Sign of the Dragon (Tatsu Yamada Book 1)

by Niall Teasdale

  ‘You really want me to run with this?’

  Tatsu shrugged. ‘It’s not a lot. It might make her nervous. Nervous people make mistakes. She thinks she’s got everything covered, and here she is missing a tramp getting video of her. She made a mistake. If she knows she made a mistake, she might make more.’

  ‘Or she might get more careful.’

  ‘Possibly, but if she’s more cautious, she may delay her next hit. If you want to do it, do it. Just don’t quote me. HQ will probably have a fit if they know I’ve been talking to you.’

  ‘I know the drill. All my sources are secret.’

  Tatsu cut the connection and lay down on her bed. So, they were dealing with a woman. A woman hellbent on revenge against the Funabashi gang. She turned onto her side and closed her eyes. Unfortunately, that did not really narrow the suspect pool down a great deal.

  31st August.

  ‘I know, but I have a job to do,’ Tatsu said.

  ‘Your job is getting in the way of my sex life,’ Sachiko replied over the link. She had called to ask if Tatsu wanted to meet after she got off work, but Tatsu was already in position on a rooftop near to Vasilev’s apartment block.

  ‘It gets in the way of mine too.’

  ‘Mine is more important. I’m younger and need my orgasms more.’ The image Tatsu could see was grinning.

  ‘Call Yamauchi. I’m sure she’d supply all the orgasms you could want.’

  ‘Not like you can.’ Sachiko sighed. ‘I suppose I’ll survive until you’ve finished watching that Russian to see if he’s next.’

  ‘Glad to hear it. Maybe I’ll take you out on a real date once this is over. Like, something a bit better than a burger.’

  Sachiko giggled. ‘You see me in some posh restaurant?’

  ‘Sure. Why not. You must have something that isn’t largely made of fishnet you can wear.’

  ‘No, but I can make something. Later.’

  As the call window vanished, Tatsu pulled another bank of windows back to the front of her sensorium. These showed various views of Vasilev’s building, inside and out, from security cameras. The coverage was far from perfect. On the other hand, it gave her a better view of things than her own eyes provided. Now all she had to do was wait for a murderess to make a move. Hopefully, that would not take too long.

  2nd September.

  Just because Tatsu was mounting a vigil at night, it did not mean that there was no business during the day. The building she was currently going over was in Inagekaigan. An old factory had been taken over by the Mihama Yankees to split cocaine shipments into smaller units for sale, and one of the Chinese street gangs had decided to shut it down. It had not gone especially well for either side.

  ‘We’ve got eight bodies,’ Senior Officer Okamoto said. ‘We took three more to the hospital. One of those is probably not going to make it. Well, maybe, but he’s going to need a new leg.’ She was speaking through a filter mask; the air was grey with dust, and probably not the kind of dust you wanted to breathe.

  Everything, including the corpse Tatsu was currently looking at, was covered in fine powder. It was like someone had been over the entire area with a sieve, dusting it with icing sugar. The only areas which were relatively clear of it were the pools of blood. The entire place had become a monochrome wonderland of red and white.

  ‘What a mess,’ Tatsu said. ‘This has to be the biggest yet. How did we hear about it?’

  ‘Kannon user was nearby and heard shooting, so Izanami flagged it to HQ. User wasn’t going to report it, but Kannon did.’

  ‘Right. Pure luck then. There are going to be reprisals. The Yankees will be looking for somewhere across the border they can hit.’

  ‘Yeah,’ Okamoto said. ‘You’re probably right. We’re going to end up with a war, aren’t we?’

  ‘At this point… I hope you don’t have holiday plans in the next few weeks.’

  ‘Had a week off in July. It rained every day.’

  ‘If that isn’t a metaphor for Chiba, I don’t know what is.’

  3rd September.

  ‘Your chances of stopping open conflict are very low.’

  ‘And hello to you too, Izanami,’ Tatsu said without looking around at where the avatar’s voice seemed to be coming from. If she did not look, then it was technically the case that no one was there. Virtual imagery was one of the few cases where hiding your head in the sand did make the problem go away. Well, not go away…

  ‘Good evening, Tatsu,’ Izanami said. ‘Your chances of stopping open conflict are very low.’

