The Absence Equation - Chapter 9
Title: The Absence Equation - Chapter 9
Group/Pairings: NewS. Pairings: Koyama/Shige, Massu/Yamapi
Rating: R
Warnings: Violence, cursing, sexual implications.
Words: 3,230
Summary: First try: "The fate of the world as they know it rests in the hands of one Kato Shigeaki. Oh shit." Possibly more coherent try (though it sounds like a lame old-school sci fi jacket blurb): The A.I. guarding cyberspace is forced to choose between eternal imprisonment and self-destruction. With the fate of the world resting in their hands, they must race against time to give her a third option before it's too late.
Prologue - Chapter 1 | Chapter 2 | Chapter 3 | Chapter 4 | Chapter 5 | Chapter 6 | Chapter 7 | Chapter 8 | Chapter 9 | Chapter 10 | Chapter 11 | Chapter 12 | Chapter 13 | Epilogue
---
Chapter 9 - 1001
Yamashita sat in the well-appointed office full of dark, hand-made furniture, somber family portraits, and potted plants. Outwardly he was relaxed, casually seated in a straight-backed leather chair with bored eyes.
“Where were you yesterday, Yamashita?”
“At my aunt’s in Spokane. She had a heart attack and I’m her next-of-kin.” Those files had been easy enough for Tegoshi to fix and Masuda had taken care of the necessary phone calls.
“And if I didn’t believe you?”
Yamashita shrugged. “You have no reason not to.”
The section head leaned back in his chair. “How’s your aunt?” he asked, suddenly friendly.
“She’s doing well. We spoke an hour ago and she has another appointment next week. I’ve hired someone to look after her since I can’t be there.”
“I’m sorry we had to call you back.”
Yamashita shook his head. “Standard procedure, I know. I knew when I took the job. It was just bad timing this time. Anyway, do you need anything else or can I get back to work?”
“No, go ahead. We’re done for now.”
Yamashita didn’t like the sound of that, but he stood, bowed slightly and left. But not before hearing a murmured, “Bad timing indeed.”
~~~
Shige contacted Jansen on the train.
“He needs to know we’re still moving,” Tegoshi had said. “We need more time before he sends the other courier in. He’s going to want it to be obvious what day you will come in.”
“So that he can send him in a day or two earlier than it would be possible for me to get there, yeah.” Shige frowned at his laptop. But he made the call.
“Jansen,” Shige said into the receiver in the empty area between cars.
There was a pause. Tracing probably. “Kato? Where are you?”
“On a train to Texas. We had a run-in and had to get out of New York.”
“A run-in?” He sounded satisfied, the bastard. “Fine. When you get to Texas, you’re going up to Colorado. I’ll prepare everything for you.” Another pause. “Why didn’t you answer our message?”
“I think they’ve been tracing us somehow. It seemed safest to really shake them and then call from a moving phone. Speaking of, I have to go. Wire the info, don’t send it over the ‘net, to the station in Dallas. Set it up so that we can pick up the tickets by hand. And we’re not flying.” He hung up.
“Take a look at this,” Tegoshi said, handing Shige his goggles. “This is the other courier based on info from the non-mod system and what my guys have been telling me.”
Kato grunted at the screen. “Oh, him.”
Koyama looked at him. “You know him?”
“No, I ran into him in the hall just before I got the download actually.” He clenched his fist. “If I’d known then… “ He clucked his tongue in irritation. “And his ass was rude, too.”
Tegoshi sat back. “Well. Nishikido Ryo. 28. Now we just have to find him.”
Kato twitched his lips to the side. “Yeah, no problem, only a trillion other people in the world. Should be cake.”
“Oh ye of little faith.”
All four of them stared at the picture in silence.
Well, Shige thought, if anyone deserved blind faith, it was Tegoshi. His other name on the ‘net was “Miracle Worker.”
As they neared the Dallas station, Koyama and Shige washed off their makeup and donned their normal clothing, Koyama stuffing his blonde hair under a hat. They picked up the tickets without incident and Masuda purchased train tickets for three to L.A. while Koyama and Shige found their platform. Koyama and Shige got on their train, waited a few moments before entering different lavatories, and then emerged from the train six cars and seven minutes apart to collect their tickets from the undersides of different benches, and boarded the train to L.A.
