Wearing the Cape 5: Ronin Games (29 page)

“A tree.”

“Yes, Inoue-san. I am haunted by a tree.”

“And you sought our mutual friend because…”

“He knows the tree.”

I was sure that Agent Inoue saw lots of weirder things than I did, so how weird could being stalked by a tree sound to him? He looked thoughtful for all of a few seconds, nodded like I’d just asked to switch to a room with a better view, and said he’d fix it. Showing us to the suite Ozma and Jacky would share, he assigned a staff assistant to see to Ozma’s requests and an unthreatening uniformed aide to take care of me, and politely disappeared.

My sharply attentive aide, introduced as Leading Private Watabe, led me back to the infirmary where Dr. Arai waited. She was not happy to see me, and I wasn’t happy to be there, but she looked me over and gave me a prescription for my shoulder:
Stop. Using.
It.

Then she gave me a what she called a neuro-block patch, informed me that it would dial down the pain receptors in my shoulder enough for me to sleep—and promised that if I did
anything
strenuous it would stop working real fast and she wouldn’t give me another one.

Leading Private Watabe had obviously talked to someone while Dr. Arai was poking me. “Hikari-sama,” he said respectfully once I’d gotten my coat back on and met him at the infirmary doors. “If you will follow me, we have your room prepared.”

“Thank you. Nekokami?”
Kitty-Shell
?

“
Neko, huh?
I should have gotten a codename,
” Shell laughed in my earbug. “Mamori
says to go to sleep, we’re fine and settled in up here.
But
I
want to know what the heck happened in there. We journey to the underworld…and come back with three names and an address? Did you at least get him to agree to a wedding date?
”

“Talk when I’ve showered?” Later, when Leading Private Watabe wasn’t standing beside me. Not that I expected
privacy
, but I wouldn’t really have any less than if I’d slept upstairs, either; Defensenet was being nice, but nice didn’t mean stupid.

We didn’t have privacy
now
—I was willing to bet that Defensenet was only letting me talk to Shell because they could hear what we were saying. Watabe looked at me funny when I chortled for no apparent reason. What would they think of Shell’s last question? Maybe they’d think I was really pursuing Kitsune to press a paternity suit.
As if
. Watabe paid no attention to my sudden flush.

I vaguely remembered the way, and when the elevator doors opened on a bare cement hallway I led and he followed. Past a section of hall that featured large blast-doors and sections that obviously opened out into something bigger, we entered the cell block. Either I was the only guest tonight or all their guards were behind screens, or invisible. Watabe showed me to the only open cell door and handed me a remote.

“The red button activates the lock and will fully seal off the cell, Hikari-sama,” he explained. “And the green button will open the cell. The orange button will sound an alarm and seal the detainment section.” His smile made him look eighteen. “I don’t suggest pushing it—the paperwork is a nightmare. Everything inside the cell is controlled by the monitor, so when you want to shower, for example, say ‘monitor’ to activate its listening function, followed by ‘I wish to shower.’ If your wishes are unclear, she will ask for clarification or connect you to someone.”

He smiled again. “I have been instructed to tell you that, once you seal the cell, its monitoring instruments will switch to passive record; no video or audio feed will be viewed by a living person unless something happens, and once you have departed all recordings will be scrubbed.”

“Oh? Then the monitor…”

“The monitor is an AI system, not a person. Goodnight, Hikari-sama.”

He actually bowed and I blinked before hastily returning it.

“
Well that’s interesting,
” Shell muttered as I stepped into the cell and found that someone had brought my suitcase downstairs.

“What is?”

“
Oh, nothing I want to talk about here.
”

“Then don’t.” Looking at my luggage, I decided that I didn’t want Defensenet learning about my magical-girl ring. Propping Cutter in a corner and hitting the red button to seal off the cell, I got undressed and called for the shower—and almost melted under the warm water.

“
So, can you tell me anything?
” Shell asked. Obviously the base had provided a link so she could still bedevil me. I turned my face into the spray to give myself a moment to think.

