Wearing the Cape 5: Ronin Games

by Marion G. Harmon

  “Hope is correct—we do not appear to have a choice.” Ozma had found a selection of teas in the open kitchen-area, and was preparing a service. That seemed to be one of her main social modes; when you need to talk about anything serious or contentious, you make tea. “And certainly the cause is worthy. Afterwards, you can always bite him and help him forget we were ever here. Or at least suggest that we are better released back into the wild.”

  I blinked at the surprisingly cynical and workable idea. On the other hand, the facility had its own security and while we’d seen very few employees we had seen some. We were certainly now on enough security footage and in enough memories that it wouldn’t help if he decided to turn us in afterwards. And working with superhumans as he did, he probably had ways of dealing with ‘suggestions.’

  Jacky stretched in the old lounge chair she’d plopped herself down in. “So what is the deal with the Eight Great Pop-Idols? Aren’t they a Tokyo group?”

  “The Eight Excellent Protectors. And no, they’re just based in Tokyo most of the time. They go where Defensenet sends them. All the Japanese teams do.”

  In the wake of The Event, most countries had either adopted some variant of the American Model—where cities and states hired superhumans as contractors—or outright drafted tactically useful superhumans into military and government service. The second option hadn’t worked out too well for most places that tried it, but Japan had created its own third option: mandatory registration and training, but voluntary government service.

  It was against the law in Japan to hide a breakthrough from the government, and all children and teens who experienced powerful breakthroughs went to one of the government academies. They were rigorously educated and trained, and continuously tested and ranked; they were also heavily indoctrinated in the duty they owed to their nation. Adults were sent to training facilities for the same treatment over a more intense three to six-month course.

  And the only way to be a cape legally in Japan was to join the Japan Superhuman Self-Defense Force. Wear the cape illegally, and you were a ronin, a vigilante. All Japanese teams belonged to the JSSDF, were directed by Defensenet, and were costumed and marketed like anime heroes. The Eight Excellent Protectors were Japan’s premier all-female team, and the Nine Accomplished Heroes were their male counterparts.

  All of them were mega-pop idols, but despite what Jacky had said when she saw them, whatever their individual power levels they all trained within an inch of their lives and had won their positions in brutal competition.

  Jacky had gotten pretty good at reading my face. “So, we really don’t want to mess with these girls?”

  “There will be no messing.” I sighed and rubbed my face. “If we have to fight a Defensenet team, we fight to break away and disappear. If we can’t break away, we surrender. They’re the good guys.” Which ronin were not—whether supervillains or vigilante mystery men of the American variety, most ronin were regarded as antisocial and unpatriotic criminals by most right-thinking Japanese.

  “What if—” Jacky stopped when I held up my hand; with my super-duper hearing I could hear an incoming twin-prop plane.

  “Our ride is here.”

  “Time to change, I think.” Ozma set the tea service on the table, and I saw she had laid it with seven cups; three for us, three for the incoming flight crew, and one for Mister Konishi. Three ring-twists later, we were again the Magical Girls in Black: tall heavily-armed Jacky, beautiful elegant Ozma, and the little girl with the big sword. Dammit.

  “Shit,” Jacky said. “We need names.”

  Chapter Ten

  In the West, breakthrough types tend to follow the “superhero” template, with an admixture of science-fiction, supernatural, and religious influences. All of these types also appear in the East, but with the influences reversed; more Eastern breakthroughs are influenced by mythology, religion, and even martial-arts movies than are influenced by superhero and science-fiction stories.

  Barlow’s Guide to Superhumans

  * * *

  If Mr. Konishi was surprised to see us in costumes and gear we’d had nowhere to hide, he didn’t show it. The three men in wrinkled flight suits who entered the common room behind him looked less impressed by our youth and darkly shiny newness.

  None of the flight crew were breakthroughs but I knew from Dad that it was traditional for all members of Heroes Without Borders, superhuman and normal, to adopt codenames—it was part of the organization’s spirit. Mr. Konishi introduced them as Eight Ball (the pilot, a bald Australian black guy), Cue Ball (copilot, an equally bald French white guy), and Chowder (mustached engineer, Italian?).

  There he stopped, lacking our codenames, so Ozma introduced us as Hikari, Mamori, and Kimiko; everyday girls’ names, even if when I looked them up later the meanings (light, guard, and child-empress) sort of fit. She finished by bowing and saying “We are the Three Remarkable Ronin. It is an honor to meet you.” Not something we’d agreed upon, and I swallowed a semi-hysterical laugh while Jacky snorted.

  While Ozma observed the social niceties, I tried to get a grip. I hadn’t been thinking, and Jacky’s realization that we hadn’t even picked codenames had shocked me out of a state I hadn’t even known I was in.

