.”
        “Engineering?” If Miki were drinking something, it would probably have shot out her nose. “I miraculously passed trigonometry, but I’m barely treading water in calculus. And what in the world do you think I could ever do in science?”
        “It’s not about what you can do in science.” Sally gently grabs Miki’s bandaged arm. “It’s about what they can do for you.”

NEXT

I'll be taking a bit of a story-posting break. I've managed to accumulate a 20 page buffer to this point, but I had to (very slightly) edit part 4 of Chapter Two because I wasn't happy with my phrasing. (It's not worth re-reading, the content didn't change.) This indicates that I probably need a larger buffer. That's the bad news.

The good news is that I only plan to expand this to about 30 pages, which is where I held the line for the bulk of the second book and it worked out just fine. At current rates, I should be able to get there in two or three days. The new format apparently agrees with me, since I don't have to stop and re-calibrate so much. Chapters Three and Four are more typical of the old chapter sizes though, unlike One and Two.

Note to the last bit of Chapter Two - I did mention somewhere (not in story, but in a post related to it) that Miki's favorite movie is Pulp Fiction. This isn't the first time she's paraphrased it, either — she also did so while riding back from the Yamagata cross country meet.

In the meantime, feel free to fire back about whatever crosses your mind.

EDIT 2015-04-08 (didn't feel like burning a whole post): I kinda fell off my torrid pace, and it would probably take weeks to expand that buffer to thirty pages and add another six or seven so I have something to post — unless I light a fire under my own ass, which I am doing by posting half of Chapter Three now.

CHAPTER THREE

2007-08-27

        I hate this fucking place already. For starters, they ration the wine.
        It’s not so much the country or the language. I can deal with those. Hell, they even accept my driving license. But the schoolwork is quite a bit more intense. Not only do I have to take extra courses to have any hope of completing all credits by January, I have to teach a course to the elementary students. I chose Japanese language, a course Sally taught just a few years ago. I am able to use her lesson plans, and it turns out that my handwriting is actually more or less legible, as long as it’s big enough, so I can handle chalkboard duty.
        At least they feel trigonometry is enough mathematics for a high school student, and are allowing me to drop calculus. Not everything sucks around here. It would also be much worse if I were alone to deal with all of this.
        “Mira,” Miki whispers, nudging her gently but repeatedly into wakefulness, “we have fifteen minutes. You need to get up and get dressed.”
        “«Khernya.»” At least she moves. They aren’t making her teach a class, but that may be because she’s only marginally literate in English.
        “If you get up, I’ll make the coffee.” That seems to work.

***

        When Hisao arrives back at 3-3 for the first day of classes, he is quite surprised to find Mutou already behind his desk, a good ten minutes before the bell. He is equally surprised to find that Hanako is not behind hers.
        “Good morning, Nakai,” Mutou says as he looks up to the sound of the door opening. “I’m glad to see you. Perhaps you can give me some insight as to why I am filling out a mid-term transfer summary for Miura.”
        “Do you want the long version or the short one?”
        “The whole thing, but I’ll have to settle for the short version for now.” Mutou waves a pen to hurry things along, so Hisao drops his books on his desk and heads over to Mutou’s desk. “I could just tell you she’s a moron, but you already knew that. She, ah, did something to anger some very dangerous people, and now she’s being moved somewhere they can’t reach her.”
        “Legal trouble again?”
        So he knows how she got here. “Actually, no. What she did was well within the bounds of the law, and probably even the right moral choice. She just made some serious enemies in doing so. «Ten out of ten for style, but minus several million for good thinking.» Also, Suzu is going to need someone else to keep track of her during the day.”
        “So I take it you don’t think this is a short-term thing.”
        Hisao shakes his head sadly. “I don’t think so. They’re already planning to send her to university down there.”
        “They? Down there?”
        He hasn’t been briefed very well, has he? “The Rogers’, and Australia. Luckily the language won’t pose much difficulty for her, and probably neither will the culture. I still don’t think she’s going to find it an easy transition.”
        “One more question: Do you think it really matters how honest I am on this transfer summary?” The door opens again as Hanako appears. “You’d better give me that one in writing.” He nods to indicate that this phase of the conversation is over.

        “I’d like to take a moment to welcome your new, if temporary, classmate,” announces Mrs. Muraoka. “Many of you already know who she is, as she is only new to this class, not to the school. Miss Rogers, would you care to introduce yourself?”
        “Sure. I’ll keep this short, since you should know who I am. I believe I spoke to every one of you personally when we established the Radio Club over a year ago, or when you arrived, if it was more recent than that. I’m Katelyn Rogers, but nobody calls me that, not even my own parents. You can call me «Kat» if you insist on being formal, or call me Neko like everyone else, but I don’t want anyone calling me Rogers. I’ll think you’re looking for my Pops.” There is a quiet murmur throughout the room, as it’s hardly uncommon for there to be confusion about identity when family names are used preferentially.
        “Ro–,” Muraoka interrupts herself. I’ll have to adjust to that, just as I did with Tadao and Mariko. “Err, Neko, would you care to explain why you’re staying with us a while, or shall I?”
        “Ah. It’s pretty simple. I broke my arm in a bicycle accident a couple weeks ago. I only have the one hand to start with, so Mariko is assisting me, and that is made much simpler if we’re in the same class. You have the same courses I did, just in a different order, so it’s not that big of a change.”
        “Don’t expect a party,” says Tadao from a few desks away. “We blew the punch and cake budget just before break.” More amusement. “Welcome to room 2-2.”
        I wouldn’t worry. I heard it’s pretty hard to top one of her parties anyhow. “I’m sure Neko wasn’t the only one to have an adventure worth mentioning over the break, so I’d like everyone to take a couple minutes to think of something you’d like to share. If anyone is ready now, they can start.”
        Again, Tadao steps up. “I went on a trip to Hakodate with some friends. It was neat, but not as different as I expected. Mostly it was just quieter, cooler, and sort of smelled of fish and salt all the time.” He sits back down.
        Well that didn’t take very long, certainly not the couple minutes I promised. “Is anyone else prepared to speak?” Mariko rises to her feet. That’s a bit of a surprise, she never volunteers for anything. “Yes, Mariko?”
        “I didn’t go on that trip to Hokkaido, I spent that week with Neko and her pals. We did all enjoy Tanabata together first, though not as much by design as by chance. Then we had that little accident.”
        “We?” Muraoka asks, unclear exactly which group Mariko is referring to, or how she could be involved in a bicycle accident.
        “I was in back, so I didn’t go flying, I just sort of fell over. My boyfriend said someone flew a kite into her face and caused the crash.” There is a bit of a class-wide gasp when she says ‘my boyfriend’. Shy little Mariko is growing up.
        “You were on a bicycle as well?” I’ve heard of blind people riding bicycles, but usually not in public. She also wants to divert attention from the boyfriend angle, before that can potentially derail this entire sharing session.
        “I was on the bicycle. There was only one, and it was a tandem. Neko piloted, I just pedaled.” Oh, that seems a bit more logical.
        “And I can confirm that,” interjects Neko. “Some numbskull did dive-bomb me with a kite. I saw it late. Had I known it was just a kite, I wouldn’t have tried so hard to avoid it. I was aware that it was a bad idea to brake hard, since the cables weren’t swapped like they are on my bike, but it happened too fast for me to think.”
        That should be enough time and enough prompting for everyone else’s stories to shake loose. Muraoka waves toward the corner to her far right, although there is only one person in the room other than herself that can really appreciate the gesture. “You’ve had time to think about it, so now we’ll just go around the room. Arai, you have the floor.”
        “It’s going to be hard to follow a story like that,” he remarks. “All I did was go fishing with my father…”

***

        The lunch bell rings, and Mutou looks over his reading glasses at the class without lifting his head. He still hasn’t gotten that note, so he is not entirely surprised when everyone else has left and Hisao remains.
        “I didn’t know what you wanted to hear,” Hisao says as he approaches the desk.
        “If I assign her a mid-term grade, do you think they’re going to care? Or do you think they’ll go in such an entirely different direction as to render any grade irrelevant?”
        “From what I gather, probably the latter. The entire school is about the size of two classes here, and has to accommodate all ages from six to eighteen.”
        “I had no idea Australian schools were so small.” Mutou shakes his head in wonder. “That sounds more like a small town than a big city.”
        “It’s not even a small town, it’s a ranch fifty kilometers from the nearest neighbor. That’s why they need their own school.”
        “Yet they still have thirty-plus students?”
        Hisao shrugs. “I dunno, maybe some of those ‘neighbors’ send their kids there too. You could ask Neko, or I could ask, if I knew exactly what you wanted.”
        “It doesn’t really matter, I think you gave me enough to work with. Thank you. How is she doing, anyhow?”
        “I wish I knew. One day she seems fine, the next she seems totally overwhelmed by her situation and doesn’t want to get out of bed. Sometimes it even flips during the day. Do you think her pain pills could have anything to do with it?”
        “Anything is possible.” I think it’s more likely you’re just finding out how she actually is, though. “I heard you paid a visit to Tohoku University.”
        “Oh, yes, another friend of mine came to town specifically to check the place out, and we went with her, but the guide made a point of asking all of us what our plans were. He said that I needed to get on my application quickly, as certain programs fill up faster than others.”
        “Did he tell you who he is?” Mutou has an ‘I know something you don’t know’ grin.
        “I can’t recall his name. I’m sure I’d know it if I heard it, though.”
        “Well he gave you good advice, and I’ll be here to help you with forms and a letter of recommendation when you’re ready. Do hurry, though. I only have so much leverage over there, even if my nephew Giro is a graduate student.” Mutou’s smile widens as Hisao sorts through his memories of that day.
        “I thought he seemed familiar somehow.”
        “So… go get something to eat,” Mutou says while pulling a stack of papers out of his desk drawer. “We’ll start on these forms after class.”