“Just that Kitsune said I didn’t have to worry about being trapped wherever the tree is.” He’d been completely mute about where that
was
. “At worst he thinks I’ll be ‘home in time for tea.’ And that’s if the tree still even wants me.” And that was all I could tell Shell with big listening ears around. The truth was that Kitsune had laughed and told me that the tree was as much a tree as he was a humble fox or the godfish was a school of golden koi. That hadn’t surprised me, since trees didn’t usually want company. But he’d hinted that it wasn’t
just
some friendly tree kami either.

In fact he’d blamed my entire trip to Japan on it. He seemed to think that it had
known
he was in trouble and decided that it would be a fine thing to poke me because I’d come looking for him. Killing Heavenly Dragon, delivering the vaccines, laying the shinigami to rest, all that had been a happy bonus—it had been all about
his
mission.

Kitsune wasn’t exactly humble, but the apparent stakes of his current game, he was probably right.

“
That’s it?
” Shell whined when I didn’t say anything else. “
What about, you know, wedding plans? On hold?
”

If her furry butt had been present I’d have flipped water at her. “Ha, ha. Funny cat. He didn’t say, I didn’t ask.”

With the hours since the contest being so interesting, I’d barely given it a thought. Because really, a fox was a
wild
animal; there was no way he would ever swear service to my family. Right? We’d achieved a nice balance of promises that neither of us would have any interest in requiring payment on—not when the tradeoff was so very, very final. That had been the point of our choices in the contest; mutually assured
you don’t want to go there
.

But Shell would tease me about my “engaged” status until the end of time. When we’d both still be in our teens.

Drying off, I put on my sleep-shirt and bottoms and asked the monitor for the sleep mode; this time the futon came with a pillow
and
blanket, which was thoughtful of someone. Firmly wishing Shell goodnight, I settled in for a night of purely natural dreams, if I had any at all.

I didn’t. But I didn’t sleep very long before the droning, grinding alarm woke me up.

Defensenet Alert:
 
Retrieval of Asset 7-T has proven unsuccessful. However, the ronin enlisted in the attempt were able to speak with the asset and retrieve several items of intelligence. Defensenet is now aware of one location and three individuals germane to the suspected security threat.

Defensenet Recommendation: Mobilize all teams and support assets to secure the location and individuals; the potential for lost intelligence is minor against the objective of neutralizing the present threat.

DR107-TX [Classified]

A sadist had designed that alarm. It reached down into my bones, made my teeth rattle, drove nails into my ears. A corpse couldn’t have slept through that alarm.
Jacky
wouldn’t have slept through it when she’d been undead. Awake and with Cutter in my hands before the adrenaline-spike wore off enough for me to wonder where I was, I fumbled for the remote and hit the green button before thinking to yell for the monitor. When the cell door slid open, I could hear the evil alarm echoing down the halls.

“Monitor!”

“How may I assist you?”

“The alarm!”

“The alarm is a base-wide alarm. I do not have the authority to shut it off.” The alarm chose that moment to shut itself off.

“Is there an attack on the base?”

“I am not able—”

“Shel—Nekokami!”

“
Hey sleepyhead! No idea what’s going on, but it’s not us and nobody’s shooting yet. You might want to dress and come on up
.”

I’d already started to fly up the hall, and reversed with a four-letter word. “How did you know?”

“
Duh. Get your tiny ass up here before
Mamori
goes looking for something to shoot
.”

I did, setting a personal-best for speed dressing and slowed down only a little by the need to settle Cutter’s harness right, and got to the elevator. The monitor proved perfectly able to pass me through the invisible layers of security and direct me to the appropriate floor and hall.

The suite of rooms Defensenet had given us was every bit as nice as Keio Plaza’s, although I doubted it came with the same level of room service. I found Jacky and Ozma already dressed and looking out the single floor-to-ceiling window in the lounge. Kitty-Shell sat remotely working her epad.

Ozma turned away from the window. The day had just been one thing after another, taking care of business and no time to talk with even the illusion of privacy.
 
Now looking me over, she smiled. “You weren’t yourself, today.”

“How did—” I closed my mouth. I hadn’t even
thought
about it since coming back. Intentionally.

Ozma would never do anything as inelegant as shrug, but a hand waved delicately. “It shows, until you’re comfortable in your own head and skin again. How are you?”

