Happy 2020, everyone! :)
I can't believe this fic started way back in 2018. I also can't believe we've finally hit the 40 chapter mark - only 10 more installments to go! It's been a funshiny and confuzzling ride, but your wonderful comments continue to motivate me more than words can say! Hopefully the final few chapters will pack a satisfying punch, and deliver some nice pay-offs along the way!
Speaking of-
Camp Evil's plan slowly unveils itself, and the plot thickens like the roux of a particularly unpalatable gumbo. CW for violence and bloodshed. There's lots of spy-game type drama up ahead. Think the last season of the series, basically.
Hope y'all enjoy! Review, pretty please!
SilverSurfer808: Holding up okay, Otonashi-san?
SayaEatsSukiyaki: I'm ok, Ezra. Have u found anything about the poison?
SilverSurfer808: We're still examining it. Maybe by later tonight we'll have something.
SilverSurfer808: Where are you right now?
SayaEatsSukiyaki: Chatan. Getting ready to meet Lewis.
SilverSurfer808: Be careful. I'll keep you updated on our analysis.
SayaEatsSukiyaki: ty!
SilverSurfer808: :) xox
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Yabuchi Island news
Nihon Daihyakka Zensho
Katsuren Peninsula, Yokatsu Islands
The Katsuren Peninsula extends south from Okinawa Island. It is approximately 1.7 to 2.6 kilometers wide, and covers a distance of 15 square kilometers. It is the gateway to the eight Yokatsu Islands. It also served as the home base for two U.S. military facilities, Camp Courtney and White Beach, until 2032.
Yabuchi-jima (藪地島) is one of the primary Yokatsu Islands, situated to the east of the Katsuren Peninsula. It extends roughly 0.62 square kilometers.
The islet is accessible via a small bridge at Yakena harbor—but the paved road ends as soon as the island begins. The terrain is lush, consisting of Ryuūkyū Kuroki, flowering hibiscus, fig trees, and kogon grass. A portion of the island is devoted to rice cultivation. It is also home to a thriving population of habu—Okinawa's poisonous pit vipers.
At the islet's southernmost tip is Janeh Cave, a popular tourist destination. A deeper network of limestone caves—many still unexcavated—extend through the island's heavy jungle. Among these are the Yabuchi Cave Ruins. Here, in 1959, archaeologists discovered shell arrowheads and pottery dating as far back as 6500 years old. The caves also boast a number of Ryukyuan shrines.
For the past decades, Yabuchi has remained uninhabited. Legend goes that ancient spirits burn down any house constructed on the islet.
A warning that mortals are unwelcome.
9-39 Mihama
Chatan-chō, Nakagami-gun
Okinawa-ken 904-0115
Saya lowers her phone to her lap. The screen feels greasy under her palms.
At 3 p.m, it is a scorcher. The sky is an unbroken, piercing blue. At the sea, the sun is a sine wave radiating layer after layer of heat. The humidity presses against her, beads of sweat blooming along her hairline.
Blowing a breath through puffed cheeks, Saya smooths her dress primly towards her knees. Then, not-so-primly, tugs at her neckline, because—God. Is that a hickey or a heat-rash on her breastbone?
A pale hand appears. It holds a bottle of water, icy-wet with condensation.
"Oh! Thanks, Haji."
Saya accepts it, but doesn't take a drink. Just presses the bottle to her cheek, soaking up its coolness.
Her Chevalier, as usual, is impervious to the heat. He stands by her bench, in a black suit—linen, not the bloodstain-resistant worsted twill—the creases precise as a uniform, his expression an equally precise combination of boredom and alertness.
Everything should set him apart from the crowd of tourists dotting Mihama Sea Wall—the sunburnt Europeans, the badly-dressed Americans, the cheerfully jawing Chinese, all of whom are stripped nearly to their colorful skivvies in the sunshine.
But as always, Haji channels the chameleon in himself and blends in.
They are waiting on Kai and the twins—not a family get-together but a rendezvous with an informant. One of Lewis' ex-CIA buddies, who has intel on the farm at Yabuchi Island, but is unwilling to compromise his affiliations by handing the information over via technological conduits.
They've agreed to meet in a neutral zone. There is a shopping plaza not far off. Restaurants, bars, cafes. Crowded enough that there will be plenty of cover, but open enough to circumvent any threats, be it through quick identification of newcomers, or quicker exits.
In the meantime, it is all-too-easy for Saya and Haji to play lovebirds on an outing.
Walking hand-in-hand, gazing at the scenery, they familiarize themselves with the terrain. The American village is heavily dotted with tourists and locals; that makes it easier for Saya and Haji to blend in. They've already noted the security points (a bank, a high-end bar, cameras in the parking lots); the patterns of pedestrians (to and from the Sunset Walk and the plaza); the smartest vantage points (the ferris wheel, Depot Island's buildings, the Hilton).
So far, nothing seems out of place. No signs of set-up or surveillance. Even so, their group will be converging from separate points—and keeping V and Sachi ready as lookouts: half-sniper, half-cavalry.
Smokescreen. Subterfuge. Strategy. Familiar elements of another life.
No, Saya thinks.
The same one.
She must stop measuring everything by that touchstone. Before Diva. After Diva. Yet the knowledge hits her today—she is thirty-two years and four months without Diva, and the only thing it fills her with is a queasy ache.
Unless she's alive...
"The others should arrive shortly," Haji says then.
She takes a breath around her stumbling heartbeat. Hopes Haji won't notice the split-second's jumpiness. Lost cause. Her Chevalier's body shifts fractionally toward hers, a living satellite.
"Are you all right?" he asks.
"Yeah." Her reflexive smile becomes real as their eyes meet. "I'm just—overheated. You'd think after so long in Okinawa, I'd be used to the sun."
"You can sit in the café ahead. I will keep watch."
"You shouldn't stand outside so long, either. Are you wearing sunscreen?"
Haji smiles at the question as much as her tone—both girlfriendly concern and queenly chiding.
