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CHAPTER 35

A Clandestine Meeting

Gravel crunched underfoot as Giichi walked along the garden path towards the palace's library. A large bank of windows stood tall above the elaborate arrangements of trees, flowers, and bushes. Warm lights glowed within, giving a golden tint to the long rows of wooden shelves and books inside. He stepped inside through a door next to the windows, walking up a set of red-carpeted stairs into the library proper.

No one seemed to be here. He glanced up at the library's second floor, which was a balcony above the first floor, but no one was there either.

Frowning, Giichi walked further into the library, through a small reading area with wooden tables fitted with reading lights. No books were out of place. No stray pieces of paper or pencils lying around. No garbage in any of the waste baskets, all the liners brand new. Everything was immaculate, like he was walking through a museum. He never gave this level of cleanliness much thought when he was younger, but after living in the Separatist capital and then staying with Star Wolf, he couldn't help but notice now. Seemed wasteful and time consuming. This room was never used much to begin with, since it was built after Cornerian technology became commonplace. You could already get any information you wanted from all kinds of electronic sources. But books were a symbol of luxury and power in old Thaljista when the Ibhu lions ruled, so of course the Azerian royals had to have their own library too.

"Giichi."

He spun around. Miyu stood in the aisle behind him, as if appearing out of thin air. She wore her familiar green dress, giving her a conservative look. She smiled at him, holding a piece of paper in her hands.

"Whoa…you just popped up like a ninja." His tail twitched behind him. "Uh…you asked me to come here? Said it was urgent?"

"That's right." She held out the slip of paper.

Finding this odd, Giichi took it and read it. 'Take me to the library's secret room.' His eyes widened. How did she know there was one here? The palace was full of hidden rooms and passages…places where the royal family could hide and shelter in the event of an attack. This woman shouldn't know anything about that. The locations of these rooms weren't disclosed outside the royal family, aside from a few close, trusted associates with decades of service to the household. Miyu was too new for that.

"Who are you, really?" Giichi looked her up and down, his eyes narrowed.

Miyu frowned, pointing at the note again.

Giichi glanced again, turning the note over. A small blotch of red clung to the back. Sealing wax…with his brother's seal imprinted. His eyes snapped up. "You're from—!"

"Sssshh!" Miyu hissed, finger to her lips.

Oh, right…she's undercover. He'd almost blown it there.

She nodded towards where Giichi knew the entrance to the secret room was. Nodding back, he walked towards a bookshelf in a nook underneath the second floor's stairs. A set of red volumes stood out on a shelf at eye level, overlaid in golden letters. He briefly pulled down the eighth book in sequence, then the first, then the ninth. Eight, one, nine…the last year in the Ibhu calendar. That was when the Azerian clan seized this city and destroyed the Ibhu king's palace in what was now the Old Quarter.

The bookshelf recessed into the wall, revealing a small ladder underneath, descending into darkness. Giichi took the lead down. As he did so, the lights illuminated within the room below, revealing a dusty space with cobwebs. This place was a strange combination of styles, having the bare concrete walls of an emergency bunker, yet also luxurious accommodations like more shelves of books, leather chairs, lush carpets, two large beds, a bathroom, and a small kitchen with lots of canned goods. This room was meant to be a place where the royal family could hide indefinitely until rescue came, after all.

As Miyu climbed down the ladder, Giichi pushed a red button on the wall, the bookshelf above sliding back in place silently.

"So…" Giichi sat on one of the couches, dust bunnies flying up. That launched him into a fit of coughing. As he waved his hand to clear away the dust, he said "We should be able to talk freely here. Razir sent you?"

"That's right," Miyu smiled. She reached down, pulling off her heels. "Ugh, damn I hate walking on these!" The lynx dropped her polite royal court voice for one that sounded more appropriate for a swearing sailor. "How the hell does your sister put up with them?!" She waved one of the shoes at him.

Giichi put on a broad smile. He could already tell they were going to get along well, considering the formality and ceremony of the royal court wasn't something he appreciated either.

Miyu brushed off a spot on an armchair near him before she sat down. Even so, a puff of dust still covered her clothes. Sighing, she started running her hands over the dusty folds of her dress. "Anyway…I'm here to get you out of this place."

"Wow…" Giichi blinked. "That was fast. So, what's the plan?"

