Chapter 5

Chapter 5

My body had never felt more rotten than it did when I woke up that morning. The klaxon alarm I'd set to get me up blared out of arm's reach. I'd put it there so I'd have to get up to shut it off. Since I'd only hit the sack three hours earlier, I knew I'd need that extra stimulation. I'd spent the majority of the night after leaving the Black Mist preparing for my day ahead.

I'd been reasonably sure the cops didn't know who I was yet, but it still would have been a mistake to go back to my apartment. I'd slept on a bed of cushions I'd cut from the old office chairs, without taking any of my clothes off.

With my palms against the floor as I pushed myself up, there was an intense tingling in my hands that was more than a little disconcerting.

On one knee, I had to stop and brace myself. Jolting nausea raced through my body like a car through a weak wall. It was too much for me to hold back, and I hurled everything in my stomach to the side of my bed. It took a minute after the last of it came out for me to get back to myself and wipe my mouth with the back of my hand.

Standing up, my legs felt weak. For a second, I thought I might topple over. Pushing through it, baby steps were required to accustom myself to being upright.

“Those cop's shots did a real number on me. I can't believe how bad I feel. I make it through this, I'm getting myself a complete tune-up. Maybe I'll even look into getting some subdermal sonic armor,” I thought. “Eh, I'll think about that later. I've got a long day ahead.”

La Kami was one of the finest restaurants Neo Tokyo had to offer. The head chef, Nishihara Emico, was a graduate of the Le Cordon Bleu of Paris, specializing in French, and Japanese fusion. Every meal was prepared exclusively by the chef herself, resulting in heavenly tastes.

Located on the main floor of the Imperial Hotel in Chiyoda-ku, the restaurant boasted an elegant atmosphere of refinement. Soft, yellow lighting complimented the cream paneling on the walls and highlighted the soothing pattern of the carpet. A small chandelier hung from the ceiling. High-backed chairs gave the diners a comfortable seat and the feeling that turnover was not being encouraged.

Mayor Bashira Hamada had not been to the restaurant before, but it had instantly become her new favorite. She was there to have a lunch meeting with some of her contributors. With her at the table was the head of the Brighter Future Parent's League, the CEOs for both the city's chain of solar power plants, its water purification plant, and the head of the National Ecological Defense Association.

“Mayor Hamada, before we leave, I want to ask what you'll be doing about the soil erosion in our city's park when reelected.”

“Assuming I am reelected, I'm planning to introduce a new tax act that will not stress the indigent but provide further revenue to my revitalization efforts.” She answered.

“Mayor Hamada, I'm sure you're not going to raise the taxes for the well-off too much. We do have standards of living to uphold.” The CEO of the city's power plants asked.

“Less than three percent. More than enough to help our fair city, but not a burden on you. Also, I assure you that the Brighter Future Parent's League will see a generous portion for its child protection and enrichment programs.”

The man representing the Parent's League bowed his head in gracious acceptance.

“Is there any other business we need to discuss before we break this up?”

No one rose any further matters, signifying the end of the meeting.

“Very well, then. It was a pleasure to see all of you again.”

Mayor Hamada and the rest all rose from their seats.

“I'll be remaining for another few minutes. I've heard of this particular chocolate dessert they have here, and I can't resist the indulgence.” She told them all.

“And don't worry, it's on all of you. This luncheon is a campaign expense after all.”

Her four companions all gave a polite chuckle before departing. Bashira retook her seat a moment before their waiter came to check on her.

“Will there be anything else, ma'am?”

“Yes. I'd like a piece of the chocolate ganache tart with roasted strawberries.”

“An excellent choice, madam. It will be out directly.”

The waiter departed, and Bashira relaxed into her seat. In her mind, she was feeling a childlike excitement for the dessert coming to her. She had to maintain a strict diet and exercise regimen to maintain her TV-ready appearance. She could only allow herself one indulgence every other week, so it needed to count. The small buzz of the sugar during a moment of tranquil civility would do more to recharge her than a weekend getaway.

