Losing Masks

by Nicholas Metelsky

  “Even if there is no similar club in the school,” Teijo replied, “there probably are societies. I hope they do not send us to join them. How would we ever get out of that?”

  “How about a club of information producers?” Takumi didn’t want to give up.

  “No,” said Ken. “It's kind of... What if they ask us to show proof of such information?”

  I, on the other hand, thought that it might work.

  “In fact, the idea is pretty good. We'll have to tweak it a little. It can be an intelligence club, just so we can tell them where we are all the time and what we are doing.”

  “There will be one answer,” Ken finished. “Spying. Actually, intelligence is quite a broad concept, and it may work.”

  “What if they demand specifics from us?” Asked Teijo.

  “We are just learning. What specifics?”

  “Well, I just thought of that,” Teijo did not give up. “There's gotta be something that we know.”

  “For starters, that'll be enough. We are just amateurs. Later, I'll sort it out.”

  I couldn’t just tell them that my military career in my former world had begun with serving in the intelligence service.

  “As you say,” Teijo said with a degree of uncertainty, but then added cheerfully, “this is true, you are the president of the club, so you have to answer to them.”

  “But if you need anything, do not hesitate to tell us right away,” we had already exchanged our phone numbers by this time. “We'll think of it together.”

  “All right,” I summed up the discussion. “Let's go, we still have to deal with the council.”

  The girl in charge of registering the club was petite. She had green hair and a green bow, which meant that she was a junior. She also had a very controversial character. I wasn't quite sure if she was feisty or meticulous or just mean, but it took us over twenty minutes to get the stamp on our registration form.

  “Okay, I take it that your club isn't going to be involved in any public activity, so explain why is it needed at all?”

  What kind of a question was that?

  “Madam, could you explain, what school clubs are for?”

  “To serve the community,” she said bluntly.

  I was sure that she just didn't feel like explaining anything to us.

  “Yes,” I exchanged glances with the guys. “Do you mind if I pass your words on to the principal?”

  “You’ll need to meet him first,” the girl smirked.

  “He's my neighbor, if that's an issue.”

  “Uh,” the smirk left her face for a moment. “So what? Pass it on.”

  She is right, it's not a big deal. But it depends on how one looks at it. So we start to build our case.

  “You do not seem to understand what you just said. Let me explain to you,” ignoring her frowning face, I continued, half turning to my companions. “These four young men are representatives of aristocratic families. Two of them are heirs. Now clarification: are school clubs mandatory? Yes. Who are the founders and guardians of the school? The Koyama bloodline. Stay with me. These four aristocrats MUST work for the public, and not only the public, but also the benefit of the Koyama bloodline. After your words, either the Koyama or your bloodline will be in trouble. Which one do you choose?”

  “Umm,” she froze again, then added with less confidence than before. “That's nonsense. You are making a big deal out of nothing. Nothing will happen.”

  Of course not. But you won't find out until you try. And before you try, you won’t understand. This really only applies to you because you’re not the sharpest tool in the shed.

  “Maybe, and maybe not. You will at least lose your position here. You seem to like it though.”

  Getting her fired was entirely possible if I really wanted it to happen.

  “You... The application is denied! No club for you!”

  “Well, that's a bad idea. I know for sure that according to the rules of the school, I can file an appeal with the vice principal and even the principal himself. So when all that starts—you know I can get offended too—they will ask you one question: why did you deny the application? And what will you answer? 'It just happened that I insulted them, and they explained why I was wrong'?”

  “No-no. I will say that you wanted to create a club to spy on girls in locker rooms. Freaking intelligence club! Give me a break!”

  “It turns out that girls are bigger perverts than us,” I made a comment, looking at the guys. “Do you even understand what our answer is going to be to that? And this is no longer a joke.”

  Again, nothing serious would happen. However, it seems like my mission's accomplished.

