NationStates Jolt Archive

ooc: See here for the ooc details.
http://forums.jolt.co.uk/showthread.php?t=446130

Xiamen, MP:

I stand in the midnight blue shadows, staring at him through the muddled screen of rain. Another goddamn panhandler on the streets, another one, dirty, filthy and begging for money or liquor from passerbys. “What an idiot this one is”, I snarl quietly under my breath. He's going to get himself killed and he knows it. No one begs at night here, no one that wants to stay alive to see the next sunrise. This one’s new; he probably just got laid off from the factories up town. I can see why. Too stupid to operate the new machinery they’re putting into the factories probably. Then again, this entire city is stupid and sliding downhill fast. Nobody that can leave stays here, industries included. The wealth fled from us first and left the rest of us to fight over the scraps. This guy thinks he get his share. I think otherwise.

My pistol, a beaten up old 10mm semi-auto emerges from my cheap plastic windbreaker, followed by a silencer. He doesn’t see me at all. Good. I screw the silencer on, listening to that sweet hollow grating sound as metal caressed metal. I look around quickly, no witnesses except for a couple of streetwalkers. I stick the pistol, silencer and all, back into my windbreaker and begin walking towards the guy, cool as a cucumber od’ing on Valiums. I begin walking up, just another wind battered, rain soaked guy making his way back home from a stop at an all-night chicken shack. I pretend to not notice him as I make my way past. He accosts me.

“Hey, buddy, could you spare some change…” he croaks. For his first day, he sure has the voice down. Properly miserable, and full of that good old beggar theatric. His clothes are wet and dirty as well, but he smells too clean, the landlord probably hadn’t evicted him from his piece of shit apartment yet, so he smeared some dirt into his face and hoped that no one would notice.

I nod at the beggar’s request for change and dive into my pocket. I fish out some piddling coins and begin to toss them into his outstretched hand, when I suddenly pull away.

“You know what?” I say, “How about I buy you something to eat. You look pretty hungry. Wanna take a trip back to Joey’s Noodle Shack with me?”

The beggar nods, and replies, “Yes, yes, thank you so very much sir!”

I motion to Joey’s a block away and waited for him to start walking. He did. As he moved forward, he didn’t notice me putting on a pair of surgical gloves. I walked quickly and quietly behind, not letting him hear my footsteps. As he turned around to see if I was still there, I take a single step forward and ram my elbow into his throat, just as we move into the space between a couple of streetlamps. He staggers into a wall, confused and trying to regain his breath. The last thing he sees is my pistol coming back out of my windbreaker.

The silent chuff of the gunshot is masked perfectly by the raindrops. There’s no blood as the beggar’s corpse hits the sidewalk. His heart stopped beating instantly. Anything left around would be washed away into the storm drain. I pick up the cartridge casing and. There were no witnesses, well, maybe no human witnesses. A couple of rats saw me do it, but they just scurried down the storm drain real quick like once I pulled the trigger.

I get into my car, which I had parked up a few feet from where I shot the bum. It’s a good car, a beaten up 1982 Xenizen Cadillac Coupe Deville, painted shit brown. Sure it’s an ugly car, but it runs, doesn’t attract attention and can hold 5 bodies in the trunk at once.

And it takes me back to my apartment.

~*~*~

The next morning I wake up in my cheap bed with my cheap sheets. I groggily get up and look at myself in the bathroom mirror. I look like a tired old man with a hard, lined face, and grey hair dawning on my temples. Yes, I basically look like myself, angry, disillusioned and just plain pathetic most of the time. My apartment reeks of cheap beer, decaying pizza, and gunpowder, the wallpaper is peeling off, and the floorboards are creaky. But at least it’s not in the slums or the cesspool district, so it’s worth the jacked up rent my piece of shit landlord makes me pay for this place.

I get dressed. Nothing fancy today. Some khakis, a t-shirt, my windbreaker. Today should be a light day at the office. No need to look nice. I stuff my 10mm and a fresh silencer into my shoulder rig and zip up my windbreaker. It’s cloudy outside, dreary as usual. I pick up my beaten up briefcase lying near the umbrella stand and make my way down a few flights of the stairs to the car. Good. No one’s smashed anything and all the tires seem to be ok. I get in and drive, assuming the day would be boring.

In retrospect however, I was wrong. Why does hindsight always have to be 20/20?

(tbc)

“Been a long time, Andrej.”

A weary old man lifted his eyes from the brown swill they called coffee around these parts. Tired, cold, dry eyes, but clear as crystal or the front fender of a rich guy’s coupe, at least before he smashes into that little girl because he’s too busy paying attention to his parole officer’s wife’s tits. His hair wasn’t gray, but it should have been. It was black, so dark that it hurt your eyes when you noticed the contrast with his face, leathery and covered in coffee brown stubble. The eyes scanned a face that meant nothing to him, and his brain no longer had the energy to struggle for a connection. He let his eyes sink back to the swill, debating whether it was worth the stomach infection to feel the warmth in his throat.

“What, 14 years?”

“11.”

