Or Bethany Anne.
She noticed a tika deer watching her from the shadows, and she stopped, bowing to the deer, who bowed back. She stood up and considered the deer like it was a sacred messenger from a Shinto God from ages past and walked away with a smile on her face.
If nothing else, it made her feel good.
There were people out enjoying the day, and she took out her phone to pick her way through the growth. She wasn’t sure what was going on until the undergrowth opened up and there was a glade about twelve meters wide and twice as long.
Fifteen minutes later, she covered her mouth with her hand as a black Pod descended quickly from the sky, a second one hanging back as the first dropped to stop just above the ground. It opened, and a lady sat inside, smiling at her.
A lady whose face was well known to Yuko. “Honorable Bethany Anne?” Yuko asked as she walked to the Pod.
“You might want to jump in pretty quickly. There isn’t a need to make the Japanese Air Force all twitchy, so if you want to go we should move fast.”
Yuko pulled the backpack off of her back and smiled as she turned to sit inside a famed black Pod for the first time. Bethany Anne hit a button, and the doors closed, bringing a darkness inside the Pod until Bethany Anne did something and the glass allowed a softened view of the glade outside.
A male's voice came out of a speaker above Yuko’s head, “Bethany Anne, we have a query on the military channel's about possible U.F.O’s in Kasugayama Primeval Forest.”
“Right, high-dee ho, it’s time to go. Take us up, TOM.”
Yuko felt some acceleration, but the ground and her city disappeared quickly underneath them.
“Welcome to Team ADAM, Yuko.” Bethany Anne told her, “I’m happy you chose to join us.”
Yuko was enthralled with the view out of the glass, she heard someone talking, but it took a second for her to go back, rewind what she thought she had heard and then catch back up. “I am so sorry, Bethany Anne, I was not paying attention!”
Bethany Anne laughed, “It catches all of us one way or another,” she admitted as she swiped an arm across the glass to take off the control display and screens obscuring the view. “Here, why don’t we enjoy this together.”
Yuko turned from paying attention to Bethany Anne to watch while the sky darkened, and then she understood.
Yuko Komagata, a daughter who, according to her father, needed to stop spending so much time on her computer and think more about a relationship and moving forward stared into space.
The first Komagata to leave her town in three generations had abandoned town, country, and now her world. A tear made its way down her face as she reached out to touch the glass.
“No, father,” she whispered to herself, “there are some who you meet on the Internet, who can be trusted, even if they might not be human themselves.”
Another male voice came over the loudspeaker, “Yuko, I would like to introduce myself," he said.
“My name is ADAM.”
CHAPTER TWELVE
Guangzhou, China
Ting was looking around the large building, slightly confused. Her Empress had provided the exact address, date and time that she needed to show up in Guangzhou to deliver her Empress’s letter.
Ting wore the clothes of her mother, and her mother before her. Black with yellow embroidery on their sleeves. On her collars, was the Chinese tiger symbol. While her clothes were clean, they were not modern, nor were they new.
For Ting, this was of little concern. She noticed some of the new Chinese looking at her rural clothes and hairstyle. Twice, a woman in their twenties sniffed in her direction as they walked by in their longer skirts, high heels, with jackets and coiffed hair.
Ting smirked. If those ladies understood who was in their midst, she doubted they would have dared come so close.
“Excuse me?” Ting turned to regard the young man who had called her.
“Yes?”
“Are you lost, or are you looking for the market perhaps?” he asked her.
Ting did not sense any rudeness in this man, so he was forgiven any slight shown to the Leopard Empress's envoy.
“No, I am at the right location. I have been informed to ask for the Jade meeting room, that I have permission to deliver a message to those meeting inside from my Empress. The code word is light.”
Ting noticed the surprise on his face before he bowed more deeply and turned to head towards a back hallway, “Please, follow me.”
Ting followed the man in livery past two guarded locations. At both, the young man was stopped and asked about her presence. The man bowed to both guards and explained that she had the code word for the most respected who were meeting in the back.
Ting followed the young man. Keeping her thoughts to herself as she sniffed the hallways, recording the smells, the sounds, and what she saw.
Finally, there was one more set of double doors to go through. The young man spoke again to the guards who turned their attention to her, “Are you here for yourself, or for another?” the guard asked as her first escort left her with a smile and a nod, returning to the front lobby.
“I’m an envoy for my Empress,” Ting told him.