  “Let's stop attacking each other and have a constructive conversation. For starters, clubs are created for students, not for schools so no one can demand public events from them. I hope we can leave this behind now. My second point is: intelligence is a much more extensive concept than you might think. Intelligence, madam, is not even a science, it is a complex of sciences, which includes knowledge of psychology, topology, physiology, technology, and much more. Therefore, neither you nor anyone else will be able to prove that the intelligence club is a meaningless pursuit. And finally, girl, it's not the Middle Ages, and if I suddenly get the urge to enjoy the naked female body, I'll just go online. More likely than anything, I'll just go to a club, meet a girl there, and spend a wonderful night with her. Why would I tarnish my reputation, hanging around the women's locker rooms? No, thank you.”

  Admiring the girl's red face, either from embarrassment or from anger, I finished, “Well, what's it gonna be? Are you going to put a stamp on the application?”

  “Whatever,” she slapped the wooden round stamp on the papers and continued with a gloating voice, “But there are no spots left in the main club building, so welcome to the exiles.”

  “Not a big deal, dear,” I said, taking the papers. “I wasn't looking for the best club room anyway.”

  Leaving the large room that the school board personnel occupied, we headed for the school exit, where we said goodbye to Ken's brothers. Next, we had to find the curator of the third floor of the First Club Building.

  “It doesn't take much to anger you, Sakurai,” Ken said, looking at our papers.

  “To annoy me,” I corrected him. “If I were angered, I'd have used fewer words.”

  “That's all we needed,” he noted, handing the papers to me. “It looks like she made a mistake, and our club is already registered. All we have to do is get a confirmation of it with the vice principal, and we are good to go.”

  “Hm… What if they get at us about the signature?”

  “Then we can go look for the curator. The main office is closer though.”

  Strangely enough, the papers were accepted, after which I officially became the president of the intelligence club. Right there, in the main office, I grabbed a pile of application forms to join the club, which were shoved towards me by the vice principal along with two keys from the club room. Thirty minutes later, twenty of which we spent roaming the school grounds in search of the right building, we finally stood at the school gates.

  “It’s weird that the school is so empty after classes end,” Ken was annoyed.

  In those twenty minutes of wandering, we didn't see a single soul, and returning to the main building and asking our teachers for directions wasn't acceptable, especially for Ken and Teijo.

  “We could have left the papers somewhere else.”

  “Yep, the territory is large enough.”

  “Don't you agree?” Teijo asked.

  “It's better to have more than less. Not always, but when it comes to the territory, I believe so.”

  “If it's your territory,” Ken remarked.

  “Oh, stop it. We found it, so drop it. Here you go,” I handed one of the keys to Ken. “Since you're the eldest of the brothers, you can be my deputy, responsible for the Toyotomi bloodline,”

  I smiled, so he could understand that I wa
s joking.

  “As you say,” he took the key. “Are we all set then?”

  “Yep, see you later. Are you heading to the parking lot, too, Teijo?”

  “Yep. I'm gonna go home. Or maybe not,” he thought. “Where are you heading now?”

  “To work,” I heaved a sigh in response.

  “Ah, well, then I'm going home. Bye!”

  ***

  “Good evening, Sakurai-kun,” the attendant at the shooting range greeted me. “I see you brought your own gun today? He nodded at the weapon case in my hand.

  “Evening, Maeda-san. I forgot it last time, but today I want to try out my new purchase.”

  On Tuesday, I had had to use the guns that they had at the range. I planned to have a blast with my own weapons today, and talk to some people, too.

  I looked around as I entered the hall. Having found the right person, I praised myself for having prudence and good timing. One of the spots next to the person I wanted to talk to was open, which also made me happy. As I approached him, the man was finishing an HK MP-5N clip, not much different from the classic MP-5. When he was done, he put his earmuffs around his neck and took out the empty clip.

  “Hello, Alexei!” I addressed him in Russian.

  “Whoa! Shinji. Long time no see. It's been a while, little samurai. Decided to visit the alma mater?” Supposedly, I had learned to shoot here.

