Chapter 6 - Part 2

Kenji, Ichika, and Yuto hadn't been able to budge from their cover behind the desk. Even though they'd reduced the greasers opposing them from their original eight in number to a measly two, it hadn't let them get free. Every casualty they suffered seemed to make the remaining punks shoot more aggressively, but also better and cleaner. From the few glances at their faces he'd gotten, Kenji thought they looked like the ogre berserkers from the Norse, Japanese mythology fusion manga he'd read as a kid.

On the sunnier side of the street, a few of their incognito coworkers from upstairs had come to join them. If not for those guys, the three behind the desk might have been taken out.

One of the gang members sent his shot sailing for the rear corner on his left. He was aiming for the yakuza hidden there. The sonic wave caused bits of marble and wall beneath to shoot off and join its other fallen brethren on the floor. If he could just keep chipping away at that, he'd get them.

“I'm getting really sick of these shits!” Yuto yelled out.

He wanted to stand up and shoot the two remaining kids at point blank, where it might not kill them right off, and it would hurt. Springing up to his feet, Yuto drilled his fingers into the desk. The Gorilla Brand, strength mods in his arms let him heft that designer, wraparound desk off the floor like it was nothing more than a crate of sake. He slung it at the punk on the right, aiming to crush him outright.

Yuto got his wish. The desk walloped the kid with the same power of a slow-moving, but none lighter, freight train. The soda can that was his skull crushed in on impact.

“Mod was worth every last yen.” Yuto thought with great self-satisfaction.

Masaru Hino couldn't get his noodle wrapped around what had happened. It didn't make sense. Genkei and Souta had told them they'd catch the yakuza pricks so off guard, they'd all just be hamburger through a meat grinder.

Instead of cutting through them like hot butter, the yakuza had beaten them down. Masaru had watched them kill seven of his best pals in the whole world. His buddies in the Black Mist were the only family he'd ever had. Nobody had ever wanted him to be a part of anything before he met them. Deep down in his gut, he'd believed that they'd be the ones on top, ruling the city one day.

Masaru couldn't let the deaths of his friends go without making them pay, and he had just the tool for the job. It hadn't been easy for him to make the grenade from the supplies they'd at the bar and their other hangouts, but he'd done it. Masaru had been itching to pull the pin and see if it would blow forever, and he figured there was no better time to try it.

He stood up and tugged the homemade ordinance from his pocket. Stepping from his cover, Masaru pulled the pin out in full view of all the Yakuza. He wanted them to know what was coming their way. Whether he clocked out with the rest of them or not, those looks of shock on their mugs were plenty satisfying.

Masaru was just lifting his arm to chuck the grenade when the clack rang in his ears. He felt something wet and warm sliding down his face and into his mouth. That was the last thing his brain registered before everything went fuzzy and blanked.

Yuto, Kenji, and Ichika goggled at the tableau in front of them. They'd been half a lob away from getting blown to kingdom come when their would-be killer had croaked instead. The three of them lifted their view from the body on the floor to see who it was that had whacked him.

“Where's the boss? Is he secure?” The person asked.

“M-Mackenzie-san.”

Daichi snatched the smartphone from his pocket with an almost superhuman speed as soon as he heard the ping. The sheer power in the relief he exhaled filled the room.

"That was Kenji, downstairs. He says they have the lobby under control and that Mackenzie has shown up too."

Ichiro let out his breath, making sure it didn't blow his cover on how nervous he'd been.

"I'm getting more," Daichi told him. "Looks like all the floors are reporting in clear. If there's any more punks alive in here, they must be hiding. We shouldn't have any more problems."

Ichiro nodded. "Let's go check out the damage. See how many boys we lost."

Daichi agreed, and the two bosses of bosses stood up and proceeded, but not before Ichiro scooped up the derringer to take along. Both plastering a faux demeanor of calmness over their faces, they stepped out of the office.

Three of their boys, with iron firmly in hand, were waiting to escort them. Their protection detail doubled in number when they hit the hallway.

Together, they swept through the passages in a loose convoy. They weren't unskilled but eased with the surety that their side had trounced the other guys. In his head, Ichiro decided that as soon as they had a tally of everything that went down, he was going to make some major shake-ups.

