Hunting Mink

by Niall Teasdale

  ‘Shit! What are you doing here?!’

  ‘Churchton might be a mess, but it’s still my turf.’

  ‘Don’t you ever sleep!’

  ‘I had a nap after work. You are a seriously lucky man, Marty.’

  ‘I… I am?’ Marty looked up into the pitch-black eyes of the woman standing over him and was fairly sure that ‘lucky’ was not a word he would have used to describe himself.

  ‘Yeah. See, prior to my nap, I got very expertly laid so I’m in a pretty damn good mood.’

  ‘You’re going to let me go?’

  ‘On one condition.’

  ‘O-okay…’

  ‘You need to spread the word. Cygnus and Twilight are back on the clock, full-time. We are not going to let scum like you screw things up worse than they are. Get another line of work, Marty.’

  ‘I will. Honest.’

  ‘Damn right.’ The shadows swelled up around her, leaping forward to engulf Marty, and half of Avenue C was woken up by his screams.

  San Francisco, CA.

  ‘Nice office,’ Damian said.

  Bianca looked up from her computer and smiled. ‘Thanks. It gets the job done.’

  Damian looked out through the panoramic window at the view of the bay. If this was an office, there was something seriously wrong with his apartment. Bianca had a pair of nice, cosy sofas set around a smoked-glass coffee table, a drinks cabinet, a wall screen bigger than Damian’s, and a desk which looked like it could run a spaceship. Plus the view. ‘I just bet it does.’

  ‘And thanks for coming in here. I’ve got a few things I need to take care of and I didn’t want to break our date. Grab a drink. I’m not too far off finishing and then we can… whatever.’

  Damian gave her an easy grin and headed for the cabinet. ‘Whatever, huh? That’s careful planning at its best.’

  Bianca returned her attention to her screens. ‘I wasn’t sure what we should do. Lunch? There are a few good restaurants around here.’

  ‘Sounds good. What’s got you in here on a Saturday?’

  ‘Huh, I’d tell you, but then I’d have to kill you.’

  ‘Seriously?’ There was a coffee machine purring away in the cabinet: Damian figured that was possibly safest.

  ‘Well, partially seriously. We’ve got something sudden that’s come up. UID, UoU, lots of letters and security concerns.’

  ‘I suppose you get that kind of thing a lot. FTI has military contracts and stuff, right?’

  ‘Yeah, we do. Nothing like this. This is… Yeah. God, but I wish I could tell you. It’s like… Sorry for the crudity, but it’s fucking amazing! Elaine is just about ready to explode over it.’

  ‘Elaine is? The woman who built Ultramech is excited about it? Yeah, that would have to be amazing.’

  Bianca giggled. ‘Oh yeah. Work doesn’t start until the seventh or eighth of next month. We may have to sedate her. She’s still going over the data from the Everglades thing, so that might calm her down. A little.’

  ‘Huh.’

  There was silence for a minute or two. Damian drank coffee and let Bianca work. They had developed what could not really be called a steady relationship, but they had been on several dates, usually ending up somewhere with a bed, or a flat surface of some description anyway. Bianca Fullerton was not what Damian had expected. She ran a multi-billion-dollar company, so she had to be intelligent, but she was also funny, charismatic, and down to earth. She listened. She was perfectly happy to hear his gripes about the TAATF and maybe he had told her a few things which were not exactly wise about his suspicions concerning that group. He had told her why he had been kicked out of it, and she had listened and frowned, and she had seemed to understand. There had been no pity in her eyes, and that had counted for a lot.

  ‘And done,’ Bianca said, tapping a few keys. Damian heard the machine powering down as Bianca got to her feet and walked around the big desk.

  ‘All wrapped and security locked?’

  ‘Oh, encrypted and sealed and all that good techy stuff.’ She had obviously dressed for their date rather than the office: her dress was a simple tank, with a hem up above mid-thigh and a low, scooped neckline. She settled her behind on the edge of the desk, leaning back a little to rest her hands on the surface. ‘You hungry?’

  Damian shrugged. ‘Well, I could eat.’

  ‘Late breakfast?’

  ‘I was working last night so, yeah, didn’t eat that long ago.’

