Assam pushed the door open to find a girl preening through the secret documents she'd worked so hard to keep hidden. Alarm bells were going off inside her head the second she realized that this girl wasn't Ruki, or in fact anyone who was in the GI6 organization. In fact, she didn't recognize this person at all, not even in passing, and her memory was excellent. But she needed to be sure that this person wasn't just an extremely nosy reporter from the school newspaper trying to get a hot scoop on the Sensha-Do team plans.
"Hey, what's your name? I don't remember seeing you around here…." Assam began, trying to make herself sound as casual as possible, which was frankly ridiculous considering the circumstances.
The girl took the bait and visibly relaxed in front of her eyes. Assam noticed her shoulders loosen and her hands release their vise-like grip on the table's edge. Gotcha. Maybe the girl thought that Assam wasn't mad at her at all, if she was a Gloriana student. But in reality Assam knew already that this girl wasn't a Gloriana student at all, though she was wearing a tantalizingly good facsimile of an authentic school uniform. But up this close and personal, Assam's trained eyes saw the weak points in the stranger's facade.. The pleats of the skirt were slightly off, the jacket missing a button. The Gloriana emblem on the lapel was the real giveaway, its crudeness akin to someone drawing the emblem from memory during a bad hangover. It was a serviceable fake, which would fool most who took a cursory glance, maybe even a student, though Assam doubted that much.
Now it was time to turn up the heat. All is fair in love and war. Assam moved away from the girl and the secret documents to the window, peering outside while keeping an eye on the imposter in the reflection. As she did so, she slowly untucked her shirt from her skirt.
"So, what's your name? I don't remember seeing you around here….at all…."
The imposter stammered and stuttered at first before replying, "Uhh...I'm….Lotus, from the Gloriana Newspaper! I was trying to get some information about the Sensha-Do team for our readers!"
Assam twirled around, closing the distance between the two in a flash.
"Lotus….I like that name….and I like the way that you look." Internally, Assam was cringing so hard she nearly threw her proverbial back out, but the trick worked. The girl immediately flushed as red as a beet and started squirming under her steely gaze. Assam slowly raised her arms above her head, exposing her midriff and placing more emphasis on her cleavage. She felt dirty; she wasn't the type of girl to do this, but sometimes you had to do what you had to do.
"Lotus" reacted immediately to this. She froze, not knowing where to look. The steely gaze from those purple eyes….the two perky mounds that were oh-so-perky underneath that shirt….the supple softness of that tummy. Her brain screamed for her to move, but she was rooted to the spot. Until she felt a familiar sensation on her head….
Assam gaped as suddenly, Lotus's head seemed to explode directly in front of her. Throwing herself onto the floor, Assam thought it was a terrorist bomb after all before she realized she was still in one piece. Slowly gathering herself up, she realized with a shock who it really was. That distinctive fluffy head was a dead giveaway, as was the camera she was scooping up from the table.
"Akiyama! Get back here!" Assam belted out as she saw Yukari bolt out the door. She followed suit, but not before hitting the alarm on the counter. Sirens blared immediately as she slammed the door to the stairs open and took them down two at a time.
Yukari had been lucky and the elevator was still on the same floor as when she used it last, giving her a few extra seconds over Assam. The lobby was out of the question, though. The guard would definitely be awake due to all the noise from the alarms, and if she got caught it would be the end. The elevator dinged at the second floor and the doors opened. A window was right there, open. The refreshing night breeze wafted inside and Yukari could practically smell the freedom. Time was of the essence, however. Soon the beefeaters would be storming the building and she would be found. Slowly, she edged her way out of the window and balanced on the small lip underneath it, edging her way across the rim to a nearby tree. Hopping from the rim to the tree, the bark grazing her fingers, she made it down onto the ground in a plat of bushes. At the front of the building, she could hear a large vehicle screech to a halt and doors opening and slamming. After the sounds lessened, she peeked out through the shrubbery and saw the big beefeater vehicle at the front of the GI6 headquarters building, empty and the doors hanging open.
Slowly, she made her way out of the bushes and blended in with the crowd as best she could, steadily following the throngs of people towards her final destination: the cargo hold where she originally entered. There she would simply swim back to the shore; the Ark Royal was but a few hundred meters off the shore, after all.
"Get me traffic cams of the area around GI6. Lock down the whole top deck. Akiyama must be found. Tell the engine room to start up; we're leaving now. If she can't get off the ship, we can find her somewhere on board." Earl Gray commanded in the Tea Garden Operations Center. Beefeaters rushed around frantically in and out of every room.
Down below decks, the massive engines of the Ark Royal fired up, slowly starting the inexorable rotation of the two colossal propellers.
Up top, a helicopter rose above the throngs of people cheering and waving at the city of Yokohama, as the Ark Royal was finally on its way to Hawaii for the first match. A voice boomed out from a megaphone amid the thumping of the rotors.
"Everyone must report to their dorms or residences immediately. This is not a drill. All non-essential personnel must report to their dorms or residences immediately."
A spotlight lanced out from the Gloriana helicopter, its beam of piercingly white light scything through the blackness of the night sky, scanning for its target. Every camera in the area was scanning as well, searching for Yukari Akiyama.