Tegoshi was goggled in when they took their seats and Shige carefully watched his fingers, barely catching the trembling, but it was there. He and Koyama exchanged a look. He wanted Tegoshi to rest but knew they couldn’t afford it right now.
A few hours later, Tegoshi called his false name and, after Shige had removed his goggles, waved at him. Shige and Koyama switched places, Shige carefully balancing his open laptop as he made the exchange. Tegoshi handed him his goggles and Shige watched himself and Koyama walk off a train into a station.
“Your first transfer.”
“Huh.”
“I called in another favor. Any camera you ought to be caught on, you will. He’s already working on the hotel check-in because the timing on that will be more complicated. I’m seeing if Masuda has any contacts in Denver who can check in for you. Then he can just map your features on like here and then they can ditch before the yakuza show up.”
“You’re going to be out of favors at the end of this, Tegoshi,” he said with a small smile.
“I’ll just earn some more, don’t you worry. Besides. You’ll still owe me,” he teased.
Shige grinned and nodded and moved back to his seat. “Take a break,” he told Tegoshi, not looking at him. “We’ll need you rested.” He didn’t expect the man to listen, but when he glanced up a minute later, just before goggling in, Tegoshi was already nestled against Koyama’s side, eyes shut.
~~~
Masuda attached his earpiece as soon as he got off the plane in L.A., calling around to find out who was in Denver right now, or could be tomorrow, that matched Koyama and Shige’s body type closely enough to fit. Luck was with him and he found two willing participants, for the right price, of course, and briefed them on the plan and the importance of leading a merry chase. Considering the chasers, he had to offer them a rather hefty sum, but this was no-holds-barred. By the time he’d made it to his hotel, changed and stood in the parking lot of the Bachelor/ette’s Pad two hours later, he had it all lined up for Tegoshi.
He made his gait smooth and rolling as he strolled through the doors of the upscale bar and headed for the counter, taking his time. He saw her out of the corner of his eye just before he got to it - sitting at a table with two other business ladies and watching him with narrowed eyes and a smile.
Isabelle Cruz, employee of Stat Com specializing in cyberspace / A.I. interface, and with an irresistible fetish for Asian men. It was amazing what people who should know better forgot to clear from their ‘net history sometimes. Cake.
He sat at the bar and ordered a rum and coke and studied his nails while he waited. He didn’t wait long - for the drink or the target.
“Hey,” she said as she slid onto the stool next to him, voice already laced with interest and he hadn’t even opened his mouth yet.
He took a sip of his drink and set it down carefully on its napkin before turning to look at her, letting his eyes roam across her beautifully made-up face, stopping a moment on full, red lips, before dipping lower to the v of her cleavage and the tiny cinch of her waist and then back to her eyes.
“Hey,” he replied, smiling lazily. “What’s your name?” he asked, not bothering to smooth out his Japanese accent. The language microsoft only helped with vocab and grammar, not pronunciation, so he’d learned to speak without an accent, but for her it would be better not to bother - the fact that he was actually Japanese and not a hyphenated American would only make it better for her.
And he was right because she was looking at him delightedly. “Isabelle. Yours?”
“Kazuki.”
“Japanese?”
He nodded.
“How long have you been here?” She took a delicate sip of her drink, letting her tongue slip out and lick at the side of the rim before pulling the glass away from her mouth and she watched him watch.
“A… few days,” he replied, dragging his eyes back up to her face.
“Oh? Business or pleasure?”
He let his lips curl up and put extra heat in his eyes. “Pleasure.”
~~~
He wasn’t one to complain about a sweet gig, and this one was pretty sweet with its vacation-like stays, room service, and beautiful women, but he was getting bored. He’d been accused before of being a workaholic, and he couldn’t exactly say they’d been wrong. All this waiting around was starting to get on his nerves. And he was still pretty pissed about the eye; his finger, too, but especially the eye.
