by A. J. Markam
She did it right in front of me and Nova – and I noticed Nova didn’t look away at all.
Very interesting.
The office had several computers and dozens of monitors. Some showed footage from security cameras on the surface, both inside and outside the warehouse. But several monitors showed shots from inside the bunker.
Yuki pointed up at the camera in the corner of the ceiling. “There’s one in the bedroom, too, Hunter-san. In case you want to film something with me,” she said with a wink.
She stashed the Ephemera in a dresser, then set about fixing us dinner.
“You guys want some sake?” she asked. “Wine? Beer? Cocktails?”
“Got any scotch?” I asked.
“Hai.”
“I’ll take that.”
She gave me a bottle of some 30-year-old Macallan. That was one nice thing about Yuki – the girl had good taste. At least her law-breaking went towards buying good booze.
Or stealing it, anyway.
“We can’t just get drunk and hang out,” Nova complained as I poured myself a double.
“Speak for yourself,” I said as I took a sip.
Ahhh. That was some good shit.
“We need to be doing something productive,” Nova said.
“We are. Drinking and eating dinner.”
“You know what I mean,” she said sourly. “We need to plan.”
“Well, I don’t know about you,” I said, “but my plan is to take the next week or so off and practice until I get my fuckin’ powers back to full force.”
“Hell yeah!” Yuki yelled from the kitchen.
“See?” I said to Nova as I pointed at Yuki.
“You almost got us killed back there!” my little Japanese hottie continued. “A couple of times!”
“Okay, you’re not helping anymore,” I yelled at her.
“Shouldn’t we discuss strategy, though?” Nova asked. “Try to figure out how to hit Antimatter?”
I could tell the inaction was driving Nova insane, so I sighed and took pity on her. “Hey Yuki – do you know where Antimatter lives?”
“No idea. They say he has about ten different places, and he goes to a new one every night, in case the US military tries to kill him with a missile strike.”
“Smart,” I said, then addressed Nova again. “But the good thing is, Antimatter has no idea that we work for the US military, so he won’t see it coming.”
“I don’t work for the US military!” Yuki yelled.
“You do if you want that fuckin’ pardon,” I said.
“How do you know he doesn’t know?” Nova asked.
“Spike said as much. Turns out the Australian cartel tipped off Antimatter, which explains last night at Madame’s.”
“I love Madame’s!” Yuki squealed.
“Anti also thinks we died in the scramjet explosion, so we have that on our side.”
“So you want to take the battle to him, then,” Nova said. I could see the gears turning in her head.
“Eventually – but when we do, I want to be at full capacity. So until then…” I poured her some scotch and slid the shot over. “…let’s just drink and relax for a while. We deserve it.”
Nova raised one eyebrow at the scotch. “Is there any white wine?”
“Hai!” Yuki cried out. Ten seconds later she walked in with a sealed bottle and two glasses.
Nova looked up. “Oh – do you have a corkscrew?”
“Don’t need one!” Yuki said.
She ghosted her hand through the bottle neck and the cork phased out of the bottle with a mild pop!
Nova’s jaw dropped open in surprise.
I grinned. “Party tricks for SPCs.”
Yuki poured a glass of Chardonnay for herself and one for Nova. “Here you go!”
I raised my glass of scotch. “A toast.”
“Oooh! What to?”
“A new partnership,” I said.
“And killing Antimatter,” Nova said.
“And great sex!” Yuki giggled.
I clinked my glass against Yuki and Nova’s. “A-fuckin’-men.”
19
And so began a rigorous regimen of training to regain my powers… and fucking Yuki at least four times a day.
The training was brutal. It was basically an extension of what I’d done back on the sparkjet before we arrived in Japan, but on steroids. I would work for an hour or two, collapse from exhaustion, rest for thirty minutes, and then start all over again.
The harder I pushed myself, the more strength I regained.
The first day I created shapes and started grinding them against the concrete walls of the bunker. I was so weak that I usually gave out after only 500 foot-pounds of pressure.
