-scene break-

Shidou adjusted his glasses before drinking the water. Him and his cop friend made for annoying company but we didn't have much choice. The guy was up to something, that much was obvious. I wasn't going to be that surprised if he was shacked up with some of the refugees who were in the Takagi estate, but the riot didn't seem like his handywork. "This chaos is effecting everyone of course, and naturally without accepted leadership there will be disagreements from radicals. The police should except that and hold elections."

It spoke well of Rei's daddy's restraint that he not shot this bastard yet. "I doubt thats going to happen at the school, much less the Takagi estate."

"True," he agreed, "I am merely saying that these riots are a natural outgrowh of the people's frustration." Good god he better not start quoting Marx to me, because he was obviously working an angle... not that any thing could be done about that. He was going to work this no matter how many times people told him to stop.

I nodded, "So copper, what are you Narcotics detective? Special Crimes? You a homicide detective?"

"I'm just a policeman,"

If he didn't want to say that his business, but that was a fucking lie. Minami was SWAT, or SAT as the unit was called, and she carried a semi automatic. Inspector Minamoto, and all but a handful of the cops under his command all carried wheel guns. The ones who didn't have 38 revolver had vertec Berettas. There in lay the rub, because Minami carried a Sig. His HK was the first HK pistol I'd seen amongst the police. "If you say so, how are the kids?"

"Doing well, they have endured all of this certainly better than some." Shidou remarked proudly, "It seems yours have done better than some, though perhaps arming Takashi-kun might not been the best."

Mr. 'Just a policeman' cleared his throat, "And the others."
"We don't have much choice."

"These are desperate times," Shidou agreed, patting his buddy's knee. "How is the school nurse doing?"

"The Takagi are working to set up a clinic," Everybody knew that, but what was really needed were medical supplies it was why we'd have to eventually mount a run to thoroughly strip a hospital. "Its got most of her time, and then she's watching kids." I leaned back and looked over the hill. We hadn't gone far from the school. Takashi would have been really pissed off.

Shimada stuck his head out from the cab. The shouting had died down, but as much noise as they had made with all that ruckus it made good sense to keep a watch on both sides. Kohta was opposite himl laying in the bed of the truck, with the AR positioned back towards the roadway. Ishi and Tamaru both had binoculars and were watching around him. Road would be the easiest walk, but zombies might not care about easy with as much noise as had been made. Then of course there was the possibility of things other than zombies.

Roving mob, or organized force, maybe even the gangsters, were possibilities. We needed to keep a wide field of view. "When was last contact with the SDF?"

"A few days ago, they dropped a pallet of food off, and updated the estimates of survivors. Why?"

"It was a helicopter then?"

"Yes why?"

"What kind?"

"I don't know." Shidou responded. "Is the Self Defense force going to do something?"

Most likely it was JGSDF Chinook. It could have been another model, hung underneath maybe. It could even have been an appropriated helicopter, but probably a Chinook. Then again it had been a blackhawk that had airlifted the guys from the dam they could pull surveilance with that, if that was what they were using to do surveilance. "We need to find out what the status of Tokyo, but I think the SDF is under orders to try and reinforce positions which can make it through the winter." The thing was they dind't have the lift capacity to handle all the survivors, which was why they'd prioritized the weakest.

"And what does that mean."

"It means most likely there is no central command," Kohta interjected, "and they are trying to ensure whoever has the best chance to survive does so. If they can they may try and disperse troops to various locations."

I stood up and grabbed my rifle, "he's probably right. SDF is probably going to fulfill whatever mission orders they have and put their heavier equipment into holding." Mainly because fuel was going to be a big issue very soon. "The best thing strategically we can hope for is the SDF tries to bring in as many fuel ships as possible to a secure port." Food would have been good to. "There anything?"

"Ishi reported a contact a kilometer down the road," He gestured toward the bag, "I thought the spotter scope would be better."

-scene break-

It was raining again. It was mildly depressing actually, but winter probably meant a whole lot of rain and then snow coming down. I slapped the retained pin into the M4, and set it to the side. No word from the school, and rain didn't look like it was going to let up any time soon. "Gato confirmed it then?"
"Yeah," Minami took a long drag, "Chinese submarines."

