The next afternoon – University of California at Berkeley
Notes? Check. Sedate slacks, blouse and jacket? Check. Very high heels? Check. Deep breathing? Check.
Sleek, sophisticated ponytail? Unfortunately, check.
Chiyo hated lecturing. She was often asked to do it, she was good at it, and any student signing up for one of her guest lectures just to see the famous Girl Professor was usually surprised at how interesting and informative her talks were. But public speaking was not her forte – it never had been. And in order to get any respect, she had to take down the pigtails.
She loved her pigtails. They were one of the ways she held on to her youth in the stodgy halls of American academia – she did enjoy being Dr. Mihama, expert in several fields, but despite her massive intellect, she'd always felt most comfortable acting her age.
Which was, at this point, nineteen. And she wasn't going to give up being nineteen for anything. Back at Berkeley for her fourth Ph.D. after some time at Yale and MIT, she and Mr. Tadakichi had gotten a place in the city with her undergrad girlfriends Michelle and Aviva, now in their twenties and gainfully employed. They and Chiyo spent their evenings at movies, concerts, and parties (Chiyo didn't mind being designated driver), or just happily hanging out. San Francisco was a good city to be nineteen in.
And one thing she liked about America was that cute was currently hip. So were pigtails. So was being Japanese. All she had to do upon arriving at Berkeley six years ago was, at her roommate Michelle's suggestion, add chunky glasses and chunky shoes to her usual wardrobe of pigtails, jeans and tiny, cute cartoon-character T-shirts… and she immediately went from Chiyo-chan, small child, to Chiyo, teenage uber-hipster. Although the "-chan" got added back once the girls in the dorm accepted the tiny prodigy as their unofficial little sister and mascot.
Michelle and Aviva were in the back of the packed auditorium, for moral support – Chiyo gave them a grateful glance as she continued her lecture on Properties of Bioreactive Polymers. Wait. Who were those other girls sitting next to them…?
"A-choi!"
Heads turned to the back row. "Was that supposed to be a sneeze?" someone muttered. Chiyo beamed with utter delight.
"Thank you all, please e-mail me with any questions concerning the lecture!" Chiyo bellowed after the applause died down, scrawling her school e-mail address on the chalkboard and dashing past the girls who were waiting to ask her intelligent questions and the boys who were waiting to ask her out.
"Eeeee! You're here you're here you're here! You're all here!"
"I'm not here!" Tomo said gleefully.
"Oh yes you are!" Chiyo said, just as delighted. "Oh my god! Yomi emailed me and said you were coming, but she didn't say when! I thought you'd call first…"
"Wow, you look older," Kagura said. "You look like an actual professor. I can't believe we haven't seen you in nearly two years…."
"Yomi, Yomi, Yomi," Tomo sighed. "You went and told EVERYONE. Some super-spy, senor!"
"Well, YOU didn't tell me not to tell anyone, 'super-spy,'" Yomi said smugly. "You're just disappointed you couldn't surprise people when you showed up. And of course I had to give Chiyo-chan the details. We can't do this without her."
"Of course you can't," Chiyo said. "I looked over the email Yomi sent me, then I called up Director Bundig and she sent me the mission overview… You'll need me. And I'm bringing Mr. Tadakichi." She grinned her wide, innocent grin, undid her sleek ponytail, and did her hair back in her usual pigtails – more auburn and much lower than they used to be, gathered just under each ear, but still pigtails. Everyone breathed an unconscious sigh of relief. "Yay! We get to be spies!"
"Shhh, not so loud!" Tomo hissed. "We've got civilians here!" She glanced over at Michelle and Aviva. "…Oh." Chiyo's American roommates stood at the side, wearing pleased but confused expressions. They'd met Chiyo's high school friends before, and now, as then, the only word they'd understood in the entire conversation was "Tadakichi-san".
Sheesh, thought Chiyo. Americans. Acting like there's only one language in the world. But hey, why not have some fun with everyone before the six of us go off and possibly get shot? "Who's up for Denny's and karaoke?" she said in English, and the eight girls, chattering in two languages, went off to catch the train to San Francisco.
