“What’s that mean?”
“You didn’t know?” Bishop shook his head. Reiko held up her right arm. “I was badly hurt during the Kansas Massacre. I couldn’t use my arm for a year. They gave me augments to fix it and replaced the joints with artificial limbs to give it better articulation. But after that, no one would give me a job designing mechas anymore because they were afraid I’d get hurt and not be able to work. The only people willing to give me a second chance were the Sons of War.”
“Generous of them.”
“More than generous,” she said. “They didn’t just want to bring change to the old regime—they wanted to create opportunities for those who’d never had any. They implemented a Salamander system in my mecha so that I could use my arms to pilot again. They did things like that for all their members.”
“I can see why you joined them.”
“The job was part of it. The biggest reason was to avenge Kansas,” Reiko said.
“What do you mean, ‘avenge Kansas’?” Bishop asked, confused.
“I mean in a general sense,” she said, trying to cover up.
He was going to press, but thought better of it. Later, he told himself.
They made their exit after paying via porticals.
“So?” Reiko inquired.
“It was an Ulfhednar, and they found out his identity,” Bishop said.
“I mean the udon.”
“Better than I was expecting,” he answered, though he didn’t sound enthusiastic.
Reiko gave him a playful tap. “My bad for trying to take a chef to a restaurant.”
“I liked it.”
“Are you being condescending?”
“Never,” Bishop protested.
“Good, ’cause then I’d have to punch you,” she said, swinging around her augmented arm. “So who was it?”
“My Tokko contact, Yasu, says the Ulfhednar’s name was Juro Takahashi. A lieutenant in the army. I knew him. We actually served together. He was part of the rocket pack legions too. Do you know if he was a member of the Sons of War?”
“I don’t know for sure because I don’t know who he is, but I can find out,” Reiko replied.
“Your friend Daniela was spotted meeting with Takahashi. We don’t know what they said, but she covered her face with a veil, which was why external cameras didn’t initially pick her up. We have no idea where she went after that, but she did leave the Sento.”
“So she’s involved with the explosion?” Reiko asked in surprise.
“It looks like it. We’re still trying to get more information.”
“Were you close to Takahashi?” Reiko asked about the Ulfhednar.
“Not close,” Bishop replied. “But we went for drinks a few times. He was tough. But I don’t know how Metzger could have gotten hold of him or if Takahashi even knew he was an Ulfhednar . . .”
“You don’t think he knew?”
Bishop nodded. “It’s possible. Any of us could be Ulfhednar, and we wouldn’t know it until we were dead.”
* * *
—
Once they got in their car, he checked his portical, but no one had spotted Sugimoto yet. As they drove south on the 405 Freeway toward Long Beach, they saw that the opposite direction heading north was full of cars.
“Good luck getting anywhere,” Bishop said their way.
“The army set up a periphery?” Reiko asked, aware of standard protocol in a bombing of this nature.
“It’s for anyone leaving the city, to make sure Bloody Mary isn’t with them.”
“I don’t think she’d try to escape.”
“Neither do I. But they have to be sure.”
Reiko saw Bishop yawn and checked the time. “If your sources haven’t found Sugimoto, we should get some shut-eye.”
Bishop acknowledged, “That’s a good idea.”
“There’s a capsule hotel near Long Beach I like,” Reiko suggested.
“Capsule hotels make me feel like I’m inside a casket.”
“You don’t like a sneak preview of death?”
“I’ve already had too many sneak peeks,” Bishop replied.
A few miles from Long Beach, they grabbed a motel with two beds. It was already midnight.
He slept on the left bed, Reiko on the right. Bishop kept on thinking about the Sento and all the dead inside. Consciousness and unconsciousness blended together, and his memories of the bathhouse took on a life of their own. Somehow, the Sento wasn’t destroyed yet. People were congregating, talking about trivialities. He was on his rocket pack, yelling at the people inside, warning them of what was to come. But no one could hear him. Instead, Nazis were coming for him again, and they ripped off his rocket pack and began to pull his flesh off his body. He heard a rumble, the ground shaking, someone screaming. He woke to his own screams. Reiko was pushing him.
“Bishop!” she yelled. “It’s just a dream.”
“W-where am I?” he asked, confused by his surroundings.
“Motel,” she replied.
He rubbed his eyes, relieved it was only a dream. He lay back down, but couldn’t go back to sleep. He was still perturbed by the fleeting imagery from his dream. He turned left, then right, trying to find a comfortable position, knowing it was futile. He hated the way his dreams exposed him to his own vulnerabilities.
A minute later, Reiko asked, “You sleeping?”
“No,” he answered.
“What were you dreaming about?” she asked.
“Flying. Goddamn Texarkana’s affecting my subconscious. What is it with the Nazis?”
“You mean why are they insane murderers bent on destroying and torturing humanity in the worst ways possible?”
“Yeah.”
“I don’t know,” Reiko replied.
“When we captured some of them, we asked them why they were so cruel. They looked shell-shocked, confused themselves about what they were doing. They were in denial about everything.”
“You think Bloody Mary would have the same reaction?”
“I have no idea.”
“You will after we capture her.”