By the third day, I was starting to cut grooves into concrete.
By the seventh day, I was punching holes through steel.
Yuki even bought some guns on the black market – a pistol, a shotgun, and a machinegun – and fired them one by one at my shields. We started with one bullet from the pistol, which was all I could take. From there we went to double-taps with the pistol, up to shotgun blasts, and worked our way up to a full clip from the machinegun.
When she and Nova unloaded all three guns at once and I was able to keep my shields up with only minimal discomfort, I knew I was getting back into fighting shape.
To build up my strength, Yuki phased me up to street level at night where I practiced lifting parked cars an inch off the ground – just enough so as not to alert any passersby.
The first car took me two days of trying before I could finally lift it, and I was a trembling mess afterwards. By the end of the week, I could lift ten cars at one time without breaking a sweat.
I also enlisted Nova’s powers. We started off with her throwing fireballs against my shields, then sustained blasts of flame. She kept notching up the intensity, but the underground bunker was too confined for her to really cut loose without destroying Yuki’s place.
So one night we took a chance. Yuki phased us up to street level where we found an old abandoned building that was nothing but crumbling brick. There, for 30 seconds at a clip, Nova hit me with everything she had.
She claimed that in military lab testing she’d maxed out at 3000 Fahrenheit, more than hot enough to melt steel.
It hurt like hell, but I was able to keep my forcefield from collapsing under her onslaught.
At that point I knew I was ready to take on Antimatter.
Or hoped I was, anyway.
20
Training left me completely drained, covered in sweat, and exhausted.
So did sex with Yuki. Only it was a helluva lot more fun.
The sex was a reward for the hours of excruciating pain and effort. Another reward was watching Nova get closer and closer to completely losing it from sexual frustration. Every time Yuki walked out of the bedroom after another marathon session of screaming orgasms, Nova crossed her legs and looked like she might explode.
One morning while Yuki and I were lying there naked after taking advantage of my morning wood, she said in Japanese, “I really love fucking you, Hunter-san… but I want to fuck her, too.”
“Nova?” I asked in surprise.
“Hai. SO bad.”
What I said next, I said in Japanese so that there was absolutely no way Nova would know what we were talking about. “I have a plan. Here’s what I want you to do…”
Two minutes later, Yuki went out into the main room stark naked.
I was watching on a small monitor by Yuki’s bed (which, I’ll admit, we’d used to record some of our sexploits earlier). The monitor was patched into the security system Yuki had set up, so I could see everything that happened in the other room.
As soon as Yuki walked in, Nova did a literal spit-take with her coffee – but I noticed she didn’t throw Yuki a towel or tell her to cover up.
“Good morning, Angelica-san!” Yuki said cheerfully.
She went over to the kitchen and b
ent over to get something out of a drawer, showing Nova the full glory of her tight, toned ass.
I almost burst out laughing. Nova couldn’t take her eyes off Yuki’s butt.
“G-good morning,” Nova choked out.
Yuki looked around in alarm, though she still kept her ass poked out in Nova’s direction. “Oh – is it alright that I am naked?”
Nova tried to keep cool. “It’s your place. Do whatever you want.”
“Domo arigato!” Yuki said, then swung around to face Nova quickly, which made her boobs sway back and forth. Nova’s eyes moved back and forth, too, tracking Yuki’s nipples. “Do Hunter and I bother you too much with our noise?”
Nova forced herself to look Yuki in the eyes.
“Hm? Oh. No, you don’t bother me,” Nova said with a smile – and then lapsed into an irritated frown. “Hunter does.”
Yuki laughed, causing more jiggling that Nova ate up. “I think Hunter bothers you, comma. Wait – is that how you say it?”
“I think you mean ‘period.’ Hunter bothers me, period.”
“Yes! That is it. Why?”
Nova looked confused. “Why is it ‘period’?”
“No – why does he bother you?”
“Because he’s a jackass.”
