On the other side of town, in a two story Victorian house off the corner of Haight St and Masonic Avenue was the home of Hiro Hamada. He was fourteen years old, with a thin body structure, smooth cheeks, slanted eyelids with short lashes and nappy black hair that contrasted with his hazel colored eyes. He was often seen wearing long beige shorts, black trainers with orange-yellow laces in a perfectly neat tie, a dark blue-purple hoodie with a zipper, and a red shirt depicting a boxy toyetic version of a robot with a white long john undershirt that extended from underneath the red top.
Born to Tomeo and Maemi Hamada (maiden name Takachiho) on the top floor of the general hospital in 2018, Hiro had been destined to be one of the most hopeful figures in the age of progress and technology, as demonstrated when he proved a theorem that no mathematician could do around the age of four, which placed him in pre-school two years earlier for early signs of advanced intelligence. He had already spoken his very first word (his own name) on his first birthday and he made a two story toy home when he was three, using over seventeen building blocks from a Duplo set in four different colors of red, green, blue and yellow, but the theorem was absolute evidence that he was, of all other individuals, a child prodigy with an IQ of 155.
Unfortunately, by the time he turned four years old, his parents did not live to see the result of what he would become. On their way home from an anniversary dinner, their car suffered a head-on collision with the vehicle driven by an ex-boxer turned stick-up artist named Pinkie the Stabber, whom during his first theft of stealing essential boxing equipment, would later go down in history as Dick Tracy's first caught criminal. All of this had taken place about a month before the theorem and it was agreed by Judge Garrity that Hiro would stay with Tomeo's younger sister Cassandra Hamada at her tea and coffee house on Haight St. There, he treated his aunt like a princess (she treated him back like a prince), spent his days working on something to build and loved his older brother more than anything in the world.
His name was Tadashi, who shared his father's brown eyes and black hair (but more flat unlike Hiro's), and was more muscular and more athletic than the younger. The boys were seven years apart by six months, three days, two hours and one single minute. Tadashi had loved Hiro ever since he came out of his mother's womb and was dedicated to bringing him upright in the straight and righteous path to becoming the greatest inventor in the world since Thomas Edison and Steve Jobs. However, three other boys from Hiro's school, by the names of Sam, Kano and Gaisa, saw the young prodigy as nothing more than an "Asian braggart" who needed to be taught a lesson by the most vicious act of physical violence: bullying. During recess, under the promise of a conversation about his intelligence, they brought Hiro over to a clearing that was ten feet away from the playground, then kicked him in the shin and knocked him to his knees until he was lying face down on the ground, disoriented by the mental torturing jeers of "You're an eyesore!" and "Just because you're a bit smart, DOESN'T MEAN YOU CAN BE FULL OF YOURSELF! ASIAN!"
Tadashi had seen everything, and he successfully put a stop to Hiro's beating by rushing over to his baby brother's aid, tackling Kano to the brown earth and threatening to the other boys that if they ever abused Hiro again, he would report all of their responsible actions to the authorities. Behaved, Sam, Kano and Gaisa left Tadashi to his brother and took him home, where he clotted a strong injury from Hiro's left forearm with a cotton pad held by medical pincers. This proved to be a very difficult operation for Hiro, who was nearly in tears by the time his treatment was finished. As a reward for trying to stand up like a real man, Tadashi gave Hiro a cherry flavored lollipop that developed a branch in his sweet tooth; in fact, his favorite candies were nothing but lollipops and gummy bears.
Over the next ten years, Tadashi and Aunt Cass became very sociable to at least half of the city's population and more well-known citizens while Hiro became a shut-in who did not want to have anything to do with people he could not trust. Sam, Kano and Gaisa's attack had left a legacy of emotional scars and a series of cruel mockery and envy towards the young genius: Whenever Hiro was paired with another kid who was just about as smart as him; the jealous student would leave him with three options.
1. Ignore him and just move on.
2. Insult him for his race.
3. Beat him to a pulp.
Hiro mostly received numbers three and two out of all the said choices of how to handle a person that you didn't like, and while filling himself with shame (especially since the school principle could not look into the situations he suffered due to misplaced blames from jealous students), he decided to take action against his abusers by creating battle robots that would threaten anyone who mocked his genius. When Hiro turned eight, an insensitive boy who looked a lot older than him tried to feed him a disgusting display of "brain food "(actually a piece of raw chopped liver from boar meat that he bought from a slaughterhouse) and continued to harass Hiro by forcing him to eat the liver until the young genius flipped the table with great strength and seethed a vicious tongue lashing into the male's face.
"Do it again and my battle bots will turn your fingers into pretzels!"
But through all the fights and acts of violence that Hiro committed to defend himself against his tormentors, he still remained a cheerful and happy child, mostly at times when he and Tadashi would invent something like a daruma doll that could sprout a sunflower with a smiling face, a duck blower that produced disinfectant bubbles, a ride on a rocket propelled "airplane", a pen that created clouds of animals and insects, some cardboard robots and even a jet-powered fork when Hiro refused to eat carrots, thinking that they did not agree with his tasting buds.
Ever since the day he and Tadashi were adopted, Hiro also had a journal to record his inventions and personal life moments but he did not contemplate on the secondary purpose of his journal as a diary or a scrapbook. Instead, it was a mixture of auto-biography that contained photographs (taken by himself), sketches, items, trinkets and notes of his experiences in life and research. He believed that the usage of social networking websites-like Facebook, Twitter and ScienceStage-was too much unnecessary exposure to be seen by the entire world as if they could read other people's information, opinions, personalities, goals and ideas to steal and exploit them for their own reasons. No, Hiro and Tadashi preferred the old fashioned way of socializing, something that traditionalists would agree on in terms of decency. After all, what would happen to their online accounts when it was time to die? It is considerably wise in both positive and negative agreements that some evidence should die along with the person that keeps the mystery of the information that may serve as the answer to almost anything in the universe, which is often the reason why certain people are killed or humiliated for containing such immoral secrets.
Anyways, the very first inspiration that sparked Hiro's muse for inventing came in the form of a Japanese bobtail cat named Mochi, who had been living with them since adoption day. Cass thought that the boys needed an extra playmate, so she went to a pet store and found a newborn bobtail, named him Mochi for his charismatic and adorable features, and, as soon as she got home, took the picture of Hiro hugging the cat very tightly with a big grin that was lacking a right central incisor from the four year old's mouth.
