The Sweeper Bargains, part one

Chigusa stared down the pistol’s barrel, while she shivered, cold sweat dripping down her face. Her pupils narrowed, muscles tensed, and cyberbrain neurons flared as she gazed upon the smoking muzzle of Shiyuri’s gun.

“N-Nekolain? What’re you saying, miss Shiyuri?” said Chigusa with a quiver in her voice.

“Oh, Code Reader. Take a hint,” said Shiyuri with a menacing smile. “Nekolain needs some access codes. If you don’t have ‘em, take me to someone who does.”

“I don’t…”

“Hm? What’s that?” harped Shiyuri threateningly.

“I don’t know anyone. Not anyone willing to give me any further access than reading and helping revise city codes. I got demoted, and…” said Chigusa on the brink of tears. At that point, she also began to bow her head and beg. “Please, just leave me alone… I’m not really worth your time, Miss Shiyuri. I’m a nobody.”

Shiyuri grunted. She gnashed her teeth and clicked her tongue. “Huh,” she uttered with contempt. “You’re right. You are a nobody.”

“Then…?”

Shiyuri then pulled on the hammer of the gun, making an audible click. “Then that means you’re useless,” she said while staring down the bowed Code Reader. “Pray they make you a better body in the next life.”

Chigusa closed her eyes and knelt down. Though afraid of death she was not, she readied herself for the pain she would experience. This was a definite end for her. Even in all her naivety, she knew that when someone primed their gun like that, the only thing coming right after was…

A gunshot.

Followed by a ping, and a clang. A bullet ricocheted from one wall to another, then to one lamppost to the next. And did that bullet strike at Shiyuri’s hand; its force disarming her and flinging the pistol several meters away. The searing pain caused her to recoil and grab her hand to ease the sensation. She scanned her front and sides for the bullet’s possible origin, both by sight and by scanner.

She could not find the source.

“Yo,” greeted arrogantly a man’s voice a few paces behind Shiyuri. “Call me an old-timer, but I didn’t know detergents came in the shape of 9mm’s nowadays.”

“Who…?”

Shiyuri turned to look behind her, and sighted Kuroiwa aiming his pistol to the side at a nearby wall. Kuroiwa waved at her with a friendly gesture while turning his gun in her direction at the same time. “Or maybe you girls didn’t go shopping after all,” said Kuroiwa as his face turned serious. “Jigs’ up, lady. Hands where I can see them.”

“Mister Kuroiwa! You’re…” shouted Chigusa in joyful relief.

Shiyuri remained defiant and instead stared him down, then down at near his feet, where Kuroiwa had now stomped on her pistol underfoot.

“Oh, sensei. Playing cop now, are we? You have impeccable timing.”

“Impeccable timing, my foot.” chuckled Kuroiwa. “You didn’t think I’d actually keep my eyes off someone as sus as you, right? I’ve been hot on your trail for a while now. Though I’ve to give props, you lost me for a good two minutes before I got here.” He looked over Shiyuri’s shoulder and onto Chigusa, who was knelt on the ground but smiled at the sight of him. “Don’t worry, Chigusa. I got this.”

“Oh my, Sensei!” Shiyuri put her hand up to her mouth as if imitating a classy, saucy rich woman. “How ignorant was I to think you’d avert your gaze from a beauty such as I?” she said with a hubristic, romantic flair.

“Save me the pedantry,” mocked Kuroiwa. “To think you were Nekolain, of all things. I should end you where you stand. Maybe they’ll give me a hefty sum for your head. That’ll solve my money problems for a while.”

Shiyuri pranced and stepped aside, while still denying Kuroiwa’s request for a surrender.

“You say that, but you can’t, right?”

“Oh yeah?”

“For one, you could’ve just shot me in the head, my dear Sensei,” explained Shiyuri as she pointed a finger gun onto her temple. “You don’t seem the type to beat around the bush at all.”

Kuroiwa winced yet kept his gun pointed at her with a firm grasp. He dug his heels to the ground and bit his lip.

She was right. Kuroiwa would have gone for the kill instantly the moment he saw Chigusa in grave danger. He was never the type to spare a target for chit-chat unless specified by a client. And yet here he was, staring down one of the most wanted cybercriminals in Neo Shibuya, when he could have ended her a minute earlier. He couldn’t even end her now.

Damn it…

Shiyuri was a woman.

Killing Shiyuri went against his personal code, even for someone he considered nothing more than a robot. Even in the midst of his unspeakable body count as a sweeper, nary a woman was in that list. He would refuse requests to erase them even when paid handsomely.

He could overpower Shiyuri and apprehend her with close quarters combat, but it was too much of a risk. Their android bodies were, on average, just as strong or even stronger than Kuroiwa physically. He risked being overpowered himself.

Kuroiwa sighed and eased his stance. He lowered his and stared Shiyuri down. There was no use bluffing his way out of an opponent who called every move he had.

“You know what? You’re right.” conceded Kuroiwa.

“Oh? Sensei, are you all out of cards already?” said Shiyuri, lifting her chin and smiling smugly at the sweeper. “Imagine my luck! Getting disarmed and outnumbered by two perfectly capable people, and they just happen to be the most docile little critters in the city. How fortunate it is for the great Nekolain!”

“It seems so,” he said, caressing the barrel of his revolver. “So you’ve got me all figured out. I’m almost curious how you managed to find out so much about me. Am I that interesting to you, Nekolain, Neo Shibuya’s most wanted cyberterrorist? How much else do you know?”

“I only know what I know. And that’s everything.”

