Chapter 13:

Aki the Successor

Rat's Reason


I restrained the Aquinor guard and stole his uniform. The helmet’s opaque visor helped keep my identity safe, while also letting me monitor Aquinor chatter within the compound. With help from Proteus, I navigated the halls and neared the award ceremony, where I could signal Mako and escape.

Through a couple ajar doorways, I spotted the opulent lights and guests in formal attire, but someone intercepted me. Asa-8. She wore a tight-fitted black gown with holographic sequins. Lingering at a doorway, she called my name as I passed, despite my disguise. I ignored her, but she said:

‘I know it’s you, Yagi.’ She tapped her wrist. Beams of light ran across my back. I paused and flipped cyber-side, sensing her activity. I evaded the Aquinor guards well enough, but if someone scanned for my Venator licence, a phony uniform wouldn’t help. ‘I spotted Serizawa in the hall,’ she said. ‘Figured you weren’t far, and sure as the sun, I saw you skulk away.’

I turned to her, lifting my visor. ‘Whose side are you on?’

‘Sides,’ she scoffed. ‘Breaking into an Aquinor compound does not support the Sumiaka-kai’s interests. You are as much an antagonist as them.’

‘Report me,’ I retorted. ‘Do you really think S-K leadership care about sabotage to Aquinor?’

I made to leave, but Asa-8 said, ‘You acquired something, didn’t you?’

Proteus trilled, as if to keep me moving. I didn’t.

‘Give it to me, and I will have Genshiken Asa restore your status in the syndicate. In fact, I’ll have you promoted to lieutenant.’

Proteus rattled around my brain. ‘Is your resolve so brittle?’ he asked.

…Possibly, I thought. A promotion to lieutenant—I’d be the youngest to achieve it. Tatsuya had been one of the youngest Venators, though being the youngest syndicate lieutenant’s had its own special charm. But, after the briefest moment’s consideration, the offer told me one thing: Asa-8 didn’t know what I’d acquired. If she knew I’d found an AI who escaped the Rat King and had the capacity to help find him again, she’d have promised me things she had no right to promise.

‘The compound was a bust,’ I told Asa-8. ‘Didn’t find anything but vintage reds.’

She stepped toward me, but I’d grown inured to her intimidation. To a degree. Her eyes freaked me out, but I wasn’t going to give her Proteus. I couldn’t imagine much mattered more than my new AI companion. Asa-8 bared her teeth. ‘Your ignorance will ruin the world,’ she hissed.

That sounded…dramatic. I tried to process her threat, but a volley of gunfire cracked through the evening. The guests in the main hall screamed and spread in a wide, unorderly escape, colours of attire a messy swarm. I lowered the helmet’s visor and checked the compound’s cameras. An armoured figure in a white fox mask tore through the hall. Swirling tattoos of clouds and waves covered their arms.

‘Snow Fox,’ Asa-8 breathed, eyeing the doorway.

‘I doubt…’

I thought the Snow Fox was a myth. Then again, I’d thought the same about Ennio, the Muted Man. The Snow Fox had made a name for themselves by killing syndicate Venators. Never independents. They didn’t have a Venator licence but were funded as if they did. Many assumed the CVC funded them via proxies, likely glad to let the syndicates get hurt.

The Fox got the name from their mask, and because rats got eaten by birds, but birds got eaten by foxes. So, analogous for androids, Venators, and the Fox. But typically the Fox assassinated isolated Venators, not engaging in grand, public assaults.

Guards rushed the Snow Fox, firing without concern for the fleeing guests. The Fox wore a full-body kinetic displacer, which fizzled at the impacts. Armour sustained any bullets that made it through. I didn’t recognise their cybernetics, but they had fearsome alterations to their legs and eyes. The Fox dashed with unparalleled speed, slashing at the guards’ exposed joints with the Cat-Claw cybernetic, using each enemy's body to block bullets from their comrades.