After losing that first baby tooth from an apple, Cass and Tadashi felt that Hiro had a mild case of autism. They gave him lisdexamfetamine (or vyvanse) to suppress the rapid mood swings he would have later on in life as well as not thinking very clearly. Fearing an overdose, Hiro stopped taking the medication when he turned eleven, thinking that he was officially mature enough to control his emotions, but became more natural in effect. Over the next three years, he proved to be very hot headed, overconfident and impulsive enough to achieve the well-established bias of a large ego. Therefore, deriving himself from the stereotypical nature and mannerisms of an ideal nerd, like speaking intellectually or not doing any sort of rebellious motivations that were very common in the personalities of children around his age. No, Hiro was the polar opposite of all stereotypical dorks that could be seen in fiction and fantasy; a type of genius that could spend some time just being a kid and doing all of those things that no one else could do, like bot-fighting; an extremely illegal tribute to blood sports using robots instead of animals like cockerels or bulls for gambling purposes. The reason behind the illegality of bot-fighting was that the necessity of robots and their destruction at hands of royalty hungry gamblers was too much of a loss for the labor union, starting with taxes and lawsuits against all acts of robotic combat before it became a sport that only the criminal underworld could be held responsible for. The violation of Isaac Asimov's rule number one of his three law of robotics, stating that "a robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm", supported the fight against illegal usage of robotic combat.
Ever since Tadashi had enrolled, graduated and became a leading scientist in the prestigious San Fransokyo Institute of Technology (which earned him the status of a minor celebrity), Hiro saw little of his brother, who worked for six hours a day in a laboratory on whatever the school had to offer for the future of mankind and all of its achievements since the dawn of time. Hiro, on the other hand, was so intelligent, that he even graduated from Lowell High School at 13 years of age. Now that he was free from all the students who tortured him over how smart he was, he spent the first two months of his fourteenth year attending bot fighting tournaments since there was nothing else that he could do with his life. Finding a well-paying job was too dull and too painstaking for a kid his age and even if he could have found one, a dishwasher in his aunt's coffee house for example, the child labor laws of Japanifornia were very strict on selective employment for minors.
Not long after Sora, Donald and Goofy's arrival in the city earlier that morning, Hiro had spent the entire day planning out the next bot-fighting game that he was yet to attend. After winning four bot fights in a row, he knew that the competition was fierce but he could not let any of San Fransokyo's most notable crime bosses from the likes of Lawrence "Acey-Deucy" Doucet, Chuck "the Clipper" Brown, Joey DeSanto and so many others from the old days of organized crime (or at least their descendants) see him sweat. He had to take it very seriously, especially when the competitors were defeated by someone of his own age. So after fibbing to Aunt Cass that he was going to the library, Hiro took the 6:30 trolley down to the bot fight and set off into the bright lit evening, admiring the gleam and dazzling spectacular of the city as he anxiously waited to succeed in what would later be his fifth, and final duel.
From Hiro's perspective, his birth home of San Fransokyo was not quite a big city, nor was it a small town with only a factory to support it. Ever since it was founded on June 29, 1776, San Fransokyo (known back then as San Francisco) had been a mysterious mix of the past and the future, old and new, vintage and modern combined in revolutionary science and the heart of the city was forever locked in a past that could never change.
Throughout the nineteenth century, San Francisco was an emerald to the coast of Japanifornia (formerly California) that shone brighter than New York City or any other capitol in the United States. Civilization was not too advanced back in those days, and it brought forth a furious trade of miners in the gold rush of 1848 from the Sierra Nevada and over the next sixty-eight years, the city council and founding president of the University of San Francisco, Father Anthony Maraschi had enough profit to develop the city into a major tourist attraction of industry, color, cool summers and steep rolling hills. At nighttime, the bright skyscraper lights and neon colors that imitated the CMYK color model palette of cyan, magenta, yellow and black, softened in luster, giving the elderly Victorian pagodas and forgotten alleyways of skid row an inviting glow that was friendly and welcome to the darkness.
But, there came a day when a giant earthquake threatened to destroy the city forever. At 5:12 in the morning on Wednesday, April 18, 1906, San Francisco was wrecked and ruined by fire from ruptured gas lines that spread throughout three quarters of the city over a matter of seven days, claiming the lives of 500 people and leaving 400,000 homeless. Survivors and refuges lived in makeshift tents on the beach, while others were hard at work on the seemingly futile efforts to undo the damage and an influx of sympathetic immigrants from Japan, China, Vietnam, Siam, Korea and others from all corners of Asia immediately volunteered to rebuild the city in their own image. To ensure the survivors that such great destruction would never happen again in the future, the Asian immigrants had redesigned the buildings to withstand earthquakes and such natural disasters to a minimal amount of damage, as Japan had also suffered a myriad of giant quakes and in return, architectural companies built earthquake resistant structures to avoid a large amount of casualties. This, along with the Imperial invasion that marked the end of the Pacific Theater in 1942, completed the multiracial hybrid of American and Japanese culture of San Francisco, rechristened "San Fransokyo" in commemoration of Japan's own capitol, Tokyo. The leading members of the 1906 reconstruction group were born and raised in Tokyo, and thought of the renaming as a most valuable act of honor and respect to the beauty of their home capitol.
As Hiro walked his way to the tournament by the public transportation system of a cable trolley, he started to memorize the districts and streets that complied the great metropolis into the summarization level of a travelling brochure.
First, there was Union Square, the gateway between Uptown and Downtown. Uptown was the fast-paced world of tomorrow, which was populated by modernists who kept up with the times in terms of fashion and entertainment while Downtown was an old-world charm that was inhabited by traditionalists, the type of people in Dick Tracy's crowd who liked to wear reproductions of vintage clothing of any color from the 1940s and listened to the swing music of the 30s, reminding them of a happy time before Japanese forces had attacked and occupied Pearl Harbor and further advanced the Asian influences of San Fransokyo to a dominating degree under the reign of Emperor Hirohito. But not all of the traditionalists were prejudiced against the Asian descendants of the city from 1906, they had praised the Japanese for a distinctive taste to the downtown district with its style of opera, Kabuki theater and even synthesizer-driven techno concerts for those who grew up in the 80s.
