Steel Rain (2 page)
Here, in the guest wing of her parent's modest house, it is all futility and pointless destruction, a minute shifting of balance in the ceaseless battle that is metahumanity.
A battle right or wrong but never truly won.
If only she could discern some reason. Some motive for the attack. It would give this death meaning, however minuscule.
It would, in some way, make sense of it.
But the time for such reflections comes abruptly to an end. The norm driver and bodyguard assigned to her parents appears amid the wreckage of the doorway, clad only in shorts, a blocky automag in hand. He is tall for a Japanese, nearly as tall as her. He looks to her as if amazed to see her standing. He bows as if suffering a spasm, sudden and brief.
"Machiko
-sama
what—!"
Before he can finish, her parents are there, her father's face crimson with alarm, her mother's full of fear. "We are safe, now," Machiko says. Briefly, she bows. "Forgive me."
The bodyguard and her parents hesitate. Machiko does not. She must report this incident. She must alert Nagato Corp security, for an investigation must be begun. She turns to the telecom on the low, black-lacquered stand beside her ruined bedding. She kneels and enters a telecom code. The logo of Nagato Corporation comes instantly to the screen, replaced suddenly by the harried features of a man in Nagato Security Service uniform.
"Duty ops officer!" the man blurts.
"Situation Four," Machiko tells him. "Advise your command."
"We have a prior alert—"
Abruptly, another man fills the screen, a lieutenant of the Nagato Corp Security Directorate. "We have attacks on two other GSG within the last several minutes. You are the senior member reporting. What are your instructions?" Machiko frowns. "Contact Sukayo—"
"I have just dispatched a trauma team to Sukayo-san
's
location!" the man tells her. "You are the senior GSG reporting! What are your instructions?"
Astonishment makes a muddle of Machiko's thoughts. What is this man telling her? Sukayo injured? The seniormost member of the Green Serpent Guard in need of a trauma team? How could that be? The mere concept shakes her no less rudely than the bomb born by the assassin. It makes her feel as if being woken violently from a dream. "The Chairman. What is his status?"
"Situation unchanged. I have no reports."
She awakens to the realization that here is the point, the granite breakers around which all shock and puzzlement must swirl unheeded. Honjowara Okido, Chairman of Nagato Combine and its leading corporate enterprise, Nagato Corporation. The Green Serpent Guard are the Chairman's elites, his servants, agents, and warriors. First and foremost, they are sworn to safeguard his life, no matter the cost. Abruptly, Machiko realizes that the status of the Chairman
now
is irrelevant. Until seconds ago, she would have considered the home of her parents to be tranquil and untroubled. She must stir herself, look ahead, anticipate any other threats that may be coming this night.
She must wake up!
"What is the Chairman's location?"
The lieutenant replies with the code word for the Chairman's estate.
"Initiate Rapier Wind."
The lieutenant nods sharply and looks to his console, tapping keys. "Security Defense Force notified. Responding in support."
Machiko breathes, struggles to calm her spirit, to think. The ancient masters have written that even the most vital decisions should be made within the space of seven breaths. The spirit must be resolute. Smash one's boots to the earth and pass through a wall of iron. Machiko considers. She hears her personal commlink beeping. Yes, she has declared an alert. All that can be done will be done. GSG stationed at the Chairman's mansion will mobilize. Every member of the guard not currently on duty will be notified of the alert and will respond at once. Nagato Corp security forces will go on alert and contribute every available officer to aid in defending the Chairman. She can think of nothing else. Nothing she can do from this room in her parent's home. Her duty now is to prepare for combat and to join the balance of the Guard at the Chairman's estate.
She breaks the telecom link and stands. A quick rush of padding footsteps and a soft cry like a sob give her warning. Her mother seizes her arm, snares her waist, clenches and clings. Frantic to see and frantic to hold. To make sure she is unhurt. For she is yet a child, in her mother's gaze. A child raised and loved like the flesh of one's own flesh. That she has grown tall and slim as only a meta may grow, as only elves ever grow, matters not. An elven child, yes, but no child of elves.
Gently, she draws her mother's head to her breast, and softly says, "Mother ... I must go."
Her mother sobs, sniffs, and nods.
"In Buddha's name,
what is
happening
?" This from her father, now standing a few brief steps away. His face is still crimson and his breathing seems harsh, labored. He lifts a hand to his chest as if suffering a twinge of angina. He casts a worried glance at the corpse of the assassin, the ruined bedding, the telecom. "Machiko—"
"Please be calm," she says. "We are safe. Security Service is responding."
"But the Chairman."
"He is well. Be calm."
"You said security—"
Machiko struggles to find the words to explain what appears to have happened, events she has prepared to meet at least a thousand times, yet now seem somehow impossible. Her mother looks up at her with an expression of pain and awe. "Two other members of the Guard have been attacked," Machiko says quietly. "We must assume that an attack against Chairman Honjowara is imminent. That is procedure."
"Who would dare—!"
"Father, I do not know."
And now her mother makes an obvious attempt at self-control. She brushes at the tears. She says in a small voice, "You are not hurt?"
"Mother, I am untouched."
Her mother nods. She bends and picks up the
honoki
-
wood
sheath, showing it as great a respect as that due a sword, lining the cradle of her hands with the silk of her own nightgown, offering the sheath with a tiny bow. Machiko bows and accepts it. "Your duty," her mother says softly. "You must go."
"Please forgive me."
"Your fidelity honors us all."
But then a uniformed man steps through the wreckage of the doorway. The uniform marks him as a sergeant of the Nagato Corp subsidiary responsible for all police services within the boundaries of the Nagato Manor Residence Community. The sergeant's gaze jumps immediately to Machiko. His surprise is plain. And he bows. He bows very deeply. This is not unexpected.