I nodded, "Probably the chinese nuclear deterent group," I didn't get it, what the hell could have provoked a nuclear first strike on China, and with the Russians helping of all people. Not that it would have made more sense if it had been with the Brits, or the French. Chinese SLBMs no doubt going to fire at the US and Russia for nuking their country flat. Not a good chance of the squids hunting them down either. Not in this mess. There was even a chance Japan might get a nuke, but most likely it'd be Tokyo, rather than us who got the nuke. "Well we can at least kill zombies, not much I can do about 8000 ton nuclear powered sub." I got up and walked over to the window.

Tokunosu's offshore airport was amazing. An artificial island holding an airport that was impressive, but without power from the mainland it wasn't worth it to waste generator fuel to turn the lights on. So here we all were with blankets up on the eleventh floor. Shimada and Tamaru were sitting a folding table picking over some of the food that had been cooked. Kohta was picking through one of his books. Takashi was off somewhere sulking. Saya and Ishi were double checking the doors just in case. They'd probably be back soon.

Minami came over, and plopped down on the couch. "Somebody planned that riot." She commented resting her M4 between her legs.

"Yeah, probably." The question was how they'd gotten that many molotovs made without the police noticing. Even spreading out into the surrounding buildings, and settling people in them the cops had been pretty thorough about keeping check of things. They were a lot more serious about keeping track of guns as well. Even one cop being in on it wouldn't explain it.

The Takagi hadn't taken it well, coupled with the fact they'd found a stock pile of molotovs as well, and extras well they were on alert. That in itself was not likely help given the panicky situation and how uncomfortable people were getting. "There is going to be another riot." Kohta announced voicing the obvious, "We knew it was going to happen." The book was in Japanese, but I recognized the layout of the map.

"This is the SDF emergency and disaster readiness plan I take it?" I traced a finger over a highlighted route, if I was right it was an evacuation path. Chances were Japan's nuclear response plan hadn't been updated since the cold war, but they didn't really need to be. The SDF was trying to secure people where they were, because... I didn't know.

Kohta nodded, "The SDF has a tank squadron here supported by mechanized infantry," He said tapping the blown up satelite map of the city and the surounding area. "I have no idea where the airborne special forces went, but the downed chopper was here." He moved his finger along the map, and gestured. The crash landing had messed the chopper up, the poor bastards had drawn hundred of the dead right to them. "The SDF doesn't have extant command structure, and those subs will be able to hit California from here. The SDF's Standard Missiles,"

"Probably won't be able to shoot down the SLBMs," or all of them, "I know, has there been anything from the states on the news?" He shook his head, and I grimaced, "Well thats not good, but it doesn't mean they're gone." God knew that news was sporadic as it was. "Look if the rain has let up in the morning we'll go over to the Takagi and try and get in touch with the SDF." Not that I expected much from them at this stage.

Minami nodded, "Gato's on the way to Tokunosu, he can divert and meet up with the officer in charge, and then meet up with us." That sounded good to me. As it was there were 30 to 300 soldiers but probably not more than 300 in Tokunosu. I didn't expect them to be much use, but if they did have mechanics good god would that be great.

The door swung open and Ishi, and Saeko came in. "The doors are all secured. No sign of any broken windows. We should be safe for the night."

"Saeko you mind grabbing Takashi, Ishi and I'll will go barricade the floor." It wasn't like we were going to get anything off the radio, just the same repeated stuff. Sat TV signals, when you could get it was showing the same images over and over too. Occassionally there was new stuff. It was just the same bad news ussually. Well we'd work through it. When tomorrow came we'd go see about Saya, and Rei.

Ishi adjusted the light. The eleventh floor was high enough to give a wide area of surveillance, well when the rain wasn't obscuring at range. We'd secured most of the ways up with reinforced wooden slats, leaving only the entrances we regularly used. So it left us just neededing to reset the barricades around those entrances. "Is Kohta serious about leaving Japan?"

"Its not a bad idea, but actually getting out is harder than just talking about it," And mainland America was a long way away, and that meant fuel being an issue. The main advantage to being this far up was there was no easy way to access where we were. Elevators didn't work, so the only way to get up here was the stairs, most of which were sealed off already at lower floors to begin with. I picked up one of the two by fours, and slotted it on the hangers we'd drilled into the wall. I pulled the bag of screws for the board out, and a screwdriver, "Basically a lot of things have to go right for use to get to America. Its not gonna be easy." Sailing would take longer, but would probably be safer and easier in the long run. "What do you want to do?"

