Changing Masks

by Nicholas Metelsky

  'It looks like every adult is on a mission to ask me that question today.'

  'It’s a sign of care, I think,' he said and shrugged his shoulders. Then he grinned, put the glass down next to him and leaned his elbows on the counter. 'Well, how was it? Was it a good day?'

  'Not really. Not good or bad, which is okay I guess. How about yourself? I hope just as good.'

  'Heh. Just a regular day, but the night promises to be profitable,' he said throwing a glance behind my back.

  'Right,' I answered turning around. 'Lots of people here today. How's the old man doing? Is he finished playing with his new toy?'

  'I have no idea. He might be busy with something else by now. I'm staying out of it, you know. You got a new package yesterday, by the way, so he's been sniffing around it.'

  'He might have seen the packaging slip,' I snorted. 'Since he moved in here, he’s been crazy about his electronic toys. I should open up the package; otherwise, he'll go completely mad.'

  'That's unlikely, he'll always find something to do.'

  'You think so? I'll go and see him anyway.'

  I walked out through an inconspicuous door, the keys to which belonged only to me and Honda, and headed straight down the hall. After a turn to the right, there was another door that led to another hall and two more doors. The left one was where I needed to go. Every time I walk here, I can't help feeling that the halls resemble a maze. I looked around as I reached the right room. At first glance, it's a regular apartment with one exception: not many windows. The door leading to the shop is located in the next room, and that is where my target is. Entering the workshop, I called out to gain the attention of its owner.

  'Hi Funtik. How's the wanted criminal doing?' The old man turned towards me after hearing my voice and frowned.

  'I managed to dig up all the information, what’s available and what isn’t available, at your request, yesterday, but you have only come now. My beard is about to fall out from curiosity.'

  'That just means that I am more patient than you are.'

  'Come on, open up that box with the microchips,' he said waving towards the box behind me. I went up to the container near one of the workbenches.

  'Just one here?'

  'Yes. The rest are in the warehouse,' he grinned, 'among the fruit and vegetables.'

  'I see. Why so far? Who got the package anyway?'

  'Honda.'

  'My bad, I didn't warn him,' I said scratching my nose. 'Oh, well. I'll have to set up a base somewhere with a shooting range and targets. This building is not suitable for this.'

  'With a shooting range? Good luck. I wonder where you'll find so much land.'

  'Outside the city, Funtik, outside the city.'

  'What about the rent money? And money to mask the construction?' That's an interesting question, not about the money, but about everything else.

  'Well, I'm not going to do it right this moment.'

  The package was a 40x40 square, plastic box. After removing the seal, I was finally able to see my purchase—KPZ/7-3p — mobile armor suits for pilots, third generation, seventh model. The suit is made out of matte-black, flame-resistant fabric with a 30% Kevlar content. The two layers with nanosecurity between them are called liquid armor. The fixed parts of the body are protected with Kevlar plates. The autodoctor function uses artificial muscles to give the pilot three times more strength. It has a level three protection rating according to Russian Imperial Standards — that’s where the wonder-suit had been sent from. To make it clear, it can withstand the clip of a 'Kalash' at point-blank range.

  I changed right there in the workshop, did a few sit-ups, one-two punches, splits and from this position got onto my hands and, making a bridge, was back on my feet.

  'Nice, it doesn't restrict my movements at all,' I looked at my hands, squeezing them a couple of times into a fist. 'The gloves might be a bit rough for my nocturnal work.'

  'You can easily remove them if need be.'

  'True,' I agreed, magnets and Velcro make it pretty simple. 'Okay, let's check out the helmet.'

  The helmet was the same matte-black color as the overalls, with a filling I didn’t recognize that made it comfortable to wear whatever the head size. It was equipped with a tactical and analytical module that allows you to mark and track up to 150 targets. The cameras had a 12x-zoom and pointed microphone that picks up snipping extraneous noise and conversations at a distance of about 2000 feet, a large optical range, X-ray, infrared vision, terahertz vision, and so on. Of course, protection and reliability: a bullet in the forehead is not gonna hurt me or the electronic stuffing. Respectively, autodoc is responsible for the controls of the suit and pilot's body. Oh yes, and it is worth mentioning that the helmet works with brain electro-encephalography, which controls mental functions.

