Chapter 9: A Benevolent Society
(AN: A big thank you to Siatru for beta reading this chapter, and for the input of the folks on the Tanya Writers Discord.)
Three days after my trip outside of Shinjuku, I was back in the sub-basement with the rest of the Kozuki cell. I'd taken the opportunity to hand out some of the bottles of multi-vitamins to my terrorist comrades as they'd entered, thrusting a bottle into the hands of each man or woman who entered and encouraging them to take at least one daily to offset the lack of key nutrients in the usual Shinjuku grub. They accepted the pill bottles with various degrees of confusion, except for Ohgi who just smiled tolerantly as I forced a large 500 count bottle into his hands and promised to share them with Mrs. Maki and her children down the hall.
That small exercise in benevolent care and building social cohesion complete, I turned towards the business of the day: Organizing a much larger example of benevolent care and building social cohesion between our small band and the greater Shinjuku population.
"At the moment, our people have nothing." I'd considered standing on top of a crate or something while conducting this meeting, but I decided it would indicate arrogance, or worse, insecurity. Instead, I sat on one of the couches, between Tamaki and Naoto. "That might make them seem more dangerous on first appearance, but it's a double edged sword." Ohgi, seated across the battered coffee table from me, tilted his head, begging the question, and I obliged. "If they have nothing, it means they are hopeless, and just lashing out at the world around them. As soon as their anger is spent, they'll lapse back into inert despondency – useless for any sort of prolonged effort, like removing the Britannians from our glorious land." A few tentative nods at that, but no indications of any buy-in quite yet. "On the other hand, if we give our people something to fight for, some indication that things are getting better..."
"They'll have something to defend, to protect. To fight for." Surprisingly, it was Nagata that finished my thought. He was a quiet man, and by far the one I'd had the least interaction with up to this point. It wasn't surprising that the only one at the table with a child would be the first to understand where I was going, thought.
"Exactly. And that should be where we make our first move." I reached down into my old, battered schoolbag, perched on my lap, and pulled out six half-used notebooks I'd managed to scavenge in the tenement over the last few days. That bag had been with me for years, longer than any other belonging to my name – my mother had bought it for me in my second year of elementary school, when I was five. I'd carried books in it for less than a year, then stuffed it with clothes and valuables when we'd been evicted from our home after the Conquest, and I'd crammed my clothes and scarce toiletries into it again when I'd left our apartment after my mother's death.
"The hell are those for, Tanya?" I jerked out of my brief reverie as Tamaki jostled me, knocking my bag onto the floor. I stooped down, thankful for the excuse to hide my embarrassed flush. This isn't the time to reminisce! I scolded myself as I collected the precious handful of pens that had cascaded out of the schoolbag. You're in a pitch meeting, even if it is with friends! Focus!
Friends?
That wasn't right, surely. They were colleagues, useful tools to get me as far from Shinjuku as possible. But that was the word my internal monologue had chosen.
I straightened up, pens in hand, and thrust all the nonsense aside. I had a pitch to salvage from my unprofessional behavior.
"Ahem. As I was saying, giving our people a stake in the future should be our first broad move towards rebuilding our nation." I started pushing a notebook and pen towards each of the others present as I continued. "In order to connect with the local population, which will hopefully increase our reputation and get our name out as a force for good in Shinjuku, we first need to find out what they need." Handing the last notebook and pen to Naoto, I straightened back up, and started ticking possible topics off on my fingers. "Do they need holes patched in their walls or windows before it starts to get really cold? Do they need leaky pipes patched so their homes aren't always wet? Do they need specific medicines or prescriptions? Extra food? A new blanket or jacket?"
I put my hand down and looked around at the rest of the cell. "The best way to prove that we aren't another gang, that we're here for the people, is to address their needs in a concrete and immediate way. Let them know that they'll get something out of supporting us, and we're even willing to go out of our way to help them out first." This wasn't a new tactic by any means. In my own first life, the yakuza had done much the same, acting as 'benevolent associations' and the like to solve problems for whoever was willing to make a deal. In this world, however, the gangs in Shinjuku had long since dropped such civilized pretensions, instead revealing their own base nature by sucking up to the Britannians and brutalizing their fellow Japanese. I was just using their old tactics against the damned kapos.