Mayor Hamada's peaceful quiet was interrupted by the man who came to her table. Without a word, he took the seat across from her, his three bodyguards surrounding him, their backs to him so they could watch the restaurant. From his height, the styling of his hair, and the quality of his attire, it was clear the man had been born wealthy. He was an older man, in his early sixties. He was still in good physical shape for his age. The lines of his face were not overly pronounced, and his hair was most of the way through its transition from black to gray.

Bashira already knew who he was, as it wasn't the first time they had met. Her brow furrowed and she frowned for the briefest second before her politician's politeness reasserted itself.

“Mayor Hamada, it's a pleasure to see you again.”

“You as well, Yoshida Ichiro-san.” She replied.

“I just wanted to come and congratulate you on your latest numbers in the polls. It seems like your opponent doesn't even stand a chance. I really can't say I'm surprised. The people have always seemed to love you.”

“Thank you very much, sir. Is there something I could do for you, Yoshida-san? I'm sure such an important businessman such as yourself must have many important things demanding his attention.”

“It's quite simple. I have enormous respect for what you've done for our fair city during your previous term. I want us to go forward on the best foot possible. As such, I'd like to contribute to your campaign.”

Yoshida took his smartphone from his pocket. After unlocking the device and spending a few moments working with it, he placed it on the table like he was laying down a winning hand of poker. He gently pushed it closer to her side.

Glancing down, Mayor Hamada saw that the yakuza leader had accessed a money transfer app, and input a figure of five hundred million yen. The offer of a bribe couldn't have been more clear.

“All you need to do is enter the account number it should go to, and it'll be there before the end of business today,” Yoshida said.

Bashira smiled at the older mafioso. The smile was genuine and filled with cheer. That was Yoshida's second time attempting to bribe her during her term as mayor. It was the second time she was going to turn him down. She had no intention of being compromised by the city's organized crime. She pushed the phone back to his side.

“No, thank you. We have more than sufficient funds.”

Ichiro Yoshida did not reach for the phone and did not bat an eye.

“If the amount is not enough, we could negotiate for more.”

“That isn't the issue. As I told you during my first campaign, I simply do not wish for my office or myself to have a connection to you.” Bashira said.

“I simply cannot understand that attitude of yours. I don't know what is wrong with a simple businessman attempting to aid his community.”

“Sir, we both know there is nothing simple about your business.” She said with a smile.

Yoshida Ichiro just smiled. His eyes continued to sparkle and show nothing more than a man enjoying a friendly conversation.

“How is your family, Hamada-san?” He asked.

Bashira had seen that coming. A scare tactic was his only play. She wasn't frightened by the thinly veiled threat.

“Happily enjoying their extended holiday under the twenty-four-hour protection of the Alpha and Omega Security Agency.”

“Are you quite sure of your decision, Hamada-san? We could have quite an advantageous relationship. You could do considerable good for the charities you support and your city projects with this money.”

“I appreciate the gesture, Yoshida-san, but if you wish to do good for this city, my recommendation would be for you to retire.”

Yoshida smirked pleasantly. “I'll take that under advisement, but to be perfectly frank, I think someone will need to coerce my resignation before I leave my profession.”

Yoshida retrieved his smartphone off the table and put it into his suit jacket pocket. Bashira stood up with him to be gracious, not to show respect.

“Mayor Hamada.”

“Yoshida-san.”

He left without giving her a sign of respect. Bashira took her seat once again. It was not long after that the waiter returned with the chocolate tart she had ordered. It looked as delicious to her as it had sounded.

“Thank you very much.”

Yanking on the break, I brought my stolen motorcycle to a stop. Genkei and Souta from the Black Mist pulled up level with me on either side. When I'd showed up at their bar an hour before, they'd tried to be cooperative by formally introducing themselves. I hadn't returned the gesture even when Genkei had stamped his little feet and demanded my name. Souta had calmed him down, but he hadn't been happy about it. I doubted he ever was about anything.

I'd started to dismount my bike when I saw that Genkei was staring at me.

“What?” I asked.

“Wasn't your helmet silver last night?”

“You're imagining things.”

We were on the third top level of a standard parking garage in Nerima-ku, on the south side of the level. I stopped four meters away from the edge of the garage and had to extend my arms to stop the two with me. Genkei batted my hand away angrily.

