Bebop Blues

Chapter 6: Words That We Couldn't Say

There was a knock at the door.

Groggy and scratching her head, Mai arose, careful to not wake Faye.

"Huh?"

"You seen Faye?" His question seemed more like a distraction than an actual inquiry.

"She's in here."

Awkward.

"Didn't expect that..."

Mai shrugged. "It's better that you don't expect things and just go with the flow. You'll lose less sleep over it that way."

"I wanted to talk to her, but considering the topic, I think I'll ask you instead."

Judging by his change in tone, Mai was prepared to believe that he wasn't going to accept any of her crypticism. "I don't buy that you came here looking for Faye." She closed the door behind her. "I suppose it depends on your exact question, but can we move this conversation to the kitchen? I'd like a cup of tea and a cigarette. This is going to take a while."

Feeling as though he had gotten the most direct answer out of her yet, Jet nodded and led the way.

She had been standing there in a sports bra and shorts.

He would have been an idiot to not have seen the stitches.

"What's with-"

"Why don't we start from your first question and work our way up?"

They had just entered the kitchen; Jet flipped the switch as he crossed the threshold. Mai set the teapot to brew and took a seat at the table. Lighting her joint, she inhaled, the drug easing the pain in her side immensely.

"Alright, so where should I start?" Jet asked, taking a seat across from her.

"Start with whatever question inspired you to wake me up at 5 AM despite the measly 2 hours of sleep in my system."

Jet blinked in discomfort, but she seemed more amused than annoyed.

"A buddy of mine got me thinking. Do you really know Doohan?"

She nodded. "He built the Blues from the ground up with his own two hands at the request of my father."

That seemed true.

"And the Swordfish?"

She took a puff. "I know his handiwork when I see it, that brand of paint, the firmness in the bolts, the sweat he put into it; hell, it looks so much like the Blues that I was curious as to whether or not it was the inspiration."

Another fact.

"How old are you?"

"Twenty-eight."

"Place of birth?"

"Earth. I told you that already."

"Last name?"

"Spiegel."

"Bullshit."

"Oh? Because it's Spike's last name?"

He stiffened. "What all has Faye told you?"

She sighed. "Faye has told me her story; the rest of us are the weavers of our own tales. She wouldn't do you the injustice in divulging yours to me."

He furrowed his brow in thought. "What IS your deal with Faye, then?"

Mai smiled wistfully. "She's got this purity about her that no one seems to notice. A childhood unlived. She woke up an adult and was forced into an adult world with adult clothes and adult problems and adult debts, and all she really wants is to belong. To be loved and held and told she matters, because in the grand scheme of things, she never was treated that way as a child."

"How do you know that?"

"I don't, but if she can't remember, then it's just the same; that childlike innocence in her still exists. She needs someone to cherish it."

It was a lot heavier an answer than he anticipated. "Is what you said earlier on Venus true?"

"I'm a lost soul wandering; it's nice to find a kindred spirit and share the burden. We're just... friends, close ones who really need to be held sometimes."

He didn't want to continue this; it felt too intimate and too personal to be fair.

The teapot whistled, breaking the silence, and Mai rose from her chair to pour the tea.

"Green tea with honey," she commented as she passed Jet a glass.

He nodded his gratitude.

They sipped in silence momentarily before Jet spoke again, changing the course of the conversation. "It's apparent you haven't lied to us, but it's also apparent that you've deliberately worded your answers to mislead us."

"Not to mislead, Jet. You're the captain, and you have a right to know. I word things deliberately to deliver them in perfect timing; I've always struggled with timing."

"Sounds like there's more to that."

She chuckled. "I don't enjoy putting all my eggs in one basket, either."

"I guess I can't blame you."

She took another sip and then puff and passed a fresh one to Jet. "You need it."

He put up a hand. "No thank you. I prefer a level head."

"Of course you do. You're a cop."

"Did you draw that conclusion before I told you?"