"All of us are going to spend the next few days talking to people." I felt Naoto stir slightly, but pressed on. Hopefully he wouldn't be too offended by the liberties I was taking, but he had told me I could makes plans as I'd wished. Really, this was all on him – he was our leader after all. He'd just delegated authority to me. "Try to find people you don't ordinarily talk to, and ask them what they need. If they say they need something reasonable, tell them we'll get it for them. If they need help on a project, let them know we're willing to pitch in. If they've got a problem, tell them to come talk to me, and I'll see what we can do to help them out." I got a few more nods, and relaxed slightly. Nobody was pushing back, and it seemed like everybody understood the virtue of gathering intelligence. "Talk to people who have some kind of authority too – heads of families, landlords, so on and so forth. People other people respect. Tell them that we'll have food and clothes to distribute soon, and tell them to come to us if they need anything."
As the meeting started to break up, people coming to their feet and finding their coats, I added one last point to my list of instructions. "While you're out there asking questions about what people need, or what they want... Keep your ears open. If you find people who are angry, and who are ready to do something about it, let me know. We're going to need some help to see the Rising Sun again."
Our expansion into the public sphere required a new location, since a secret base was only useful when it remained secret. Fortunately, Tamaki and I were able to locate a small three-story building roughly equidistant between the shattered tenement above our hideout and Ohgi and Naoto's apartment building. The structure had once been a small office building owned by an insurance company, judging by the remaining signage, but was now the home of just under one hundred souls. These unfortunates lived in the former open-plan office spaces, which been subdivided with crude walls of plywood and sheeting into crude apartments. While these "apartments" were more spacious than the typical tenement apartments in Shinjuku, the lack of any bathroom facilities beyond those built for the initial office workers, not to mention the lack of any sort of water mains sufficient to rig up showers or other cleaning stations, meant that the people living here were among the lowest on the Ghetto totem pole. They were squatters, and most had only recently been driven into Shinjuku as a result of the expansion of the Concession.
Fortunately, their newly-arrived and transitory status made it relatively easy for Tamaki, Naoto and I to "buy out" everybody present. We arrived with two of the boxes of bottles of moonshine lifted from the truck, and with our pistols visible on our hips, and within two hours the last of the vagrants had left to find other accommodations, unmarked brown bottles stowed in their meager belongings. I wished them all the best, as Shinjuku was already suffering from a high demand and low supply of housing, but we needed a location away from our hideout to further my plan for a better Shinjuku.
As soon as we secured our new location, Naoto called Kallen and set the next stage of our plan into action. The same day I'd met with the cell in the hideout, Kallen had filed paperwork with the Area 11 Administration to create the Rising Sun Benevolent Association, a non-religious charitable association dedicated to improving public health and fostering loyalty towards the Empire among the savage Elevens. The newly founded Rising Sun Benevolent Association had a PO Box headquarters address, located at the nearest post office to Ashford Academy, and was headed by a "Rivalz Cardemonde", apparently a classmate of Kallen's.
The inclusion of an Ashford Academy student in a charity focused on providing aid to Elevens was a surprise, to say the least, but Kallen had really come through for me on this. When researching the requirements for founding an officially recognized charitable organization, I had discovered that all charities must be sponsored by a noble of some rank, and must be headed by a noble as well. I assumed that this particular regulation was generally used to award positions to unwanted scions of noble houses, who would then abuse their unearned offices to embezzle funds. This discovery had practically led to me scrapping the whole idea for a charity, since the only noble connections we had were the Stadtfelds and connecting their name to a front organization for the Kozuki Organization was a tremendous risk. Fortunately, after I had complained over Naoto's phone about that self-serving bit of regulation, Kallen had asked for me to wait a day before scrapping the plan. The next day, she'd arrived at Naoto's apartment, half-completed paperwork in hand, and told me she'd found a noble who was willing to be our frontman.
I was curious about how she had recruited this "Rivalz" to our cause, but when I asked, she'd blushed furiously and left, to Naoto's great amusement. I hoped she wasn't doing anything too immoral, since that might endanger her placement at Ashford Academy, but I trusted her to know what she was doing.
