Steel Rain (16 page)
Without the mana she would be just one more able warrior in a world of sly hunters and chrome killers. With it, all things become possible. With it, her sword, the primitive artifact of a feudal era, becomes a weapon the equal of any.
"You must fight, Older Brother," she says softly, urgently. "Fight as though you are already dead. Do not think of victory or defeat. Retaliate. Attack. Attack. And you will soon awaken from your dream."
Machiko bows her head and whispers entreaties to the kami of warriors and the kami of medicine and healing to promote Sukayo's recovery. She returns Sukayo's sword to its stand.
At the door, she pauses to tell the two GSG on watch, "Notify me at once if Sukayo-san awakes. Notify me of anything he says or seems to say, regardless of his condition."
"Understood," says the senior of the pair.
Just beyond the entrance to the Critical Care Unit, Machiko enters the unit lounge, a small pastel-shaded room rimmed in fauxplas chairs and cushioned benches. Here wait Sukayo's adoptive parents, two stepsisters, and spouses. All are Nagato employees. The parents are mid-level executives, the father in marketing, the mother in market research. Sukayo's sisters and their spouses are all employed by various Nagato subsidiaries.
They are watched over by a pair of Nagato security officers in plainclothes. Also present is a family counseling specialist from the Nagato Corp Office of Employee Services.
All present rise. They bow with great respect, to a degree greater than Machiko prefers, for it makes her uncomfortable. It appears that the wakizashi slung through her belt at the left of her waist has escaped no one's notice. Only the most senior GSG carry the sword, and only at the express invitation of the Chairman. The implication is that she now acts not merely in the Chairman's defense, but as his personal agent.
She bows. "I took hold of Sukayo-san's hand and felt his fingers tense, very faintly, as if he tried to respond to my grip. I believe Sukayo-san knows we are here and takes strength from our presence. I am encouraged."
Sukayo's stepfather, a norm, seems all but overwhelmed by emotion, unable to speak, his eyes rimmed in red, his cheeks and brow gleaming with moisture. Sukayo's stepmother, also a norm, grips her husband's elbow tightly with both hands, but bows and says, "Thank you, Machiko-san. Thank you for coming. Thank you for sending members of the Guard to watch over our son." It seems to require a considerable effort, but she offers a smile. "You are a loyal 'younger sister' to our son, Machinko-san. Thank you. Thank you for everything."
Machiko bows. It is difficult to maintain a settled spirit. It is difficult to see the pain on the face of Sukayo's father, and to endure the excessive thanks offered by his mother. She has been a not infrequent visitor to the home of Sukayo's parents. They are all aware of the measure of her friendship with Sukayo and have spoken to her in the past as if she were a member of their family. They have welcomed her to dinner and to any number of family gatherings. It is agonizingly clear how they are suffering. Every pain, every fear, seems highlighted in glaring neon.
"Machiko-san . . One of Sukayo's sisters shifts forward, bowing. "Are you able to tell us anything of what happened to Sukayo?"
Machiko tells what is she able to tell. She has only just taken hold of the sword Honjowara
-sama
gave her. She has determined how she will begin to wield that sword, and much will happen before this day is over, but first she had to come here, to visit her Older Brother.
Recalling the Chairman's words, she says, quietly, "The Chairman has mobilized Nagato Combine's resources. We have many indications as to what is happening. We seek clarity. In that regard, I must now turn to all of you."
"To us?"
As a group, they seem perplexed. "I have spoken with the doctors," Machiko explains. "They say that before he entered surgery, Sukayo-san was briefly conscious, or near-conscious. It is rumored that he may have spoken. I must ask if any of you heard anything that he may have said."
Many pairs of eyes glance back and forth. Finally, it is Sukayo's mother who says, "I am sorry, Machiko-san. Sukayo has said nothing. Nothing understandable."
"Yet he made an attempt to speak?"
"Like one who is asleep. Who dreams."