“We'll have to take the stairs. One of the messages I got said they took out the elevators somehow.”

Ichiro grunted in confirmation. What was the difference? If the elevators were out, they were out. He had too much churning through his mind all at the same time to give any vocal acknowledgment.

The tiny convoy of eight rounded the final corner for the elevators and stairwell. Right as they were standing in front of the bank, one of the arrival bells dinged, and the doors rolled back. Ichiro, Daichi, and their goons were face to face with three of the brazen raiders themselves.

The young thugs goggled back at them. Everyone present took a collective beat to process. Ichiro's boys then got their heaters up in place.

My two companions and I hurled ourselves against the sides of the elevator just before the shots zinged through the confined doorway. The bolts of sonic lead came at us in such rapid staccato, you might have thought it was an entire platoon bearing down us instead of a handful of guys.

The waves were coming through the open doors like flooding water, keeping us pinned to our cover. Souta and Genkei were both trying their utmost to retaliate, but there wasn't much they could do. Unless they were eager to feel their brains leak out their ears, the most they could achieve was to stick their weapons around the edge and hope to blindly nail one of them. Unlike them, I wasn't planning to bank anything on the chance of dumb luck.

“Can't you do something with your computer crap?! This was your job in the first place!” Genkei yapped so endearingly at me.

With my tablet up in my hand, I perused through the security system and blueprints with all the urgency the circumstances demanded of me. From the corner of my eye, I caught the glimpse of a wave coming within half a dozen centimeters of my foot. My body having a keen recollection of how it'd felt the last time I'd come in contact with one of those, my foot reflexively yanked back as far as it could recoil.

“ANYTHING?!” Wailed Genkei.

“There's nothing in the security specs to bail us out of this!” I answered.

“We're takin' the bosses down to the car down the back stairs! Meet up with us ASAP!”

We'd all heard the voice. Its declaration had all the earmarks of electronic transmission.

“AAH! We're losing him! You're the mastermind behind this! Think of somethin', or I promise, I'll smoke you before they get the chance to!”

Smoke. That was the jolt of inspiration I'd needed.

“I saw you two smoking before! One of you have a lighter?!”

Through the anxiety and fact that the fate of our lives could be decided at any moment, my cohorts still found an instant to look at me like I'd spoken Greek.

“Does one of you have a lighter or not?!” I bellowed at them, trying to get them to act.

Souta went into his pocket and came back with a small, cheap unit.

“Light it!”

Souta's lack of comprehension was showing on his face, but he had the sense to do it anyway.

“Souta, when I tell you to, fling it at the ceiling! Genkei, give us some cover right now!”

The bipolar imp did as I'd told him for once, and waved his gun around, shooting wildly so the guys on the other end would either have to hide or die.

“Now!”

Souta tossed the flaming lighter up towards the acoustic tile. I leaned out of the elevator, tracked it, and took my shot. The explosion was nothing to write the record books about, but the puff of fuel and flame did what I'd wanted. The fire suppression system for the whole floor geared up and sprayed masses of hazy vapor onto us.

The fog was instantly so thick that it concealed everything. I darted out into it and did what needed to be done. The clacks from my gun were clear enough for my allies to pick up on them.

Thirty seconds went by before the halon gas shut down. When it cleared, Souta, Genkei, and I all got a look at what I'd done. Even I hadn't expected there to be so much blood. My boots were dripping with it. By that point, the other two had seemingly become versed enough in death to not lose a step from seeing my handiwork.

“Come on! The old man's gettin' away!” Genkei screeched.

He started to run off as fast as he could. I grabbed him by his jacket sleeve before he'd gotten through two strides.

“Wait!”

The guy stopped and looked back at me with stark incredulity. He looked like he couldn't believe I was getting in his way again.

“WHAT?!”

“What if it's a trick?” I speculated.

That seemed to deflate some of the hot air out of his head.

“Huh?”

“How easy would it be for them to say they're taking him out of the building, but then just go back to the office? It's a no-brainer misdirection.” I explained.

The little guy wrenched his arm free, his expression contorting to something akin to a rabid pitbull.