(Chapter Three conclusion...)

        “So it’s a done deal?” Kenta asks solemnly. “You’re really leaving us in a month and a half?”
        Emi shuffles nervously from leg to leg. “I… It’s just that… I mean…”
        “Relax,” he says. “I just want to know what is happening. This isn’t a courtroom.”
        Emi turns her eyes to the sky in thought, then brings the full force of her gaze onto him. “There’s nothing left for me here. I can’t race, so I can’t distinguish myself in any way that matters. I’m never going to be a model student. I’d pass, but that’s as far as it goes. This way, I still get credits, I still graduate, and I get a six month head start on a career. I also get paid a little in the process.”
        “I can understand that, but how do you know this is really what you want to do? What happens if you find you don’t like it?”
        “If that happens, I owe some money, the same as if I went to any other vocational school paid for by an employer, and then changed my mind. Besides, I already find it torture to sit in class seven hours a day, five and a half days a week. No matter what I want to do, I have a couple years left to grind out. I’ve been given the chance to shorten that grind by half a year, and I’m eager to do so.”
        “But you don’t even know the company all that well. It looks nice on the surface, I’ll grant you that, but who knows what it’s actually like at the day-to-day level of operations?”
        “People transfer all the time,” she says with conviction. “Not everyone is right for every position, but they may be a perfect fit somewhere else. Stealing and swapping of interns goes on all the time. Even the best players can get traded.”
        She makes it sound like some sort of competition or sporting event, rather than a mundane office job, but maybe that’s exactly what she needs for motivation. “Do you still want to supervise the morning session, or do you need that time for other things?”
        “I was planning to – they told me that experience at leading people is always a good thing to have. Besides, I need to keep up my own training. I have always said that wasn’t about races, and it still isn’t. Now what’s all this I hear about a girlfriend?”
        I don’t like that look on her face. “It started out being about my parents. It wasn’t about her, it wasn’t about me. As a matter of fact, the original idea was that Miki was going to be my date for the evening. In hindsight, she should have stuck to the plan – not that I’d be better off, but almost everyone else would.”
        “You chose someone who couldn’t outrun you, huh? I could have slowed down and let you catch me.”
        “Emi, I adore you, and you know it. You also know that away from the track, we’re about as compatible as oil and water. Don’t think I didn’t consider it, I just felt – and still believe – that it would have been a bad move. I’d rather be there for you for the long haul, rather than taking that chance. Mariko was different. I barely knew her, and sometimes feel like this is still the case. I didn’t have a lot to lose.” It doesn’t hurt that my parents like her, although they’d probably have liked you too.
        “Hmm. Well, I’ll be along in the morning as promised, but right now I have other people I need to have this talk with.” She bounces away into the distance.

        “«As a matter of fact,»” Iwanako says to her unwanted and somewhat arrogant suitor, “«I do have a boyfriend, so if you’ll please excuse me…»” She shoulders her way past him with a tray of food, and he lets her pass but then follows. I should have expected this, but it’s much better to be desired than despised.
        “«Really? That was quick. I mean you just started here today, right? So who’s the lucky guy?»”
        “«Please forgive me for having doubts about your motivations, but could you kindly find a way to, umm… fuck off?»” Heh, he didn’t see that coming. She gets two strides away before he turns to someone at a nearby table.
        “«You were right, she’s into girls.»”

***

        “You really want to do this?” Mariko asks as she accompanies Neko to the weight room.
        “No, I’d much rather sleep until this whole ordeal is over, but since that’s not an option, I have to find a way to get back in something resembling good shape.”
        “I understand, but does it have to be this?”
        “What else am I going to do, swim? «If you shoved me into the water right now, I’d sink like a goddamned stone.» Besides, I have to get back on the horse eventually, so to speak. I may as well give it a try now. It’s not like I can crash it.” With Mariko’s assistance, Neko squirms out of her sweatshirt and climbs onto the stationary bicycle. “Help me get the resistance set up, then maybe you’d like to take a spin on the other one.”

        There is a sudden commotion in the hallway, and Hisao and Mutou glance at each other in confusion before getting up and heading for the door.
        “You just keep your sticky fingers off him, do you hear?” Emi is practically spitting at whoever she is facing as she backs out the door of 3-4.
        “You’re the one inventing a problem when it isn’t there!” Hisao can see her hand before he can see the rest of her, finger wagging in Emi’s face. “You’re the one that gave me these pictures, and I don’t see anything in any of them that would support your position. Since you say you took them yourself, I have to conclude that this is because there was nothing going on. If there was, surely you could show it to me!”
        The second girl takes another step forward as Emi takes another step back. Hisao recognizes her only as the girl that plays violin.
        “The camera can’t get every glance, every little nod. I could see the two of you exchanging those looks, more and more with each song! I was right there.”
        “Do you have the faintest clue how musicians communicate on stage? Obviously not, because you just described it. We can’t exactly go shouting at each other, and our hands are rather occupied, so we do it all with glances and gestures. I’m sorry that I made a wisecrack that he’s cute. I certainly wouldn’t have if I thought you would take it so far out of context. Would you rather I say he looks like a troll? I can if it makes you feel any better! Your boyfriend is a troll! Eww, do not want! I can’t even bear to look!” She strikes a dramatic pose, shielding her eyes with her hand.
        “You… you little bitch!” Emi makes first contact, pushing the other girl into the door frame, but she’s the one that ends up on her backside.
        Hisao instinctively takes a step away from the scene, recalling several incidents simultaneously: the last time Emi ran into him, the time Hanako ran into him, and the cause of his currently braced nose.
        “That’s enough!” barks Mutou as he closes the distance in two large steps and puts enough weight on Emi’s shoulder to keep her from bouncing up and continuing the confrontation. “Takahashi, walk away. We’ll discuss this later.”
        “But…”
        “Yes, I know. I mean today. Now scram!” She retreats back into 3-4 to collect her belongings, so he turns his gaze back on Emi, who he still has pinned in a seated position, before extending the same hand to help her up. “What has gotten into you, Ibarazaki? I’ve already lost one student to poor impulse control and questionable judgment. Are you trying to make it two?”
        “But she…”
        “I saw exactly what she did. She yelled at you after you yelled at her first. She got in your face after you got in hers first. She pushed you after you pushed her first. Are you sure you want me to make an official case out of this?”
        “Not if you’re going to take sides like that…”
        “It’s not taking sides to report what I saw.” Mutou points at his own eyes for emphasis. “You should be glad you picked a fight with someone who didn’t want one. Now get out of my sight. I’ll write a statement about this, you can bet on it. Whether I actually file it with administration will depend a whole lot on what I see and hear from you.”
        “I left things in the room as well.”
        “Fine. Stay here and I’ll bring them out to you. Nakai, we’ll have to take care of the remainder of the paperwork tomorrow.”

***

        “You’re cool with this?” asks Abe, as Hisao attaches a chain lock to the inside of the door.
        “Sure, I’m down with the sickness. I mean it’s really only a technicality.” Hisao pauses the drilling for a moment to glance over. “You’ll use this as your official residence, but we keep on doing what we’ve been doing. Right?”
        “Right, but now I have keys…”
        “Which is a good thing,” Neko points out. “You can only get in when we’re not here, and that’s exactly when we might need you to. It would have come in handy the other day, although it ended up not mattering.”
        “Yeah.” Abe grins. “Did you hear, they tried to file a lawsuit – something about their car going missing. They quickly changed their minds when our guys demanded to see all the evidence, and showed them ours, including video from those flights you made. Too late now though, we know who they are.” And if they didn’t already, they know who we are.
        “Did they roll into the courthouse?” Hisao asks, wide-eyed. “I’d imagine it would be hard to walk with balls that big.”
        “Probably set off the metal detectors as well,” Abe says, “seeing as how they’d be made of steel.” All of them get a good laugh. “I’d better go help finish up the moving, and make sure Suzu hasn’t passed out in either of the beds, upstairs or down.”