The old man’s voice was like his hair. It shouldn’t have been his either. It didn’t fit. Too clear and deep. Too much like his eyes. He ran a thick, stained finger around the edge of the filthy mug, wiping away the black grounds and grease. For a second he saw a face flit past in the ripples that disturbed the brown surface before they disappeared and he found himself looking into his own eyes. He suppressed a shiver as a draft blew through a crack in the wooden slats that made up the side of the small diner, felt a cold drop of rain on his cheek. He struggled against the memory of a tear that had fallen there before, someone else’s so long in the past. His vision started to go white, bright spots bringing searing pain into the front of his head, and he let out a few thick, mucous drenched coughs.

“You always had a better memory than I.”

The old man felt a sharp jolt at the words, a private insult, a taunt. He let his eyes glance up one more time at the man standing in front of him. Another old man, but with silver hair, and dim, damp eyes. His face was lined and soft. He had been allowed to age, and it suited him. Andrej was jealous. The second man wore a gray suit under a gray coat, both clean but neither one new. The collar of the coat was frayed in places and his black leather shoes were dingy and worn. He was a rich man.

He sat down without waiting for an offer or asking permission, taking the booth across from Andrej, and looking into the clear eyes. He could see his reflection, but then again, he could see a lot of things in those eyes. Enough to get lost thinking about the past.

“So Andrej, you working?”

Andrej was quiet. The other man watched him, waiting. He was unwelcome and he knew it and he didn’t care. He was fighting sympathy with reason, emotion with memory. It was like staring into a mirror and forgetting what your reflection looked like. He wanted to talk to him, but he couldn’t bring himself to ask anything more, so he sat and watched and waited while Andrej stared into the coffee, debating whether or not to drink it. With a steady hand he brought the mug to his lips and took a sip. He brought it down slowly and set it gently on the table without making a sound.

Tokyo, Upper Xen:

I swing my weapon at the burly bodyguard. The exquisitely crafted blade effortlessly bites deep into his chest cavity, opening up arteries, veins and internal organs. He collapses to the floor with a heavy thud, his bright red, oxygen rich blood seeping into the expensive suit and the cheap boardroom carpet. I keep walking forward. Meanwhile in the corner, the greasy rat wearing a 3 piece Sarzonian suit pulls himself forward and starts to pry at the hands of one of his dead bodyguards. He goes for the Beretta clutched tightly in the bodyguard's strong, steely, dead fingers, pulling at the weapon with his hands and biting at the hand with his teeth.

I don't try to stop him. His efforts are useless. Some people just don't know when to quit. He finally drags the gun from the bodyguard's fingers. I grin.

"DIE YOU FUCKING HALFBREED HILLBILLY!!" he shouts in Japanese, foaming at the mouth like a rabid animal. His face is contorted with rage and he can't aim properly. His hands are trembling too much....

I effortlessly sidestep the first bullet he fires, then the second one, then the third. This is so much more fun than when I played dodgeball in middle school. I bob and weave forward, he still hasn't hit me and he just fired his eight bullet. I'll probably die of old age before he does.

Enough with the game. I cut off his arm at the shoulder. For the first seconds, he doesn't realize it and continues to try and fire while screaming curses at me. Then he turns to look at his warm blood gushing everywhere. I don't have the time to listen to his screams, so I stick my sword into his neck. It leaves a nice clean hole in the drywall. I withdraw the blade, wiping off the blood with the dead man's pantleg. It was a good suit. A pity that it was ruined.

Footsteps are coming down the hallway. It's time for me to make a quick exit. I toss a couple of limpet mines onto the door, then I climb out onto the windowsill, allowing myself for a second to enjoy the cool night air and the infinite neon city lights. Then I jump.

A series of explosions rips apart the entire floor a few hundred feet above me as I glide down to the ground. I land on the roof of a parked car below, crushing it. It was a good car too. Some people stare at me, but I could care less. They won't be reliable witnesses. I toss a grenade into the crowd and disappear into a storm drain. Later, everyone that saw me would wake up without any idea of what they had seen or heard.

Now, it's just a matter of collecting payment. Using the sewers and back alleys, I make my way to a deserted crackhouse near the Bayside projects. I left a dufflebag here earlier. I change out of my clothes and stick my weapons into the dufflebag. I grab my Blackberry from the duffel and send off an email.

It's short. All it says is: "Where's my money?"

I quietly agree with the 2 foreigners sitting at the table next to me…. This coffee really is shit, it’s always been shit here, just like this city. I take a nice big gulp from my cheap paper cup though. As bad tasting as this coffee is, it keeps me awake and loaded. Some underpaid waitress comes up with the croissant I ordered. I glance at her. She’s young, probably a high school dropout. Cute too. I take notice of her firm, fist sized breasts beneath her cheap blouse, and her perfect thighs beneath her apron. Oh man…. That is a Woman.... I want her and I want her bad…. My hand slowly reaches up to touch her, to stroke her ever so gently. My heart is trembling with a crack addict pulse and I’m almost foaming at the mouth.