2,000 feet above San Fransokyo, was an approximated number of twenty floating wind turbines that provided power to the city. The turbines were suspended in the air from a 1,996 foot cable attached to the ground, allowing strong breezes to flow continually from the Pacific Ocean to provide San Fransokyo with clean and renewable energy. If one was to look up at them from the ground, he or she would worry about the chances of a turbine getting destroyed by a plane, helicopter or bird; but it really did not matter, for the government had made sure that the turbines were given a safe altitude to avoid the risks of an accident.
The Marina was a food market that featured a variety of architectural styles, from Persia, to Paris, Rome, Rio, Berlin, Monte Carlo and all areas of the Middle East. The shops, in particular, sold everything from exotic teas, fresh fish, Sakuma Drops, mango, and imported vegetables from Great Britain.
The Garden District was located at the edge of Downtown. It was home to the city's high class citizens where visitors could tour the gardens of any quality and size of yard. It also contained one of the most extensive comic-book collections in the world that led to the beginning of Comic-Con in 1970. The Garden District also had parks that featured a variety of plant life, with over eighty seven species imported from Japan, including the ever notable cherry blossom, the lotus and the chrysanthemum. To commemorate the peak blooming season, a number of almost fifteen hundred visitors flocked to the city each year on the eleventh of April to attend the San Fransokyo Cherry Blossom Festival (more formally known as a hanami).
After a ten minute period of reminiscing, Hiro came to his destination: Ross Alley. He stepped off the tram feeling nervous, and the moment he set foot in the alley, gazed up to see the overhead light of the hardware store on his right switched on in an intense glow. He knew that a technical failure had caused itself to fix, or had simply remained off until his arrival as though the light was expecting him. In the similar fashion of a headwaiter greeting his guests into the restaurant, Hiro waited for a split second and walked into the vicinity of the alley.
Ross Alley was the holy grail of brothels, gambling houses, and opium dens to bring the men of yesteryear far from their troubles at home with the mistress and children to the forbidden fruit of lust. It had been that since the 19th century, and governor had been planning on turning it into a fortune cookie factory, but was met with little success in the crime war on bot-fighting. Unable to persuade the all-powerful criminals, the San Fransokyo Police Department conducted raids and stakeouts, doing whatever was in their power to put an end to the wastes of bot-fighting once and for all.
Surrounded by a crowd of thirty-nine people and three geishas on roller-skates called the Fujitas was Mr. Yama, the number two mob boss of San Fransokyo, and second only to his rival Alphonse "Big Boy" Caprice. He wore a night-blue jumper with three lines on his sleeves that were as yellow as road markings. Physically, he had short black hair with a ponytail, thick eyebrows and was most notable for weighing about 317 pounds, the size of an average sumo wrestler. He was the number one champion of underground bot-fighting tournaments for over 15 years. To Yama, bot-fighting was a good substitute for starting a gang war with the other criminal leaders of San Fransokyo, thus avoiding bloodshed and even though the entirety of the San Fransokyo Police Department were much too smart to fall into his pocket, he always managed to succeed in his underground fights before the gambling raid parties, led by Major Crimes Unit would spread through the syndicate like cancer. Yama was proud of his name, which meant "mountain" in Japanese, for he hoped that anyone who played into his control would treat him like the mountain of his namesake, Mt. Fuji.
Yama's latest opponent was a goth punk girl named Magenta, who had hair that was dyed a purple-pink color and eyes that matched her name with exotic violet lips. On her head was a pair of goggles used by technicians for building robots and she wore the custom outfit of a black leather vest with seventeen silver pyramid studs on each side, a black nylon that could be seen underneath her transparent shirt which was ripped near the arms. Her hands were concealed by black gloves with a spike bracelet on her left arm and her belt strap was a metallic skeleton made from the melted iron of a hood ornament. She also wore cut-off shorts with striped leggings and black rock boots with laces that were held in a corset like design. Around her neck was a silver chain, a black silk chain and a dog collar with an emerald green pendant. Her bot was a dual toned killer with green eyes, a yellow star on the right side chest which was black while the other side was pump pink. Its left claw was also pink white the right claw was a baby blue color. Hooked with two cables in the back to the claws, its pink right shoulder pad bore a circle with the number 15 in black while the left shoulder pad was decorated with three pink lightning bolts against the jet black of the pad. The right leg had a half shade of pink while the black was restricted within the remainder of the leg and the left one.
Yama's bot, nicknamed "Little Yama", was a crude but impressive replica of the kabuto and mengu armor from the Kamakura period. It had a black helmet with a gold maedate and an eye that turned red with fury. The shoulder pads were streamlined in black with gold edges and the lower body was black as well. The potbellied torso of Little Yama was painted with a yellow circle with five petals of a black flower, four triangles forming a square around a real square in the very center of the rotund symbol. Its right arm was equipped with a sawblade for a hand while the left hand had three long kerambits for fingers and two short ones for thumbs.
Both bots were in gladiatorial combat, with Little Yama deflecting Magenta's robot a black shield carrying the logo on its chest plate. The right claw of the pink robot throwing a jab at Little Yama caught the black robot off-guard and responded with a counterattack to the joints then threw the pink bot down with a body slam. With his opponent down for the count, Little Yama grabbed the pink robot's right claw and threw it on its back to where Magenta pushed both thumbs on the joysticks and the fallen robot was back on its feet. A right jab from Little Yama missed his opponent, and a left uppercut from Magenta's bot sent the head torso spinning counterclockwise in a 180 direction, falling face first. Magenta smiled at what could have been a supposed victory, but her smile dropped into a frown of shock when her bot, trying to claw the fallen Little Yama with its pincers, was caught by the right hand and the left hand, changing into a sawblade, lifted itself onto the pink robot's back and slammed the sawblade into the spine, where 16 gears and four screws of all shapes flew out of the body in haze of sparks and collapsed along with the bot itself.
The leader of the Fujitas was a tough woman with an eye patch covering her left eye from a shootout six years ago and a scorpion band was held on her left arm. She wore an orange tank top with purple shorts, turquoise jeans and roller skates with red wheels. Her black hair was curled in a mixture of a French curl and an updo, which was festooned with light green hair combs in the shape of purple topped pins and some beads with a plastic flower of purple, red and yellow adorning her left forehead.