  ‘I suppose you’ve run projections?’

  ‘It’s a complex situation. There are a number of factors affecting the eventual outcome. Few of them lead to a reduction in hostility, however.’

  ‘I have nothing better to do. Enlighten me.’

  The tall, beautiful figure appeared in the periphery of Tatsu’s vision, looking down upon the entrance of Vasilev’s building with her. ‘The chances that you are wrong about Vasilev being the next target are low. I would estimate that he will be attacked within the next four nights with a slightly higher probability of it being the early hours of Saturday morning.’

  ‘Other possibilities?’

  ‘Another mass attack may provide greater gratification to the killer. I agree that she has begun to enjoy killing. She wants more. There is still an overarching goal, however, and that is furthered more by eliminating Vasilev. The first major uncertainty occurs due to the complex interactions between the players in an attempt on his life. The outcomes range from you saving Vasilev and capturing the killer to the killer succeeding in killing both you and Vasilev. The latter has a very low probability, but it exists. An especially good outcome there could defuse the regional violence, though the chances are low.’

  ‘If Vasilev lives and I catch the murderer, I might persuade Vasilev to put an end to this. All that does seem a stretch. If he dies…’

  ‘There are no obvious successors after his death. The Funabashi gang will fall into infighting as the various groupings within it vie for control. The other gangs will, rightly, see this as weakness and attack. My analysis suggests only a twenty percent probability of this remaining localised; the fighting will spread throughout the refugee zone as the major gangs try to move their boundaries. There is also a sixty percent chance that the Shiratori-rengō will become involved, making an attempt to push into Chiba and swallow the Funabashi gang’s territory.’

  Tatsu winced. ‘Not unexpected but a real pain. I don’t think they’re strong enough to do it.’

  ‘My analysis concurs. Unfortunately, if Vasilev lives, the chances range from seventy-five to ninety percent that he will attack the Shiroi gang, and sixty-eight to seventy-five that he will attack the Shiratori-rengō either individually or at the same time. Overall, the probability of war in the zone comes out between eighty-eight and one hundred percent. There is a ninety percent probability that open conflict will break out in the evening of Saturday the fifth.’

  ‘Oh. Have you told HQ about this?’

  Izanami nodded. ‘I believe they will put forward a plan to handle the situation tomorrow morning. I estimate that it will be distributed to all officers in Chiba at eleven-oh-three with a high degree of certainty. It will propose the deployment of riot squads throughout the zone and the use of maximum force in suppressing any conflict.’

  ‘Huh. I could have predicted the battle plan.’

  The avatar flashed Tatsu a grin. ‘That part did not take a great deal of processing power to determine.’

  ‘So,’ Tatsu said, ‘next week is going to be hell around here.’

  ‘Most of my projections suggest a week of intense fighting followed by several months of quieter reconsolidation. I can show you a map of the likely eventual boundaries, if you wish.’

  ‘I’ll manage without. I think the world should have a few surprises in it.’

  ‘As you wish. Hopefully, the surprise won’t be too unpleasant.’

&n
bsp; Tatsu was about to reply when she realised that the avatar was gone again. ‘I bet you’re projecting that it will be,’ she muttered. Then she returned to watching camera feeds.

  4th September.

  The battle plan for the predicted gang war was sent out at sixteen seconds past eleven-oh-three. Tatsu took some comfort in the fact that Izanami had not nailed the time to the second. As predicted, it proposed the dispersal of riot units throughout the region with orders to come down hard on any fighting in public areas. Targeted teams would be sent in to close down more private incidents where detected.

  On a more personal note, Tatsu received orders to stand ready to assist the riot squads where required. She would be spending the next week in battledress, and they were essentially ordering her to end her stakeout on Saturday morning and be ready for deployment by the evening. Sachiko was not going to be pleased.

  Nakano had some better news, for a given value of ‘better.’ ‘The lab cleaned up that card,’ he said from a call window. ‘It’s definitely our girl. Still not sure I can see a woman doing this.’