It occurs to Saya how unaccustomed he still is to routine bestowals of routine kindness from her. Guilt pricks at her. It is offset by the frisson of consolation in the moment. In the pink rose of intimacy flowering between them, that no crisis can uproot.
Last night, she'd told him and her family about Tórir. About the conversation with Nathan. About the history of her bloodline, and the bloodier roots of her visions. Julia had theorized something called epigenetic imprinting. Ancestral memories passed down through DNA. As to the talking serpent, and Akamine's description of a Maybe-Diva… she couldn't say. Currently, she and Ezra are studying the vial from the snake's belly.
With luck, it will yield answers.
Haji, on his part, was dubious of Nathan's tale. But his stubborn logical streak cannot negate the mysteries they have witnessed. Mysteries that go beyond espionage and government conspiracies. Even beyond bloodthirsty monsters. As Chiropterans, they already occupy a twilit world of impossibility. The introduction of—sorcery?—is bewildering but not inconceivable.
The world isn't yet devoid of secrets. Their selves? Less so.
Sorcery is one thing.
But the dead coming back to life?
"Saya?"
Haji's voice interrupts the tug of misgiving at her mind. And, she realizes, her fingers on his sleeve.
"Oh."
Embarrassed, she drops her hand. "Sorry. Just—" She exhales. "You know I hate lulls. They give me a chance to—"
Think.
Nothing good ever happens when I think.
Haji's look is at once pensive and gentle. "Saya, whatever is happening—" The Whatever that tests the limits of sanity, "—We will get answers."
"I hope so. But—"
"What?"
Staring down at her lap, she whispers, "I'd been telling myself for so long that the war was over. Finally, I could be normal. But now—"
Now reality and unreality are seeping into the serenity she'd clutched at. Distorting it into a nightmare.
Haji reaches to tuck her hair behind her ear. The cool cup of his palm meets her cheek. "It needn't be so one-dimensional. For the moment, you are staying vigilant. But the crisis will pass. When it does, your life will still be there."
"Will it?" She lets off a sigh. "Or am I just fooling myself?"
"You are fooling yourself now. Reducing your existence to one thing. To fighting and fretting."
"But if Tórir is trying to kill us—" Just saying it makes her chest tighten "—then what else matters?"
"You do," he says simply. "Your choices do. They have brought you this far. And they will keep you going."
She manages a half-smile. His words don't soften the temperature of her grey mood. But they make her feel something: a gratitude that expands through her like the sunlight.
Impulsively, she nuzzles the hand cradling her cheek, and kisses it.
"You're being awfully calm," she murmurs.
He crooks a brow. Aren't I always?
"Will you stay that way if I tell you—"
"What?"
"He... kissed me." The words slip out before she can stop them. "Tórir."
Haji's expression doesn't change. But a glint of fury chills his eyes.
"It was at the flower carnival. After our phonecall." Her hands tremble. She tightens them around her bottled water. "I was going to tell you sooner. But… after that snake, we had bigger problems. Still, I keep wondering—"
"What?"
"Why didn't I realize who he was? The first time I saw him, I felt a weird déjà vu. I thought he resembled someone I knew. Diva. Except he's so much worse. Diva did everything by impulse. He—he does every vile thing for a reason. That night when Adam was attacked at Sakurazaka street… that was him. The fight in Gokokuji Cemetary… he was there to get my blood. In Karachi, he tried to have Yuri kidnapped. While I was at the hotel, he slipped into my room. He killed our daughters." She swallows bile. "He's been circling us all this time. Just waiting to strike."
"Do you believe he is still in Okinawa?"
"He must be. Red Shield are searching for a paper trail, or aliases. But—" Her anger helixes with hatred. "I don't care about that. I need to find him. And kill him… for taking our daughters."
Haji's fury is displaced by concern. "Nathan claimed he wanted daughters off you."
"An empire." She recalls the visions conjured by Tórir's closeness. "He'll do anything to have it."
"He will not have you."
"I—"
Haji kneels beside her. Not like a knight swearing fealty, but a deeply protective man who carries inside him a world of softness—ready to harden from extreme pressures into a diamond, its edges sharp enough to kill.
"I have stood by while he hurt you before," he says. "I will not allow it again."
"Haji…"
"Please. Make me a promise."
Disquiet burns a dark hole inside her. "…A promise?"
Haji's eyes narrow. "If he baits you, promise you will not act recklessly."
"I can't do that."
"Saya—"
"I can't, Haji. If there he's out there right now—if he's a threat to the girls—to you or Kai—" Rage burns through her bones. She tamps the sparking emotion down and lets it smoke. Better to concentrate, deal with one thing at a time. "I need to know what he's planning. To stop it, before it blows out of control."
"Then stay in control."
"What?"
"Today, Lewis' contact will have the information we need. Tomorrow, we will have a plan. We will proceed from there. In stages, or in a counterstrike. For now, we must wait."
Saya bites her lip.
He's right. If trouble is brewing, she needs to stay focused—because no one else can say for sure when her erratic swings between vengeance and jitters stop being symptoms of a long-gone war, but impediments to stopping another one. She has to be a soldier, and she has to be smart.
"Haji…"
He kisses her, robbing the moment of its ratcheting tension. Robbing her of other things. Breath, and balance, and brainwaves, and… Oh. His hair falls close to her face. She threads her fingers into the dark drifts of it. The strands are always redolent with microscopic motes of rosin, but also something that reminds her of the Zoo, as if he carries traces of their childhood home with him wherever they go.
She could stay here, breathing him in, until sunset.
Then Haji pulls away, inhaling slowly, "I should keep watch."
"Y-Yeah."
Blushing, she looks away. Fusses with the neckline of her dress again—that blotch is definitely a hickey—a different heat unfurling through her, a hot red blossom of want.
She could have had this in the war. Could have—but refused to. The parenthesis of her thoughts always enclosed pleasure and wrongness together. Always telling her that there was something awful about the mere fact of wanting comfort. Because otherwise she was no different from Diva.