  Bianca’s lips curled a little. ‘I’m good for a little while and, you know, this desk is almost a year old and I’ve never once christened it.’

  ‘Here?’

  ‘Uh-huh.’

  ‘Now?’

  ‘Now, right here on the edge of the desk.’ Her grin had turned a little challenging.

  Damian got to his feet and looked back at the view. Well, if anyone out there was watching, they probably deserved the show. ‘What the Hell,’ he said and started toward Bianca.

  28th September.

  Her name was Sugar Gold and she strutted her way down Eddy Street in a red latex dress and thigh-high boots as though she owned the place. Sugar had a lot of messy, platinum-blonde hair which fell to the upper slopes of high, firm breasts. Her right breast was decorated with a tattoo of a rose and, at two in the afternoon on a Sunday, Sugar’s lips were painted bright scarlet, her cheeks were rouged, and her blue eyes were lined and highlighted with red shadow. She had a beauty mark on the left side of her upper lip. Those who saw her made immediate assumptions about her chosen profession, and those who knew the area and saw her entering a certain unmarked building near the corner of Leavenworth Street had their assumptions confirmed.

  Sugar nodded to the thickset man in the lobby as she passed. He returned the nod, saying nothing, as she went on through a door at the back and into a parlour beyond. There were girls there, waiting for customers, and a couple of men considering their options. Sugar kept walking, a bright smile on her face for anyone who looked her way, making her way through another door and into a corridor which had an old, cage-style elevator at the back. She stepped inside and pressed the button for the top floor.

  ‘Juan?’ she called out as she stepped out of the cage. ‘Are you here?’ Sugar had a southern accent: she was originally from Louisiana.

  ‘In the lounge,’ a woman’s voice replied. ‘Alone, so you can drop the act.’

  The entire upper floor of the building belonged to Qie Juan, the mistress of the brothel below. She was sixty-two and losing some of her looks, but she was still an attractive woman even if there were streaks of grey in her jet-black hair. She was still trim and fit, though she was not as nimble as she had once been. Brown eyes watched Sugar enter the room, a sharp intelligence behind them. Qie Juan was more than the madam of a brothel.

  But then Sugar Gold was not quite what she appeared either. For one thing, she did not exist. Of course, everyone assumed the name was fake, but they did not realise quite how fake it was. Sugar was just another character: Mink had a lot of them.

  ‘Good afternoon,’ Mink said, bowing to the old woman sitting in a large, wing-backed chair in her parlour.

  ‘Good afternoon, Mink. To what do I owe this pleasure?’

  Mink settled into another chair, crossing her legs and sitting back comfortably. ‘Well, for one thing, I haven’t been around in a while.’

  ‘True, but I suspect something prompted you to make the trip.’

  ‘Yeah… Have you been training someone else?’

  Qie Juan smiled. ‘Aside from a little basic self-defence for my girls, no. You’ve seen someone else using sichou xian quantou?’

  ‘No, but I was followed recently. A woman, tattooed, Asian. Wearing a fairly non-existent outfit and with a rope dart strung around her waist. Long, black hair. Very long. She knew what she was doing, but I didn’t see her fight.’

  ‘She is not mine. I wonder…’ Qie Juan’s brow furrowed.

  ‘Juan?’

  ‘There is a… sect of as
sassins, the Yin Xian.’

  ‘Silver Cord.’

  ‘Indeed. They have existed for several centuries, supposedly founded by three women who learned the art and found the strictures of Chinese society too binding. A noble goal, but over the years the Yin Xian have changed. Now they train assassins, bodyguards, and concubines. They take orphan girls, or second children, and they brainwash them, for want of a better word. And they believe that sichou xian quantou is theirs and theirs alone. They have been known to put considerable resource into eliminating any other practitioners they find, and they are not tolerant of defectors.’

  ‘You think this girl could be one of them?’

  ‘You have wounded the Nine Kings badly in this past couple of months. Yu Huoyan may have decided that he needs to deal with you and the Yin Xian would seem a perfect tool to achieve that.’

  ‘Great. Well, I guess if he’s bringing in a specialist to get me, it means I must be getting to him.’