Yukari had made her way underneath the topmost deck of the Ark Royal by this point however, having heard the helicopter taking off and darting from cover to cover to avoid the electronic gaze of the cameras. Now belowdecks however, there were limited places to hide from human eyes, and almost nowhere to hide from the electronic eyes. As she made her way through each deck, the sounds from the top deck slowly grew quieter, until at the last student-accessible deck they ceased entirely. By now, almost everyone had retreated into their dorms or residences, the only ones left being stragglers and the beefeaters. Taking that into account with the stronger vibrations coming up from the engine room as well as the fact that Yukari was well belowdecks by now, it wasn't that surprising that the noise had ceased.
Presently, she reached the emergency staircase door as the only one left in the hallway. She looked up and down the length of the corridor. Nobody. So she slipped the door open and closed it behind her as softly as possible, as a secret electronic eye stared.
Yukari gripped the camera, her precious evidence of Gloriana's weapons stored on it before ripping a life jacket off the vestibule wall. Putting it on, she opened the trapdoor and began the slow climb down to the loading dock door.
The cold metal rungs made her hands ache, and the slowly moving ship plus the stiff sea breeze ruffled her hair slightly. Sure, they knew she was somewhere, but she hadn't been caught, at least not yet. If she could pull this off, she would have pulled off the greatest spy job in the history of Japanese Sensha-Do. The climb was going well, much easier going down than up in terms of strength, but the visibility was now a problem due to the lack of light. The bulky life jacket didn't help either, but despite this she had made it down to the loading dock door.
Light was coming through the window of the smaller door built into the massive rolling steel one. When she'd made the climb up, the light had been off. Slowly, she peeked a glance through the window to see the angry face of a beefeater glaring back at her. Yukari yelped, her foot slipping off the slick steel of the narrow lip outside the loading dock. She heard shouts echo from inside, as well as the motors of the loading gate activate to slide the huge door open before she fell into the cold waters of Negishi Bay. She had planned to put the camera into a plastic bag before making the climb, but having been pressed for time she didn't. Now the camera fell into the water too, ruined beyond repair and the photographic and video evidence destroyed along with it. She groaned, sucking in a mouthful of salt water which she coughed up, as the life vest carried her back towards the shore as the open door of the loading dock slowly rolled closed again.
It was going to be a long night for Yukari, she resigned herself to slowly paddling back to shore as the huge bulk of the Ark Royal moved out of Negishi Bay towards the open waters of the North Pacific Ocean.
Up on the top deck, a silver Aston Martin drove feverishly through the deserted streets. Assam's eyes were wild, her hair frizzy, her grip on the leather wheel tight. She kept her foot on the accelerator pedal, racing through the town. Downshifting and blasting through the open gates into the Tea Garden, she slammed on the brakes, coming to an abrupt stop in front of the Tea Garden. Cutting the engine, she removed herself from the car and made her way inside.
Earl Gray and Darjeeling were sitting at the table, sipping cups of tea undoubtedly prepared by Pekoe, who was standing in the corner, perhaps trying not to be seen. Ruki sat at the table as well, her head hung low. An empty chair and a waiting teacup were placed for Assam and she sat down. She stirred the tea, watching a thin curl of steam rising up from the surface.
"How bad is it?" Earl Gray asked, her voice tight and clipped.
"She fell overboard off the loading dock. She survived, thank god. Dealing with a spy is much easier than dealing with a death."
"The camera?"
"Fell into the water. It's destroyed." Assam responded, taking a sip of the tea. It was fantastic as always, Pekoe's touch was impeccable.
Earl Gray scoffed, but then Darjeeling spoke up. "Why are we trying to keep our tanks secret? We're on our way to Hawaii. The matches are televised. The whole world will find out our lineup in, what, a week anyway. We could have avoided all this hullabaloo and let her leave in a less dangerous way."
Earl Gray stood up violently, tea sloshing out of the cups on the table.
"Darjeeling! I tried to keep this secret for as long as we can because Yukari is friends with the little Nishizumi. She could tell her sister about our new tanks, and then they could find a way to counter us and defeat us. In order to keep Gloriana relevant, we must be the spearhead of a new age of Sensha-Do, show the world what the sport can be instead of year after year of boring Nishizumi style." She turned and abruptly left the room.
"Don't worry, Darjeeling." Pekoe soothed.
"She's right. Remember when Miho was against Kuro in the Sensha-Do finals? She was visited by everyone. You, Kay, Katyusha, everyone. Any one of us could have spilled plans or warned Miho and Oarai that Kuro could have been fielding the Maus that day. But none of us did. Miho used her skill and tactics to take out the Maus regardless of our ability or decisions to help. She plays fair, and even if Yukari does tell her, Miho won't spread the news. We shouldn't worry about Miho spreading rumors." Assam stirred her tea.
Earl Gray stood at the railing at the very stern of the Ark Royal staring back at Japan, her mind cloudy with thoughts and worries until she blinked away tears from the salty air to see that the Japanese coastline was gone. Whatever happened had happened. And their next real test would be the first match on the island of Oahu.