As this is a Fanfiction site, I obviously own nothing but my original characters.
"She's very talented."
"I'm sure she is, Koenma."
"The problem is she's extremely misanthropic and unscrupulous."
"Not anything I haven't dealt with before."
"Kurama, not like this, you haven't."
Hotwired
Chapter One:
In which our fair heroine has her unalienable rights trodden upon with the delicacy of a herd of stampeding alpaca.
"That will be eighty four dollars and thirty two cents, if you please." The chipper blond smiled and stretched out her hand to take the platinum credit card.
"No, I don't please." Her eyes widened and her bubble gum pink lips puckered in a shocked 'O'. This really shouldn't be so easy, I thought. It takes all the fun out of it. The least she could do would be to act a little more convincing. "I'm not particularly enamored of the ditzy blond routine; it lacks originality. Now, you and I both know that you've equipped your little electronic buddy there," I raised an eyebrow and nodded at the card swipe, "to borrow my credit card information."
Her cheeks flushed in indignation. "I've never heard anything so absurd. I-"
"Now Linda," reading her blue and white nametag, "I really must insist you not interrupt. It doesn't matter how I know what you've done, just suffice it to say that if I were to, I don't know, scream bloody murder and accuse you in a very public manner, you're supervisor, in an attempt to calm me and probably a great many other panicked customers, would more than likely search you and the credit card machine serial number. I would stand here and demand to watch the whole process, and I would find the necessary proof, and I would expose you. Like I said before, you and I both know about your little friend's upgrade, and frankly, I don't see why it shouldn't remain that way." I paused for dramatic effect. "Just you and me, that is." I handed her a twenty and smiled.
Her perfectly plucked eyebrows lifted in understanding. "You're change ma'am," she said, handing me two hundred out of the cash drawer. "And thank you for shopping at Marcy's."
I lifted a hand to my chest and gave her a mocking little bow. "It's been almost entertaining. Good evening, Linda my dear." With that I about faced and began walking for the front entrance. Out of the corner of my eye I caught the two plain clothed officers who had been watching our little transaction from a distance. Five of them had been circling Linda's counter for about three hours, switching teams and keeping their distance until the crowds died down during the pre-Christmas rush.
I had to give a little smile when Linda screeched as a burly cop in a white guayabera forced her arms behind her back and started Mirandizing her. Poor dear, her pressed pink suite is wrinkling. I smirked. I really like smirking. Note to self: smirk as often as possible. Everybody else who had been leaving turned around to gawk at the blonde trying to bite through the cops arm.
That's right everyone, make way for me. The electronic doors swooshed open before I stepped onto the pressure sensor and I made my leisurely way out of the mega shopping complex. It pays to shop at these places because, though they may be disgustingly packed with people, just so many more opportunities present themselves when hundreds of marks, stooges and rubes coalesce in a small area.I hung a left at Seguin St. and spotted my apartment complex to the right. Austin, on top of being about ninety degrees and humid eighty-five percent of the year, is also bursting with homeless folk, half of them young failed UT students. Consequently it is nearly impossible to be young and attractive without being beckoned by unsavory types to back allies. As I walked across Magnolia to my building, one of the many street residents, apparently with a taste for the supernatural or at least new-age nonsense, waved tarot cards at me while I walked past.
"Know the future," the old hippy said from beneath a purple burka and silver veil. That takes dedication. She must be melting in that. "Know the past." I had to smirk a bit. I can appreciate a fellow grifter's dedication but fortune telling had never been a racket that I held much respect for. "Know the present, Lydia Nakamura." Now that was interesting. Where had she heard that name? I hadn't used that one since Pappy moved us back from Kyoto.
I turned around and smiled. "I must admit," I said, "I've always been a bit curious about the occult. Why don't you give me a reading?" I sat down in front of her low table and held out my hands to shuffle the deck.
She gave a little giggle that sounded more girlish than crone, leading me to believe her to be much younger than her act belied. She took the tarot cards back and picked one from the center of the deck. I expected the death card or the fool or some such melodramatic mystical tripe, so imagine my surprise when I saw that the card placed before me held a picture of Linda, the thieving Marcy's clerk, with her hands in the air sporting a black and white striped jump suite.
"This is your past," she said with another giggle. She flipped the next card to find a picture of a pair of handcuffs. All of a sudden my hands propelled towards one another like oppositely poled magnets, and struggle as I might, I could not separate them.
"What the hell is going on you crazy-"
"This is your present."
"Don't you dare giggle, you maniacal Professor Trelawney."
She let out another giggle. "You're so silly," she said. I'm being kidnapped by a demonic Gidgit. I'm going to be tortured to death. They're going to trap me in a white room with the Barney song and Care Bears theme and her giggling playing on repeat until I go insane.
She slowly turned the last card over. "And this is your future."
"What the f- is that?" I deadpanned. On the card was the cartoon picture of a baby in a big hat with a binky in his mouth, floating on a yellow cloud.
"Congratulations," the woman said as she pulled off the burka and veil. Cotton candy blue hair and pink eyes sparkled at me in pure excitement. "You're under arrest."
"WHAT?"