Kallen was willing to fight and die for the cause. I would be willing to trust her judgment.
The long and short of it was that the newly official Rising Sun Benevolent Association was a recognized charity, with a pass to transport humanitarian aid into the Ghetto through the Eleven's only checkpoint. Kallen had taken a large quantity of the Britannian currency my truck job had netted and purchased a large amount of packed foodstuffs, multivitamins and basic over the counter medications, sanitary and hygiene goods, and used clothes. As soon as Naoto called to let her know that we had secured a location to store and distribute the goods from, Kallen had rented a small truck to haul the shipment of goods into Shinjuku. Of course, Nagata on a day work pass had to enter the Britannian Concession and drive the thing back, but with the protection of the charity's pass that hadn't been a difficult matter. The guards hadn't even required a large bribe, only taking a small "processing fee" to let the truck and its cargo proceed without trouble.
And so, four days after I had set my Shinjuku Revitalization plan into motion, Tamaki and Ohgi nailed a sign hand-painted by Naomi over the door of our "new" office, announcing the opening of the Rising Sun Benevolent Society.
As soon as the sun rose over Shinjuku, a steady trickle of people began to come in through the open door of the Benevolent Society. Inoue, Ohgi, and I were inside waiting for them, standing in front of a series of tables.
"Welcome to the Rising Sun Benevolent Society." The early morning muttering cut out abruptly as I raised my voice over the din, hopping up on a table covered with neatly-folded secondhand clothing. "If you need food for yourselves or your family, please talk to Inoue."
The indigo-headed woman waved her hand, and moved to stand in front of a table heavily laden with packed boxes. Inoue and I had put them together last night, and each box contained enough food for a family of four to eat for a day, plus a small baggie of multivitamins, a few pieces of candy, and a box of matches and three tampons or sanitary napkins.
"If you need new clothes, take what you need from the tables." Kallen had found a discount location where unsold stocks of clothes from some of the cheaper chains were offloaded, as well as a number of thrift shops, and had managed to collect plenty of pants, shirts, and light jackets, with a small heap of shoes thrown in and a supply of underwear and socks. The stores had assured her that it had all been washed, and true or not, nobody here was in any condition to be choosy.
"And if you're here to work, come talk to me!" I continued. "Lunch will be provided, and there are a number of small luxury items available for those who work a full day." I held up a zippo lighter and a safety razor in one hand, and a chocolate bar and a pack of cigarettes in the other.
"Any questions?"
"Yeah, I got a question." The speaker, a shaggy-haired, bespectacled man pushed his way through the throng of Japanese milling about, and jabbed a finger at me. "Who the hell are you, and why should we listen to some Brit kid, huh?"
Can't say this comes as a surprise. Ohgi had been pretty sure someone would remark on my race, pointing out that while he knew I was Japanese, the random man off the street wouldn't take kindly to being bossed around by an apparent Britannian. I was somewhat miffed that he thought I'd just be bossing people around, instead of leading them to a mutually constructed better future, but I conceded his point. We'd then discussed possible responses to such race-based pushback, a discussion I had kicked off by demanding that he only resort to physical force as the last option, or in self-defense. Ohgi had looked somewhat confused, presumably because I'd preemptively muzzled his preferred first response, but thankfully his professionalism won out over his bloodlust.
"She's one of us." Ohgi replied, stepping forward until he was in front of the table I stood upon, and just within an arm's reach from the questioner. "She's a hafu and she grew up in Shinjuku. But if you don't want to listen to her because of her hair, then listen to me – we're here help out the people of Shinjuku, and it's all thanks to her." Ohgi's intervention was just as planned, putting an undeniably Japanese, not to mention adult and male, face on my endeavor.
And between Ohgi acting his role to perfection and Inoue's none too subtle positioning of her hand on the butt of her sidearm, that was the end of any objection. Soon, a queue had formed in front of Inoue's table, each person taking a box and getting a stamp on their left hand to show they'd received aid for the day, before moving down to the tables of clothing and taking what they needed.