CHAPTER FOUR

2007-09-06

        “You’re seriously going to leave me here like this?” Neko demands to know.
        “That’s not my call,” snaps Hisao. “I told you you’re invited to come along.” Don’t try to guilt-trip me. Either you follow my lead or you don’t.
        “You know I can’t do that. I have a responsibility here.”
        “It might have escaped your notice, but I haven’t been called to join the Emergency Response team – not when I first joined the club, and not now that the storm is bearing down on us.” I should be the one asking if you expect me to stay here and twiddle my thumbs! “They cancelled classes so that we could leave. You can’t, or won’t, but I plan to.”
        “We have the high ground. If there are evacuations due to flooding, this is where everyone is going to converge. Why run? It’s going to dump on everyone.” Neko has her position and is not going to be persuaded out of it, but Hisao has his.
        “I don’t have time to argue about this anymore,” he points out because the last bus to downtown will arrive in ten minutes and is bound to be packed. “I have to go. I’ll be back Saturday, early or late depending.”
        “You hope you will, at least. Call and tell me if you find out otherwise. If the phones aren’t working, then I’m probably busy anyhow.”
        “I will keep you informed. Stay safe.” He buttons up the trenchcoat, slips the backpack over his shoulders, pockets the nose brace and roll of tape, and checks to make sure he has the sturdiest umbrella in the bunch before heading out into the darkening gloom.
        Due to the demand, about which he was absolutely correct, the stop is served first by the full-size bus, but when that fills to standing-room-only, the driver waves off any further riders, stating that both vans have already been dispatched to take up the overflow.
        He finds room on the first of the two vans, and although many of the passengers know each other, there is very little chatter. I guess nobody really wants to know if someone else lacks a plan, lest it become their responsibility.
        At Kuzuoka station, the driver boots everyone out, telling them that if they wish to go any further into the city today, they’ll have to use mainstream public transit. Hisao had been hoping to get further, but now will have to improvise.
        “I’d rather have you a little bit unhappy than the ones left behind be completely stuck,” the driver explains. “I have to rush back for one last trip.” Everyone stops their grumbling, recognizing that the ones still left could easily have been them. The surprise is the line of people waiting to board for the return trip – to get out to Moniwadai before the typhoon arrives.
        After noting all the routes available by train would first take him far east or far west of the target, he decides the best thing to do is ask. He rings Iwanako to ask what his next move should be.
        “Kuzuoka is on the Senzan line, correct?” He informs her that it is. “Alright, just take the Senzan line east to Sendai Station and we’ll figure it out from there.”
        He hitches up his backpack once again and heads for the train platform, noting that several of the passengers from his van are doing the very same thing. Once at Sendai Station, he calls again.
        “Oh good, I’m just getting into that part of town myself,” Iwanako says. They arrange to meet at a particular magazine stand. He gets there ahead of her and starts browsing through the selection – much of which is wrapped in black plastic, with only the title allowed to show through. Not wanting to actually buy anything like that (if they would let him), he goes back to standing outside.
        “Hey there, stranger,” she says by way of introduction as she slips up behind him. He spins around, and she sets down her large bag and practically leaps into his arms.
        “Well hello yourself. Did you know our rendezvous point sold girlie magazines?” He points his thumb over his shoulder.
        “Uh, no, not really. It was just a place in the station I knew how to find. Are you hungry?”
        “Mmm, maybe a little.”
        “Good, then you can wait a few minutes.” She leads him out to the front of the station and over to a shuttle van painted in the regalia of the Green Mark.
        “I could have walked that far, you know,” Hisao half-whispers to Iwanako.
        “Yeah, probably. You’re doing pretty well. I’m just lazy.” She flashes him a giant grin.
        Once inside, she leads him to the admissions counter, and starts to check in. When the attendant turns away to find her key, he finally interrupts. “I thought we were here to eat.”
        “Eat, drink, celebrate, and stay,” she says. “I start interning with a new visual arts company on Saturday, classes are cancelled between now and then, and I wasn’t sure I’d be able to get down here if I didn’t do it now.” She drops her voice to a whisper. “Besides, it would be a little awkward trying to drink with my aunt around, don’t you think?”

***

        “I’m keeping you informed, just like you asked,” Hisao tells Neko over the phone. “We’re actually quite accessible, if you change your mind. The restaurant caters to downtown, right? Maybe they could give you a ride. Even if it’s only to Kuzuoka station, you can catch a train and we’ll come get you at Sendai station.”
        “You’re not planning another night like that other time, are you? You practically went broke for a week.”
        “Not exactly. We plan to stay out of the bar tonight.” But apparently not out of the bottle. He watches Iwanako move several bottles from her duffel bag into the small refrigerator, and none of them are water.
        “Hmm. It’s very tempting. I’ll tell you what, let the storm pass and allow the damage to be surveyed. If the authorities tell me I can go off duty, I’ll come up and join you for one night. Don’t get stupid.”
        “I had no intention of getting stupid.” I was the only one able to walk last time, in case you don’t remember. “In any case, I understand duty calls. Do what you have to.”
        “You too, darling,” she says. “I’ll let you know as soon as they give me an answer one way or the other, and don’t do anything I wouldn’t do.” She disconnects with a kissing sound.
        That doesn’t exactly help much, as far as moral guidance goes. Or does it? Is she encouraging him to misbehave yet again?
        Meanwhile, Iwanako has set up her laptop. “So is she coming or not?”
        “Not tonight, maybe tomorrow. It depends how bad things get down there.”
        “Mmm, then she’s going to miss the premiere,” she says, pointing to a countdown on the screen.
        “Premiere of what?”
        “You remember that song I sung the last time I was here, the one that ended the Annoy-a-thon?”
        “I most certainly do.”
        “The final video release is at midnight, and you’ll finally get to see what I spent months on.” She closes the laptop most of the way, and pours two glasses of Midori over ice. “I figured we should start light before dinner. I want to be in a decent state when that timer hits zero.”
        Does that mean decently clear-headed, or decently smashed? I guess I’ll find out soon enough.
        The diner is sufficiently popular tonight that they are stuck waiting for a seat, so they take to the lobby, waiting for her name to be called.
        “Oh shit, I guess I’m not the only one who knows who the bar will serve,” Iwanako says while surreptitiously sneaking glances around Hisao.
        He turns and looks, but all he sees are some shabbily dressed white boys.
        “They probably aren’t too worried about tourists,” he says with a shrug.
        “They’re not tourists, they go to my school. Oh, they see us… hurry up and kiss me!”
        “Wha–” His query is interrupted as she presses her lips to his, the faint scent of melon liqueur still on both their breaths. This time, he’s not too surprised to return the gesture, and even become the aggressor. We might as well give them a good show.
        Some twenty seconds or so later, she pats his hand and starts to pull back. He reluctantly lets her go. He is all too grateful that a couple minutes pass before they are called to a table – otherwise, trying to stand up might have been more than slightly embarrassing.