What the Hell are you doing, you perverted old fuck?!? My mind snaps back to reality. What did I just do? Thank God I didn’t do anything. I have to keep it repressed… I have to fight it… I smile and simply take the plate from the waitress’ hands. I say “thank you”. She smiles at me… oh God… that’s the smile of one your angels. I almost begin to foam at the mouth again as I fumble for my wallet. I get a whiff of her cheap perfume and I shiver in ecstasy. Damn…. I pay her, leaving her a fat tip as well. She smiles again and goes to another customer. I try to calm myself down and eat. My mind wanders back to the two guys sitting back at the table next to me. One of them is old, gray haired. He’s wearing an old, but well tailored and expensive suit. He has every ounce of the poise, every ounce of the condescension and every ounce of the “who gives a fuck” attitude that any other rich man would have. I take another gulp of my coffee. He’s talking down to the other guy that’s sitting at the table, the young, miserable looking one. I don’t know what the hell they’re talking in though. It sounds kind of like Russian, except it wasn’t Russian. It was something… different. Hell if I know. I guessed the two of them weren’t up to any good; their voices carried that dead serious tone that only a professional with a gun to your face would use.

What they were talking about was not my business. My coffee goes into the trash can, and I get up. My shit brown steed is parked in the alley besides the diner. I hop in and begin my drive to the office. It doesn’t take long. It’s a couple of rooms in a cheap little building that houses a fried chicken restaurant beneath it. I park my car in the alley behind and make my way up a rickety flight of poorly carpeted stairs, being hounded by the odor of deep fried fat. My paperwork’s been accumulating. There’ve been a lot of job requests lately. I flick through them… Mostly requests from angry wives wanting me to rub out their cheating husbands, husbands wanting to kill their wives, spoiled suburban teenagers wanting revenge on some jock, the usual requests. All boring as shit jobs from a boring as shit society.

I’m about to take a job from some fat, emotionally stunted goth kid wanting me to mutilate the face of some cheerleader, when I see the envelope. Fancy stationery, I think. It’s addressed to me, by name. Mark Lawson, 1440 Fu-Men Street, Pt. 24, 2nd Floor Office. I think I know who it’s from. I open the letter…

Tokyo, UX

"Someone saw her...." muttered yet another Japanese man in yet another 3 piece Sarzonian suit. The man was rattling off an email to his boss, and he didn't seem to be enjoying it. He wiped clean his furrowed, sweat soaked brow with an expensive MP INsaNeLyAbSoRb3nT fiber hankerchief and continued to type feverishly. He was in deep, deep trouble. A newspaper photographer in a neighboring building had captured a photo of the assassin sent to dispose of Boss Taka. Not only that, but the photograph was already being printed on the front pages of the Dongjing Times, the biggest newspaper in the city, according to his press contacts. The man shook his head violently. He needed something to relax himself. Shaking, he opened his desk drawer and pulled out a small bag full of white powder. He opened up the bag, jammed the entire lower half of his face into it and sniffed deeply. A sense of warmth and relaxation filled every corner of his body. He began typing again, much more confidently this time.

With a twisted smile of glee on his face, he told his superior about the job, how it was messily done, unsatisfactory, how the assassin was discovered and what the consequences would be to her. That stupid half-breed bitch would never hold a job again if he could help it... In fact, maybe he could dispose of her himself, save the hit squad guys some trouble.... He reached into another drawer in his desk and readied a Mini-Uzi. Then he waited.

(ooc: sorry for the short post, I'm at school)

[Prologue]
[Point Dasch, New Empire]
[Several months previous]

It was undeniably a beautiful sunset. Nature as always was in a level far beyond the petty affairs of man, and it would make sense it would be just as beautiful even after carnage. After all, the sun that rose on happy suburbanites was the same one that fell on wounded killers and shell casings.

The sunset was nearly done now, darkness enveloping the end. It was probably not the best idea to try and do the intercept here, with those sweeping fields of fire availible from the shipping cranes, but then again, nobody expected them to have goddamn belt feds either. They were dead now, along with most of his own team. Jodiv PMC had simply been outmached by the triad this time, or whoever the hell the triad was bankrolling. It didn't matter now. Either he was gonna die, or he was gonna make it through. Most likely the former, but he had no time for an ethical debate.

He was a three gun man. One could argue that this was silly, but these people had never been in a close range firefight. Sometimes you just didn't have time to reload. But he had this time, the fighting had been mostly long range work (long range relative to the usual Jodiv jobs), and he was glad he had the 6.5 carbine and its triple stack magazines. It sat in a shoulder sling, and in his hand was a .40 pistol, 8 inch, match grade loaded with high quality ammunition. The pistol stayed outward with a two handed grip as he made his way through the maze of shipping cranes. It was a hunt now, the major firefight had been over for what seemed an hour (but what any reasonable timepiece would tell you was that it lasted about five minutes and had been over for four), and now they were going to hunt him down. There were at least three of them, and there was one of him, one three gun man in a windbreaker soaked with blood that wasn't his and cargo pants stuffed with ammunition. They were out there in the maze, looking for him. The machine gunners had been a surprise, but with some carbine work they'd been dispatched. What was left was armed with close range killing weapons, shotguns and subguns. He shouldn't have any reasonable chance, if they fired first they wouldn't even have to aim, just spray the place with ammo or let loose a few buckshot rounds from their shotguns, and he was going to be a footnote on some cop's investigation report.