Yuki giggled. “He is just very confident.”
“I don’t think that even begins to describe it,” Nova grumbled, then took another sip of coffee as she glanced at Yuki’s chest.
“Do you like boys, Angelica-san?”
Nova almost did another spit-take, but was able to stop herself this time. “I like men, yes.”
“Do you like girls, too?” Yuki asked innocently.
Nova blushed bright red, and her eyes wandered down to Yuki’s impressive rack. “I… I don’t know… I’ve never been with a woman…”
“You should try it!” Yuki said enthusiastically. She walked over, braced a hand on the table, and leaned over so her epic tits were just inches away from Nova’s face. “I like girls. I would help you,” she whispered seductively.
I thought Nova was going to spontaneously come right then and there.
She stared at Yuki’s breasts…
Looked up at Yuki’s eyes…
Slooooowly raised her mouth to kiss Yuki’s pouting lips…
And then froze.
Nova squinted her eyes and frowned. “Did Hunter put you up to this?”
Yuki’s a great liar – in Japanese. In English, not so much. It’s all about tonality. In Japanese, she was subtle. In English, her protests sounded like bad acting in a worse sitcom.
“What?! Noooo…”
Nova turned away from Yuki and shouted at me in the bedroom. “Hey, asshole – don’t send her out to do your dirty work!”
I stuck my head into the room and grinned. “Can’t blame a guy for tryin’.”
She threw her coffee cup at me, but I didn’t even have to throw up a forcefield – I got out of the way in plenty of time. And laughed my ass off.
21
A week after we’d entered Yuki’s bunker, the time finally came.
I had a plan for facing down Antimatter – and it involved walking right into the lion’s den and acting like we owned the place.
Yuki had dozens of hot-as-hell nightclub outfits to choose from – one of the perks of making half a million a year as a thief.
She loaned the biggest, loosest one she had to Nova, but what was a slinky, little black dress on a short Japanese chick turned into a skin-tight miniskirt on a tall blonde.
“I can’t wear this,” Nova moaned as she tried to stretch the hem of the dress down below her upper thighs.
“I told you you should’ve bought some club clothes,” I said unsympathetically.
“Why can’t I just wear my suit?!”
“Because then they’ll know why we’re really there. I need you to look like eye candy, not a secret weapon. Besides, what’s the problem? Your underwear is fireproof.”
It was true. She had a very skimpy bra and panty set she wore underneath her uniform.
She glared at me. “The rest of the outfit isn’t.”
“And I am so looking forward to you burning it off.”
She griped and moaned, but finally gave in. We compromised in that Yuki’s size 3 shoes didn’t fit Nova’s larger feet, so Nova had to wear her boots from her uniform. She ended up looking suitably punk rock – at least from the knees down.
Yuki phased us up to street level, and we hoofed it to a main boulevard where we hailed a taxi.
We got out of the cab at Madame’s at 5PM, the earliest you could come for dinner and way before the evening started cranking.
I walked up to the penthouse elevator with Nova on one arm and Yuki on the other.
When Kaichi the doorman looked up from his desk, I don’t know which shocked him more: the two gorgeous babes by my side, or the fact that he was staring at a ghost.
Actually, I was used to walking into Madame’s with gorgeous babes on my arm, so it had to have been that he thought I was dead.
“Kaichi,” I greeted him.
“H-H-Hunter-san,” he choked out as he turned white.
He must have given them some sort of silent signal, because the two Yakuza bouncers behind him reached for their guns –
But I was faster. Much faster.
I nailed them both in the temple with golf-ball-sized force fields. Booth doormen would both wake up in a couple of hours with concussions and splitting headaches – if they woke up at all.
I grabbed Kaichi around the neck with an invisible forcefield and lifted him a couple of inches off the floor.
“Take me to Mama-san,” I said with a smile. “Or I crush your throat like a piece of origami. Got it?”
“H-h-h-hai!”