Bishop scoffed at the assumption. “I’ll be lucky just to survive this. I get the feeling this all ain’t gonna end well.”
Reiko found his fatalism unsettling. “Then why are you even coming?”
“I’m under orders. Isn’t that why you’re doing this?”
“I . . . I was actually ordered off this mission.”
“What?”
Reiko explained Governor Yamaoka’s decision and her plea to get back on the case.
“I think you’re out of your mind,” Bishop stated.
She laughed. “I don’t disagree with you. What would you be doing if you weren’t here?”
“Playing with my niece,” Bishop replied.
“How old is she?”
“Seven. She lives in Culver City with her mom. She got in trouble for going around saying she was part of the Tokko and investigating other kids.”
“I’m sure the other kids were thrilled.”
“Yeah . . . What would you be doing?” Bishop asked.
“Building noncombat mechas,” Reiko replied. “I know mechas are mostly used for fighting, but they weren’t always meant to be war machines. I want to build the kind that can explore the depths of the oceans or be deployed in space.”
“That’d be cool.”
“It’d be a dream come true,” Reiko said. “You get a chance to look through the files you asked for?”
“I did. Thanks for that. They had a lot of information about her missions—she’s assassinated hundreds of people. But I couldn’t find what I was looking for.”
“What’s that?”
“Her real name.”
It was something Reiko hadn’
t thought about.
“It wasn’t in her files, and there’s nothing about her past,” Bishop said. “The first mention of her was one of her missions as a tactical operative in Manhattan.”
“What was she doing there?”
“She assassinated a defector who was feeding the Nazis classified information,” Bishop replied. “She used a hot steam iron to kill him.”
“Is there anything that isn’t a weapon to her?”
“I bet she could kill us using paper clips.”
“What else was on there?” Reiko asked.
But she heard light breathing and no other response. Bishop had fallen back asleep. She turned over to the side and nodded off.
It was 4:00 a.m. when Reiko felt a nudge. Bishop said, “I just got a call. One of our sources spotted Sugimoto at the Eden Food Emporium. Need a caffeine boost?”
“I’ll manage.”
* * *
—
The Eden resembled a nightclub more than a place to eat. There were bright flashing signs and large holographic projections of dancers in front of the main entry. Inside, Bishop was expecting a rambunctious environment, but it was eerily quiet. The host, a young man who called himself Vapor, bowed. “We’re always honored to have guests from Tokko,” he said, aware of who Bishop was even though they hadn’t identified themselves.
“We’re looking for a Stanley Sugimoto,” Bishop said.
“I’m sorry, but I don’t know the names of any of our clients,” Vapor said. He’d dyed his hair white and even wore white contact lenses.
Bishop grasped Vapor’s bow tie and began to tidy it. “You think I don’t know about your little electric donkey business on the side?” he asked, reading Vapor’s Tokko report on his portical. “Does your boss know how you steal all the leftovers and give them to your biomanufactured pets? Listen to your own advice, shut up, and lead the way to Sugimoto.”
Vapor looked shocked and scared, but did his best to maintain his resolve. “I’m sorry, but I really don’t know any of the names of the clients here. Confidentiality is very important. As for the food, it would have been thrown out anyway.”
Bishop didn’t think violence would be effective with so many security guards around, so he checked Vapor’s personal messages and communications.
“I can see you’ve been careful,” Bishop said, “but I don’t think your boss would be happy about the relationship you’re having with his—”
“I just remembered Sugimoto-san,” Vapor quickly said before Bishop could complete his sentence. “I believe I can lead you to him. You know our rules?”
“What rules?” Reiko asked.
“The club is very strict about our rule that no one is allowed to speak inside. You can express yourself in any other way you’d like.”
“What if we need to ask questions?” Bishop demanded.
“You can write them to each other, use sign language, or lip-read. If at any time we hear you speaking, we will be forced to ask you to leave.”
Bishop looked at Reiko, who nodded.
The host slid open a thick steel gate and led them through, closing it behind them to ensure silence. They removed their shoes and gave them to one of the waiters, who took them away. The corridors were covered with ukiyo-e art from the prestigious artist Kilgore depicting a thousand different manifestations of plankton. The only noise Bishop could hear was their footsteps and the stream of water from an artificial waterfall. Everyone in their way was a mime, using hand motions and their bodies to communicate. “What is—” Bishop began, when the host confronted him with an index finger to his mouth, sternly warning him to shut up.
The first chamber had a line of beautifully dressed men and women who bowed to them as they entered. The clients were dressed in all sorts of uniforms: janitors, book firemen, solar sailors, construction workers, maids, and more. Bishop was amused by the men in skimpy cheerleader uniforms and the women dressed in German astronaut suits. There were doors all along the walls, more hallways, multiple stairs leading to rooms he couldn’t see. The club felt like a labyrinth filled with people from all avenues of life talking to each other in sign language. In theory, the event would get more graphic as the evening progressed, caressing, groping, and kissing as permitted (consent was marked through portical agreements and strictly enforced by the guards).