  'Not bad,' I said after playing with the settings. 'Pretty good.'

  'It's amazing,' Funtik noted. 'I wonder where Nakata-san got so many military outfits in that size?'

  'What?'

  'The size. Where did she find such small overalls?'

  'Hey! I'll punch you one!'

  'Grow up first.'

  'You're gonna get it.'

  'Alright, alright. I'm serious though. You're not gonna argue that you're not that small, are you?'

  'First of all, I'm only a bit short for my age. Secondly, I'm still growing.'

  'Also, you are Japanese, and all of us tend to be somewhat shorter than the average Russian, whence the suits came.' Okay, let’s say he got out of it.

  'This is a military development, which means that the thing is universal, adapting to the size of the pilot. Plus, don’t forget that the pilots of mobile armor don’t recruit giants. That doesn't mean that all MD pilots are short, but it is a preferable characteristic.'

  'How about...'

  'Infantry MD is a different story. Let's go to the gym. I can at least punch dummies there. Although they are more like punch pads with a human silhouette.'

  Halfway into the hall, Funtik strolled off in the direction of the kitchen, and I went down to the small cellar, one of seven in the building. I don't really know or care what was here before, but now it's a gym. The gym was a small room with judo mats on the floor and walls painted green. The room was illuminated by long fluorescent lights. In each corner, there were punching dummies screwed to the floor and surrounded by mats. It looked like they were growing out of the floor. Their caricature faces drawn with a yellow marker looked fairly comical.

  I approached the dummy to the right, jabbed at it, then sharply struck a hook in the upper part. A one-two punch to the torso, right hook, left hook, kick with my knee to the center, low-kick into the lower right side, left hook, and as a final move—leg, straight in the center.

  I approached the object of the beating and checked the result. Makiwara itself withstood the test. Obviously, it wasn't made of wood, but the fixings had started wearing out: the pseudo-human was reeling. Pure physics and nothing more. I never use my abilities in this gym; otherwise, I'd wear myself out cleaning the place up and picking up dummies.

  'Excellent equipment for light infantry. Perhaps, it is excessively brilliant given its price,' I said without turning towards the old man who approached me from behind. 'For me, the power of this suit is excessive. Let's test it...' I was startled but turned around and saw what Funtik was holding. 'You, sly old man!'

  'This morning, when I was looking through the papers on this miracle, I noticed the muscle amplifiers. I could understand it if they had pseudo-muscles in them. They could at least be regulated or disabled, but without them... What's the point, anyway?'

  'Precision. In the combat robot, you pull the levers, while in mobile armor, you control the limbs directly. The armor will react to the arm movements. The controls there, by the way, as far as I know, are tight. So, it's not so easy without the amplifiers, but they might have corrected it by now. Wait, this is proof of the opposite,' I finished. 'Did you take all the eggs out of the fridge?'

>   'Sure, why not. I'll have to clean up after you anyway.'

  'What are you talking about? When have you ever cleaned up the gym after me?' I smirked.

  'Are you going to crack them right here?'

  'Umm ok, let's go outside.' We didn't go too far and actually stopped in the hall.

  'Should we look for a better place or put the plastic down at least?'

  'What did I bring these eggs here for then?'

  'I don't know,' I answered honestly. 'You probably like it.'

  'You, little bastard.'

  'I am a teenager, and I can be little…'

  'Let's go, teenager, we have a plastic wrap in the workshop. Besides, it's closer to the showers.'

  'The showers?'

  'And how do you imagine me dealing with this suit afterwards? I'll have to wash it anyway.'

  'You don't think too highly of me, do you?'

  'We need the plastic wrap anyhow.' When we had finished, I realized that not everything was as bad as it had at first appeared. I broke ten of eighteen eggs that were thrown at me. So adaptation should go relatively quickly. The main thing is to give it time and practice, which would become less possible due to school clubs. Oh, time ...