***

        “Seven, six, five… aw hell, not again!” Iwanako moans. Even Mother Nature is conspiring against me. Every time the lights flicker due to the storm swirling outside, the network burps, taking thirty to forty seconds for the wireless access points to reset themselves. The wired portion of the network doesn’t seem to be bothered – or the reset delay would be much worse – but it is probably safeguarded by a battery backup. The laptop rides out the bumps for much the same reason.
        “It will still be there when we get the connection back,” Hisao says in consolation.
        “Yeah, I know… but now I can’t say I was possibly the first person to see it.”
        “You mean other than the production company, and the guy who posted it, and probably the people that run the website?” he points out, but her sour look makes him back away from that edge. “I bet we’ll be in the first hundred, in any case.”
        “Finally!” The sound of synth and drum machine starts with a bouncy beat as Iwanako maximizes the video and dances in her chair. A computer-generated character with exceptionally long blue hair appears, only to be replaced by a two-dimensional chibi waving a leek, and the beat gets much heavier.
        The longer the video rolls, the less Iwanako dances. By the time it finishes less than two and a half minutes after it started, she is fuming. “That backstabbing jerk! I wasted all those weeks to transliterate the lyrics, and he only included the gibberish part!” She closes the laptop harder than is probably good for it and starts shaking.
        “I don’t understand. That wasn’t what you worked on?”
        She stands abruptly, and the chair starts to topple, saved only by a timely nudge from Hisao. “Oh that was what I worked on, to be sure. He just cut ninety percent of my work, that’s all! How am I supposed to use that as a portfolio piece?”
        Someone in the adjacent room pounds on the wall to make the point that it’s now midnight, and she’s being rather loud.
        “Suck it,” she responds, but considerably more quietly. “It looks like we’ll be breaking into tomorrow’s supplies, tonight.” She cracks the seal on a bottle of whisky and pours herself a double, then starts pouring into Hisao’s glass.
        He puts up a hand well before taking as much as she did. “That’s enough, thanks.” He tops it off with a similar amount of ginger ale.
        “I thought this might be my first big break, but there’s barely anything of me in there.” Anyone could have done the nonsense part. “After you left – I didn’t realize you’d been sent up here without even being consulted first – I felt so lost. I knew you were alive, and I was glad that it was so, but you were still gone. I threw myself into the first internship that would take me, one that seemed to have little to do with my career path. Then they told me it was a foreign language production – and not English – and I knew I had taken the right job. I thought I could use it to demonstrate my skills to the linguistics department somewhere. That dream just died.”
        “Maybe an unedited – or at least less-edited – version exists, and they’ll let you use it for that purpose. I mean, it doesn’t seem too much to ask.”
        “You’re right, I can ask. It still won’t be the version everyone sees though, that people will be singing badly as they walk the street, and as they go about their day.”
        “You really think it’s going to get that big?”
        “Damn right it will. You have no idea how many followers this producer has, waiting to for him to drop something new and exciting in their laps. Even something as puerile and simplistic as this is still going to be seen by many thousands of people. He could deliver a turd in a box, and they’d beg for another.” He’s done it before, when he felt the need to get something out the door before people could forget him.
        “There has to be a way to use this to your advantage anyhow, to get a boost from it.”
        “Maybe, but I can’t imagine what it is right now.” She tosses back what remains in her glass and reaches for the bottle once again. “Either I’m too drunk to figure it out, or not drunk enough. Tomorrow I’ll be sober, so right now I’ll try the second guess.”
        Over the next couple hours, the storm rages both outside the walls and inside Iwanako’s head. They are protected from the hazards outside, but it is not so easy to shield oneself from one’s inner demons. Laying back on the bed, she watches the ceiling start to spin, snap back into place, and slowly start to spin again. “Do you like me, Hisao?” she mumbles.
        “Of course I do, and I like being there when you need support, the way you were for me, even if I wasn’t in a state to appreciate it properly at the time.”
        “Yeah, thanks. It would have really sucked to get wrecked alone.” Hey, wait. What is he trying to say? “What do you mean?”
        “I mean, I realize I made it through my trials much better than if you had not been there, and I never felt right about the way it ended. We never even said goodbye. I stopped talking, you stopped showing up, and it was just over.”
        “It doesn’t have to be over, Hisao.” There, I said it, and there’s no taking it back.
        “But… I’m…”
        “Yes, I know you’re with Neko, and I’m fully prepared to let her get a little piece of me, if it means I can get to you. It’s not what I want, but it’s something I could live with.”
        The ensuing silence could be awkward, but somehow it isn’t.
        “So you know.”
        “Of course I know. She told me herself.”
        He sighs deeply and lays down a half meter from her, also staring at the ceiling. “I know she could live with it. It’s me I’m worried about. I really do love her, you know, although I can’t deny my feelings toward you. I would hate to find myself being pulled both ways. I’d probably let myself be torn in half rather than let go of either of you.”
        “And how would that be any different from the way it is right now?” Except that we’ve only ever kissed, but I saw what it did to you. “Do you really think she’s the one? I’m not disparaging her. She has done you a lot of good, and I’m certainly glad someone has been there to keep your spirits up. I just look at the two of you and… I don’t know. You seem like fire and water, and the only ways I see that ending are her boiling you away, or you quenching her flame.”
        He reaches over and grabs her hand. “I – I can’t promise anything right now, but I’ll do everything in my power to get her out here tomorrow, and we will discuss this. You just have to understand that it goes deeper than feelings. Right now, I need her in ways that extend beyond the bounds of our relationship, and in her current state, she needs me just as much. If forced to choose, I’m not in a position where I could take your side over hers, no matter what I might want. Our lives are just too interlaced for that.”
        “Maybe right now,” she says with a sigh, “but I don’t need tengen-jutsu to see that you’re on different paths.” He squeezed my hand again. She rolls to her right, puts her head gently on his chest, and starts to cry.

        «Wherever you go, whatever you do,
        I will be right here waiting for you.»

NEXT

My desired 30 page buffer has been achieved. Since the size of a page is a variable thing, I'll put it in other terms: that's about 12,000 words. This means regular updates will be taking place at whatever pace I can see fit to write, unless there's a reason to hold back. I might be forced to hold back if a chapter runs over 30 pages, as Chapter Five threatened to do, because I won't know how many parts to break it into until it's finished. Also, since chapters now are equivalent to calendar days (with exceptions made for scenes that cross the midnight barrier such as Chapter Four), I may have to hold back on those long chapters to make sure the continuity works.This is in spite of not having the writing urge going, so while there will be progress, it won't be anything like it was when I first started posting this book to the forum.

I got a question when u finish ch 3 will u put a link to download them just like 1&2???

831KingHisaoNakai wrote:I got a question when u finish ch 3 will u put a link to download them just like 1&2???

That's the plan. I can't very well say I wrote a book if it's not easily obtained somewhere as an entire book.

CHAPTER FIVE

2007-09-07

        “Mind the sandbags, love,” Neko advises Mariko as they approach the perimeter that has been improvised to protect the Radio Room. Most are directly against the walls, but the line bows out slightly where it crosses in front of the door in order to leave room to stand while locking the door or opening an umbrella. It is a deviation of just thirty centimeters, but that is enough to trip up someone who doesn’t know it’s coming.
        Inside it is warm and muggy, but the roof repairs seem to be holding. The large waste bin still occupies the space below the whiteboard, but mostly as a precautionary measure, as this is the first major test of the latest patches. It would be possible to open the windows on the leeward side of the building, but the wind can and probably will shift quite rapidly throughout the day, so they’re stuck with the small stovepipe vent added with the last round of repairs.
        “Propagation undoubtedly sucks, and our antenna is whipping in the wind,” Neko says, “but could you take a listen for beacons anyhow?” I’m glad we have that cheap omni up there, it’s not likely to get torn down. I can’t imagine what the guys with hundred meter towers must be worrying about. Actually, she can, but chooses not to, instead checking the state of the backup gear. Battery state is good, and the inverter is lit up green. It’s not that they need the inverter for either the main rig or the scanner, but it would be nice to have some lights if the power goes out, and the room itself is not wired to run on DC power.
        “It’s not so bad, at least not yet,” Mariko reports. “I can be more specific in a moment.” She gives the club callsign and listens for a response. “No problem hitting the Mount Zao repeater at six, it copies clear as a bell.”
        Thirty kilometers is not too much to ask at six meters. “Good. So long as they’re up, we’ll be able to talk to Yamagata and Fukushima at least. If we get blasted, chances are one or the other of them will be less affected, probably Yamagata.” Lightning flashes outside the windows, and the delay before the thunder arrives indicates that it is several kilometers away. We’ve never had an occasion to truly test the grounding of our antenna. Let’s hope we don’t get that test today.
        Neko crouches, knocks the receiver off of the desk phone and maneuvers it onto her shoulder, then dials with a pencil held in the hook.
        “Operations,” answers the person at the other end.
        “Rogers, Radio Room checking in. The roof is holding, and backup power looks good. Call if we’re needed, I’m going to nap on the couch.”
        “«Roger, Rogers.»” The girl at the other end giggles as if delivering her best line in a bad movie, then disconnects.
        Once Mariko departs, Neko digs the small plastic bag containing her medication out of the larger pack, dumping several pills onto the coffee table before using a wooden spoon held in her teeth to push all but three of them back into the bag – two large, one small. Using a segment of refrigerator water tubing, she sucks the pills off the table and swallows them with a mouthful of water.
        Forty-five minutes later, unable to fall asleep again, she digs out a different bag. This one contains little blue bars she liberated from her mother’s cabinet during the chaos with the Russians.

        «Doctor please, some more of these.
        Outside the door, she took four more.»