"Could you understand none of it?"
Sukayo's mother looks to the elder of the two sisters, who looks with uncertainty to Machiko, and says, "Once, he seemed to say something. A number, I thought."
"I thought he was just moaning," the younger sister says. "What number?" Machiko asks.
"Two-six," says the elder sister.
"Four-two-six," says the younger.
The two exchange glances. "It was very hard to hear him," says the older sister. "I'm not sure about the four, but he definitely said two-six."
"I'm sure," the younger sister insists.
Machiko contains her surprise. Four-two-six—if Sukayo truly said this, it would imply much. It is a number with great significance within the Chinese hierarchy of beliefs. It is a number used to refer to the "Red Pole" in charge of enforcement for a Triad criminal organization.
Did Sukayo perceive some evidence that a Triad boss or group sent the assassin who attacked him? Or was this mere speculation? A guess? Machiko ponders this at some length and concludes that one thing is certainly clear. Older Brother could not have chosen a more succinct means of directing her attention to the possibility of Triad involvement, and that possibility, she decides, must be pursued.
Even Sukayo's "guesses" tend to prove out.
The street in Brooklyn is a river of flashing, flaring light squeezed between storefront shops and small plazas of stores, clogged by vehicle traffic and swarming with early evening shift-change crowds. From above comes the roaring of an express on an elevated subway line, from curbside the incessant babble of trideo and laserdis adstands. The crowds packing the sidewalks, surging across the roadway in sudden tides, include everything from suits and salarymen to chrome dogs and squatters: human, elf, ork, of every color, shape, and size. None pay lasting attention to the pair of silver-gray Infiniti E9 heavy sedans easing along the curb lane at walking speed. None give more than a glance at the pair of male norms in blue-trimmed black sports coats threading their way through the crowds on the sidewalk.
Then, abruptly, a man in brown cargo-utilities turns and breaks into a run.
Brake lights flare.
Kobun
of the Yoshida
-kai
pour from the Infiniti sedans. Lieutenant Enotori of Nagato Security Service starts out the passenger door of the second sedan, but then hesitates, looking into the rear of the car. Machiko gives no sign of noticing the lieutenant's hesitance. She switches off her handcomp, pushes out through her door, then mounts the sidewalk and follows the pursuit at a determined stride.
People who merely stepped aside to avoid the charging
kobun
draw back to form a wide swath around her.
The pursuit ends just up the block in the confines of an alleyway lit by brilliant spotlights. The alley ends at a wall of macrolinked fencing topped by razor wire. Two vicious mongrels snarl and snap from the other side of the fence. The norm male with his back to the fence, hemmed in by a semicircle of
kobun
is known as Yakei, "Watchman." He brandishes a butterfly knife and menaces the
kobun
, but as the datajack in his temple implies, his specialty is information.
The
kobun
draw back as Machiko advances. Yakei abruptly shifts his focus to her. He bares his teeth and, grunting, growling, slashes at the air between them with the knife. His desperation is clear.
"Enough," says Machiko.
The desperation lingers a moment more, then dismay blossoms full. The inevitability of what he must do is by then apparent. The knife drops to the ground. As Machiko advances nearer, Yakei withdraws to the corner formed of macrolink fencing and the rough concrete wall of the building on the left. Then there is no place else to go, nowhere to turn.
Machiko extends a hand to Yakei's shoulder. He winces. He feels something on the order of a gentle prickling of pinpoints as she tickles the nerves at the crook of shoulder and neck. "It is a dangerous time to be an enemy of Nagato," she says softly, leaning close. "Swords have been drawn. Serpents walk the streets. Are you a friend or enemy? Tell me now."
Yakei licks his lips. "A friend. I—I'm a friend."
Machiko shifts nearer, near enough to feel the heat of the man's quick, deep breaths. "Enemies will be destroyed," she says softly as before. "Cut down ruthlessly and ground into dust. You understand this. You know the truth of what I say."