Several of the younger men and women clustered around Ohgi, including the man who'd questioned my presence. After building up a sufficient number of able hands, Ohgi led them out onto the street and towards the first location on the list I'd given him, consisting of all the easily resolved issues the cell members had learned about in their first round of canvassing. The volunteers left with hand tools, scavenged plywood and lumber, a few bags of quick-dry cement in a wheelbarrow, caulk, and tarps, which they'd be putting to use sealing broken windows or holed walls in various apartments and structures in Shinjuku, preparing for the winter soon to be upon us.
I spent the remainder of the day distributing boxes and clothes with Inoue, encouraging all who came through to tell their friends and family about the Rising Sun Benevolent Society, and to come to us if they needed help with anything, anything at all. After the initial burst of visitors, the queue slowly petered out as the people who'd heard about us left with their free food and fresh clothes, which gave Inoue and I time to assemble more boxes for distribution the next day, although she, Tamaki, and Naoto would be in charge of Benevolent Society affairs tomorrow, as Ohgi, Nagata and I had other business to handle. I was sure that our quartermaster would be able to ride herd on Tamaki, and Naoto would do a fine job leading the repair crew, considering his charisma and leadership skills.
And so, as half our cell went about the benevolent activities that would build the Kozuki Organization's PR in Shinjuku, I met with the other fruit of my plan. For the first time since I had arrived, outsiders were present in our hideout. Two outsiders, to be exact, one male and one female. They sat on the couch across the table from Ohgi and I, as Nagata leaned against the wall behind them. Both were vouched for by at least one member of the cell, but hopefully knowing that they were surrounded would discourage any thoughts of betrayal.
Matsumoto Souichiro was a broad-shouldered middle-aged man, with the slightly rundown build of a muscular man gone underfed and under-worked. He'd tried to look professional for this meeting, wearing a stained white shirt and threadbare tie, but the stubble encrusting his face and the deepset dark eyes betrayed the shaky foundations under the firm exterior; this was a man desperate for a way out, a reason to keep on fighting, and a lifeline in a hopeless situation. I'd seen many eyes like that on the Rhine Front.
Mister Matsumoto had come to us with Tamaki's recommendation. Apparently, before his untimely death, Tamaki's father had been a local policeman in Shinjuku before the war. While the majority of his father's comrades had died during the brutal urban combat that had ravaged Shinjuku during the Conquest, Souichiro had been visiting family in Gunma Prefecture during the worst of it. Unfortunately for him, instead of capitalizing on his luck at being outside Shinjuku when the hammer had fallen, he had rushed back to try and find his wife and older son, who had remained in Shinjuku. Sadly, both had died in the fighting, and now Mister Matsumoto and his surviving son were stuck in Shinjuku as the Britannians began to tighten their hold on the region.
Reading between the lines of Tamaki's report, Matsumoto Souichiro was looking for some sign that his son would inherit a better world. The young man was old enough to make his own way in the world, and had managed to secure a position as an Honorary Britannian, so clearly Souichiro had done a fine job of raising him, but no doubt the empty nest had spurred him to accept Tamaki's invitation to meet with us today.
In contrast, the other prospective recruit was 19 year old Tanaka Chihiro, a former student of Ohgi's in better times. During his brief time as a teacher before the Conquest, she'd been the star student of his math class, but after the dislocating confusion of the Conquest and the closure of his school she'd disappeared into the vast refugee population. Recently, Chihiro and her surviving little sister had ended up in Shinjuku as another result of the ongoing Britannian landgrab, and she'd happened to run into Ohgi in the street.
When I'd asked my comrades to find people willing to fight, Ohgi had thought of his old student, and I could easily understand why. She was tall for a girl, just an inch shorter than Ohgi, and her somewhat mannish appearance was reinforced by her cropped hair and the male clothing she wore just as I did. It was clear that the last five years hadn't been any kinder to Chihiro than the rest of us, and her forearms and face were speckled with small burn scars from her time working in a factory to provide for her sister. She carried herself with the same guarded energy as most unaccompanied young women in Shinjuku, but Chihiro's eyes were like a furnace, full of scorching rage and hate.
Yes, I could understand why Ohgi, whose cruelty was like a fishhook hidden inside an innocuous candy, would choose to recruit this girl into our cell.
I decided to start our meeting with a thematically appropriate icebreaker. "Why are you here? Why do you want to fight Britannia and all our people's foes?"