        Tadao escalates his attempts to wake the snoring figure on the couch. “Hey Neko! What has gotten into you?”
        She opens her eyes halfway and glares at him, though he would never know that. “I told dispatch I was going to nap on the couch and to call me if they needed me. I can’t help that they gave me a last-minute 4 AM shift.”
        “We did call you – twice. You didn’t answer. That’s why we came up,” says Ms. Miyagi from closer to the door. “You are officially relieved of duty. Go sleep in a real bed.”
        Getting her umbrella open is a challenge, but nobody offers to help. Tadao is getting settled in at the desk, and Miyagi just watches, as if gauging Neko’s usefulness. Finally she falls back on using her ‘other hand’, having to remove and replace her shoe.
        “Thank you for trying at least, but I should have made this call as soon as we knew the typhoon was likely to hit us,” Miyagi says dispassionately. “Tadao is in charge of the Radio Room for the duration of this emergency, since it is unlikely your physical state will change significantly.”
        Ordinarily Neko would protest, but feels very little desire to do so with Xanax still flowing through her veins. Damned if I do, damned if I don’t. If I hadn’t accepted the graveyard shift, Miyagi would have demoted me for that.
        “Neko,” Tadao calls out while she’s still trying to figure out how to sling her bag, “I want to take lunch at eleven. You’ll be in the hot seat for an hour or two… provided you can stay awake that long.”
        Now they’re just being mean. “Yes sir,” she snaps, and makes her way into the sideways rain.

        Hisao wakes to the scent of brewing coffee, but also to find Iwanako still lying with her head on his chest. She has drooled on him, which is not so bad in the grand scheme of things. “Do you smell coffee?” he asks while shaking her gently.
        “Mmm,” she mumbles as she turns over. “Chrysanthemum pie.”
        “What?”
        “It’s a bread tree.” She reverts to snoring gently.
        Managing to sneak away without waking her, his first visit is to the restroom. Along the way he finds the coffeemaker to be just finishing its job, still making burbling noises as it boils off the very last of its water. She thought ahead and set it up on a timer. Why don’t I have one of these?
        As good as it smells, he has other priorities and continues into the restroom to do his duty. He has to leave the lavatory area to wash his hands afterward, unless he feels like washing in the shower, and opens the door to find Iwanako has gotten herself moving, and is pouring two cups.
        “You don’t have to do that for me,” he says to her.
        “I’m not. These are both mine. There should be the same amount left in the pot though.” She dumps sugar and creamer into both, and carries them back to the main area of the room. “I didn’t do anything last night I’m likely to regret, did I?”
        He quickly washes up, then follows her, he carrying the disposable cups in one hand, and the coffee pot in the other. “I don’t know. Is a hangover enough cause for regret?”
        “A little I suppose, but I meant the longer term. We’re not going anywhere today, so it’s not like I’m in a rush.” She waves at the muted television and its ominous weather report. The rain has slackened for the moment, or perhaps it’s just being driven into another side of the building.
        “Then no, I don’t recall that you did anything carrying long-term consequences – but I do want to ask, what’s a chrysanthemum pie? Or, for that matter, a bread tree?” He pours himself one and three-quarters cups of coffee. Her estimate was a bit off, but not enough to be worth mentioning.
        She gives him a strange look. “Did you forget to take your medication this morning, or did you take too much?”
        “I should be asking you. You’re the one who mentioned them.”
        “Are you sure you weren’t dreaming? Speaking of pie and bread though, I could use some food. Do we want to go downstairs and get it ourselves, or be extra lazy and have it sent up?”
        You were the one dreaming, not me. “I feel like I could use a shower before I face the world, so if you’re too hungry to wait, we should probably eat up here.”
        “Right. You want hangover-friendly food too? Ham, eggs, bacon, and toast all sound good to me.”
        He takes a moment to check his internal sensors. “Sure, why not.” I’m not hung over, but those sound perfectly good to me too.
        “I’ll call it in then. You can have the shower first, but if I think you’re hogging the hot water, I’m going to jump in before you can use it all.”
        Is that supposed to be a threat, or an invitation?

        Iwanako first taps at the restroom door, then knocks, then knocks louder, and finally has to resort to opening the door and shouting. “Are you going to be much longer? My coffee wants out.” I miscalculated. I should have done this first.
        He turns off the water. “What?”
        “I said, are you almost done? I need to use the privy.”
        “Uh, no, not really. I’d better step out and let you do your thing. Would you mind passing me a towel?”
        She passes a towel over the diffusing glass barrier, and steps back out to wait, dancing from leg to leg. Please hurry.
        He exits less than a minute later, but it seems like an eternity. “All yours.”
        She passes him in the doorway and shuts the door the moment he is clear. Oh blessed relief. The ventilation fan whines annoyingly. No wonder he couldn’t hear me. It wasn’t just the shower. Now that she’s in place, she realizes more wants to make its way out than the morning coffee, so she lets that happen as well. It takes a little while to complete the task, and it burns ominously. Whisky shits. She has to wash her hands beyond the door, just as he did earlier.
        She steps past the divider to tell him he can pick up where he left off, only to find that he is already half-dressed, and that the food has arrived. “Oh. That was quick.”
        “Yeah. I made the poor lady wait at the door while I threw some clothes on. I didn’t feel like answering in a towel.”
        “Aww, I would like to have seen that.”
        “I bet it happens to them daily. I just didn’t want to be that guy,” he proclaims, but the hand over his chest as he says this strongly suggests this wasn’t his entire motivation.
        She walks briskly over to the covered plates on the corner table and pulls the lid off the one further from Hisao. “Whoever finishes first gets the shower first.”
        “Fine by me,” he says, “as long as the other gets the leftovers.”

(Chapter 5 continued...)

        “You’re still up here?” Miyagi gasps in surprise when she turns to face the just-opened door. “I figured you would go home.”
        “And do what? It’s safer up here,” Kenta replies, “except maybe for lightning. If I can help, you know how to find me,” he says, waving his phone. “I just thought Mariko might be on duty, so I came up here first.”
        Although Tadao had appeared to be otherwise occupied, he has his bit to add. “The last time she checked in with anyone is when she helped Neko on her status check before sunrise. When we came up, Neko was here – far from useful, but present – and she was not. Take from that what you will.” He quickly turns his attention back to scanning for transmissions.
        Interesting. I wonder how annoyed they’d be at each other if only one of them had hooked up over break.
        “I’ll add you to the dispatch list as soon as I get back there,” Miyagi says to Kenta. “Two umbrellas are better than one if you prefer dry legs, so maybe we should make that walk together.” She is about to make a final remark to Tadao, but bites it back. I’ll deliver this message myself. No matter how he could deliver it, it would seem like he’s rubbing salt into a wound. This might as well, but Neko doesn’t have to see much of me for a while.
        Once back in the appropriately named Tea Room which is being used as a temporary operations center, Miyagi grabs a list of team leaders, circles the Captain of the track squad, and passes it back to the dispatchers. “He’s ours for the rest of the day.” She then helps herself to some desperately needed hot tea. She’s usually partial to coffee, but suspects she might be best off saving the big guns for when the shit really hits the fan. She uses the school phone system for what comes next, as this is official business.
        “Uh, hello?” That’s definitely not Neko, although the girl answering is equally sleepy.
        “Oh, sorry to disturb you, Suzuki. Is Rogers around?”
        “Nope, haven’t seen her today.”
        “Alright, thanks. If you talk to her before I do, can you let her know she should call Dispatch?”
        “Will do.”
        Nakai would know where she is. She dials him next.
        The line rings five times, but is finally answered – silently.
        “Nakai? Is there a problem? Hello?”
        A few more seconds pass before there is a click and suddenly she can hear someone breathing. “Sorry about that,” Neko says, “I had a hard time wrangling the receiver. Are you looking for him physically, or do you just need to speak to him? He’s downtown. He left after classes yesterday.”
        “I was kind of hoping he was here, actually, but I was really looking for you. First, I want you to understand that my decision wasn’t personal. I still believe that under ordinary circumstances, you would be perfectly capable of leading the Radio branch of the Emergency Response team, and intend to return you to that position when you are equipped to handle it. It’s just that right now, if there was a problem…” Thunder rumbles in the distance at exactly the right moment to reinforce her point, so she continues, “we’d have to come rescue you in addition to whatever else had to be done. Now we could use someone in your stead, preferably someone with a license, but I think we can make do.” It will just take two people.
        “Ai! We’ve got one!” cries one of the dispatch crew. “Flooded vehicle, couldn’t get through to emergency services!”
        Miyagi holds the phone away from her head before firing back. “You know what to do, patch them upstairs.” Pulling the phone back in, she continues. “Tadao may not like it, but I’m going to have Mariko take over the lunch break. It’s time the two of them learned to work as a team, not just play follow-the-leader.”
        “So when do you need me next?”
        “That’s just it, we really don’t. Keep yourself out of harm’s way so we don’t have to pull you out, and you’ll be doing about all you can for us.”
        “I really wish I’d known this yesterday. I’d be downtown right now as well.”
        “I’m quite sorry about that,” Miyagi apologizes. “I kept delaying my decision, hoping it wouldn’t be necessary, that the decision would make itself. It’s my fault, it was my call. Know that we have made note of your commitment to duty.”
        “Well if you change your mind, don’t bother with this room phone. I probably won’t be here.”
        “I tried your room first, Suzuki said she hadn’t seen you all day.”
        “My r– oh, yeah, I guess that’s the official story. I don’t want to cause a fuss, but don’t bother looking for me there either. I’m never there.”
        A little light goes on in Miyagi’s head. “I suppose you’re going to tell me not to bother looking for the Guzmán boy in Nakai’s room either.”
        “«Too right.»” The exaggerated Strine accent sets Miyagi’s nerves on edge.
The next call goes to El Jefe.
        “Security.”
        “Toshio, what is this about the two –” She can’t even call them both students. “– residents from that ranch having traded places?”
        “Seriously? We’re having this discussion now?” Momomoto asks, incredulous. He audibly takes a drag off his cigarette, causing Miyagi to long for one of her own. “Could you at least wait until it stops raining to let me pretend to investigate this?”
        “You know and you don’t care?”
        “Why do you think they moved to Special Needs rooms? We can’t have girls in the boys’ showers or vice versa, but if they have their own, who does it hurt? I’m not the complete fool you take me to be. In case you hadn’t noticed, I live next door to Nakai. I will know if things go off the rails.”
        “You didn’t foresee the Miura situation.”
        “No, because precisely none of it happened here,” he points out. “Give a kid a car, and they cease to be my problem for a while. What do you expect us to do, fit them with tracking collars?”
        “It would be nice sometimes.” Especially Kenji. He has a point though. It’s time for our charges to learn the real-world consequences of their actions, without us there to watch them.
        “I’m probably going to lose you, I have to walk through the weight room now. It’s always zero bars in there.”
        “Is there anyone in there today?”
        “I don’t know, I haven’t looked y–” The call drops in a puff of static.