“And who would that be?” the guard asked as a little rudeness crept into his voice.
Ting swallowed her first response, “That is not for you to know, it will not grace your ears, or I will be under oath to retract the knowledge.”
The guard regarded the slender five-foot tall young woman who couldn’t weigh more than perhaps ninety jin or nearly a hundred pounds if she was wet from falling into the pond. “And how, exactly, would you accomplish this?”
“Well, I’m unaware of a way to accomplish it while you are alive, so unfortunately, death is my only option. At that point, I believe the information is no longer available to be spoken, or possible for others to find out.” She stood there meeting his eyes with a steady look.
The guard next to him chuckled, “You should let her in, we aren’t required to know this. She has the code word, Zan, let it go.
Zan nodded and turned to knock on the door softly. It was cracked open, and he whispered into the doorway. Zan stepped back to allow a third guard, bigger than either Zan or Mei, who were standing guard. This new man was easily six feet tall, and most of his muscle had muscle on top of it. He looked down at the little woman regarding him impassively.
Tai was accustomed to causing a fearful reaction in his normally shorter countryman and especially with his countrywomen.
Except this one. Tai stepped towards her, but Ting held still even when he invaded her personal space. “If he wishes to offer the envoy a slight, to force me to respond, then you are very close,” she told him, holding his eyes with her own.
Those eyes, Tai thought, didn’t seem right.
“Who is sending you?” Tai asked, “We have the code word, but who am I to say is interrupting this meeting?”
This man’s smirk was irritating Ting, “I have warned your man here, that to know this information is not for you. Do you seek to know anyway against these warnings?”
Tai turned to Zan and raised an eyebrow who shook his head, “I don’t need to know, the decision is yours.” Tai turned back around, “what if you whisper it into my ear so that I may announce you?”
“Then I will pull the knowledge from your heart once you are finished with it,” she told him, in a clipped fashion.
Tai grimaced but nodded his head in agreement and bent down so she could whisper the name into his ear.
Zan could see Tai’s eyes roll when he heard the name, but he turned around to walk in with the young woman following him. She looked to Zan and said quietly, “Close the door, you will not want to hear this.”
When she stepped into the room, Zan quickly but silently closed the door behind them.
Mei rolled his eyes and took his position beside the door, “You are running scared from a mouse.”
“I don’t think so, Mei,” he replied,
“this time, I think the stories walk the earth again.”
“You are superstitious, Zan.” Mei snorted, “I bet she is out in ten minutes.”
“Deal,” Zan agreed.
—
Inside, Ting slipped behind the guard who had the attention of what had to be close to twenty of those in power inside the room. Ting was surprised to see three were wearing the old style traditional clothes like her.
The guard stood in front and spoke, “No disrespect intended, but I have an envoy to announce. She has the appropriate code word to join this meeting.”
One of the older men, with a long gray beard and bushy eyebrows, asked, “Did the envoy provide her Empress's name?”
“She did,” Tai started to say, “she claims she is from..ARGUGH.” Tai stopped talking as incredible pain ripped through his chest. He reached to grab a fist holding part of him. A small fist, with claws, had hold of what remained of his heart as it spurted blood before ceasing to move. He felt the sharpness of his broken ribs as he tried to push his heart back in. His legs lost the ability to stand yet he didn’t fall. He coughed up blood and slowly his head lowered, his eyes never closing.
Then, those in the room saw the mighty Tai finally lean forward and the small woman, her hand slipping out of his back, her eyes glowing yellow released his body to collapse to the floor.
She spoke in a soft voice, “No disrespect intended, honorable leaders. However, this guard was informed I would take the name of my Empress from his heart inside of this room.”
Zhao studied the young warrior-envoy and nodded his head, “There is no need to share your Empress’s name, Envoy...”
“Ting,” she supplied and stepped forward apparently without thought or concern that her arm was coated in blood.
“Yes, Envoy Ting.” Zhao stood up and bowed to her, “Welcome to our meeting, Envoy of the Leopard Empress.”
Ting heard the gasps from around the room, hurried questions from a couple of people who were trying to ask about the Leopard Empress. The soft sound of panicked heartbeats made an accompaniment that pleased Ting greatly.
And oh, the delicious smell of fear, of respect, for her Empress.
She bowed, “Thank you, Leader Zhao.” When she raised back up, everyone there could see that her eyes glowed the yellow of the Sacred Clan. “I have been sent by the Leopard Empress to provide those here in the Illuminati with the opportunity to ally yourself with that which you seek from TQB, and provide our protection.”
