For HRH 2017 Gift Exchange
The 100th Time
Part I: Mission
The sunlight filters through the leaves in mysterious ways. He is riding a bicycle, two rows of sakura trees interlacing into an arc that dapples his trail with laughing shadows. A drizzle of cherry blossoms cascades around him, and before kissing the ground, they turn into the sea. No matter how peculiar, pedalling onto the sea feels more natural than ever. A whistle blows and he finds himself inside a hasty crowd. Someone is tailing after him, but just like Orpheus was banned from laying eyes upon his Eurydice, he knows he shouldn't glance back. The road ahead expands luminous and long, and the further he walks, the more its oscillating sidelines are shaping up into a carpeted corridor.
He is counting.
21...22...
Smiling and counting.
23...24...25...
When Rin wakes up, the world is a blur of cobalt and scarlet. From the carousel of random thoughts slowly emerges a hint of order and there is a fleeting moment when he is whole again, but it evaporates fast as migraine kicks in. A deep breath makes his chest swell and he temporarily squints as if to concentrate. When his eyelids open once more, his shadowed furniture is etched clearly and his bed is bathed in the blue-red neon lights streaming in from his shuttered windows.
Outside, the world is howling. In 2068, Tokyo is an architectural melting pot. Tracing designs from every nook and cranny of the galaxy, the cluster of skyscrapers blots out the natural sky. Flying automobiles and drones of various sizes manoeuvre through the aerial pathways. The incessant whir they spread, perfectly merges in the background with the omnipresent rain. Torrential or misty, the rain here doesn't wash away the filth. It doesn't banish the soot and despair from the streets below or the arched walkways up above. Instead, it adds more grimy layers. Like a fluorescent blanket masking this decay, gaudy billboards and holographic advertisements rise by hundreds. Their effulgent lights radiate so strong, sometimes they reach even those forlorn city parts at the bottom of the world; the slums
Tonight, the redhead is venturing there again.
Wedged between the fringes of the slums and the lowest bridge of the bustling metropolis, "The Wailing Orca" has been an infamous watering hole for swingers and night owls. Hunched over its dented copper bar top, Rin sullenly shuffles through his phone.
"Hard night?"
The bartender passes him a scotch on the rocks. Rin peers into its golden brown hue and gives it a swirl, before gulping it down.
"Another one."
The blond man smiles meekly and reaches for the bottle again. His scouting eyes register the unusual scribble on the inside of Rin's wrist.
"Interesting tattoo."
Instinctively, Rin runs his thumb over the enigmatic word branding his skin.
"Trifles of youth."
"You are still pretty young..." the bartender falters, searching for a name on the dog tag hanging from Rin's neck. Like a reflex, the redhead slides the metal back inside his shirt.
"You're looking at the wrong tag." He pulls his leather jacket aside just a notch, revealing a badge pinned above his clothed pecs.
"...officer Matsuoka." This time the blond bloke completes his sentence and raises a well-groomed eyebrow in appreciation.
Rin decides to bite the bait. The corners of his lips stretch up enough to reveal an alluringly sharp grin.
"So, are you new here?"
"I left the Australian spaceport three months ago. Been working here ever since."
A slight frown creases Rin's forehead.
"Weird. I don't remember you...Then again, I'm not always sober when I show up."
"Let's hope you won't forget me now then."
The bartender clinks his own glass to Rin's and the natural hunter inside the redhead automatically loses interest. He hates it when they make it too easy for him, his jaws always treasure a challenge. Switching his focus to his mobile again, his fingers swiftly skim over the glossy screen. The characteristic dull sound echoes through the line, each ringing clouding over his handsome face.
"Life has been so much easier with the biophones. Signal problems are almost retro."
"Yeah, well, I don't fancy a stupid microchip under my skin. Any booth still around here?"
"Backstreet alley. Straight down the hallway leading to the toilets, then turn left before the kitchen."
Rin exits into a veil of fog, spreading throughout an alley straight like a drinking straw and almost as narrow. At the end of it, a red phone-booth stands semi-wrecked amidst the pool of sickly light shed by a lamppost. There are still a few dozens of them around the slums, serving a network repaired by the renegades as a literal "fuck you" towards the group of corporations ruling the city; the Syndicate. Inside the booth, Rin takes out an old photo, its corners fading into sepia. For a second stagnant in time, his cold fingertips caress the burgundy locks framing the beautiful face smiling back at him. Using the hack with the old coin and the string, he stirs the ancient machine back to life and nervously clicks the familiar sequence of numbers.