  Qie Juan smiled. ‘A positive attitude is important. But be careful. Either they have sent more than one or the one they have sent is likely to be very good.’

  Mink nodded. ‘Yeah, that was what I was thinking. You should take care too, Juan. If she’s hunting for me, she might hear of someone else who uses a rope dart. I found you, so she may too.’

  ‘That thought had crossed my mind. I may be getting old, but I’m far from defenceless. Besides, I expect you to find her first.’

  Mink rolled her eyes. ‘No pressure then. I’m going to make some tea, and then you can tell me everything you know about these Yin Xian.’

  New Millennium City, MD, 29th September.

  Jacob walked into the office feeling somehow out of place. The UID had been his home for his entire working life, but now he was getting odd looks from his fellow agents. Word had obviously got around that he had exhibited some rather strange symptoms during his recent illness.

  ‘Hey, welcome back.’ At least Heather seemed to be entirely unconcerned. Of course, she had visited him a couple of times while he was on leave, and he had been told she had taken the trip down to Antarctica with Andrea at least once.

  ‘Thanks.’ Jacob took his seat in the bullpen opposite hers. ‘Not that I’m feeling that welcome.’

  ‘They’ll get over it.’

  ‘Huh. How much of it is what happened, and how much is it that Twilight’s my girlfriend?’

  ‘Mostly the former. With the brass it might be more even. The guys have pretty much come to believe the whole ban thing is bogus. No one’s officially said anything about investigations into corrupt policing in DC, but the news stations are still going on about it and there’s too much smoke for there to be no fire. Officially, however, the UID still considers Cygnus and Twilight to be suspended.’

  ‘Is there anywhere that hasn’t rescinded it at the state level?’

  ‘Uh… Idaho and Montana. They’re voting on it this week. DC, obviously.’

  ‘Right. Bit of a farce. The UID’s rep has gone right down the pan since they pulled this. I’ve had a lot of time to watch news and discussion programmes recently.’

  ‘I think it could have been handled better, yeah.’

  ‘Heather, they suspended you for three days, without pay, for helping out in an emergency tent on your own time.’

  Heather frowned. ‘I didn’t tell you about–’

  ‘ACPN got a hold of it. Not only did they order all agents to stay away from the riots, but they punished one for helping. It made the agency come over as wanting the riots to be as bad as possible.’

  ‘I don’t think–’ Heather stopped at the sound of Jacob’s desk phone ringing.

  Jacob sighed. ‘Here we go.’ He picked up the phone and did not even get to announce himself before he was being spoken to. He said ‘Yes, sir’ and put the handset down.

  ‘Called to the headmaster’s office?’ Heather asked, managing a half-hearted grin. ‘Want a textbook to stick down your pants?’

  ‘No, but a bulletproof vest might be nice.’

  San Francisco, CA, 1st October.

  Diao Hua scanned the skyline once again, saw nothing, and sighed. Four nights without a single sighting. She was not sure that her quarry had seen her during her last foray, but it had been a distinct possibility at the time and was becoming more likely with every night that passed without Mink showing herself.

  Was the woman hiding? Ultrahumans had a pattern and hiding was not part of that pattern. They hunted, stopped crime, gathered information… Except that it was rare for Mink to stop street crimes. She targeted specific criminal enterprises. What was needed was–

  The sight of a figure highlighted on the skyline two blocks away had Diao Hua running almost immediately. Little more than a shadow on a rooftop at this point, but unmoving. If it was Mink, then she had not seen Diao Hua yet. And who else would be up there right now? For what possible purpose would someone climb up onto the roof of an apartment block in the Tenderloin area this close to midnight in October?

  Diao Hua slowed as she got closer, dropping low and cutting toward the north side of the block. The figure, now more identifiable as female, was looking south. She was also looking less like Mink with every second. Diao Hua dropped into the shadows of an access structure as the woman turned. Light caught her briefly, showing a figure in a grey hoodie and jeans, and then the woman sat down on the flat roof and picked up something she had obviously left there.

  The assassin almost hissed in disgust as the girl began shooting up. Another wasted night. And how could anyone possibly use that crap on themselves? The girl sank back onto the roof and Diao Hua turned to leave.