  ‘Women can be just as vicious as men, Nakano,’ Tatsu replied. ‘What was the message?’

  ‘Uh… “There can be no peace for men with evil minds.”’

  ‘So, she killed him because he was trying to get everyone to take a breath.’

  ‘Seems like it, though…’

  ‘Though?’

  ‘Seems to me that that’s an excuse. He wasn’t being that effective. Kill a few more gangsters and things would’ve probably heated up enough without killing an old Chinese guy. I think she just wanted to kill him.’

  Tatsu wondered what Izanami’s probabilities would say about the matter. ‘Pan’s death might be more effective, but I don’t think you’re wrong.’

  ‘You still on that stakeout?’

  Sitting in her apartment, taking care of paperwork for the upcoming riot situation, Tatsu could not really say that. ‘Not right now, but I’ll be back on it tonight.’

  ‘But not tomorrow night, right? We got through the projections and the plan Chiba HQ sent out. Tokyo is deploying riot squads along the border from tomorrow. I assume you’re on standby from tomorrow.’

  ‘Those are my orders. If Vasilev isn’t hit tonight, I’ll probably miss the chance at grabbing our killer.’

  ‘Good luck then.’

  ‘Thanks. I may need it.’

  5th September.

  Tatsu realised it had begun when she spotted the same man walking past a camera for the third time. She double-checked, running the three clips beside each other to be sure she was not simply seeing some vor patrolling a corridor. The vids were identical, and she could not see the man in previous shots. The camera had been looped. Expertly looped, though not with sufficient care to avoid having someone appear in the feed multiple times.

  Cursing under her breath, Tatsu turned from her watch position and started for the roof access door. The killer was probably already in Vasilev’s building and there was no time to lose.

  ~~~

  Needle-like projectiles stitched a line over a man’s torso, and he fell, crumpling onto the hardwearing carpet of the corridor without saying a word. The robot which had shot him swept forward and over him, moving into a position where it could cover the elevator and one of the two stairwells leading to that floor.

  Following behind that machine were two more similar ones, each held in the air by shielded rotors. They were blocky machines, roughly rectangular aside from the attached fans. Each mounted a weapon, the muzzle of which protruded from the front of the blocky hull. These two flanked another figure, humanoid and female in shape, about a hundred and eighty centimetres in height and clad in the latest lightweight combat armour including a helmet which obscured her features. Whether human or gynoid, she walked with purpose, a katana slung at her left hip.

  She stopped in front of a door, the door to Vasilev’s apartment, and turned. ‘Secure the exit route,’ she said – a female voice to go with the female figure, speaking Japanese. The two robots flew off the way they had come, and the assassin turned to the door.

  The door opened without any contact and a voice could be heard from within, speaking Russian. ‘You will not get me, bitch! I know you’re there. Tonight, you’re mine!’ Vasilev was waiting.

  There was a flicker across the surface of the armour and the figure vanished from normal sight. There was no point in keeping him waiting.

  ~~~

  Tatsu ran up the final flight of stairs leading to Vasilev’s floor and paused at the door. This was the residents’ stairwell, designed to be used by those who preferred not to take the elevator – and Tatsu doubted there were many of them – and therefore just as well decorated as the rest of the building. The door was, however, designed to operate effectively in emergencies; it slid open sideways where it would not obstruct passage off the corridor or hit someone already in the stairwell as it opened. That was less than optimal for Tatsu.

  Standing to one side of the door, Tatsu triggered the opening mechanism and then angled her pistol around the doorframe. The sighting camera gave her a view down the corridor to Vasilev’s apartment. It also showed her the hovering robot which was now aiming its muzzle at the door. Tatsu fired before it could. Three rocket-propelled slugs hit the flying machine and it dropped out of the air, its fans spinning down as it died.

