Svaha, page 4
With a swagger girl mask and the other gear, Lisa could go anywhere, never mind her striped messenger's tattoos. They'd be hidden under the mask.
"Real ID?"
"True blue, darling. Coded right into the Plex. We'll set you up with a Bankcard, even give you a squat in the Plex if you want."
Wait'll I tell Kay, Lisa thought.
"Time's wasting, darling."
"I'm thinking, I'm thinking."
Though where was the decision, really? Hitting the dead lands, with a fifty-fifty chance of getting burned out or jumped by some mutant freak before she reached the squats of the next Plex, or taking up the highlife? Lisa Bone, spy. Just like Facedancer on the vids. And then she thought of the Ch'ing-jen Fan's doorman—of swaggering up to him, giving him a whack with a buzz-stick maybe, and watching him jump when its small charge goosed him.
"Who's the macho man on the door tonight?" she asked.
The Ragman rolled his eyes. "Night man—guy named McKenna. Donnybrook only works days now."
Lisa'd had a thing going with Donnybrook until she finally got tired of muscles masquerading as brains. But she still liked him.
"Do I get a strongarm?" she asked.
"Anything, darling—but just remember, the highlife only lasts until we run those chinas down. Then it's on to other kinds of work. No free rides with the toms. Are you in?"
"You'll keep the yaks off my back?"
"They're not even going to know you're still alive."
Lisa grinned then and reached a hand across the clutter of the Ragman's desk.
"I'm in," she said.
3
Fumiko Hirose's secretary might look like one of Goro's augmented yaks squeezed into a beige bodysuit a size or two too small, but Hirose… Yip stood just inside her office and gazed appreciatively at her as the door hissed shut behind him.
She was the Dragon Lady herself—direct from Maki Nakayama's last action vid. Red geisha stockings hugged the long legs under a slitted dress of black synthsilk. Her shoulders were bare, pale against a dark fall of long hair that was so black it almost seemed to swallow light. Her features were classic—small perfect lips, almond-shaped eyes, high cheekbones.
"Will you have a seat," she asked after a few moments, "or should I send Otsu back in with a camera?"
"Gomenasai," Yip said. Your pardon.
"Please sit."
Yip remained where he stood. "Your secretary—Otsu?—he has access to a scanner?"
Hirose frowned and glanced at the screen set into her disc. "Phillip Yip," she read. "Sino/Nipponjin. Thirty-four years old. Single. Life resident. Officer of Ho Anzen Securities who hold the principal security franchise of Trenton Megaplex. Combank account number 773-52-9. Current balance, 2534.06 credits." She glanced up. "Shall I go on?"
"Iie, dozo. Somehow I fail to see—"
"The point? We don't need to have you scanned. We know exactly who you are, neh? That you are unarmed. That you carry no live com-link. Even that you…" She glanced back at the screen. "Yes. That this visit has not been recorded with your superiors."
"Palm print reader in the outer door?" Yip asked. He'd been curious about the manually operated entrance. When Hirose nodded, he added, "And scanners in the outer room?"
Again Hirose nodded. "I might add, the oyabun has no interest in liaisons with your firm, official or unofficial."
Of course, Yip thought. Goro would already have informers in place—as many as he required and each of them undoubtedly much higher up in rank than Yip.
"That's not why I'm here," he said.
"Then perhaps you should explain, neh? Please, have a seat."
She leaned back in her own chair, steepling her fingers as she studied him. Through her plastiglass desk, Yip could see the hem riding high on her red-stockinged thigh. She noticed the direction of his gaze and smiled, but made no motion to pull the hem down.
"O-sake wa?" she asked when he was seated, offering him a drink.
"Iie, gomenasai. I would have preferred to speak directly with Goro, for this concerns him, but I must admit that your company is infinitely more pleasing on the eye."
When she smiled again, a moment of warmth touched her cool gaze. "This is refreshing," she said. "A security officer with charm. Are you an exception to the norm, or are they finally giving officers some lessons in social manners?"
