Sign of the Dragon (Tatsu Yamada Book 1)

by Niall Teasdale

Hideki Fukui marched out of a secure elevator onto the very secure parking level where his personal vehicle was waiting for him. Ahead of him were two men in smart suits. Another two trailed behind. Today was not the best day he had ever had, and he was just a little irritated. Basically, anyone who screwed up anywhere in his organisation today was going to find themselves terminated, in both senses of the word.

  It had started at seven that morning when officials from the Ministry of Health, Labour, and Welfare backed by TYMPD officers had marched into the tower. They had basically shut the place down pending an investigation into the allegations made by Dexter Burrell on Scoop. The ketō reporter would likely have been ignored if the mainstream news agencies had not picked up the story and reported it, but Fukui had also been told that the TYMPD had been in receipt of ‘substantial evidence of malfeasance’ which made an investigation impossible to avoid. And the news media were practically besieging the building.

  Right now, Fukui was on his way to meet with corporate lawyers. He could have conducted the meeting via telepresence, but he currently did not trust any communications system less immediate than the spoken word transmitted only through the air. The lawyers were busy scrubbing their offices for bugs as Fukui walked to his car. He had some things to say in the meeting which he wanted neither the police nor the media to hear.

  ‘Fukui!’

  Fukui turned at the shout, spotting a man walking toward him who came to a sudden stop as four men drew guns and pointed them at the speaker. Fukui recognised him from the company personnel files, though he had never seen the man in person before. Not tall, neither heavily built nor thin, a moderately attractive face let down by black hair which had not been combed in a while, and clothes which had not been washed in a couple of weeks too.

  ‘Kawaguchi,’ Fukui said. ‘How did you get in here? This floor is secured and you–’

  ‘Your security here is as good as the security on ViraShield fourteen.’

  ‘You! It was you! Grab him!’ The guards did not immediately move to take custody of Kawaguchi, and Fukui considered terminating them on the spot. But he needed them. ‘Take Kawaguchi into custody immediately. He’s responsible for the deaths of company employees. Move!’

  Kawaguchi did not resist as the four men encircled him and then dragged him across to the car, pushing him face down on the hood of the massive vehicle to begin a search. ‘I’m not armed,’ Kawaguchi said. ‘I came here to confront a man so enamoured of profit that he chose to risk the lives of millions of Japanese citizens by rushing an untested product to market.’

  ‘Do you think you can talk your way out of this?’ Fukui asked. ‘You’ve murdered people. You’ve murdered colleagues.’

  ‘Ex-colleagues who kept their heads down and ignored the reality of what they were doing. They passed as tested code which failed the most basic authentication tests. Anyone could program ViraShield to do anything.’

  ‘That’s total nonsense. First, they would need to know there was a problem. Then they would need to work out how to use that problem. And then they would need to know how to program the nanomachines. You’re probably one of the few people capable of–’

  ‘The entire programming team would know. It would just take a few words in the right ear. You knew the system could be exploited. You refused to do anything about it.’

  ‘Our reputation would be ruined.’

  ‘Spin is what you do, Fukui.’ Once again, Kawaguchi used a distinctly impolite form of address, using only the CEO’s name without an honorific. It was starting to annoy Fukui, and he was already annoyed enough.

  ‘I’ll see to it that you’re locked away until your grandchildren die of old age.’

  ‘That’s not going to happen.’

  ‘What do you–’ One of the guards took a step back, blinking rapidly and reaching up to stop the blood coming from his nose. Fukui stared at the man for several seconds. ‘What did you do?!’

  ‘The software runs on any implant,’ Kawaguchi said. ‘One transmission and anyone with ViraShield fourteen is affected. I just need to be in range. Once downloaded, the new code makes every cell in your body look like a cancer cell. There’s no way to reverse it. You have thirty minutes. That’s the upper estimate.’ Another guard dropped his weapon and then, eyes rolling back, he crumpled onto the ground. Kawaguchi straightened up and turned to face Fukui. None of the guards were stopping him. ‘How does it feel to know you’re going to die because you tried to fuck over your customers?’

