Disclaimer - This is strictly fanfiction and I don't own any legal rights to any of the trademarked characters or properties within.
"What's this?" Goemon asked, as Lupin pushed away another grate over their heads. "Another one of your safehouses?"
"Something like that," Lupin said.
He reached out his hand towards a muscular man in an apron and hair net.
"G'day, Dash."
"G'day, Arsey," Dash replied. "Your usual?"
"For three," Lupin said, holding up his fingers and then letting Dash help him, Jigen, and Goemon out of the vent and in to the kitchen.
At the bar, Lupin and Jigen eagerly tucked in to their tall mugs of beer and huge hamburgers as Goemon poked suspiciously at his.
"I'd like that thing you're carrying back now," Lupin said softly, holding his hand out to Jigen.
"You mean this?" Jigen said, handing back the flashdrive containing the Woodcut research. "You shoved it into my pocket while we were fighting. Why?"
"I had to keep it away from Fujiko somehow. And, frankly, I didn't think you'd find it so fast."
"When did you realize you couldn't trust her?"
"Just the moment we realized she'd picked our pockets."
"Then why'd you let her help on the heist?"
"First of all, I had a great plan that required three people. And second, have you looked at her, and do you even know me at all?"
"What do we do next?" Goemon asked.
"I don't know about you guys," Jigen said, downing the rest of his mug in one gulp. "But I'm heading to Hong Kong. Think I can get some work with the Triad. If I were you, I'd cut your losses, see what you can get for Woodcut's share of the project."
"No," Lupin said. "I can't let Machii get away with this. He's giving criminals a bad name. I only steal from targets that can afford it. The rich and powerful. But Machii's different. He victimizes the poor and vulnerable. I can't just . . ."
"Knock it off with the corny speech," Jigen said. "You're starting to make me wish I had put a bullet in your brain. Do you have a plan or not?"
"The entire Asimov Project, and everyone involved, all in one place."
"Fine. I'm in. How about you, samurai?"
"A man who will not do as he has vowed when the opportunity presents itself deceives not only others, but himself," Goemon said, nodding gravely.
"Huh?" Jigen asked.
"He's watched too many old samurai movies," Lupin said. "But I think that means he's in, too. So, here's the plan . . ."
Meanwhile, in an undisclosed location, Fujiko writhed on the floor, her arms chained behind her back.
"Listen," Machii was saying to the guards he'd assigned to her, very slowly. "She's not going to escape unless someone lets her."
"Why would we . . . ?"
"Shut up!"Machii interrupted. "Pay attention! She will offer to sleep with you. I want you to know, she won't actually sleep with you. She'll just make you both look like idiots."
One guard looked at Fujiko, and she batted her eyelashes at him.
"I know the Kama Sutra cover to cover," she offered in her breathiest voice.
The guard turned back to Machii.
"But are you sure she won't actually . . . ?"
Machii interrupted again, this time by emptying a handgun into the guard's face. The other guard stood up straighter.
"Don't let her go, no matter what. Got it."
Machii stepped out of the room to find Woodcut waiting for him.
"We haven't even had a chance to test the procedure on any other subject," he insisted. "Give us time to at least perform on another patient. One slip, and your father could be . . ."
"The patient is the Asimov Project!" Machii insisted. "I'm not wasting time or resources on any other. Just know the procedure had better go perfectly the first time. Because if it doesn't, everyone in the operating room, and everyone in their entire families, will suffer more than my father even could."
Zenigata picked up the phone in his office.
"Dr. Carson spilled everything," the Interpol agent on the other end of the line said. "She's been getting paid under the table to stitch up members of Goro Machii's gang for years. Same with Chung and Woodcut. And they've also been performing research that isn't exactly legal. No one seems to know where the other doctors on Machii's payroll disappeared to, though."
"Keep looking," Zenigata said. "If we find out Fumio's running his old man's operations, we can get them, him, and Lupin and his accomplices won't be far behind."
He hung up the phone, but it only took a second for it to ring again.
"Hi ya, Pops."
"LUPIN!"
The shout rang through all of Interpol's HQ.
"I'm about to tell you exactly where to come get me, so you might want to grab a map and a pen."
The operation was a tense procedure. The assistants the renowned surgeons had brought with them dabbed copious amounts of perspiration off of foreheads as the surgery stretched out for hours on end, Machii watching every move from behind the glass of the operating theater the whole time.
At last, Woodcut announced the procedure was complete, and that all of Goro's vitals looked good. Nothing left to do but wait for the anesthetic to wear off.
"Well, then," Machii said. "Let's celebrate."
The entire operating team walked away from the operating table. They took off scrubs, caps, and latex gloves, washed their hands, and adjourned to a dining room on the other side of Machii's secret hideout. Expensive champagne was popped and poured, and then Machii himself raised his glass for a toast.
"This was not an easy procedure," he said. "You all have my congratulations. Especially considering three of your assistants have no prior medical training."
There was a gasp, and then Machii's henchmen brought out three men, stripped down to their underwear and bound and gagged.
They then turned to the three men that resembled them, suspiciously still in their scrubs and surgical masks. The guards pulled the masks off.
Lupin, Jigen, and Goemon took off the wigs and surgical caps that helped sell the disguises, and then threw off the scrubs to reveal their everyday clothes underneath.