Her smile kept the sting from the words.
"I'm off duty," Yip said.
She arched her eyebrows. "Then perhaps we should retire to a restaurant?"
Yip blinked. On the surface, she appeared to be merely flirting, as she did so well for the vid cameras in court while she proceeded to rip her opposition's argument to shreds, but at the same time, she seemed almost serious.
"Regretfully, no," he replied.
"Mata dozo," she said. Another time.
For a long moment she seemed just a woman and he just a man, then Hirose sighed and her business mask slipped across her features.
"Hai," Yip murmured and wondered, what are the chances?
"And you've come today because…?" Hirose asked.
As Yip explained, she watched him from under lidded eyes.
"This is all just speculation, of course," she said when he was done.
"I've wiped the information from my own system," Yip replied, "but it's still there in the public files for anyone to call up. It won't take the media, or a great deal of imagination, to put it together as I already have. The only reason we have any time at all is that the investigation is under my jurisdiction and I can freeze the pertinent system files. But not for long."
Hirose shrugged, not agreeing, but not disagreeing either. "What do you want from me?"
"Drop those companies. Get rid of Goro's connection to them. You're already after IBN in court—who's going to believe that you won't attempt more direct means of attack as well?"
"Bad business."
"Gomenasai, but the yakuza have a certain reputation. Surely you can see that if you don't do something, IBN will have no recourse left but to attack you directly as well?"
"We had nothing to do with the DMC in Sector Five to which you refer."
"It doesn't matter if you did or didn't. It's what IBN will perceive that matters."
"Hai." She leaned forward. "And what do you want out of this, Phillip Yip?"
"Nothing."
Hirose laughed. "I find that unlikely. I can't deny that you have been a help. There are those who would say, why trust a traitor? But I believe you speak the truth and that your advice is sound."
"I am not a traitor," Yip said coldly.
"Iie? Would your superiors at Ho Anzen agree with you, do you think?"
"I do this for the good of the Megaplex, which I am honour-bound to protect. If there were to be war between IBN and your people, the whole Megaplex would suffer. In such a case, I put Ho Anzen's contract with the Megaplex above the company's own concerns."
"So you want nothing? No future consideration?"
Yip rose from his seat. "I have no time for any more of this. Good day, Fumiko Hirose."
Her voice stopped him before he reached the door. "You aren't much of a team player, are you?"
"No," he replied without turning.
"And yet you want nothing for yourself. You do it only for honour—the giri that you perceive binding you to the Megaplex as a whole, rather than one corner of it. Some might consider that a surprising and perhaps dangerous attitude for a half-blood."
Yip turned slowly, a flush starting up the back of his neck.
"I mean no insult," Hirose said. Then to diffuse his anger further, she added, "I'm a half-blood myself—my grandmother was Korean."
"Yet you work for the yaks…?"
She shrugged. "I'm as much a Nipponjin as any who claim the blood," she said. "More than most, perhaps. But I don't see the same boundaries between peoples as what you have called 'my people' do, neh?"
"And yet Goro retains your services."
"I get results."
Yip smiled. "How could you not? I've yet to meet a sharper wit in such an attractive package."
"Domo," she said. "Ja mata. I think I like you."
Yip carried the warmth of her smile all the way across town to his own office. It helped combat the growing sense of disquiet that spread in cold waves from his stomach. For, no matter that it was for the greater good, he had still betrayed his principle employers by going directly to the yaks rather than taking the matter to the courts as it should have been.
Her smile helped. But not enough.
DREAMTIME
The Twisted Hairs were a council of elders, shaman who came from all the tribes to teach the Walk, the path with heart, the path of the wolf. Of all the People, only they travelled without fear through the Outer Lands, entering and leaving the Enclaves at will, for they had such control over their bodies that disease could find no foothold in their flesh. They spoke with the Twenty Count, the manitou that Gahzee's tribe knew as Kitche Manitou, the Great Mystery, but who referred to themselves as numerical tones. They were to be found in the center of every Wheel.