-scene break-

What I would have preferred to be doing was not risking a confrontation with an armed mob, but thankfully the roving crazies tended to be noisy. We we doing two things really first was stocking up on gas, and the second was Ishi, and Kohta, but especially Takashi needed to know how to drive. So too did the girls, but Saya thus far hadn't expressed much interest in that, and well... Rei was kind of pissed off at the moment. So here we were sitting on a street corner looking at a t boned police car. The oil pan was ruptured too, evident by the uh stained rain water.

"Guns are gone."

Kind of figured, especially considering on of the cops had been clearly dragged out of the car. It looked like that was two revolvers. "What are the chances they had shotguns?"

"It'd be in the trunk." Minami announced from the other end of the radio.

So we hopped around the crashed car. Unfortunately who ever had looted the car must have thought to check the trunk because it'd been pried open already. The spare tire was still inside, but nothing else, and the inside of the trunk was wet, and smelly as a result. Nothing, so either there had been a shotgun in here while the cruiser had been out on patrol, or there hadn't. Either way we didn't have time to get the patrol cruiser's number, and go trapizing to station it was based out of in hopes the records were there. Chances were the trunks of the police cruisers at the station we'd already searched were also empty, either because someone had looked or because the police had taken them when they'd left. There was no sign of spent shell casings though, which might have been a good thing. Then again if they'd fired revolvers there wouldn't be any.

I tossed a house over to the side with the gas cap., "Lets pump it and be gone." I wanted to be back before nightfall." This was a gasoline car, obviously, so we'd need to come back in a gas car. Finding another super effecient soccer mom car wouldn't be a bad, but so far the only one we'd seen today had been flipped over, and the top was caved in. That one wasn't going to do us any good. Down the road from it there was Mercedes CLK sedan that looked intact, but it had blood stains, and I didn't know if it had the key, and really didn't want to waste time trying to hotwire it.

We needed any kind of car though so we could carry as much gas as possible. If we couldn't find one we'd have to call Tamaru up, and that was dangerous because it'd take yet another person away from the airport. We needed to find a pair of wheels to get us back across the way. We couldn't try any of the river bridges, because as it was there were too many zombies in that area. Also it would save me the trouble of having to listen to yet another 'we should blow the bridge' speech from Kohta. At least the last one had involved, lets hit the supports with the 25mm instead of 'swim out there and and tape bombs to the supports', which had been the suggestion the last couple of times.

I jumped over, and looked down the street. The pronblem was we knew there were a bunch of cars on the bridges. Cars that probably had gas, and probably had keys in the inignition.

"We could check Shizuka's appartment?"

It was phrased like a question, which alone would have made me leery to go. "No it was over run, we'll search it when we've got a ride as it is." Still he had a point. "There were appartments near by we could search for cars, and their keys. "We could check the nearby ones, but we risk shooting as it is. That is if we don't find one at the gas station."

"So we could only search the ground floor."

That was as good of a plan as any. "If we have to, hopefully there will be a car at the gas station." Unfortunately zombies tended to lose stuff at random, if a person had their key it could have been any where by this point.

"We could go to the consulate." Kohta remarked. A couple of days ago, while picking through the map I'd found a flag, the US one, on a building.

When I'd asked if it was what I thought it was I'd gotten confirmation. On the eastern side of town overlooking the riverside was the US consulate office. A couple of blocks down from that was one for the Republic of Korea. "Its way to far in this situation we'd have to cross a bridge, and we're not doing that without wheels."

"We need to go sooner rather than later," Kohta insisted.

That was true also, "We need to yes, but not today." It'd been this long. If it stayed unlooted it would be because people didn't assume it had anything worth looting, and there were places with more obvious value like a food market, or a gas station. Even hotels might beat out the consulate. It all depended on the impression people got, about the building. I looked around, hell I was surprised no one had stripped the gas station, because it didn't look very picked over. Front window was busted in, probably a brick though. There was a good chance whoever had thrown it had probably taken what they needed and moved on. If there was anything left, we'd see what was left, but at best we'd end up with a little more food and some drink. That wasn't a bad thing. "We've got to be ready for this all hands on deck bullshit." Mr. Takagi had sent word that the problem at the school meant he wanted everyone available. It'd burn a little bit of a diesel, but it seemed a good idea if the Yakuza showed up. Then again there was the whole cops coming over as well.

