SUMMARY:
Raleigh Becket has been out of the Agency for five years after his brother died on a mission. But Stacker Pentecost has an offer he can't refuse; a chance to shut down the criminal organisation Kaiju – responsible for Yancy's death – once and for all. As it turns out, Pentecost also has an agent Raleigh can't refuse.
Mako Mori is sleek, deadly, and well-trained by the Collective and the man who took her in after the death of her parents at the hands of Kaiju. She's also DRIFT-compatible with Raleigh Becket, which makes her a candidate for the last DRIFT chip, which connects the minds of two operatives in technological telepathy.
Raleigh has his scars and Mako has her secrets, but together and with the Collective's backing, they might just be the ones to bring down Kaiju – from the inside out.
The Shatterdome Collective
He dreamed of falling.
Cold air whistling past his flailing arms, the air hard in his lungs, like breathing knives. The fear that clung to him – fear of pain, fear of darkness – but also something else that burned bright as he fell.
Raleigh! Listen to me! You survive! You finish the mission!
In the darkness of his room, Raleigh Becket jerked up, dragging blankets and sheets around him in a tangle of cloth and sweat and terror. His throat was dry and his hands were shaking as he eased himself out of the bed, and into the tiny bathroom – barely more than a shower cubicle, a handbasin, and a toilet.
He splashed water on his face, let the water gush into the sink.
The man looking back into the mirror had once been considered handsome, had been capable of charming himself into any bed and out of any situation as the job required.
With his brother by his side, he'd thought himself invincible, unstoppable.
That was long ago.
–
The skyscraper was billed as one of the most expensive and useless construction projects in the city. With less than a million people in the city, there was no real need for a structure like that, except for in the mind of the billionaire who'd decided to make the city home base for his financial empire.
Raleigh stood back at the morning meeting, turning his hardhat over in his hands as he listened to the day's assignments going out among the contractors, issued by the secondary foreman.
"There's a bunch of connections have come loose on the 59th floor – Salinger's work. I'd call the dickwad back to fix it, but I don't trust he'd do any better job the third time around. Becket, you're good with heights, so I'm sending you up to fix it. Do a better job than Salinger."
Looking at the botched job he was facing, Raleigh figured that wasn't hard. He set himself to work, checking his tether lines, avoiding thinking about the drop below.
He'd been good with heights once. Now it was a challenge every time he looked down and found open air beneath him. The first time he'd nearly walked off the platform, drawn by empty air and the memory of Yancy.
Listen to me! You survive!
Yancy's voice had stopped him, the words coming clear and sharp as though they were still connected by the DRIFT. It had jerked him back from the edge, and he'd even managed a smile at the worried co-worker who'd seen him staring at the drop.
He carefully laid down the welding material, before pulling down his goggles and firing up his torch with a blast of oxy-acetylene.
It was better now. Still not easy, but better.
–
The project manager in a bad mood was nothing new. Neither was the fact that he had it in for Raleigh.
The man sitting impassively in the foreman's office was new – at least in the context of the construction site. Immaculately pressed and pin-striped, dark and demanding, Commander Stacker Pentecost of the Shatterdome Collective was the last person Raleigh would have expected to see in the temporary office.
"Pentecost."
"Mr. Becket." The sonorous voice rumbled through the small office; he'd always been good at commanding attention. "It's been a while."
"Five years, four months. What brings you to this part of the world?"
Pentecost turned to look at Miles. "Private business."
"Hey, this is my office..." Miles tried bluster. Raleigh could have told him it wouldn't work; men with rather more spine than the project manager had gone up against Stacker Pentecost and come away with a lesson in humility. In the end, Miles glared at Raleigh on the way out, snarling that he had things to see anyway and would be back in fifteen minutes.
"Sure you'll have a job tomorrow?"
"If not here, then somewhere else." Raleigh faced Pentecost squarely. "What are you doing here?"
"I've got a mission for you, Mr. Becket."
It squeezed the breath from him like a short fall or an unexpected punch. Even though there was no other reason that the head of the Jaeger Division would be sitting in the dingy little office, it was still a shock.
"I think you've forgotten, Commander. I handed in my resignation five years, five months ago." He'd broken beneath the emptiness in his mind; a part of him missing, like a phantom limb he could still feel. Raleigh stood, refusing to even entertain the thought of going back. "Find someone else. I'm done."
He reached the door before Pentecost spoke. "There is no-one else."
"Burned through your operatives so fast?"
"The game's changed, Mr. Becket. Kaiju are getting stronger; it's all we can do to hold them back." Raleigh turned and caught a faint grimace on the usually impassive face. "I have a weapon to use against them. But I need an operative who can DRIFT."
Raleigh! Listen to me! You survive! You finish the mission!
The fist in his throat was almost more than he could speak around. His voice came out rough. "I don't have a DRIFT partner anymore, in case you've forgotten."
"I never forget." The words rang like the strike of metal against metal. "But I can get you a new partner."
"Someone to replace Yancy?" Raleigh spat the words out. He nearly stalked out the door – Pentecost should know better than that.
"Someone to connect with you via the DRIFT."
"Another broken and lost connection?"
"No," Pentecost said, as though he didn't hear the sneer in Raleigh's voice. "A new chip."
"There are no new chips." Or there hadn't been five years ago. One hundred chips, brought out of the labs before they were destroyed. Pentecost had always averred that the Collective had nothing to do with it; Raleigh had never been quite sure he believed that. But it was common knowledge that there were one hundred chips – enough for fifty DRIFT pairs. No more. No less. "What's changed?"
"What's changed is that I have a plan and you're needed."
"And if I say I'm done?"
Years ago, Yancy had joked that Pentecost had probably been born in his suit, the man was so stiff in it. He still was still rigid as a board, Raleigh thought, but there was something else there now. Something slightly different in the set of the shoulders, the utterly still fold of his hands.
"This is our last, best chance at shutting down Kaiju." Pentecost met his eyes without flinching. "If you're done, you're done. But you swore an oath when you took that chip, Mr. Becket. And if that oath means anything to who you and your brother were, then you're not done until Kaiju is broken."
–
Slightly different or not, Pentecost wasn't any more forthcoming on the flight in to Hong Kong. He tossed Raleigh a tablet with nothing more than a, "Review those."
Raleigh stared at the unlock code request for a moment before pulling his mind back into the game. His last codes worked, and he found himself look at a list of personnel files – no name, no pictures, just a two-letter designation and a list of their skills and experiences.
"These are the candidates for the chip?"
"They've been tested for DRIFT compatibility, all are ninety percent and above, all proven agents. You'll be working with them over the next few days to determine which is the best fit."
Raleigh skimmed through the lists, noting that all were presently stationed in Hong Kong. None of them stood out – but then a list of missions meant nothing. The would never give a DRIFT chip to someone who wasn't skilled at what they did.
"And I don't get names?"
Pentecost didn't look up from whaever he was doing. "We don't want you prejudiced."
"Maybe I'd rather be prejudiced." There were other elements at play – intellectual, emotional, psychological, physical compatibility.
The first time in, Raleigh hadn't had to choose; he and Yancy didn't have much but they had each other – and together they'd been counted among the best for four years. This time, he was older, more jaded. He wanted to know what he was getting himself in for – exactly whose mind and thoughts he was going to be living with.
"You don't get a choice, Mr. Becket. Not that way."
He figured he'd try another angle. "You mentioned a weapon."
"I did."
"And?"
"And you don't need to know about the weapon just yet."
"You have a plan and I'm needed."
"Would I have brought you back for anything else?"
And that was cold, even for Pentecost. Raleigh decided he'd had enough of being yanked about – yes, he was coming back, but he didn't figure it was too much to ask for a little give from the commander. "Yancy always thought you were a stone bastard."
He tossed that out there just to see if the man would react.
Pentecost did.
He looked up from the tablet he was reading, fixing Raleigh with the flat gaze of an operative who was dangerous no matter where he was or who he was facing. And while Raleigh felt pinned by that look, he didn't squirm. He'd withstood Pentecost's disapproval before when younger and greener – and more ballsy.
It wasn't really surprising to discover that five years hadn't made weathering that gaze any more comfortable. It was a relief to find that he could still hold his own.
"Yancy was right," Pentecost said and went back to his paperwork.
Raleigh looked back out the window at the endless ocean.