He stared at his reflection in the mirror and reached up with one finger to push and pull at the skin around the offending artificiality and he looked around in all directions, trying to see it catch, show its true nature, but it never did. But he knew. There was just a subtle color difference between the two browns and the pattern across the iris was slightly different. It wasn’t his. It put him in a foul mood.
He opened the door of his room and poked his head out. “Hey, bell boy,” he said to the suited man standing guard outside. “Tell your boss I want to know what’s going on. I’m getting cabin fever.” The man scowled at him and Ryo gave him his best shit-eating grin before shutting the door and grabbing his guitar. He flung himself down on the bed and held his guitar awkwardly against his chest, placing his fingers carefully across the fret board and then strumming lightly. He really wanted to be back in Tokyo on the poorly-lit stage of some dive in Ueno, Shinjuku, anywhere, playing for crowds that didn’t care who he was or what he did outside but just wanted some real music. None of that synthesized shit pop-culture called music these days, just a man, his voice, maybe some real back-up, and a tune. That’s what he lived for. All the rest was just white noise. And this white noise had been going on way too long.
When Jansen called him an hour later, he didn’t have anything new to say. He just needed to “sit tight for a while,” and the yankee phrase got his hackles up.
“I’m tired of sitting here. At least let me get out and check out the city. Your monkeys can follow me if they want. I just can’t stay in this room any longer.”
Jansen looked pensive but finally agreed, spreading his hands and smiling magnanimously. “Sure, of course. We just need to make sure you’re where we need you when we need you.”
“I’ll be there,” he replied, twitching his lips up in pleasure. Finally, he’d get to see if L.A. was worth its hype.
~~~
Masuda climbed out of bed, slipping on his boxers, and silently looked at the woman sprawled on her stomach, naked back bared to the cool air of the hotel, one hand tucked under her face and she looked so young without her lipstick. He scratched his back and felt a slight sting and when he looked over his shoulder at the mirror behind him, he saw she’d beaten him to it, four long, pink scratches down the left side of his back. His brow wrinkled involuntarily as he looked back at her.
He should have about an hour to do what he needed to before she woke up; she hadn’t drank enough of the drugged water he’d given her after to give him more time than that. But it should be long enough. He slipped on a pair of latex gloves and turned on his palmpad, letting it boot before attaching a cable to it and setting it on the nightstand. He leaned over her and pried up her eyelid, gently rolling the orb so that the pupil was in the center and inserting a cap just inside the lids. Reaching his free hand over, he hit a button on the palmpad and watched the screen intently. When the screen flashed, he removed the device from her eye and put the used cap in a baggie and sealed it, neatly packing away the cable and pulling out a kit to take a full hand print. He waited anxiously for the mixture to set and then carefully peeled it away and packed it in his bag again. She sort of groaned as he cleaned up her hand and he peered carefully at her. Nothing. Then he rifled through her small purse, not expecting to find anything important, but he copied the files off of a microsoft and flash drive he found in there before putting everything away again.
When she woke up twenty minutes later, he was smiling sleepily at her, propped up on his elbow next to her.
“Nice nap?” he asked.
Her smile was lopsided and charming. “Guess you wore me out.”
He showed her his dimples and she leaned in and kissed each one. She ran soft, cold fingers down his muscled chest and laughed quietly as the muscles quivered under the pads.
“I’d love a round two, sweetheart, but I’ve got things to do in the morning. If you’re still in town tomorrow night, come back to the bar. I’ll be there.”
She dressed quickly and gave him a lingering kiss at the door. After he shut it behind her, he slumped back against it heavily, thinking of bow-shaped lips and sleepy eyes and feeling guilty.
~~~
Ryo walked down an L.A. back road with his guitar in its soft case on his back. He’d hit a few forums the last few days trying to find the hot spots in town and he was on his way to the most promising of the possibilities; an underground joint without a name, just a description. He found it with a little difficulty, having trouble with missing street signs, but when he got in, he smiled. He took a seat at the counter, swinging his guitar smoothly down to hook his foot through the strap and lean the case between his legs and out of traffic, and ordered a draft. He kept his eyes on the barman and his ears closed until he’d taken his first sip of deliciously cold beer. Only then was he ready to turn around and, ha ha, face the music, twisting in his seat, careful of his case, to watch the group performing on stage.