And then god gave him a gift. In the darkness of the shipping crate, he heard the enemy. The sound of metal on metal was as clear as a ray of light, a discarded shell casing skittering into a shipping container. The man who'd done it recoiled back, or something similar, he could tell, by the sound of his sudden footstep. Quickly and quietly, he moved to meet his new target. The man was on the other side of the shipping crate's corner, he could see the barrel of the gun even in the darkness. Big and fat, some kind of shotgun with a tubular magazine. Great.

But today he'd have to take the initiative. And so he did.

His left hand lanced out to grab the cold gunmetal of the barrel, jerking it down and away as he brought his right around, the pistol pointing in the face of what looked like a white-asiatic mix of a thug, face still contorting to this new surprise. Surprise achieved. Carpe fucking diem.

The pistol wiped whatever facial expression the man had concoted for him clean off his face, along with the face itself. The body ragdolled, though the shotgun fired as it hit the ground, buckshot sparking and ricocheting off the metal walls of the shipping crate maze. And lo and behold, number two was right behind him. Time to make a snap decision. If he went forward and tried to shoot, he would probably be eviscerated. If he went back and waited it out, he'd be jumped and shot up anyway. Time to die with glory, he supposed. He catapulted his body over the corpse of his earlier kill, pistol out.

Front sight, you dumbshit, front sight!

The trigger finger worked at its own pace, three shots fired as quickly as possible. Two found home, the first taking the man's leg out from under him, setting off his burst of spastic subgun fire. A bullet hit him somewhere in the forearm, a near miss that while wouldn't be fatal, did a good impression. The second bullet struck his adversary in the ribcage, bursting straight through one of the bones and sending metal and fragments into his lungs. Wind and blood ran from his mouth like a river, and he lay sputtering and gasping, wheezing in the sounds of a man who's lungs were filling up with gore and bile. His lips worked like a fish gasping for air, trying to mouth something. He was going to suffocate in a minute or so, he couldn't scream, and he certainly made no resistance as his submachinegun was taken from him.

Having killed his second to last target, he was about to consider his strategy for taking down the third when he heard the wail of the sirens and horns. Dropping the subgun back to its owner, the man stained with the blood of his coworkers who died at his side walked from the mass of shipping crates into the open. Headlights blared as the orders came for him to drop the guns. He grinned. No prison for him, the chief of PDPD had contracted JoDiv anyway. Gloved hands released the rifle and set down the pistol, and slowly he unbuckled the shoulder holster for his third gun, a .357 SiG whose services weren't required this time around.

With his arms piled around him, he took a few steps backwards, turned around, and lay on his belly, facing away from his guns with his hands on his head.

They took him to the hospital and fixed him up, and then of course the mugshots and other various duties that were really quite ceremonial considering what was coming up.

The trial was a blur of predecided verdicts and accusations, he did his part, mostly being the cold eyed, lithe killer sitting in a suit far too fancy for his tastes. Dark blue-gray eyes under neatly trimmed black hair, quietly contemplating his next step as he was released from any guilt in the proceedings. He said nothing outside the courtroom, and by the time it was over the media hysteria had died down. The lone survivor of the 'South Dock Massacre' would live on in the mythos of the mercs, street diggers and gunmen who ruled and regulated the underworld.

[Present Day]

"Johnny, good to see you're doing well."

Nick Kramer was a big man, ex specfor and a former JoDiv field guy. The mercs liked him because he knew what he was doing, the customers liked him because he got shit done. But Nick Kramer had a problem. He did not like to get one upped. Usually he would get a contract by someone else to finish those who'd wronged him off, but now it was a given. The Triad was wanted by everyone, the cops, the Brit hooligans, and JoDiv as an organization. Whoever had done this was going to go down hard one way or another.

Technically, John Edgars could have retired by now. He had a decent amount of money. But then again, the minute he laid down, most likely whoever was concerned with the huge shit this incident had covertly snowballed into was going to try and take him out of the picture. So he kept the job, which had the advantage of giving him a free identity and location for him to skitter around in, untraceable by most.

He listened to Nick Kramer talk about international narcotics trade, the Domestic Security Agency, the PDPD, and oriental cities with names John's tounge had to hunt down and wrap around like a boa, strangling and killing them. Soon enough, John would be getting an all expenses paid business trip to some city overseas that had something to do with the local Triads, 9 dead JoDiv men, a cop informant with a bullet in his head and several million dollars in drugs.

Cesspool may drive others out. It may make civilized men, women, and children doubt the sanity of humanity. Parts of it may even make those that feed from the bottom of the bottom of the barrel stray away from such landmarks as the haunted crackhouse. Cesspool may be all that but it was his home. His territory where he knew what was happening. If someone entered cesspool through the south side he knew. If someone came in from the north he knew within an hour. If someone came in his territory....he knew immediately. Twenty blocks were his. Stretching outwards from the most rotted heart of Cesspool. Where Xiamen's trash dumped its own trash. This was his home.