–
Eventually the endless ocean gave way to small islands, then larger ones. The islands gave way to an inlet sea, and then the captain – in a voice in which several accents fought for dominance – informed them that they were coming in to Hong Kong International and that they should prepare for landing.
They landed with barely a wobble, brought down by a steely-nerved professional, and when they paused on the tarmac to wait for the pilot to emerge from the plane, Raleigh could see why.
"Mr. Becket, this is Herc Hansen – an old friend from the glory days."
Raleigh had never actually met Hercules Hansen, but he'd seen the stats and read the files. The man was a legend in and of his own right, having started with the Australian SAS before joining the Shatterdome Collective back in the earliest days of the war against Kaiju.
A long arm was held out for the handshake, ropy with muscle. "Don't know if you remember, but I flew a drop for you back in '09."
"For my brother and I, sir. Bolivia."
"Sorry to hear about your brother," Herc said, briskly sympathetic before glancing towards Pentecost. "Stacker, Chuck called on the way down – we got movement at the station."
"Already?" Pentecost seemed more amused than annoyed. "Looks like the Kaiju have been expecting us."
"They know there's something in the wind," said Herc, turning to regard the commercial flight landing on the nearby runway with a professional's critical eye before turning back. "Split and regroup?"
"If that's our only option." Pentecost was already calling someone on his cell, scanning the horizon. "Striker says we have Kaiju incoming. You have evade and escort duty." A pause while the person on the other end asked a question. "I'll make it an order if you prefer."
Raleigh glanced at Herc who was wearing a sort-of smile at the conversation taking place between Pentecost and the person on the other end of the phone. "You've never worked with Tokyo's Daughter, have you?"
"I...remember the agent designation." She'd been newly minted right around the time of Yancy's death, and Raleigh hadn't been paying much attention to anything after that mission – too full of the memory of empty air and preternatural calm and that one, fierce command that had driven him, day and night like a goad or a ghost.
You finish the mission! You survive!
Herc was shrugging. "Ah, well, she's mostly after your time. You wouldn't have met my son, Chuck, either."
Another family connection, Raleigh thought. The Collective was full of men and women who'd lost a family member to Kaiju and sworn revenge. But what wouldn't ordinarily have been allowed in a standard intelligence organisation had been actively endorsed by the realisation of the DRIFT chips – an implant that allowed two agents to communicate on channels that came close to true telepathy – a mental link that no technological interference yet developed could break.
Pentecost was tucking his phone back in his pocket. "She's bringing the car – allegedly with backup."
"Allegedly?"
"Apparently the Drs. G decided to accompany her."
Herc chuckled. "Are we sticking Becket with them?"
"I thought we'd spare him the pleasure – at least until we got to base," said Pentecost, staring out towards the terminal where a sleek black Mercedes had appeared at the tarmac gates and was on its way towards them. It curved around to bring its doors in front, and stopped. A moment later, the rear passenger door opened, and a woman stepped out.
Raleigh's first impression was the way she unfolded herself from the seat, graceful as a bird on the wing. One small, pale hand slammed the door shut like a gunshot, and the razor-sharp line of her black hair swung with the sharp blue gleam of dye, deadly as a well-thrown knife.
Then their eyes met.
Pentecost was saying something – Raleigh nearly missed it, caught in the unexpected beauty of a porcelain doll given life and art as a trained operative. With an effort, he focused on what Pentecost was saying, and not the way the dark eyes widened at the sight of him.
"Raleigh Becket, this is Mako Mori – one of our best agents; she'll be taking you in to HQ the long way while we try to throw Kaiju off your track."
Something in Pentecost's voice made Raleigh look at the older man, but Agent Mori's voice a moment later drew his attention back to her.
"This is unwise, Commander," she said to Pentecost, the words dulcet and exquisitely polite in the Japanese in which she rendered them. The softness of her voice did nothing to disguise the steel of her words. "You and Hansen-san should return directly to base."
The Commander smiled – an unexpected expression on the stern face. "Allow two old men their fun, Mori-san."
She sniffed, the pretty mouth drawn in a straight line of disapproval. "Fun? Or foolishness?"
"Perhaps a little of both?" Raleigh suggested. His Japanese accent was far from perfect, but it was comprehensible on a good day. That was okay – nobody expected a white man to be fluent in anything other than English and even knowing the language had come in useful from time to time.
Her mouth twitched a little, softening her face. "More foolishness than fun," she said with a pointed look at Pentecost.
Pentecost's mouth curved in a rare gesture of good humour. His expression seemed almost fond as he looked at the woman – an oddly personal gaze. But before he could speak, the driver's window wound down to show a well-tattooed arm and a shock of brown hair over glasses that screamed 'geek'.
"So, are we going anywhere, or are we going to stand on the tarmac and make targets of ourselves?" The guy peered out at the group. "Cause I'd rather not, you know, make a target of myself."
Deeper inside the car, a mutter came that sounded something like, 'And going into the belly of the beast wasn't making a target of yourself?' To which the driver replied, "At least I wasn't involved in the money, unlike some people!"
Herc gestured Mako into the car, then gestured Raleigh in. "To spare our ears," he said not quite soft enough to be ignored by the driver.
"Hey, I resent—"
"Mr. Geiszler. Shut up."
Seating himself beside Agent Mori, Raleigh caught the faint wince that twitched across her expression at Pentecost's chiding. He smiled at her in sympathy – so she'd been on the pointy end of one of Pentecost's warnings before, then?
Her mouth eased upwards at one corner, but that was the only expression she showed. Even her pose was carefully held, as though she kept all her secrets bound up within her. Maybe she did. Except Raleigh had seen the way she swung out of the car – stepping up to meet them with a confidence that was almost military in its assurance – but which held that faint edge of something more.
Raleigh had learned to sprawl with the ease of a man utterly at home in his surroundings – something they'd taught him back in his early days of training. Look like you belong, act like you belong – the first impression you make is with your poise, your pose, your movements. Blending in is one of the most valuable and least rated skills that you will ever learn. After a while, it had become second nature to act like he belonged where he was, even when he didn't.
It was one of the skills that had kept him alive and surviving when he left the Collective.
He had a feeling that, for all her careful containment, Mako Mori knew exactly how to fit in – she just chose not to at this moment.
"Mr. Becket," Pentecost said as he climbed into the car, "meet Geiszler and Gottlieb, our major sources of information about the Kaiju organisation."
"The undercover brothers!" Geiszler announced from the front. "Although we're not related. In case you couldn't tell."
"I think the man has brains enough to realise that we have different surnames," came the sour response from the passenger side. "To say nothing of our accents, personalities, and disciplines."
"They spent six months in the Kaiju organisation before we extracted them," Pentecost explained before the bickering could turn into a full-blown argument. "They were mostly working down in the bottom of the feeding pit, although what they got us was still valuable information and more than we previously had."
"I thought Kaiju only hired within its familial circles," Raleigh said as the car started off towards the airport exit. "You needed a personal reference to work for any branch of the organisation."
"Yes, well, we found a personal reference." Gottlieb spoke in brisk and brittle tones, every syllable enunciated with the care of a non-native English speaker. "A contact from inside the organisation who got us in where we needed to be."
In contrast, Geiszler spoke casually, his accent American, his gaze finding Raleigh's in the rear vision mirror. "'Where we needed to be' being the relative term for 'actually in the organisation,' although unfortunately what it actually translated to was 'able to do little more than wipe asses'."
"You've got the tattoos," Raleigh pointed out, suspecting that this was a test. "Fourth-level flunky – that means you were running for at least one of the Category Twos, if not a Category Three."
"I see you know your Kaiju," Geiszler said approvingly. "Yeah, I was running for a Cat Two Boss – which was good enough to get a feel for how the organisation works, but hardly close enough to get a shot at the bigwigs."
"You were there to get information and you got it," Herc reminded him. "Leave the bigwigs to the people trained for it."
"Your version of encouragement sucks," was Geiszler's comment.
"It's almost as bad as pulling us out when we were perfectly positioned to gain valuable intelligence," came Gottlieb's pithy agreement.
On the other end of the seat, Mako was sitting with the patient exasperation of someone who'd heard all this before and could recite the arguments by rote. She caught Raleigh staring at her and tilted an eyebrow in question. He shrugged, not quite smiling.
"Were you gentlemen planning on airing all your dirty laundry this car trip?" Pentecost rumbled ominously.