Not bad, he thought, letting their set wash over him. He was there for a while, watching performance after performance, until regulars started getting up on stage and forming impromptu groups. He watched a couple of the jam sessions before finally standing and hefting his case to his back again and making his way to the stage.
“You got room for one more?” he asked in heavily accented English.
They eyed him and one guy nodded at Ryo’s guitar, so Ryo pulled the case off and got it out, lifting it to his chest and running through a few riffs. He looked up into approving faces, and the guy jerked his head toward a free seat.
Ryo sat a moment while one guitarist got it started; let the music fill him and the blood rush through his veins creating a high better than any other stimulant could produce. With a slight smile, he joined in, letting the music drown out the noise.
~~~
Tegoshi hadn’t been able to shake the images he’d seen the night he’d flatlined. Every time he jacked into cyberspace there would be a moment when the story would replay itself in his mind, the ethereality of his dreams combined with the cyberspace version making him shiver and wonder just who had done it. It wasn’t a hacker, he could tell, and he’d spent all of his free time trying to trace the images and sound files but they came from everywhere. An eerie composite from all over cyberspace to converge in his mind and relay a message he couldn’t understand.
One thing was certain - someone had sent him a plea for help. Someone who thought he could help. He just wished he knew who. It had to have something to do with what was going on right now, why else would they have chosen that moment? He rifled through the non-mod data again searching for something, anything. On impulse he ran a search through the data for the word Rapunzel, the name of the European fairytale depicted in the images, he’d discovered. There was just one hit, linked with the name George Galwell, but no useful information.
He exited the data and ran a search through cyberspace on George Galwell, affiliated with the non-mods, hacking through some minor systems until he came across an unbelievable link. George Galwell, employed by Digitech, serviced the Stat Com’s system core every year. Just then an image flashed across his vision: a storybook price climbing a golden rope. He flinched. There was only one thing that could know what he was accessing and while it should be impossible for the cyberspace guardian to compile images and send them to him, it was the only conclusion he could come to. The A.I. had found a way to interact, though obviously in a very low-tech manner, and it possibly expended quite a bit of energy, which is why the images were infrequent and hidden by being pulled from all over cyberspace and formed into a story rather than a message. Insane. He jacked out quickly, yanking his goggles off and breathing hard.
“You okay?” Koyama asked, looking at him concernedly.
“Yeah… Yeah. I’m fine. Thanks,” he said with a smile.
Koyama eyed him doubtfully. “Maybe you should sleep again.”
“Maybe,” he said, turning to look out the window. But his mind was moving too fast for that.
~~~
Masuda sat in the café, relaxing back and resting his chin in his palm, his fingers coming up to cover his mouth. He was listening carefully to his earpiece, focusing his eyes on the black and white butterfly photograph on the wall across from him.
“Thanks,” he finally said with a grunt, ending the call with one word and initiating a call to Tegoshi with another.
“Hey, Massu,” Tegoshi said, sounding a little distracted but good, Masuda thought with relief.
“Hey, Tego. Got news. Our boy is in L.A.”
“Go on,” Tegoshi said quickly, totally focused now.
“He’s somewhere in the Benedict Canyon area. My contact lost him due to heavy flak. He’s being seriously watched. I’ll do what I can to get details and call you back.”
Tegoshi hummed. “Ok. Thanks, Massu. How’s everything else coming?”
“Exactly as planned.” He smiled, pleased with himself, and knew Tegoshi was grinning on the other end too.
After he hung up, he let the smile fade and leaned forward to grip his paper cup, the coffee barely warm enough to feel through the cardboard. He closed his eyes for a moment. It was all coming together and he loved the rush of it but he couldn’t help but long for quieter days as he felt the beginnings of a headache coming on. Finally he sat back up, pushing his worries to the back of his brain and made the next phone call.