She nodded. "Level-headed, unnatural need for justice, lack of fear for your own well-being, and a firm sense of honor: the straightest cop I've ever met."

"Thank you."

"They don't make 'em like you these days. Everyone's got some agenda."

"What's yours?"

She gave a thoughtful pause. "To find what I'm looking for. That's all there is to it."

Sip.

"How long has Spiegel been your last name?"

She grinned madly. "Now you're asking like a cop."

"Well?"

"Believe it or not, since I was nineteen."

"I don't believe it, Mai Yenrai."

Ignoring the implication, she busied herself by studying the ripples in her glass.

"And is Mai even your first name?"

Without glancing up, she answered carefully. "All in due time; you'll have to work harder for that answer. You're too good a cop, and I have a lot at stake."

He slammed his fist down on the table, standing up in the process, the chair scraping across the metal floor in screeches. "Dammit. Are you Mao's daughter or not?"

"What's all the commotion about?" Faye stood in the doorway, her oversized shirt billowing over her tiny shorts.

They looked at her in unison like parents fighting, the ideas forming between them of how to address the situation without disturbing or upsetting the child.

"Take a seat, Faye, and I'll tell you my story."

Faye tugged at the bottom of her shirt nervously. "Are you sure?"

It was positively adorable; even Jet couldn't help but crack a smile at the innocence of it. He finally understood Faye: she was stuck in shoes too large.

Even so, she had matured a great deal in the past year or so; the innocence maintained seemed the part of her that had never been disturbed.

"If I wasn't, I wouldn't have asked." Mai's eyes twinkled warmly. She rose from her seat to pour Faye some tea.

"Thank you."

Mai nodded. She took a long drag from the end of her cig before dropping remains into the ashtray.

"Ask your question again, Jet, though I have the sneaking suspicion that you already know the answer."

She lit another cig and handed one to Faye. She took it gladly.
Jet took a deep breath and gathered himself. "Are you the daughter of Mao Yenrai, late leader of the Red Dragons?"

Faye puffed. "She is."

Mai smiled. "I am the actual blood daughter of Mao Yenrai, born into a world that didn't suit my loving nature."

"You knew?"

Faye nodded. "She's got a hell of a past, and I don't know it all, but what she's told me, she's told me in confidence. There's a good reason for it."

Mai nodded and continued her tale. "I hate blood money, crime, drugs, you name it. It leaves an awful taste in my mouth. My father, rest his soul, wanted me to grow in a world of love and peace, free from crime and danger, and so I was raised by my mother on Venus. He said, "No daughter of mine should be subjected to the bloodshed and toils of man's selfishness." That was the day he changed his outlook on his business: the day I was born."

Sip.

"My mother, rest her soul, was a kind and quiet woman, strong and fierce, but the warmest most generous soul that ever lived. I was seven when they got her, those outside Syndicate hotshots. I remember everything they did. I still remember the screams. The blood. Their eyes..."

She puffed hard, the memory stirring something in her that she concentrated on containing.

"It angered me. To see those... Beasts... Do that to her, but I remained quiet. Father, heartbroken, brought me back to Mars, and I was raised with the boys."

"The boys?"

"The orphaned boys of Mars who had nowhere else to turn; the boys who grew up too fast in a world too cruel. The beasts in boys' clothing. The children of the Syndicate."

Both Faye and Jet dead panned. Judging by Faye's face, this was a part of the story she had not yet heard.

"They were raised to be killers, peddlers, smooth talkers, and every other dark shade of criminal in between. I was taught etiquette, social protocol, and how to speak, while they were taught how to kill, fight, and maim. I was to be a leader, free of bloodied hands and free from prosecution."

Sip.

"Some of them didn't like that. A pair of brothers, both orphaned from drug addict parents, chose to torment me frequently. To this day, one of them even stalks me, attempting to "dethrone the high and mighty successor." He feels I am undeserved."

She gestured to the gash upon her rib cage.

"He even goes so far as to follow his elder brother's actions: that damned sword."