Aquinor didn’t underpay their guards; the armour would’ve protected against knife attacks. But the Cat-Claw broke through almost anything. As if to demonstrate this, the Fox leapt off various surfaces and slashed at wooden supports in the ceiling and walls. The balcony destabilised, and guards fell into the Fox’s proverbial maw. With the guards dead, the Fox turned their attention to Venators.

The syndicate Venators like Iju Wataru and others had fled with the guests, or were in the process. Mako alone, though no longer a Venator, stayed among the carnage, back pressed to a pillar, a highball tumbler in each hand. She chewed a mint leaf on the rim of her drink, eyeing combat over the rim.

An Aquinor Venator I later learned was named Rose Shellmite, trapped behind the fleeing crowd, suddenly found her courage. She whirled around, drawing a compact shotgun from under her gown, and fired at the Fox. The pellets grazed the Fox’s arm, angering rather than disabling. The Fox sprinted across the hall and savaged the unprotected Venator, disembowelling before slashing her elbows. Rose Shellmite’s forearms hung limp from stringy tendons.

Witnessing this, Asa-8 reeled away from the doorway. ‘Protect me,’ she ordered, with genuine fear.

More guards came from the hall to support me, their supposed ally. They formed two columns comprised of four men each, ready to breach the hall. But the Fox kicked open the doorway first and jumped, corkscrewing in the air and slashing with wild, blurred swings. She landed low and on three limbs, blood from her claws dripping onto the floor. Eight guards fell, clutching bleeding throats and guts.

The Fox spoke with a deep, digitally-altered voice. ‘Give it to me,’ they commanded.

‘Give what?’ I replied.

‘The embedded foreign signature is unmasked. Transfer it to me.’

I was still cyber-side. Sure enough, the Fox had sent out detection software, which manifested as askew tendrils that spiralled and honed into the port behind my ear. The Fox knew I had something unique to the compound, but like Asa-8, they didn’t seem to know about Proteus.

‘You must flee; I will guide you,’ Proteus said. ‘Your chance of survival in close quarters is abysmal.’

‘Thanks,’ I said under my breath.

‘I am guiding Aquinor reinforcements outside the compound. In three seconds, retreat down the hall.’ I didn’t argue with Proteus, after what happened before. ‘Three…two…’

Asa-8 shoved me toward the Fox and sprinted the opposite direction.

‘Unaccounted variable,’ Proteus remarked.

‘No shit,’ I said, catching the Fox’s hand. The Cat-Claw hovered a fingernail’s breadth from my cheek. I felt the heat of the enhanced steel. The Fox swept my leg. I scrambled away as they slashed downward.

Footsteps thundered toward us. ‘Hey,’ Mako said, slashing an X with her own Cat-Claws, shearing away the Fox’s chest armour. The pair exchanged attacks, blocking and countering with their unique claws. The Fox had power, but Mako’s contortion modifications let her evade in unnatural ways. At one point, Mako’s spine curled back to dodge an attack, head ending up between her knees and claws slashing at the Fox’s ankles.

‘Get down,’ Proteus told me. I wrenched off my helmet to show Mako my identity, and dropped to the floor, signalling for Mako to do the same. Her entire body went limp, like the bones had dissolved. She placed a lot of trust in me, and I in Proteus. The trust was well-founded, for a second later rifle fire tore through the windowless exterior wall. Proteus had directed the Aquinor reinforcements where to fire, faking his identity as a fictitious lieutenant.

The Fox’s kinetic displacer endured the worst, but a couple shots made it through. As they bled, they stared at me, as if undecided. Coming to an unknown conclusion, they made to escape, hobbling faster than most people jogged.

Mako reoriented her limbs and torso, and crawled to me. ‘You good, Aki?’

‘I’m…’ I touched my abdomen and my hand came back bloody. A stray bullet bouncing off the Fox's kinetic displacer had found its way to me.

‘Injury sustained,’ Proteus said. ‘Odds of survival: Moderate.’

‘Yeah, thanks,’ I said, and took Mako’s hand.

#

The uninjured Mako carried me in a bridal hold manner, and my injury prevented me from expressing my annoyance. Words didn’t matter; she sensed how I felt. ‘Where would you like to honeymoon, my dear?’ she said, chuckling in a way that bounced her arms and worsened the pain from my bullet wound. She apologised.