I found myself hog tied by unseen restraints, thrown over the back of an oar and barreling towards space within seconds.
"I'm Botan, by the way. Oh, this is so exciting. I've never caught psychic with your combination of abilities, you know. You're a rare bird."
Great Schottky, she's going to eat me.
"Oh, here we are already. How time flies when you're having fun! This way please. Oh yes, your bounds… That's alright, I'll just float you in."
Now, normally I would have been protesting loudly and demanding to know on what charge I had been arrested (not that I had ever been arrested, but it pays to have a contingency plan), but between the physics defying flight and the purple ogres and giant pearly gate that had greeted me upon my first entrance into the Reikai, I was pretty much a gibbering mess. I think that I would have smirked at myself had I been able to see me.
Botan gave me a pitying look, and that somehow induced enough pride in me to at least be able to close my mouth.
"Here we are, dear," Botan said. "Koenma's office. Don't be frightened. You're not in too much trouble; at least I don't think you are. Oh well!" With that we walked (to be precise, I floated) through to a pair of giant wood doors with the intimidation factor of 10 to the power of infinity.
"Koenma! We're back!"
"Very well, Botan." Said a nasally voice from the ceiling. At some point I had flipped and was at the moment floating head down with a view of the bottom of giant wooden desk. What kind of acid trip is this? Have I had a psychotic break? What were those loin cloth wearing things? One eyed one horned giant purple people eaters? People eaters!
"Oh! Whoopsies!" Botan grabbed my foot and attempted to right me with a bit too much zeal. I spun around twice before she caught my foot again and finally had me oriented positively along the z-axis. When my vision cleared I saw what I supposed was the same fat baby on the tarot card from earlier. I looked left and right for the nasal voice but saw no one but Botan. I searched the ceiling for concealed speakers but could not find any. Finally I looked back at the baby, which was miraculously sitting upright with an eyebrow raised sucking impatiently on a pacifier.
"You?" I asked.
"Yes," was his simple reply.
"Alright. I guess I buy that." I said with a shrug.
Botan's eyes practically popped out of her head.
"What? It makes about as much sense as the rest of this day," I said in my defense.
"Very sensible," was the fat baby's reply. "Now to business. I am Koenma, and to make things short, I'm in charge." Botan 'hem-hemed'. "Well, mostly I'm in charge. My father is Enma and he, with me under him, is ruler of both the Human and the Spirit World. We are currently in the Spirit World, and no, before you ask, you're not dead."
I felt the tightly bound wad of panic in my chest loosen. "Am I," I began.
"No, you're not mad or hallucinating either."
"Oh, thank God." I said and let out a sigh.
"You are, however, in very big trouble."
"What? Why? What did I do? You haven't any proof! I demand a lawyer!"
"Shut up! I have all the proof I need. I'm one promotion away from god! I see everything including, among other things, your moonlighting as an industrial spy."
At this I prudently shut the hell up.
Koenma climbed on his desk and walked across it to me, allowing him to look down on me. I was not impressed, I might add, by his little attempt at intimidation. "You have been caught stealing industrial secrets from human electronics firms, funds from credit companies, and just two hours ago stealing the ill-gotten gains of an identity thief. While that does not normally fall under my jurisdiction in this cycle of your existence, i.e. while you're still breathing, it does when these are all perpetrated using physic powers over electricity and electronic devices. As such, it is my duty to judge you and dole out proper punishment. You, Rachel Garner, alias, Lydia Nakamura, alias Yume Lopez, alias Sarah Greggs, etcetera, are sentenced to twenty years as a Reikai Spirit Crimes Investigator."
I guess my blank stare is intimidating because Koenma, Prince of the Afterlife and all things currently residing on Earth, began sweating profusely and fingering his collar nervously.
"Stop glaring at me like that. It's a perfectly legal punishment."
"I'm sure it is," I said flatly. "What I'm beginning to question is the legitimacy of my arrest. I've been in my line of work for nearly ten years (since I was fourteen), so why now have you decided to take me in? Especially, since it is obvious that you have been more than aware of my activities from the beginning. I'd like to speak with a lawyer now, thank you." Cue smirk. "I want to know just at what point psychic maleficence falls under your jurisdiction."
"Ahem, too bad. So sad. No Reikai lawyers; sent them all to hell years ago." With that Koenma slammed his fist down on a giant red button on his desk to the left of a Matchbook Air. Three multicolored ogres walked into the room. One turned his attention to Koenma while the other two started toward me.
"Wait! Let go, you Crayola-colored hob goblins!" I screamed as the two ogres caught my floating feet and started pulling out the giant wood doors. I latched onto one of the door frames, wood and paint peeling and chipping under my finger nails. "I demand a lawyer! I'm a US citizen! I have rights!"
"George, please show our newest employee to her quarters. And Botan,"
"Yes, boss," she said, giggling once more. Evil Gidget!
"Ring up Kurama will you? I believe Rei-san is going to need some experienced supervision."
You smug little bastard! Did you see that? He smirked! I swear a saw it under that squeaking ridiculous pacifier! He's going to be sorry he every entrapped Ray Hell-to-Pay Garner. No one pulls a fast one on me! And no one and I mean no one, smirks at me!