Kuroiwa grinned. He reached into his pocket and showed his phone face front in Shiyuri’s direction, with a certain contact number displayed on the screen. It showed Sei’s number. “Are you also aware that I’m well connected with someone who can screw you over six ways to Sunday?”

He continued, his smile growing longer. “For someone as infamous as you, I’m sure you’ve heard the name ‘IZUMI’ before.”

“IZUMI…?”

It ticked in her head. Shiyuri flinched and took one step back. She grimaced at the phone, using her ocular zoom-in function to get a closer look at Kuroiwa’s phone.

“Oh. That IZUMI. The Security Knight…” she said with a giggle. “So what of it? You’ve got her contact info? I’ll be out of the block before she even gets here, you know. And none of you have the gall to even stop me from doing so.”

Kuroiwa donned a poker face and kept his smile on. “She only lives a few blocks over. If I call her now and tattle, she’ll be here lickety-split. Even I’m not sure what she’s really capable of, if she knew you were Nekolain.”

“That’s impossible. There’s no way you can treat that call button like it’s the Ghostbusters’ hotline.”

“Maybe. You wanna try me?”

It was a lame, crappy bluff. The equivalent of ‘calling the cops’ in a dire situation, where the police will most definitely arrive after everything is over, like a Hollywood movie. Sei didn’t live anywhere near their current location; Kuroiwa didn’t even know where she lived at all, or if she was even available right now. He was starved of options, and this was the best he could pull off.

Shiyuri scoffed. “A useless move, Sensei,” she flipped her hair and quickly regained her composure. “But I’ll play along, because you seem desperate—and playing with desperation is all within my strike zone.”

The girl then asked him, “Let’s pretend your bluff worked. What’s your end goal?”

Kuroiwa stated his endgame.

“I don’t call a Security Knight on you and you tell me what you’re up to. Why you were trying to get me in a compromising position back in the washers, and why you were holding Chigusa at gunpoint.”

“Then?”

“Then we walk away like nothing happened.” said Kuroiwa, looking over Shiyuri’s shoulder again, trying to get a glimpse of Chigusa. “I’m sure Chigusa would be alright with that…”

…Chigusa?

She was no longer there. Chigusa disappeared from sight, eluding even Kuroiwa’s watchful eye.

How the hell did she just… vanish?

When did it happen? Was it when Kuroiwa bargained with Shiyuri? Just now? A minute ago?

It baffled Kuroiwa. He thought he had tabs on this entire situation, but now his old customer had up and evaporated. How did this happen? Do androids and cyborgs teleport now? What mysterious technology would even allow it?

Kuroiwa shook his head and tried shifting his attention back to Shiyuri.

“My eyes are up here, Sensei.”

“I-I know that. I’m not staring.”

He scanned his surroundings for Chigusa’s presence, but she was nowhere to be found. He couldn’t enter a Hypersense state, because that would require some concentration, of which he had none to spare without losing focus of Shiyuri.

“Go on. You were saying?” Shiyuri demanded of Kuroiwa, noticing his attention wavering.

“Hold up. I’m thinking.”

“Who says that during parlay?!”

Kuroiwa heard footsteps coming from behind Shiyuri. He peeked over her shoulder yet again, and saw a shadowy figure creeping up on her. As the lamppost shone a light on it, Chigusa’s figure emerged, holding a big, wooden mallet more than half her size. Her eyes fixated on Shiyuki with a murderous gaze, reminding Kuroiwa of a certain psycho from an, at the time, memetic american movie.

What—

Chigusa slammed it onto Shiyuki’s head with a loud thud. Shiyuri fell to the ground and planted her face on the pavement, yet she remained intact. Kuroiwa expected the girl’s head to explode like a melon, but that’s not what happened at all. It was like a scene straight out of an old-timey cartoon.

“Chigusa, when—”

“Oh, Mister Kuroiwa!” Chigusa waved at him with a casual smile. “I ran off and bought this while you were talking with Miss Shiyuri. I thought it might be useful in apprehending her.”

Kuroiwa’s face contorted and froze in disbelief.

“Apprehend her? That could’ve killed her!”

“Don’t worry, this is just a bug zapper!” she said with such confidence. She slammed the hammer almost as tall as her on the ground, cracking the cement under her feet. “It sends electro waves throughout the body that paralyze our bodies for a short time.”

“B-bug zapper? That thing could’ve taken her head off.” said Kuroiwa, approaching Shiyuri’s body slowly while stroking his chin.

“But it didn’t! So all’s well that ends well, Mister Kuroiwa!”

I gotta me one of those...

It seemed that Chigusa entered that chipper, less withdrawn mode of hers again. It was like a switch between two personalities; which would have bothered Kuroiwa, if he hadn’t known actual flesh and blood girls from back then who acted eerily similar to her. Sans the giant hammer, of course.

“...Thanks.”

“Eh?”

Kuroiwa scratched the back of his head in embarrassment. “I mean, thanks. You saved me this time,” said he, averting his gaze. “I can’t imagine how this would’ve gone without you.”

“On the contrary. I should be thanking you for saving me.”

“...Fair enough.”

Chigusa procured ropes from her handbag and handed them over to Kuroiwa. “Here. You can use these to detain Miss Shiyuri.”

“Uh, why do you have rope with you?”

She smiled with the warmth of a thousand suns and answered, “Don’t worry about it!”

Ignoring whatever strange or inhumane reason Chigusa may have ropes on her, he cut the rope into smaller segments with a small flint, and tied Shiyuri’s hands and legs before she could regain consciousness… if she regained it at all.

“Let’s get outta here first.

Then we’ll see what her problem is.”