Strange, how the passage of time has erased those differences so completely—while delineating without words her truest self.
"Hai tai!"
In the midst of the blue slice of sea, the morning joggers, the low-flying pigeons, Yumi and Yuri emerge. As always one looks like she tumbled out of bed after a night of sexy shenanigans and straight into a gym hamper—baby-tee, shorty-shorts, messy ponytail. The other is the picture of poised elegance in a blue polka-dot vintage dress, one delicate palm across her big belly.
Kai is behind them, glowering as he hauls a colorful assortment of shopping bags. They look like any other family—a surly dad out with his cheerfully retail-obsessed daughters.
Except it is a façade. Saya knows the bags hold choice weaponry. They've come prepared.
Yumi greets her with her usual peppy pounce; Yuri with a perfumed air-kiss that lingers on the skin.
"The weather's awful today," Yuri says. "I hope you two didn't wait long."
It's not a pleasantry but a code. The coast is clear.
"Not long," Saya replies. "We were going to get ice cream."
Re: Nothing unusual here, either.
"Sounds good," says Yumi, with a feline stretch. "It's so fuggen' hot I could dump a milkshake over my head." Then, squinting, "Is that a hickey on your boob, Saya?"
No code there. Just Yumi being Yumi.
Kai clears his throat pointedly. "Our friend is near the Pink Dracula walk. Let's go."
Lewis preens over his plate of dessert—generous pink scoops of just-starting-to-melt ice cream topped over fluffy golden slices of French toast, all of it nestled within a glistening tumble of strawberries, swimming with red syrup, and lovingly dusted with powdered sugar.
The sight makes Kai queasy. His own coffee rests untasted.
"Can't beat R-Café's Berry Paradise." Lewis declares. "I always drop by for a bowl. Or ten."
Because the entrances and exits in this place would complicate an ambush, Kai thinks.
Beaming, Lewis shovels a spoonful into his mouth. Chews energetically and belches. "Mmmmm. The toast crunches so warm and sweet in your mouth. And the ice cream just oozes across your tastebuds. I could eat a hundred of these."
His sallow-faced colleague—who introduced himself as Chase, obviously a pseudonym—bends over the table, clutching his stomach. "I'll never forgive you for picking this spot, Sammy! I'm a Type 1 diabetic with a sweet-tooth, for chrissakes!"
"You should've kept an insulin pen at hand." Om nom nom. "I'm going to try the Mango Madness next."
"You goddamn sadist!"
"C'mon! Have a strawberry. Rich in antioxidants."
"It's dripping in syrup!"
"So it is." Lewis pops the morsel into his mouth. "Delicious."
Chase covers his eyes, like one-third of the Three Wise Monkeys.
Kai shakes his head. Lewis hasn't changed. As solid a guy as any Kai has ever known—but food remains his biggest weakness. Perched on the tiny stool at the café, he resembles an ice cream scoop himself, belly spilling over the waist of his pants like soft-serve over a cone.
He's pulled some strings with the Agency to arrange this meeting. His contact, Chase, hasn't disclosed his affiliations. But Kai has been in the business long enough to surmise he's a case-officer with the CIA. On a rotation from Langley to Okinawa—but making an off-the-record stop on the way.
Physically, he is a paper-pusher: fortyish and scrawny, his buttondown shirt already ringed with crystallizing deodorant stains. But his eyes are sharp as cocktail swords.
He and Lewis occupy one of the café's indoor booths—superficially catching up on old times. Kai is a few tables off, facing Lewis, the conversation fed to him by a hidden earpiece. In the corner, concealed from the entrance, are the three Queens and Haji. The Crow and the three Cassowaries, Lewis has dubbed them good-humoredly.
Kai can see them, a twelve-inch slice of peripheral vision. Saya, Yumi, and Yuri, chattering happily over their plates of spicy tacobene, the role of three-girls-out coming naturally. Haji, sitting across them, perfectly still, more technology than biology, an antenna attuned to their surroundings with all five Chiropteran senses. Like Kai, they all have commo earpieces, but only Yumi and Yuri need them.
Haji and Saya can read lips in five different languages.
"So tell me," Lewis says between mouthfuls of dessert. "This farm at Yabuchi. Hikage Okome. Who owns it?"
Chase hesitates. "You get that this is classified. Right?"
Lewis cheerfully pops another strawberry into his mouth.
"Okay. Okay." Chase sighs. "You already know about IBM-UAWA. How they were indicted for industrial espionage a coupla years ago?"
Lewis' laugh is a facetious roll. "It rings a few bells."
"Yeah, well. The company didn't disband because of one little lawsuit. Why would they? They did what any organization does—outsourced to foreign countries. One of their biggest branches was in Okinawa. Something called Project Epsilon. A biopharma operation focused on augmenting the Blue Pill." He grows distinctly ill-at-ease. "The Agency assigned me to monitor them. I was an unofficial plant."
"'Unofficial'?"
"You know. The 'No Gloves' syndrome. No fingerprints, no accusations." Chase sighs. "Superficially, I was assigned in case of fishy business. There were reports that Project Epsilon had nothing to do with the Blue Pill. It was a cover for biological terrorism. Eugenics. Brainwashing. Genetic augmentation. The project was designed to create super-soldiers. Based on prior records from Cinq Flèches Pharmaceuticals—and Delta67."
Kai stops mid-sip on his coffee. Lewis, on the other hand, doesn't miss a beat.
"Since you're still in Okinawa," he says amiably. "I guess the Agency didn't come flying in like the Wrath of God."
"Nope," Chase says. "Like I said. My role was 'unofficial.' The guys in Langley were happy to look the other way—since the US was originally one of Project Epsilon's financers. They assigned me after concerns that it was receiving competing grants. One from us. Another from the Chinese. If that was true… if some geopolitical event occurred that could be pinned back to us… then we needed to, er…"
Lewis' smile conveys innocence for its own sake. "Cover your assets."
"Bingo," says Chase. "That was the original plan. Until everything went sideways."
Lewis crooks a brow over his sunglasses.