"Come on, pick it up."
The ringing is left to reverberate in the dead of night.
When Rin returns into the cramped bar, he looks like a man defeated by fate. He slips back onto his swivel stool and taps the coarse counter.
"One more. And make it double."
The bartender gestures at the forgotten photograph next to his mobile.
"Your girlfriend?"
Rin takes a generous swig of his drink, his nostrils flaring up as the burning sensation soothes his throat again.
"My sister."
"The genes run in the family."
The glass rests empty again and Rin is already motioning for a refill.
"Slow down there, officer, at this rate you'll definitely forget me." The man jokes, his teeth tugging suggestively at his lower lip.
"Tell me a story then and I won't." Rin retorts, in a vain attempt to busy his mind. The young bartender purses his lips, pondering for a second.
"Do you know how this bar took its name?", he pauses, searching in Rin's eyes for an answer, before he continues, "Cause of its location. Stuck on the verge of the skid rows, touching the upper town. It's an oxymoron. Like the wailing orca who was afraid of the ocean. Legend has that, once upon a time, there was such a being. He wanted to swim with his friends but he was too scared of the sea. One night, he almost drowned. Can you picture it? An orca drowning? Thus all he could do was to stand at the beach and wail...Those who frequent the bar long to move higher up where they feel they belong, yet they remain stranded here. And all they can do every night is sit where you are and weep."
"Somehow I feel like I have heard this tale countless times before."
"Perhaps..." the man chuckles. "It's a fascinating one."
"The sea is. Like everything else that is extinct."
Rin flips his cell phone open again, leafing through the various photos of the infinite sea he has saved. All of them artificial memories downloaded from advertisements aiming to sell their virtual vacations. He's about to show the blond stud his favourite deceptive seascape when someone accidentally stumbles on him. The sudden contact knocks the cell phone off his hand.
"Asshole..." Rin mutters at the nameless man vanishing into the crowd "...It's a good thing they used to make them sturdy back in the day."
He falls down to his knees and crawls through the tight opening below the counter. He spots his overused device next to another stool. And as his hand reaches for it, the first shot pierces the sultry air.
What follows is the epitome of Chaos itself.
A barrage of laser shots surges through the place like a hailstorm, each beam ripping into something, be it inanimate or living. The blazing rays are so many, that it feels like the dim bar has just been showered in vengeful daylight. A cacophony of smashing bottles and horrifying screams spreads over the – until one minute ago deafening – music, as everyone rushes to flee in panic.
With his hand firmly locked around his gun and an array of curses escaping his mouth, Rin keeps crawling along the counter. When he reaches its end, he cautiously emerges from the corner to take a peek behind it. The smiling bartender is now an empty shell soaking in blood. With the corner of his crimson eye, Rin catches a glimpse of several men clad in balaclavas dashing up the spiral staircase leading to a pseudo floor.
"Fucking yakuza"
Without a second thought, he bolts after them, scrambling over capsized chairs and fallen bodies. Through a small door, he leaps out and onto a midsection just below the blackened roofs. He can hear them scampering one level above him, their boots chiming against the mains. Shrilling sirens have flooded the ghetto and he lifts his gaze upwards to the space police cruisers cleaving through the rain in high speed.
"Damn, they're already here?"
Trapped between the mildewed walls, Rin eventually grabs onto a large pipe and starts pulling himself up, his strong thighs and athletic body coming in handy. But as soon as he ascends to the next level, an unexpected scene unfolds before him. The gang members have been clashing with a hooded man and one after the other are rendered unconscious. Clad in a dark blue sweater and a pair of simple jeans, the mysterious stranger displays a high skill in martial arts, kicking their guns off their hands and avoiding the subsequent flying punches with ease. When the last one of them collapses on the roof, the outsider turns around slowly, his focus aligning with Rin. Below the pouring rain, his sight is uncanny. The blue hood conceals his face, making it strike as an abysmal gap. The water smacks hard his well-toned yet thin limbs, but he doesn't seem to mind. He remains perfectly calm.
On the other hand, Rin's heart has started a riot. Overwhelmed by the man's obscure presence, the fiery redhead knows he has only fragments of a second to think. Having witnessed him fighting with his own red eyes, he predicts he'll lose any type of physical combat. The distance between them is his sole advantage. So he does what any cornered cop would do in his shoes; he quickly aims at a non-vital spot and pulls the trigger.