"Vicious..." Faye all but whispered. She seemed distant, as though some specter had taken place next to Mai at the table.

Mai took another puff and placed a hand over Faye's to calm her. "His brother Victor is just as cruel. So long as one of them lives, my days tend to be numbered in ways I'd not prefer."

Another sip and a cough from Jet.

"Needless to say, despite the bullying, the desire to please my father outweighed their jealousy and hatred of me. I was never tortured too horribly until this stage of life."

Puff.

"But then I met him. I was 19, well on my way to taking over father's place in years to come, despite my secret life as a bounty hunter, and I met the single, greatest man in the universe of this surreal existence: Spiegel."

Nervous glances from Jet to Faye were filled with confusion and doubt. Surely not the same Spiegel, but the coincidence could not be happenstance.

"He was born and raised on Mars; when he was 16, his parents were killed by robbers. Cruel fate he suffered, and he refused to take shelter with the Syndicate. He wandered the streets doing odd jobs and playing his bass, earning whatever money he could to stay fed and clothed. When I met him, he was 22 and working as a waiter at one of my father's favorite venues. He chatted father up and asked permission to take me out. He introduced me to a world on the edge, a life without restriction and propriety and forced habit. He made me feel alive for the first time. The only time. He made the dream feel so real. So beautiful."

Puff. Sip. Pause.

"Father adored him. He said he couldn't have hoped for a better man. Despite the lack of career, he made good money between waiting tables and playing gigs, and he had a home to call his own. We married five months later."

"Five months? And you were so young!" Jet exclaimed.

Faye remained silent, looking away from the storyteller, words she had never heard pulling her heart in different directions.

"Not when you know. There's nothing but him."

Silence.

Sip.

"He had been separated from his brother and sister since the incident, and I had no one but father. We made a family of ourselves."

"His... siblings?"

Mai nodded. "We later discovered his sister had passed not too long after his parents. She had been kidnapped in the robbery..."

That seemed the darkest.

"She was only 8."

Darkest indeed.

"His brother had taken the route of vagabond and ended up at the steps of the Syndicate when he turned 15. I never met him, though we were the same age. Not even after I met Roy did I meet him; he was some ghostly satellite: engrained in my life in more ways than one, but never within sight or consciousness."

The wheels and cogs were turning.

And this new Spiegel had a name.

"Roy tried to reason with him, tell him there were other ways, but his brother had always been like the rest of us Syndicate kin: wild, untamed, and unbridled."

"Rest of you?" Faye was on the edge of her seat.

Mai nodded. "Though I don't share the viewpoint, I'm not the spitting image of perfection."

"I've been wondering about that," Jet added.

"It's a side I hope neither of you have to witness, but the hippie in me keeps the beast at bay." With that said, she took a long drawl of her joint.

Sip. Sip.

"Roy's been missing for almost two years," she said finally.

They waited. She seemed to be struggling with the words.

"I awoke in a hospital, covered in bandages. No recollection as to how I got there, what had transpired to put me in that state, where I was, or when it was."

Puff. Puff. And a ring of smoke lifted around her ominously.

"I had been unconscious for six months. The doctors said a man in a coat and hat dropped me off with my credentials under my father's last name. I had been transferred from another hospital before I awoke, but my records had been lost. I never knew from where I was first taken. In the first week, the only memory that came flooding back to me was a church, but nothing else. I remember being told of my father's death, but never the details. I suspect Vicious or Victor had something to do with it. A lot had happened around the time I showed up at that first mystery hospital."

Puff, but the cig was empty, her story nearly spun.

"I pushed through, and retrained in the skills taught to me from birth, from fighting to talking. I still had a lot of connections from my previous glory days, and I utilized them to get back into the bounty-hunting swing. I searched high and low, church after church, hospital after hospital, but I couldn't find hide or hair of him."

A final sip.

"And so, here I am."

She stubbed the joint into the tray.

"Still searching."