“What are you doing?!” It was a demand, not a real question.

“The law states that police surveillance drones cannot fly any lower than twenty meters above street level. From here, we're invisible, but any closer and a lucky angle could still peg us.”

“He makes sense, Genkei.”

It seemed Souta's job more than anything else was to keep his friend reigned in.

“Thanks, now, look out at that building in front of us.”

Across the street from the garage stood a ten-story tall mid-rise office building. It was brown and looked dull and ordinary in every way possible.

“So, what about it? What is this?” Genkei asked.

“Only the headquarters for the legitimate face of the Yoshida clan.”

“What?!” Genkei spat out his disbelief.

“This?! This is it?! But it looks so-”

“Ordinary.” Souta finished his friend's thought.

“Did you expect it to be some kind of military compound in the forest? Ever heard of hiding in plain sight? It's supposed to be ordinary, and it is. On paper, at least. It's officially listed as an accountancy firm, to explain away all the money passing through it.”

“So, what is this job of yours, anyway?” Souta asked.

“My specialty is computer hacking. There's no way to access it from the outside, but if I can get in there and get to the right terminal, I can trace and steal all their dough right out from under 'em.”

“So, what do you need us for?” It was Genkei's first reasonable question I'd heard.

“That place is gonna be tough inside. It's not a one-man job. The guys I was planning to pull it with got themselves busted on something else last week. They hadn't met me yet, so they can't rat me out, but I don't have the muscle I need to get in now.”

“And what do we get out of it?” Souta asked.

“Ichiro Yoshida.”

A pause was needed to let that sink in for them. I knew there was nothing better I could tempt them with. Souta's eyes widened, filling with grandeur. He looked like his mind was transcending to some higher level of existence and leaving his mortal body behind. Genkei, on the other hand, was growing a smile like a cat who'd cornered a mouse.

I went on. “The Yoshida have been controlling this city, unchallenged and uninjured for sixty years. Old man Yoshida's not worried. He goes in there for hours at a time, at least three days a week to keep up the cover. I called his office just today to make an appointment, and the girl at the desk told me that he'll be in tonight if I wouldn't mind an evening meeting. He's gonna be in there.”

“Wait a minute, if Ichiro is in there, there's gotta be a whole army in there! We can't march into that! We'll get slaughtered!” Asserted Souta.

“No, you won't. My research shows that while it's a front, they do legitimate work in there. Ichiro has his private security escort him in and out, but that's close to it. There should be some more on Yoshida's office floor, but there won't be armed guys at every corner. There can't be. It would ruin appearances.”

“So, what's your plan, anyway?” Genkei asked, starting to sound more amenable.

Reaching down, I removed my tablet from my satchel bag. Loaded into it was an interactive blueprint of the building, so I held it for Genkei and Souta to see the screen as well.

“Your guys go in just a couple at a time for an hour before it goes down. If any of them have girlfriends, have them go with them. And tell all of them to dress up. The best clothes they have. They need to not look like street punks. The three of us go in through this alley door on the east side. We'll go and shut down the security center, then make our way to the top floor. At the right time, when we're in position, I'll send out the message to all of your guys simultaneously. They'll secure all the points of vulnerability in the building to make sure no one can get in or out, and then we'll go in and take care of Ichiro and finish the job.”

“That seems kinda simple,” Souta said.

“They're not expecting an attack. It should work just fine. We'll hit 'em tonight.”

“This can't work. There's too little time to prepare.”

“Oh, just relax, Souta,” Genkei said. “The guy's been planning this for a while. I'm sure he's got it all worked out, and if old man Yoshida's gonna be in there tonight, then I say we're going for it.”

Genkei turned his head to look out at the mid-rise building again.

“Mine. All that power, mine.” He muttered softly.

Souta sighed loudly. “Okay, fine. I guess it does sound like a pretty solid plan.”

“Good. So, since we're all in agreement, let's get out of here. We don't want to run the risk of getting identified, and I've got stuff to do before tonight.” I told them.

“Sure.”

“Yeah.”

The three of us walked back to the bikes. Sitting on top of mine, before I started it up, I removed the glove from my right hand and connected my tubules to the bike computer. I closed my eyes while I performed the task, and it only took a minute to finish it up and detach.