"Well, we do have a captive audience, so I don't see why we shouldn't—"
"You should not because we have a tail," Mako cut in, her voice slicing through the argument as she checked the slim gold watch on her wrist. "And because if you divert to Tung Chung within the next eight minutes, then Mr. Becket and I will not have to wait for a train."
To give Geiszler his due, he was already changing lanes with Gottlieb interposing unheeded warnings about taxis and other Hong Kong drivers. "Tung Chung? Are you sure? I mean, it'll be pretty obvious where you're going-"
"After Lai King, anywhere across the network," came the prompt response. "But if we aren't at Tung Chung in the next eight minutes, we will not be anywhere."
Raleigh grabbed for a handhold as Geiszler performed assorted feats of driving that he was pretty sure weren't legal anywhere in the world, including places like the back roads of Vietnam, and Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.
"Does getting us there dead count?"
Mako gave him an amused glance as they swung sideways, narrowly slipping in between a loaded shuttlebus and someone who thought a Grand Cherokee was a needful status symbol on Hong Kong roads. Then she fished something out of her pocket, flipping it over in her fingers and offering it to him – one of Hong Kong's 'Octopus cards', basically a money card that paid for everything from groceries at the store to public transport.
"Get on the next train, Platform 1. I will not acknowledge you – we are differently dressed, it would look strange. Watch when I get off and follow. I will take you from there." She regarded him with a steady gaze – sweet and bright and inquiring, but with a steel beneath the sweetness. "Can you follow my lead, Mr. Becket?"
Given she'd just formulated an escape plan in a matter of minutes, refining it down according to the timing and her resources, Raleigh was inclined to trust Mako Mori's skills as an agent. It was one thing to carry out a mission; it was quite another to change up the plan with a cool head.
Somehow he doubted Agent Mori had anything other than a cool head. She seemed that kind of woman.
"I think I can, Agent Mori."
His affirmation earned him a faint smile, but they were coming up to the MTR station and her hand was already hovering over her belt buckle.
"Agent Mori." Pentecost's voice rumbled through the car. "Be careful."
Raleigh blinked at the warning – personal, not professional – but nobody else in the car did. Agent Mori didn't. Instead, she tilted her head in acknowledgement of Pentecost's admonition, and was out the door almost before the car stopped moving, fleet as a bullet from a gun.
Raleigh took a second or two longer to extract himself from the back – his loose, casual clothes were comfortable, but a hindrance – especially when combined with the knapsack he carried that was the entirety of what he'd brought with him to Hong Kong.
Nobody in the car bid him farewell or good luck. The closest he got was a twitch of fingers from Geiszler out the driver side window as the man roared off, leaving him to make his way towards the station entrance.
Tung Chung wasn't an especially busy station by Hong Kong standards – mostly residential and a small shopping centre – but it had enough traffic to allow him to blend in as much as a white guy could blend into Hong Kong. The city was cosmopolitan enough that nobody gave him a second glance, but he still stood out.
Which was doubtless why Agent Mori was keeping him on a long leash; the last thing she needed was to be associated with the dumb white hobo guy wandering around the MTR.
As Raleigh touched his card at the barrier gates, he heard the rush of the incoming train and the cool, British-laced accent of the distant announcement informing the passengers that the train to Hong Kong was just arriving. He lengthened his pace, clattering down the escalator stairs, reaching the platform just as the last of the people streamed off the arrived train, giving him a moment to look up and down the station and spot Agent Mori several doors down, looking engrossed in her phone.
She'd done something to her hair – pushed it back with little gold clips – there was a gold and blue scarf around her neck and a bag on her arm – had she even had a bag in the car? She looked like a young office professional on an afternoon commute, harmless and pretty as she climbed on and swung herself into a seat.
Don't stare, you idiot. Raleigh shuffled on the train amidst the other travellers and took hold of one of the hanging straps for those who hadn't managed to get a seat. Behind him, the station doors closed, the train doors closing a second later, sealing them in.
On the platform, a man came down the escalators at a run, sprinting out onto the platform, clearly hoping to catch the train. He frowned at the closed station doors in front of him, as though surprised to see them there. Then his gaze lifted from the glass and his eyes met Raleigh's.
The last Kaiju operative Raleigh had met had been blue-eyed and dark-haired – a Caucasian man who'd grinned down at the brothers, even as he cut Yancy's still-attached rope. This one was Asian, round-faced and harmless-looking, with no resemblance to the last one.
Still, Raleigh knew him for Kaiju.
DRIFT-enabled operatives always did – it was...hard to describe how. An itch behind the eyes. The jerk-twitch of hands reaching for a weapon without conscious thought. They stood out, like someone in blue monochrome walking through a world of colour – Kaiju blue it was known within the Collective.
And the Kaiju knew him, too.
*You can run, Raleigh Becket, but you can't hide.*
The words sounded clear as a voice in his ears – unaccented, unhesitating, and with the same ugly laughter that followed Yancy's fall in his dreams. Raleigh's breath caught and his fingers clenched reflexively around the holding strap as the train pulled away from the station. He couldn't look away from the Kaiju operative, even as the man grinned, even as the train plunged into the tunnel and the Kaiju operative was lost to darkness.
Raleigh blinked and found his brow cold with sweat.
There'd been a lot of theories floating around about Kaiju back when Yancy and Raleigh were active operatives. How they'd come out of nowhere and gained so much power so fast. One day the intelligence communities of the world had been fretting over Islamic terrorism and the Arab Spring, and the next moment the power trails all led back to a handful of Japanese crime families.
Intelligence analysts in the Collective and out of it said it should have taken decades for Kaiju to ease itself into the power structures of some of the world's biggest crime organisations.
The question nobody had been able to answer was how.
There'd always been rumours about Kaiju and telepathy - true telepathy, not just the one-way connection induced by the DRIFT chip – but they'd never been proven. At least, not that Raleigh knew.
He knew now.
Was this the new development in Kaiju that Pentecost had spoken of?
If so, it explained why Stacker Pentecost needed an operative who could DRIFT, but who hadn't been in the field for some time.
Raleigh blew out a breath and forced himself to focus on where he was, the people around him. If he was going to get back in the game, he was going to have to work on his game. Which meant starting to pay attention to the world again, not standing for five minutes on a subway train without even formulating an exit plan.
For all he knew, Agent Mori had already gotten off the train and was wondering where he was...
She had earphones in and was looking at something on her phone with her head tilted to one side, oddly birdlike in the pose.
As though feeling his gaze upon her, she glanced up along the carriage and met Raleigh's gaze for a moment. He shifted his weight and yawned, covering his mouth with his hand in the gesture for enemy spotted and saw her lids drop as she twirled her finger around her earbud cords – one of the signals for already known before her gaze drifted across the carriage as though their eyes had just casually met.
Overhead, the station announcer told the train they were coming up to Lai King. In the next carriage, Agent Mori stood. Raleigh followed her off the train, ambling along in a milling sea of people, following her as much by instinct as by sight. They switched lines, a train blowing through less than a minute after they arrived on the platform. No Kaiju confronted them this time, and Raleigh risked getting in the same carriage as her. It allowed him to stay close for when she made a move, but it also allowed his gaze to linger on the crisp lines of her face a little more.
She didn't give him a second glance.
And Raleigh found himself wondering about the woman beneath the very efficient operative.
One of our best agents, Pentecost had said.
She'd come up with an exit plan fast enough - as fast as any of the experienced operatives Raleigh had ever worked with. She didn't have a DRIFT chip or she'd have been working with a partner, not escorting Raleigh to HQ. And that was odd, too, because getting him away would have been a rookie job at best, not something for 'one of our best' and an agent with at least five years under her belt.
Had she been among the profiles of the agents who'd been judged DRIFT-compatible with him? Tokyo's Daughter, Herc Hansen had called her. But there'd been no 'TD' or an 'MM' designation among the profiles Raleigh had reviewed, so that was strange, too, if she was one of the best but not eligible for a DRIFT chip.
Agent Mori was something of a mystery, all tied up with a bright blue bow, like the tips of her sidelocks.
Focus, he reminded himself and pulled his thoughts from the woman who sat ignoring him. Instead, he went over the situation they were in, trying to work out where they were going – and exactly where Kaiju would likely catch up with them.
It was a new feeling to be pursued – in Raleigh's previous encounters with the organisation, it had been the Collective operatives who were on the attack, with Kaiju in defence. If Kaiju were hunting down Pentecost's operatives, then the old man hadn't been kidding about the game changing, although Raleigh didn't know how he was supposed to help – he was just a broken operative without a DRIFT partner.