"Project Epsilon was originally based out of a dry-foods factory in Yabuchi island. A convenient front, to keep the authorities out of our business." The pallor of Chase's face drains to eggshell-white. And like eggshell, his voice cracks. "Its head scientist was a kid named Carsten Andresen. A genius, but incredibly irresponsible. Plenty of his test subjects were brought in via illegal back-channels. They died horribly. One of 'em managed to escape the factory. But he died before he could make it off the island. For IBM-UAWA's board-of-directors, it was too much. They cut Project Epsilon loose. There were orders to raze the factory. On my end, the Agency recalled me back to the States."
Lewis smiles. None of Chase's information is new to him—or anyone else listening in. But this adds a whole new dimension to the intel.
"As I've noted," Lewis says, "you're still here."
"For good reason. Or bad, depending on your angle." Chase swallows. "Carsten didn't take the board's rejection kindly. A few weeks later, he contacted me. He'd found a bona fide Chiropteran. Better. A Chevalier."
This sets Kai's heart skipping like a bad record. From the corner of his eye, Haji and three Queens carry on talking. But Kai notices that Saya has begun shredding her napkin, an idle exercise of fingers that belies her escalating tension.
"When I first heard, I called bullshit," Chase says. "Then Carsten filmed a demonstration for IBM-UAWA. I watched him do it. I saw the Chevalier survive sarin gas and gunshots. I watched as he threatened to break out of his containment pod. There was no doubt about it. He was the real deal."
"What did the Agency say?" Lewis asks.
"To stay close. To give Carsten enough rope. They even gave the project a private sobriquet."
"Oh?"
"Operation Mistakeholder."
Lewis guffaws. "Lord, but that's better than the others. Operation Beaver Cage. Operation Frequent Wind. Operation Blowdown…"
"Quit it, Sammy." Chase sticks a pinkie into Lewis' sundae. He licks it like an addict relapsing on cocaine. "As it was, Carsten's demonstration intrigued the board. IBM-UAWA agreed to recontract him, and give him full reign over Project Epsilon."
"I thought he was just a kid?"
"He is."
"So how does he keep control over a Chevalier?"
Chase looks away. "The Chevalier is controlling him. That moron doesn't even realize it. He thinks he's achieved his childhood dream. Befriended Iron Man or the Black Panther."
"Hey!" Lewis aims with his spoon. "Keep T'challa out of this."
"This isn't funny, Sammy." Chase drags both hands through his hair. "Thanks to that Chevalier, Project Epsilon has fast-tracked through IBM-UAWA's ranks. Currently it's their ace in the hole. That laboratory full of Chiropterans in Taipei? That was them. They even tapped ex-players from D67 to facilitate their research."
"Ex-players?"
"Dr. Aston Collins. Van Argiano."
Dismay trickles coldly through Kai. His knuckles whiten on his coffee cup.
"The Agency tasked me with monitoring their correspondences," Chase says. "Collins and Argiano go way back. But what's horrifying—I mean, pants-shitting horrifying—is how tight they are with that Chevalier. They're totally under his spell."
Lewis whistles. "One helluva smooth operator."
"Or a fucking psychopath. He doesn't give two shits about Project Epsilon. The only reason he's cooperating with IBM-UAWA is for manpower and resources."
"Resources for what?"
Chase drops his voice. "You've heard there's three Chiropteran Queens in Okinawa. Yeah?"
Lewis' head-tilt conveys bland curiosity. "Really?"
"Really. This Chevalier—Tórir, he calls himself—agreed to nab them as test subjects." Chase leans forward. "Do you remember a terrorist attack in Pakistan, two years ago? At a hospital? All the international outlets were yapping about it."
"Rings another bell."
"Yeah, well. It wasn't a terrorist attack. It was an armed assault by IBM-UAWA. The three Queens were passing through the region. Tórir tried to abduct one of them. He failed—but managed to get a dose of her blood."
"Blood?" Lewis frowns. "For what?"
"For the next phase of Project Epsilon." Chase looks queasy. "Tórir has sold the board on something more dangerous than supersoldiers. He wants to create… an army of Chiropteran Queens."
This time Lewis' disbelief is entirely genuine. "You're serious?"
"I'm dead serious." Chase blows out an edgy breath. "The worst part is, it makes total sense. The only thing stronger than a Chevalier is a Queen. Once awoken from hibernation, they're the ideal weapons. They can slaughter hundreds, then fall right back to sleep. Tórir plans to do that with the two younger Queens."
"What about the third?"
"Otonashi." Beads of sweat squeeze from Chase's pores. "He wants her as breeding stock. Her daughters will be bartered by governments as pure-bloods. Used for espionage, warfare, assassinations. Tórir will split the payments with IBM-UAWA. Stay well-fed and well-fucked for the rest of his days, while his army of Bitch-Queens assfucks us all."
The words pass through Kai in livid pulses. The coffee sours in his mouth.
In the periphery, Haji and the girls' conversation has stalled: desultory, dead-ended. Saya's napkin lays in shreds across her lap.
Lewis' affability, half-innate, half-cultivated, doesn't falter. "What about that rice farm? Hikage Okome. What's happening there?"
Chase dabs his forehead with a napkin. "What do you think? After the factory was razed, IBM-UAWA needed a new base of operations. That farm is on a strip of land leased to a private company. A secret outpost. The location is good smokescreen for other purposes."
"Purposes such as?"
Chase's gaze lowers. "That farm is a petri dish. It's where Tórir and IBM-UAWA are—"
On Kai's earpiece, V's voice says, "—Trouble in your neck of the woods."
Kai sips his coffee, and murmurs, "Hn?"
"Two guys heading for R-Café. Two more prowling the boardwalk. Bulky jackets on them. Good for concealed carry."
A moment later, Sachi hums, "I see them, too. Give me the word and they're done."
Kai sets his cup down, "Not here. Too risky."
"Where then?"
"Someplace less crowded."
"Understood. Leave now, or you'll walk right into them."