-scene break-

I adjusted the stock of my rifle against my shoulder. "Well Mr. Takagi?" I asked as looked over the roof's edge. Personally I'd have rather been two stories down, inside and firing out the windows, but I didn't get to pick the shots right now. "What are they doing?"

"They have come to the realization that no one is coming. Not to save or stop them." The swordsman crossed his arms, "I'll be having tea with Raiga, there is a chance they know about your groups armored vehicles." Probably more than a chance, even if he didn't know for sure he'd have heard rumors probably. Improvised armor was one thing, actual military kit was something else, and could easily be a major status reflection. "With the recent chaos you should be on particular alert."

I lowered the gun, as the men in suits came out of the Lexus. God could we be any more stereotypical really... suits and glasses... well suits glasses, and Aks. I releved the rifle, grateful for the windowed piece of duct tape over the glass. "Thats a beretta, and lots of pistols. Just saying..." I commented.

So this was the infamous gentleman who ran the gangsters. I counted eight four door cars, and they were fairly loaded. Conservatively 4 each, more like five or six, depending on how they were riding around town. I was really wishing I'd brought more guns, even a bunch of nine millimeters might have helped, but what we really needed were 308s. I was really wishing I had that Finnish bolt action from home, or a 110c, or SCAR-H even though a G3 or a CETME would probably be better. More than one FAL though would have been the best, that or like a M1A.

Well at least we had a pair of Type 89s, and Minami had that PSG1. I wasn't even going to touch that one, Kohta had seen it that first and looked like he was going to jizz his pants. I'd been that same way about HK's precision rifle like that when I'd been younger too. That had been a long time ago though.

Saeko was leaning against the wall. "You considered pulling the trigger."

"I'm not used to working with gangsters, and Aks in hostile hands make me nervous as fuck," I confessed, there was no point denying it. The thing was Raiga was old. As in he had to be in his mid sixties, and that was at the minimum. I didn't care if he was wearing a gun, or was some kind of crime boss he hadn't done anything to me yet. Wasn't going to shoot, even if he probably deserved it. It wasn't my call.

She nodded, "What are we going to do then?"

"Might as well hear him out?" I reckoned it was the best choice, "Gato will be coming through tomorrow, hopefully we can get the SDF to take the tanks and seal the tunnel." Gato getting here was probably going to be the best thing for us. After all one more rifleman, or at least sailor with a rifle. "Besides there are a lot of them, I don't know how well shooting would go over." Even if we did have the MAGs. We weren't going to start a fire fight not here.

She pushed off against the wall and fell into step after me. I stopped and held out a hand, "What is it?"

"Give Kohta your Beretta," I pulled the nine millimeter hand gun, "This is my CZ 75, its the same caliber, I've got spare mags." I'd been wearing the gun since day one. I'd drawn it twice, but honestly I was using the MP5 way more. "When we get back we're gonna go through all the guns we'll start you on and M4."

She took the pistol, in hindsight it might have been better to just give her one of the Sig 226R handguns we'd picked up. "The M4 will interfere with my sword." I shrugged, lethal as she might have been with it, and it was useful for being quiet we needed to be more careful about how we got into fights. "What will we do?"

"Go over what we have, Kohta's been piling up guns like a mad man," We stood there in the hall and swapped holsters. Kohta wanted a damn 92, at whatever camp he went to had probably trained on Army M9, and if the instructor was Black Water they'd probably done a course on the MP5, and the M4. "We need to know what we have, and really we need to start long term planning." A couple of days back at the elementary Takashi's mom had brought out her laptop that she'd had stashed away. Unlike with television news, it was a bit harder to censor the internet. It was possible, but in the middle of a crises not generally the first thing the government looked at. The internet article, and the blogs Takashi's mom had been reading had given up a whole lot... other than the outbreak was world wide, which we'd already known.