Souichiro started to speak, stop, and badly concealed his false start with a cough. Chihiro took the initiative and plowed forward. "This world is garbage, and garbage must be burnt!" She locked eyes with me as she began her tirade, and I was struck by a memory of Arrene, of a young man looking up at me from a crowd of newly-minted refugees.
"The Britannians have taken everything from me but my sister – my parents, my friends, my boyfriend - everything! They took our home! They took everything we had! I want to take everything from them!" Chihiro continued, her words coming faster and faster in gush of verbal lava. "I want to see every single Britannian bastard who ever set foot on this damned island gutted in the street! I want to see the damned city they built on our graves burnt! I want them to suffer, just like we all have for the last five years!"
I nodded my understanding. I could very much understand that passion – if I ever got the chance, I'd love to splash about in Being X's entrails myself, as the first evil bastard to rip me away from my secure life of comfort and freedom. I could sympathize with Chihiro's wholehearted willingness to kill every Britannian who'd had a hand in the destruction of her old life.
That said, such a fire was dangerous. I remembered the fire in Schugel's eyes, his single-minded devotion to his goal despite all the losses... But for all I'd hated that bastard, in the end he'd merely been a tool in the hand of the one directing his passion. If I could do the same with Chihiro, and if I could temper her hunger for violence with discipline and control, she would be valuable indeed.
Of course, if she proved to simply be an attack dog, an uncontrolled blaze instead of a reliable controlled burn... Well, it would be a shame if it came to that. It would certainly make Ohgi sad, and I wouldn't want him as any enemy, but I wouldn't allow Chihiro's fire to burn our people, nor our secret master. Ultimately, the first provided me with power, and the later was my ticket to a better life, and I refused to be like the idiot rebels from the first years of the occupation who just increased the number of Japanese dead without any productive result.
Chihiro slowly wound down, her frantic babble gradually slowing as she began to repeat herself, and I held up a hand for silence.
"Thank you, Miss Tanaka." For all her lack of control, her passion was admirable. It reminded me of the feeling that had led me to carrying a firearm at all times, in the futile hope that I could shoot Being X whenever he next appeared. "I commend the depths of your ardor. I'm certain we can work together to once again see Japan breathe free."
I turned back to Souichiro. "And what about you, Mister Matsumoto? Why are you here?"
The former policeman shifted uncomfortably for a second, before looking up and meeting my eyes. "My son has betrayed us. I've come to avenge his shame."
As far as openings went, it was certainly dramatic. Beyond that, I suddenly realized that I had once again misunderstood the actions of those around me. I'd spent too long in Europe, and the hardcore Japanese national pride had faded somewhat in the world of my first life, but that old national pride was still strong here. In this world the Japanese Empire had never been crushed, only the republic that had followed it, and the Emperor had never had to forswear his divinity on radio in front of the nation. Worse, the Miracle of Itsukushima and the continued survival of the military hardliners in the mountains had preserved Japanese pride, despite the Conquest.
I should have known a proud Japanese man, raised in the time of Japan's greatest economic and cultural prosperity, wouldn't take pride in his son becoming an Honorary Britannian. Instead of appreciating his son's choice of a path towards some degree of security and comfort, Matsumoto Souichiro could only see a traitor. What a damned shame, I couldn't help but think, even as I sympathized with Souichiro's feelings. I didn't hold any particular grudge against the Honorary Britannians who helped keep the colonial system going, but I did resent how the choice had never really been in the cards for me.
"When... when his mother and brother died, I did my best to raise him to be a good Japanese man." Souichiro continued, every tense word laden with barely concealed pain. "I tried to teach him about the kami, about the traditions and the pride of his ancestors... But I don't think I ever really got through to him. He saw the occupation, saw the strength of the Britannians, and the death of his older brother..." Souichiro heaved a sigh, and suddenly looked even older then before, the tie hanging limply down from his neck, shoulders hunched. "He's not Japanese. He's Eleven. My only son... My Kenji... He's taken a Britannian name now, he goes by 'Keith' instead of the name his mother and I gave him... I've lost him. I've lost both my sons."