  It was like I’d gone to sleep. Or had been walking around dazed. Sometime after getting the diagnosis that, some night soon, I was going to disappear from the world I knew, I had stopped seriously thinking about What Happens Next. My part of the mission-planning had barely been the flight in, and the only reason we hadn’t been tripped up or stuck worse than we were was Ozma and Jacky were picking up my slack without saying a word about it.

  What was going on in my head?

  The necessity of introductions distracted me; following Ozma’s lead, we sat down for tea and talked about ourselves—actually Ozma talked and Jacky and I nodded. My sole contribution was when Eight Ball asked what I was; I replied “Attilus-Typeh,” carefully adding the extra syllables that Japanese threw into English words. I wasn’t much to look at—but the hundred-pound sword slung over my back was proof enough for Eight Ball to accept that at face value.

  The crew needed to freshen up and stretch a little before we flew out, so we finished tea and left them to the common room. Mr. Konishi led us out to the hanger, where the facility’s ground crew were in the process of checking over and refueling the plane.

  Seeing it, I almost felt homesick. It was a modified C-23 Sherpa, the kind of twin-prop cargo plane we’d used to get about in the Mississippi operations just three months ago; with a boxy fuselage and rear-drop cargo ramp, it could seat thirty passengers or take three large cargo pallets, less if outfitted with extra fuel tanks like this one obviously was. This plane wasn’t built for heavy delivery—it took low weight but high value cargo to places it needed to go. The name stenciled on its fuselage, the Draw Shot, was framed in crossed pool sticks.

  The cargo ramp lay open and down, and I stepped up inside. Two fully laden pallets filled the rear of the bay, marked with bold red crosses and strapped down with a drop-gate to keep them from sliding right out if they somehow came loose. That meant I could exit in flight by half-dropping the ramp without worrying about them, a very good thing. The fuselage sported two gunports, empty but built for machinegun mounts—an old but returned military design in a world where flying people could intercept planes.

  “This plane and crew normally flies only the Pacific circuit,” Mr. Konishi explained when I asked. “It does not have a fighting crew and we do not have time to mount weapons and find gunners.”

  I nodded. “You said that the Chinese flyers have been avoiding planes that are visibly escorted?”

  “Yes. They are bandits, not soldiers.”

  “And the waiting base?”

  “A Heroes Without Borders station attached to a military base, well able to defend itself. They will oversee the delivery of the vaccines to the regional clinics.”

  I nodded again, decided to ask something that had been b
othering me.

  “Mister Konichi? Why are none of the flight-crew Japanese? And the pictures on your wall—” I wasn’t sure how to finish that sentence without implying something.

  But he understood and smiled. “Why did you see no Japanese faces on the wall of heroes there? Are there no Japanese heroes in Heroes Without Borders? No. In matter of fact, Japan has many heroes in our band of brothers and sisters—it is a favored calling for ronin who wish to wear the cape but do not wish to serve at the pleasure of the government. You will find my countrymen in Africa, the Middle East, all around the world where we are needed.”

  His smile left.

  “But you will not find many of us serving in East Asia and especially not in the Chinese States. There, and elsewhere where memories are long, they are targets for nationalist action.”

  “Oh. But we—” I looked down at myself.

  “Since you will not be staying, you should not become a target. And—” His smile crept back. “I am certain you will ably represent my country.” He performed a deep bow and left us with a deeper apology and declaration of paperwork.

  * * *

  The flight crew was barely half an hour cleaning themselves up and eating, but they came aboard looking bright-eyed and bushy tailed as Mom would say. Before the plane closed up, Mr. Konishi came back with one more passenger—a Chinese man wearing an impeccably tailored business suit and carrying a single overnight bag, who introduced himself as Ren Li-kai.

  Chowder looked dubious. “We’re taking passengers now? What’s going on?”

  “Question of the day, that is,” Eight Ball agreed, arms folded. “This isn’t a milk-run.”

  Li-Kai put down his bag. “Please forgive me,” he said in equally impeccable English. “I understand the risk, I promise you. I come from Kyoto, where I have been advising the Anhui delegation at the conference in my spiritual capacity as a daoshi and priest.” He rubbed his head, as bald and shiny as Cue Ball and Eight Ball’s. “We have heard of the outbreak and I must return to give my services in my original profession, as a physician.”

  Eight Ball continued to stare him down, and when the doctor didn’t look away he shrugged. Taking medical personnel where they were needed and protecting them while they were there was half of what Heroes Without Borders did.

  “Okay then, buckle up. We’re nonstop to south Anhui.” He turned and squeezed through the hatch into the cockpit where Cue Ball was already running preflight checks. Chowder stayed to make sure we buckled in. Mr. Konishi gave the three of us a final bow and a “Please look after them for me,” before trotting back down the ramp.