"The plan's still in development, unfortunately. I'm not privy to all the details. I'm here to let you know things are in motion, so you can prepare. When I know more, I'll tell you."

"How soon is this happening?" Giichi asked.

"Sorry, I don't know yet. I'm sure I don't have to tell you how complicated this operation will be."

You sure don't. We're literally under a mountain. Only a few ways in and out of Gerrant, and they can be locked down within minutes if needed. All that's needed is a button press to close the blast proof shutters. And the royal chamber itself only has a handful of ways in and out too, which are even more heavily guarded. It's a prison within a prison. That being said…

"If it takes a while to get out of here, I'm okay with that," Giichi said.

Miyu blinked. "Umm…why? I thought you would want out of here ASAP."

"My captivity is an opportunity, and if you got me out now, it'd be wasted. I'm going to infiltrate the lab systems underneath the palace. I'm working on a computer virus as we speak."

Miyu sucked in her breath. Her heart seemed to be racing, as a huge grin came on her face. "Giichi… That's incredible. Do you have any idea how long we've wanted the data in those systems?"

"Of course I do. You know that technologically the Separatists are behind the Royalists. This will help us catch up again."

"Oh, damn sure. But how are you planning to upload that virus to their systems? I know they're keeping a close eye on you."

"Maybe you can help me out? My code's useless without a way to upload it."

"I'll see what I can do. Do you know of any other intel I should pass back? Is there anything else going on here we should know about?"

"Probably…" Giichi remembered this morning, frowning. "I think I was taken in my sleep the other night, and put into some kind of strange computer simulation. When I woke up it was—"

"A week later, right?" Miyu asked, concerned. "I knew something was up when you weren't out on the track anymore until this morning. You wanna know something?" She moved in closer to whisper, even though that wasn't needed here. "I've got my own surveillance on your stable of cars. The night you disappeared, a utility truck drove inside. I know they visit your stable every now and then to keep it stocked with parts and do maintenance on your vehicles, but they never visit that late. Then early this morning, the same truck came back into the stable, stayed inside for about ten minutes, then left. That's probably how they moved you to and from the labs."

Chills ran over Giichi's body as she described it. What happened to him during the time he was in the lab? He rolled up his sleeves and jeans, feeling over the fur on his arms and legs, trying to see if there was a cut, or a scar, or stitches, or anything. He didn't find anything, but to be taken in his sleep and then carted around as a limp body… What will I do the next time I have to go to sleep? What if next time I sleep I wake up in a cell? Or what if I don't wake up at all? At least until they need me to wake up. Until today, he didn't think Kula would let anything like that happen to him…but if this was done at her direction, what else could happen now?

He looked at the beds over in one corner of the room, near the kitchen. Maybe instead of sleeping in his room or in the stable's apartment, he could sleep in the hidden parts of the castle? However, he dismissed the idea just as fast. It would only be a short-term solution at best. If he wasn't sleeping where he was supposed to be, it wouldn't take long for Kula to figure out what he was doing and then track him down, since she also knew about these rooms. Even worse, she might lock him up somewhere to stop him from hiding again. Sable would suggest it.

"Sable…that bitch." He spat. "I bet she talked Kula into doing that to me." He turned to Miyu. "Hey, you said you're a spy, right? Can you like…" Giichi hesitated to say what he was about to say, but if his own safety was at risk, it might have to be done. "I don't know. Slip poison in her coffee or something?" Even though he'd be glad if Sable weren't among the living anymore, and Nail would probably approve of this course of action, he felt dirty asking for someone to be killed.

Miyu was taken off guard by his words, which didn't help. "Uh…Giichi, hon?" Her eyes hardened. "It's not that simple. You of all people should know how delicate the cease fire is right now. Even if we do manage to kill Sable, that could trigger full blown war again. Kula will lash out in revenge if she is assassinated. Right now, my bosses have decided it's not worth the risk. Plus you know the Separatists don't plan suicide missions. If I try to kill her, I will be caught. I will either rot in a political prison for the rest of my life, or I will be executed. You understand?"

Damn, I shouldn't have said that. He looked at the floor, wringing his hands. "Sorry…but you have no idea how much I hate that woman."