“Fine! Whatever! Souta, you and he go to the office! I'm taking the stairs!”

The three of us sprinted into a full trot, and at the first fork, we split up for our divergent pathways. Souta in tow, I used the blueprint to navigate us to the largest office on the floor. Common sense dictated that's where the big boss would have his, and the nameplate by the door confirmed it. The two of us each had our Roscoes at the ready.

“When we get in there, it's important we don't kill anyone,” I told Souta.

I'd never seen anyone do it for real before, but he did a double-take at me.

“What?!”

Souta wasn't as immediately seething at my words as his friend would have been, but I could still see some anger jammed in with his confusion.

“I'm a good hacker, but there's always the chance of some hidden countermeasure in the code. I can't account for everything. I'm sure I can get the money, but if something happens to come up, I'll need Yoshida alive to tell me how to fix it. And, he'll probably be more cooperative on the matter the hostages don't number him by his lonesome, won't he?” I made my reasoning clear.

“I don't know about this.”

“Do you want to have every base covered here at the end or not?”

Souta chewed his lip while he chewed over the decision in his head for a couple of seconds. He eventually capitulated.

“Ngh! Fine!!”

His participation assured anew, I gave him a hand signal, telling him to back away from the door some. He took a few small steps in reverse. I reached across the length of the door, gave the knob a hard jiggle, and jerked my whole body away.

Since an object needed a certain degree of thickness to stop a sonic wave, it would have been easy as breathing for them to shoot us as soon as we tried the door. Souta and I waited two full minutes, but there were no clacks, and nothing spontaneously flew off the door.

I circled around and crouched in front of Souta. Together, we gently inched the door through the arc of its swing, ready to shoot if we spotted anyone. We went in together when it cleared enough space for us.

We found the outer office was clear of any warm bodies. I saw Souta was about to ask if we'd missed them, so I cut him off with a nod towards the other door in the room. If they were in here, it wasn't necessarily a bad plan for them to corral in the main office. It cut off their ability to escape, but also meant anybody trying to come in after them would have to pass through a bottleneck.

Souta and I followed the same routine as before, taking up a position at a safe distance on either side of the door. Bringing up the measurements for the room on the other side in my head, I calculated the points where guys aiming at the door would likely stand. I angled my gun for where I reasonably guessed there would be a vacancy. I pulled the trigger, and my sonic needle passed through.

The barrage of waves followed so quickly, it was like my shot had been the catalyst for a booby trap in some ancient tomb. The four-centimeter wide hole I'd made expanded outward to become a gaping, snaggle-toothed maw. When the shooting finally stopped, about a third of the door had disappeared.

I gave Souta the hand signs to stay where was and stay quiet. From my inner jacket pocket, I extracted an item I'd brought in case of an emergency and pitched it in through the hole. I heard it roll to a stop, and a blanket of silence smother the next room. As if I'd gained extra sensory perception, I could almost feel every pair of peepers on the object.

“You all know what that is!” Was my trumpet into the room. “Spec ops issue, GS-17 antipersonnel grenade! I got the detonation code prepped and ready! All we want is the computer! We don't need any of you alive, but I'd rather do this the easy way! Get out here without the heaters, and your insides won't start cozying up with the walls!”

It was all a bluff. That thing was as much a grenade as I was a little girl. I'd just made it look like the real thing in case I ever needed a quick out.

I didn't have much in the way of doubt they'd call me on it. You'd have to be suicidal to try something with one of those pineapples staring you in the face. Souta and I backed away from the door. It took about a minute and a half for those inside to reach a consensus.

The tattered remains of the door creaked open, and five men edged their way out with the same enthusiasm as a chain gang. From the snapshots I'd memorized, I knew the two old guys were Yoshida and his top man, Daichi. They both looked plenty resolute and hard-nosed.

“Alright. How much?” Yoshida asked.

There it was, right on cue. The motto of the rich and affluent. After all, who cares if it's crass when you're the one with the money?

“Shut up, old man!” Souta yelled. To retain his illusion of control, he took a step closer to Yoshida than he should have.

“We're gonna have all your money, anyway!”