We rode up in the elevator together. I let up on the forcefield around Kaichi’s neck, but when we got to the restaurant level and the doors opened, I kicked his knees from the back and sent him sprawling down on all fours.
Everyone in the place turned in our direction. There were only a few waiters, two lone diners, and a handful of barflies getting an early start on the evening.
And Mama-san, whose expression suggested a mild coronary.
From the looks on everybody’s faces, it was clear the reports of my death were not only greatly exaggerated, but exceedingly widespread.
“Hey, guys, private party tonight. Everybody else, CLEAR OUT NOW.”
Everybody ran for the exits – including Mama-san.
I blocked her way with a forcefield, which she slammed into hard enough to leave makeup smudges on it.
“Not you, Mama-san,” I said, strolling over to where she sat on her ass, stunned and holding her nose. “You and me are gonna have a little talk.”
She looked up at me, terrified.
“What’s wrong, Mama-san?” I asked with feigned concern. “You look like you’ve just seen a ghost.”
“Hunter-san, it wasn’t my idea,” she whimpered. “You have to believe me!”
“Oh, so it wasn’t you who set me up with an assassin posing as one of your girls? And after I dealt with her, it wasn’t you who burst into my room and said, ‘Tonmonoshitsu sends his regards’?” I looked off into space as though remembering. “Oh, no, wait – what you actually said was, ‘Tonmonoshitsu sends his regards, gaijin.’ I forgot the gaijin part.”
She was trembling now. “I had no choice, Hunter-san…”
I put my hand under her chin and gently lifted up her terrified face. “What – to send Antimatter’s regards? Or no choice but to try and have me killed?”
“Please… please don’t hurt me…” she moaned.
“I’m not going to hurt you,” I grumbled, “so shut up and listen. You’re going to contact Antimatter and Spike for me, and they’re going to come over and be my guests for dinner. Tell him his Ephemera didn’t blow up in the plane crash, but if he wants it, he’s going to have to cut a deal. Tell him he better not try anything, because he’l
l never find the Ephemera on his own. And if you or him or anybody else tries to kill me again, you’re ALL goin’ out a fuckin’ window. Got it?”
“Y-yes, Hunter-san…”
“Now go and bring me and my ladies here a bottle of your best champagne – unopened. I don’t want anybody trying to poison us. See, I don’t trust you any farther than I can throw you, Mama-san. Although… if you cross me again…”
I cast one of my forcefields underneath the nearest table and raised it up as fast as I could, smashing it against the ceiling and then releasing the shield.
Mama-san screamed as bits of kindling rained down on the floor.
“…I’m gonna throw you pretty fuckin’ far,” I growled. “Now go.”
She went, alright. Hustled like an NFL running back.
Two minutes later, Nova, Yuki, and I were drinking a $5000 bottle of champagne.
On the house, of course.
22
As we sat there sipping Dom Perignon, Nova asked, “Is this really wise?”
“What, you drinking before we kick their asses? Hm… maybe not. Keep it to half a glass, lightweight.”
She scowled. “You know what I mean.”
“I do. But we’re here and it’s too late to back out now, so it’s kind of a pointless question.”
Nova was about to say something else when the elevator door dinged, and in walked Antimatter and Spike.
At the exact same second, about a hundred armed Yakuza spilled out of the alcoves and exit doors of the restaurant. Mama-san flattened herself against the wall as the gangsters stormed through the room.
I saw Nova look around nervously as the Yakuza fanned out around us, but I patted her hand to reassure her.
Truth be told, I’d been expecting more goons. I was pleasantly surprised at the odds.
Hiroshi Takamura strode confidently over to the table. He was a good-looking bastard, I’d give him that – almost as handsome as his righthand man was ugly.
He had an intelligent face and a strong jaw. His thick black hair was fashionably cut, and piercing eyes stared out from under scowling eyebrows. He wore an expensive Italian suit tailored to his broad shoulders and muscular frame. As soon as we locked eyes, he nodded subtly.