  No, this was not working. Her employer was becoming impatient and if Diao Hua had to spend much longer in this disgusting hole of a city, she would never get the stink out of her skin. She needed to draw Mink out. She needed a way of trapping the woman, of flushing her out and driving her into the open. She needed to do something that Mink would be unable to ignore…

  Diao Hua ran, heading for her hotel room where she could plan.

  And behind her, on the rooftop, Mink watched her leave. She had been observing now for four nights, watching the girl criss-cross her way through Chinatown and Tenderloin in search of an Ultra in a costume. She had not noticed the hooker on the corner, the addict in the alley, the drunk, the bagwoman…

  Now it was time for Mink to head home. She had enough in the way of photographs and other evidence. If this Yin Xian assassin had ever shown her face before now, Mink was going to find it.

  New Millennium City, MD, 2nd October.

  ‘Okay,’ June said, ‘what’s up?’

  Cygnus paused in the drying of her hair, standing just outside the bathroom door of what was now, more or less officially, their bedroom rather than just Penny’s. ‘What up would be up?’

  ‘That does not make the slightest grammatical sense. Also, you know what I mean, stop hedging.’

  ‘I… really don’t.’

  ‘You haven’t been Penny for a couple of days now. This isn’t to do with me, is it? You’re not having trouble with us when you’re Penny?’

  ‘Oh… No. Hell no. You know something? I was… Penny was being an idiot. Right, okay, maybe a little uptight about being heterosexual, but she never factored in how flattering it is to be thought of as any kind of sexual. She still gets the odd twinge of… guilt, maybe? She looks at you, gets excited, and feels a bit embarrassed about it. If you suggested a threesome with Dom, she’d run a mile, but she’s pretty comfortable with the idea of you and her.’

  ‘Oh. Good. The Dom-threesome idea? Not going to be something I suggest.’

  ‘I can handle Dom. You’d be safe.’

  ‘Still not something I’m going to suggest. And not the point. Why are you Cygnus now and not Penny?’

  ‘Ah. I didn’t want to worry you…’

  ‘Too late.’

  ‘Yeah.’ Walking over to the bed where June was still lying, half-covered, Cygnus sat down. ‘The voices ar
e getting louder again. I switched over yesterday and they were louder than the day before. I’m worried that I might not be able to get the concentration together to shift.’

  June frowned. ‘I’m not letting your weird voices get in the way of my having two gorgeous girlfriends, you know?’ She was making a joke of it and they both knew it.

  ‘Yeah, well, you’ll just have to make do with the one who can put her ankles behind her head for now.’

  ‘I have no idea how I’ll cope. If this keeps up, you need to take it to Doctor Ultimate. Viviane knows who you are and she’s said nothing. Doc Ultimate would keep it secret if you asked him to.’

  ‘I know… Let’s give it a week. Next Friday, when Andrea gets back from work, I’ll switch over. If the voices are screaming so hard I can’t change, Andrea can get me to Antarctica and Hugh can… run lots of tests. Someone over there might be able to keep me from going mad while he does them.’

  ‘That would obviously be a preferable outcome.’

  ‘Uh-huh. As the potential madwoman, I have to agree. Now get up and get dressed before I give in to the urge to get back into bed with you.’

  ‘You are not giving me incentive,’ June replied, but she twitched the sheet aside and swung her legs up and around Cygnus to get out. Rising to her feet, she headed for the shower, hips swinging.

  ‘Temptation on legs,’ Cygnus muttered, and got up to follow.

  San Francisco, CA, 4th October.

  ‘Dinner and a movie,’ Bianca said. ‘Have you any idea how long it’s been since I did that?’

  Damian turned a little to look at her. She was leaning against the back wall of the elevator which went up to his loft dressed in a high-collared, black dress with a keyhole front which had been tantalising him all evening. She looked like the kind of woman men should wine and dine on a regular basis, probably every night, but he knew that was not her style.

  ‘No,’ Damian said. ‘Honestly, I couldn’t even guess.’

  ‘Huh. Honestly? Neither could I. I was probably in my teens. Dinner would have been a burger.’

  The car stopped and Damian opened the doors. ‘Welcome to my home, such as it is.’