Kai eases his M1911 Pistol from its bellyband and into his hand. Casually, he stands. His eyes meet Saya and Haji's. As always, the Chevalier is uncannily attuned to the danger. Saya, in contrast, is radioactive with it—pouring blood-red waves like a supernova.
"Lewis," she says.
The big man nods. "I heard."
Across him, Chase blanches. "What the hell's going on?"
Lewis flashes teeth in a semblance of smile. "Sorry, Jordan. Looks as if someone's been tailing you."
"Tailing me?!"
"Probably with the intent to kill you."
"Kill me?!"
Yumi sighs, "This'll go easier if you stop parroting every-fucking-thing he says."
Chase—Jordan—jerks to his feet. "Who—who are you people?"
"We're the three Bitch-Queens." Yuri primly smooths out her dress. "And if you follow our lead, you might stay alive."
The busy streets are bathed in sunlight. The seawaves hold a mineral dazzle.
Even with his sunglasses on, Kai squints in the glare. Behind him, Yumi and Yuri traipse faux-casually with their shopping bags. The party has split up: Saya, Haji, Lewis and Chase going east, while he heads west with the twins. They plan to circle the shopping district, then converge near the Hilton's parking lot in a classic pincer.
V and Sachi, playing discreet lookouts, alert them to the movements of the four hostiles.
"Guys," Kai says into his earpiece. "What's the visual?"
"Two took off after you," V says. "The other two are tailing Saya's group. I'm ghosting 'em."
"Them and not me!" Yumi mock-pouts. "I shoulda known you had a thing for my Auntie!"
"Sorry, baby," V sighs. "It's those runner's legs. She could squeeze a grapefruit between 'em."
There is a burst of static. Haji's voice floats in at its flattest. "—we can hear you."
V chuckles uncomfortably. "Meant it as a compliment, dude!"
Sachi intrudes, "I, umm, have a problem."
"Jeez, Sachi! You too?"
"Not that." Sachi's voice deepens the way it always does in crisis: a river of silty-dark water. "The two hostiles tailing Yuri'nem. They've about-faced."
Yuri frowns. "Where are they headed, Sachi?"
"East. After Saya's group."
"Shit," Kai says.
"They're operating in a grid," V realizes. "There could be others closing in."
Kai exhales, and says, "Saya. Haji. What do you wanna do? It's your call."
There is a silence. Then the softness of Saya's voice hardens into steel. "Sachi. Can you drop the men who've just started following us?"
"Can and will."
"Please do."
Through his earpiece, Kai hears the rat-tat of two shots. In the distance, gunfire echoes across the boardwalk. There are screams. Civilians start running. Kai and his group pick up the pace, matching the frantic flow of bodies.
"Done," says Sachi. "What next?"
"The others will use this emergency to either withdraw or attack," says Saya. "It's the latter I'm counting on."
The gunshots drill through the silence like ice cracking. Adrenaline spreads in a web through Saya, coldness sluicing into her blood.
Just like in Karachi, she has violated Red Shield's prime directive. Sanctioned the killing of humans.
Don't think about that.
Focus on the threat.
Her hand is wrapped around Haji's. His fingers tighten on hers: half-reassurance, half-warning.
"Here they come," he says, low.
Saya nods.
Their group is nearly at the Hilton's three-story parking lot. Away from the bustle of the shopping district, the streets are sedate, sickles of sunlight arcing through the sago palms. Saya and Haji walk ahead, hands clasped together. Lewis brings up the rearguard, a Colt cocked and half-concealed under his jacket sleeve. Between them, Jordan moves tensely, his eyes flitting across the periphery.
"Where are we going?" he hisses.
"Ssh," says Saya.
In a shadowed pocket of the lot, shapes converge. Four of them, if her senses prove correct. Two are crouched behind the grilled barrier of an adjacent construction site. Two more are hidden behind the wide concrete column that leads to the lot itself. They appear to be in urgent conversation. Maybe they've been alerted to the sniper attack on two of their teammates; maybe they've been warned on what kind of danger Saya, Haji and even Lewis represent by themselves.
Either way, their brief distraction is to Saya's benefit.
"Now," she says.
Lewis whips out his Colt, and grabs Jordan with the other hand. He dives with astonishing speed behind a parked minivan.
In the same blink, Saya and Haji move. Haji zooms left, for the two hostiles hidden near the construction site. Saya lunges right, a low-angled dropkick at the men behind the concrete column.
The two men, caught off-guard, bring their weapons up. One shouts, "What the fuck—?" a heartbeat before Saya's leg arcs towards him, foot colliding against his skull. The blow is so vicious it cracks the orbital bone, nearly knocking his eye out of its socket. The man howls and slumps to the pavement, clearing Saya's path to his partner.
The man is better prepared. He fires off two shots at close range. A bullet sizzles past Saya's ear. Another slices a gash across her bare arm. Moving laterally, Saya closes in. A sharp elbow-strike dislodges the man's grip on his gun. It clatters across the pavement. In the same motion, she stomps on his instep while lunging forward, blitzing the man with a straight-on jab to the chest.
Ribs crack, puncturing lungs. Choking on a froth of blood, he drops.
Whirling, Saya shouts, "Haji!"
Her Chevalier signals across the street. Bright blood speckles his pale features. At his feet, the two hostiles sprawl in a glistening puddle, their throats torn.
Saya glances toward the minivan. "Lewis!"
"Doin' fine!"
He waves from his hiding spot. The other hand stays wrapped around Jordan's elbow. The other man has a palm pressed to his mouth. A retching gasp tears out of him.
"Jesus," he groans. "This is—"
Saya cuts him off. "These four were lying in wait. There are still two others tailing us." She lifts a hand to her earpiece. "V. Sachi. Do you see them?"
"They've split in different directions," Sachi says. "One's ducked indoors, to avoid sniper fire."
"I've lost visual on the other," V says "He squirreled off near the harbor."