He strayed to his corner along the way towards a grand foraging spot. The soles of his boots were worn so thin he felt the street. He knew the dying heartbeat of an immortal creation like he knew where to find the best food in the cancerous cankerous sore that was this land. He was aware of Sawneys or something like a Sawney....maybe just really hungry poor folk...... he'd known a few back home and knew their own feeding habits. He crouched near a morgue and pawed at a locket in his pocket. He was nervous being on the edges of his extended territory. This was someplace that Sawneys had been. He could sniff the bricks and know they'd pissed here. Sawneys always had an alcoholic piss.

The window had been gone and two bodies were missing. Harold stood near them and racked his brain. Nobody would be here for quite some time and the Sawneys had eaten for this tri-weekly period. Every three weeks two bodies would go missing from somewhere in the Cess and then bits would in the hands of rats. Human fat and toes.......those bits Sawneys didn't like. He saw some blood on the floor. They ,might've already drained the bodies of the fluids. He knew Sawneys did that with their ritual eating.........they'd store the blood in vials and hide it all over their territory, so other Sawneys wouldn't be tempted to hunt where food might get scarce. Harold exited the window and disappeard up the side of a wall and into the night........

Shinjuku-ku, Upper Xen-

Admist the rebuilt city of Tokyo, sorta half-new, half-sterile, things were moving, people were grooving, and the Mods and Goths were fighting like usual for the usual pittance of drugs and guns. The night was young, the Japanese neon was bright, and the chattering of Rhode Island style accents (What UX Japanese sound like when talking in English) and Japanese voices was to be heard.

A Cadillac CTS was driving down the street, and inside was one of the biggest men in this Brave New Upper Xen. Boss Roksaburo Nohara was one of the top players in the Tokyo Underworld, having won the favor of the Free Xenizen Forces during the Civil War. Those CIA men really came in handy when he had to deal with those other scumbags who were pimping on his turf. Now, he was like God, only not in an offensive way. His word was law.

He was surfing the Internet, and came across the message. It seemed that the Traitor Taka was killed. However, some assh*le snoop found the girl sent to do the job. She had slipped up. Now, it was time to dispose of her, and clean things up before National Police took notice.....or worse, Taka's Own Gang, and their Cadre of CIA Hitmen. These days, it seemed like factions of the CIA were whoring themselves off to everyone, not just the big gangsters, but the small fry who wanted to feel like they ran the planet. He hated that....and despite his entreaties to Director Torricelli, he didn't do a damned thing. Still, he had his own Cadre, thank Japanese Jesus.

He told the two girls next to him to hold back for a moment, and then sent an e-mail to the CIA man that was working for him, Roger Jung, an ex-Auxiliary strongman who was bright, ill-tempered, and a psychopath. He explained the situation, and told that there was some garbage that was to be hauled.

An e-mail was sent out later. It simply said, "Game on...."

OOC: How's this?

Tokyo, Upper Xen, Narita District, Some High Rise Apartment Building,

I can't stand the way he looks at me. Those beady rat's eyes, that fat face, that stupid, shit-eating grin. He lives here too; he's in the same elevator as me and he disgusts me, standing here in his stained wifebeater with the morning paper in his hands. I look away from him, pretending to ignore him. He's probably drooling at me... I take a quick glance at the surveillance camera in the elevator. No way to dispose of him, not here at least. I might have to do some tracking detail, kill him at work or something. This elevator ride is taking a while, the motor is old and slow, and this building used to be a Combine Citadel.

He tries to talk to me.

"I see alot of you in this elevators." His attempt at sounding smooth is pitiful. I continue to ignore him, trying to avoid lashing out. "What's a pretty thing like you got for a name? I bet yer' friends call ya' Blondie, don't they?"

I shudder. I hate when people call me that. I glare at him viciously.

"Hey, hey... Come on, I just want to get to know you better... you know..." He moves forward, gets a bit closer to me. He reeks of cheap beer and stale piss.

"You know... just touch your hair..... It's so beautiful..." He runs his greasy fingers through my hair. I cringe and tense up. He just gave me the excuse I had been looking for....

~*~*~*~
"Jesus fuckin' Christ, take at look at this Cap'n... Poor guy. Must have taken a while for him to die." A Tokyo PD detective shined a flashlight into the dark apartment. The heavy combat boots he was wearing clomped on the fake oak floor.

"What is it detective? You found the body? Oh holy fuck...." The Captain followed the detective into what appeared to be somebody's bedroom. The man from the elevator was hanging from the closet, upside down, naked and very clearly dead. The Captain was staring at the body, or rather the body's cut throat, or its incredibly small penis, it was hard to tell which. On the ground, staining a fake looking Orthodox icon, was a pool of clotted blood, which blotted out everything but the halo light surrounding whoever the hell was shown.

The detective nodded sagely in the dark. "Yea, it's our man. Check this out, look at all these shallow cuts on his body, especially across his face and torso. Whoever did this was a sick, sick bastard."

"I can tell... what did the officers on the scene say?" asked the Captain as he lit up a Manchurian Gold cigarette.

"There's no evidence that anyone broke in... well, except for what we see here. All we have is what his girlfriend blabbered to us over 911, which wasn't much that the dispatcher could understand."