Half a second later, Rin's jaw almost hits the ground as he watches the outsider easily dodging the laser shot as if it was a ball thrown in slow motion. He doesn't manage to charge his gun a second time. In the blink of an eye, the man is breathing inches from Rin's face, his grip tightening so solidly around his wrist, that the redhead can almost hear his bones shatter.
And yet, Rin feels no pain. Because whatever sense the hot-blooded officer possesses has now fallen captive of the most otherworldly eyes he has ever seen. Two sparkling azure gems whose ghostly glow can penetrate his mind's fortress. Time slackens as they share an almost soul-searching moment. Until the stranger headbutts him hard, saturating Rin's vision with blackness.
He is standing on the beach, watching the sea expanding indefinitely, a navy tapestry dotted with stars. He thinks he is alone, but he is wrong. Two shady figures with distorted faces are several feet away, gazing also at the immense ocean. And one of them is crying.
23...24...25...
Rin's eyelids tremble and, this time, the headache raids in faster than before. It takes him several minutes to grasp the reality surrounding him; he's back to his bleak flat, on his very own drenched with sweat bedsheets and, no, the incident at the seedy bar hasn't been a product of his imagination. A glaring red light is swirling like a whirlpool, bouncing off the walls and eliciting the reedy sound that has probably stirred him awake. Outside, the rain intensifies.
With a groan, he slips off the bed. While he approaches the police emergency pager, he twists and tests his wrist. It still hurts, but at least nothing feels broken. As the holographic message pops up, two striking golden eyes are forming before him, followed by a familiar, Stentorian voice.
"At last, Matsuoka, rise and shine!"
In less than an hour, Rin is sitting across a very thoughtful Commissioner Mikoshiba Seijuurou, up on the eleventh floor of Tokyo PD. The police department is housed in a suspending tower at Tokyo's second zone, owned by the Syndicate. Toothpick between gums and legs spread, Rin is gently wobbling his chair from side to side. Finally, the intimidating copperhead entwines his hands beneath his chin and holds his subordinate's gaze.
"How is your sister doing, Matsuoka?"
"Fine as usual. She busies herself between work and looking after our mother at Sano's clinic."
"And when was the last time you visited the clinic yourself?"
"I don't remember." Rin shrugs. "Two or three weeks ago."
"Maybe four."
Seijuurou scoffs and Rin nods in agreement.
"Or maybe four."
"Well, it's none of my business how you deal with your family. Last time I was interested in one of its members, you turned to a raging bull. So..." Mikoshiba momentarily meets Rin's scowl with a wide grin, before his face instantly hardens "...why don't you tell me what happened down there?"
"You tell me. All I know is I was drinking my poison, minding my own business off duty, when the place turned to a battlefield."
"It appears to have been some settling of scores in the yakuza."
"Thought so."
Seijuurou leans back to his executive lounger, stretching his endless body.
"You know, normally, I would have let this slip. The boys up there don't really care about little vendettas going on around the slums. But this time those morons left quite a few corpses behind them, so I can't exactly archive the case."
"I'm surprised anyone got out of there alive. The bar looked like a graveyard."
"Actually more than you think did. But all failed to see the mobsters. So we have no close witnesses, apart from the very man who chased them down."
Rin straightens his back.
"Captain, they were all masked, I barely saw any faces. As soon as I got on that roof, I was knocked out. And then I woke up on my bed, with a bruise on my forehead."
"You say you were knocked out. So did you try to fight them and they beat you or-"
"No," Rin interrupts him "there was someone else on that roof. Some guy in a hood that wasn't with the yakuza. He was the one that actually beat all of us with his bare hands."
Seijuurou's eyes shrink into spheres of gold, visibly intrigued.
"A mysterious avenger. Can you describe him?"
"Average height, 5'8'' maybe 5'9''. Dark blue sweater with a hood, a pair of jeans and sneakers. I couldn't make out his face, it was too dark. But his eyes..." Rin chuckles, shaking his head still in awe "...damn his eyes were like headlights. I've never seen such a haunting blue before."
"And this guy beat a bunch of armed men, you included."
"I mean, I did fire at him once. But he evaded like he was fucking Neo and we were re-enacting the Matrix. Captain, if you want my opinion, there's only one logical explanation behind this."