There was a moment of silence. I didn't know quite what to say to that. I'd never been a parent, thankfully, and when I'd been in the military questions of loyalty could be easily resolved, if push came to shove. But for a wayward child, a child who had seen the way the wind was blowing and made his choice... 'Sharper than a serpent's tooth' indeed...
Souichiro took a deep breath, and continued. The emotional tremble was gone from his voice, replaced with a cold, leaden weight. "I can't kill him myself. For all that he's become... I remember him as a little boy. I can't kill my own son. But... If I can't wipe away his shame by ending him, then this old man will do whatever else I can to avenge the man he would have been, if Britannia hadn't come. The Britannians killed Kenji's future when they killed his brother and mother. I want the opportunity to kill their future too."
"Thank you for telling me about your son." I began, stalling as I tried to marshal my thoughts. How do you respond to something like that? I was far from the most emotionally connected person, typically maintaining a degree of professional separation from my co-workers and comrades to preserve efficiency, but even I quailed at the calm way Souichiro discussed the possible execution of his son for... treachery, presumably? Being a product of the Japanese educational system, I understood in concept the fear of disappointing one's parents, though I'd never personally felt it in any of my lives. I'd never really feared either of my families, and no matter how desperate things had gotten after the Conquest, I never thought my mother might try to murder me.
But I'd never chosen to side with my oppressors either. Neither the Britannians nor Being X had given me any other choices than utter capitulation or resistance, and neither had successfully exploited my moments of weakness. Matsumoto Kenji, on the other hand, had joined the Britannian system willingly, and for Matsumoto Souichiro, that made him the enemy.
"For what it's worth..." I couldn't bring myself to push forward on his urge to avenge the son he'd never truly had. "For what it's worth, I believe you did your best. The time since the Conquest has been hard for us all. I don't blame you for what your son has chosen. I hope you will join us in our efforts to make a new Japan, where our sons and daughters will be able to be proud of being Japanese once again."
Souichiro simply nodded at that, and looked down at the floor. He still looked shaky, no doubt the typical Japanese attitude towards publicly expressing emotion biting hard. Chihiro, by contrast, sat stiffly on the couch, head high and fiery eyes locked onto me. It was quite disconcerting, the way she didn't blink.
I moved on from the icebreaker into the next stage of the interview process, introducing the company. "We here at the Kozuki Organization are trying to free and rebuild Japan. We are a relatively new organization and have yet to truly make an impression, but with your help, we can provide a better life to the people in Shinjuku. Our aims are to make concrete improvements in the quality of life of the Japanese, to remove the Britannian occupation from our homeland, and to re-declare the Republic of Japan once more, in that order."
Souichiro had looked back up, stern mask back in place. He and Chihiro were simply looking at me, presumably waiting for the rest of the pitch, so I continued.
"Unlike previous rebel groups in Shinjuku, we aim to take the longer view towards freeing our people. Instead of simply knifing lone soldiers in alleyways and provoking retaliation against the people of Shinjuku, we plan on building a firm powerbase in the Ghetto, from which to launch more significant actions. As it is still early-days for the Kozuki Organization, we are currently focused on removing the influence of the gangs that collaborate with the Britannians and poison our people, and providing material support for our people. We will not be immediately attacking the Britannians, you understand. I am not going to simply throw away Japanese lives without meaningful gains."
I met Souichiro's eyes, and waited for a nod of confirmation before looking to Chihiro. She looked a bit rebellious, smoldering with resentment at not immediately being unleashed on the Britannians no doubt, but she gave a reluctant nod of assent as well.
"Excellent. I'm happy to welcome you both to the Kozuki Organization. I'll introduce you to our leader, and to the rest of the cell tomorrow." I smiled the sunny smile of every HR manager and recruiter, blandly positive, and inwardly rejoiced. A small step, but our first successful recruitment is a big achievement. "Now, have either of you ever used a gun?"
Souichiro, as it turned out, had used a gun during his basic police training, but not since, as Japanese police were typically only equipped with batons. Chihiro had never touched a gun, but was incredibly eager to learn. I delegated Ohgi to start teaching them the in's and out's of firearm safety and maintenance, and left the new pair of recruits in his able hands.
Nagata and I headed out of the hideout, and began making our way towards his apartment building. He'd also found a potential recruit, but for a number of reasons this one would require a degree of special handling.