The Captain shrugged, "Yea, we're gonna need to get some DNA tests on this apartment. Anybody this careful doesn't leave prints. Anyway why did you call me down here anyway? Just seems like some routine homicide."

The Detective blinked at the Captain, slightly shocked, "Captain, it's Lieutenant Rzhev, he's from the CRASH unit. He's been working a Yakuza war over for months."

"Oh shit...", muttered the Captain, "get me in contact with the CRASH guys. We got ourselves a situation here."

~*~*~
I open the door to my apartment. Ah... cheap, minimalist furniture. No TV, no phone, only a laptop in my bedroom and a couple pieces of gear in the other one. There's not much here.

I sit down on the floor in my empty living room. I feel sort of guilty about slashing up that idiot in the elevator, but he deserved it. Nobody calls me Blondie, nobody. I take a look at my cheap, wage slave made watch. I get paid in a couple of hours. Maybe I could catch a nap. I walk to my bedroom and just collapse onto my uncovered matress, cheap like everything else. I'll get up in an hour and head downtown.

It's going well so far. I completed a job, avoided lashing out at that idiot while I was standing in the elevator and I'm going get me a whole fuckload of money. Life is good.

(tbc)

ooc: good? It's just what I needed.

tag

Somewhere in Shinjuku-ku-

"Ah yeah....mm...."

Boss Nohara chomped on the finely prepared filet mignon like it was heave itself. He loved these sort of luxuries, and frankly, since he became THE undisputed master of the city, he could enjoy them at will. Amazingly, he didn't get too fat. Who knew why this happened, some put it to his comely Korean personal trainer, an ex-women's soccer champion. Others said it was the fact that he liked to hike and ride bareback. Others put it to a tendency to go carousing at night, to put it politely.

He sat in his office, talking to a few of his associates, swapping manly stories and chansons-du-geste- about how they slew this insolent fool and capped this worthless Triad. He looked at the clock.....it was about 6:00 AM. Not bad for breakfast. It beat the news, which was mostly bad. Lew was getting tough on the inevitable consequences of dealing with the devil, as it were; reportedly, some Governor in Canton was arrested for kickbacks and a military man was fired for smuggling arms to a group of Yakuza, and the Army was called into Hong Kong to try and calm down a rash of gang violence, though the folks responsible, the Pwnage VC, were very adept at not getting caught. And, the RALM was caught trying to corrupt the nation's youth, as some a**wipe was arrested for selling pamphlets that promoted their agenda. Not bad for a Brave New Upper Xen.

He wondered what became of that man he sent......

ooc: Here's what happened to the man sent....

Tokyo, Upper Xen, Narita District.

I shoot up out of my bed, my muscles tensing up. I swear I can hear somebody climbing through the ventilation duct located behind the thin drywall on the far side of my room. I grab a knife from my nightstand, a cheap little tanto and put my back about 3-5 feet to the left of the ventilation duct, listening carefully. It's a big man, heavily muscled with strong lungs. He's shimmying up the vent duct like a squirrel on cocaine. Quiet too. This guy's definitely a professional. As far as I can tell, no one else in the building has heard him so far. I grit my teeth. I can either stand here and quietly wait for him, or seize the intiative....

I decide on seizing the initiative. The drywall is thin, and the guy in the ducts is getting close. I start by kicking a hole in the drywall. I hear a curse in a thick tounged, heavy scottish accent as powdered pieces of drywall land on him. I chuckle to myself. Koreans. No matter what you do to them, you don't hate yourself for it afterwards. I put the rest of my body through the drywall and into the duct. I grin as I glide down the vent. I am small, the shocked hitman below me is big. The fancy suit says that he was hired by some people I'm VERY familiar with. My feet make impact with his chest. My 4'10, 82 pound frame bounces off him like a tennis ball hitting a concrete wall. Maybe this guy wasn't good enough to avoid being heard, but he sure is good enough to not lose his grip.... This is going to get tricky.... I cling to corners of the vent, as light as spider. I have the advantage here...

He lunges at me, moving up towards me quickly. Clutched in his beefy right hand is a vicious looking auxiliary's combat knife, which he swings at me. I move a bit higher... He follows. I let go of the vent walls and land on his head and shoulders. He swings at me with the combat knife. I jump onto the side of the wall opposite the direction his and kick him in the back of the head. He tries to spin around. I throw myself bodily at him with as much force as I can muster. He loses his grip as he's slammed against the dusty vent wall. He tries to scream for his pathetic life, but is cut short by my tanto tracking across his throat. I can feel gravity take its effect.... I can hear the Korean land at the bottom of the shaft. There is a sound, of the metal grate covering the vent fan giving way. Then there is another series of sounds as the fan proceeds to turn him into human sushi....

I make my way back to my apartment. I wish I had taken a piece of the dead guy's clothes, his blood is all over my face. I wipe off the blood with a paper towel. Then I flush my paper towel. So this is how the Yakuza treats its own? I really should have listened to my mother....

For now, I just have to get out of here. The cops are going to come soon. I grab my duffel bag of gear, taking care to destroy the Blackberry and then placing the remains in a plastic bag. I put on my shoes. I don't know where to go, but I have to go somewhere. Something tells me that they aren't going to just let me go....

