3. THE ART OF WAR
21:45. In fifteen more minutes, I'd find out who was serious about joining me, and who I was going to have to... deal with.
This had been too long in the planning to go wrong now, and I wasn't about to let personnel matters slow things down. Over a year on the equipment design and testing alone, and it still wasn't done. But that time hadn't been wasted.
I'd taken some advice Dr. Raven had given me to heart, and had gone back to school. Not just in the traditional sense, because I'd done that too, but there are some things you don't learn in a classroom. So in the guise of a 'round the world vacation, I traveled and learned everything I could from the best I could find. Physical training. Conventional military and urban guerrilla tactics. Team tactics. Weapon systems and armaments. Command and Control. The quickest and best ways to disarm, injure, and kill. Field medicine. The Zen of the Battlefield.
And more.
And in my spare time, I was closeted with Dr. Raven and Mackie, adapting the equipment I hoped to one day use to what I had learned during my newly gained experiences.
But now we were at a crossroads. The designs could go no further until we knew exactly who would use the designs. For months I had had several people under observation and investigation, and I chose who I thought best from among those. In one case I had to nudge events a little to make her more receptive to my proposal, but in the end all agreed to join me.
Now it was time to find out if they actually would.
And then we could get on with the business of finishing the equipment and training the team. My team.
Still ten minutes to go. I took the time to go through their files one last time. As if the contents weren't already seared into my memory.
Linna Yamazaki:- Born 20 October, 2012.
- Part-time dance instructor at Phoebe's Phitness Emporium.
- International competition-level expert in Tai Chi Chuan.
- Parents deceased, 2027, result of an uncontrolled boomer.
- Lived with relatives until she completed high school.
- Accepted to three universities after high school.
- Career choice: to become a professional dancer.
- Still trying to break out of chorus roles.
- Extravagant tastes, without the financial backing to support them.
If one word described Yamazaki, I thought, it would be 'dilettante'. She'd never stuck with anything for very long in her entire life, be it job, hobby, or man. I wondered if she could stick with this. I glanced at her banking records again and smiled.
Yamazaki was designated to be the Close Combat Specialist. The one to get in quickly, do the job, and get out quicker.
Next in the queue was
Priscilla Asagiri:- Born 27 May, 2013.
- Small-time singer in the band 'Priss and the Replicants'.
- Former bike gang member.
- Minor criminal record related to her gang activities.
- Parents deceased, 2025, in the Quake.
- Senior high school dropout.
- Lived in an orphanage, ran away on average once/month.
- Moved in with leader of her gang when she finally left the orphanage.
- Lover died just last week. She blames Genom for it.
- Now living in an abandoned refrigeration trailer in District 3.
Why did I go after her? She'd lost everything that had ever been dear to her, and she was definitely not thinking straight. She was going to be nothing but trouble and I really didn't have time for it. She had already tried to kill me once; I would need to watch my back. But if I could direct her rage at the world to more appropriate targets...
But I was going to have to do something to get, and keep, her under control, and do it right away. Asagiri was the designated Point because of her street knowledge and skills, and Point has to keep her head.
I closed the file and opened the next. And smiled.
Nene Romanova:- Born 31 August, 2014.
- Counter girl at Yoshiro's Ice Cream Parlor.
- Self-taught computer hacker, extraordinaire.
- Ran away from home due to oppressive family life.
- Senior high school dropout due to boredom with course work.
This girl was going to be the key player in this organization, I thought. If someone didn't kill her over this 'cute' bit of hers first. She was not really a fighter, in the physical sense, not like the other two. But she was smart, a lot smarter than she lets on. She had to be, with the kind of Electronic Intelligence and Electronic Warfare work she was going to be doing.
I was going to have to watch her when it comes to the tech, though. She was likely to--
The buzz of an alarm interrupted my musings, and I glanced at my wristwatch. Five more minutes. I closed Romanova's file, then tied into the live security scans.
And there they were. Romanova was getting out of a cab, just in front of Yamazaki's car, parked at the curb out front. No sign yet of Asagiri. Well, she still had five minutes...
...Five minutes.
An eternity if you were faced with your own destruction. Even a few seconds could mean the difference between life and death in combat. All the movies I had ever seen in which someone was fatally injured had lied. People don't die within seconds of being shot or stabbed. They writhe. They struggle. They clutch at their wounds disbelieving. They gasp for air through blood-choked lungs. They fight the inevitable. Dying is never the quick and relatively painless event that Hollywood has portrayed. I learned this fact when I embarked on the journey that took me around the world, to learn how to fight -- and how to survive.
I had trained hard at home prior to the trip, conditioning myself and getting my body into top shape. I had studied satellite maps of the various regions. I had purchased the best equipment that was available and then had it customized to my specifications. I believed that I was as prepared as I could be. I was wrong. All the exercise and expensive custom equipment in the world did not prepare me for the kinds of conditions I would face outside MegaTokyo's cement jungle.
Rain-soaked forests, swamps, mountains, and deserts opposed me to the point that I very nearly gave up. But each time my body cried out for me to end its misery, I thought of my father. I thought of the gun. I thought of the man who pulled the gun's trigger, ending my father's life. My body learned to obey my will, no matter how raw my hands and feet got, or how badly every muscle ached. I would finish this, no matter what.
Then came the trip to a real jungle.
I can remember the silence, but for the snapping of a huge fire. Two dozen angry painted faces suddenly staring directly at us, their sacred hunting ritual rudely interrupted by outsiders. My breathing stopped.
The hunt began.
We did not sleep that night. We had to keep moving or find a hiding place and hope they did not find us. One by one, my group was systematically separated, then picked off one by one by the silent moving shadows.
The memory of that night always reminds me of stories I had read of shipwreck survivors in the Pacific. Those that had survived the sinking ended up clinging to what was left of their ships as they waited to be rescued. Sharks picked them off in the night, one by one, leaving each survivor to wonder if he would be next. And as my companions and I hid under a fallen tree amid an ocean of green and black, the sharks circled around us silently, the quiet pierced only by random gunfire, or an occasional scream as another of our companions died.
Four of us left. And the sharks were getting closer. I would not die there in the jungle. I could not. And I would not let my companions die. We made a plan and we swore to each other that we would follow it to the letter. Armed with one high-powered rifle that was low on ammo, three handguns, and four hunting knives, we faced the sharks, come what may...
I can still see their faces.
I can still hear their screams.
I shook myself from my reverie and checked the time again.
Hm. Asagiri was going to be late...