"Yeah, I'm not fond of Sable either." Miyu rolled her eyes. "It's a miracle I haven't blown my cover yet. You think it's easy smiling and nodding at every insane, vindictive thing she says? Girl's got a shit list a mile long. This world would be a lot better off without her, but I'm not here to assassinate. I'm here to gather information. Gotta cultivate relationships, establish trust with my targets, look for informants I can turn. I would throw away years of work if I killed her."

"I guess you're right." Giichi sighed. "I don't know much about what spies do other than those old-fashioned spy thriller movies."

"Oh, I only wish my job could be half that exciting." Miyu laughed, her face softening. "I'd love to be the hot chick on a movie poster next to some chiseled tuxedoed agent with good looks. Actually screw that! I want to be the lead!"

Giichi grinned.

"Anyway…" Miyu said. "Don't worry about Sable. Her day will come eventually. I promise you. For now though…" She looked him up and down, also examining for abnormal markings. "How do you feel? Are you okay? Do you know what they did to you in the lab?"

Giichi shook his head, looking at his own hands. "I don't even remember going there. But I don't feel any different right now. That computer simulation I mentioned though… At first I thought it was just me dreaming. But it was too real to be a dream, if that makes sense. It hurt. I almost drowned. Nail was there with me. He protected me from Venomian soldiers…but I felt like I was controlling his body when he shot them." Even if they didn't really die since it was just a sim, he felt terrible shooting them. "It's hard to explain. And then after I woke up…I feel like I have two minds, not one. I can focus one mind on one task, and then the second mind on a different task. Like a computer running two programs simultaneously."

"That is…" Miyu paused. "Wow…what the heck did they do to you?"

"I'm not sure. Also I notice I've been having a lot more headaches lately. I don't know if that's connected."

"Hmm…" Miyu stroked her chin. "I'll report that back. Also, we shouldn't meet in person too often."

"Oh yeah…" Giichi frowned. This palace had a ton of surveillance in it, and a great deal of it was focused on Giichi himself. How would they have meetings then? However, an idea struck him. "Do you know the room that Nail used to stay in?"

"Sure, everyone remembers him. Only canine ever allowed into this palace."

Nothing useful had been in that room, although Giichi had just thought of a way it could be handy regardless. "In the back of the room, there is a hidden wall safe behind some shelves. The code is zero, two, nine. If I have anything I need to pass to you, I'll leave it in there. You can leave things for me in return."

"Sounds like a good idea, but if I go in there too much, people might catch on."

"Hmm…" Giichi thought for a bit, but it wasn't long before he had another idea. He remembered a trick from an old novel he had to read in grade school. "How about I leave a signal? I'll put a model car on a window sill in my apartment if I've put something in there for you to pick up. You should be able to see my windows from the gardens."

"Sounds good to me." Miyu smiled. "We might make you into a spy someday."

Giichi grinned back. "All right…I'll keep working on this virus. When it's done, I'll let you know. Hopefully we can figure out a way to upload the code. Also…I want to infiltrate the city's systems."

"Huh?" Miyu raised an eyebrow.. "What's that got to do with this?"

Giichi smirked. "I was working on my own escape route out of here before you came along."

"…you aren't thinking of using the old aqueduct tunnel to escape the royal chamber, are you?"

Giichi's eyes went wide. "Whoa, how do you know about that?"

"Psychic powers…" She waved her fingers at his face, standing up. "I'm really a secret Cerinian. I can read your miiiiiiind…" She approached him, her hands closing in around either side of his head, a wild grin on her face.

"What?!" Giichi shrunk back in his chair.

"Heh, I'm kidding." Miyu flopped back in her chair, chuckling. "But I have read your personal history file back to front, which is just as good. I know about your stint as Speed King, sneaking out of the royal chamber to race in the downtown chamber. You wore a full racing suit with a helmet to hide your identity. No one figured it out at the time, but they sure know now. And they also know about the old, abandoned aqueduct. The Royalists sealed it off with a controlled demolition years ago."

"What?!"

The downtown chamber contained a dam and reservoir to provide water to the entire city's inhabitants. Slaves constructed it centuries ago during the rule of the Ibhu lions, and they had also carved out an aqueduct tunnel to supply reservoir water to what was now the royal chamber. However, the old aqueduct was abandoned when a more modern pipeline was built centuries later.

