Wearing the Cape 5: Ronin Games

by Marion G. Harmon

  “So let’s find him!” Shell exclaimed. Ozma wore her Seeing Specs so she could see as well as hear the two of them. “A grab would be easy.”

  Shell was in favor of crowd-sourcing a kidnapping—tapping a few accounts and putting a bounty for discreet delivery up on the dark net (somebody greedy and untrustworthy had to know where he was). Shelly was more cautious. I’d begun noticing differences between Shell and Shelly, and wondered how much of it was her few extra months of experiences that hadn’t been part of Shell’s backup (which included dying—again) and how much of it was being in a physical (and vulnerable) body.

  “How would we find him?” I asked more cautiously. “The DSA’s best efforts came up short in Littleton, and they were actively hunting him in a small and heavily screened population. Now he could be anywhere in the world. And anyone. That doesn’t help.”

  My observation didn’t phase Ozma; she touched her cheek, looking thoughtful. “Does Kitsune have any living family? Close relatives?”

  “No.” I shook my head, remembering Fisher’s background file on him. “He lost his older brother and two sisters in World War Two, and his wife died in the eighties, I think? His daughter and granddaughter were his only remaining family when they were killed.”

  “And no other living relatives back in Japan,” Shell confirmed. “The war hit his home village pretty hard.”

  “Then I can find him. The misfortune of his family line may now be our good luck.”

  I blinked. “How?”

  “Simply put, the bones of his ancestors can lead me to him no matter what form he takes. If there were more than one of his line left then it would be problematic, like a compass seeking two magnetic poles.”

  For an Ozma-explanation, that actually made sense. And couldn’t have been worse. “The bones of his ancestors are in Japan.”

  “Then we will go to Japan and get them.”

  “Um,” said Shelly. “About that…”

  Five minutes was all it took to bring Ozma up to speed on the problem. Which did not perturb her in the slightest.

  “Then we will not seek permission. We must go, so we will go. And we must go soon. Between the two of us, I and the esteemed Doctor Cornelius have established that once Hope is drawn into this other realm we will not be able to follow her. Not even the way we went to her in Littleton. She will be lost to us and—”

  “Stop!” I held up my hands. “Shell and Shelly have already explored the possibility of sneaking into Japan.” And of our smuggling Kitsune out. “We can’t just get our passports and catch a plane from LAX. The Japanese government needs to approve applications for entry by visiting breakthroughs. They can deny us entry for any reason or no reason at all.” Blackstone might be able to use his contacts to leverage approval, but that would take time.

  “And we can’t just sneak in,” Shelly added. “Their national security agency is good—we don’t know all the details, but they’d probably spot you for your magic and they may even have ways of detecting cape-type powers like Hope’s coming in through customs.”

  “I see.” Ozma’s perfect brow furrowed.

  Nix raised a tiny hand. “Couldn’t you just pay someone there to…”

  Rob a grave were the words she was looking for, and I smiled at the earnest doll. “Send us a bone or two in the mail?” I could just imagine it: Oh hi, we got your number, and could you just mail us an ancient bone or two? Really? Expedited shipping would be great, we appreciate your skills in breaking several international laws and trafficking in human remains for us.

  The Shellys looked thoughtful. “How much time do we have? Enough to locate a reliable local resource? Or send someone less noticeable?”

  “I would still need to go,” Ozma said firmly. “Our Hope may not have more than days, and I would need to be assured of receiving the correct material.” And then of course Kitsune might actually be in Japan.

  Mom and Dad would always wonder what had happened to me.

  I closed my eyes, opened them. “I can get us into Japan,” I said, startling Shell and Shelly. “And I can get us out with Kitsune.”

  Chapter Six

  The more rules and regulations, the more thieves and robbers there will be.

  The more prohibitions you have, the less virtuous people will be.

  Good Government is not intrusive, the people are hardly aware of it. The next best is felt yet loved, and then comes that which is known and feared. The worst government is hated.

  Lao Tzu

  * * *

  Going supervillain takes planning. And that was what we were doing; it didn’t matter that Veritas had practically signed off on it—we were planning on violating the territorial sovereignty of an allied nation, and in a big way.

  I set some rules.

  Rule Number One: only Ozma, the Shellys, and me, were doing this. We weren’t widening the circle of people involved in any way that could get them in trouble later.

  Rule Number Two: we were only going if we could come up with a foolproof way of not being recognized once we were in the country. Just thinking about what we were doing made me sick to my stomach, and not for the reasons Shell thought.