“Souta-”

My warning didn't even reach its puberty before one of Yoshida's boys twisted his hips to give him the power to butt Souta's gun hand away with his elbow, and beaned him in the skull with a back fist. The yakuza goon then gripped Souta by the wrist and shoulder and used the proper stance and his core strength to spin Souta around and send him tumbling in my direction.

I shoved Souta out of my way to try to get a bead on the yakuza. He'd already closed the distance enough to knock my gun from my hand with a roundhouse kick. The yakuza used his momentum to whip himself around into a spinning, reverse kick that got me right between my pecs.

The impact drove me back a few steps and forced a little air out of my windpipe. It wasn't a bad kick at all. The guy was practiced and knew what he was doing. I felt the intended effect of the blow.

The yakuza came at me head-on. I could see the years of training the guy had put in. His moves were smooth and efficient. He didn't waste a single millisecond or make any spasms or twitches that might hinder him. He was fast too, like a human mongoose.

The push kick he tried to connect with my stomach would have been like a car's front bumper meeting me if he'd made the hit. With zero margin for error, I turned on my heels to be horizontal to his trajectory. He might have put a bad dent into my pelvis if I hadn't dodged.

I swung my own fist with the outer edge pointed at his jaw in a sideways arc. I was confident I had enough oomph behind it to give him something to think about.

Halfway to delivery, my hand got rerouted by his elbow slamming up into it. I then got the sock by return address. A left hook planted itself into the left center of my helmet. The punch was such a freight train, it nailed me a little even through the hard hat. The part of my mind able to think through the pain concluded that the guy was a southpaw. I couldn't help but stagger backward more.

I felt my footing trying to leave me and slid my weight supporting appendage across the carpet to compensate. My brain was growing a touch hazy from the hit. I'd just barely had the whereabouts to intercept a front kick at my chin by thrusting both my hands down into his ankle.

“Souta!” I shouted.

Spotting an opening, I got in my retaliation. I put a quick, three-hit combo into the yakuza's ugly kisser with a jab from each hand, and a short, right uppercut.

“Watch them!”

I'd never made hand-to-hand my tip-top priority skill to train, but I hadn't neglected it either. People always underestimate how much free info is all over the web. With free videos, movie clips, and various other whatnots, I'd pieced together a not insubstantial curriculum on Wing Chun.

It helped me, but maybe not quite enough. How I'd ignored the prescribed recovery for my original injuries from the boat was starting to catch up with me. I was losing steam, but fast. My attack of fatigue from before and the hits telegraphed into me were coming together to drain my tank. I was trying to push past it, but I could feel my movements getting a hair slower. It wasn't good, but also not anything I couldn't deal with.

My opponent for the bout had wobbled a bit from my punches, but it hadn't been enough to put him on the mat. The yakuza came back with a fast, straight punch, aimed right for where my nose was. I threw it off course with a half-moon, sweeping claw strike of my right hand.

Instantly stepping into his next maneuver, the guy tried to gift wrap me another wide hook. It would have knocked my block off if I hadn't cracked the back of my wrist into his.

I realized too late that his hook had been a feint. While I'd automatically protected my brain box, the yakuza had sent three short, but destructive bops into my gut. It doubled me over, giving me a front-row view of the knee racing into my face.

The rap propelled me back, off of my feet like the center point for Earth's gravity had shifted. If I could, I would have thanked that helmet I was sporting for saving me from having to shell out for reconstructive surgery.

My pain ratcheted up its volume to a stereo feedback. It'd been manageable a second before but was then a full-fledged handicap. My ears were ringing. My head felt like it was trying to backstroke against the current in a river of mud.

I'd landed on my butt. The only reason I wasn't splayed out like a piece of roadkill was for my back making the wall's acquaintance. Opening my eyes, everything looked like the reflection in an old-school funhouse mirror. The yakuza looked like he'd spontaneously cloned a pair of twins from himself. All three of them were closing in on me.

I'm not sure what he'd been about to do to snuff my lights out, but the clack of a sonic shot going off drew his attention away from me. The window I'd gained couldn't have been briefer, but I still had enough wits about me to recognize the chance. The yakuza was within reach, so with the same tenacity as a snake biting to defend itself, I recoiled my leg and struck it into his crotch.