Chapter 10
Group/Pairings: NewS. Pairings: Koyama/Shige, Massu/Yamapi
Rating: R
Warnings: Violence, cursing, sexual implications.
Words: 3,230
Summary: First try: "The fate of the world as they know it rests in the hands of one Kato Shigeaki. Oh shit." Possibly more coherent try (though it sounds like a lame old-school sci fi jacket blurb): The A.I. guarding cyberspace is forced to choose between eternal imprisonment and self-destruction. With the fate of the world resting in their hands, they must race against time to give her a third option before it's too late.
Prologue - Chapter 1 | Chapter 2 | Chapter 3 | Chapter 4 | Chapter 5 | Chapter 6 | Chapter 7 | Chapter 8 | Chapter 9 | Chapter 10 | Chapter 11 | Chapter 12 | Chapter 13 | Epilogue
---
Chapter 9 - 1001
Yamashita sat in the well-appointed office full of dark, hand-made furniture, somber family portraits, and potted plants. Outwardly he was relaxed, casually seated in a straight-backed leather chair with bored eyes.
“Where were you yesterday, Yamashita?”
“At my aunt’s in Spokane. She had a heart attack and I’m her next-of-kin.” Those files had been easy enough for Tegoshi to fix and Masuda had taken care of the necessary phone calls.
“And if I didn’t believe you?”
Yamashita shrugged. “You have no reason not to.”
The section head leaned back in his chair. “How’s your aunt?” he asked, suddenly friendly.
“She’s doing well. We spoke an hour ago and she has another appointment next week. I’ve hired someone to look after her since I can’t be there.”
“I’m sorry we had to call you back.”
Yamashita shook his head. “Standard procedure, I know. I knew when I took the job. It was just bad timing this time. Anyway, do you need anything else or can I get back to work?”
“No, go ahead. We’re done for now.”
Yamashita didn’t like the sound of that, but he stood, bowed slightly and left. But not before hearing a murmured, “Bad timing indeed.”
~~~
Shige contacted Jansen on the train.
“He needs to know we’re still moving,” Tegoshi had said. “We need more time before he sends the other courier in. He’s going to want it to be obvious what day you will come in.”
“So that he can send him in a day or two earlier than it would be possible for me to get there, yeah.” Shige frowned at his laptop. But he made the call.
“Jansen,” Shige said into the receiver in the empty area between cars.
There was a pause. Tracing probably. “Kato? Where are you?”
“On a train to Texas. We had a run-in and had to get out of New York.”
“A run-in?” He sounded satisfied, the bastard. “Fine. When you get to Texas, you’re going up to Colorado. I’ll prepare everything for you.” Another pause. “Why didn’t you answer our message?”
“I think they’ve been tracing us somehow. It seemed safest to really shake them and then call from a moving phone. Speaking of, I have to go. Wire the info, don’t send it over the ‘net, to the station in Dallas. Set it up so that we can pick up the tickets by hand. And we’re not flying.” He hung up.
“Take a look at this,” Tegoshi said, handing Shige his goggles. “This is the other courier based on info from the non-mod system and what my guys have been telling me.”
Kato grunted at the screen. “Oh, him.”
Koyama looked at him. “You know him?”
“No, I ran into him in the hall just before I got the download actually.” He clenched his fist. “If I’d known then… “ He clucked his tongue in irritation. “And his ass was rude, too.”
Tegoshi sat back. “Well. Nishikido Ryo. 28. Now we just have to find him.”
Kato twitched his lips to the side. “Yeah, no problem, only a trillion other people in the world. Should be cake.”
“Oh ye of little faith.”
All four of them stared at the picture in silence.
Well, Shige thought, if anyone deserved blind faith, it was Tegoshi. His other name on the ‘net was “Miracle Worker.”
As they neared the Dallas station, Koyama and Shige washed off their makeup and donned their normal clothing, Koyama stuffing his blonde hair under a hat. They picked up the tickets without incident and Masuda purchased train tickets for three to L.A. while Koyama and Shige found their platform. Koyama and Shige got on their train, waited a few moments before entering different lavatories, and then emerged from the train six cars and seven minutes apart to collect their tickets from the undersides of different benches, and boarded the train to L.A.