She shouted the results as she passed a white with yellow lining imari tray designed with a persimmon tree to the victor. "And the winner is, by total annihilation…YAMA!"
Defeated, Magenta retrieved what was left of her robot and stormed her way out of the alley, passing Hiro along the way. The young genius greeted her with an unnoticeable glace and waved his free left hand at the three odd ducks sitting by a table underneath an umbrella: Larceny Lu, a blond haired woman in a brown fur coat and long pearl necklace who looked as though she had been beaten with an ugly stick; Big Frost, also known as "Jack Frost" for his snow-white complexion and grey hair along with icy silver eyes, black suit and a yellow bowtie and Tulza Tuzon also known as Haf-and-Haf, for his right side was handsome with dark hair and a black suit with a red shirt while his left side looked as though it had been melted off with white hair and a yellow checker boarded suit. As a distant relative of the corrupt scientist Herbert Landon, who had similar features, he had gotten this from an automobile accident with some chemicals while he worked as a commercial truck driver who was transferring the chemicals out of state to the University of Michigan. The truck swerved from an oncoming Jaguar convertible, whose driver was drunk out of his mind after three pints of Jack Daniels, and tipped over, submerging the left half of his face with the chemicals. He had been treated afterwards by the beautiful high diver Zelda and pursued a life of crime as he settled down back in San Fransokyo with his new wife Dolly. The three criminals passed a five dollar bill to a young man who exchanged the fiver with a ten dollar bill as Hiro continued his way behind the crowd, to keep his recognition at a low level as a way of surprising the criminal underworld with his intellectual mind, he knew what he had to do as heard the large man shout at the top of his lungs: "Who's next?! Who has the guts to step into the ring with, Little Yama?!"
One of the contestants, a male Spanish-American in a red cap and midnight blue jacket, was cowered by the small menacing Little Yama. He grabbed the head of his own robot, an ice green colored bot with black spikes for hands and shoulder pads and pulled it off in an imitation of the pink robot's defeat. He could not risk any damage if he were do it himself. A woman with dark hair, chocolate brown skin and a pine green tank top seemed to agree with the man as she hid her own robot, a yellow armed bot with pincers behind her back.
From the table, Haf-and-Haf puffed on his cigarette and asked to the large man, "Why don't we hear this from Big Boy?"
An Asian man with a bald head and a wide-collared shirt named Panda, stepped to address the grotesque man.
"As we all know, Mr. Caprice does not interest in bot fights, he thinks they are too evasive."
Then he scanned the crowd on his left and right, squinting for a brave and noble face.
"Any contestants?"
A pre-pubescent voice spoke up.
"Can I try?"
The crowd of spectators turned to face the young boy with spiky black hair.
"I have a robot. I built it myself."
He extended his left hand to give the crowd a closer look at his creation Megabot: it was about twelve inches tall with six black magnetic limbs in the shape of hexagonal thimbles. Two round balls made up the torso and a yellow face with large eyes and a grin of eight teeth, creating the face of an insane smile.
The bot's size was something of an understatement to Yama, who just laughed at the perceived weakness of the fighter. He laughed so hard, that his potbellied stomach (and his testicles) shook like gel. The crowd also greeted Hiro with uproarious laughs, who just cringed and quivered like he always did, but at the same time it was partially genuine, reminding him of the boys and girls who made fun of his genius during his school years. Pushing it aside, Hiro plucked up courage.
"Hey! I'm a lot tougher than you think."
Panda and the Fujita leader were not impressed by the display.
"Beat it, kid," she snarled. "You know the house rules of Ross Alley: you gotta pay to play."
Hiro had heard this before, though he still kept up his naïve state of mind when he responded.
"Oh, ok."
He pulled a crumpled pile of $20 dollars from his right hand pocket.
"Is this enough?"
Yama had not heard of Hiro before due to the other bot-fighting tournaments taking place through rival gang members, to which nobody had any guts to step up to their rivals. Leering his head with a sardonic smile, Yama asked.
"What is your name, little boy?"
"Hiro, Hiro Hamada."
"Prepare your bot, Zero!"
Both competitors placed the wads of money in the tray and Hiro was able to spill four quarters of an extra dollar in tray before the Fujita leader placed the cover back on the tray. Yama placed Little Yama on the ring before Megabot, which lost its footing and slipped from the crudely placed position in-between its legs on the floor ring. Yama sat on the floor crisscrossed and so did Hiro, with his right hand on the top of his head and the left hand clutching his chin, he positioned it at a six degree tilt, causing the bones on the back of his throat to crack. Hiro tried the same, but the silence of his own bone structure led him to imitate his own way of a braking neck. His view of Yama was obstructed by the Fujita leader, who unfolded an oil-paper umbrella with black, red, white and small yellow stripes and placed it in the very center of the ring like a shield, as though she were trying to hypnotize the young boy. But instead, she twirled the umbrella and its design rotated with only the wooden structure spinning over the round striped colors.
"Two bots enter, one bot leaves! Fighters ready?!"
At her request (as he always did) Panda blew an air horn that could be heard from the rooftops and the Fujita leader sidestepped backwards out of the ring with the umbrella folded to let the battle commence as she screamed "FIGHT!" like a professional referee at a boxing match.
Little Yama sheathed his claws, and Hiro at the controls, lifted Megabot onto its feet. Megabot walked innocently towards the looming Little Yama like it was trying to tame the monster with a hug. But unfortunately, Little Yama's left clawed hand catapulted Megabot into the air at five feet and used the right hand sawblade to cut Megabot into three pieces from the bottom and the middle. The head and upper two magnetic limbs fell in front of a dismayed Hiro, who lowered himself at the downed head of his bot on his hands as Yama let out a deep chortle.
"That was my first fight," he stuttered. "Can I try again?"
"No one likes a sore loser, shonen," Yama taunted with a mug of mock empathy. "Go home."
As he collected the fifteen thousand clams from the imari tray, Hiro showed him a round of $20, 000 dollars from his left hoodie pocket wrapped in a paper band. Yama squinted his eyes and smiled, he had been looking forward to another bot fight with the same fighter who had already lost.