  I wasn’t Miss Stick-Up-Her-Butt Law and Order, but I knew I sounded like it most of the time. I didn’t paint inside the lines because I had a particular respect for the law; I’d grown up in Chicago, and my family was connected. Even if we didn’t take advantage of the political machine I’d heard enough over the breakfast table, and overheard more than enough attending society’s endless round of charity events, to know the true character of a lot of the people who made and used those laws.

  But there was a reason why I was always on Shell’s case over casual hacking and snooping, and why I kept dragging Jacky back up to Chicago at the slightest pretext to play Artemis instead of the shadowy vampire-enforcer of New Orleans.

  Atlas and Ajax had drilled it into me from day one—superhumans were powerful and scary to everyone else. Beyond the profitability of playing to the whole superhero image, the reason for the colorful costumes and silly codenames was simple; we could only be trusted if our deeds were done in the daylight, if we could be seen and held accountable. And we had to keep that trust, with both governments and the public, or none of it would work.

  Which meant acting inside the law, being seen to act lawfully at all times—otherwise people started asking questions like “Who watches the watchers?” We watched ourselves and each other, it was the only way it could work.

  And sneaking across another nation’s borders in pursuit of a fugitive was definitely painting outside the lines. I wasn’t sure how many laws it broke, but if we got caught violating Japan’s sovereignty it would be…bad. The Sentinels had built their reputation for more than a decade and they’d survive, but Blackstone wouldn’t even have to kick me off the team—I’d just resign. It might be the beginning of Ozma’s supervillain career, and while Shell would be safe enough, Shelly would certainly lose her security clearance because of her quantum-link. She’d have to leave Littleton, even if she wasn’t directly involved in what we were about to do.

  Assuming I didn’t do jail time, I could always become a payload lifter for the Lunar Territory and help to build Armstrong. Living part-time on the Moon would be cool and certainly contribute to the future; Armstrong’s population was set to hit a thousand this year. One thousand colonists living on the Moon.

  But I’d be done wearing the cape, so if we were going to go supervillain there were rules.

  Shell took the job of arranging our covers and finding out where we needed to go once we got there. Ozma started making lists, itemizing stuff she’d need from her lab in the Dome. When the boys got back, we listened to the story of their night out (the part of me not focused on my problems had been a little worried it would involve police, and it had but only for the cleanup).

  Since my part of it didn’t start until we were going, that left me no excuse not to call it a night.

  Changing into t
he white sleep-shirt and shorts that came with my field pack (Vulcan-made of course, in case I had to wake up and fight somebody), I climbed into bed. Knowing I might wake up somewhere else for good, if it wasn’t for Shell’s whispered “Don’t worry, we’ve got you covered,” I wouldn’t have been able to close my eyes.

  To sleep, perchance to dream…of an undiscovered country. That’s not where I woke up.

  * * *

  I “woke up” on a cloud-soft bed. Circular, slightly concave, and with no sheets above the form-hugging pad, it occupied the center of a featureless and equally circular white room. When I sat up, still wearing the sleep-set I’d laid down in, the walls brightened.

  It said something about my experiences that waking up not knowing where I was didn’t instantly freak me out.

  A deep, mellow chime rang and faded. Rang again. Not sure why it reminded me of a caller tone, I answered.

  “Hello?” I said to the walls.

  “Are you decent?”

  I knew that voice and felt the smile stretching my face. “I try to be?”

  “Good enough.” The featureless wall presented a door-shaped outline, becoming a door panel that pulled inward and slid aside. I folded my legs under me and scooted around to face the door as it opened for Mistress Jenia, Western Warden of the future Confraternal Unity and quantum-ghost. “Be well, Hope Corrigan. And welcome again to my home.”

  “‘Be well?’ Is that a future greeting?”

  “Yes…and an in-joke for students of cinematic sci-fi history.” Her floating mother-of-pearl throne drifted back from the door, allowing me to climb off the bed and exit past her into her cloudhome’s main room. The long bay windows looked out on a sunset-painted cloudscape. Late evening light painted the white of the walls, my nightwear, her throne, and her translucent robes with gold, and added shadows to her rich chocolate skin. The soft light only gilded the lily of her ageless beauty.

  She waved an elegant hand to take in her home. “Ozma and Doctor Cornelius were of the opinion that, so long as your awareness of the real world doesn’t entirely fade with sleep, your point-of-awareness will not be drawn to the other world you are avoiding. If so, even a virtual-reality awareness…”

  “Should anchor me here while I sleep?”