That being said, the old tunnel still existed, and years ago during idle spelunking he'd discovered it was possible to drive cars through it from the royal chamber to the downtown chamber, bypassing the guarded checkpoint tunnels completely. In secret, he'd used some (okay, a lot) of his personal allowance to have ramps and smoother flooring put in to facilitate it for this purpose. It sure had been hard to launder the money, but after fiddling around with some banking and financial records, he'd covered his tracks.

But now his hidden tunnel was gone? "Damn…" Giichi clenched his fists.

"Sorry kid." She put a hand on his back. "But these people learned from the shenanigans you pulled."

He glared at her. "You know I'm twenty-seven, right?" His mouth opened a bit, showing his fangs. "I'm no kid."

Miyu chuckled. "And I'm twenty-nine. But with how small sand cats are, you still look like a kid to me, even if you're just two years younger. Hey though, don't be upset. You'll probably look great for your age when you're older."

"I just don't like being called a kid, a cub, or whatever." He shook off her hand. "That's all."

"Okay, fair enough." She shrugged. "Anyway, no need for you to fret about escaping. We'll take care of that."

"I appreciate it, but I think it could help the war effort too if I broke into the city's systems regardless. Wouldn't you like to tap into the surveillance system, for example?"

Miyu mulled this over. "Hmm…It does have potential, if you think you've got the time for it. But the lab's servers take first priority."

"I think I'll have enough time." He smiled. "Anyway, that's everything I know right now."

"Hmm…okay then," Miyu sat up from the armchair. "I should get out of here then. If I'm gone too long from my regular duties, it'll be noticed."

"Good point."

Giichi walked over to the exit, pushing the red button again. The bookcase above slid aside to let them out. The two of them were soon back in the library, the secret entrance closing again.

"Talk to you later Giichi!" Miyu smiled, waving as she walked to the exit. "Hopefully not too long from now."

"You too!" Giichi waved to her. He hurried out of the library, back to the stable. He needed to put in a lot more laps, and fast.

As he walked back, he couldn't help but marvel at this turn of events. Meetings in secret, making arrangements with spies, organizing his own little operations and plans… While infiltrating Star Wolf a year ago, Nail had been the one in charge of the plans. I guess I picked up some of those skills by observation. Didn't know I was capable of doing things like this. He smiled a little, looking up towards the cave's ceiling, trying to see the sky beyond. Watch me Nail. I've got my own operation now.

~X~

That evening, Miyu drove home in her small car, with home being a tiny apartment in the city's Old Quarter. It was slow going, considering these streets were built before cars existed on this planet. Vehicles had to share the road with pedestrians. She had to keep stopping for them to walk past her, or to squeeze around market stalls hugging the sides of the cramped streets. In most places, the street only had enough room for one car to pass at a time too, often requiring her to stop to let another car go the other way.

This wouldn't have been as much of a problem if she'd moved downtown instead. The higher rent wouldn't be a problem between her salary and the money from her handlers, but that area of the city was under a lot more surveillance compared to this one. Not a good thing with her line of work.

At last though, she managed to get back home, squeezing into a narrow parking spot snuggled up to her building. She waited for a hand drawn cart full of glassware to pass her by, opening the door and slamming it shut. Her footsteps clanged as she rushed up the stairs between two adobe buildings to her door.

After stepping inside, she flicked on her lights, revealing her small, crummy studio apartment. She'd done her best to clean the place up, but these old buildings weren't well equipped to deal with the humidity inside these caves. The stone walls around her always had a slimy, glistening quality to them no matter how much she cleaned them. Interestingly though, this upper floor used to be a restaurant, but all of the floor space had been divided up into apartments. There were still faded murals of things like elaborate gardens, mountains, and palaces on the walls…leftover decorations for the former patrons to enjoy. At least they gave this place a little character.

Regardless, she did the first thing she always did after arriving home: changing out of these damn formal clothes. Within minutes she'd slipped out of the dress and into something far more comfortable: ripped jeans, boots, a small green undershirt, plus a black leather jacket with some spikes built into the shoulders. She looked at herself in the mirror, a broad smile on her face. However, it soon faded. While she was done working for the day at the palace, it was now time to meet her real boss. Oh well, at least now the damn dress was gone for the next sixteen hours or so.