"He was an engineer, you see, before the war." As we walked, Nagata gave me a quick overview on the man we were going to see. "I'm not sure what his exact specialty was, but he was pretty highly paid. Respectable. Anyway, it must've been something to do with machinery, because he's earned his food and rent since then by repairing and maintaining stoves, hotplates, clocks... you name it, he can fix it."
"So, presumably a mechanical engineer of some type, huh?" I turned the thought over in my mind. Beyond the maintenance skills he could bring to the table, recruiting a man with an engineering skill set opened up all sorts of possible options for the organization, most specifically bomb making. Every insurgency worth its salt in the last two decades of my first life had deployed improvised explosives, and it seemed fitting to follow suit. "So why would a man with a nice safe job want to get wrapped up in our little adventure, hmm?"
"That's just it." Nagata sidestepped around a pothole, and carefully stepped over a downed power line. "He's not safe. About a year ago, he caught as stray round from a Britannian. They suspected that an apartment in the next building over was a safe house for some group or another, and went in guns blazing. They smoked a couple of gangsters, which wasn't really what they were going for, but they also managed to hit lots of unlucky people. Including Mr. Asahara. The bullet went right through his wall and through his left shin, shattering the bone. Worse yet, it got infected – they had to amputate it below the knee."
We're recruiting a cripple? Well, I guess you don't need two legs to make bombs. "I see. That's a good reason to resent the Britannians."
Nagata nodded. "Yup. Plus, he was a bit... weird, even before that." He hesitated a bit, clearly looking for the right words. "He's a bit of a political guy, you see. He's very anti-monarchist, and whenever he gets drunk he starts ranting about the 'rights of the citizen' and so on and so forth."
"So, he's got a personal beef with Britannia for shooting his leg off, and a political beef since the Britannians rule by the divine right of kings?"
Nagata nodded. "You can see why I thought he'd be a good fit for our organization, right?"
"Absolutely." Nagata had struck gold. A political ideologue was useful, as they had a reason beyond the personal to fight, and the specialist skills this Asahara Hiyashi brought to the table were even more useful.
Now, all that was left was to make a pitch.
Asahara Hiyashi turned out to be a well-preserved man in his mid-fifties, spotted with oil and grease but with clear eyes, a well-maintained salt-and-pepper mustache and goatee, and silver wings in his otherwise still back hair. He also turned out to be an immensely infuriating person, full to the brim with an arrogance that losing his job, his property, and his leg had not diminished in the slightest. When Nagata knocked on his door, he opened it readily enough, supported on his weak side by a crutch, but refused to let us in until both Nagata and I had formally introduced ourselves and requested his permission to enter. I supposed losing a good deal of personal autonomy along with a limb probably warped his personality, but his behavior was already irritating.
The recruitment effort didn't go any better than the initial introduction had.
"Good afternoon, Mister Asahara. I came here today to ask y-"
"How's that tricky pressure cooker doing, Takeshi? Still working?" The old bastard hadn't bothered to acknowledge my introduction beyond a curt nod, and as soon as I began my pitch he cut me off and began talking to Nagata. "You know I warned you that the gasket would need replacement soon. I hope you aren't putting that off."
Nagata shot an apologetic look at me, before turning back to the engineer. "No, Mister Asahara. I still haven't found anyone willing to part with a new gasket for a reasonable price. You know how supply's getting short, with all the new guys pouring into Shinjuku."
Hiyashi snorted derisively. "You're just not looking hard enough. If you bring that damned thing back again without replacing the parts I told you to, I'm charging double."
And on and on it went. Nagata periodically tried to introduce me into the conversation, or bring up the reason why we'd come, but Hiyashi would simply bull forwards with his chosen topic, ignoring all attempts to be diverted. After forty five minutes of rambling small talk, I'd had enough.
"Are you content, tinkering with cookware and clocks, or do you want to do something to get revenge for your missing leg?"
Subtle it was not, but I'd gotten tired of waiting for this miserable old geezer to get to the point. Hopefully a bit of 'youthful impertinence' would move the conversation along before the Britannians finished exterminating us all.