But for the thong girding her hips, Machiko is nude. Yet her station in the hierarchy of Nagato Combine could hardly be more apparent. The jade green grip of the katana she holds is merely a clue. The far bolder statement is made by the stark white kabuki-mask of her face, the pure jet mane of her hair, the twining green serpents circling her arms, legs, and torso, and coiling over both shoulders to her breast. What the sergeant does not see is the twining serpent logo emblazoned across both her palms. What perhaps he does not notice is the tall pointed ears hidden beneath the voluminous black hair, and the strong almond contours of the eyes, veiled by a Japanese landscape.
"Please excuse me," the sergeant blurts. He glances at the corpse of the assassin. "An incident was reported—"
"Yes," Machiko says, forestalling further remarks that are not necessary. "Nagato security is responding to this location. These are my parents, both Nagato executives. See to their welfare. Secure the house and property and await further instructions."
The sergeant casts another look at the dead assassin. "This person lying here—"
"Is not your responsibility."
"Please excuse my ignorance." The sergeant bows abruptly, then turns and curtly orders two other security officers to search and secure the grounds. He directs a pair of medics to attend Machiko's parents.
Machiko turns to the green lacquered chest containing her wardrobe.
She must dress.
For the warrior there can be no distinction between battlefield and bedroom. The sword must always be sharp, the arm prepared to wield it, the spirit ready. There is therefore only one uniform for the Green Serpent Guard, used for ceremony as well as combat.
Machiko dons cushioned underwear to guard her breasts, her groin, elbows, and knees, and
tabi
for her feet. Over this, a lightweight reinforced silk
gi
. She straps an Ares monofilament dagger to her left calf and a compact Walter PB-120 holdout pistol to her right. She fixes armored vambraces to her forearms and armored guards about her shins. The vambraces mount snapblades, shuriken in the form of both stars and spikes, and, on the left, a rugged portable commlink.
Over all this she pulls the
montsuki
, a large-sleeved top, and the
hakama
, broad-legged pants, and the
kamishimo
, or over-sest of the Guard. These garments are green with blood-red trim and insulated with ballistic armor. They bear the
mon
of Nagato Corp and, over disks of black, the twining green serpent logo of the Guard.
At the left of her waist, she holsters a Beretta 200ST automatic with spare clips of ammunition. At the right, nunchaku. Over her belly, a
tanto
furnished to match her sword, and, at her back, she slings the katana.
The guns are of course fully loaded and ready to fire. They are, like the katana, like the other weapons, furnished in the brilliant jade-green of the Guard.
Machiko turns from her wardrobe to find her parents being attended by the medics. Her father lies on the floor on his back with an oxygen mask covering his nose and mouth. The look on his face is reassuringly familiar, a look of annoyed self-restraint, stubbornly resolute. It is on account of what he refers to as the "vile traitor" in his chest. One day soon he will have no choice but to agree to replace it with a cardiac prosthesis. Until then, he tolerates the occasional pain. He will not give himself to the surgeon's blade until he is left with no choice, and so he must tolerate the occasional pain.
Mother kneels beside him holding his hand. She seems well, fragile but in control. The bodyguard stands nearby. The medics appear competent and focused on their work, monitoring her father's condition, communicating via portable telecom with a doctor at the local hospital.
Machiko feels content to leave. Duty demands that she leave, leave at once, but now even her flawed heart is content.
She catches her mother's eye. They exchange brief bows. Her father lifts a hand in acknowledgment. Machiko bows in reply, then turns and moves determinedly to the front of the house.
She is barely through the entryway to the garden surrounding the front walk when she encounters a man in the dark gray blazer of a Nagato Security Service supervisor. She points this man to the room where the assassin lies, then steps toward the driveway and car. Her commlink begins beeping.
She opens the cover on her left vambrace and glances at the small screen there. The face she sees is that of Gongoro, another senior GSG, tonight responsible for security at the Chairman's estate. His face, like hers, is a kabuki-style mask as white as chalk, eyes like black pools, his mouth a burning scarlet wound. He does not talk so much as growl.
"Sukayo, Mitsuharu, and Jiksumi have all been attacked. They are disabled, if not dead."
Machiko feels her pulse accelerate despite her effort to keep her spirit settled. These three whom Gongoro names are the three most senior of the Guard. That any one of them should be attacked and possibly killed is astonishing. That all three should be disabled in the same hour of the same night seems so far beyond comprehension as to require the intervention of gods. Sukayo-san studied the Way under
sensei
Kuroda himself. He is as close to becoming the perfect weapon as any mere meta might ever become.
"You are the senior acting member," Gongoro growls.
"What of Ryokai?"
Gongoro's growling rises into a snarl. "Ryokai is junior to both you and I! If you do not feel competent to assume command, say so now!"
So this is the point of his call. Machiko scolds herself for failing to grasp the fact sooner. Of course the chain of command must be made clear. Gongoro is right to snarl. And naturally he would be among the first to demand that the issue be settled. "If I am the acting senior, then command will be mine."
"You
are
the acting senior!"
"Then I command."
"What are your orders?"
"Dispatch details to stand watch over Sukayo and the others. Remain on alert."
"What enemy are we expecting?"
"That is for security to determine."
Gongoro breaks the link. He has never been a man to waste two words when none will suffice. He cultivates martial valor by means of the deliberate attitude that he is inferior to no one and thus can never be defeated in combat. A worthy concept in a warrior. Fanaticism in all its forms may be extremely valuable. But Gongoro goes too far. He is like the man in the ancient parable, forever swinging a naked blade. Such men earn few allies. They may influence others by the fear they inspire, but not by respect.