The Fujita leader repeated her phrase with the oil-paper parasol and Panda let out another blast of the air horn, this time the woman's shout was drowned out by the horn. To Yama's surprise, Megabot's pieces lined up in a straight direction and reassembled together in a magnetic connection.
The secret to Hiro's success in bot-fighting was the same, he would spend a third half of his money to study the opponent's fighting style and see how his or her robot worked before actually taking them on. He had intentionally lost the first fight because he knew that if he could get to know the patterns and tendencies of his opponent, he would know exactly how to defeat him or her in the next round. Knowing that Yama would be overconfident enough to raise his bet up to thirty thousand smackers, Hiro had his intentions to surprise the crowd with a dramatic flair.
It's all part of my caliber. He always said to himself.
He extended the sides of his remote control to reveal a thin blue computer screen displaying additional melee and combat skills before he uttered.
"Megabot, kill him."
Megabot's yellow face turned around to reveal a red face with glaring eyes and a wicked smile with jagged teeth. Yama was so surprised at the face that he barely had time to notice Megabot's middle arms spinning into a twister and the small battle bot ducked underneath Little Yama as the sawblade came upon his former position. It danced around and behind as Yama tried to swerve the sawblade into Megabot's lower body. Confused and dazed, he used the control sticks on his RC to spin and attack in an all about maniacal frenzy, while Hiro just sat there fiddling with his own control sticks, a smug face on his lips and his ability to have Megabot split into the three pieces made him looked bored but satisfied. His trick to catch Yama off-guard had worked.
At that moment, the three pieces climbed up Little Yama from the legs like ants, twisting the left arm off and shooting it's claws down toward the right one and with enough scooting, pushed the saw blade and the arm itself free from the wires that held it together. Reformed into a single being, Megabot slapped Little Yama's head violently, left, right and all around before it curled up like a snake and gripped Little Yama's head, hugging it until the pressure could not hold any longer and the head shot like a rocket up into the air and landed eight feet behind its collapsed body. For his victory pose after a two minute fight, Hiro controlled Megabot's devilish facade back to the yellow smiley face and lowered its upper body in a saikeirei.
"No more Little Yama," Hiro taunted in his imitation of Big Yama's mock sympathy. He received his winnings from the tray: a bundle of $30, 000 dollars.
Yama picked up the severed head as the golden maedate fell from the black helmet, shocked, upset and distraught that had been beaten by, of all people, a fourteen year old. This was too much of a scandal on his reputation, seeing that he had never in all of his fifteen years of bot-fighting, lost a match against anyone, especially a child. The sumo crime boss lost his temper, swearing in Japanese. "THIS IS NOT POSSIBLE!"
He eyed the three odd ducks by the table and the three young men sitting behind him, Mordecai, Yin and Diego to take action. Panda and the Fujita leader noticed this look of rage as Hiro began to ramble.
"Hey, I'm just as surprised as you are, and that is what I call, 'beginner's luck'."
As he spoke, the crowd backed away to the very end of the ally, thinking that the police were nearby and not wanting to be in Yama's way whenever it would seem like he was going to hit the ceiling.
"All part of my caliber," Hiro chuckled to himself out loud. Then he looked up as Yama was on his feet. "So can we go again?"
But rather than a proper response (through verbal means, of course), Hiro's nostrils were being held at gunpoint by Haf-and-Haf's lupara, a twelve gauge double barreled howdah pistol, a fitting weapon of choice for someone with a two-faced exterior.
"No one hustles the boss," the bad side of Haf-and-Haf threatened in a dark voice.
Hiro tried to back away from the armed freak, but Yama was closing in on him too, shouting, "He's right you cheatin' son of a bitch! No one beats Yama and I want to know how!"
And with a swift wave of his right hand, he grabbed Megabot from Hiro's grip and instructed the three men and the three deformed crooks, "Teach him a lesson."
"Can't we just shoot him?" asked Larceny Lu, holding her H&R Model 733.
"Just beat him up," responded Yama, and he walked away in a private corner to study the inner workings of Megabot. Big Frost lowered his silver plated Smith & Wesson Model 64 and slowly moved in towards a nervous, but frightened Hiro, who was trying to make peace with Mordecai, Yin and Diego.
"Hey, fellas! Let's talk about this. I know your boss is upset, but here's what I'm gonna do: I'll teach you everything I know about high-torque micromotors. I charge an hourly rate-it's pricey, but worth it. Before you know it, you'll be making robots that aren't totally junky. First class is free!"
But he began to sweat when Yin cracked his muscles and Larceny Lu was aiming her revolver at his forehead. Just as he was about to have his "big brain" blown out by the oncoming bullet, the bright light of a red Piaggio Vespa came from the eastern corridor of the alleyway, knocking the criminals down with the front wheel and they landed pel mel on top of each other. The driver of the Vespa was a tall and slightly muscular 21 year old with black hair and brown eyes. Next to the jet black helmet with goggles that lay strapped to the top of his head, he wore a white crew neck t-shirt with the black streamlined artwork of a ninja, along with a blue-grey cardigan, a dark green sweater, brown pants rolled up around his ankles and mint-colored sneakers. He shouted, "Hiro, get on!"
Hiro knew who he was. "Nii-san!"
He jumped onto the back of the bike. "How did you find me? Did you follow me?!"
"Nope. When I realized that you would be going to another bot-fight, I thought I could get you out of there by installing those GPS trackers in the hood of your jacket."
Hiro frowned. "Seriously, onii-chan?! I can take care of myself!"
Tadashi just slammed a white helmet with a dark green stripe down the middle on Hiro's head, trying to keep up with his patience.
"Well taking care of yourself does not count it!" Tadashi scolded as he strapped the belt on.
It took Hiro a second to adjust the helmet in a straightforward direction before Tadashi, gripping the left handle bar, gunned the Vespa's engine and took off into the alley, past the hidden crowd and hoping that they would "reach the border" before the evening raid would infiltrate and dismantle the gambling operations.
Realizing that he had left Megabot behind, Hiro took out the controls from his right hoodie pocket, flipped the yellow face to red and it leapt onto Yama's face, again preforming the twister attack on his nose and forehead as he fell to the ground and whizzed back to the waiting left hand of Hiro.
As they cruised through the southern passage, Tadashi asked his brother, "Are you okay?"
Hiro nodded. "Yeah."
Tadashi kept his eyes on the road. "Are you hurt?"