Agent Mori was playing with her earrings. Adjusting them.
It took Raleigh a moment to realise that the adjustment was another casual code. First left.
As the train pulled into the end of the line – Hong Kong station, Agent Mori joined those at the door, anxious to get off. Raleigh held back, ambling out after most of the rest of the passengers had gone, and taking a good look around him as he shuffled into the line for the escalators up.
They got out into the concourse, and Raleigh followed the blue-tipped bob at a surreptitious distance, moving as though he just happened to be going the same way.
It wasn't easy – he didn't look like he belonged. In Hong Kong, a white man was a businessman or a tourist, not a construction worker. But Raleigh had been instructed to follow Agent Mori and follow her he would.
He followed her up a set of escalators with shiny advertisements plastered up the walls. He trailed her along a glassed-in walkway filled with businesspeople whose brows creased at the sight of his less-than-pristine clothes. And when she detoured off towards a corridor leading to the restrooms, he took a moment to study some tech in a shop window.
The corridor was empty, no sign of Agent Mori.
Raleigh glanced behind him at the door out to the shopping mall as it swung shut. Then he pushed on the first door to the left.
Four yards inside the passageway, Mako Mori struggled, pushing back against the Kaiju operative who had her pinned with her face against the wall with her arm twisted behind her back. The man was saying something, soft and satisfied in liquid Japanese of which Raleigh only caught a fragment.
"…been looking for you…"
"Excuse me," he said, loudly, "Would you mind pointing me to the restrooms?"
The man started, his head whipping around, eyes wide as they fixed on Raleigh.
Agent Mori struck.
Her booted heel slammed backwards, kicking the Kaiju operative in the shins. When his grip loosened, she ducked out under his arm, stepped aside, and laid him out with a hard punch behind the ear. Poleaxed, the operative went down in a heap. Raleigh was pretty sure he heard something crack as the man went down, but Agent Mori barely blinked.
"Help me drag him in there." She indicated the door to one side of the corridor, labelled 'Cleaners', and Raleigh stepped in to haul the man up as Agent Mori picked the lock.
"Nice punch," he commented as they dumped the guy in the corner of a room of cleaning equipment, behind the buckets and industrial vacuum cleaners in the crowded space. "You okay?"
"I wasn't expecting him." She sounded cross. "Better hurry. Where there's one, there's more."
"They travel in packs?"
The levity went unappreciated. She closed the door to the storeroom with a click and strode off down the corridor, leaving Raleigh to trail behind her. He'd been about to reassure her that getting caught unexpectedly happened to the best of them, before he realised it would sound condescending. And—
She was walking away at a ferocious pace. He hurried to catch up.
"So…where are we headed now?"
Around the next corner, she paused in front of what was clearly a service elevator. "Up."
The doors slid open on a cramped elevator car, they shuffled in, the doors sealed behind them. Raleigh made a guess. "A detour?"
"We're getting you clothes."
He glanced at the floor numbers which were rapidly climbing through Hong Kong's International Finance Tower. "You keep a stash of clothing up here?"
She turned and the thought slid through Raleigh's mind that Agent Mori had the cool eyes of a seasoned operative and the face of a goddess – one of the old mythological kind whose displeasure meant death. The kind that men should know better than to get mixed up with.
"In a way," she said, and smiled, dark eyes gleaming with bright mischief as the elevator dinged their floor.
And Raleigh had a sudden inkling of why a man might take the risk of displeasing a goddess.
They emerged onto what looked like the laundry level of a hotel, and Agent Mori glanced around once, then promptly headed right, leading them through a maze of shelving and rooms until they reached a door with a viewing window. She glanced through it before walking out into the expensively-carpeted hallway and crossing over to a small elevator lobby with an impressive view of Hong Kong harbour.
Raleigh glanced at the view but didn't have time to admire it as the elevator arrived almost immediately. This time, she took out a card and swiped it before pressing the floor number, and even then had to type an access code into a keypad that popped out of the side of the panel.
"High security?"
"He thinks so."
The elevator car shot through the floors. The bell dinged. The doors slid open. Raleigh stepped out...and gaped.
This wasn't an elevator lobby. It wasn't even an office. Well, it was an office, albeit nothing like any office Raleigh had ever seen, let alone worked in. The Collective offices were practical, functional, busy. Even Pentecost's office was formal and functional – there to do a job and get it out of the way.
The words that came to mind looking at this room were executive luxury – the kind of professionalism that only a lot of money could buy. The floor-to-ceiling glass windows looked out on the storm-grey harbour view, the décor was elegant and subtly expensive, and the artworks on the walls equalled the GDP of several third-world countries.
Then there was the executive in the charcoal business suit – or, really, half out of it – who'd paused in the middle of riding the bound and blindfolded naked woman bent over the mahogany desk. Her last moan faded into stunned silence.
"Seika? What—? How—?" Shock and surprise gave way to a sudden flaming anger as she crossed the room. "You!"
Agent Mori intercepted his sudden lunge for the desk, levelling the same roundhouse she'd delivered to the Kaiju operative. The man's chin went up, and his body went down along with his pants and his erection, and the woman started screaming for help, flailing about on the desk with her bound hands.
Raleigh could only watch, stunned and vaguely amused, as Agent Mori leaned over the desk past the brunette who was still shrieking fit to break crystal, and did something he couldn't see – the computer screen was blocking his view.
He took two steps into the room, wondering if he should do something about the brunette – let her out of the restraints, perhaps – but she abruptly stopped screeching and after a panting breath or two began demanding to know what they wanted, who they were, and whether they had any idea who they'd just pissed off.
Raleigh certainly didn't, but he trusted Agent Mori did.
Meanwhile, it looked like Agent Mori had completed her business at the desk. She stepped around the brunette, dropped two things on the carpeted floor with soft thumps and kicked them into different corners of the room – cellphones, Raleigh presumed from the noise. Then she crouched down, removed the unconscious man's shoes, and walked neatly and briskly back to the elevator with the brunette's threats in the background.
Agent Mori tossed him the shoes as she got closer. He fumbled the catch, but secured them without dropping either of the George Cleverleys, exactly his size.
She then detoured towards a panel in the wall, and pushed one edge of it. It clicked open, revealing a hidden closet in which assorted suit bags hung. Flicking through them, she extracted one and swung it over her shoulder, closing the panel neatly up behind her.
Then she herded Raleigh back into the elevator, pressed the button, swiped a card, and waited for the doors to close on the office, the unconscious moghul, and the brunette.
All as neat as pie and cool as an Alaskan summer.
Raleigh waited until the elevator began moving before he asked, "Old friend of yours?"
"He was judged to be a possibility for involvement in Kaiju."
"Was he?"
"No. He prefers to be in control."
"I noticed that." Tempted to ask if she'd ever been in the brunette's position, Raleigh caught Agent Mori watching him with a steady, measuring expression and changed his question. "A clothing stash?"
"In a way."
He wasn't sure whether to smile or shake his head. All the man's money, assets, and power reduced to a mere wardrobe – something useful in the moment but otherwise of no note. Agent Mori was definitely one of the old goddesses – the kind who wouldn't think twice of turning a man into a beast and hunting him to his death.
She smiled as though she could hear his thoughts, and when the elevator doors opened she strode out into the rich, carpeted floor of what looked like a luxury hotel. Four doors down she inserted a keycard into the lock and pushed through.
It didn't look like housekeeping had been through – the bed was unmade, the pillows tossed casually on the floor. Empty bottles of beer were lined up on the desk, and the room smelled of sex and aftershave. Agent Mori sighed, wrinkled her nose, and made for the bathroom.
"I'd apologise for the mess," she said, "but it is not mine."
Raleigh wasn't entirely sure he liked the relief that flooded him. He'd been wondering if the room had been hers – shared with someone else, obviously – and that was why she had the room key. He wasn't given time to contemplate his relief because she handed him the suit bag and gestured at the bathroom.
"We have half an hour before housekeeping comes. You can clean up in there."
He wiped himself down with the handtowel since all the towels were lying sodden in the shower cubicle, studied his jaw and wondered if he needed a shave. He had stubble, but it came out dark blond which meant it wasn't immediately obvious.
A glance out at the room showed Agent Mori watching him, her gaze frank, assessing, and unabashed when caught.