"Find him. Before he calls reinforceme—"
Gunfire strafes in blazing rounds across the pavement. The roar of engines fills the air. Two motorcycles—the three-wheeler models popular in Okinawa—zip down the streets. Their riders are clad in dark helmets and bodysuits. As they close in on Saya's group, they bring their pistols up to bear.
There is no time to orient herself. Saya dives out of the way before the first motorcycle plows into her.
Bullets sizzle helter-skelter. The concrete shatters in pockmarks around her body. She flings herself sideways until she comes up hard against a dumpster, springboarding off its sloping edge, leaping through the air as the shock drains out and the brilliant clarity of instinct kicks in, her body weightless before she collides feet-first with the rider on the closest motorcycle.
Her feet connect with his helmet—a low-pitched crack—then a chilling sensation of the hardness beneath the helmet giving way, the rider's skull dented by her momentum. The motorcycle angles sideways, sparks popping as carbon fiber kisses cement. Saya and the K.O'd rider go tumbling.
She rolls, straightens, then she is running, amped up on adrenaline. The second motorcycle cuts a wide arc across the street. Its rider zigzags back toward their group, spraying bullets that buzz like wasps trapped in tinfoil.
Lewis and Jorden crouch behind the minivan. Its surface erupts in dents, glass spraying inward. Lewis hunkers low, waits for a gap between the gunfire, then makes his own shot. It hits center mass. The rider lurches, the motorcycle careening crazily. Lewis aims, then hits again. A headshot, blood splattering the inside of rider's helmet visor.
The motorcycle crashes headlong into a wall. The rider slumps sideways, hitting the pavement. His gun clatters away.
In Saya's earpiece, Kai shouts, "Saya! Haji! We're on our way to you!"
Sachi says, "My target's back outdoors. For the last time."
A beat later, the report of Sachi's bullet goes off. In the distance, screams ring across the boardwalk. It won't be long before the place devolves into a stampede. The arrival of police is imminent.
Then V says, "Fuck!"
The curse is like a hook in Saya's ribs. "What is it?"
"My target. He's thirty feet across from you. Loading a weapon—FUCK!"
A bullet chips the concrete five inches from Saya's foot, spraying shards everywhere. She jerks. Then Haji swoops across the distance, snatching her up so fast that the speed spurts tears from her eyes, a perceptible vapor trail glittering in her wake. Barely a nanosecond later, a barrage of gunfire shreds the spot where she stood.
She and Haji duck for cover beneath the awning of a closeby building. Their eyes scan the street in tandem, searching for the shooter.
There.
A man hidden behind a cluster of sago palms. The target V briefly lost sight of. He must have slipped in during the pandemonium with the motorcycles.
As Saya watches, he brings his revolver around. A bullet spins from its cylinder in the same instant Haji tosses one of his daggers. The two objects fly parallel, heading in opposite directions. The bullet sails past Saya and Haji's heads. But the dagger sinks, with brutal accuracy, into the gunman's throat.
The pressure of the impact sprays blood everywhere. The man jerks, dropping his gun. Both hands scrabble for his throat. Blood gushes rhythmically from the wound. Wheezing, he crumples.
Across the street, Lewis shouts, "Shit!"
Saya and Haji spin.
It takes Saya a moment to absorb what she is seeing: Lewis on his knees, splattered with blood. Oh God—was he hit?
No.
Jordan is slumped against the bullet-scarred minivan. His hands are clutched to his chest. Saya glimpses the blood spewing from the wound. It has already soaked through his shirt, spreading across the streetside. His eyes are heavy-lidded, dazed.
"Jordan!" Lewis shouts. "Jordan!"
Saya rushes over. Haji stays back, on guard for threats.
On her earpiece, Kai says, "Saya? Lewis? What's happened?"
Lewis doesn't answer. He is trying to stanch Jordan's wound.
"You'll be fine, man," he says. "Fine like cherry wine."
Jordan grimaces. "C'mon, Sammy. You used to… lie better'n that."
Saya swallows. Up close, Jordan's skin is bone-white. The rich hot soup of his blood spreads in dark sheets across the pavement.
"Jordan! Hold on!" Lewis says. "I'm calling an ambulance!"
"'S too late…" Jordan slurs. "…'M sorry."
"Sorry?"
"I knew… those guys were coming. It was a… set up."
"A set up?" Saya asks. "By who? IBM-UAWA?"
Jordan shakes his head. "Tórir."
"What?"
Jordan's smile sits limply on his face. "He knew… I was a spy. He threatened me. Threatened… my family."
"But why go to all this trouble?" Lewis demands. "Why call us out here?"
"It was… a distraction." Jordan's eyes cloud over. "Tórir's… gone after the poison."
Shock and understanding merge inside Saya, an inky darkening into horror.
"He knows about the poison?"
Jordan nods. "He intercepted… Red Shield's messages. I'm sorry… I…"
Then his eyes slip shut, and the last breath jitters out of him. He goes still.
"Shit," Lewis says. "Shit."
In the distance, sirens echo and re-echo.
"We need to go," Haji says.
His calm voice is a rotation of nightmare into reality. Except the nightmare remains at the edges of Saya's mind, gathering dimension, massing into unadulterated horror.
Tórir's after the poison.
A slow-motion detonation into disaster.
2 Chome-1-9
Naha 901-0154
Okinawa Prefecture
Japan
The laboratory door clicks open and Julia jerks awake.
Her first thought is, drat, asleep on the job. She'd drowsed off on her desk at the Naha outpost. The vial—retrieved from the serpent's belly—is in the test-tube rack. It was previously in containment at a secured base. It took the highest clearance to access it. Together, Julia and Ezra plan to conduct a full chemical composition analysis.
In the meantime, Julia is intrigued by the photographs of the victim, Akamine Haru. His akin is dappled with red cysts. Each one oozing a pus of toxins.
Aconite.
Wolfsbane.
A formidable substance. Its effects mimic cyanide. Ingestion causes the internal organs to seize, then slows down the breathing. Vomiting and diarrhea are common. So is muscular dysfunction. But she's never seen aconite leave such marks. Red as flayed meat, with hard-edged shards that resemble crystallization.