"No."
Hiro kept looking back at where Yama had once stood, excitement in his thoughts of riding Tadashi's motorcycle like a spoiled prince, but Tadashi's right hand curled into a fist and he slammed into Hiro's stomach and right elbow five times over shouting, "THEN WHAT WERE YOU THINKING, KUSOTTARE?!"
Hiro just kept holding on to Tadashi's shoulders, as the older Hamada saw an iron gate with a green dumpster in front of it. It was a dead end, and rather than preforming such a dangerous stunt like driving up the wall and over it, Tadashi rotated the bike in a 180 degree angle and zoomed back down the alley towards the northern passage where they would make their escape. As they drove, Tadashi shouted back, "You graduated high school last year when you were thirteen and this is what you're doing?!"
Before Hiro could answer, he noticed Yama and his three henchmen lumbering their way towards them, intent on throwing the Vespa's passengers off the bike with brutal force. Larceny Lu and Haf-and-Haf readied their guns and Big Frost just stood there aiming his S&W at Tadashi's forehead like a professional as Tadashi himself spotted a wooden floorboard lying sideways against a stack of ten other boards.
"Hold on!" he shouted to Hiro and he zoomed the bike's wheels up the board at full speed and brothers flew into the air at a ten foot altitude, zooming over the heads of their enemies. As they soared, Hiro looked at himself in a pan of glass windows, holding on tight to his brother's shoulders and a smiling a wild and happy grin into his reflection. Even though Tadashi was too careful for one second to look into the glass, it was a perfect, pretty honey shot in Hiro's eyes before gravity in kicked and sent the Vespa back onto the road.
Tadashi and Hiro continued to bicker in Japanese, as they always liked to do whenever it came to personal issues.
"How many times do I have to tell you?! Bot-fighting is illegal! You are going to get yourself arrested for co-operation!"
Hiro rolled his eyes, he had been given this lecture before, when Tadashi had caught him sneaking into the house via window after his third bot-fight. He was lucky that he didn't get into a tirade with Tadashi after his fourth fight since he was already asleep when he returned. So he tried to reason with him, by holding the $30,000 dollars from his right pants pocket.
"Bot-fighting is not illegal! Betting on bot fights are illegal, but it's so lucrative! I'm on a roll big brother and there is no stopping me!"
But Hiro soon realized that he had spoken all too soon, for the flashing lights of red and blue turning into purple and the sounds of sirens resonated throughout the alley. Tadashi heard the siren and stopped the bike at the sight of a Toyota Corolla squad car parked at the entrance, his teeth clinched and his head nearly dizzy from the jump. Knowing that trying to outrun them would be fruitless, all Tadashi could say was:
"Oh shit."
Hiro cringed. It was rare to see his brother curse or swear in public.
Two more police cars and an unmarked Ford Crown Victoria cordoned off the entrance. The Hamada brothers exchanged glances of worry as they knew who the unmarked car belonged to. Out from the driver's seat came the bright yellow figure of Detective Dick Tracy and his trio of plainclothes detectives, known on the force as the "Crimestoppers".
Pat Patton was Tracy's first partner when he began his career on the force. Judging by his rotund face, beady eyes, auburn hair and a light Dublin accent, Hiro could easily assume that he was an Irishman. He wore a Kelly-green derby with an emerald topcoat and a yellow bowtie, matching the colors of his native land's poetic name "The Emerald Isle". Prior to his job in the Major Case Squad, he worked as a steel welder in Potrero Point and he was not very adept in his new position as a policeman, often making comments to his peers that he was not cut for the job. This was further evidenced by his near brush with death in a raid on Big Boy's apartment and later, he made a full recovery from the bullet wounds. By the end of the case, the chief awarded Patton with a Medal of Valor for his strength to hold on, rather ironic prior to his blundering efforts.
Sam Catchem was Dick Tracy's second partner during his third year on the police force. He wore a rust-colored suit and fedora with a striped necktie, had black hair, a rumpled face with freckles and was often seen smoking a cigarette in his full lips. Tadashi could tell that he was from Brooklyn given his tough voice that sounded burly. Catchem was a childhood friend of Pat Patton, who previously worked as a dentist and studied in law school to find a well-paying job as a private investigator and a fingerprint expert. His first case involving Big Frost's moll Sleet was nearly unsuccessful when she tried to dispose of him by throwing his chloroformed body from an overpass on the interstate. Fortunately, he was found by a patrol car and Sleet was arrested for twenty years of racketeering with her husband.
Lizz Worthington-Grove was a new addition to the SFPD after eight months of extensive training. She was a slim blond photographer who often wore a red beanie, a pearl choker and a light purple dress with boot heels. She also had a posh voice that made her sound English, but was meant to reflect the British nature of her maiden name Worthington. Her late husband Jimmy was close with the police department in their aide of capturing the criminal Oodles and with no other job to do, Lizz decided to take a job as a policewoman to be more closer with her second husband Groovy Grove, coming close to death in her latest cases, and thus considered by Detective Tracy as the good luck charm of the Major Crimes Unit.
Tracy, on the other hand, did not see Hiro and Tadashi properly and thought that the passengers of the motorbike were sneak thieves. He walked over to the trunk of the Crown Victoria containing two objects: in his right hand, he carried a 1928 Thompson submachine gun and in his left hand was an electronic bullhorn in typical police like colors of black and white. Moving behind his car incase the sneak thieves were armed, he spoke into the bullhorn and his voice reverberated off the walls as he shouted: "Hands up! I've got a tommy gun in my hand and it's in a barking mood!"
Then, squinting his eyes, he instantly recognized the two brothers.
"Oh, you two."
Setting the bullhorn and the tommy gun down on the car's sunroof, he walked over to the brothers, pushing back his snapbrim fedora and stood with hands on hips and staring grimly down on Hiro and Tadashi. In return, the Hamada brothers looked at him in fear as though he were their late father as he asked them.
"Is there a problem boys?"
Tadashi tried to defend himself. "Yes, I caught Hiro participating in a bot-fight back there."
Hiro spoke on his own version of events. "Actually I was about to get a beating from Yama when Tadashi here saved me. You should have seen how much money I won!"