"Do I need to shave?"
Dark eyes regarded him for a moment, skimming over his body from his naked torso to his bare feet, before gliding back up to his face. "No. You will do."
Not the recommendation that a man liked to hear after being given a full-body eyeball, but Raleigh supposed he'd have been pushing it to get much more from Agent Mori, who thought up plans in the blink of an eye, faced down Kaiju operatives with unblinking calm, and infiltrated expensive security systems in the name of acquiring wardrobe – and possibly settling scores.
"So," he said as she buttoned up his shirt, figuring that he might as well get some questions in, "what's your story? Babysitting old operatives and infiltrating corporate boardrooms...that can't be all of it."
"I am currently assigned to clean-up and operative management within the Jaeger Division," came the answer after a moment's hesitation. "With occasional field work."
"Occasional field work? Then you've never encountered Kaiju before?"
"No."
Raleigh blinked. She'd handled that Kaiju downstairs with a skill that experienced operatives would envy. "Are you one of the candidates for the new chip?"
"No.
"Why not? You dealt with that operative downstairs pretty handily."
"The Commander has his reasons."
"He always does. But you got me from 'hobo on the train' to 'businessman'," he said as he pulled out the trousers from the suit bag and started to put them on. "Kept us ahead of one Kaiju operative and took out another. That's pretty impressive with a DRIFT chip, let alone without."
He paused as he realised he had neither belt, nor tie, nor socks for the business suit.
A moment later, the door gap widened and Agent Mori stepped in – with a belt in one hand, a pair of socks in the other, and a tie flung over her shoulder. Almost as if she'd read his mind.
"Do you think of everything?"
"No. Just as many things as I can remember." The expression wasn't quite a smile, but Raleigh felt as though she'd grinned nevertheless. Not one for a lot of expression, perhaps, but plenty of personality. She put the socks down on the edge of the sink and something metallic clattered on the marble counter – cufflinks.
Raleigh tucked his shirt into the trousers with a faint smile. "Right now, that looks like everything and the bathroom sink."
She didn't respond, fishing the cufflinks out of the sink and lightly dabbing them dry on the towel.
With his trousers fastened and in no danger of coming down, Raleigh held out his right wrist to her in silent request. Maybe she would protest at being relegated to valet, maybe she wouldn't, but the close proximity would give him a chance to ask a few questions and assess her, face to face.
She glanced up with a long, measuring look before the large, dark eyes slid away and she reached for his sleeve.
The front wings of her bob cut swung down as she folded back the cuff with brisk precision, not quite obscuring the fine line of her jaw or the scarlet curve of her mouth. The cufflink was inserted with a brisk neatness, and Raleigh caught the faint scent of something fresh and floral – too warm for roses, not quite thick enough for jasmine.
His heartbeat quickened and so did his body – just a little. Raleigh rather thought a man would be dead before he failed to respond to Agent Mori, if only to catch his breath.
"Why are Kaiju after us?"
The line of her brows drew down. "Excuse me?"
"I mean, why are Kaiju after us – you and me? I haven't been in the field for five years, and you yourself said you've never been assigned to Kaiju. But they're sending operatives after us – the one at Tung Chung addressed me—"
He paused as one of her fingernails accidentally scraped the inside of his wrist and his pulse leaped. He barely heard her question. "You spoke to one of them?"
Focus, Becket. "He spoke to me. In my head." Agent Mori showed no surprise at the news. "They're telepaths, aren't they? That's why the DRIFT pairs of the Collective worked when so many other agencies failed. It's how they came out of nowhere and took over most of the Pacific syndicates overnight. And it's why we're running out of agents to use against Kaiju – because we're running out of DRIFT chips."
Now there was wary respect in her expression, as though he'd made a connection that she hadn't expected him to make.
"It is not something the Commander likes to have known."
"But you know it."
"Hermann – Dr. Gottlieb – has a theory," she explained as she took his other sleeve and affixed the cufflink, her voice low and soft in the echoing bathroom. "Kaiju was originally formed from five families – the Dragon Clans. He thinks that each of the five families had an…ability. Not what we think is telepathy but a precursor. Like charm, or making people do what you want them to do."
"Influence."
"Yes. It is…deeply secret, even among the Kaiju. But once we had that information, Dr. Geiszler mapped out the family trees of those five precursor families. He found they exchanged sons and daughters in marriage, and the children of those pairings were again interbred."
"Their own eugenics program." Raleigh exhaled. They'd always known that the Kaiju social structures were pretty rigid. Now they knew why. "And they have actual telepaths."
"So it seems." Agent Mori hesitated.
"There's more?"
The full lips pressed together in a thin line. "Dr. Geiszler found reference to a gift that was more than telepathy – an ability to not only speak from one mind to another but to...to control another mind."
"Like a puppet?"
"So goes the theory."
"We've never encountered such an ability?" Even as he said that, Raleigh wondered if they would have known if they had. Wouldn't the ability to control a mind include the ability to make people forget? Either way, the prospect was terrifying.
"Not among Kaiju." She regarded his wrist, then lifted the other one and inspected it. Both were apparently satisfactory for she pulled the tie off her shoulder. "Can you do your own tie?"
"I—Yes." The change in topic surprised him, although not as much as the way she scooped up his worn clothing and took it out to the bedroom.
He slid on the jacket – it fit perfectly – and studied himself in the mirror, grimacing a little at the man who looked back at him. Agent Raleigh Becket – codename Romeo Blue. Not as professional as he'd looked back in the days when he and Yancy had run missions, but good enough to pass. Maybe not the agent he'd been back then, but someone who still could do what needed to be done.
That was all Pentecost was asking for – someone who could do what needed to be done. That was all Raleigh wanted – the chance to finish what he and Yancy had been working on when his brother died.
He took the socks and the tie out to the bedroom where Agent Mori was folding his clothes into his grubby old satchel and his satchel into the briefcase. "I put most of your personal things in my bag. It is neater."
Raleigh nodded and indicated himself in the suit. "Do I pass?"
She studied him, and now her expression was inscrutable. "The shave would help. But some women like scruffy."
Ouch. But Raleigh couldn't help a smile. "Not you?"
"I shall pretend," came the arch reply. "Seeing as we are now a couple travelling home after a long workday."
"I can't see you doting." Raleigh couldn't imagine her snuggling into a man's side – even for a cover. She'd accept a man's arm around her, might even slide her own around under his jacket, but she would expect respect.
"No," she agreed, a smile peeping around the corners of her mouth. "That is your role, Agent Becket."
–
There were plenty of people moving through the mall on the way to the MTR, and they ambled along at a reasonable pace. Every now and then Agent Mori paused to look in the windows and exclaim at something, while Raleigh made the appropriate noises of interest, confusion, and exasperation before taking her hand with his free one and dragging her away.
He pushed his luck a little, wrapping an arm around her waist under her jacket and nuzzling the back of her neck with a grin, knowing she couldn't object in the crowd of people. The little noise of protest might have been fake, but Raleigh would have put money down that it was real.
It was just a role – an act. Nothing he hadn't done before, although usually he had Yancy on lookout and in his head, making droll comments about Raleigh's acting skills.
The absence of Yancy didn't hurt as much as he'd thought it would. Oh, it ached, but it was a twinge instead of the constant dragging agony it had been in the weeks after the fall.
Now it was easy to slip back into the act, walking back into the habit like he'd never left.
Only...the little hitch in his belly when she smiled up at him wasn't acting. Neither was the way his heart battered at his chest when she slung an arm around his waist and leaned into him, proving him wrong about the snuggling. Nor was the way his fingers curled possessively over her hipbone as he pulled her up against him, his lips brushing over her cheek as he grinned at her with all the fondness of a long-time lover.
His reactions weren't usual for him. Had never been usual, even years ago when he'd been temporarily partnered with a female agent for the purposes of disguise.
His skin hummed. His breath came short. His blood pulsed.
Raleigh told himself it was the personal contact.
He hadn't had personal contact with anyone for a while – sex, occasionally, but not this kind of...intimacy. And certainly not with a woman who knew his capabilities, was aware of his past, and counted on him to use both capabilities and past to get through the mission.
Agent Mori was relying on him to keep it together, to hold up his end of the job as she held up hers, and it was kind of...exhilarating. All the more because he was attracted to her.