Instead of the anger I'd expected from the prickly man, Hiyashi simply snorted with mild amusement and shook his head. The amusement didn't reach his eyes, though, which were just as serious and intense as they'd been since we entered his apartment.
"Save your breath. I'm not desperate enough to follow the whims of a child. Come back in ten years when you can drink, and if we're both still alive, make your pitch then." And then he simply returned to nagging Nagata about the proper way to strip copper wire from abandoned houses, an operation that Hiyashi had a surprising wealth of knowledge about.
I wasn't going to be so easily dissuaded. If an appeal to conviction would just be shot down out of hand, another tack was required. "Fine. You don't want to help the rest of us out of the goodness of your heart? How about commissions? I have Britannian cash available, or meth if you'd prefer payment in drugs instead."
At the sight of the wad of cash I brought out of my sweatshirt pocket, as well as the small baggy of crystals, the old vulture's eyes sharpened. That's the hook – self-interest. Hiyashi was a man after my own heart, in a way. Clearly, the cutthroat capitalism of pre-Conquest Japan had left a stamp on the man. And if that's the coin you need, I'm willing to pay.
After that, it was all over except for the dickering. Hiyashi readily admitted to knowing how to rig up any number of explosive devices, including remote cellphone activated devices, clockwork triggered devices, and chemical time bombs, where the ignition source was a chemical reaction delayed by a thin membrane that gradually broke down, mixing the solvents until a threshold was crossed.
We finally settled on a hefty payment, costing almost half of my remaining cash reserves and a twentieth of the amphetamines we'd secured, as well as supplying some components Hiyashi required. In exchange, the crippled engineer would provide us with five cellphone detonated pipe bombs, each capable of producing an omnidirectional spray of shrapnel guaranteed to reduce anything in a twenty meter radius to chopped meat, and capable of rendering unarmored vehicles within a five meter radius inoperable.
As we shook on the deal, I looked up into Hiyashi's bespectacled eyes, and clamped down on hard on his hand with my own. "I appreciate doing business with you, Mister Asahara, and I hope we can continue to do so in the future." I kept calm, as I used my free hand to shift my sweatshirt up, revealing the pistol holstered under the baggy folds. "I hope we have a long and productive working relationship, which will be guaranteed if your devices are all that you have promised. If they aren't, however, be assured..." I felt the blood beginning to hammer in my ears as my grasp tightened. I was gratified to see a faint wince cross Hiyashi's face, quickly smoothed away. "I'll start by taking the leg the Britannians left you as payment for services rendered, and continue on until your account is paid in full."
To the old man's credit, he actually laughed at that. "I'm not an idiot, you crazy hafu. You think you're the first one to buy my work, hmm? I'm not stupid enough to try double-crossing people who buy bombs – it's bad business, and I frankly don't care what you and your pack of idiots blow up."
With a nod and a final, hard, shake, I released his hand, and dropped the down payment on the table. "Nagata will be by tomorrow to drop off the materials you requested, and we'll be back in a few days to pick up the devices and detonators, in exchange for the remainder of your pay."
As we left, I mulled over the results of the last two days. We were two recruits stronger, though both were admittedly unblooded and untrained, and had begun to buy the affections of the Shinjuku crowd. I'd also successfully negotiated five explosive devices with the possibility of further future purchases, which would undoubtedly come in handy in the near future.
Unfortunately, not only had we expended virtually all of the income and resources acquired from the truck hijacking, I had also resorted to strong-arm tactics with Mister Asahara. Not only did that leave a bad taste in my mouth, but it also potentially planted a seed that could flower into open resentment in due time. I'd need to find some way to both replenish the cell's depleted coffers, and nip any problems stemming from a disgruntled contractor with a dangerous skill set and an abrasive personality. Pity I can't simply cut off his funding, like I did with Schugel.
Fortunately, I already had a target in mind that would serve as both a source of income and a convenient testing ground for Asahara's products. Ideally, my next plan would both begin the process of removing the gangs from the Shinjuku Ghetto, and would give me a chance to thoroughly blood all members of the cell. The first kill is always the hardest, so it's kinder to them to ensure it happens in a reasonably straightforward situation, I reasoned. A minimum of danger, and a straightforward moral situation – it's the best of both worlds. Hopefully...