“What was that about?” Genkei asked.

“Personal security thing. Not your concern.”

I turned the engine over and rode off, leaving them behind.

Police Sergeant Takahashi Sango was trying to create a profile of her suspect in her mind. There hadn't yet been any new physical evidence found to give her a clue. It was frustrating for her. All of the cameras in the city, all of the people they'd brought in for questioning so far, and still nothing.

Sango looked at the thin, transparent glass screen of her computer. On it was a video taken from a CCTV camera the previous night. The timestamp placed it happening nine minutes after the one-one-nine call had been gone through. In the video, a motorcycle and its rider streaked across the screen.

Sango felt sure that the rider was both the assailant of the Amaya family and the killer she was after, but she had no way to prove it. The CCTV video was taken twelve blocks away from the Amaya house, and that wasn't enough for a warrant or even permission to track the motorcycle through the CCTV to its eventual destination. The most she'd be able to do was have it and its rider measured and flagged to be picked up again.

“This guy's an interesting subject.” Sango thought to herself.

She typed on her keyboard and brought up the 3D rendering of her killer.

“One-point-eighty-five meters tall, and approximately one-hundred and ninety pounds. His skin tone makes him not Japanese, but I don't think he's from outside the country. A foreign national brought in for one job would have just left, and I feel certain this man hasn't. He must either be a naturalized alien, or the product of interracial marriage. And possibly a kid for the icing on the cake. Not a typical suspect at all.”

A pinging sound from the computer ripped the sergeant out of her musings. Looking at the screen, she saw she had an email from the ballistics department. Attached to the notification was a note saying, “Sorry it's late.”

“It's about time!” She snapped in her head. “Baka! What's going on down there? This was given top priority. I should have had this report yesterday.”

She opened the document and skipped to the conclusion at the end. She would read the entire report in due time but wanted the facts quickly at the moment.

“Summary of Report: Fatal sonic disruption shots to police officers feature indicators consistent with English S10 Assault Pistol and Japanese Supirittogan. Insufficient evidence to explain dual results.”

“Two guns.” Sango thought. “But everything's pointing to a single suspect working alone, and according to the coroner, the officers died from blunt force trauma and reduced blood flow as a result of the shots they received. That's inconsistent with the rupturing effect of all Japanese wave-technique firearms. European Union weapons are illegal in this country. It could be a black-market gun, but they're too expensive and if this suspect had money, he'd be running, but he's not. An S10 and a Supirittogan.

Could he have possibly combined the weapons? That wouldn't be very easy and would require well above average intelligence and engineering abilities, but he has evaded us so far, so maybe it's possible. And if our suspect really is young, and smart enough to customize two weapons into one, then that could explain why he isn't in the system. But, it doesn't explain what he's trying to do. What does a gangland case have to do with his homicides? What does it gain him?”

Sango's next step was going to be looking into where in the city someone could find one of each of those guns. Before she could delve into the database, a knock came at her office door. She saw through the door's window that it was one of the lead technicians from the CCTV monitoring center. She motioned the young man to enter.

“Sergeant Takahashi. We just picked up a possible match on that motorcycle you flagged.”

Sango got up from her desk immediately. She needed to see for herself if that could have been her man or not.

The monitoring center for the city's CCTV network was the most technologically advanced in the building. The feeds from more than thirty-nine thousand cameras across the greater metropolitan area all flowed through the room. It would have been more, but many sections of the city still had little to no coverage since the Mega-quake.

Every centimeter of the room on three sides was made up of wall-screens showing live feeds from the city. They were governed by the central AI. If it detected something with a flag, or the image within the feed fell into the category of “crime,” it would redirect the video to one of the two hundred technicians within the massive space.

Sango followed the man who'd fetched her up to the senior technician in charge. He was a man a few years older than her, with a generously rotund build, but an air of cheeriness that would have brightened her mood in other circumstances.

“Nice to see you again, Sergeant Takahashi.” He greeted her.

“Thank you. You as well, Funai-san. You know the case I'm on?”