“And what does the Leopard Empress desire for this?” Zhou asked, keeping his tone very respectful. Zhou had been raised in central China. There the history of the Sacred Clan was told to little children to scare them. As he had aged, Zhou found the stories fascinating and had tried to see what the real story was behind the fairy tales.
Only to find that the partial truths that people would admit be more fanciful than the stories the villagers spoke around the fires at night.
Ting cocked her head, “You misunderstand, I believe honorable leader Zhao.” She looked around the room and smiled. “The question is what do you want to give first as a tribute to start the discussions. The Leopard Empress knows who you fight, and knows more about their abilities than you might ever be able to understand. Further, she knows your relationships and your failures. If she wants your companies, she would just wait for TQB to come for you.”
Zhao kept his face calm but reassessed his impression of this Leopard Empress. He had expected that this person would not know much about what was going outside of the Heubei area where their temple had been for hundreds of years.
Unfortunately, Keung three chairs down from Zhao did not have Zhao’s knowledge of the sacred clan. “Who is this Leopard Princess, Zhao?” He pointed to Ting, “Why are we even speaking to this small girl who kills our people like this.” Keung stood up, “I will not have someone come and talk this way to me! I am not an unaware guard whom you can just punch,” with this, Keung hit the air three times very suddenly, “into submission!” He started walking around the table, “I say,” as he pointed to Ting, “that we spank you and send you back to the Leopard Princess and tell her we can take care of ourselves.”
Four of those around the table looked to Zhao, who put a hand out, palm down and moved it up and down slightly above the table, letting them know to wait.
It looked like Keung was going to make Zhao’s point for him in a very primal way.
San Jose, Costa Rica
The coolness of the night swirled around the two men. “I’m telling you, José,” George said, as he looked at the manufacturing building across the street, “This is easy money. Go in, bust a few things, look for any computers or laptops that could hold technical drawings and we are back out.”
“And I’m telling you, George,” José said, spitting on the ground, “If the command weren't from Miguel, I wouldn’t be doing this shit.” He looked around the darkened street. The building was pretty large for a medium level company here in San José. Miguel had taken a lot of money to harass companies here in Costa Rica and Argentina that supposedly were working with TQB. José didn’t care spit about TQB, except rumor was if you messed with a company that worked with them, shit seemed to happen to you.
José looked around one more time, “Alright, I’m not feeling anything bad, let’s cross.” The two men kept the lead pipes up against their bodies. They had their pistols, but that was in case things got really bad. They hadn’t been paid to kill anyone. Hopefully, they could give the security guy a hundred U.S. if he was there and he would accept a punch and go down.
Up on the roof of the building, three pairs of eyes watched the two toughs. One of the three, a female spoke quietly to the other two, “See, I told you it was going down here tonight.”
“Yes, Kimosabe,” Ryu said in the dark.
Tabatha rolled her eyes, “What do you think Hirotoshi?” While Tabitha might decide the when’s and the where’s, it was Hirotoshi who decided everything martial until he gave his blessing. “I think you need seasoning, and these two will provide it,” he told her in his clipped way of talking, “Don’t get killed, or my Queen will be most displeased.”
“Really?” Tabitha said, “I get killed, and you worry about Bethany Anne being annoyed with you?” She untied her scabbard and lifted it off of her back. Decked out in all black, there was little chance the two thugs below would see her in the dark of the night. “I think I might be a tad upset as well,” she huffed before turning to go to the side of the roof and hopping off. She landed from the twelve-foot drop with barely a notice and started jogging down the side of the building to the unlocked door on the other side they had found.
Ryu looked to Hirotoshi, “You know the Queen will be more than just displeased with us,” he said as he pointed between the two of them.
Hirotoshi nodded agreement. “That is why I have two vials of blood, in case it goes… what did Barnabas call it?” he asked as he turned to follow his charge.
“Pear shaped,” Ryu replied as he followed his partner over the top of the roof, running off the building to land lithely. With barely a break in his running stride, he started to close the distance behind their rash leader.
Truth be told, both men had grown to like the spunky woman who sometimes ran ahead of her thinking, and whose mouth always ran ahead of everyone else.
—
Keung walked around the table, watching the smaller woman who kept an eye on him, but also was aware of those all over the room. She seemed neither concerned nor bothered that Keung had been talking down about her leader.
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