        Neko packs for a couple days although only one is expected, doing her best to stuff a plastic bag in a way that won’t hopelessly wrinkle her clothes, but knowing it is futile. Once this is filled, she slips the entire bag into a backpack and zips it with her toes. Next, she pokes at her phone with the eraser end of a pencil held in her hook, finally setting it to speaker once it starts ringing.
        “Hi honey, are you underwater yet?” Hisao casually answers.
        “Not up on this hill. How about you?”
        “There’s a ring of sandbags all around the front of the hotel, but it seems to be holding. Up here, it’s not that bad. It’s loud sometimes, and the power keeps flickering, but very little other than the WiFi seems to care. Have you been busy?”
        “I haven’t a clue.” She gives him a compressed account of how she has effectively been suspended from her job, leaving out the bit about passing out on duty.
        “Does that mean you’re coming out here? The storm is supposed to peak around noon, and although it looks like we’re taking a hit from the right front quadrant, things may be passable this afternoon.” He sounds quite optimistic.
        “Sounds like the city is assuming the same, they plan to re-start subway service at four. There’s some local flooding around here apparently. While I was busy getting fired, they got a call about someone trapped in a flooded vehicle.”
        “Well don’t take excessive chances. I hope they’re not planning to drive into the city with the Fit today.”
        I was thinking the same thing. “Yeah, I don’t know what they plan to use, but it’s not like we have better options at the ranch. Let me talk to them, I’ll update you when I can.”
        She tries Ben next, hoping his sleep schedule isn’t too far out of sync currently. Luckily, he answers.
        “Yeah, boss,” he answers in typical fashion.
        “I’m not calling to order you around, but I’m hoping that just maybe you have a catering event downtown today,” she says, not bothering to disguise the slight desperation in her voice.
        “Where are you trying to go, and when? We don’t have anything on the calendar until three, but we have to be there somewhat earlier to set up. It’s going to be interesting.”
        “Anywhere in the general vicinity of Sendai Station would be fine, and three is as good a time as any.”
        “Hmm.” He’s apparently looking something up. “How does right next door sound? We’ve got a wedding reception at the Metropolitan. Man, it must suck to get married on a day like today.”
        “Yeah, isn’t it ironic?” she deadpans, but it seems to go flying right over his head. “I hope you have something equipped to handle some wet terrain. We’ve already had one call for a flooded vehicle and a trapped driver this morning.”
        “We thought of that, and got hold of a Land Cruiser for however long we need it. Think that’ll work?”
        “If that won’t, nothing will, except maybe a speedboat.”
        “If it comes to that, I’m calling you. It was your idea.”
        Yeah right, like I know anyone with watercraft. Then again, there are a paranoid few around here who just might have life rafts in their emergency kits. “So when you say ‘early’, how early do you mean?”
        “Expect to leave by one. They probably won’t, but I wish they would. I’d much rather pay them to play cards in the wings than pay penalties for not showing up on time. Shit, I’d have them go now if I could.”
        “Yeah. Things are going to be a hot mess right about then.” And I just might be as well. She eyes the hookah stashed in the open closet, knowing she can operate a Zippo with her hook and her toes. She has also previously used the surface of her cast to strike matches.
        Soon thereafter, she calls Hisao back to give him that promised update. “The Neapolitan. No, wait, the Metropolitan, sorry. I have the munchies so bad right now.”
        “Speaking of that, do you have a travel kit packed?”
        “Yeah, but I can’t work a regular lighter or pack a pipe right now.”
        “I still can.” He pauses for dramatic effect, and lowers his voice. “If she wants to discuss anything, she will first need to see things the way they actually are. «Capisce?»”

***

        “Does he really think it’s going to take us two hours to get there, even in this weather?” complains Jaco. “I could see us not getting there at all if the roads are closed, but I don’t see how the extra time is going to help.”
        “I have it straight from the horse’s mouth that he’d rather pay you to arrive early and play cards or vidya than be even a minute late.” Neko attempts her sternest look, but she’s only a passenger on this trip, and just draws a puzzled look followed by a laugh.
        “Yeah, boss. I’ll quote you on that if he balks.” He does, however, move just a bit faster.
        She slowly and with great difficulty belts herself into the back seat, in the center, as the food is loaded in behind her. It doesn’t smell that strongly as it is not kept hot, and she just had lunch, but it still reaches through due to her purple haze. It is quite a blessing on days like these that there is sufficient enclosed space in back to completely cover the vehicles, both for delivery of supplies and for catering. The canopy sure does flap around worryingly, though.
        “There we are, that’s all of it,” says another catering chef as he hops into the front passenger seat.
        1:17. That’s not bad.
        Two more climb in on either side of her, making her glad she’s not claustrophobic. She has to hold her backpack on her lap, which would make it even worse.
        There is the sound of fabric giving way, and the flapping intensifies greatly, as does the wind coming through the open doors. “Let’s move!” orders Jaco. “This isn’t going to get any better!” They’re just pulling away when the entire cover, frame and all, goes tumbling in the gale force winds. One pole strikes the side of the Land Cruiser, making the girl on Neko’s right jump. “That’s what insurance is for!” he shouts as he accelerates away.
        Once out of the artificial alcove created by the buildings, the wind drops off significantly, but the now unblocked rain comes in horizontally, and the vehicle lurches from one side to the other quite sickeningly.
        “So what were we supposed to do with you again?” asks Jaco, trying to divert attention from his absolute helplessness at keeping their track going in a straight line.
        “Just take me where you’re going, I’ll take care of the rest,” Neko assures him. As long as we actually get there, that is. Keeping her lunch down in the process would be a nice bonus.
        “I can’t see for shit,” he proclaims, leaning forward as if that will help any. “I’m going to have to slow down.”
        That’s why we left early. Even if we have to stop and wait, we’re that much further along than if we left later.
        Stop and wait they do, several times, due to various circumstances. In one case it’s a downed power line. In another case, it’s a collision that they just manage not to become part of. Other times, visibility is so poor that traveling at anything more than a crawl would be suicidal. Luckily for Neko, the effects of the cookie consumed hours before are finally reaching a peak, helping to suppress her nausea. She suspects she would never be invited along on another trip if they have to clean her chunder out of the floor mats.
        Jaco is a bit baffled. “GPS says it’s right there, but…”
        “There!” calls out the guy in the passenger seat, waving wildly as they drive past the entrance.
        “Shit.” They maneuver to the far right of their side of the road and start the process of looping around a four block region to make another pass.
        2:37. Neko would cross her fingers if that were not rendered impossible by the cast.
        It’s seven minutes to three when they get to the unloading dock in the parking structure beneath the building. Sixteen kilometers took them ninety-six minutes. Neko chips in as best she can, summoning and holding the elevator for them.
        Jaco hands her the keys, hanging them on the ‘thumb’ of her hook. “Take care of the valet parking, would you, and bring the ticket up to me before you go?” He doesn’t even wait for an answer before bolting through the closing elevator doors, leaving her with a badly dented and very muddy rental.
        On the way upstairs, she places the call to let Hisao know she made it, ‘shaken but not stirred’. Once there, she takes the ticket to Jaco, now acting as the lead chef. “They asked if we wanted the car washed for two thousand yen. I told them yes; I was afraid they wouldn’t park it otherwise. Obviously, only pay them if they do. Did you make it in time?”
        “By one set of rules, yes. We, and the food, were here by three. By another, no. It wasn’t ready to eat at three. It doesn’t really matter though, the wedding party itself didn’t get here on time, so they weren’t in a position to notice. They’re still just getting settled in. The guys made you a plate, but we have to eat in the kitchen. I’ve never understood that. Shouldn’t it inspire confidence in the quality of the food to see that the cooks are eating it too? Anyhow,” he says as he tips his head to indicate a door behind him, “it’s in there.”
        “I had lunch before we left, but I’ll take it to my friends.” She shoots a glance at the chicken cordon bleu he is currently setting out. “Or maybe not.”
        As it turns out, there isn’t space remaining in her pack to take all of it with her, so she has a taste of everything that catches her fancy until it fits. She has mastered a method of pinning things down with a fork held in her nearly immobile hand, and cutting it apart with a knife in the hook, which has to be periodically re-grasped as it slides. It’s less than pretty, and brutally inefficient, but it does work.
        She’s on the way to the elevator when her phone beeps. She would have to set down the pack to get to it, so she ignores it until she gets to the lobby. ‘No shuttles,’ it says, ‘taking a cab. 1419.’
        The dropoff/valet area of the hotel is reasonably well protected. In ordinary rain, she would be just fine with standing outside until they arrive, but this is far from ordinary. Just trying to stay upright in the wind can get exhausting, particularly with only one arm mobile to aid balance. Thus, they don’t see her when they pull up, and Hisao has already exited the cab to search for her before she can get out the door. Once he does spot her, he rushes over to take her pack and offers an arm for stability, which she gladly accepts.
        He opens the door for her, and she climbs in, scooting all the way across to the other side. He follows behind her and closes the door, then buckles both of them in. She notices the front passenger seat is empty as they pull away.
        “Just you? She didn’t want to come along?” Neko asks.
        “She did, but insisted you couldn’t see the room in the state it was in when you called. I don’t know what she was so worried about, but it bothered her so I let it go. It probably worked out a bit better this way anyhow, since I had to flag down a cab. Someone would have ended up front for the return trip.”
        Rather than converse, she decides this ride might be better spent trying to read his face and body language. Did they misbehave? And if so, will he tell me without prompting? She’s not getting anything though. Maybe they really didn’t. She doesn’t know whether to be pleased that he’s so trustworthy, or disappointed that she may have to propose all of the bad behavior herself.