Simple, visceral attraction, he told himself as they sauntered through the MTR gates and down to the platform. You're a grown man and a seasoned agent, deal with it.
On the other hand, the way his brain thought of 'dealing with it' wasn't exactly helpful in their current situation.
She can probably kill you with one hand tied behind her back.
Still not helping.
God, Rals, he could almost hear Yancy saying in exasperation. What are you – fifteen?
Raleigh forced himself to push the reaction aside, to focus on the mission and not just Agent Mori and how she was skewing his perceptions.
No sign of Kaiju along the station concourse, and he squeezed Agent Mori – Mako's hand twice when she tapped his fingers in the code for 'lookout' - no sign of the enemy.
He figured that they'd work this as a partnership: he'd keep an eye out for Kaiju, while she evaluated their exit options and he followed her lead. It was a sensible division of labour given that she knew Hong Kong better than he did, and he had a DRIFT chip which enabled him to identify Kaiju.
He risked a quick nuzzle of her neck on the platform as they waited for the train. "Are we clear?"
"Not yet." She reached up and rubbed a hand across his jaw. "You need a shave."
"You can do me when we get home."
It wasn't entirely mischief that prompted Raleigh to make it sound like a promise. He hoped it wasn't entirely acting that had her catching her breath and turning to give him a look that mingled exasperation and challenge all at once.
The train barrelled through the tunnel with a rush of air.
And Raleigh's hands convulsed, one around the briefcase handle, one around Mako's fingers. His eyeballs itched behind his eyelids. His whole body tensed, and he didn't need the glimpse of monochrome blue or the Mako's sudden grip on his hand to tell him there was a Kaiju already on the train.
Get on and risk being caught, because the train wasn't large or crowded enough for them to play hide-and-seek for more than one station swap? Or stay off and risk being identified by the Kaiju watching for anything out of the ordinary?
"Get on," Mako murmured as the doors of the train opened and people streamed out. "And think instead about what I'm going to do to you when we get home and I get you out of that suit."
Think Instead. The Collective's version of Don't Think Of An Elephant. Except more effective since the only thing mentioned was the subject the agent should be thinking of in the first place...
In Raleigh's case, what he was already thinking of anyway. Only a lot more explicit.
"Perhaps not quite so vivid," she muttered as they climbed on the train. In his surprise, Raleigh nearly missed grabbing the looped handhold hanging down from the ceiling. How had she—? "Your expression."
Right. "Maybe you shouldn't play head-games with me."
"If you know they're head-games, maybe you shouldn't throw so much of yourself into them."
Hard not to when she was standing right there, telling him to think about her – about them as a couple. Having sex in explicit and intimate detail. While, beneath all that, being aware that they were being actively hunted on a crowded train by a telepath who could not only identify them by their thoughts but could tell his companions about them without ever reaching for his cellphone.
A telepath who Raleigh instinctively knew was coming closer – the itch in his head unceasing, coming closer, closer, so close...
Her hand gripped his on the briefcase, and she tugged him forward, up against her. So near that her cheekbone brushed his cheek, her breath brushing his jaw.
Raleigh let himself flow into the sensation, into the feel of her – the way Mako's breath stirred his hair, the warmth of her hand resting atop his, the tickle of her hair against his chin.
Dimly, he felt the Kaiju operative pass behind him, knew that the man's eyes were narrowed and his brows lowered in a frown as his gaze skimmed the blank faces of the passengers around him, seeking but not finding.
He brushed past Raleigh – so close that Raleigh felt the scrape of coat on coat – and kept moving towards the next carriage without stopping.
Raleigh barely breathed until the carriage doors closed behind the man. He felt Mako relax slightly at the same time, leaning hard against him like the tension of the moment had drained her.
"That was close," she murmured in his ear, and glanced up, worried. "Will he come back?"
"I don't know," he admitted, careful to speak just as softly as she had. "This isn't behaviour I've ever seen in their operatives before."
Kaiju didn't hunt Shatterdome operatives – not so specifically, not so relentlessly. At least, they hadn't five years ago. And Raleigh never had such a close brush with a Kaiju operative – not one where the Kaiju operative had remained alive.
It was turning out to be a busy first day back at work.
It seemed to take forever to get to their destination stop, although it was probably not more than fifteen minutes. The Kaiju didn't come back and no new Kaiju got on. Raleigh was grateful – he'd had more Kaiju on his trail in the last three hours than he'd had in the year before he left the Collective. They switched lines again, making a connection that would take them north and east. Another decoy, or their true destination this time?
"Are we close?"
Mako glanced up, as though surprised to remember that he was there. She'd fallen silent since the Kaiju had passed them by on the train, although she'd left her hand lightly in his when he took it, making no move to remove it or withdraw it.
"Not far." It looked like the stress of the chase was catching up to her - her smile seemed a little pale, although after a moment she rallied. "Last train."
The station concourse was busy and Raleigh moved through it at full alert, keeping an eye out while Mako guided them to where they were going. He saw nothing out of place, nothing unusual – well, no Kaiju, anyway.
No Kaiju on the platform as the train pulled in. No Kaiju on the train as they got in. No Kaiju getting on the train at the next station, before it headed into the long tunnel stretch under Hong Kong Bay, heading back to the Kowloon side of the harbour.
Raleigh put the briefcase down and took hold of a ceiling strap. Agent Mori held his hand.
A long and convoluted trip to take to shake Kaiju off their tail. It hadn't even worked that well – although he gave full points to Agent Mori for keeping them alive so far, given that they'd encountered not one but three agents hunting them...
Raleigh paused.
Back at the airport, Pentecost had said, Allow two old men their fun.
Pentecost had expected the Kaiju to follow the car, not the agents on foot – and yet the Kaiju had come after them. Were hunting them in a way that Raleigh had never seen in all his years of experience as an operative assigned to the Jaeger division.
And the Kaiju in the shopping centre, holding Agent Mori up against a wall and speaking to her in fluid Japanese: We've been looking for you...
He looked down at Agent Mori, who turned her face up to his as though she'd been expecting his gaze. Maybe she had.
It sizzled through him, crackling through his thoughts like lighting – firing, illuminating, searing, energising.
Dr. Geiszler found reference to a gift that was more than telepathy...
And we've never encountered such an ability?
Not among Kaiju.
The operative on the last train had been within arm's length of him and right walked past – as though Raleigh Becket and Mako Mori didn't exist to him. And Mako had sagged against him afterwards in relief – or, perhaps, in exhaustion.
...an ability to not only speak from one mind to another but to control another mind...
Did Pentecost know?
*He knew from the start.*
There in his head, cool and calm and clear and in her voice, like she was speaking to him through a DRIFT chip. But the curve of her mouth remained closed when his gaze lingered on it.
Raleigh gathered his thoughts, and came up with, *You could have said.*
Mako didn't look away from him, didn't flinch, although her brows twitched down a fraction. *I didn't know myself.*
*How could you not know?*
*Because I have never done this before.*
Raleigh stared at her. *You've never-*
*I don't usually hear thoughts. Not operatives, anyway.* Her lips pressed together as she looked pointedly out the window at the darkness of the tunnel outside. *You were very explicit.*
*Sorry.* The apology was instinctive – as was the swiftly-stifled smile. *I'm not used to a woman listening in to my thoughts.*
Mako began working her fingers free of his hand and he let go of her hand. *I think it's—* Her mental voice cut off. She flexed her fingers, as though stretching them, then laced them back into Raleigh's hand. *I think it's physical contact that makes the difference.*
Raleigh frowned. *You've never touched a DRIFT-enabled operative before?*
*Of course. But not a stranger.*
His hand closed around hers, an instinctive convulsion. *We're not strangers. Not anymore.*
She didn't answer him, which was, Raleigh thought in the private place in his head where he'd learned to keep his thoughts from Yancy, a polite way avoiding refuting him directly.
*You were born into Kaiju.*
The silence in his mind was so absolute, that for a moment Raleigh wondered if he'd insulted her. But it made sense – he remembered the fuss when Pentecost had adopted her. There'd been speculation in the dorms as to whether the kid was 'in training' like the other orphans of the Collective, or 'special'. A few of the nastier boys had wondered what Pentecost was using her for.