  Finally, satisfying my curiosity, I went into the shower without changing. I wanted to rinse myself and at the same time clean up the device. After the shower, I went back to the workshop, where I lost the suit that was quickly grabbed by Funtik. It looked like the old man couldn't wait to parse the Russian military product.

  'Be careful, it'll suck if you can’t put it all back together again.'

  'Yeah, yeah, don't you worry. I can assess my own capabilities and vouch for this suit. I am more an engineer than an electronics expert, so I'm not going to pull it inside out,' he replied, not turning away from his desk which now had my purchase on it. 'What's the big deal, anyway? You have more than fifty of them in the warehouse. Why do you need so many?'

  'To begin with, this gadget is rare. That means, after I'm done with it, I can re-sell it. If I had more money, I would have bought a few more pieces—more wouldn't hurt either.' Too much money though, but I'll make more; the suits, however, might not be an option in the future. Even now, I had barely managed to buy them at the last moment as they were selling out fast. In one week, they only had 100 left of 1000. Thanks to the Almighty Akemi for that. She took 5K, but that's nothing.

  'I see ... I see,' muttered Funtik. He didn't look like he was listening to me. 'How much are they?'

  'One million, one hundred thousand.'

  'Wha-a-at?' He finally turned to look at me.

  'That's insane!' He looked at the desk again. 'Why didn't you tell me earlier?'

  'Why, would it stop you now?'

  'No, you're right. Only if you forbid me to', the ‘engineer’ secured his gaze on me.

  'What are you looking at? Haven’t you seen enough of me?' He chuckled and turned back towards his desk.

  'Greed is not your thing, is it?' He muttered.

  'Well, I wouldn't say so.' I still get the shakes when I think about all the money I spent,' I said shaking my head. 'Trust me, I have a lot of negative qualities, and greed is one of them.'

  'Whatever you say, Shinji.'

  'Alright, I guess I'm gonna go now,' I said looking at the clock. 'I still have time to hang out with the guys.'

  When I had almost made it to the doors, I got a text message. I looked at it and cursed. Honda was letting me know that Nakata Akemi was in her VIP-room and wanted to have a talk with me. God, was this day ever going to be over?

  I stepped out into the hall, nodded to Shotgun, and headed towards one of the six VIP-rooms in the club. I met Roko on my way and just guiltily shrugged my shoulders. I really wanted to spend time with them because I rarely saw them anymore. In response, I got an understanding nod and proceeded to my destination where Akemi was waiting for me. I wondered what she could need if she had come here after dark, without letting me know beforehand. If her business was serious, she'd have contacted me herself right away and instructed me not to leave. We'd have to meet somewhere else. That's why I walked into her room confident that she was intending to offer me a job. It would probably be profitable because I wouldn't take on anything that wasn’t, not immediate and quite possibly very interesting. I came to that conclusion because today was the annual meeting of the heads of Garagarahjebi, and, she must have come to The Swallow straight from the meeting.

  'Hello everyone,' I uttered, stepping into the room. Akemi was lounging on a long couch. Isiatama was at the bar getting drinks. Dzuno leaned over the table, carefully looking at a bunch of hors-d'oeuvres. Lee pressed the buttons of the music box, which was mounted to the left wall from the door.

  'Same to you,' Akemi said making a relaxed gesture towards me.

  'Hello, Sin,' Ishiyatama said. Zuno and Lee just nodded.

  'Is Mouse sitting in the car again? You meanies.' He must have messed up again.

  'It's ok. It’s for his own good,' Akemi said sounding content. That's what I thought.

  'What happened this time?' I asked taking a seat across from the woman.

  'Oh, he basically managed to ruin my car.' That was strange. Mouse was known to be a great driver. What did he do I wonder? 'The thing is that he did it by throwing the body of one of the poor guys who was waiting for his boss. The car was parked in the middle of the parking lot amidst many others. Somehow, he managed to hit my car with the body, not someone else's! Out of dozens of others!' Akemi folded her arms across her chest.

