Ion 417: Raiju (32 page)

"You didn't say anything about being part fish when you were cutting up the stuff for the picnic."

"But I'm a Human!"

She still kept looking at me while we ate some of the stuff I'd packed in the basket. A couple of times I turned to catch her looking at my ears or my hands even. It gave me the weirdest feeling. Other times I turned to find her staring at Panzo too, so it wasn't just me. After he had finished half the dish of sashimi, Sakura wanted to take some to Lafiel so that she wouldn't miss out.

I once again found myself explaining that Lafiel really was real, despite not being physically present, and she was not some artificial contraption, "Despite being a real Kanari, like Panzo, she suffered an accident and is confined to a life support system. Her mind is connected into all the workings of the ship, so in essence she is the ship."

We sat around talking for a while as Panzo told stories from Reliance. There were so many things I hadn't known before, about how he had modified skitters for his classmates in school, and spent all night once dismantling his father's new robot just because he was curious as to how it worked.

I had to do all of the translating for the stories. Sakura was delighted with the tales, and complimented me on knowing two languages, as it seemed most people on this planet stuck with just one. I told her that in my captivity there had been little entertainment other than studying. I was actually fairly good at six languages, with knowledge of a few words in three others. I could get by on most of the civilized planets in this sector of the galaxy.

"What do you mean civilized planets? Just how many places in the Galaxy have people?"

I thought about it for a moment, "Well, I've been to two other places besides the dreadful orbital lab where I originated. From the things I studied I know of about two hundred worlds. Lafiel could answer that better as she has the star charts."

Sakura waved her hand like she was fanning the thought away, "It's fine. I just never thought about how many other places could have people on them. Not once have any of them come to Earth to say konnichiwa."

"Actually they have. At least twenty four times according to the bio-bed files. I'm living proof of at least one of those visits too."

"Kidnapping young girls for wild experiments was not what I meant!"

"I think maybe that the ones that have found this world have been keeping it a secret to themselves. It doesn't have much information in the star charts."

Lafiel's holo was busy licking a milify stick when she popped up with a reminder, "Maybe we ought to do something about the chance of people seeing the ship. My sensors are picking up heat signatures nearing the top of that path. If I move the ship behind that building, it will hide most of it, and I can run the ECM enough to make us fuzzy when someone looks. It will just use a lot of our energy up."

Since our pilot was off exploring places that he probably shouldn't, Lafiel took over the controls. We watched from the cockpit seats as Lafiel lifted us and eased the ship around to the rear of the buildings. She got it in as close as she dared. Now all that remained was to find the cloth to drape over it.

I was going to need more currency to accomplish this task, so I pulled out several rolls of coins. These we took to the engineering room, and reformed into lumpy bars of about two kilo each. I figured twenty of those would be sufficient to purchase the cloth. Sakura thought one would be enough, but I didn't want to have too little. The tools in engineering made the defacing task much easier than hammering them in her garage had been.

As I was pulling out the rolls, she had a chance to look around my cabin without all the coughing to distract her. Sakura became intrigued by one of the blue coral carvings that I'd gotten from the Nezumi. The little piece depicted a Nezumi swimming through a coral tree. The whole thing reminded her of a Ningyo, a legend from the fishing village where she had grown up. She looked through the other pieces with admiration, but her eyes kept going back to that one.

I gave it to her as a token of my appreciation for everything, "You have helped me out so much that I feel you should have this. These are the people that helped me with my water system."

Sakura had even gotten a look into the wardrobe at the clothes I'd bought on Reliance Station and Rage's moon. With a bit of pleading she convinced me to model some of them for her. It was the first time for anyone to see fashion from another star, and she absolutely loved them. She insisted that I should bring some of them to the house to wear.

The one had about as much material as a bikini she said. That one I should save for the ocean. I had her assurance that they wouldn't mark me as an alien. When I tried on the ship suit from Rage's moon, she liked it so much that I kept it on with a scarf dress over the top.