  One down. Tatsu stepped out of cover and started down the corridor. As she did so, a humanoid figure stepped out of Vasilev’s apartment, flicking blood from a long, curved sword. The helmeted head turned, saw Tatsu, and then the figure vanished. Or it would have to someone with normal vision; Tatsu’s eyes could still see the shape, primarily in the ultraviolet range. She lifted her pistol and fired. Three rounds hit their target and the figure flinched, but none of the projectiles penetrated the armour; Tatsu saw them falling to the carpet. The figure put a hand to her ribs where one of the slugs had hit, then she turned and ran down the corridor toward the emergency stairwell at the other end.

  And Tatsu was going to have to check on Vasilev. She could see one of his bodyguards, likely dead, lying beside the door, but Vasilev would be inside and there was a slim chance he was alive. There was no way to call for assistance because there was a radio jammer operating which covered at least this floor. Still, it had to be done. Instead of chasing the killer, Tatsu ducked inside the apartment and looked around.

  At least she did not have to go further than that. The air was full of the stink of blood and cordite. Vasilev had put up a fight. His right hand and forearm were lying on the carpet about a metre from his body, still clutching an illegal calibre of revolver. His body had a long wound across the chest and his lower legs were folded under as though he had dropped to his knees after that cut and then fallen backward. That had probably been after his head had been separated from it. Vasilev was dead, no two ways about it. Turning, Tatsu gave chase.

  She hit the emergency stairwell at a run, jumping down entire flights in one go. You could tell this was the emergency stairwell because of the signage saying so – in three languages, Japanese, English, and Russian – and because it was basically undecorated. Under normal circumstances, the doors would not even open unless the building’s computer detected some form of emergency situation, so that system had been hacked.

  Tatsu hit the last landing above ground level and was met by a stream of needles. She turned her landing into a drop and roll, and the barrage passed over her head and back. She brought her pistol up to return fire, only to see the robot which had attacked her zipping out through the exterior door. She took the last flight of stairs in two strides and then went out the door in a dive, rolling onto her feet in a fluid movement which brought her up and ready to fire, but the expected stream of needles did not come and, looking around, she spotted the robot accelerating upward and away.

  She looked around the alley she had found herself in, but there was no sign of the killer. With a head start and active camouflage that good, th
ere was almost no point in looking. Tatsu was out of the jamming field, however. She put through a request for immediate forensic backup, paramedics, and Nakano. The latter would probably not like being dragged out of bed at two forty-five in the morning, but those were the breaks when you were a cop.

  ~~~

  Nakano looked down at the corpse in the corridor. ‘So, three dead, including the current leader of the Funabashi gang.’

  ‘Two dead,’ Tatsu replied. ‘Vasilev and a bodyguard.’

  ‘I was including this robot which you dismantled with extreme prejudice.’

  ‘Ha ha.’

  ‘It looks kind of custom and kind of not. Built on a basic chassis and heavily customised, maybe?’

  Tatsu nodded. ‘That’s my take. You certainly can’t buy commercial robots armed with fully automatic coilguns at a shop in Akihabara. Our killer has skills. Probably hacked the building computer to open the emergency stairwell. Probably built this thing and its friends. Maybe even designed them. Good with a sword. Cutting someone’s head off isn’t that easy. Also has access to the latest light-military armour. One eighty centimetres, around fifty or sixty kilos. Female.’

  ‘You think it’s a human, not a gynoid.’

  ‘I think this is a human. I think this is a human after revenge for something. Or she was and she’s still using that as an excuse.’

  ‘Maybe less of an excuse this time. She didn’t torture Vasilev.’

  ‘You may be right… Then again, he knew she was coming and fought back. Maybe she had to kill him quicker than she’d have liked. Whatever, he’s dead, and I didn’t get her. This isn’t going to end well.’

  ‘War,’ Nakano said flatly.

  ‘Yeah,’ Tatsu agreed, ‘war.’

  Part Five: War

  Chiba Refugee Zone, Japan, 5th September 2099.

  It started just after dark with three Yankee gangs from the Shiroi territory invading Funabashi Yankee holdings. At first sight it appeared to be the usual gang warfare, but it was coordinated and better equipped than usual. The Shiroi gangsters had military-grade assault weapons and basic body armour. They were acting under direction from the Shiroi gang.