An operatic note close to the falsetto range spilled from the guy's mouth. It was so earsplitting that it somehow pierced the ringing in mine a bit. The yakuza's hands clapped onto his lower body of their own accord while visible pain contorted him to look even uglier.

For half my life, I'd lived by seizing on every chance to benefit me that came along. That time was no different. The yakuza was vulnerable, and I'd reacquired some of my juice. It caused the bongos playing in my head to beat faster, but I shoved my way up into a kneeling position. Conjuring up all the strength I could at the moment, I used the wall and floor as a springboard to introduce my shoulder to the yakuza's solar plexus.

It was the yakuza's turn to come off his feet, which resulted in both of us falling together. Back on the floor, I rolled off the guy. The helmet that had been doing its duty well slipped off my head as I turned onto my back. I'd already felt the chin strap go at some point, so it didn't come as any shocker.

I have no idea how long it lasted, but the yakuza and I just laid there for a time. Neither of us was a meter's distance from the other. We just gasped for air, both of our bodies trying equally to rebound.

The only thing I'm sure of from those minutes is that Souta did nothing to help me or mangle my adversary. It wasn't hard to figure out. He'd sent out that distracting shot to help, but only because they needed me to do the hack for the money. I knew Souta wouldn't have shot at the yakuza himself, cause he probably would have hit me along with him. My only guess was that Souta wasn't being the Red Cross for me right then because the sadistic streak he had less abundantly than his shrunken friend wanted to see how the fight played out by itself.

After what felt like a couple of decades, enough potency seeped back into my muscles that I tried getting to my feet. Not yet vertical, I felt something take a hold of my ankle. The precarious balance I had was robbed of me, and I ate the floor for the third time.

Looking back over my shoulder, I saw that the yakuza was finding his own strength to stand. I tried to kick him again, but my eyesight was still hovering around sixty percent. I don't think I could have missed his head more if it'd been my intent. I tried again to stand up, but the yakuza beat me to it.

That guy was one seriously dedicated goon because he wasn't done with me yet. Three-quarters standing, he took me by the back of my jacket and waistline and hurled me against the wall. Every square centimeter of my front made contact, and I then felt a hard uppercut at the base of my spine add a new melody to the symphony of old and new agony alike.

I did a push-up against the wall, flopping my way through a one-eighty to my left. The follow-up punch I'd sensed coming hit right where I'd been. The yakuza staggered backward for the space to make his next move, trying to shake his hand free of what it'd just taken.

I took a huge bound of a step to try and connect the rear of my fist with his temple. I may have been exhausted, anguished, and most of the way to a concussion, but I hadn't come that far just to pack it in. Unfortunately, my resolve didn't translate into a dead-on aim. My punch missed clean; close, but clean.

I didn't have the stability to stop my momentum from carrying me forward in several, loping gaits. I crashed down to my knees at the side of the secretary's desk. Before ever getting the chance to mount my next counterattack, the yakuza snatched a handful of my hair and used his full weight to choke me with the edge of the desk.

My mental alertness backlashed to full life like my reset button had been pressed. My eyes went wide. The sensation of my throat being compressed against the edge of the wood was like nothing I'd ever felt before. I felt like gagging and grunting, but there was no sound coming out. My hands flew up to the desk to try to relieve some of the pressure, but it did next to nothing.

I had more true terror running laps through my system in those moments than I'd ever had in my whole life up to then. The all-encompassing knowledge and torture of your windpipe getting crushed had that effect.

I ran my thinker through all the gambit of possible ways to get myself clear of that one. My jackpot answer was given to me by Yoshida's absentee secretary of all people. Taking one of my hands from their fruitless endeavor, I stretched, going for the ceramic mug on the desk. I could graze the handle with my fingertips, but it was a shade too far to wrap them around.

I started to feel not tired, or dazed, but faint. A sea of nausea was roiling down in my stomach. My vision was starting to darken at the edges. I couldn't let that happen. I couldn't let myself get killed being choked by some no-name goon.