  “We hope. It should help at least until the pull of the tree grows too strong, which shouldn’t be for some time yet. Shell could have done it, but her system isn’t specifically built for sustainable omni-detailed virtual environments and you would have spent your night in a sort of high-definition CGI cartoon. Hardly restful, so she called me. Drinks?” A table rose out of the floor beside her throne, stocked with ice and bottles.

  I accepted a crystal bottle of sparkling pink something. It fizzed in my nose and tasted vaguely fruity. “Please tell me you’re my Ghost of Christmas Future, come to tell me how this all turns out.”

  “Hardly. You must remember that the probable future the Teatime Anarchist brought me back from is no longer probable. The history of the Sentinels alone has deviated significantly in the past year, starting with the fact that Blackstone is still alive…”

  “What… Oh.” I could see where she was leading. “Then you never heard of Kitsune, in your potential history?”

  “Correct again. I believe that in my future he lost his game with the Chicago mob and Villains Inc., cutting short his criminal career and ending his participation in history. And of course he never then met you. I think actual history has worked out much better there, don’t you?”

  “So, can you tell me anything?”

  “About your immediate goals? No. But I do have some words for you.” She turned her throne to watch the sunset, the windows darkening to allow comfortable direct viewing. “Be very careful. There are some times and places where radical change does not have much influence on future world events. Japan is not one of them. Not now.”

  “So I can break the future?” My voice rose at the end, and I put down the drink. “What do I need to know?”

  “You are aware of the ongoing Kyoto Convention? Delegates from most of the Chinese Secession States are now in Kyoto trying to hammer out an agreement of unification, and Japan’s government and people are incredibly conflicted over the China Question and their own role as a nation.”

  “What’s the China Question?”

  Her elegant hands smoothed her robes. “Very simply, what will China become, going forward? A collection of allied but independent Chinese states, much like Europe? Or a single federated state, much like the US but with a weaker central government overseeing semi-autonomous states?”

  “And why does Japan care?”

  “Japan cares because, even without the breakaway states that will not return, China is a nation of over one billion souls. Reunification, under any reasonable circumstances, will eventually return China to its preeminent position in Asia. And even with all the material aid Japan has given to some of the Secession States, China has a good memory and has not forgiven Japan for its 19th and 20th Century barbarities. So Japan is torn. It would rather see a collection of allied but autonomous states than a single nation-state—but not if those autonomous states can’t create and maintain internal peace and suppress warlords and rogue states. Unrest and conflict on the continent is dangerous to Japan as well, and very bad for business.”

  I nodded, focusing on the clouds sailing above and below us and trying to keep in mind Veritas’ recent speech about nations and people.

  “So what happened in your probable history?”

  Mistress Jenia sighed and smiled. “The Kyoto Convention resulted in the United Chinese Republics, a national federation. Beijing held out for a few years but eventually reformed itself politically and signed on with them, and the United Chinese Republics joined the League of Democratic States to become equal in power to the United States of North America. All was sweetness and light until the Last War, out of which emerged the Confraternal Unity.”

  “China becomes a liberal democracy?”

  “Don’t laugh. Liberalism as a political strain appears throughout history, and not just in the West—it merely came into its own in Europe and America. Successful revolution requires an ideology, and the thinkers and statesmen of the Secession States are going far back into China’s intellectual history to find cultural refutations of the People’s Republic’s authoritarian statism. They will bury Maoism with a Chinese shovel.”

  “Have they?”

  “Have you heard of Taoism? The Way? Lao Tzu didn’t say much about government, but what he did say can be read as a libertarian refutation of the totalitarian People’s Republic. They are building on that, and on Confucius’ principles of meritocracy and respect, to build a culturally authentic ideology of Chinese liberalism. Of course they are opposed by One Land.”

  One Land. Tianxia. I shivered. We’d faced members of that terrorist organization in the Whittier Base Attack, part of The Ring.

  According to Blackstone, a jihadist was to the average Muslim what a One-Lander was to the average Chinese. Tianxia meant “Under Heaven” and was the name for their movement, but Yi Guo! was their battle-cry—One Land!—and the name they used in English because it made more sense to westerners that way. One-Landers believed that Beijing retained the Mandate of Heaven, and claimed everything within China’s widest historic boundaries. They were nationalist nut-jobs who wanted to restore China to “Unity, Purity, and Power.” Murderous, whatever-it-takes nationalist nut jobs.

  Turning away from the windows, I shook my head. “I’m really not sure what our trip has to do with what’s going on in China.”

  “Japan is a charter member of the League of Democratic States, and the League has committed to recognizing whatever resolution Japan favors. Japan’s decision will depend to a great degree on its sense of solidarity with the League’s principle power, the US. If your mission…”