Bishop wondered what it would be like to spend a whole evening with strangers, using only his body to communicate. The array of food being served included the rare Matsutake mushrooms, toro platters, Wagyu beef slices with truffles, caviar on top of special soufflés, the nigiri including mackerel and tuna, and the delicate carpaccio.
They walked through three of these halls before arriving at a room with four people who were dressed in animal costumes. The host indicated this was their destination.
Bishop checked the IDs of the people around them on his portical. “Sugimoto isn’t here,” Bishop said out loud.
Vapor was outraged, as were the four women in kangaroo suits who were flustered and making all sorts of gesticulations.
“Where is he?” Bishop demanded angrily, not caring.
Vapor pointed south.
Approaching them with a drink was a man adorned in jewelry— three gold necklaces and five platinum rings—over his raccoon suit. He had colored the area around his eyes black like a raccoon, and his nasolabial folds were accented by his thin lips.
“Hello, Stanley Sugimoto,” Bishop said.
“You’re not supposed to talk in here!” Sugimoto snapped.
“Then we can talk somewhere else,” Bishop stated.
“Who are you?” Sugimoto demanded.
“I’m Bishop Wakana of the Tokko.”
Sugimoto’s annoyed expression changed to that of forced compliance at the mention of Tokko. “What do you want?”
“We had a question about your cargo.”
“If you’re here about those mutant super alligators, you can have them back. They killed too many of the spectators and ain’t worth a quarter of what I paid for them.”
“We’re not here about your mutant super alligators,” Bishop said. The Tokko file on Sugimoto covered his extensive belongings and businesses. He’d become rich when he’d accidentally stumbled on a method of androgenesis where fish could use the eggs of other fish to clone themselves. Sugimoto became affluent thanks to sushi vendors who were willing to pay ridiculous amounts of money, since he could re-create very tasty tuna on demand. Since then, he’d dabbled in everything from ball-bearing factories to cabarets and burlesque shows. He’d been sued multiple times for endangering lives in his businesses. But the charges, along with his accusers, often vanished under mysterious circumstances. “Where’s a room we can speak in?”
Sugimoto pointed to the host and said, “Ask him.”
They were led to a room filled with hundreds of display screens with mimes making expressive gestures. Everywhere Bishop looked, there was a clownish representation of human emotion. He activated the audio nullifier, which created a field around them, blocking off noise and preventing anyone from listening in.
“This is about the crabs, isn’t it?” Sugimoto conjectured. “The bioengineers told us they would be bigger and tastier with their changes, but they didn’t warn us about the poisonous claws. I’ve compensated the families of the dead chefs generously.”
“We’re here about the mecha parts you’ve been shipping.”
“Mecha parts? I don’t have any government contracts,” Sugimoto said, doing a convincing job of looking surprised.
Reiko stepped closer. “Are you in contact with Pris Watanabe or Bloody Mary?”
“You mean the drink?”
“Don’t play dumb.”
“How do you play dumb?”
Bishop got annoyed by Sugimoto’s defiant expression and moved menacingly toward him. “The whole point o
f this club is that you can’t speak, right? But it’s voluntary. Don’t force me to make it permanent for you.”
“I don’t know any Bloody Mary or Watanbe,” he stated, mispronouncing Watanabe’s name. “You have to bring up any questions about cargo with my managers. I don’t handle the day-to-day. I hire people for that. But if you let me check my portical—” he said as he reached into his pocket. He took out a pistol and fired at them.
Reiko raised her right arm, and the bullet bounced off her prosthetic arm.
Sugimoto bolted out.
“Are you okay?” Bishop asked Reiko, seeing blood.
“I’m fine,” she replied. “I’m seeing a different side of you tonight.”
“Work face,” Bishop replied.
“I’d hate to be on the other side of that.”
“Me too.”
“What if we tried something different?”
“What’d you have in mind?” Bishop asked.
“Let me tag him,” Reiko said. “Let him lead us to Watanabe and Bloody Mary directly.”
“If he leads us to them.”
“He will,” Reiko confidently assured him.
Bishop nodded his agreement.
They chased Sugimoto as he went through several doors.
“It’s weird running without shoes,” Bishop said.
“We gotta go back and get them afterward,” Reiko replied.
They followed Sugimoto into a massive ballroom. There were hundreds of people dancing together, most in pairs. They all wore strange masks, swaying in unison even though there was no music. The mood of their expression changed based on the angle. Divine anger, apathetic amusement, and wild lust were carved into the cypress, natural pigments coloring their facades with the illusion of human sentiment. Even though they didn’t speak out loud, their bodies intimated any emotions that mattered. At the center of a circle column above the rest was a singer, her face covered by a mask. She wasn’t actually singing, though she was pretending to in her white gown that made her resemble a swan.
“Where is Stanley Sugimoto?” Reiko yelled.
But no one responded.
Bishop started to rip off their masks, ignoring their muted protests. Reiko did the same. “I know you’re here,” Bishop called. A few people struggled to keep their masks on. One tried to punch Bishop, but received a fist back into his chest. Bishop removed his mask and was disappointed to see that it wasn’t Sugimoto. He raised his gun into the air, about to fire.
Cyber Shogun Revolution Page 17