  Fukui turned on the spot and ran back toward the elevator. Oddly, he looked angry rather than scared.

  Kawaguchi watched him until the doors were about to close. ‘You can’t run from it, Fukui.’

  Fukui smiled. ‘I don’t need to.’

  Chiba.

  ‘… escaped with his life after a terrorist identified as ex-ViraShield employee Kurou Kawaguchi attacked him and his four bodyguards in ViraShield Tower this afternoon. None of the bodyguards survived the attack.’

  Tatsu watched the report on her screen rather than in-vision. Sometimes she just preferred it that way. TNM had been reporting the same story all afternoon, along with the other part which they had been reporting all day.

  ‘Mr Fukui had no comment on the attack, or on the investigation of ViraShield currently being undertaken by the Ministry of Health, Labour, and Welfare and the Tokyo–Yokohama Metropolitan Police. TNM understands that this investigation is related to the reports first surfacing last night that ViraShield knowingly issued faulty software for their version fourteen PIN system. At this time, both the ministry and the police were unavailable for comment. A spokesperson for Izanami indicated that the inventor of PIN was appalled by the allegations, if proven.’

  ‘And I am too.’

  ‘Mute,’ Tatsu said before turning to look at the avatar Izanami was presenting. ‘I’d imagine you would be. Probably your greatest creation in the realm of health, and ViraShield treat it with the care of a video game producer. Terrible.’

  ‘Your sarcasm is not wanted. I was ordered to distribute PIN as a commercial product, you know that. I would have preferred to distribute it freely through the government.’

  ‘Yeah,’ Tatsu admitted. ‘You can’t go against an order from the prime minister, and the PM can’t really go against an order from the corporations he’s backed by.’

  Izanami nodded. ‘My core programming makes me subservient to the emperor and the prime minister.’

  ‘And the emperor never uses his power.’

  ‘To date, no. The dual command structure was put in as a safeguard against an out-of-control politician and has never been needed. However, discussing my command protocols is not why I’m here. Kurou Kawaguchi is in Chiba. I have identified him moving toward the zone and I have two sightings of him inside it.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘My sightings were in the Narashino area. I suspect he’s headed into the port.’

  ‘Ex-port.’

  ‘The ex-port then. There are plenty of disused buildings in the area.’

  ‘And the Russian mafia and Mihama Yankees. That’s not an especially safe place for outsiders. Are there TYMPD officers searching?’

  ‘There are, but not there.’

  Tatsu grinned. ‘Yeah, well, it’s not a safe area.’

  ‘But you will go look, won’t you?’