***

(Chapter 5 continued...)

        A harmless-looking mint tin is placed on the table.
        “Do you know what this is?” asks Hisao.
        “I didn’t know there were liquorice Altoids, but other than that, sure,” says Iwanako with a nod. The thought of them clashes unpleasantly with the memories of the just-consumed takeaway Neko brought from the Metropolitan.
        “Um – not exactly,” he says, flipping the lid open and pushing the tin across the table, as Neko looks on silently.
        “That’s… ugh.” Iwanako flips the lid shut and pushes it back. “Whose idea was it to bring this trash?” She glares alternately at them, and Hisao’s hand goes up.
        “Mine. I asked her to bring this. This meeting is supposed to be, first and foremost, about full disclosure, is it not?”
        “So that’s yours?”
        “No,” Neko finally interjects, “it’s mine, but I wouldn’t have packed it without the request.” She slides it slightly over the edge of the table so she can get a grip on it with the hook, and carries it away.
        “Do you do it too?” Iwanako doesn’t feel the need to specify her target, as Neko is currently fumbling to re-stow the item, off in the corner.
        “A little, not much. Smoking anything is a bad idea for me,” he acknowledges with a nod, “but once a week or so isn’t going to kill me.”
        “What about her?” The volume level is about the same, and certainly not raised for Neko’s benefit.
        She hears it anyhow. “«Four-twenty, smoke weed erry day, bitches.»” She has the accent pretty much spot-on. “No, really, it’s mostly a weekend thing, or a few nights after all the work is done...” She glances down at her cast, then tips her head toward the window and the audible splatter of rain as she comes back to the table. “...with exceptions for special circumstances. It’s Friday, but it may as well be the weekend.”
        “You’re high right now?!”
        “Not so much anymore, but I was for the trip out. Good thing, too. Between my other meds and the car rocking in the wind, I would have lost my lunch otherwise – which reminds me of something else. Honey, remember that teal canopy you thought was so unsightly, out back of the restaurant?”
        “Yeah?” he says, looking curious.
        “Maybe you can help them pick a new one. It blew away as we were leaving. The frame bashed up the side of the car pretty nicely as it was waving goodbye, too.”
        “Think your Mum will care?”
        “Not in the slightest, we rented a Land Cruiser for the day.”
        “I’m lost,” Iwanako interjects. “Who, what?”
        “The restaurant does most of its deliveries in a car my Mum bought for some rather inane reasons,” Neko explains. “He assumed that’s the one we took today. Even if it was, she wouldn’t give a shit as long as it got fixed.”
        “That little white one we took to the amusement park?” I can see why they’d want something else today.
        “No, but something not too much different. That was Ben’s own car, which the restaurant also uses from time to time. Anyhow, I have sort of a strange request.” Neko puts the hook arm around Hisao. “Mariko has been kept busy on the Emergency Response Team, for which Kenta volunteered himself as well, so I haven’t had a decent shower in two days. I could really use your help.”
        “Me? Of course, but it’s not my…” he starts, a bit flustered.
        “Of course you can take a shower,” Iwanako interrupts. “I can see why it would have been a problem.”
        “Huh?” Neko catches Iwanako’s eyes on the cast. “Yeah, this is why. It won’t melt, but getting water inside makes me itch like crazy for hours. I will be so happy if they move me to a soft cast next week, or even if I can just use my elbow.”
        The ‘me too’ look in Hisao’s eyes is unmistakable. I guess this has been harder for him than he has been letting on, but that’s typical. He’s never been one for useless complaining. The two of them gather what they need, then set to dismantling her mechanical parts.
        Iwanako watches as they work their way around the barrier, toward the shower. She seems so vulnerable, totally unlike the last time I saw her, though I can understand why. Injury to a limb would be much more disastrous if you only have two good ones to start with.
        Once they are out of sight, she lounges in the bed and turns on the television – muted, as usual – just to have something of a distraction and to track the conditions outside.
        What does he see in her? She sees no need to wonder what Neko sees in him. They seem so utterly different, but when you peel back the onion, maybe they aren’t. Both just want to be like everyone else, but their bodies say otherwise. Both are doing a reasonably good job of making everyone forget, including themselves. And both of them are one incident away from having it all come crashing down.
        But aren’t we all?

        “Darling, you have no idea how nice it is to have your help.” Neko demonstrates her gratitude with a kiss. “Mariko tries hard, she really does, but it’s pretty apparent that she’s not comfortable. She rushes through things. I may get a wash, but that’s not the same as feeling clean, you know? Not to mention shaving, where I trust you far more.” I have no idea how Mariko shaves herself, but I don’t want her wielding a razor anywhere near me.
        “You don’t have to convince me,” Hisao responds with great sincerity. “The first time the hospital let me take a shower by myself, rather than receiving a sponging down in bed, was the best I can remember. It made me feel like a human again, and not merely a patient.”
        She does the heel-toe scoot into the far corner, keeping the cast turned toward the glass, while he re-starts the water and does a little bit of touch-up on his own showering. Not even eight hours have passed, but ninety percent humidity has not treated him well. He does skip the hair wash in favor of a quick rinse.
        “So how do you think she grooms down there?” she asks, keeping her voice so low it is almost lost in the noise of the shower.
        The question catches him completely by surprise. “I – um, well – I hadn’t really given it much thought.” His undisguisable blush says otherwise, but it’s just another piece saying he and Iwanako really have been well-behaved, despite both of them wanting to be bad.
        Once the water stops, a greater than usual amount of time has to be spent carefully drying off. It’s still not too late to end up with water inside the cast, and it has to be maneuvered around in any case. Suddenly there comes a tapping, as of someone gently rapping, rapping at the restroom door.
        “Um, are you two lovebirds going to be much longer?” comes the voice from the other side of the door.
        Hisao cracks a wide grin. “She must have made more coffee.”