In their teachings everything fit on a Wheel. The simplest had fire in the east—the home of the spirit and art; earth in the west—the home of the body and magic; water in the south—home of movement and music; wind in the north—home of the mind and science. On that Wheel, the void lay in the center, a catalyst from which the Twisted Hairs spoke with the voice of the Twenty Count, home of language and math.
Everything fit on a Wheel, and though words changed from tribe to tribe, and names changed, the Wheels never did. On one Medicine Wheel, the Anishnabeg medé who bore the name Gahzee Animiki-Waewidum was a Dreamer, placed midway between magic and music, between healing and holding, and the Kachina-hey, the dream teachers, were his mentors.
To speak with them he laid a dreaming crystal under the pillow he made of his jacket. He offered his sacred smoke to the grandfather thunders, then he rolled a spirit bell in the palm of his hand. The bell was a perfect silver sphere, the fairy jingle of its voice speaking to the four quarters, completing another Wheel: Grandfather Sun in the east, crossing the sky to marry Grandmother Moon in the west where they made love. Their first born were the plants in the south, who gave the People oxygen and sustenance. Their second born were the animals in the north, who realized resonance with all that is.
Smoke and sound. Through them, the will focused its intent.
Lying down, Gahzee interlaced his fingers—his left hand dominant, for his was a warrior's path, that of one who follows his own Walk, rather than that of a soldier who does only what he is told. Shaping a Dreamer's hand sign—his index and little fingers protruding at straight angles from the curved backs of the center fingers—he closed his eyes.
Fire finger, water finger. Through them, and the crystal under his pillowed jacket, the Kachina-hey would speak to him while he dreamed.
The last things he saw, before he closed his own eyes, were the mismatched eyes of Nanabozho who regarded him from where he lay just within the glow of their dying fire. One brown, one blue. It was no surprise to Gahzee that the Kachina-hey who spoke to him that night in the Dreamtime had the same mismatched eyes.
When he woke—
I miss my home, grandfather.
What is it that you miss? Your brothers and sisters? The voice of the land? Or merely your comforts?
I miss it all.
Children pine; a warrior Walks.
The road is hard, grandfather. To have lost all I have known—
Have you changed so much, then? Knowledge fled? Strength turned to water?
Memories prove to have little comfort.
The path with heart is only as difficult as you allow it to be, grandson.
I know. And I will complete it. But what of after?
A warrior's Walk is never done.
I know that, too. But tribeless—
You could learn to twist your hair.
—was all he remembered.
He sat up. What passed for dawn here in the Outer Lands was still hours away. The sky was a dull smudge above him. The fire was dead. The coyote was gone.
Twist my hair? he thought and laughed aloud.
It had only been three nights and two days and already loneliness had him aspiring to wisdoms far beyond his reach. But still. Even a Twisted Hair began as a simple woman or man. Places of wilderness were the testing grounds.
And was there ever such a place that better deserved to be named a wilderness? he asked himself, looking around at the dark bulks of the abandoned buildings that loomed beyond his campsite.
Laughing again, he replaced his dreaming crystal in his skibdagan—the soft moosehide medicine bag that hung from his belt by day. Tying its drawstrings tight, he placed it by his jacket and lay down once more. He was asleep in moments, dreaming again, but these were ordinary dreams, as different from the Dreamtime as hearing a tale was from doing the deed.
THREE
1
Shigehero Goro, the oyabun of the Goro Clan, was an enormous man with the physique of a sumo wrestler. In his late fifties, his topknot was still black, as was the small pointed beard on his rounded chin. Fumiko Hirose had never made the mistake others had, who had seen him as merely a caricature, an immense clown playing at being a warrior. It was one of the reasons she maintained the respect she did in the male-oriented society of the yakuza.