It's obviously a reaction unique to Chiropterans. The wolfsbane appears to be acting as a DNA reactive agent, crosslinking DNA strands and leading to cell death.
But can it be stopped? Or reversed?
She'd dozed off performing a toxicological panel on a sample of Akamine's blood. Her dreams were a messy Rorschach blot—the type she always got when fixated on a new project, unable to tear herself away even for meals or mothering. She's in Sherlock mode again, David used to joke to the children in their schooldays. Better make do with my pancakes and tuna sandwiches.
A tuna sandwich would be nice, Julia thinks, sitting up and straightening her glasses.
She swivels in her chair—and freezes at the gun pointed at her.
"Step back," the heavyset man says. "Hands in the air."
Julia obeys, the disorientation of sleep burned out by adrenaline. "Who are you?"
"Shut up."
The armed man edges deeper into the lab. One hand remains on his weapon. The other goes to the microphone he's wearing. "All clear. Let him in."
Him?
Julia knows better than to ask. Her mouth stays shut. But her mind works on double-time, cataloging the gunman, a snapshot already burnt into her hippocampus of height, build, accent, affiliations. He appears to be American, of military background, with a .45 semi-automatic handgun. His clothes and gear look expensive.
At the door, a second gunman arrives. Similar in appearance to the first. He does a quick sweep of the laboratory. At this hour, most of the staff are on their lunch breaks. Ezra isn't due until later today.
Julia had anticipated the solitude. Even welcomed it: a chance to analyze the toxin without interruption, a total concentration of mind and body that bordered on Zen-like.
Never zone out in an unsecured location, David always warns her.
"If your hands aren't up in the next second," the gunman says, "I'm putting you to sleep for good."
Julia realizes her left hand is sliding along the table, to the alarm button beneath the paneling. She exhales, then complies, raising her arms into a more innocent position. She'll have to find another way to alert Red Shield of the intruders at the outpost.
Maybe if there's a distraction…
"Good afternoon, dear Julia."
She swivels.
An old man steps out through the door, a revolver held lazily in his hand.
He appears to be about eighty, with a thinning shock of white hair. Slate-gray eyes and a rigid posture give him the austere appearance of a polar ice-cap. But it's his expression that Julia recognizes. The inverted eyebrows and flared nostrils that telegraph a barely-concealed disgust. Like a man who has sniffed something foul and cannot determine the source of the odor.
Shock floods Julia's system. "Dr. Collins?"
Her ex-mentor stares impassively at her. "Time has certainly been kind to you, Julia. You're as lovely as ever."
He steps closer; Julia jerks back. She hasn't laid eyes on him since he'd tried to kill her, more than thirty years ago. When David had leapt in and saved her, long before their life together, or their three children, were even an inkling. The sight of him is intensely physical: a full-body panic that she tries and fails to minimize.
In that instant, all her years of training desert her. She is twenty-seven again, a reluctant replacement for Collins on Cinq Flèches' pedestal, his rage toward her bottomless, unhinged, horrifying.
For months afterward, she'd had dreams of that night. Dreams in which David didn't make his nick-of-time rescue, and Collins shot her, blood geysering from her chest. Or where David was shot, but didn't survive, his body an eerie sprawl, his skin sickly pale as if drained by a swarm of vampires. Worst were the dreams where she shot David, regret splattering her skin like the stickiness of his blood.
A therapist she'd seen during her first pregnancy suggested these dreams were rooted in her betrayal of Red Shield, and her guilt afterwards. She'd accepted that. She'd moved past it.
Now, Collins levels the gun barrel at her skull. His expression—caught somewhere between flat and manic—replicates her worst nightmares.
"What—" she swallows, "—what do you want?"
She doesn't know why she asked. It is chillingly obvious. He'd vanished into the woodwork after the Cinq Flèches debacle. But that didn't mean he was in stasis. Someone else would surely exploit his raw ambition. Someone who didn't care about the permeable—and dangerous—line between genius and insanity.
Realization springs through Julia. "You're working for IBM-UAWA!"
Collins nods. "They've taken very good care of me."
"By letting you publish your research?"
"Julia." His expression, pedantically chiding, is a relapse to their simpler times in university. "The accolades of the ivory tower stopped mattering to me years ago."
"Even the Nobel Prize?"
His brows knit together in disdain. "I noticed you've not sought it out yourself."
"I'm a Shield. Our research is not for personal glory."
"Or, as I'm to understand, the benefit of humanity." He shakes his head. Julia watches his face change: that trick of shadow that transforms him from a dry-eyed academic into an aberrant species of sociopath. "Perhaps we're alike in that. My work isn't for humanity's benefit either."
"What then?"
Collins' smile makes her heart stutter sickly. "Oh, Julia. I'm astonished you'd even ask. Given that you've spent your entire life in service to them." He makes a noise like a laugh, except it doesn't leave his throat. "I remember you scolded me once. You said that unlike myself, the machinations of Chiropterans were pure. My dear, you were prescient as ever."
"What do you mean?"
Collins' lips purse in a playful tsk. "Haven't you noticed? Everything's gone to hell in a handbasket. Educational programs underfunded. Intellectualism at a standstill. Wars waged as privatized pissing contests. All testament to humanity's colossal idiocy. The purity of scientific endeavor has no place on such a stage. It's pearls before swine."
Julia's pulse beats rapidly in her throat. "What then? You're working to benefit Chiropterans now?"
"A Chiropteran. One with a vision for the future. Where humanity is kept in line. Where the brilliant and blessed amongst us are chosen to exercise their talent to the fullest. No legal hangups. No moral dilemmas. Only… perfection. Endless and eternal." A smile slides dreamily across his face. "It's somewhat simpatico to my tastes."
"Your tastes?" Julia shakes her head. "My God. Is that how low you've sunk? To be bribed by offers of immortality?"