He waved the thirty grand in front of Tracy, who just swiped the money with his right hand and judiciously observed the details of the top dollar bill for any flaws, should the money be considered counterfeit. While pushing his thumb against the portrait of Benjamin Franklin, he concluded that it was legal tender after all.
"You do realize that gambling is not legalized here like it is in Las Vegas," Tracy said in a fatherly tone. "And even if you could gamble legally, you're way too young for that sort of thing. The Constitution says it all."
Tadashi narrowed his eyes at Hiro.
"Told you so," he whispered in Japanese.
"English please," Tracy was impatient with private languages. "And what exactly were you doing here, Tadashi?"
"I was just trying to get Hiro out from there. I had no involvement with any of this. He's the one who participated, not me."
Hiro nodded at Tadashi's denial, but Dick Tracy was not the type of cop who could easily trust a person's actions based on claim, even to those he trusted the most…except for his family. He turned to Hiro, who just beamed while Tadashi was still upset over his younger sibling's rebelliousness, as showed on his mug of exasperation.
"We'll see what Chief Brandon thinks about that," Tracy spoke lowly.
He jerked his head back to his partners.
"Pat, Sam; put the cuffs on 'em. Lizz, take the money to charity. I'll go round up the rest."
As Tracy walked down the north passage in ominous, loud slaps of his black laced shoes, Hiro and Tadashi got off the bike, removed their helmets and exchanged a look that meant "we're in deep trouble now" as Patton and Catchem approached the brothers casually with handcuffs. Detective Catchem uttered the Miranda warning that he had memorized so many times over in his head.
"You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law."
The Vespa was loaded onto a pickup truck and Detective Catchem placed Tadashi's hands behind his back and strapped the cuffs on while Patton did the same with Hiro. The boy was so thin that he found it difficult to adjust the ratchet at a size fit for Hiro's forearms.
"What's with placin' handcuffs on a young lad?" he sighed to Catchem. "His wrists could slip right out of them."
"Toddler handcuffs would be too tight for him," Catchem explained. "We don't use 'em too often and I don't think they make 'em anymore."
"Then what can I do? Tie him up?"
Hiro chuckled before Catchem glanced over him with blank eyes.
"It's a joke, kid."
"Why not just put me in a cage?" Hiro tried to play along with the sarcasm.
"It be too big for the car," Patton said.
"And in your case Hiro, you won't be going to any more fights if you were locked up all the time," Tadashi's face was directly upon Hiro's, glaring at where he had gotten them into. The younger Hamada just felt guilty, but next time, he would be more evasive from the cops.
Tracy was long on his guts when he approached Yama and his heavies. Diego, who was armed with a shiv, was the first to take action. He swung a hard right into Diego's stomach and doubled him over, then crossed Mordecai with a left into his jaw. Haf-and-Haf, Larceny Lu and Big Frost dropped their firearms and Yama picked up a lemon crate, smashing it over Tracy's head, but the cop was not fazed. He went down hard with both fists and slammed the both of them on Yama's crown. The boss appeared to be knocked out as he fell and just to make sure that he would not regain consciousness too quickly, Tracy swung his feet at Yama's head. Yin, however was the only one standing. He ran after Tracy from behind with Diego's shiv, and the detective pulled a right backhand into his nose, almost gushing out blood as he fell to the pavement.
When Panda, the Fujita leader and the rest of the crowd had seen this, Tracy glared and panned his head at the many men and women who had wasted their lives on illicit gaming of all other sins, like murder and human trafficking.
He shouted. "You are all under arrest for prohibited gambling, and unlawful usage of robotics."
The three odd ducks held their hands up in submission, and a paddy wagon was filled to the brim with Yama and his peers within three minutes. Tadashi and Hiro rode with Patton in the back of Tracy's unmarked Crown Victoria with Tracy in the driver's seat, Catchem riding shotgun, Patton on the right, Hiro in the middle and Tadashi on the left. Lizz had taken an extra squad car with Officer Murphy and was following the convoy of police vehicles behind the pick-up truck with Tracy's car taking the lead.
In the back of the Crown Victoria, Tadashi squirmed uncomfortably with the handcuffs placed behind his waist, Hiro suffered less, but not as much when Tadashi seethed through his teeth. "I hope you're happy now!"
Hiro tried to please Tadashi with something positive for a change. "Look, if they don't put us in a cell, we'll just wait in the office and they'll call Aunt Cass to pick us up and we'll go home together."
Detective Patton quietly scolded Hiro with a wagging right index finger. "Your whole nirvāṇa is comin'. You'd better be hopin' that this does not happen on your judgment day."
"Speaking of judgment," Tadashi's voice started to rise. "I would love nothing more than to spank you RIGHT NOW!"
Tracy's eyes darted up at the rearview mirror to see Tadashi raising his left hand as Hiro recoiled into Patton's chest. Just when it looked like Tadashi would succeed into beating Hiro to his senses, Tracy turned his head back at them, shouting. "Will you two will be quiet?!"
The three back seat passengers stared at the driver with awareness.
"I don't think you get it, do you Hiro?" Tracy continued. He saw the police station up ahead and finished with a cautionary reply.
"Once you've taken the path to crime, you won't be getting out of it."
The unmarked car stopped at the sidewalk of 766 Vallejo St, home of the Central Police Station where Tracy and his Crimestoppers often worked at nightly hours. Tracy was the first to leave the car with Patton and Catchem escorting Tadashi and Hiro into the building and up the stairs to the office of Chief Jim Brandon, while Lizz helped her fellow officers (including Groovy Grove) with the arrested bot-fighters out of the paddy wagon and to their waiting cells. To Lizz's surprise, all but two of the cells were occupied thanks to the many crime waves that had been occurring since last month and nearly claimed the lives of 38 people. Usurped at the chockablock, she went upstairs to report to Chief Brandon.
She got there just as he was interrogating Hiro and Tadashi. Tracy, Patton and Catchem were also in the room, securing the door and surveying the brothers as they described the events up until now with care and great detail…with some ambiguity added to the story.
"So you say that you have been participating in five bot-fights for over the last month or so?"
"Since I graduated high school last year," Hiro replied to the rock jawed, ski nosed, black marble eyed figure of Jim Brandon. "There was nothing else I could do. Tadashi was working in the café, went to college and now he's working there as a robotics engineer."