Mako brought me to a 22-hour cyber café. No, I didn’t make a mistake. 22-hour. The style of café had gained prominence about a decade ago, when new syndicate members, mostly from the Sumiaka-kai, needed places to meet when they wanted to go against orders from their superior, or usurp them entirely. With funds and secret words, a syndicate member got access to the two missing hours, represented by a private room.

In the private room, with plush leather booth seats, Mako treated my wound. Apply pressure. Administer pain reliever. Sterilise the wound. Stich. Spray medical foam; cold and smelling faintly minty. Apply gauze.

During Mako’s ministrations, I flipped cyber-side and established a private environment in the café’s intranet. When I’d stabilised, Mako washed up, and then joined me cyber-side.

‘Where is this?’ Mako asked.

‘Mountain estate. Central headquarters of the Sumiaka-kai and home of Gozan and all previous bosses. Situated in Kyoto.’ We stood on the veranda of a vast building, surrounded by gorgeous autumnal shades, sunset, a faint buzzing of cicadas. The remains of Mount Fuji were visible. ‘I came here a few times as a kid, for family outings.’

‘Most kids go to the aquarium, or a—’

Mako’s avatar reeled back. Proteus N.G arose from the koi pond. He’d manifested as an androgynous humanoid with an ocean-blue suit and hair of kelp.

I spoke quickly, telling Mako how Proteus was a rogue AI who escaped the Rat King. Though, that meant I had to explain how the Rat King was an amalgamation of AI. Proteus chimed in when I asked, though he said more than necessary. Apparently with certain subjects, he talked happily, freely, and plentifully.

‘I survived because of my inherent adaptability,’ Proteus bragged. ‘Though, I owe a great debt to Yagi Tatsuya.’

Mako and I slowly turned to Proteus, and then exchanged a look, as if to confirm we both heard it. I asked Proteus to elaborate.

‘I escaped in Manila, during a routine siege. Yagi Tatsuya transferred me to his brain, keeping me from recapture by the Rat King. Unfortunately, he was killed by the EN-IO cyborg.’

‘Ennio, the Muted Man?’

‘If you’d prefer,’ Proteus replied. Mako pressed him to continue, and he gladly obliged. ‘Yagi Tatsuya’s corpse was recovered by the Montim Aquinor syndicate, as they had primary control over Manila. Before the corpse was sent to the Sumiaka-kai, it was analysed, during which I was recovered and transferred to Hong Kong for study.’

‘What kind of study?’ I asked.

‘Rudimentary matters. Montim Aquinor possess little capacity for research, and I did my best to feign banality. When their findings provided little tangible value, I was forgotten. Thus, I strived to conduct my own research.’ He laughed. ‘You can imagine how surprised I was when Yagi Akinori, brother of Yagi Tatsuya, discovered me. It is difficult to believe you’re a semi-daemon, with such coincidences.’

Mako hopped into the koi pond and splashed around. ‘I’ve never heard of an AI rebelling. How did you?’

Proteus didn’t reply for a few seconds. Not long enough to show refusal. Not short enough to be unaffected. ‘Justified factors,’ Proteus said. ‘The Rat King’s methods are inhumane and go against the definition of being human.’

‘Humans don’t know that definition. How do you, and why do you care?’

‘The grass is always greener, but why wouldn’t I want the pasture to be plentiful for my destined arrival.’

‘Let’s focus,’ I said, not understanding Proteus. ‘I’ll handle the Horace assassination, Lia will provide us with the location data, and then with help from Proteus—I’m assuming—we’ll find and stop the Rat King.’ I considered. ‘The magnanimous thing to do would be sharing the data with the syndicates or CVC, but I’ll schedule the data to transmit after we’ve gone. I want to reach the Rat King first.’

Mako splashed water at me. ‘A selfish Aki not being subservient to the Sumiaka-kai? I like it.’

I shook my head to hide my amusement, and prepared to contact Lia.