My fingers could almost get a hold of the mug's handle if just a little more. It started to feel like the contents of my guts were pushing against the blocked passage, so I went for broke. I was already in agony, so I shoved myself upward as best I could, my throat scraping on the wood.

I got my digits on the mug, smashed it down on the surface of the desk, and put it to use. I'd been able to feel the guy's breath on the side of my face the whole time, so I knew where he was. My arm shot up, and I jabbed the broken handle into him and raked it down his face for all it was worth. The scream that came from him was like that of an injured, wild animal. Warm slime I knew was his blood trickled between my fingers and gushed down my sleeve.

The yakuza dropped his hold on me, and I could breathe again. The sweet taste of air entering my starved lungs was curtailed half a second later by everything I had in my guts spewing out my mouth. The stream of upchuck subsided, and I breathed deeply, but roughly. I gagged and spluttered, shooting stars of spittle arcing from my mouth.

The combo platter of aching beyond belief and ecstatic to be alive was a unique experience. I turned my head to take a gander at the yakuza. He was standing two and a half meters away from me, clutching his mucked-up face with both hands and, whimpering like a hurt puppy.

Now, I was someone who strove to always keep his cool in all cases, even if I was staring down a hoard of horrible beasts from ancient mythology. Looking at the guy who'd come so close to doing me in, a swell of anger surged within me, and I didn't even want to shove it down.

While still retching, I strode over to the yakuza, weaved my fingers together, and cracked him in the back of the neck two-handed. He fell to the floor, but I wasn't done there. Taking the collar of his blazer, I dragged him back over to the desk. Using the same grip he'd used to toss me against the wall a minute earlier, I lifted him a little from the floor, and let his face get intimate with the desk. I drilled him into the side once more before the steam I'd gained from my outburst left me, and I had to lay an arm across the top to hold myself up. The yakuza was finally down for the count.

Another couple of minutes were spent before I got enough of myself back to stand unsupported. Everyone else in the room had eyes for nothing but me. Souta looked like the fact he was holding people hostage had left him altogether. Made me feel like a sideshow freak for a second, but I didn't care.

I shambled my way over to where my gun had fallen. My legs were heavy and iffy enough that it seemed like a kilometer's trek. Back with me again, I had to use both hands just to keep hold of the heater.

Genkei flew down the last flight of stairs and exited out into the main halls. He followed the signs for the loading docks quickly as he could, cursing his reduced speed and the root cause of it every step of the way.

Genkei was never going to forgive his parents for being poorer than the dirt they were squatting on when he'd been born. For the first ten years of his life, every scrap of clothing had been charity freebies, every meal had come from soup kitchens, and there had been whole weeks when he hadn't eaten a bite.

If they hadn't been so penniless, if they'd just made something, even by hook or crook, Genkei wouldn't have had to get free, government-issued nanos to grow his skeleton. The damned pencil pushers in their ivory towers had given him a bad batch. It would have killed him, but cybernetic-related healthcare was so vital, that it was the one thing they let you have for free.

Genkei had been in and out of wards so many times, some of the docs had started to call him “Whiplash.” Renal failure, a crushed lung, misshapen bone development, muscle atrophy from prolonged bed rest. Every malady possibly associated with bad nanos had taken turns slapping him in the face. If he had to set off a nuke in the middle of the Imperial Palace to make it happen, Genkei had promised himself he'd never be that helpless again.

Genkei found the exterior door for the loading dock. That broadcast had said they were taking Yoshida out the back, so they had to be there. He found the back alley a ghost town; no car, no goons, no Yoshida. Genkei's rage ratcheted up another notch on its infinite scale.

He didn't understand. He'd hauled ass to tear down those stairs faster than even he had thought possible. Could he still have missed them? Or had it been a fake-out, like the dick in the helmet had suggested?

“What should I do?! I'll never get a chance like this again! Should I go nab my bike, and see if I can pick 'em up on the street, or go back up top to see if that'd been the right play?!” He mentally debated.

The unmistakable piglet squeal of tires on pavement made Genkei's decision for him. The impulse to act had godlike power over him. He hopped off of the loading dock and high-tailed it around to where they'd left the hogs.