Tadashi's mouth curled into a small smile at Hiro giving credit to his work at the school, but was frowning again when otouto blurted out. "But does he get paid? NO!"
"Actually," onii-chan corrected him. "I do get paid no more than $10 an hour."
"But that's too miniscule!" Hiro droned. "I knew that our obasan needed money and that I needed to put my brain to good use, so I when first heard about these bot-fights online, I decided to make Megabot and participated so I could win a WHOLE LOTTA MONEY than what Tadashi here could produce!"
The chief winced. "Well, there are jobs open for fourteen year olds, like your aunt's café. I even hear she makes the best Irish coffee on the house."
"Actually, we serve smoothies," corrected Tadashi.
"I understand that," the chief nodded in return. "And how exactly did you find your brother?"
"Through the GPS system I sewed in his hoodie," Tadashi pointed out. "I followed him at a distance and when it looked like he was in trouble, I just got in there and tried to bail him out before Tracy here showed up and had me arrested."
"You know how Tracy feels about false claims," the chief said wryly. "He can arrest anyone who doesn't show a trusting face."
Tadashi pressed him further. "I always tell the truth."
Tracy crossed his arms. "Then, by all means, excuse my harsh behavior."
Hiro gave a stifled laugh at Tracy's brashness. It dropped when the chief instructed: "Put Tadashi in the holding cell, call the aunt and have Hiro hauled in to juvy court."
"Can't we just wait in your office?" Hiro was surprised.
Brandon's fingers were intertwined. "This is not a school where you can just wait for someone to pick you up, this is police headquarters. Well, next to the Hall of Justice, but I only go there on important occasions."
Lizz, who had been on the phone with the detention center on Woodside Ave while they were talking, informed him with disappointing information. "I just called and they're overbooked. So are the cells, but there's only one left."
"Hiro can take the cell."
"Could Tadashi stay in mine?" asked Hiro.
But Tracy had to deliver the bad news.
"Sorry kid, but the penal code states that no adolescents under the age of eighteen are allowed to share a cell with an adult. We can't risk getting you hurt by an occupant."
"Tadashi wouldn't hurt me, would you onii-chan?"
Tadashi, by this time, had gotten really pissed. He was giving him that "I will slap you" look for the second time and was lifting his right hand in a very threatening manner.
"I would right now if you hadn't-"
Tracy cut him off by gripping the raised fist with his left hand.
"Come on, Tadashi, I think your brother's had enough punishment from you. He'll get a lot more in his own cell."
And he personally escorted Tadashi out of the office.
"But, Tracy-!"
The next response Hiro got was from Detective Patton, who laid a comforting left hand on Hiro's left shoulder.
"Now don't get your hopes overexcited and don't ya be losin' your head, young Hiro. We wouldn't want to be sued for child abusin' now can we?"
Hiro looked at Patton and felt the genuine benevolence in his soft Irish brogue. Looking down at himself, he finally gave in with a deep sigh and a deadpan "Okay."
"There's a good lad," Patton said and he and Catchem escorted Hiro out from the office while Lizz and Brandon waited in the shadows.
He sat on the edge of his small square bed when Catchem locked the barred door with his special set of keys and reported to the front office where Tracy was waiting.
"Okay, kid's locked up. I don't see why we have to make him stay in one of our cells."
"Well, if the detention center wasn't overbooked like Lizz said, I wouldn't have to worry about it. Now go call Ms. Hamada and tell her to wait for them outside."
That being said, Tracy walked past Catchem into the direction of the holding cells, where Hiro was waving his left hand nervously at Tadashi, whose cell was jam-packed with Yama, Mordecai, Yin, Diego, Haf-and-Harf, Larceny Lu, Big Frost and the other participators shouting in English, Spanish, Japanese, Taiwanese, and Italian:
"I demand my rights!"
"Let me out!"
"Get me my lawyer!"
"I demand justice!"
"You can't keep me in here!"
Lizz, who had been downstairs to wait for Ms. Hamada with Officer Groove, slammed at the bars with a baton in her left hand.
"Pipe down in there! You'll be out by tomorrow morning!"
Tracy appreciated Lizz for her self-esteem, but for Tadashi, tomorrow was all he needed. He just continued to glare at his otouto for having them thrown in a jail cell…all because he wanted to prove to Hiro that bot-fighting was a major offence and that he was just trying to get him out of there with no harm done. The stare contest between Hiro and Tadashi continued for almost 35 minutes, with no obstacle in between them other than the yellow flash of Dick Tracy's trench coat, its bottom waving behind its owner like the rising tides of sodium colored ocean crashing against a 60 foot cage barrier. The detective was pacing back and forth, hands behind his back, wondering how long it would take for their aunt to arrive. After all, it was his brush with Pinkie the Stabber that helped him to console Cassandra after the death of her brother Tomeo and his wife, the former Maemi Takachiho in a car accident caused by Pinkie's crime spree.
Yama, on the other hand, was also looking forward to giving Hiro the beating his men had failed to inflict upon him before Tadashi arrived. Big Frost, feeling claustrophobic from such a tight space, banged his head softly against the right wall of the cell. Haf-and-Haf was feeling drunk from pints of Budweiser that he drank at the fight and Larceny Lu, unable to carry on with a life in prison, was choking herself to death with her pearl necklace. But it didn't work out very often and it made her feel depressed at longing for the exciting life that was the embodiment of crime itself.
So Tadashi just stayed there, his hands gripped on the bars and his eyes fixed into a sharp gleam until Officer Groove came in shouting.
"Tadashi and Hiro Hamada!"
"Yes?" the brothers chorused in unison.
"Your aunt is here."
At last the cell doors were opened and the brothers were freed. Tadashi was glad that no one had been touching him inappropriately since he was locked in. Tracy thanked Officer Groove for the information and he turned to face Yama, who was still locked up and looking at Hiro in a way that meant revenge on his life.
"Not to worry Yama, you'll get ten years on Alcatraz Island for this," Tracy taunted in his flamboyant way.
"If not sooner," glowered Yama.
No sooner had Officer Groove, Hiro and Tadashi reached the door at the end of the hall did Tracy turn himself back, wagging his right index finger in a reminding tone.
"And remember…crime doesn't pay."
It was going to take a whole lot more than just a cliché quote and 35 minutes in a jail cell to get Hiro out of his bot-fighting career once and for all.