"Do I still get a glass of champagne?" Lupin asked, grinning mischievously.
"No," Machii insisted, walking up and breathing in his face. "Because while my father's surgery was a success, your operation was a failure. How did you even find us?"
"That flashdrive Fujiko gave you," Lupin said. "There was a virus on there that took files from your computer and gave them to me."
Machii plucked the spy cameras off Lupin, Jigen, and Goemon's lapels.
"Filming the procedure to sell to the highest bidder?"
"Or maybe I'd just leak it," Lupin said. "So the world can witness your illegal experiment. Interpol may have some thoughts on your crimes against humanity."
"Crimes against humanity?" Machii said. "Is that what you call it? Let's go ask the patient what he thinks."
The massive throng journeyed again from the dining room to the OR, where Lupin was tossed alongside the operating table as the rest of the crowd watched from behind the protective glass panel.
Then, slowly, Goro rose. The blanket fell off of him, revealing gleaming chrome where patches of skin were missing from his torso. His feet left the bed and touched the ground, and then he was slowly moving towards Lupin, groaning softly, his face still completely devoid of expression.
"You should probably be taking it easy, old man," Lupin said, backing away slowly. "You've just had major surgery. Trust me. I was there for all of it."
Goro's fingers clenched and unclenched. Lupin scooped his Walther off the floor, where it had slipped out of its holster when he'd been thrown to the floor. He fired repeatedly at Goro. The bullets ricocheted off of Goro's torso as the old gangster continued steadily advancing.
"Witness the Asimov Project," Fumio said. "The ultimate melding of man and machine."
Lupin jumped forward, grabbing Goro by the shoulder and punching him repeatedly in the face. The man still didn't flinch.
"Very good, father," Machii said, picking up some kind of remote. "But it's time to fight back."
With a couple button presses by the younger Machii, the older Machii grabbed Lupin off of him and lifted him into the air, throwing him across the room, and into the glass.
Lupin staggered back towards him.
"Izzat 'll ya got," he slurred.
Another input on Fumio Machii's remote, and Goro Machii hit Lupin with a heavy haymaker, knocking the thief to the ground.
Lupin pulled himself back to his feet, looking through the glass to where Jigen and Goemon were shifting nervously between the armed guards at their sides.
"Izzalright, boys," Lupin slurred, struggling just to stand up straight. "I gottim on the ropes."
Lupin seemed to faint, right before another haymaker swished right over his head. He stumbled back up, and then continued stumbling, right out of the way of another, wilder punch.
Fumio Machii was gripping the controller tighter in rage.
And Lupin saw a glint of light where he'd left cracks in the glass on impact.
He put his back up directly to the glass. Then when a punch came flying towards his face, he ducked.
"You missed," he taunted, sticking his tongue out as he rose back to his feet, only to duck again when Goro's other fist came flying at him.
This time, Goro punched straight through the glass. Fumio kept pounding the controls, but Goro's arm was stuck.
When he finally was able to make Goro's arm pull back hard enough to dislodge itself, the entire glass panel shattered. Lupin jumped up on Goro's back, running towards Machii and shooting the controller out of his hand.
Then everyone could feel the vibrations of a heavy battering ram smashing up against the main entrance.
"FUMIO MACHII!" Zenigata's voice hollered over a megaphone. "THIS IS KOICHI ZENIGATA OF THE ICPO. WE HAVE YOU SURROUNDED. COME OUT WITH YOUR HANDS UP!"
"Sounds like the cavalry's here," Lupin said.
"Hold them off!" Machii said, drawing his gun and turning and running.
A smoke grenade flew through the window, the three thieves diving to the ground in the chaos.
"I've got some unfinished business to take care of," Lupin said, reloading his Walther.
"So do I," Jigen said, checking his Smith & Wesson.
Goemon just nodded and drew his blade from his sheath.
He rose and swatted away bullets with his blade before swiping at the guns around him as Lupin and Jigen ran off in opposite directions behind him.
"So, you got a wife or girlfriend?" Fujiko asked.
"It's not going to work," the guard said. "Stop trying to flirt with me."
Fujiko groaned in disgust.
"That's the problem with all you men," she said. "A pretty girl tries to make small talk just to pass the time, and you have to think she's flirting with you. But I don't have to seduce you to get out of here. You know why?"
"Why?"
There was a click, and then Fujiko's chains fell away.
"Because I've got a perfectly good hairpin."
She jumped to her feet. The guard aimed his machine gun at her, and she kicked it into the air, catching it on its way down and pointing it back at him.
He raised his hands in surrender, just in time for more armed guards to burst into the room, only to be mowed down in a hail of machine gun fire as Fujiko made her escape.
Lupin ran down a long corridor, and at the end of it, he heard someone calling his name from above.
He looked up to see Zenigata watching him from a balcony.
"Consider yourself temporarily deputized as an agent of Interpol!" he barked.
"Aye aye, Inspector!" Lupin called, giving an exaggerated salute.
Zenigata grabbed two henchmen who were attacking him and tossed them off the balcony as Lupin disappeared further into the hideout, fighting any of Machii's lackeys who got in his way.
Meanwhile, Fumio Machii was within reach of an escape of his own . . .