Tegoshi was goggled in when they took their seats and Shige carefully watched his fingers, barely catching the trembling, but it was there. He and Koyama exchanged a look. He wanted Tegoshi to rest but knew they couldn’t afford it right now.
A few hours later, Tegoshi called his false name and, after Shige had removed his goggles, waved at him. Shige and Koyama switched places, Shige carefully balancing his open laptop as he made the exchange. Tegoshi handed him his goggles and Shige watched himself and Koyama walk off a train into a station.
“Your first transfer.”
“Huh.”
“I called in another favor. Any camera you ought to be caught on, you will. He’s already working on the hotel check-in because the timing on that will be more complicated. I’m seeing if Masuda has any contacts in Denver who can check in for you. Then he can just map your features on like here and then they can ditch before the yakuza show up.”
“You’re going to be out of favors at the end of this, Tegoshi,” he said with a small smile.
“I’ll just earn some more, don’t you worry. Besides. You’ll still owe me,” he teased.
Shige grinned and nodded and moved back to his seat. “Take a break,” he told Tegoshi, not looking at him. “We’ll need you rested.” He didn’t expect the man to listen, but when he glanced up a minute later, just before goggling in, Tegoshi was already nestled against Koyama’s side, eyes shut.
~~~
Masuda attached his earpiece as soon as he got off the plane in L.A., calling around to find out who was in Denver right now, or could be tomorrow, that matched Koyama and Shige’s body type closely enough to fit. Luck was with him and he found two willing participants, for the right price, of course, and briefed them on the plan and the importance of leading a merry chase. Considering the chasers, he had to offer them a rather hefty sum, but this was no-holds-barred. By the time he’d made it to his hotel, changed and stood in the parking lot of the Bachelor/ette’s Pad two hours later, he had it all lined up for Tegoshi.
He made his gait smooth and rolling as he strolled through the doors of the upscale bar and headed for the counter, taking his time. He saw her out of the corner of his eye just before he got to it - sitting at a table with two other business ladies and watching him with narrowed eyes and a smile.
Isabelle Cruz, employee of Stat Com specializing in cyberspace / A.I. interface, and with an irresistible fetish for Asian men. It was amazing what people who should know better forgot to clear from their ‘net history sometimes. Cake.
He sat at the bar and ordered a rum and coke and studied his nails while he waited. He didn’t wait long - for the drink or the target.
“Hey,” she said as she slid onto the stool next to him, voice already laced with interest and he hadn’t even opened his mouth yet.
He took a sip of his drink and set it down carefully on its napkin before turning to look at her, letting his eyes roam across her beautifully made-up face, stopping a moment on full, red lips, before dipping lower to the v of her cleavage and the tiny cinch of her waist and then back to her eyes.
“Hey,” he replied, smiling lazily. “What’s your name?” he asked, not bothering to smooth out his Japanese accent. The language microsoft only helped with vocab and grammar, not pronunciation, so he’d learned to speak without an accent, but for her it would be better not to bother - the fact that he was actually Japanese and not a hyphenated American would only make it better for her.
And he was right because she was looking at him delightedly. “Isabelle. Yours?”
“Kazuki.”
“Japanese?”
He nodded.
“How long have you been here?” She took a delicate sip of her drink, letting her tongue slip out and lick at the side of the rim before pulling the glass away from her mouth and she watched him watch.
“A… few days,” he replied, dragging his eyes back up to her face.
“Oh? Business or pleasure?”
He let his lips curl up and put extra heat in his eyes. “Pleasure.”
~~~
He wasn’t one to complain about a sweet gig, and this one was pretty sweet with its vacation-like stays, room service, and beautiful women, but he was getting bored. He’d been accused before of being a workaholic, and he couldn’t exactly say they’d been wrong. All this waiting around was starting to get on his nerves. And he was still pretty pissed about the eye; his finger, too, but especially the eye.