“Yes, I've been briefed and told to give you every cooperation.” Funai turned to address one of his subordinates. “Bring it up on the primary.”

On the far wall in front of them, hundreds of the miniature wall-screens changed and combined to form a single, large-scale video. It showed a man riding along on a red motorcycle. By all accounts, it looked to Sango to be the same man and bike departing the vicinity of the Amayas from the night before.

“Where is this?”

“The drone following the subject is saying it's in Bunkyo-ku presently, heading west,” Funai said.

“Do we have confirmation?”

“Computers confirmed that this subject matches the one from the photo on record in height, width, and all dimensions for both the motorcycle and the rider. CCTV picked him up, but we lost him when he took the freeway, so a drone was sent in pursuit. He seems to have gone back to the surface streets since then.” One of the technicians informed her.

“Any marked units in the vicinity who can stop him and bring him in?”

“There are three inbound, responding to the flag.” Relayed Funai.

“Do we have the motorcycle's identification beacon signal?”

“Not yet. There's some kind of encryption around the beacon signal, but we're working on breaking it, ma'am.”

“Well, that's illegal by itself, so we have an extra pretense for stopping the rider. Can you bring up the inbound patrol cars?”

The video feed of the suspect shrunk down to a small section in the bottom, right corner. At the same time, the rest of the wall-screen changed to become a grid map of the streets. Markers for the motorcycle rider and the three different police cars showed their relative positions.

“This doesn't make sense.” Sango thought to herself.

She stared intently at the image in the corner. Sango knew there wasn't much of anything she could have discerned just from the video of the man's back as he drove, but it was something she did on all her cases.

The first thing she could tell was that this person was in good shape. Through his clothes, she thought she could tell that his musculature was honed for use. It didn't have the kind of bulk or obvious prettiness that the born rich who just got implants or didn't have to do anything but go to the gym had.

The second most obvious feature she could tell was that he was not very experienced with a motorcycle. He was driving it faster than the speed limit and keeping it straight, but his control over it was not smooth. His breaking looked too jerky and his adjustments to maintain balance were a bit too pronounced for him to be a regular cyclist.

To Sango's mind, the elements together lent credibility that it might be her man.

“He's been the Invisible Man for three days, and now he's right out in the open where we can easily spot him. Something feels off.”

Right before her eyes, her suspect went back into his Claude Rains impression, with a dash of Houdini mixed in. His image had vanished from the screen, and there was nothing she could see except the road and other vehicles that were not him.

“What happened?!”

“He's passed underneath the number fifteen Shutoko Expressway.”

“We've lost the image.”

“He'll come back out in about three hundred meters. But, don't worry, Sergeant. See that marker? We just got the identification beacon signal. We can now track the bike wherever it-”

The bike's marker disappeared from the grid. It just blinked out, as if it'd been magically ripped from existence.

“The- the identification beacon is gone! But, this isn't possible! That signal CAN'T be shut off! They're hardwired into every production vehicle made for the past thirty years.”

“Put me on with the cruisers!” Sango ordered.

The technician on her left tickled the keys in front of her like a hummingbird on speed to input the command.

“You're on, Sergeant.”

“2-Delta-6, 2-Oscar-9, where are you?! We can't lower the drone and we need eyes on the suspect now!” Sango commanded

My tubules retracted into my hand. Five ticks of the clock later, giving me just enough time to get my rubber glove back on, the last order I'd put into the computer kicked in. A charge of ten volts from the battery spread across the bike's surface.

One of the tips I'd gotten from Hiroto was on which brands of paint could be washed away quickly as blood down a drain if given the right shove. Before ever going out the night before, I'd painted the bike the same red as the one in the picture Mr. Amaya had so helpfully provided.

The jolt from the battery caused the molecular bonds of the red paint to sever and vaporize. It left the bike as pristine and innocent a color as fresh, clean, snow.

“With how long that drone's been following me, if the flatfoots didn't pick up on that beacon signal, they're worth even less than I think. Now that I've changed the beacon again, they ought to be too looped over the absence of a signal to try to scope out the new one.” I thought.