The variegated greens and yellows gave it an almost animalistic look. As a bonus I doubted the zipper would melt, since it had been designed for the rigors of space work.

With the clothes bundled, and the ship moved, we said our goodbyes and headed for the gate. Taking another look at it, I thought it was a shame that the temple had been abandoned. The whole place blended in so well with the trees surrounding the compound that it felt like it belonged there.

The walk back was just as nice as the trip up the path. I liked this place with its feel of living. The orbital lab had felt so lifeless, even discounting my status as a captive.

"We should put some of that gold away so that it'll be safe."

"You mean like leaving it in your house?"

"Yes, wait..., that wouldn't be good either. People might come looking for it."

"What about that bank place? This is a sort of currency after all."

Sakura smiled, "That's probably the best idea for it. You already have an account, so they will even give you a better trade rate than the pawn dealer did."

Sakura put away the fancy dress I'd worn, and left a note for the children in case they arrived before we returned. I insisted she take her medication for pain since the walk had left her a little tired. She dropped the bottle of pills into her purse along with the bottle of tanning. She laughed as she opened the purse again and removed the pills that she no longer needed. The work done by the bio bed was having a rapid effect.

"I'm a little tired, but that machine really did me good."

She was nearly skipping as we walked down the street to the bus stop, and headed out for the train station. We had to go all the way into Sendai to reach the bank. Not that I minded; being out with people felt good after the sterile lab I'd grown up in.

The train felt good with the flow of its energy so close. I felt like if I reached up to touch it, that it would light me up like a neutron star. Add that to the bath I had taken, and drinking another liter of the water, and I felt rather energized. Sakura was feeling a bit better too. The train dropped us off at the same station we had been just yesterday. It seemed so long ago with all that happened.

Even in the heart of Sendai there were trees. Sakura overheard my quite comment about it, and laughed, "Sendai is known for being the city of trees. Most cities in Japan have plentiful trees, but Sendai tops them all."

Add that to the list of things I really enjoyed about the city, though someone had the nerve to mark one of them with black paint in the form of a horned face. Sakura scowled at it as we walked past, though I didn't get a chance to ask her why.

When we reached the bank I followed the line of people visiting the women at the counter. When I finally reached the front I began stacking the lumpy gold bars onto the counter before the girl. By the third one she was calling to the manager. He seemed even happier to see me this time as he escorted us to a room in the back of the bank.

We only had to wait a few minutes before another man joined us with a scale to weigh the misshapen gold. He was surprised when even measuring down to the milligram, there was very little difference between the bars. Once he'd measured all of them, he opened his little terminal and converted that number into even larger numbers. The manager was partially excited, and yet nervous as each figure was jotted down on a form. I caught the amazed look from Sakura as the figure topped over one hundred sixty million.

The manager took a breath as he turned to me, "I know that you deposited a sizable sum just yesterday, but there is requirement I must fulfill with a gold transaction before I can issue you the full amount. It should be available within three to six days."

Flashing a smile, I assured him that would be fine, "I mostly wanted to ensure that it was in a safe location until I need it."

He smiled with what seemed relief, "Arigatou gozaimasu. I will see to it that ten percent is applied immediately to your account, should you have any sudden urge to spend it."

Now that I knew that I could only use a tenth of the gold I'd brought, I was very glad that I'd brought as many of the lumpy bars as I had. I had lots of cloth to buy. The only question remaining now, was should I get it with bright flowers or perhaps stripes.

Between the two men they had my account updated, and ready for my use before he led us back out to the front. Now I was the one receiving the honor as the bank manager bowed deeply to me and Sakura.

We had spent the better part of an hour getting the measurement done, and by the time we left the back room the bank had become a lot more crowded. They had brought out a third counter girl, but still each line had close to a dozen people waiting.