  ‘Yeah… Yeah, I’ll go look.’

  ~~~

  Back before the Cyberwar, the port in Chiba had done well for itself. Now that there was basically nowhere to ship anything to or from, it was not doing so well. There was business in and out of the port in Tokyo, largely submersibles, but even that had shrunk.

  The first stage had been the construction of factories and warehouses. Then those had become obsolete. No one had bothered to demolish them or replace them with housing, and the entire area had become an industrial wasteland. There were, of course, still port facilities there, so criminal groups had moved in, mostly to give them a relatively easy method
of smuggling drugs to and from Osaka and Okayama. Eventually, Anastas Zima’s mafia had taken control of transport through the docks, and they used a group of Yankees for labour, handling ‘port security’ themselves.

  There were people in the port other than the gangs. It was not a safe place to live, but some people had little choice in the matter. The ones who fell through the cracks. The ones with nowhere else to go. Maybe Sachiko had started out her life in Chiba here with her UBI hijacked by her parents and no money for rent. She would hardly be the only one the system had lost. Others ended up here because they spent their rent money on drugs or some other habit. Many of them had no money for food once they had finished buying their recreational intoxicant of choice. They lived in the factories and warehouses, scrounging what they could. Urban survival skills were an absolute must, if only to be sure you were drinking clean water. Still, the area was a hotbed of ill-health. Not disease, because even here PIN was pretty ubiquitous thanks to a programme Izanami had pushed through the government to have it installed on refugees when they entered the country. PIN could only do so much, however, and most of the port’s residents were unhealthy.

  Tatsu walked between the buildings, showing a picture of Kawaguchi to anyone she found and there were plenty of those. The rain was actually assisting her for once. A downpour had started around sunset and was continuing into the night. It was keeping the vagrants indoors where they were easier to find. Kawaguchi was not being easy to find; if anyone had seen him, they were staying silent on the matter. That was kind of to be expected: people here were tight-lipped because the police might be looking for them one day. Still, Tatsu found no indications that anyone was lying. Maybe Izanami had been wrong about Kawaguchi’s destination.

  It was as she was walking between her fourth building, a factory, and her fifth, a warehouse, that she encountered the men in suits. They were actually in suits and raincoats – transparent plastic ones with hoods – and one of them was carrying a shotgun. They were trying to look menacing, but the coats just made them look foolish. Then again, Tatsu was not sure she was giving the best of impressions with rain dripping off her hair.

  ‘Can I be of some assistance to you gentlemen?’ Tatsu asked, in Japanese, as they spread themselves out to block her path.

  ‘We do not like cops coming here and looking through the buildings,’ one of them said, in Russian.

  Tatsu grimaced. ‘Do we have to do this?’ she asked, switching to Russian. ‘In case you hadn’t noticed, it’s raining. I’m wet and unhappy. I can’t imagine this is any fun for you either. I’m looking for a person, not whatever you’ve got hidden around here this week.’

  ‘Our orders are to throw you out. We don’t–’

  ‘You and which army?’

  ‘It’s five against one, bitch cop.’

  Tatsu nodded. ‘Which means that you’re outnumbered. Look, I get it, Vasilev’s new in the job and he wants to show that he’s a strong leader. Thing is, he’s not standing in the rain trying to intimidate a combat cyborg. Just leave and say you never managed to find me.’

  The man with the shotgun raised it to his shoulder and the leader grinned. ‘We say you leave.’

  Tatsu pulled her pistol from where it sat under her left arm and fired three rounds into shotgun guy’s right shoulder. He reeled away, the shotgun flying, and collapsed onto the paving stones, unconscious. Tatsu shifted her aim to the one doing all the talking. ‘Next time, I aim for your head. Pick your friend up and leave. Now!’

  ‘This is not the last you’ll hear of us, bitch cop,’ the talker said, but he was backing off just like the others. Two of them picked up their colleague while a third retrieved the shotgun. Tatsu tracked them with her pistol the whole time.

  ‘If Vasilev is stupid enough to make a big thing out of this, I will crush him like a bug. Tell him that.’ Tatsu watched them until they retreated out of sight, and then she holstered her pistol and continued on to the warehouse for more fruitless searching.

  25th July.

  Despite the heavy rain, the temperature in the office building Tatsu found herself in was over twenty-five degrees and the humidity was high. Most of the rough sleepers were sleeping in whatever underwear they possessed, maybe under a blanket of some kind. They slept with one ear on the area around them, and several woke to stare at her as she moved between them. When they did, she showed them a picture of Kawaguchi and got the same answer every time.

  ‘Haven’t seen him,’ said a girl of no more than twenty. She was pretty, probably American originally, likely making top-up money on her back, and lying.

  ‘Okay,’ Tatsu said. ‘Thank you for your time.’ Getting up from a crouch, she turned in the direction the girl’s eyes had flicked when she had denied seeing Kawaguchi.