The next move had the most inherent risk to it. Loathe as I was to let my fate out of my own hands, I was going to have to trust the bike. Slowing to the stride of the traffic around me, I turned on both the cruise control and the lane assistance functions. The combo together effectively put the bike on auto-pilot.

I let go of my grip on the handlebars and held my hands a hair's breadth away to make sure it wouldn't wipe out on me. It held, so I moved on to peeling my jacket off right there. Turning it inside out, I morphed it from a black leather biker to a brown leather bomber.

The final step in my metamorphosis required taking my smartphone from my jacket pocket. It was a four-year-old model that was maybe half an update away from being put out to pasture, but it was all I had after the loss of my microdot phone.

Syncing everything up and using the right app, I was able to alter my helmet. Using an artificial approximation of the contraction and expansion method chameleons used, I changed the helmet's whole pattern. I turned it from the easily spotted silver with pink skull designs to a plain, matte black.

My exterior appearance was one-hundred percent altered from what it'd been to the drone's eye a minute ago. I'd finished it just moments before losing the protection of the looming overpass.

I stayed well within the posted speed limit as I took the expressway exit on my right. Cop cruisers, blaring their lights and sirens shot past me a second after I started circling the twisting road. My eyes followed them for long as possible.

Back down on the surface grid, I wound my way through the legions of new model boilers until I'd gone six diagonal blocks to the southeast. Ducking behind a car wash, I killed the hog to hear better.

I waited there, going through all the anxiety anyone would be expected to have in my position. If need be, I was ready to kickstart that engine back to life and roar down the two-lane with the first shriek of a siren.

It wasn't until a full six minutes went by. and I still heard nothing but the garden variety street noise that I let the stress go from my muscles. My little switcheroo had worked. The proof that no cameras the cops could peer through had picked me back up was evident.

The motor turned over again with its customary tiger growl, and I merged back into the flow of the street. That task was done, so it was time to get on to the next.

“2-Delta-6, 2-Oscar-9, do you see him?” Sango asked.

“Sorry, Sergeant. We can't see any bikes here matchin' the stills you sent us.”

The cops from the second squad car reported the same.

“Funai, are we reading the beacon signal off of anything?”

“Excuse me.” Funai addressed his subordinate.

He pulled up a grid map for a radius of fifty square blocks around the last known spot. He copy and pasted the signal ID code into the box and ran the search. If anyone new had walked in during those two minutes, they would have thought they'd stumbled into a mass funeral wake for how silent it was. A window finally popped up and proclaimed “0 results.”

“I'm sorry, Sergeant Takahashi. It seems we lost him.” Funai said.

Sango could see the man meant it, but she couldn't fault him. She'd just seen everyone doing their jobs without a hint of anyone not giving it a college try. They'd done their best. In her mind, Sango had to hand it to the good. He was good.

Ichiro Yoshida took a break from his number crunching to stretch out. He sat back in his luxurious, designer desk chair. It gave him a kick to think of how he ran all his multi-billion yen businesses from the thinly veiled facade of his accountancy firm. The sixty-one-year-old leader of the Yoshida clan swept his eyes across his office.

The office had been decorated by his father fifty years earlier. Ichiro felt it was ostentatious for his taste, but his father had been the one to pick everything out. Ichiro kept it the same out of respect for his old man.

The office was on the modest side. The floor was made of pure, calacatta marble. Its sparkling white color was offset and made more beautiful by the thick, dark veining running through it. It made Ichiro think of how an artist might depict a spider's web. The furniture was antique leather, in the mid-century classic style. They were made by some Italian designer whose name he'd long forgotten. The desk was his favorite thing in the office. Made of pure, cherry wood, and two-hundred years old, it symbolized his status for him.

Thinking about the office caused Ichiro to start to remember his father fondly. The son of a fisherman, Asahi Yoshida built the empire Ichiro had known all his life up from nothing. It'd been the typical rags to riches story; full of hard work, sweat, determination, and so many dead bodies the Grim Reaper had once showed up asking for overtime.

Ichiro came out of his reminiscing. He still had work to do. Glancing at the transparent slab on his desk, he went back to checking on the human trafficking operation, drawing over the trackpad with the deft grace of someone who'd been doing it for decades. The digital celluloid played itself, letting him take a peak at some of the newest acquisitions as they came off the harvest line. Halfway through, he stopped the video and zoomed in on one girl.