        The house phone blares, its ringer set at maximum, and both players jump at the unexpected intrusion into their quiet afternoon game. Had it been Hanako placing a stone, rather than Akira, they would probably have gotten scattered about the room.
        I didn’t even know you had a landline, Hanako thinks as Akira jumps up as quickly as she can to take the call.
        “Hello?” Akira answers, picking up the base of the phone as she cradles the receiver with her shoulder. “«Oh, hi Father, and good afternoon to you as well.»” A moment passes, and she cracks a smile. “«In that case, good morning. I forget about time zones when I’m not in the office.»”
        Eventually she carries the base as far as its cord will allow, and sets it on the end table. She locks eyes with Hanako, and mimes a warning about the knee-level cord before taking a place at the end of the loveseat. “«I am now, is something wrong?»”
        Akira’s face goes from curious to dismayed in the span of about fifteen seconds. Another thirty go by before she speaks. “«Oh. Shit. And they’re sure about this?»” She nods grimly as she listens. “«Right, I didn’t mean to doubt you. Do you want me to tell Lils, or do you intend to do that yourself?»”
        Hanako can see the slight relaxation at whatever response she gets. “«I understand completely. Is there anything I can do? I mean, are we going to re-schedule the office move for this, or is it simply too big an endeavor to be altered for one person?»”
        Akira nods along to the response. “«They’ve never been anything but professional with me, I’m sure that will be just fine.»” She goes back to listening. Her gasp is immediately followed by a hand covering her mouth. She stops breathing for several seconds before letting it all out in a big rush. “«How will I know?»”
        She holds her stiff posture, as if caught between standing and leaning back. She blinks several times in rapid succession. “«Yes, I want to know. I need to know. I understand why you want to tell Lilly yourself.»”
        She gasps again, her hand flying back up to her mouth. “«Oh! I suppose that will be reassuring at one level, but it’s still not exactly good news.»” A long moment passes.
        Tears are welling at the corners of her eyes, and she is no longer able to resist their downward charge as she concludes the call. “«I love you too, Papa.»” She slowly hangs up the phone, and sits with her hands in her lap, looking absolutely shell-shocked.
        Hanako gets up from her place on the mat and joins Akira on the loveseat, picking up her hands and holding them in her own. “Is there a-anything I can do to h-help?”
        Akira looks her in the eyes briefly, then resumes staring into the void. “You already are.”

        Hisao and Neko both do their best to keep completely straight faces as they open the restroom door. Iwanako has no such luxury, having to pick her jaw up off the floor as the other two emerge from the restroom in their birthday suits, all clothing tucked under his free arm.
        “You sounded like you were in a hurry, love,” Neko says as they slip past. She knows better than to let Hisao deliver the line, as he is absolutely incapable of a farce of this magnitude – even though there is some truth to it. Dressing her can take a while.
        “Ah… Ah…” is all that escapes poor Iwanako’s lips as she darts into the restroom and slams the door behind her.

        “No, dearest, it’s not like that at all. I don’t just want to tell you, I have to tell you,” Akira sobs. “It’s just really hard for me right now to think of a way how.”
        “Y-you told me that when I c-can’t say it, I should stop th-thinking so hard,” Hanako offers. “It was good advice.”
        Akira swallows, and sets down the tumbler Hanako poured for her, completely untouched. “You’re right. You’re absolutely right.” She leans back into the cushions and stares at the ceiling for a few seconds. Without making eye contact, she just lets it fly. “Papa is dying. I might be too.”
        Hanako’s heart skips a beat, and she feels the clutches of anxiety eating away at her from the inside, but knows this is no time to fall apart. She wants to prompt for more information, but cannot decide how to do so without causing Akira to think too much, contrary to the earlier commandment. She also risks spooking herself. Thus, she remains silent but attentive.
        “Fifty-fifty, he said. And it’s not going to kill either of us tomorrow, or anything like that. Even he may have a few years to go.” Akira falls silent again.
        This time Hanako knows which direction she wishes to steer the conversation. “Wh-what about Lilly?”
        “She’s completely safe. I didn’t get an explanation of exactly how, but he knows she didn’t inherit it.”
        How could they know that? Hanako can only come up with two possible answers. The first is that she has already been tested, which seems unlikely. She would ask questions. The second is that she could not have inherited it at all. Because she’s not related to him. Hanako doesn’t necessarily want to, but has to go deeper. How could I have not realized this myself?
        Sure, Lilly has perfectly adopted the mannerisms of her homeland, but she in no way resembles any other native. Hanako had always assumed the blue eyes were a symptom of whatever caused her to be born blind, but realizes this is probably not the case. She’s completely European by blood, isn’t she. This is going to throw her for a bad loop, and I’ll bet anything she’s finding out right about now.
        “I am here for you,” she says, wrapping her arms tight around Akira before she can retreat into a fetal position. “And I r-really think we n-need to be there f-for Lilly. Together.”

        “I know I seem to be picking nits, but it almost all has to do with what we’re allowed to do,” Neko emphasizes. “I’m not interested in walking on eggshells for a newcomer, and while I’m not in the habit of speaking for others, I don’t think he is either. That doesn’t mean you have to participate. Likewise, if you have ‘bad habits’ you don’t want made a point of contention, now is the time to air them.”
        “I just don’t want you lighting up in a space I’m legally responsible for,” Iwanako protests. “If something happens, it’s my neck that’s on the line.”
        “We both agreed to that,” Hisao says. “It’s one thing to tolerate, which is what she’s asking for. It’s another to tacitly condone something, and you have every right not to do that. It was my idea to get straight to the point. If that didn’t spook you – although it nearly did – then we were probably not going to run into to many other showstoppers.”
        “I just thought you were so… so good! It was a bit of a shock to find out you’re not the naïve idealist I thought I knew.” Iwanako takes another sip from her glass of not-bad (but not great either) local whisky.
        Hisao waves a hand at that glass. “I could say the same thing.”
        “Yeah but… at least this will be legal for us eventually. It’s different.”
        “So it would seem,” Neko retorts, “at least on the surface. The real difference is that it is widely ignored. So is my little habit, in my natural habitat. You just don’t have to pay the authorities to look the other way.”
        “Wait, El Jefe is on the take?” Hisao looks shocked.
        Neko laughs. “Of course he is. His selective blindness doesn’t come for free. It has to make his life easier in some way, whether logistically or financially.” Then she sees that he wasn’t just deadpanning, he really didn’t know.
        “I just figured he didn’t want to get on the wrong side of the big donors. I didn’t know he actually had his hand out.”
        Neko shrugs. “Babe, he lives next door. You seriously think he doesn’t know? If anything, he’s paying more attention to us. He knows where his interests lie, but it never hurts to remind him.”
        “Then why did you pick that room if it put us right under his nose?”
        “Because I have great confidence he’s not going to turn on us. It would be a bad career move, to say the least. By being right under his nose, it pretty well ensures nobody else is going to screw with us. Better the devil you know than the one you don’t.”
        Iwanako watches this interchange, head whipping back and forth like she was watching a tennis match.
        “In case you weren’t already aware, Neko is heiress to a rather significant business empire,” Hisao says before pausing dramatically, “or would be, if she hadn’t already abdicated the title. It’s centered on wine, and everyone knows about that, but having control of a distribution network of that size opens… many other opportunities. It also entails certain liabilities, such as obtaining the goodwill of other local businessmen by various means.” He shoots Neko a glance. “Is that a pretty good summary of the situation?”
        “You tell me,” she answers, somewhat wide-eyed. “I thought I’d been protecting you from knowing how deep the rabbit hole goes. Now I have to wonder if instead, you have been protecting me.”
        “You think the Suzu situation is an anomaly, dear?”
        “Well, sort of. Obviously Mum can use her leverage to get certain things. I just thought they were for her own amusement – or at least I wanted to believe that.” Neko lets out a low whistle. “Now I’m doubly glad I gave up the crown.” What a time and place to get redpilled.
        Iwanako takes the straw from Neko’s empty glass and inserts it into her own, then pushes the drink across the distance to her. “Here, I think you need this more than I do.”
        “Thank you,” Neko says as she pushes it back, “but I have to be quite careful. Alcohol and opiates together are a good way to not wake up tomorrow.”

NEXT

Wow, I've gotten no hate mail from anyone for besmirching the parentage of their waifu. I don't know if I should be relieved or disappointed, or just see it as a sign of declining interest from registered users. I know I have readership among the unregistered lurkers, but they wouldn't be commenting. They find other, sometimes surprising ways to reach me (like the time I had someone join my Minecraft server daily for a week until he caught me). Oh well. Based on the maxim "If you’re not pissing someone off, you probably aren’t doing anything important," I've never shied away from tweaking the noses of fans and original character creators alike if it serves a useful purpose. I got crap for it before, but maybe they've given up.

Real update to follow soonish, probably this weekend. Expect more bombs to fall before the end of the chapter.

(This post at least partly exists to make sure post #15 on the page doesn't break it.)