~*~*~*~

Somewhere in Shinjuku-ku-

"This is odd. They should have reported back by now."

Boss Nohara was getting concerned. Usually, his Korean toughs would've cleaned that boy up real nice. But, it was taking a long time, and the CIA usually never took a long time.

He called for one of his lieutenants. She was wearing a business suit and sported emo glasses, an unusual pairing that left its mark upon anybody who saw it. He then said, in a level voice, masking any concern: "Go look for my G-men. Take a squad with you. Bring heavy firepower, this could get ugly. If it does, rock those rafters."

The lieutenant nodded, and silently left the room. She then walked to a waiting Cadillac CTS. She then opened the trunk, and revealed a Valmet/Sako M90. She did a visual inspection, and then closed the trunk and got in, making a phone call and informing her closest confidantes-and best men-that it was time to go to work. She then hung up, and began driving.

They say Hell is the absense of reason. That's what this place feels like: Hell.

Cassius Tyrannus was a tired old bandit in a tiring predicament. Having fled his homeland after being nearly taken by the Inquisition, he had been forced to settle in this pathetic shithole the locals called a city. Then again, the place he'd come from was most likely the same for these people. With a surface temperature of 140 degrees, Crematoria was quite a difficult place to live in.

Having lived there in the desert all his life, Cassius was a hardened man. He'd been forced to scratch out an existance raiding convoys: killing people and wrecking things. This was all he knew, and he'd grown quite good at it over the years. He actualy enjoyed the killing part to an extent. But he was not an evil man: this was all nessessary for his own survival. Yet the Inquisition had nearly killed him for his attempt at living, and now he was paying the price.

With the money he'd brought with him, he'd purchased a small apartment in some dark slum of Xiamen. It was a sparsely decorated, roach-infested shithole, just like the rest of this city. There was a closet, a bathroom, a bed, and a small, half-broken TV. Enough for what he needed it for: a base of operations.

From what he'd found, men of his particular skill were needed in this place. He had brought but three weapons: his DoomCorp Scorpion .425 Magnum revolver and his blade, a well-used scimitar that had been passed down in his family. So much for that. He'd fucked things up pretty well back home, so now he was stuck here. He'd gotten his other weapon, a 16" military-issue combat knife, off of a dead Imperial Gaurdsman. He particularly liked this weapon for the gruesome wounds it inflicted: the weapon had six jagged teeth facing back towards the hilt sharpened to a fine edge, meaning when he pulled the blade out of someone, it was like being stabbed several more times from the opposite direction.

Hopefully he'd at least be able to find better accomadations at some point. Not that it mattered. He was used to worse. He sat on the edge of his bed watching the news. Full of commie bullshit. Apparently the state-monitered propaganda stations back home had been right about something. He had a bottle of whiskey on his night stand and a shotglass. He was on his eleventh shot.

He'd been going like this everyday since he'd arrived, drinking and smoking up a storm. He hadn't shaved in weeks, and so a thin scragly beard covered his
face. Lice had made their homes within it, as he hadn't showered in quite some time. He was a big man, 6"3, and a muscular one at that. He'd stick out like a sore thumb amongst the locals. This was a decidedly bad thing, as he wanted to keep a low profile. He felt like shit, yet the alchohol somehow helped.

He wore his revolver on a shoulder holster, allowing for easier concealment, his knife was sheathed on his leg. His black trench coat was tossed over a nearby chair. He'd abandoned the clothing he'd brought as soon as he arrived: after all, he was no longer in a desert. He'd purchased what he could, choosing clothing that would allow for mobility and the concealment of weapons. Of course, any man experienced in the workings of the underworld could instantly tell this guy was carrying.

However, one couldn't tell his skill merely by looking at him: he appeared a dumb brute to the naked eye, yet he was much more. He was a superb marksman and swordsman, having honed these skills to a fine edge over his thirty years on this Earth, and was quite agile for his size. However, before he could go out and do what he did best, he decided to sober up...

"D'ya know where Roger is?? Ee's takin' f'rever!" A young auxiliary in a fancy business suit looked around the street nervously, trying to pretend to enjoy his fancy artisan made veggie wrap while chatting on a cell phone. Damn this yuppie suit, he thought. Why the hell couldn't everyone else just adopt the kilt?

"Don't get yer' panties in a bunch laddie! Ee's gonna come oot in a bit... Jes' give 'im some time!" came the harsh, guttural response over the cellphone. It was from an older man, also an auxiliary. He was on the other side of the building, loitering around, also attempting to resemble yet another random buisinessman, probably some high powered executive broker that worked on the Nikkei stock exchange.

The younger man grunted slightly, "Awreet, five minutes, got it? We don't got all fockin' day, the boss wants us t' deliver..."

"Oi'm fully aware wot' the boss wants.... but y' need some patience, this sort of thing takes time... Look lad, if y' really want to, you can go check on Roger."

"Graight then... Oi'll call his sluggish arse..." The younger auxiliary used the conference call function to page Roger while keeping the older auxiliary on the line, all the while shaking his head. Something told him that there was a serious, serious problem.