Abruptly, Yakei nods.
"You say you are a friend. Yet two months ago you issued threats against Nagato's Chairman. Is that not the Way of an enemy?"
Yakei swallows a huge breath. He seems to shudder. Seems to be struggling against a new rise of desperation, mingled with fear. "Hey, I was just jinked off. One of you, you Serpents jacked me around." Another large breath. "I didn't mean nothing."
"You have friends among the Triads."
"No—"
A pained expression suddenly grips his features as Machiko gives stronger stimulus to pressure points. "Do not lie," Machiko says. "Lies will not be tolerated."
"I didn't do . . . didn't do
nothing
!"
"Your friends. What do they tell you?"
"Nothing! They told me nothing!"
"What do you
hear!
"
Yakei begins shaking visibly. He wipes spittle from his lips with a trembling hand. "Somebody's buying heavy chrome. Freelance cutters. At bargain prices."
"Heavy chrome does not come cheaply."
"It does if a mage makes it that way."
"You suggest that a mage would use sorcery to influence chromed killers? You speak madness."
"It's what I heard. This slag. He heard it. He was at some trash bowl by Kennedy Airport. He said this chrome capper started jowling like he was blown on Talking Head BTL. The capper said he was running hits almost for free, for charity. Gonna make the world safe for crazies. Kill the fragging corps. Kill everybody. Till there's nobody but chrome-jobs left."
This could mean nothing. Yakei refers of course to the cybernetically enhanced. Those with the greatest amount of enhancements walk a fine line between sanity and madness. The use of mind-altering BTL has been known to push such metal maniacs over the edge, or deeper into psychosis. "This slag who heard this talk. He is a friend of yours?"
"It's a she. Just a chummer."
"She is Triad?"
"I don't know. Maybe one of their pillow biffs."
"What of the mage?"
"This capper said he had a mage for a Johnson. Called him the brain-buster."
The what? "Explain."
"I don't know any more!"
Machiko squeezes pressure points. A look of agony grips Yakei's features. He slips from his knees to sit in the filth gathered against the building wall and begins quaking violently. "What is the meaning of 'brain buster?' "
"
I
don't
know
I
don't
know!
"
"What does it tell you?"
Or perhaps this mage equips his chromed killers with cranial bombs. "The biff? What is her name?"
Yakei grunts harshly, panting rapidly.
Machiko rises, gestures to the headman of the Yoshida
-kai
kobun
. "Escort Yakei-san to my car."
The headman bows. "At once, Machiko
-sama
."
Evening settles into night. The Infiniti E9 sedans criss-cross Brooklyn county, rolling through Flatbush to Canarsie and Starrett City, then across the line into Queens and Howard Beach, in sight of the airport, then back to Brownsville and finally Bedford-Stuy. It is like a brief excursion around the globe. The signs rising over the streets wink and gleam with the languages of eastern Europe, the Middle East, Asia, the Americas. They pass corporate enclaves and coffin hotels. They ride past blocks at least nominally controlled by Triad gangs and the Maf, and everyone's third-rater, Seoulpa rings. Crowds change color and clothes with the passing blocks. People in the cold dark places trail fiery halos of heat. Humans and metas under the brilliant lights of stores and the strobes of nightclubs and bars gleam faintly with warmth.
The night grows chill, and Yakei-san, seated between Machiko and Lieutenant Enotori in the rear of the second sedan, begins looking forlorn. It is good, in Machiko's view, if he feels that way. It is wise. It will encourage him to be mindful of his friends and to assume a cooperative spirit.
The hunt, of course, is for Yakei-san
's
biff friend, a woman politely described as
kayabasuke
, a "red light district woman." A particularly vile variety that has as much in common with the dreamqueens of simsense celebrity as the
average pay-toilet. Yakei-san appears to believe that his
hope for a long and prosperous life depends on finding this biff, finding her tonight. This, too, is wise.