I
shrugged, sighed. “I was six.”

Her perfect lips quirked up. “A hat might have been easier. Being something so different…when you’re you again, you have no frame of reference for it and the memory is rather like being drugged. But simply being younger, or a different person… Did you enjoy it?”

Behind her, Jacky listened while watching the wet night outside.

“Um.” There had been that moment when I’d woken up, when
everything
had crushed me in a single unbearable heartbeat until my thoughts had deepened and filled out to push back at the renewed load. But before…
“Shinji ran this way. I think he’s hiding in the cave.”

It would have been nice to get to find him. “Yes. I did.”

“I’m glad.”

“So, do we know anything yet?”

“There’s lots of air-activity over Tokyo Bay,” Jacky said without turning. “And you can see them lifting from the garage here—I’d guess that they’re sending most of their mecha into whatever’s going on.”

“The civil-emergency channel is active.” Shell’s tail flipped and thumped the bed-covers. “It’s a reported kaiju incursion outside the sea wall. They’re not reporting a breach, but it’s standard for the harbor districts to close up anyway. Everyone not going into shelter is evacuating. The rest of the city is on alert.”

Evacuation or shelter; I knew what that meant. All of Japan’s recent construction came with shelter requirements, and shelter-blocks were being built in all coastal metropolitan areas; the waterfront district’s residents and night-workers would be underground or inside hard-points in minutes, and the streets and transit systems would be clicking over to Evacuation Mode, sucking visitors away into waiting areas in more distant districts. In Chicago we got superhuman fights downtown instead of kaiju attacks—the Chicago Godzilla had been our first and last—but even though we were big believers in defensive urban planning, Japan was ahead of us in civilian-protection policy.

“Are the Eight Excellent Protectors and Nine Accomplished Heroes involved?” If it was Chicago
we
would be, but then we didn’t have Defensenet’s mecha forces to deal with things.

Shell’s tail kept twitching. “I don’t know. The public channels are crap for intel. But the chances of a kaiju getting through the sea wall is almost zip.”

The Tokyo Bay sea wall actually sat across the narrowest point of the Uraga Channel, between the bay and the open Pacific. Dug-in fortresses flanked the sea wall’s ends and the fortresses were themselves Defense Force bases for launching airborn responses to attacks up and down the coast. Shell had every reason to be confident.

Still. I stepped up behind Jacky. “Mamori? What do you think?”

“I think I hate coincidences.” Her face wasn’t her stiff pre-fight mask, but her arms were crossed tight—the pulled-in tension that preceded explosive action. “Yesterday we shut down a criminal group that your government agent says was involved in a major national security threat, today we hand Defensenet names and a target, and
tonight
Tokyo gets attacked?”

I shook my head. “Agent Inoue didn’t say anything about the threat including
kaiju
.” Whatever their origin, the monsters were under nobody’s control that we knew of. But…had the yakuza been smuggling in kaiju-lures? They did make a lot of their money in the construction industry—bigger profits through sudden urban renewal?
We are trying to keep somebody very dangerous and very angry from turning Tokyo into an ashtray.
Was that what the terrorist Verne-Type had? A way to control the kaiju?

How many kaiju were attacking the sea wall?

Shell
hissed
, caught herself and looked as embarrassed as a cat could. “Everyone? You’re going to want to see this.” She linked her epad to our reality-plus shades.

News channels with drones out over the bay were providing live images of at least
five
kaiju assaulting the wall, their gargantuan lizard-dinosaur bodies glowing in the spotlights that cut through the rain. As we watched, one of them flared with energy-discharge as attack helicopters fired missiles into it. I winced, but Japan’s defense forces simply
had
to be fully EMP-hardened by now; the electromagnetic pulse wouldn’t be knocking attack copters out of the sky or crashing communications. Tokyo’s civilian power and communications infrastructure was probably just as hardened by now.

Still… “Monitor? May I speak to Agent Inoue?” For a moment I wondered if I’d stumped the AI, which couldn’t be as smart as Shell.

“Hikari-san?” Agent Inoue’s voice came over the speakers that carried the monitor’s. “What can I do for you?” Even Blackstone wouldn’t have sounded so polite.