  “Yes, I was here on Tuesday, too. And so, yes, I decided to visit again. Check out my new investment,” I lifted the case. “Shall we?”

  “Alright! Tired of these ratchets. We ought to try out something bigger.”

  “Why don't you get something else?” I asked, putting my gun case on the counter.

  “I have to keep my skills honed, you know. Wow! What kind of a monster is this?” He was surprised by the contents of my case.

  “A novelty from your military industry. ARH-42. ‘Nail’ is its name.”

  “Oh yeah, yeah. I've heard of it. So this is it? Mind if I try?”

  “Go for it. Why not? I just have to go get the cartridges.”

  Alexei Svyatov was a great man. In the three years that I’d known him, I’d found out a lot about him, but even more was left behind the scenes. The main thing that I knew was that he was a ronin. A very typical ronin—a samurai without a master. This could happen for different reasons: the simplest one is being rejected by the one to whom he gave his oath. Another reason would be the master’s death. The outcome is the same.

  Alexei belonged to the latter type. The clan where he was a Warrior of the bloodline had been destroyed. And, as far as I knew, he had avenged his master. He wasn't alone in executing his plan, but the fact is that a few years ago, Russia lost two of its clans. Actually, he got stuck in Japan after he was done with the last offender. More precisely, he just decided not to return home. According to him, he had nothing there, no one waiting for him. Here, he had started a new life. Since then, he had sometimes worked as a mercenary. I didn’t know what he did for a living exactly, but I did know that he was the one I wanted to hire as one of my officers.

  As it became known, my proposal was accepted by fifty-five people. Another eleven people were employed as guards. I distributed them between The Swallow and Shidotamoru to replace those who asked to join my new assault squad. So, rogue oldies together with the lieutenant were cracking the whip on five and a half dozen organisms—that's the best name for them. Also, I did not doubt that within the next few days five or so more people would be transferred from the Shidotamoru security service. This whole crowd would be managed by only one sergeant, or lieutenant, and one officer, or me. I needed at least one more officer and five sergeants to be commanders of the branches.

  It was a bit idiotic on my part to create such a large detachment in a hurry. Why couldn't I have done this earlier? At least, I had found a person to be in charge of the construction site. Or rather, Taro found him. What would I do without Taro? Thanks to him I did not have to go to Koyama. By the way, the contractor was his good friend, whom he praised to no end. Apparently, he wanted an assistant. He had finally realized that he didn’t have time to cope with everything on his own. In fact, I did not mind. Everything related to this would be his responsibility, of course.

  When I returned to Alexei, I put the ammunition that I had bought on the counter. The man was inspecting the rifle while I was gone, and after I arrived, he put it aside and took one of the three clips attached to the kit.

  “Let's shoot,” he said.

  Then he looked at the clip in his hand and, placing it next to the rifle, began to open the ammunition can.

  I remembered that at first, I had started calling him Svyatov-san by his last name, to which he'd always frowned. Then there was Alexei-san, which he did not like either. So I figured that the suffixes customary to Japanese cut his ears. I’ll admit that these suffixes used with Russian names cut my ear too. But it was painfully funny how he frowned, and I could not stop. In the end, I switched to the name and patronymic, then he said that he was not old enough for all that, so I started just calling him Alexei.

  After stuffing the clips and changing the targets, we played rock–paper–scissors. I won, as usual.

  “Scat!” I waved my hand. “Clear the space.”

  “You're lucky. I've never won. Never. And you... You always win.”

  “Why do you keep trying then?” I asked, getting ready to shoot.

  “Even based on statistics, I have to win at least once.”

  “Put your earmuffs on,” I said without turning around.

  The first shots were calibrating. Two squirts with two bullets each, two single bullets, and one more squirt with three bullets. A look at the monitor that showed the close-up of the target, and the second round followed: two, two, one, one, three. The gun was lightweight for an assault rifle, smooth running, with low recoil, outstanding accuracy and caliber, which guaranteed to instill some fear, even into Warriors—a dream weapon, in short. People whose lives have never depended on the gun that they held in their hand would find it difficult to understand my feelings at the moment.