He stared at his reflection in the mirror and reached up with one finger to push and pull at the skin around the offending artificiality and he looked around in all directions, trying to see it catch, show its true nature, but it never did. But he knew. There was just a subtle color difference between the two browns and the pattern across the iris was slightly different. It wasn’t his. It put him in a foul mood.
He opened the door of his room and poked his head out. “Hey, bell boy,” he said to the suited man standing guard outside. “Tell your boss I want to know what’s going on. I’m getting cabin fever.” The man scowled at him and Ryo gave him his best shit-eating grin before shutting the door and grabbing his guitar. He flung himself down on the bed and held his guitar awkwardly against his chest, placing his fingers carefully across the fret board and then strumming lightly. He really wanted to be back in Tokyo on the poorly-lit stage of some dive in Ueno, Shinjuku, anywhere, playing for crowds that didn’t care who he was or what he did outside but just wanted some real music. None of that synthesized shit pop-culture called music these days, just a man, his voice, maybe some real back-up, and a tune. That’s what he lived for. All the rest was just white noise. And this white noise had been going on way too long.
When Jansen called him an hour later, he didn’t have anything new to say. He just needed to “sit tight for a while,” and the yankee phrase got his hackles up.
“I’m tired of sitting here. At least let me get out and check out the city. Your monkeys can follow me if they want. I just can’t stay in this room any longer.”
Jansen looked pensive but finally agreed, spreading his hands and smiling magnanimously. “Sure, of course. We just need to make sure you’re where we need you when we need you.”
“I’ll be there,” he replied, twitching his lips up in pleasure. Finally, he’d get to see if L.A. was worth its hype.
~~~
Masuda climbed out of bed, slipping on his boxers, and silently looked at the woman sprawled on her stomach, naked back bared to the cool air of the hotel, one hand tucked under her face and she looked so young without her lipstick. He scratched his back and felt a slight sting and when he looked over his shoulder at the mirror behind him, he saw she’d beaten him to it, four long, pink scratches down the left side of his back. His brow wrinkled involuntarily as he looked back at her.
He should have about an hour to do what he needed to before she woke up; she hadn’t drank enough of the drugged water he’d given her after to give him more time than that. But it should be long enough. He slipped on a pair of latex gloves and turned on his palmpad, letting it boot before attaching a cable to it and setting it on the nightstand. He leaned over her and pried up her eyelid, gently rolling the orb so that the pupil was in the center and inserting a cap just inside the lids. Reaching his free hand over, he hit a button on the palmpad and watched the screen intently. When the screen flashed, he removed the device from her eye and put the used cap in a baggie and sealed it, neatly packing away the cable and pulling out a kit to take a full hand print. He waited anxiously for the mixture to set and then carefully peeled it away and packed it in his bag again. She sort of groaned as he cleaned up her hand and he peered carefully at her. Nothing. Then he rifled through her small purse, not expecting to find anything important, but he copied the files off of a microsoft and flash drive he found in there before putting everything away again.
When she woke up twenty minutes later, he was smiling sleepily at her, propped up on his elbow next to her.
“Nice nap?” he asked.
Her smile was lopsided and charming. “Guess you wore me out.”
He showed her his dimples and she leaned in and kissed each one. She ran soft, cold fingers down his muscled chest and laughed quietly as the muscles quivered under the pads.
“I’d love a round two, sweetheart, but I’ve got things to do in the morning. If you’re still in town tomorrow night, come back to the bar. I’ll be there.”
She dressed quickly and gave him a lingering kiss at the door. After he shut it behind her, he slumped back against it heavily, thinking of bow-shaped lips and sleepy eyes and feeling guilty.
~~~
Ryo walked down an L.A. back road with his guitar in its soft case on his back. He’d hit a few forums the last few days trying to find the hot spots in town and he was on his way to the most promising of the possibilities; an underground joint without a name, just a description. He found it with a little difficulty, having trouble with missing street signs, but when he got in, he smiled. He took a seat at the counter, swinging his guitar smoothly down to hook his foot through the strap and lean the case between his legs and out of traffic, and ordered a draft. He kept his eyes on the barman and his ears closed until he’d taken his first sip of deliciously cold beer. Only then was he ready to turn around and, ha ha, face the music, twisting in his seat, careful of his case, to watch the group performing on stage.
