Of all the places Sonya Blade thought she might find Kano, the one place that she hadn't considered was ESPN. But there he was, with a publicity headshot and everything, being described as a competitor in the "Mortal Kombat" competition. She couldn't believe that he was being held up as an international sports star, by an idiot network that had apparently not even performed the most cursory background check.
Within minutes, she was on the phone to her old friend Jackson Briggs. They'd been hunting Kano together until a couple of weeks earlier when he'd been pulled onto a mysterious project. That had happened so abruptly that she hadn't even been given a new contact for the Kano hunt, so she hoped he could at least point her the right way.
"Jax! It's Sonya. Guess who I just saw on ESPN."
"ESPN?"
"Yeah. ESPN. Kano. I just saw Kano on ESPN. He's fighting in this Mortal Kombat thing they're doing. Apparently he's decided to surface, not to run drugs or kill more of our friends, but to fight in a karate contest. I know you're off the case, but we need to find out where this tournament is being held and get him before he disappears again."
"Thank you for the information, Lieutenant. I'll pass it along to the appropriate people."
"What!? We've been chasing him for years! He's killed our friends! We have to go to where this tournament is and capture him! And you're just going to pass that along to the appropriate people?"
"For now, yes. The information has been noted. Thank you, Lieutenant." And with that, Jax hung up the phone.
Sonya stared at the handset in disbelief. Her friend, a man who had also lost friends to Kano, blowing off news of Kano's reappearance? Something wasn't right.
Luckily for her, she still had friends in the Special Forces, many of whom owed her a favor. Within a day, she'd gotten lots of information, but no answers:
Jax had been pulled off of the Kano hunt suddenly and placed on a top-secret project, though events had quickly revealed that project to be related to "Mortal Kombat".
The actor Johnny Cage was involved.
Jax and Cage were getting ready to fly to Singapore.
Cage was competing in "Mortal Kombat", and Jax was expected to receive a formal invitation soon.
Everybody seemed to think that Mortal Kombat was real, that the fate of Earth really did depend on a karate tournament.
Not being a sports fan, Sonya had studiously ignored the recent hype around the ESPN tournament. She was beginning to realize that this was a mistake. She didn't know what was going on, but it was time to find out. By lucky coincidence, she had a few weeks' leave coming to her, and was able to persuade her commanding officer to let her move it up a few days. Within two days of seeing Kano on TV, she was on an airplane, bound for Singapore. If she had to hunt Jax down to find Kano, she'd do just that.