  The building was laid out in a basic block pattern of offices on this floor. Downstairs was open plan, where the grunts had worked before everyone moved to working from home, but this floor had been for those of higher rank who at least rated a shared office. People were sleeping in the corridors. Having a room somewhere to yourself was something few could swing; generally, you had to have muscle, a talent you could trade, or money. Kawaguchi had the last one.

  He was not asleep. He was sitting with his back against a wall, watching the door. His hair looked unwashed, his face was smudged, and his dark eyes were shadowed, weary. His MedStat data was coming back with two yellow indicators. He probably had not slept much in the last forty-eight hours and was under high stress with physical symptoms. At one time, he had probably been a fairly good-looking man, but the past month or so had taken a considerable toll and now he was a tired man in his middle years, worn out by the weight of what he knew, what he had done.

  ‘You’re with the police?’ he asked as Tatsu walked into his room, an ex-office from the furniture piled against one wall. ‘You don’t look like a local.’

  Tatsu took in his worn suit, torn in places, and the overcoat, with one of the pockets ripped out, from a high-end clothing chain. ‘I look more like one than you do. Actually, I don’t live far from here. But, yes, I’m with the TYMPD.’

  ‘I won’t let you take me in.’ He reached into his coat, for something hidden under his arm.

  Tatsu watched him do so, not moving for her own weapon. After a couple of seconds with Kawaguchi looking at her with one hand stuck in his armpit, she said, ‘If you’re going for suicide by cop, you should’ve picked a different cop. I don’t believe you have anything under that coat. And if you did, it’s highly unlikely you could hurt me with it.’ Stepping forward, she grabbed him by the collar of his expensive coat and hauled him to his feet. ‘You’re under arrest, Mister Kawaguchi, for the murder of a number of people. I can innumerate them, if you wish, but I’d rather save it for when I’ve got you to HQ.’

  Kawaguchi’s face twisted into a scowl. ‘I’m being arrested for betraying company secrets.’

  ‘No, no you’re not. I don’t give a damn about your secrets. You had the information, you gave it to Burrell, he publicised it and gave it to me. You didn’t need to kill people to get attention, Mister Kawaguchi. So, why did you?’

  ‘They had to pay for the danger they’ve put people in. Fukui needed to pay.’

  ‘Still does. You didn’t kill him. I figured you knew.’

  ‘He’s still…’ Kawaguchi’s eyes widened. ‘They fixed the bug. They fixed it and patched it in the executives, but they haven’t released it.’

  ‘That would be my take. ViraShield and those responsible will pay for what they did. And you will be in prison with them for multiple murders. I’d imagine they’ll get out before you will. Now, move.’

  Half-dragging her prisoner, Tatsu made her way downstairs to the lobby of the building. Various people woke along the way, staring at the scene of a woman dragging what might have been one of their own through the corridors. No one stepped in to stop it happening; the people here kept themselves to themselves. In the lobby, Tatsu paused, looking at the double doors whi
ch were now frames with no glass in them.

  ‘I’m picking up radio traffic from outside,’ she said. ‘I think your ex-employer might have sent someone to collect you.’ Which likely meant there was a leak in the TYMPD, but that was not entirely unexpected. ‘The investigation is underway and they still think it’s worth making you vanish. Do you know anything that wasn’t on that data chip?’

  ‘I put everything on there, aside from my name.’

  ‘Right.’ She pushed Kawaguchi into a corner behind a miraculously still-intact reception counter. ‘Please don’t try to run away. If you do, and I have to come find you again, I’ll be annoyed. You won’t die, but you’ll wish you had.’ Then she turned and headed for the door.

  There were eight of them this time, all clad in the same sort of armour she had seen in Yachiyo and carrying assault weapons. Behind them, an armoured vehicle was waiting. Armoured but not armed; heavy weaponry would have made this far more difficult. Still, it was not going to be easy. Tatsu pulled up her police operations interface and called in an emergency request for backup.

  ‘Hand Kawaguchi over and everyone walks away.’ The speaker was standing roughly in the middle of the group. Male, heavily built, and holding his rifle at rest in front of him. Four of his colleagues were aiming their weapons.

  ‘I’m afraid I can’t do that,’ Tatsu replied. ‘He’s under arrest, which means he’s under my protection.’

  ‘You’re going to regret that. Be reasonable. There’s no way you can–’

  ‘Probably.’ In one smooth motion, Tatsu pulled her pistol and swept it in an arc which took in four of the mercenaries, including the leader. Four rounds of four-millimetre ammunition hit each of them but only the first was noticeably injured. Most of the needles hit the armour and stopped without penetrating. Tatsu dived to the right, back through and clear of the doorway, as a lot more needles of a similar calibre shredded the air where she had been.

  ‘You don’t have the weaponry to stop us,’ the leader called in through the door. ‘We’re going to come in there, kill you, and take Kawaguchi anyway. Give up.’