  “What’s a daoshi?” Jacky asked our new friend while we watched the ramp close up.

  Ren Li-kai smiled. “A daoshi is a Daoist master. My family are the hereditary priests of a temple to Guanyin Dashi. As the younger and more rebellious son, I went off and became a doctor before I fell into the study of Daoism and returned to my family’s way by something of a back door.”

  “Daoism?”

  “The Way. It would take me ten years to explain, so to sum up using your western masters, Nietzsche said ‘To do is to be,’ Kant said ‘To be is to do,’ and Sinatra said ‘Do-be-do-be-do.’ Sinatra was a Daoist master. What is your Way?”

  For some reason he looked directly at me and I blinked, startled into the truth. “I’m Catholic.”

  “Good. The name to which you pray is irrelevant. If the heart is sincere, God will reveal His power.” He said that last like a quote.

  Jacky and Ozma buckled up, choosing seats in the single rear-facing row. Ren Li-Kai fumbled with his harness, Chowder making sure he got it done right. After making sure I knew the control panel for the ramp (the flight-crew could open it from the cockpit, but better safe than sorry), I unsheathed my sword and took my own seat, propping the big blade beside me.

  “So,” Jacky started again once Chowder checked us all and left. “How do Daoists explain the world?”

  Daoshi Ren’s smile crinkled his eyes. “I assume you mean the modern world? The Post-Event world?” Stopping, he gripped the armrests when the Draw Shot’s engines banged and spun up. He looked green already, and Ozma began fishing in her box. “Many Chinese believe that breakthroughs are good or evil shen, spirits—what the Japanese call kami. Others believe that breakthroughs are merely possessed by shen. Of course there is more religious and philosophical diversity in China than you find in America or Europe, but a true Daoist rarely asks the question and isn’t that interested in the answer.”

  Ozma opened a colorful tin and offered him a lozenge without speaking.

  “Thank you. I traveled here by train and boat, but…” He took it and closed his eyes, his lips moving in silent prayers of his own while he regulated his breathing. I could relate; planes had made me nervous once, too.

  Leaning back, I took my own moment.

  Shell’s absence was an ache, like phantom-limb syndrome; I kept thinking of things I should know and starting to ask before remembering she wasn’t there. Like, what kind of sky-pirates were we facing? Mr. Konishi hadn’t been able to tell us, and his assurance that the bandits were staying away from escorted flights wasn’t that reassuring. Ozma had told me she had something for Jacky that would allow her to join me outside, and that she’d added a couple of ‘extras’ to The Sword back when it had been meant for Grendel. All that helped a bit, but I missed the intel-dumps Shell provided.

  Heck, I just missed Shell. Although that was something that might be fixed soon. Please, let that be fixed soon. If it wasn’t, I had more worries than a cherry tree and sky-pirates.

  A large warm hand settled over mine. Daoshi Ren had opened his eyes to watch me, and he gently patted my hand.

  “We shall arrive safe and whole. Certainly Guanyin wishes us to attend to her children.”

  Guanyin. I blinked, breath caught. Used to hearing the westernized version of the name, Quan Yin, I’d missed it the first time. “Maria-sama,” I said without thinking and this time my Japanese mastery attached the respectful honorific as I crossed myself. He smiled.

  The plane’s bumping picked up and then vanished as the engines threw the plane forward, pushing us back in our seats, and I reversed our holds to lay my hand on his as he gripped the armrest hard.

  We were off on a quest for the second time in two days. Hopefully, this one would go more smoothly.

  * * *

  Flying directly to Anhui meant cutting across the southern edge of Kyushu and then heading out directly over the East China Sea. I waited until Cue Ball announced that we had left Japan’s national airspace, then unbuckled and half-lowered the ramp to bail out to fly above the plane.

  We had climbed above a low storm front circling south over the sea, and I could only see the occasional fishing boat beneath breaks in the water-heavy clouds. We were headed into the heavy Plum Rains of China’s early summer. Behind me, Kyushu faded to a line on the horizon and then disappeared.

  “Miss me?” Shell floated beside me wearing an Indiana Jones outfit, complete with fedora and bullwhip.

  I could breathe again. “We’re not tomb raiding, Shell. Where did you go?”

  “Defensenet locked me out,” she groaned disgustedly. “I’m beginning to wonder how common quantum-interdiction is going to get.”

  “Thanks for contacting Mister Konishi.”

  “I know, right? It was all I could do not to laugh hysterically when I called him up and he told me about the job.” She mimicked him. “‘Will their leaving Japan for a day or two be a problem?’”

  “So, how will we stay in touch when we go back?”

  “The old-fashioned way, duh; we’re buying new cellphones.”

  “Yeah, that will work.” I should have thought of that. “Tell me about the sky-pirates?”