She was a petite, little blonde thing. The kid couldn't have been any riper than sixteen. She looked scared, and a little too thin, like she hadn't been eating. Ichiro paused the clip and double-clicked on her face. The file with her name, nationality, where she'd been taken from and all the rest came up. Ichiro typed a note into the file to issue orders.

“She's starting to look kind of anorexic. Take her from the rest and give her some VIP care for a stint. Good food, drink, all the best. And be nice to her. No touching.”

Ichiro had next been planning on taking a look at his holdings in his film studios in Kyoto, but a knock at the far door split his concentration. Ichiro shot a command over to the door, getting the wall-screen beside it to light up with a life-sized image of the number on the other side.

The viewer let him see that the Joe in question was his second in command. With the three-piece, overly fancy suit, and the perfectly kept hair he'd spent a literal fortune to keep from washing down the shower drain, Terada Daichi looked more like a high-class bean counter than Ichiro ever tried to. He let his number two in.

Daichi walked with the easy confidence of someone without a worry in the world as he crossed to the desk. He plopped down across from his boss without so much as a word of greeting.

“How'd it go with the skirt?”

“Gave it a shot, but it went pretty much how we figured. Hamada is one tough cookie.”

Daichi scoffed the exasperation on his face like a parent who couldn't get their kid to learn a lesson they kept trying to teach.

“You know that's it, right? We're gonna have to put the screws to her now. We've tried to be nice, and for longer than we should have, but the broad just doesn't want to play ball. She's gonna get reelected, and if we don't have her toeing the line by then, she's gonna give the cops even more power. They've already actually started to make more than a dent than we thought they would.”

“I'm not all that worried,” Ichiro said, purely relaxed. “The Yoshida Clan's been here for the last sixty years, and we've been in charge without a single stooge to even try and take it away for forty of those years. But, you're right too, Daichi. I think we'll put Mackenzie on it.”

“We should have done that from the start. If we'd had Mackenzie on this, we'd have had this done and dusted three years ago. I blame myself. There are just so many problems that pop up in the execution of everything, and Mackenzie is just so in demand elsewhere, that it didn't seem a necessity for this. Besides, whoever would have thought that Bashira Hamada would've been a problem?”

“Yeah, right? She'd seemed like such a pushover rube of a housewife. Who would have thought this little princess would have nothing she could be blackmailed on? Or that she'd be able to hide her little family away from us? You have to give it to the daisy, though. Two straight years of tries from us, and we've gotten squat.”

“That'll change, Ichiro. I took the liberty of making the call before I came in. Mackenzie's on the way, should be here later on. We can hammer out our play then.”

“That's fine. Just be sure to call back and tell Mackenzie to wait in your office til I say so. I decided to take an appointment for a possible accountancy client tonight.”

“The usual scam?” Daichi asked his longtime friend and boss.

“Yep. Should at least make us a little money.”

Genkei, Souta, and their friend, Tadaaki, sauntered together out through the rear fire hatchway into the back alley. Souta took half a deck of smokes from his pocket and held it out. The other two each bummed a butt, and Souta tossed the crushed wrapper without a care as to where it landed. He took out the dirt cheap lighter he carried and struck the flint for the tiny flame. They all lit up and soaked the poisonous vapor down their windpipes.

“Haah!” They exhaled together.

“Nothing like a puff in the quiet,” Souta said.

“I know, right?” Tadaaki said. “Fine inside, but it's nice to drag outta the racket.”

“I can't wait for this! I can't believe we're gonna do it! Not too long from now, I'm gonna be sitting on old man Yoshida's corpse, and everything he has will be all ours!” Genkei half-shouted.

The enthusiasm was oozing from his pores like a pig in a sauna.

“You know, when that guy comes back again, we really ought to talk about we'll be splitting the loot between all of us. We should probably also try to get the dude's name from him.”

“None of that matters, Souta. Soon as the guy starts the hack, I'm gonna put my heater to his head. He'll send every last yen of the scratch where we tell him to, and then I'll do him right there. No muss, no fuss.”