She rushed down the metal stairs, opened up a nearby garage door, and jumped onto her other ride: an olive green sport bike. Within seconds she was making her way back down the street at a much faster pace compared to her car. She would've used the motorbike to commute to work at the palace, given how much better it worked in the Old Quarter, but then a dress and a motorcycle didn't work very well together.

When she hit the main road leading into the downtown chamber, she was finally able to squeeze the throttle, sending her flying at what felt like warp speed compared to crawling through the narrow streets. A grin came to her face as she watched the skyscrapers on the ground and the groundscrapers in the ceiling flash past. Since it was night by this point, the fiber optics in the ceiling were twinkling, most of the light coming from the buildings. Strips of shifting colors pulsed along the outlines of the structures, making the place look like the inside of a gigantic nightclub or something.

She exited off the highway, hitting a small winding road that curved upwards along the outer wall of the chamber, giving her great views of the downtown core as she attacked the turns. Of course, with how narrow the road was and how little runoff there was before the sheer drop into the city below, it was a risk to go so fast…but she already risked her neck every day she worked in that palace, so she didn't care. At least if she lost control and went screaming off the cliff, it'd be nobody's fault but hers. Even the barriers under construction and the traffic cones didn't bother her.

Up ahead, the city's dam loomed. The broad, curved concrete wall almost filled her entire view. Water gushed through pipes built into the base of the structure, providing a spectacle of frothing water in the basin below. While this dam had been originally built by crude slave labor, many updates had been made over the centuries, ensuring a safe, secure source of clean water for the entire city.

She pulled over at a small overlook, giving a view of the huge structure and also the city below. She paused for a moment to take it all in. Despite coming here to meet with her handlers multiple times, she never got tired of this vista. Shame this place was enemy territory. This city in a cave was like nothing she'd ever seen before.

"Ahem…"

Turning around, she spotted a man wearing a beggar's rags. Old dirty coat, ripped pants, plus a cap and a hood concealing most of his face. A cigarette was in his mouth. Whenever the cigarette glowed, it illuminated the face of a ginger house cat, his yellow eyes looking up at Miyu. Smirking, Miyu took a seat next to him, both of them looking straight ahead. The roar of the water continued in the background. It made a good cover for talking without being overheard by eavesdroppers.

"I met with him," Miyu started. "He's cool with the plan."

"Good."

"It turns out he's been busy. He wants to break into the lab systems while he's in captivity."

"Heh, you're surprised by that?" The ginger cat said. "You know he loves his work. I heard about the wonderful mess he made in Lylat before he was captured. He can't stand not having these projects to work on. But anyway, that's great news. Him being their captive may turn out to be one of the best things to ever happen to us. Do everything you can to help him with that. If he asks about when we're going to help him escape, just tell him we're still working on it. Until that data's in our hands, we only pull him out if it's an emergency."

In truth, they could get Giichi out of the palace right now if they wanted to do it. The plans and preparations had already been laid. But Miyu was told to assess his situation and report back before she broke that news to the prince. Miyu didn't like keeping Giichi in the dark, but nonetheless she nodded her agreement to her handler.

"Something else…" she said. "They've been experimenting on him. He claims to have been put in a computer sim, and he feels like he's got the power of two minds in his head now."

"Huh…?" The ginger cat started to turn to face Miyu, but at the last second kept looking forward. "I don't know what to make of that. Haven't heard of any research like that coming out of the palace."

"Must be a new project, or something they've tried very hard to keep to themselves in those labs," she speculated.

"Yeah, we're still not sure about this 'Luru' thing that gets mentioned once in a while. Could be a part of that. I hope he doesn't take too long workin' on that code. Could be dangerous letting him stay there. Still, we put priority on getting the data over his own wellbeing."

Miyu grimaced, looking at the dam again. Giichi's life is worth less than the lab's data? Nonetheless, she concealed her disgust by clearing her throat.

"Good job. Much better than I expected." The ginger cat stood up, not waiting for her to reply. "Keep workin' him for that data. I'll be in touch." And with that, he flicked his cigarette off the cliff and into the basin far below, walking away and disappearing behind a set of restroom buildings.

Miyu watched the 'homeless man' leave, before she turned to look back at the city again, her mood dark. Come on girl. You're a spy. Lying to people's your job. Don't let it get to you. It could get you killed. What's lying to one more person? The water continued to froth below.

Yeah, I guess it is just one more person. I'll get over it…