“We would like to offer our assistance.”

“Thank you. However, I hope you’ll understand that you are not integrated into our defense plans or units.”
Translation:
you would get in the way, be a distraction, and likely get shot out of the sky
.

“I understand, Inoue-san. I only wished to know if we could be of service in the civilian evacuation. Back home—” Back home there would be jammed roads and deadlocked nodes of traffic, emergency vehicles that needed moving, pedestrians unable to move themselves. Prepared didn’t mean
easy
.

“Follow the monitor.”

And that was fast.
“Shell? Wait here?”

“Yeah, sure, leave the cat behind.” But her tail was settling; if we could get out in the field she’d be
learning
stuff. I hadn’t really thought about how
small
she had to feel right now, limited to only local and public data sources and without her quantum-links. Cyber-Cat Shell didn’t compare to Quantum-Ghost Shell.

Jacky left the window, scratching Shell’s ears in passing. “It’s wet out there.”

“Hah, hah. Get going.”

We got.

Monitor led us to the garage, where Leading Private Watabe waited to hand each of us an almost neon-white glowing armband.

“These are equipped with transponders which will inform all Defensenet units in the vicinity that you are active Defensenet reserves.
 
The monitor is linking with your…cat to provide some communication and send you where your powers will be useful. Good luck, and return safely.” That was all he had to say as the street doors opened to let the rain in, but he did send us off with a deep bow.

The rain soaked us immediately—me and Jacky anyway; Ozma was using some sort of minor charm to stay dry.

I
like
fighting in the rain. Energy-projection—flames, superheated plasma, electricity, whatever—are relatively common breakthrough types and energy projectors tend to start fires if they use their gifts with abandon; certainly the kaiju’s “plasma breath” fit that category, and rain helps minimize collateral damage. Jacky hates the rain; she told me heavy rain pushes against her as mist, and all the water in the air limited the effective range of the elasers she normally used as Artemis (they worked by using a laser to “burn” a path of ionized air to guide the stunning
 
high-voltage, low-current electrical discharge—not so useful in rain). Fortunately, tonight she had her Vulcans. Not that we expected her to have to use them.

I lifted off, Ozma on my back, and Jacky disappeared into mist to follow as fast as she could—saving Ozma’s bottled wind so it wouldn’t get tired. “Shell? Marching orders?”

“
They evacuate the closest districts first, and the residential towers have their shelters so Defensenet wants us to lend a hand in the clearing of Odaiba—it’s a big waterfront amusement district. Upside, it’s got a major expressway and a train line running directly out of it. Downside, it’s a weekend evening and it’s
crowded
. But we’ve got plenty of
—”

Lifting over Shinjuku’s towers, we saw the eye-searing flash before we heard the boom. It lit the clouds above Tokyo Bay.

The bay. What was the worst possible thing that explosion could have been? “Shell, please please
please
tell me that wasn’t the sea wall.”

“
I can if you want, but I’d be lying!
” She put a drone-view image of the bay up on our shades; the sea wall lay shattered and mostly submerged, the kaiju flowing over it to disappear into the dark water of Tokyo Bay.

Of
course
. If you’re an evil master-villain and you’ve got a kaiju lure, are you going to waste it letting your critters get held up outside of town? Nope. I reached back over my head to make sure Ozma had a good grip, and poured on the speed. Jacky dropped back out of mist to grab my foot and hang on. Shell started talking with the local Powers That Be.

“
Defensenet wants us on the Rainbow Bridge, now! Odaiba’s an artificial island with only two exits!
”

“Got it! Point the way!” A red triangle popped up on my shades and I turned to center it.

The rain obscured a lot, but closing the distance it was easy to spot Odaiba; it had a huge and lit up Ferris wheel, a tinker-toy building supporting a big metal sphere, and what looked like four upside-down pyramids. Also, the Statue of Liberty and a sixty-foot Gundam-robot statue, right out of the old Pre-Event anime. Because sure, why not?

Rainbow Bridge didn’t look very rainbowish—a double-span suspension bridge, it linked the island to central Tokyo—but it did look
packed
. And as we came down on it, it went black.