"More than that. Purpose." His eyes narrow. "I joined IBM-UAWA to unlock the secrets of the Chiropteran genome. Not for what it might accomplish. I wanted to learn about it for itself. You must know how that feels, Julia. The awe of discovering something beyond yourself. In knowing that even if you had eternity, you couldn't unravel its true nature."
Julia steels her jaw. "It never tempted me to abandon my humanity."
"Unfortunate," Collins sighs. "For you. Chiropterans are the closest there is to Intelligent Design. If they choose to, they can take the world by siege. They can change its face completely."
A burst of fury explodes in Julia's chest. "You make them sound like a virus. But I've known Chiropterans far longer that you have. They're individuals, just like us. Their only purview is surviving."
"Oh please." Collins' scorn is unconcealed. "You mean Saya and her nieces? Brainwashed failures. All of them. I speak of a true Chiropteran. One who recognizes his full potential, and has no qualms about using it. To crush fickle humanity and unstable Queens alike."
"You're insane," Julia pronounces, a cold silence settling into her bones.
Collins smiles. "You were always too emotive. Your prerogative as a female, alas. Truthfully: I pity you. This is too massive for even your comprehension."
"But not yours?"
"Remember the Greek Scholia, my dear. Prometheus did not flinch from stealing fire."
Julia shakes her head. "That's where you and I differ, Dr. Collins. I don't see you as a modern-day Prometheus. In fact, the more I got to know you, the more you reminded me of Shelley's Frankenstein. A coward whose lust for knowledge brought horror upon the world."
The skin around Collins' eyes tightens. But his smile stays in place. "All change horrifies at the outset. It's why we cry after birth."
"This isn't birth. This is a guarantor of disaster."
"Oh ye of little faith." Collins extends his gun. "I'm here to collect a vial, Julia."
"Vial?"
"Please don't be coy. IBM-UAWA intercepted Red Shield's correspondence. You're harboring a poison that could potentially wipe out Chiropterans. My employer cannot allow that."
"I don't know what you—"
Collins' face twitches with suppressed anger. He snaps his fingers at the second gunman. The man nods, then darts out of the lab. Moments later, he returns, dragging in a young man. There is blood across his skull, drying to a shiny glaze; his labcoat is splattered with it. Both hands are cuffed behind his back; one shoulder is wrenched at odd angle, suggesting a dislocation.
Julia's body goes perfectly still, the way a clock ceases ticking.
"Ezra…"
"Mom." Her son's exhales bubble with blood. A broken nose, she realizes. "I'm sorry. I came in—early."
"No doubt to examine that special vial," Collins says. "They're so enthusiastic at that age. I remember you were the same. Or perhaps it's David he takes after?"
The shock of seeing her son in proximity to danger has whited out Julia's mind. It's an effort to bring her senses back to a semblance of calm.
"Dr. Collins," she says. "Please. Let him go."
"If you hand the toxin over."
"I told you. I don't know anything about—"
"Spare me." Collins turns to Ezra. "Your son is dedicated to his work. But terrible at protecting his data. We've intercepted many of his correspondences with Saya over the months. About her pregnancy. About the movements of your group in Paris. About your mission in Taipei. About the current meet-up at Chatan." He feigns a pitying smile. "Poor boy's got a bit of a crush. Always checking to make sure Otonashi-san is doing fine."
Ezra's face beneath the blood is twisted with shame. "I'm sorry, Mom. I—"
"Tch," Collins cuts in. "It's your own fault. Every organization is brought down by its weakest link. I'm doing Red Shield a favor by eliminating it."
Julia's terror inverts into a vibrating rage. "If you hurt my son—"
"Hurt. Please." Collin's gaze flattens to iron-ore. "I'll kill him."
Julia starts forward. "Don't you dare—"
Collins glances at the gunman. "Go ahead."
The gunman steps forward, his demeanor casual. He takes aim and fires. The .45 is silenced; the bullet erupts in a puff.
Blood spurts from Ezra's thigh. He screams.
"Ezra!"
Julia rushes toward her son. The second gunman snatches a fistful of her hair, yanking her back.
Ezra sags in his captor's grasp. His skin is terrifyingly pale; his pantleg is sodden with blood. More blood seeps across the floor, a widening puddle.
"Please, Julia," Collins says, almost bored. "That was a warning shot. The next one won't be."
"Mom." Ezra's voice is a reedy croak. "Don't—do it. Please."
Julia's heart stalls. Every iota of instinct screams to protect her son. If she hands the vial over, there is no guarantee they'll be spared. David has always warned her that in hostage situations, everyone is unofficially slated for death. Never trust your own murderers.
Yet the words exit her mouth in a brittle rasp.
"The table."
Collins raises a brow.
"It's on the table." Julia swallows. "In the test-tube rack."
"Mom, no!"
Collins approaches the table. Spotting the vial, he plucks it out matter-of-factly. "Is this it?"
Julia nods.
"Thank you, my dear. As always, you're most helpful."
Collins stows the vial away, then nods at the gunman holding Ezra. "Go ahead."
The gunman shoves Ezra to the floor. He sprawls there, waxen and bloodsplattered, his breaths slurring past his lips. The gunman extends his .45.
Julia's eyes widen. "No—"
The bullet shears through Ezra's coat and into the mass of his chest. Ezra jerks. Julia feels the impact as if through her own body.
Screaming, she wrenches out of her captor's hold. He hauls her back and pistol-whips her so hard that everything blinks out. Darkness pours into Julia's skull, a darkness broken by a flash of color as she hits the linoleum tiles, the world flickering, then fading out.
When she can see again, Collins and the gunmen are gone. There is a seeping gash on Julia's head, a hot buzz in her skull.
"Ezra!"
One hand clapped over her head-wound, blood trickling through her trembling fingers, she crawls towards Ezra.
Her son is motionless. But a thin river of pulse flows beneath her searching fingertips.
Julia scrambles for the phone.
Expect next chapter to be a somber (smutty) breather before the plot careens into overdrive in the final few chapters. Because this fic is already packed to the gills with porn, so why not deliver one last hurrah? :)
Hope you guys enjoyed! Review, prettiest of please!