She watched him now, practicing kendo in his dojo with two of his yakuza, straw sandals slapping on the hardwood floor, the dragon tattoo on his back glistening with sweat, the rapid-fire clack of his shinai loud in the small room as the two yaks tried to break his defenses with their own split bamboo practice swords. That kendo, the way of the sword, had little place in contemporary society where differences were settled in court or on the streets with Steeljacks, meant little to Goro. The training sessions honed his reflexes, physical and mental, and he came from them with his ki burning like a cold fire in his eyes.
At that time, Hirose had often thought, any man who did not take Goro seriously was either a brave man or a fool.
She sat on the observers' zaibaton near the entrance of the dojo with Goro's second-in-command, Yamamoto Ishimine. Tatami mats for meditation, dressing, and bowing in at the beginning of a practice session, ran the lengths of the walls. Ishimine was a small man who wore baggy clothes not as a fashion statement, but to conceal the exoskeleton that augmented his muscles. No daily training for him, but he held his own in the ranks of the yakuza all the same.
"Sa," Goro said when he was finally done. "You have news?"
He looked at Hirose, so she spoke first. "I met with Phillip Yip—did you see it on the monitors?"
"Hai. "
"I believe he's telling the truth."
"I still don't trust him, neh?"
Hirose shrugged.
"But we will do as he recommended," Goro contained. "Ja mata, see that Co-Op terrorists are blamed for the DMC's malfunction. Have Aoki credit this Yip for uncovering the evidence to that effect in the Ho Anzen system and deposit a thousand credits in his Combank account." He raised his brows at the slight frown that touched Hirose's mouth. "Is this a problem?"
"I like him," she said. "And he helped us."
Goro shook his head. "He helped the Megaplex and only incidentally helped us. Do as I've told you and he will be bound to us—in the eyes of the world, even if we can't win him over. But he might prove useful. It took heart to come to us as he did."
"Hai."
"Why don't you see him again?"
It wasn't really a question. Hirose nodded, unable to argue against the cold fire in Goro's eyes. There were times when one could successfully push one's own arguments with him, but this wasn't one of them.
"And you," Goro said, turning to Ishimine.
"The messenger has disappeared," Ishimine said. "Men are searching—for both her and the chinas she claims robbed her—but…" He shrugged eloquently. "The squats are what they are. An army could be hiding in there and never be found."
"There is an army hiding in there," Goro said. "Co-Op, triads, tongs, chinas, rats—what would you call them if not an army?"
"They have no leader—"
"There you are wrong," Goro said.
It was an old argument. In all the Megaplex it seemed that only Goro was farsighted enough to see exactly what a danger the Co-Op presented. Hirose tended to agree with him.
"I am not pleased," Goro said.
"Gomenasai, but we still have the Claver flyer—"
"True. And that chip held everything that was in its computers, neh? Without it, we add months, perhaps years, to our work. Time we do not have. Find that girl, Ishimine."
"Hai."
Goro turned back to Hirose. "And cultivate this Phillip Yip, Fumiko. Trouble is coming and we might need a scapegoat. Ja mata, the citizens love pinning the blame on their own security officers."
"Hai," she said.
He turned away from them and left by a door on the far side of the dojo, which would take him to where an attendant was preparing a steam shower and massage for him. He had dismissed them from his mind, Hirose knew, as surely as though they were already gone. And yet, on an almost cellular level, he would be aware of every move they made until they had left the dojo. A very dangerous man.
"You have only yaks in the field?" she asked Ishimine as they waited for the elevator.
He nodded glumly. "For all the use they're proving to be."
"Why not hire some leather boys to scout around the squats for you? They can go in places where your yaks would be too obvious, but who'd suspect a leather boy of a complicated thought, let alone spying, neh?"
Ishimine's face brightened. "Domo domo, Fumiko."
She smiled, then stepped into the elevator. When Ishimine joined her, she looked at their reflections in the mirror. Now who is there to tell me how to set Phillip Yip up for the slaughter? she wondered. To set him up and still be able to sleep at night. For she genuinely had liked him. Unfortunately, merely coming into Goro's sphere of influence, he might as well be considered the late Phillip Yip.