A lot of what we faced from here on would be part figuring out what had happened, and what we could do to survive. Looked pointedly down the hall way, where an old man in a nationalist uniform and a pair of younger officers were gathered around a set of radios, and a television that was hooked to the satellite box. There was the steady hum from the small portable generator that powered the objects in the room. I stopped, and changed directions, "What do we have?"

The older guy looked up, "There isn't much new today."
"Do you get internet from the satellite?"

He shook his head, "Its not getting much, everything seems to be down."

"I figured," I nodded, "if I get you an IP address will you run it?" With the IP you didn't need a search to get there, but you could have gone directly with the address. Hopefully the JALERT server was tied to where I wanted to go. If it wasn't there were other places

The other two had turned around from the radios, but they didn't say anything. "Of course. When will you have it?"

"Half hour tops, computer is in the armor." I waved to Saeko, "Come on, we'll make this quick," I turned back to the room of hardware, "Thanks we'll be back in a minute." I swung back towads the stairs. I really hoped that most of the gangsters were gonna stay put. Takagi's mansion, and the neighbors had branched out into the rest of 2 Choome, putting concrete road dividers and plenty of other things up. A month ago, the houses around Higashi hell the whole neighborhood, had been high upscale suburb residential. Today there were shattered cars, sandbags, concrete barriers, and wooden guard pavilions at every entry way. The cops had at one point commented on the sheer vastness of illegal arms the organization had, though that had been including the M4A1 SOPMODs Rika had brought back from the ship, which possession of would have been illegal back in the states for being fully automatic and all. Damned if they were useful, but then I'd rather have a dozen Remington 700s or more another dozen garands. Japanese Ultranationalists using Garands, guess it was worth a laugh, then again they had Arisakas too, several crates worth. Still they had more original members than they had guns, and they had a swell in the ranks to deal with.

Between Kohta hording, and everyone else we had plenty of spare guns stored away that we'd found in one place or another. It was why Saya had a Sig P220 with Japanese markings. I could guess that most likely it'd been recovered from a Japanese military lock up, or a body at the dam. It was a disappointment that we hadn't heard anything from the SDF detachment in town, even assuming they hadn't been over run they were still no were to be seen. It might not even matter at this point especially if survivors started panicing again.

It was part of the reason holding the Takagi estate was so important, but if we were going to hold it through winter we needed to get power running back to the city, because we were going to need the heater even if we managed to avoid snow. If we could get access to what I wanted we might be able to find out if only a little ways ahead of time.

The Takagi finished armoring up the one bus they had had when we'd first gotten here. A handful of other cars were parked in the gate, but were stored at the 'motor pool' that had been formed. That was where Matsudo had set up shop checking over vehicles, most were commercial trucks. The Takagi guys would go out in them, in little armed patrols, to do organized supply runs. The don wanted to do the local hospital sooner, but it was crawling with zombies. So there wasn't a time table for that yet. Minami waved from up top.

"Kohta, catch."
"Eh whats this for?" He looked at the beretta and its 2 spare mags. "I just thought since we were going to go to the consulate I'd get one there."

I shrugged, and opened the back, "Just take it." I grunted as I pulled the bag I wanted down. Computer, and 45 that I hadn't been carrying. "How many guys are coming in?"

"3 cars are coming up the drive." Kohta called as he snapped on the holster. The rest must have been waiting, which was a good thing. Would have preferred five guys max, especially since Mr. Takagi didn't carry a gun. High end was fifteen guys, probably was 14 five in each each escort, and the yakuza priniciple his attache, driver, and one security guy most likely in that middle car. "Didn't think you were going to carry that?"

"I've got too many mags not to carry it, now." I adjusted my belt, "You and Ishi stay ready." I really hoped we didn't get caught in this going sideways. I jerked my head to the side, "You didn't say the cops were here." Because that was Rei's old man coming up along the way. It made sense though, but I knew the cops weren't keen with talking with Raiga, and his associates.

Inspector Miyamoto stopped by the ASLAV, "You seem busy,"
"Turns out we have internet, you up for this?" He frowned mildly, "Feel a bit unclean?" He nodded, yeah kind of figured. A month ago the inspector was probably doing his best to try and catch Raiga or any number of the guys and put them in jail for no doubt a long time. "You going to go through with it?"

He nodded, "There is no choice. We will have to work together."

-scene break-