We were just passing the desk where I had sat the day before to create my account, when three men rushed into the bank wearing elaborate horned masks. They were all waving obvious weapons around as though they intended to shoot someone.

I ducked behind the desk pulling Sakura down beside me as soon as I saw them. I remembered that power armor incident and I didn't want her getting shot like Panzo had. She had already gotten hurt on our last trip, and now she was vulnerable again.

Between the staccato burst of their weapons shooting the ceiling, and the screams of terrified people, it was hard to hear what they were shouting. All I caught were things like 'quiet' and 'money'. I could feel Sakura starting to shake a bit next to me.

She'd gotten hurt yesterday on account of being with me, and now these guys wanted to repeat that; I don't think so! These guys had to be stopped before they hurt anyone. The thrill of the confrontation was swelling inside me, bringing with it a good charge rippling along my body. I wanted to take a chunk out of these... These... If they wanted to hurt people, they weren't any better than the scum on Rage's moon that shot Panzo.

I let the charge ripple across me as I pulled off the wig. A cloud of tan flakes drifted to the ground. They were shouting above the screams for everyone to get against the wall with hands up. This had gone far enough. I started to stand, but she pulled me back down.

"It'll be fine, just stay down."

She nodded, and started pulling at the scarf dress. I understood now, with her help I slipped it off. No sense in ruining another of my dresses by getting a bloody hole in it. One of the men was yelling for everyone to drop phones and jewelry into a bag. I stood up. There was no hiding now. The man in the middle was looking right at me.

"Hey you! Get out from there and join the others! Anyone with you, cosplay girlie?"

Old lessons learned about fights came drifting through my thoughts. I needed to know everything I faced before I took on the first one. It only took a quick glance to see the extent of what I faced, and a smile curled my lip.

I could see the one guy standing on the counter like he was in charge, and the other one was shoving people against the wall. I let a bolt hit that man square in the back to send him flying over the lady he had been pushing. He hit the wall with a thud, dropping down into the group he had been holding the bag out for their jewelry.

To my left the leader cried out in surprise, "What the...!"

The guy on the counter swung the big rifle toward me. It looked a bit big for a simple pellet shooter, but I wasn't about to wait and find out if it held more power. The end of it was coming to bear on me, and if he missed it might even hit Sakura still hiding behind that desk. I didn't have to worry much though; pellets are no match to electrical arcs. Lightning lit him up as he vanished over the counter in an aerial tumble.

He was still feet upward as his body slammed into the top of the open vault. The big weapon hit the ground a split second before he did. That left the guy in the middle. He was staring straight at me now. I just had to know.

So I asked, "What's a cosplay girlie?"

I doubt the growl was really the correct answer. He lifted his big pistol and fired. The sound of the staccato shots disappeared in the buzzing hiss of my bolt. The lightning wrapped around him for a moment, and he seemed to dance. A shifting rope of electrical energy made several loops around him as it sought a connection to the floor. Something slammed into my shoulder. I knew I'd been hit. I had counted nine of the pellets whizzing past, but this had connected. It had connected hard too. My fist closed cutting off the bolt. With the charge gone there was nothing to hold him upright, and he sagged to the floor.

I sat back against the desk as the throbbing began in my shoulder. This hurt almost as bad as the bear biting that same shoulder. He probably chipped the bone again. At least without the large gashes in my side I wasn't losing as much blood. No way were they taking me to another hospital with waiting FBIs to cut me open.

In the silence that followed, I heard gasps from across the room as people began realizing there were no more men with guns pointed at them. After taking a few more deep breaths and I got the pain down to a tolerable level. Teyrn had liked testing my grasp of pain. For my part I liked denying him the pleasure of watching me squirm under his attempts.

There was a box of tissue on the desk that I used to help stop the flow of blood. From over where all the customers had been gathered, I could see them looking at me with faces that I couldn't begin to read. A sound to the left drew my attention to the manager coming out from behind the counter holding the big rifle. He was looking around for somewhere to point it.