Not bad, he thought, letting their set wash over him. He was there for a while, watching performance after performance, until regulars started getting up on stage and forming impromptu groups. He watched a couple of the jam sessions before finally standing and hefting his case to his back again and making his way to the stage.
“You got room for one more?” he asked in heavily accented English.
They eyed him and one guy nodded at Ryo’s guitar, so Ryo pulled the case off and got it out, lifting it to his chest and running through a few riffs. He looked up into approving faces, and the guy jerked his head toward a free seat.
Ryo sat a moment while one guitarist got it started; let the music fill him and the blood rush through his veins creating a high better than any other stimulant could produce. With a slight smile, he joined in, letting the music drown out the noise.
~~~
Tegoshi hadn’t been able to shake the images he’d seen the night he’d flatlined. Every time he jacked into cyberspace there would be a moment when the story would replay itself in his mind, the ethereality of his dreams combined with the cyberspace version making him shiver and wonder just who had done it. It wasn’t a hacker, he could tell, and he’d spent all of his free time trying to trace the images and sound files but they came from everywhere. An eerie composite from all over cyberspace to converge in his mind and relay a message he couldn’t understand.
One thing was certain - someone had sent him a plea for help. Someone who thought he could help. He just wished he knew who. It had to have something to do with what was going on right now, why else would they have chosen that moment? He rifled through the non-mod data again searching for something, anything. On impulse he ran a search through the data for the word Rapunzel, the name of the European fairytale depicted in the images, he’d discovered. There was just one hit, linked with the name George Galwell, but no useful information.
He exited the data and ran a search through cyberspace on George Galwell, affiliated with the non-mods, hacking through some minor systems until he came across an unbelievable link. George Galwell, employed by Digitech, serviced the Stat Com’s system core every year. Just then an image flashed across his vision: a storybook price climbing a golden rope. He flinched. There was only one thing that could know what he was accessing and while it should be impossible for the cyberspace guardian to compile images and send them to him, it was the only conclusion he could come to. The A.I. had found a way to interact, though obviously in a very low-tech manner, and it possibly expended quite a bit of energy, which is why the images were infrequent and hidden by being pulled from all over cyberspace and formed into a story rather than a message. Insane. He jacked out quickly, yanking his goggles off and breathing hard.
“You okay?” Koyama asked, looking at him concernedly.
“Yeah… Yeah. I’m fine. Thanks,” he said with a smile.
Koyama eyed him doubtfully. “Maybe you should sleep again.”
“Maybe,” he said, turning to look out the window. But his mind was moving too fast for that.
~~~
Masuda sat in the café, relaxing back and resting his chin in his palm, his fingers coming up to cover his mouth. He was listening carefully to his earpiece, focusing his eyes on the black and white butterfly photograph on the wall across from him.
“Thanks,” he finally said with a grunt, ending the call with one word and initiating a call to Tegoshi with another.
“Hey, Massu,” Tegoshi said, sounding a little distracted but good, Masuda thought with relief.
“Hey, Tego. Got news. Our boy is in L.A.”
“Go on,” Tegoshi said quickly, totally focused now.
“He’s somewhere in the Benedict Canyon area. My contact lost him due to heavy flak. He’s being seriously watched. I’ll do what I can to get details and call you back.”
Tegoshi hummed. “Ok. Thanks, Massu. How’s everything else coming?”
“Exactly as planned.” He smiled, pleased with himself, and knew Tegoshi was grinning on the other end too.
After he hung up, he let the smile fade and leaned forward to grip his paper cup, the coffee barely warm enough to feel through the cardboard. He closed his eyes for a moment. It was all coming together and he loved the rush of it but he couldn’t help but long for quieter days as he felt the beginnings of a headache coming on. Finally he sat back up, pushing his worries to the back of his brain and made the next phone call.
Chapter 10