The following day
When the limo pulled up in front of the Hyatt in the morning, Liesl had informed the team that they were headed to a secret special-forces training facility deep inside Mount Diablo. Tomo figured that with a name like Mount Diablo, there'd be electrified fences involved, maybe blindfolding to hide the location, definitely a moat of lava.
Not lunch at a pleasant outdoor café in the pretty town of Walnut Creek, followed by a run to Nordstrom's to pick out the workout wear they'd be sporting for their three days of spy training. Chiyo had bought some socks with penguins on them, and Sakaki and Yomi had to forcibly drag the ICPO Assistant Director of Police Services away from the Kate Spade bags. Liesl was still sulking in the limo on the way to the training facility, muttering in German about things being forty percent off. Kagura was looking out the window at the rich green Northern California hills, exclaiming about the scenery being differing degrees of awesome. Osaka was still obsessed with lunch.
"Turuki sandawichu!"
"Okay," said Tomo brightly. It was time for her to Take Charge. "Now we need to do something crucial to the success of every sexy superspy!"
"Plan our mission?" Yomi said.
"Get some neat spy gear?" Kagura said.
"Turuki sandawichu!" Osaka said, proudly brandishing the half smoked-turkey-on-sourdough.
"No, no, no. We need to come up with our…" dramatic pause… "code names! We're going to be Takino's Six, because I like the movie 'Ocean's Eleven,' and I'm the boss and the actual spy. Also, my code name is Phoenix," Tomo added, with a defiant glare at Yomi, who wasn't even bothering trying to stifle her laughter.
"Why 'Phoenix'?" Chiyo said, slightly confused. "A phoenix dies and then rises dramatically from its own ashes… so does that mean you're going to fail and then suddenly succeed? Or…"
"It's 'cause I'm on FIRE, baybee."
Tomo smirked. No further questions were asked, although Yomi muttered something that sounded suspiciously like "moron".
"I'll be 'Dolphin', that's easy," Kagura said. Sakaki shivered and glanced at Osaka, hoping that whatever she said next, it wouldn't involve hemorrhoids. Luckily all she said was "Turuki sandawichu!"
"I've already kind of got a code name," Chiyo-chan supplied. "You guys ever read about the EOEE database? The one that crashed last year?"
"The Everything-About-Everyone-Everywhere Project?" Liesl said, emerging from her purse-related sulk. "The U.S. government hardly got started on that thing before someone took it down. Good thing, too, because it would have nearly eliminated personal privacy… but don't tell the President I said that. Our cyber-crimes people still haven't found the hacker… Silly nickname. Something about a penguin?"
"Pengy," Chiyo said.
Liesl locked eyes with the teen genius. "Oh no. I am NOT in a car with one of the world's most wanted hackers…"
"I like to have interesting things to do in my spare time," Chiyo said cheerfully. And pulled a sheaf of papers out of her pink backpack, dropping them on the clipboard on Liesl's lap. "I had my lawyer draw up an amnesty agreement, contingent on the successful rescue of the hostages. You don't have to read it now," she said helpfully, noting Liesl's eyes bugging out slightly as she stared at the mound of legalese.
"Turuki sandawichu!"
Sakaki was barely paying attention. She was watching the hills roll by, one of them growing larger and larger – was this Mount Diablo? It didn't look much like a mountain, and it definitely didn't look diabolic. Houses clung to the lower reaches, oaks and conifers blanketed the rest till the gentle summit. The moat of lava that Tomo'd warned them about was nowhere in sight. In fact, the whole area was nothing short of idyllic, now that they were out in the country. Sakaki wondered if there were any wildcats native to California…
Her thoughts were interrupted by Tomo. "Hey! Sakaki! Thought of a code name yet?"
Actually, she had. She blushed. It was a little embarrassing…
"I've got a few ideas," Tomo said. "How about 'Panther'? You're like a panther. You're all, like, dark and stalking things."