Souta shrugged as he took another pull on his cigarette. His body language was as compliant and apathetic as a funeral director organizing his thousandth wake.

“I like it. Sounds like a lot of fun.” Tadaaki said.

They went back to their coffin nails in serene silence. After a couple of minutes, their peace of mind was busted by the clang of something metal hitting the pavement.

Unable to fight off their curiosity, the trio walked over and rounded the corner of the bar. The sight they found was some person laying on their back. Whoever the schmuck was, they were fiddling with the gang's bikes.

Genkei, Souta, and Tadaaki all dropped their cigarettes and ran forward. Closing the gap in just a few seconds, Genkei kicked the person in the side with everything he had. He then drew out his gun and aimed it right at the saboteur.

“What the? You?! What the hell are you doing?!”

It was the same guy who'd come to them with the whole job in the first place. Genkei recognized him from the jacket and helmet.

“I'm making sure we don't get caught.” Came from his mouth.

Genkei didn't mellow his posture at all. Tadaaki kept himself plenty rigid as well, but not of his own accord. He never did much more than just mimic Genkei, like a slightly smarter parrot. Souta was the only one present with the wherewithal to loosen his grip on his gun.

“What are you talking about?”

“Can I get up?” He asked.

The three top heads of the Black Mist all shot furtive looks back and forth to each other. It took a beat, but they reached the silent consensus to back up and let their ally get to his feet.

“Start talking and you better make it good.” Genkei didn't bother to spell out the threat.

“We're about to pull a job which is going to result in numerous murders. No matter how it plays out, the cops will be looking for us after. You guys have been in the news multiple times ever since you started. For crying out loud, you guys have been using rusty metal scraps welded on to try to shield your identification beacons. The fact only half of your gang's been convicted instead of all of you just speaks to police incompetence and blind luck.”

Eyes so thick with furry it made him look like a deranged rat, Genkei stepped forward again and jabbed his gun into the guy's stomach. Their unnamed cohort didn't flinch or twitch a finger.

“I was adjusting them so that they're not broadcasting the same beacons as before. Now, the cops won't be able to place your beacons at the scenes of crimes.” He said.

For a long, tense beat, all of them stood so still that someone might have thought they'd been petrified by Medusa. Not one of them who was a part of the scene could tell whether Genkei would or wouldn't plug the guy. Shouta gingerly stepped forward after a few seconds and placed his palm on top of Genkei's pistol.

“He just did us a favor. Right, Genkei? He's gonna get us in there and give us everything, remember?”

Genkei growled, but then pulled his heater back.

“Where have you been, anyway?!”

“Taking care of things. Refining the plan.” The guy said.

“That's good. We want this thing to go off without a hitch.” Souta said. “Still, since we're helping you, you should have checked with us first.”

“You shouldn't be touching them at all! Some of the bikes are temperamental. Real hard to control!” Tadaaki chimed in.

Genkei turned his eyes to his boy, a snarling question in his eyes.

“What? What the hell is that supposed to mean?!”

Tadaki wasn't even given the chance to fire off a response before Genkei pistol-whipped him across the face. His friend collapsed to the ground on his stomach like a ton of bricks.

“You were thinking about me saying that, weren't you?!” Genkei hollered.

He kicked the tip of his boot into Tadaaki's side.

“You think I can't control my own bike?! What?! Because I'm short?!”

He kicked him again, flipping Tadaaki onto his back. Genkei dropped down to his knees and began to beat the drum of his friend's face with the butt of his gun.

“You think 'cause I have to use those prosthetics to work the foot controls, I'm no good with it?!”

He punctuated every few words with a slam of his gun grip, turning his friend's face from something moderately handsome to meatloaf. Genkei cocked his arm back to hit again, but Souta took hold of it before Genkei could throw another.

“I think that's enough, man.”

Genkei grunted and ripped his arm free. He stood up with frustration in his body, looking like he was never allowed to do anything he wanted.

“Get some of the boys to drag him inside and take care of him!”

“Is he alive?”

“Does it matter?!”

Souta glared at him, and went in to get more hands. Genkei turned his gaze on their helmeted associate.

“So, are we gonna do this or not?!”