  Having extracted the clip, I took it out. I jerked the shutter, pressed the trigger, and put the safety lock on. Habit—no more, no less.

  “Fantastic,” I said.

  “We'll see about that right now,” said Alexei, and he proceeded pretentiously to the counter with the weapon, pushing me aside as he went. “Get out, tiddler, the Greatest Shooter in the World is here.”

  I chuckled and stepped back. After the first series and a pensive hmmm, Svyatov finished off the clip with long bursts. Clip, shutter, control descent, safety lock.

  “Fantastic,” Ronin said in a low voice. “Eh?” He glanced at the last loaded clip.

  “Go ahead,” I said, waving my hand.

  I didn't care. I was going to get to shoot later.

  The second clip was gone as quickly as the first two.

  “Damn, why are there only three of them, eh?” Sighed the man.

  “Well, I'm sorry,” I spread out my hands. “I didn't count on this.”

  “Yeah, that's too bad. Always need to count in your friends andfreeloaders.”

  “I'll keep it in mind for the future,” I snorted. “How about we work with our hands a bit? Even though there are only three clips, they have to be filled.”

  Svyatov finished his clip first and immediately grabbed the third.

  “Where did you get this miracle?” He asked. “Are there any left?”

  Good question. Just the one I'd been waiting for.

  “At Schmidt's. Sorry, he had only five pieces.”

  “Schmidt? Old snitch. He didn't show me anything like this. Only this very cool new gun with a round drum. It shoots bullets and plasma! Rarest damn thing.”

  “PPVH-1? Yeah, I totally agree.”

  “Did he show it you, too? Well, no wonder. He likes you. Five pieces, you say? You could have left one to the old soldier like me. Why do you even need that many?”
<
br />   Finally.

  “Maybe you'll sell one to me, eh?”

  I hesitated just for show and then replied.

  “You see, Alexei, even that's not enough for what I need. It’s good that the old man showed understanding for someone's situation and made a wholesale order through his nephew. Otherwise, I would have had to settle on something more basic.”

  “Oh, wow,” said the former Warrio, raising his eyebrows. “What kind of a need is this?”

  “Well...” I looked away.

  I somehow forgot that he was a mercenary. Though he tried to stay away from clearly illegal deals, there was a chance that Snake would get him if I couldn’t get him myself. Plus, sharing any information wasn’t safe. Some would be delighted if they found out that I had planned this brawl even before I was dragged into it, supposedly.

  On the other hand, it was Alexei—a man who once even broke a contract to help me. And that’s highly undesirable in their environment. He also knew about three of my masks—a moonlighting schoolboy, a law-abiding owner of Shidotamoru and... not a very law-abiding owner of Shidotamoru. Crap, if you could not trust such people, whom could you trust?

  “I'm sorry, Alexei. I was thinking some bad thoughts. The case is very serious. I can't talk about it here.”

  “It's fine. You don't have to say anything.”

  “No. I must be getting paranoid. Let's stop at a coffee shop later. Somewhere with fewer people.”

  “Shin,” he shook his head, “if you don't want to talk, don't. I was curious, that's all.”

  “Anyway,” I couldn't tell him that I felt bad for my distrust, or the fact that I hadn’t started the conversation in the first place. “Let's have dinner together. I need a second opinion from a person I trust. I count on your advice.”

  “Okie-dokie,” he replied slowly “Deal.”

  Then he stretched out his fist and began counting, saying in a completely different tone, “Come on. Rock, paper, scissors. Damn it!”

  An hour and a half later, we were sitting in a coffee shop near the shooting range. This establishment was favorable because of its lack of cameras and only three visitors, apart from us, who were sitting at the other end of the room. After getting our order we just sat there, staring at each other.