Genkei mounted the machine with no trouble but had to take a second to work his feet into the prosthetic legs. He hated that he needed the faux limbs to work the pedals, but he loved the motorcycle and driving it a lot more than any living thing. His feet clicked into place, and just as they did every time, the legs changed from their default appearance to seamlessly line up with the look of his pants and shoes.

The engine's snarl to life put a smile on his face. Genkei blasted down the alley, taking the ninety-degree turn at the corner with hardly a tap of the brakes. Out on the main drag, the fading evening sunlight still hit him like a brick wall. He only had moments to ponder the dilemma of left or right before a police prowler was rolling up on him.

In his whole twenty-four years, Genkei had always been the type to act first, and think second. There wasn't an inkling of consideration in him as he lifted his iron and sent a shot screeching at the cops. Genkei wheeled the bike around a half circle and powered the opposite way down the alley.

“Miserable coward must have hid out in his office as the guy said! So, I'll just go back up!” He thought.

He'd been plotting to leap from the bike and just retrace his steps up the mid-rise. His machinations were killed at infancy by the bellow of fourteen pumping liters echoing off the narrow walls. The flatfoots hadn't been rubbed out and were coming at him hard. If Genkei tried to dismount and get inside, it wouldn't be without a permanent detour to the great beyond.

Genkei glided through the hairpin turn with identical finesse, while the cruiser, with its fat bulk, inescapably wedged itself in at an angle.

“That doesn't matter. The boys will have taken the whole joint by now. I'll just go in the front.”

He circled to the building's anterior. The bike stopped just at the front doors. Through the crushed and absent glass, the panoramic view of the lobby let Genkei spy the guys he didn't recognize dragging away lifeless hunks that had been his friends.

Two of the yakuza spotted Genkei and must have made the mental leap that he was part of the opposition. They dropped the body in their hands to exchange it for their guns. Genkei was already peeling out ahead of their getting heat locked on him.

Through the wind in his ears, Genkei could hear the dull whine of even more sirens drawing near. The realization fell on him the same as if it'd been a steel girder. There was no way he could get back up there.

It was all over. His whole gang, all his friends were dead, and it'd been for nothing but the sake of a bastard they'd never laid eyes on until two days before. There was nothing he could do but roar in bitter, impotent rage as he made a turn away from the scene.

I groggily lurched my way closer to Souta, working hard to not only remain vertical but to clear the punch drunk from my head. Souta had retrieved enough of his gray matter to put his focus back on the hostages. It was a wonder they hadn't jumped him.

“You okay?” Souta asked me.

“I'm...” I involuntarily gagged. “... fine!”

My voice sounded like I'd been pulling smoke into my lungs a hundred times a day for sixty years. Souta gave me a nod.

“Fine, then. Go get started on your techy junk. I'll call Genkei, let him know we've got the crap sorted up here.” He said.

Souta dug into his pocket for his wireless. He was just pulling it out when something sent a cold shiver down his spine, making him go still as a statue. It was the sound of my gun cocking that did it to him. I was in his peripheral vision, so he could just see my barrel lined up with his cranium, and that I was too far for him to try anything.

“I can't...” I coughed again. “...Ack! Let you do that. Drop 'em. Both of 'em.”

“What are you doing? This isn't part of the plan.”

“I won't say it a third time. Lose the phone and the piece.”

My guess is that having seen everything I'd done just to reach that office, Souta decided it was best not to test me. He tossed both the items away.

“What now?” He asked.

To Souta's credit, he was keeping it together pretty well. There was barely a hint of nervousness in his eyes, and I could see he was trying his best to hide it. I'll never decipher why he was letting the bipolar imp be in charge when he had the brains and cool.

“Your bad luck, man. I can handle things from here.”

My trigger finger squeezed, and I painted a Picasso with his brains and blood. The last element of unpredictability eliminated, I'd let my shoulders relax, and let my gun fall to the side in one hand. I turned my gaze to the guys on the floor not far off.

“Yoshida Ichiro,” I said, choking down another gag. “I've got a proposition for you.”

I didn't even get to see their mouths open to give me an answer. Someone's hand clapped onto my shoulder to give me a twirl towards them, and their fist cleaned my clock.