*My parents were born Kaiju – fourth generation – the ones who came out and started taking over the world.* Dark eyes lifted to his, unerring in her gaze, uncompromising in her expression. *Dr. Gottlieb was right; they were matched and bred like animals. But my parents were strong – and the strongest ones are also the most difficult to control.*
*They rebelled.*
*They were going to.*
The train lurched, unexpectedly. Her fingers tightened in his as she overbalanced, and Raleigh caught her up against his chest. Hip, breast, shoulder, and the silky swing of her hair against his jaw, like a caress.
Her free hand clutched briefly at the front of his jacket for balance. Raleigh's gut clenched at the faint scrape of nails and she tensed against him.
*Sorry.*
*It would mean more if you actually were,* she sounded more resigned than angry or annoyed.
Better not to parse her statement. Although she wasn't taking her hand from his. *Can you feel what I'm feeling?*
*Sometimes. When you project strongly.*
Emotional DRIFTing. *You know that's not usual.* When she said nothing, he added, *Yancy and I could do it. But we were brothers – we'd grown up together – and we both had DRIFT chips.*
Which Mako Mori didn't have – or else she'd have been assigned a partner. And yet, here they were; standing on a train, holding hands, DRIFTing all the same.
*I can't see what you're thinking,* he added, in case she was wondering.
The look she gave him was one part teacher, one part superior being, one part exasperated woman, and entirely Mako Mori. *That's deliberate.*
*An unfair advantage.*
*Only when you insist on projecting your fantasies—*
All right. If it was a fantasy she wanted...
—walking along a steel-spiked fence in Europe, hands tucked in their pockets, his face downturned to watch hers, casual laughter—warm pleasure as she sat down at a table in a rented room in Mogadishu, the light cotton sleeves of her nightgown pooling around her elbows as she lifted her coffee cup and grunted a good morning—cool competence as she came to stand opposite him across a table of weapons in shiny silver and matte black, her fingers neat and nimble as she picked out a P229 and the case of magazines appropriate for it—
A partnership. Two agents working together, trusting each other, intimate and intricate.
Raleigh held her gaze until she dropped it. Then his fingers tightened briefly around hers before she pulled her hand away and he let her go.
"That's not fair."
"All's fair..." Raleigh let the rest of the quote stand and knew without needing to touch her that she tensed further. And he didn't like having to do that to her, but—God, he'd forgotten how addictive DRIFTing was. How it felt to be open to someone else – to trust someone else with everything you were and to be trusted with them in return.
Yes, he'd come back to finish the job with Kaiju. But beneath it, too, he wanted to connect with someone again. Yancy was dead, and the worst moment of Raleigh's life had been feeling the DRIFT connection break between them. But he'd risk that moment again to have someone who trusted him with her soul.
If the someone was to be Mako Mori, Raleigh figured he'd risk a lot more.
He held his hand out to her, palm up in invitation. "Don't you want to?"
Mako looked from his hand to his face, then out the door as the train slowed, coming in to a station, preparing to stop. "We're here."
Coward, Raleigh thought at her as she moved towards the exit, wondering if she'd hear him without the physical contact.
She hooked her hair behind one delicate, shell-like ear, and frowned faintly as she faced the door. Raleigh came to stand beside her, but didn't take her hand as they emerged from the train out onto the platform and headed up the stairs on their way out of the station..
There were plenty of people along the station concourse, and Mako strode through them, direct as a bullet to the brain.
Raleigh figured he'd gone and made her good and mad – although he was struggling to understand why. It seemed clear enough that they were DRIFT compatible if all it took was skin contact to initiate a link – and one that allowed emotion. Words were easy – a relatively simple connection to the aural nerves – but emotion...
Emotion was a physiological reaction, not just an aural switch. For the DRIFT chip to transmit emotions, you had to be absolutely in tune with each other.
—heartbeat in his throat—cold wind past his ears—air like needles in his lungs—hands clutching at the useless rope—relax-can't relax—shut the DRIFT connection—don't let Raleigh feel this—shut the link—concentrate—shut the goddamn LINK—
Raleigh blew out his breath, swiped his card and pushed through the turnstile, and jogged to catch up with Mako. He reached for her hand. She pulled it away.
"Hey, look, I don't—I wasn't going to—"
"Please don't."
The words were clipped and brief as she moved towards an entrance without too many people going out of it – heading out onto the street, not up through a shopping centre like most others were doing. Raleigh stopped trying to catch her hand, but he did lean past her to help push the door open.
They stepped out into the cool air, faintly tinged with the wet scent of the harbour, and Raleigh matched her going down the short flight of stairs that led past the covered racks of bikes and over to the open street.
"Mako, will you listen—" She stopped so sharply that he almost barrelled into her. "Mako—"
His palms itched.
The Kaiju ground his cigarette out on the handlebars of the nearest bicycle with a faint smile. "Mori-san."
Behind him, five other men in tinged in blue crossed the road, their movements casual, their expressions intent. Raleigh groped for a weapon he didn't have as Mako lifted her chin.
"Kaiju," she spat.
"The rain calls the ocean wet," came the cool reply. "But they eventually become one in the end. Your companion is free to go if you will let him."
Mako glanced at Raleigh, almost dismissively. "I do not hold his leash. He is free."
"Mako," he grabbed for her hand again, even as one of the men lifted a weapon. Cold fingers slipped through his, and the sharp and biting fear she hid resonated through the touch like the squeal of feedback on an open mic.
*We're in this together, Mako!*
No response, but he trusted she'd heard him. And if not, well, he trusted her.
"I'm with her," he told the Kaiju. "You take me, too."
"We have no need of you, Mr. Becket. If you do not walk away, you are mere deadweight." The English was cold and precise and far better than Raleigh's Japanese. The Kaiju pointing the gun at Raleigh cocked it, the muzzle aimed squarely at his chest. No headshots here, just the intent to maim.
"You want me to tell them she's been taken."
"She is a weapon in the wrong hands. Commander Pentecost knows this." The man's smile had teeth to it. "We differ on whose hands are wrong."
"No," Raleigh said. "We differ in that she's not a weapon – she's a person." And he took a step forward and swung the briefcase at the man with the gun.
It was a risk – going against a Kaiju when death was on the line – but Raleigh Becket was putting his money on Mako Mori.
And although the man saw it coming, he didn't fire on Raleigh. Instead, the case hit him square in the stomach, shoving him backwards so the aim of the gun began to lift. Raleigh had already leapt forward to grab the top of the handgun. He pulled it from the man's limp grasp.
Behind him, a man grunted. Mako was dealing with the lead Kaiju. Instead, Raleigh targeted the other five, their movements slow and slightly dazed as they shook off whatever whammy Mako had put on them.
We're going to have to explore that when we have a moment, he thought as he turned, the moves coming back to him like he'd never left the Agency. The gun was an extension of his hand, the sighting here, the trigger here, the movement in the corner of his eye here.
Step, point and shoot. One. Step, point and shoot. Two. Step, point and shoot. Three. Step, point and hold.
Mako lifted her hands out to her sides, steady and slow. Her eyes were wide and steady on his face, her chin lifted, her gaze without fear.
Then again, what did she have to fear? On the ground behind her, the lead Kaiju writhed as though in the throes of a seizure, his hands dragging at his hair. A few feet beyond him, another man lay fallen, crumpled like a marionette with its strings cut.
Like a puppet.
And the puppetmaster watched Raleigh as he turned back, her expression blank.
Raleigh said the first thing that came into his head. "You okay?"
When she didn't answer, he stepped forward, uncertain as to whether she was all here, or still...doing whatever it was she did to the Kaiju. "Mako? Talk to me."
"Yes." Her eyes remained focused on his face, but the blank look eased, and when it did there was a faint, shuddering note of relief in her voice. "I'm okay."
Had she been waiting for his revulsion at what she'd done, what she could do, what she was? She'd be waiting a long time for that.
Distant sirens rose in a warning wail. Raleigh locked the safety on the gun, and slid it into his jacket pocket for later use if needed. "Which way out?"
"No need. Clean-up is coming."
He followed her gaze down the street, where a police sedan and a van were driving casually along – although there was certainly nothing casual about the way the van swerved to stop in the middle of the street, right beside one of the shot and bleeding Kaiju.
There was a hand on his chest, and Raleigh looked down, surprised to realise he'd edged over, inserting himself between her and whoever was coming. Glittering amusement gleamed in her eyes as she moved him aside. "They are friends."
"Well, Becket Boy, I see you haven't learned how to clean up after yourself in five years."
Raleigh turned sharply at the achingly familiar voice. "Tendo!"