  'M-kay.' I didn't know what else to say. 'That's good that he works for you. I know I wouldn't be patient enough.'

  'Pfff,' she had a sad look all of a sudden. 'At least, he always survives. Never mind the driver, tell me about your first day at school.'

  'Why are you all so hung up about my first day? It's a regular day like any other.'

  'But...'

  'I just don't feel up to small talk. How about you tell me about today's meeting?' Every year, on April 26, Garagarahjebi organizes an employee party, to which everyone involved with the organization is invited. It is like a dinner party, and any kind of conflict is banned. Of course, the purpose of these meetings is not just to have a nice dinner.

  'Very interesting, as strange as it may seem. It was interesting and ... alarming, at the same time. For you, first and foremost.'

  'Young beautiful girl, I want to remind you that it's nighttime, and my day was not full of pleasant lounging around. I am tired and want to sleep, Akemi. Let's avoid the long mysterious pauses.'

  'You are a spiteful and boring type, Shinji. I'm going to start from the beginning anyway,' the she-devil answered in a calm voice. 'First, let's clarify your abilities. First and foremost it’s a bolt of lightning. Electricity, to be exact. You can't release it from your hands, but you can damage pretty good through a touch.'

  'That's outdated knowledge, woman. The facts are like two years old.'

  'Next, speed and response. Both at Veteran level.'

  'A certain incident with a Master, which you know about, and how I was able to run away from him show that my speed and response are at somewhat higher levels.'

  'Strength? Perhaps. You could break a wall with your bare hands.' Wow, she doesn't think very highly of me.

  'Magnetism? I've seen you gravitate silverware towards you a couple of times.' When I found out that this was possible, I allowed myself to show off a few times. My purpose was to demonstrate the abilities of Lightning or Magnetism adepts, so that she would have fewer questions. True, it's easier with metals, but I can work with any non-living substance.

  'Once, you mentioned that you are immune to poison, so let's add that to your arsenal.' There she was referring to the three elements at once: Life, Earth, and Lightning. I'm not sure why I have these. I'd add that Adepts of Water are also immune to poisons but to a lesser degree.

  'There are other little things, but they all point to the fact that you're a Lightning adept, perhaps in the ran
k of Warrior.' I was calm. Was it a bad idea to lead her to these conclusions? That's not the point though. I was afraid that I had revealed something else before I started my ‘Lightning campaign’. Apparently, it all worked out.

  'That's where it gets interesting.' I guess I spoke too soon. 'First, you can sense other people’s eyes on you. A lot of people have this ability but you supersede them. I've been watching you for five years now and can confidently say that you have developed this ability to an extremely advanced level.' What an observant kitten!

  'Next, we have Yaki.' Lust for Murder? What does that have to do with anything? Many can release Yaki; I've never actually met any Veteran or person with a higher rank, who is not capable of this. Even Shina, the house cat, is quite keen on it. 'Yaki is not that extraordinary, just as the ability to sense someone looking at you isn’t that strange. These abilities are common, but yours supersede others by a long way.'

  'Time is ticking, miss. Let's cut out the pauses,' I blurted out which earned me an offended look.

  'I may just decide to go home. Do you think I enjoy going balls to the wall for you?' Yeah, that's exactly what I think.

  'Okay, okay, I'll be quiet,' I said, raising my hands in a sign of obedience.

  'So, Yaki... It's pretty advanced. I believe you could stop the heart of an adult, not to mention an animal or a child. I very much doubt you could pull it off with a trained fighter, but it'll help to hinder and confuse in a fight. As long as the other fighter does not have a rank higher than Veteran. If it's higher, then the results aren't that great. To help you understand, the strongest Yaki I've heard of is ten times weaker than yours. In fact, The Lust for Murder is your biggest giveaway. Sometimes, you release such terror that it’s insane, and you don't even notice.' Dang, she could be a preacher. The ability to withstand Yaki doesn't depend on rank, that's all. The trick is in the will. For example, I could easily to do away with her, and she's a Teacher. However, it's news to me that I'm not noticing something — very unpleasant news.