"No," said Sakaki.
"How about 'Raven'? Ravens are cool. It'd go with your hair," Tomo said.
"No."
"Well, what, then?"
"Necoconeco," said Sakaki.
"WHAT the...? NECOCONECO! That's the worst spy name I've ever heard! What are the bad guys gonna say, 'Oh no, they've sent in Necoconeco, we're doomed!'?"
"Necoconeco," Sakaki said, firmly.
"Tiger?"
"Necoconeco."
"Cheetah?"
Sakaki thought. "Necoconeco."
"How about just 'Cat'?" Tomo said, desperate. "Like a cat-burglar. Cats are silent and sneaky. They come up behind you and go 'Rowrrr!' when you least expect it... Rowr, rowr!" She clawed the air. "Rowwwrr! I'm the Cat, international super-spy!"
Then Tomo froze in mid-"rowr" under Sakaki's stare. Her friend wasn't buying it. She sighed. There was no help for it.
"...and cats are also very, very cute," she added.
"Fine," said Sakaki.
"Turuki sandawichu!" Osaka was still brandishing the uneaten half of her lunch.
"Shut up, Osaka!" Tomo had had enough with the turkey sandwich. She turned to Yomi with a demonic smirk. "And you, my friend, you can be... Elephant… or maybe Hippo…"
"Or maybe," Yomi said quietly, "I can tell everyone that sophomore-year story about the beer, the drama club, and the nasturtiums."
"Ooo, that's a good one!" said Osaka, Tomo's former college roommate, who had seen the whole thing.
Tomo blushed angrily. She now knew how Yukari felt when Nyamo would call her on something stupid she'd done in the past. Blackmail, that's what it was. Sheer blackmail.
"I'm going to be what I want to be," Yomi said quietly. ":And I'm gonna be Dragonfly."
"Why…"
"I like dragonflies." Yomi's expression dared Tomo to try and make something of it. She wasn't about to admit that it was because dragonflies were skinny.
Tomo sighed. She wasn't going to argue with Yomi this time. The nasturtium story was REALLY embarrassing. "Okay, Osaka. Your turn." Osaka opened her mouth to speak – "And you are NOT going to be 'turkey sandwich'!" The space cadet looked disappointed. "You have to be an animal."
"Why?"
"Because it's traditional. You're either a number or an animal, if you're a super-spy with a code name."
"I can't think of a good number," Osaka said. "Is a sea cucumber an animal? 'Cause if it is, I could be Sea Cucumber…"
"NO!" everyone shouted in unison.
The limo was pulling up in front of a gate. A perfectly normal fence, maybe a little higher than usual, with a perfectly normal motorized gate. Liesl rolled down the window and handed a card to the middle-aged security guard, who nodded and opened the gate for them. The limo slowly rolled on…
"Now," Tomo said, her voice lowered to a dramatic whisper, "we shall witness… the Secret of Mount Diablo!"
Yomi opened her mouth to shoot back a retort about how the Secret of Mount Diablo probably consisted of a garage… when she noticed that the road ended abruptly in the side of the mountain. The limo wasn't slowing down. She grasped the upholstery anxiously.
"Watch this," Liesl said, and pulled a small black device from her purse (a Coach purse, Yomi noted). She pressed a button. Part of the mountain opened inward – a perfectly disguised door, leading into the depths of who knows what…
"Wow," Kagura said. "There really IS a Secret of Mount Diablo."
"There are more secrets inside," Liesl said, her German accent adding an ominous tone to the words.
"What about my code name?" Osaka said.
"We'll get to that," breathed Tomo, as the limo rolled into the darkness, and into the real beginning of their adventure.
Notes:
The Denny's in question is in SF's Japantown, just above the karaoke bar. Or below, I can't remember.
I don't know how a Japanese person whose English isn't that great (Osaka never really got the hang of it) would attempt to pronounce "turkey sandwich", so I just took a wild guess.
Liesl's expensive-purse obsession is an homage to one of my professors.