"Come here," said Tendo Choi, cheerful as ever – the suspenders still snappy, the bow-tie cocky. As they hugged, Raleigh caught the familiar whiff of Tendo's hair-gel and suddenly felt back, fully back.
"Good to see you, my man."
"Good to see you, too, kid."
The affection in the term caught in Raleigh's throat. Yancy had called him 'kiddo' and Tendo had picked it up from time to time. Amidst the chaos of the last twenty-four hours, it felt...right to end back where he'd begun.
Behind Tendo, a crew of men and women were cuffing and packing the Kaiju into the van with brutal efficiency. Raleigh vaguely recognised a few faces but if they glanced at him it was only to nod briefly before going about their business.
"So, Becket Boy, I see you've been leading Agent Mori astray on the path of Kaiju now?"
"I'm going to take the Fifth on that..." Raleigh turned to look for Mako, only to find her in cool conversation with a statuesque peroxided blonde and two Hong Kong cops. "Hold up a minute, Tendo. Officers—"
The blonde let out a bark of laughter, even as the two men turned simultaneously, presenting identical faces to Raleigh. Identical and familiar faces – two of the Wei Tang triplets, whom Raleigh had last seen six years ago during a mission in Shanghai.
"Agent Becket," said the nearest one – Raleigh had never been great at telling them apart, but he was pretty sure this was Cheung, the oldest. "Always in the middle of trouble."
The other brother – Hu? – made a tutting noise. "Leaving such a mess behind. And in a public place!"
"And none of you have done worse?" Mako tilted her head a little.
The blonde snorted, then glanced over her shoulder as the wail of sirens drew closer. "Comparisons later; move now. We shall reset it all. No witnesses."
"No bodies." Cheung warned, as his brother tossed him the keys and he caught them without looking.
"You have no faith!" Agent Statuesque retorted. Then she pressed a finger to her lips and touched it to Mako's cheek, saying something in what Raleigh presumed was her native language. Whatever was said, it had a sultry note to it, and bright spots of pink appeared across Mako's cheekbones.
Raleigh stared at her as the Wei Tang brothers were already hustling them towards the police car.
He glanced back towards the van, but the clean-up crew was just finishing, sand being sprinkled onto the spattered blood. Tendo was doing a quick walk around with a tablet and a pointer, consulting with a tiny Asiatic woman who angled her head up, as though checking the balconies and sight lines.
"Get in," said the Wei Tang brother briskly. "Hurry up. And mind your head," he said with a snort as Raleigh bashed his head against the roof of the car while climbing in.
Mako was smiling faintly at him as the door closed on them.
"With colleagues like these," he muttered, rubbing his sore skull.
The Wei Tang brothers climbed into the front seats, silent and speaking as only DRIFTing operatives could be. "Buckle up," said Cheung with malicious cheerfulness. "Orders are to take you to the Commander."
"Do not pass go, do not sightsee Tseung Kwan O!"
"Such a pity. It's a nice place to live. Not so great to die, though."
"Do not give up your day jobs," Mako retorted.
"Wouldn't want to, anyway." Cheung looked up as they stopped at lights, apparently meeting Mako's eye in the mirror. "You ready to make big waves now, little goddess?"
She said something in Chinese which Raleigh didn't understand, but which made the Wei Tangs laugh in uproarious unison.
Raleigh shifted his hand across the seat, his fingers lifting over the back of her hand as he looked at her, waiting for permission to touch. Now that they weren't out by themselves – now that they didn't need the communication – he felt he should to ask permission.
Necessity during a mission was one thing, but DRIFT agents – at least, those that weren't married or related – were taught to be careful of invading personal space.
She hesitated before her fingers linked in with his. Raleigh pushed the sting away and focused on the fact that she'd made contact at all.
*We're still in this together, you know.*
Her lashes dropped down, hiding her eyes, and Raleigh laced their fingers together more tightly.
*You don't want me?*
Mako's gaze slanted his way, startled. *Why would you think—?* Then she saw his expression – the faint curve of his mouth. *Oh, you...*
*You want to fight Kaiju. Pentecost called me in to do just that.*
*I'm not among the candidates—*
*We're already DRIFTing, Mako.* He shifted their joined hands. *You don't have a DRIFT chip and I don't have a DRIFT partner. Two birds with one stone. You get a chip and the chance to fight Kaiju; I get you.*
This time, the blush that stained her cheeks heated his, too. Raleigh hadn't meant the words to sound so possessive, they'd just ended up coming out that way.
But he didn't regret them either.
DRIFT partnership was a delicate dance of intimacy and distance. Nobody could spend so much time in someone else's head and not love them at least a little. How that love expressed itself depended on the relationship between the two. Raleigh was pretty sure he'd never felt this possessive about Yancy. But then, there'd never been a question of Yancy being there for him.
Mako, on the other hand, could walk away – without a DRIFT chip, refusing the connection.
Raleigh was just hoping she wouldn't.
*So,* he said, as casually as he dared. *How about it?*
She didn't answer, didn't speak, didn't look at him. Her hand lay in his, neither grasping nor resisting being held. Raleigh tried to stifle the chill thread that wound around his throat, snaking down to his belly. He couldn't sense her – whatever linked them right now, it didn't allow him to see her thoughts or read her emotions, and her expression was so carefully blank that he had no idea what she was thinking. If she didn't want him—
*It's up to the Commander.*
Relief sang through him, a bright rush of pleasure. If she hadn't wanted it herself, she would have said. Raleigh dared reach a little further.
*And if it wasn't?*
*It is.* She looked at him, beautiful and serious. *I will not disrespect him this way.*
Raleigh exhaled and nodded. It all depended on Pentecost, then. He'd make his case when they got to HQ. He'd make it good.
"Very quiet in the back seat," Hu remarked. Turning his head, he glimpsed their linked hands. His brows went up as he looked from one to the other. In the driver's seat, Cheung's head turned a little. Raleigh didn't need to be told the brothers were communicating with each other through the DRIFT.
*Do they know?*
*No,* she said. *But I think some people suspect.*
"You want some advice, little goddess?"
They glanced up at Cheung's question. Mako sighed. "You will give it anyway."
"If you want the Commander's consent, don't let him see that." The tilt of the head managed to indicate their linked hands
"We do not—I do not intend—" She muttered something obscene about Cheung's antecedents in Japanese, but didn't take her hand from Raleigh's.
The Wei Tangs grinned. Cheung shook his head and kept driving. Hu turned in his seat and fixed Raleigh with a look.
"DRIFT operative or not, Agent Mori is precious to us."
"A little goddess." Raleigh ignored Mako's protest in his head. "I know. I'll be careful."
"You'll be dead."
"Hu!"
"Because Mako will kill you, and we'll be there to run interference and to hide your corpse." Hu grinned – a tiger's smile, Raleigh thought. "Just so you know."
"Cremation." Raleigh figured he might as well play along – or not, given that the Wei Tang were brilliant and deadly agents – they'd been as successful a team as he and Yancy five years ago, and they'd had all the time since to hone their skills. "And scatter my ashes over the sea. If it's not too much trouble."
"Wei Hu," Mako snapped and added a string of Chinese behind it.
"Ah-ah-ah!" Cheung warned as they turned into an underground parking station and gates opened at their approach. "Such language from little goddess! And we're back, so best behaviour!"
Raleigh kept his hand over hers as the Wei Tang brothers got out. *I'm not giving up on this, Mako.*
*The Commander has his reasons,* she repeated, and this time he felt the uncertainty she projected at him – her blood family, her own fears and doubts – the monsters that lurked in her past.
*And we have ours.* He held up their joined hands. What her parents, grandparents, great-grandparents had been didn't change who she was to him, here and now. *Unless you want out.*
The look she gave him was scornful as she extracted her hand and climbed out of the car, grumbling softly at Hu, who snorted.
Cheung, on the other hand, loomed into Raleigh's personal space, trapping him between the door and the car interior. "She likes you, Agent Becket," he said. "But you will respect her."
Raleigh across the top of the car at Mako where she was laughing at something Hu was saying as he jostled her shoulder. She turned with a blue swing of hair, not needing the DRIFT chip to know he was watching her, not needing the link for him to tell her his thoughts. Their eyes met and Mako smiled.
He smiled back at Mako.
At the least, a friendship. Hopefully, a partnership. And maybe more someday if she was willing and interested.
"I already do."
fin