"A replicant."
The word fell like an anvil into the small office.
"You know, when the reinforces found you unconscious on that roof, you were alone. I believe the attack on you was coincidental, you were hit because you interfered. Yet that guy, replicant probably, for whatever reason hits a whole group of mobsters without killing anyone, even though he could snap their necks with his fingers anytime he wanted. Instead, he just knocks them out and leaves. What happened to them? Did someone take them? They left alone?"
Seijuurou ends up wondering aloud, pensively rubbing his chin with his thumb.
"Alright then!" he exclaims after five minutes of silence "Matsuoka, I want you to carefully take a look at something."
With the press of a button, the 3D screen behind him lights up. The rendered image of a tall man with chestnut hair and amber eyes begins to rotate.
"Two years ago, a group of A-class replicants deserted their positions and disappeared from intergalactic station C. All of them highly trained specialists shouldering responsibilities whose full extent only the Syndicate knows. Ever since, there have been some small-scale attacks, mostly here in Tokyo, against targets run by the Syndicate and its affiliated companies. There's no confirmation yet that these incidents are linked to those stray replicants, but there are reasons to believe they are involved. Behind me, you're looking at Kirishima Natsuya. An adept hacker and, until two years ago, the senior commander of the replicant guard defending the Alliance's borders at station C."
Momentarily, the pixels of the projected image scatter into a swarm of holographic dots, before morphing again into a new face.
"This is Serizawa Nao. Natsuya's second in command, also originally dispatched at station C. An extremely resourceful A.I. , excelling in bioengineering."
"You're telling me that for two whole years, the entire Force of the Alliance is unable to locate these androids?"
"You'll be surprised how challenging it is to outsmart a replicant. These beings are perfect concepts in every meaning of the word."
"Still..." Rin persists, a brushstroke of anger and contempt evident in his voice "humans made them. At the end of the day, no one can surpass their creator."
The succession of faces and data continues for a few more minutes, as various replicants that, apparently, were once the cream of the crop parade before Rin's thunderstruck eyes. When the screen darkens again, Seijuurou glances at the redhead full of anticipation.
"Do you identify your mysterious avenger among them?"
"Negative, Captain Mikoshiba. Those eyes have been imprinted on my memory. I would recognize them anywhere...Anywhere."
"Hmm, I had a sliver of hope, but...very well. Matsuoka Rin" uttered by Seijuurou's lips, his name resonates into the minimalistic office with a certain gravity" from this moment, just like your predecessors and several other peers in the Force, you're also assigned to the 'High Speed' case. This is how the incident with the stray replicants is officially classified, named after the patrol ship they used to flee."
Rin spits a bark of a laughter before his muscles grow rigid.
"Captain, with all the respect, I don't think I'm the most suita-"
"I didn't finish, did I? Wait for a second to hear the whole of it and don't interrupt me. I am assigning you to "High Speed" because my instinct tells me the cases are related, however, for now, you will focus on this mysterious replicant that blew your mind off."
A tinge of pink sears through his cheeks and the redhead is more irritated that his reaction isn't skipped by the experienced chief.
"Besides, there's one more reason I want you in this, Matsuoka. I know you hate the replicants. A whole year has passed, and Yamazaki's dog tag is still hanging from your neck."
This time, Rin averts his fogged gaze. His clenched knuckles pale out, his jaw muscles contract.
"I can use the fire sparking up from that hatred."
"Just give me a lead. Tell me where to start."
"Well, what about going back to the very place you met him?"
Determined, Matsuoka Rin stands up. Adrenaline already makes his blood pump, but contrary to what his chieftain thinks, it isn't triggered solely by his deep hatred. Before he embarks on this new task, Seijuurou summons him one last time.
"Oh, Matsuoka, there's something else. I believe you will also need this."
He places an ebony case onto the glossy desk and carefully uses his thumb to deactivate its biometric lock. Unsheathed, a fearsome handgun with a titanium shaft lies before him. Its shining carbonite barrel emits a faint yet eerie blue haze with every charge. Nestled neatly atop the bridge is a state of the art laser targetting scope, turning even a novice marksman into a competent gunslinger.
"May I present you AR Pacifier 3000."
Rin has already blinked several times.
"What does it do?" he asks sheepishly, crossing Seijuurou's triumphant grin.
"The question is what doesn't it do?"
Thanks for reading. Reviews are appreciated. Next Chapter: Chase