~*~*~

Roger's cell phone went off at the bottom of the ventilation shaft. It somehow survived the fall, although Roger did not. What the auxiliary got back was that Roger was currently busy and that he would call back soon. Damn. His orders were to answer his cell when called....

"We have ourselves a situation.... Roger's either takin' too long, or e' got himself in some trouble..."

On the other end, the older auxiliary nodded his head. "Oi'm goin' in.... Oh shit... We've got our girl right 'ere... meet me on the other side as fast as you....-"

The line went dead. The auxiliary shouted "hello!??" into the phone several more times.

"Oh... holy jeebus shit..." muttered the auxiliary as he closed up his phone. He was in deep trouble. His hand almost moved itself towards his jacket. There was a .44 Magnum revolver in there. He might just have need of it in a few minutes...

Tokyo, UX, Somewhere.

I'm in the auxiliary's caddy. He's with me too, except he's riding in the trunk. Poor guy. The photos of his grandkids dropped all the way to the ground when I opened up his wallet and greedily pockted the hundred Xenethaler bills in his pocket. Someone's going to miss him. Someone's going to want whatever counts for justice around these parts for him.

But that's not my first priority. My first priority is to nail that sumbitch that tried to kill me. The walls of sterile neon advertisements in the night flash before my eyes. The light makes me sick to my stomach. I'm just wondering who the hell's trying to hunt me now? I got the drop on the auxiliaries, that's for sure, but there are a whole lot more people that the Yakuza can throw at my way. A whole lot. That means a whole lot of people are going die...

I finger the now crumpled photograph in my hand. Some girl in emo glasses and a baggy flannel shirt graces it. She has a nice smile, welcoming, understanding, a smile that probably made someone's day. The picture has a note written on the back. Cute little thing....

"To Shaggis, with love... signed Iniata...."

Shaggis. Probably some other auxiliary that uses this car. And if this is the Nia I think it is... then Shaggis, whoever the hell he is, is shit out of luck. The girl in the picture is Iniata Takeshi, Boss Nohara's top lieutenant. I had decided to eat from the top of the food chain first, to save myself some work.
Poor girl. She has a nice smile...

Somewhere else-

The photographer who had taken the pictures was busy doing two things now in his apartment. One, he strapped on a kevlar vest. Those were relatively easy to get now, what with the always liberal gun laws here in Upper Xen. Two, he shut the blinds and began uploading the photos he had taken onto his laptop computer. He did so quickly, praying he would not be discovered. He knew the Dongjing Times had paid top dollar for these pics and the story that came with them. Therefore, he was now a wanted man by the Yakuza.

He held the Makarov by his side, he got it cause it was a cheap gun that could be cleaned easylike and it offered decent protection. He wiated impaitently, going "Come on...." He didn't have his Wi-fi unit on, thank God. That would have meant sudden death-the Yakuza were known to hire hackers now. He finished uploading the pics, and then deleted the camera. He then shut off the computer, and unplugged it. Then, the reporter grabbed the phone and called National Police. He was scared yes, and he had witnessed something. Perhaps he could get protection? Sure, and NP was one of the few government bureaus around that you could trust now. A shame, since UX used to be so....moral.

He made the call, and explained his predicament. He was then greeted with the phrase, "Sure. We'll send somebody down. Don't you worry."

He was then hung up on, and he felt a chill. Why did that make him not feel good?

Xiamen. Twilight.

The rain came down in sheets, thick and grainy with the muck and smoke from the nearby factories. It wasn't acidic, but any normal person would taste the sick cocktail of chemicals, dust and grime on his tongue with noted disgust. Fortunately for a man hardened by years of watching torture or living it as a young man, this wasn't a bother, and he kept walking.

He was known only as One - a ruthless killer set out only to destroy what he felt were diseases of society. Diseases that needed to be culled. He had a focused walk, even if he had no mission to accomplish. Those who feared One knew it was he right away - his walk came packaged with a limp, and the familiar, staggered clomp of his worn-down hiker boots on the uneven streets of Xiamen drove fear into the hearts of even the hardiest men.

The rain grew heavier now, if that was even possible. The sky should have been a flawless mass of black, looking primed to swallow up anything in its path, but instead, the clouded-over atmosphere was given an eerie, dark green illumination from the dirty lights of the city. Puddles were forming in the road dips and the sidewalk pillocks, churned up from years of heavy mafioso-style fighting. Body parts lay strewn along this darker, narrow road, rotting, the stench growing with each passing rainfall and each passing day.

One turned into a tight, dark alley. Tripping slightly on a rise in the sidewalk, he stumbled. Angered and frustrated, he pulled out a Glock 9mm and shot the sidewalk twice. Dead, he thought. Fantastic. One turned, and continued down the alley, the light fading away faster than the lives of those he had killed so mercilessly over the years.

One looked up. Plain, dreary concrete boxes almost unfit to be called actual apartments rose above him on either side. All the windows were dark and shuttered - the inhabitants behind the shutters most probably huddled in fear at the sound of two gunshots, compounded with the years of fighting that had been ignored by the lazy, bastardised police force of Xiamen. He chuckled slightly, the sound drowned out by the downpour. The droplets were bigger now, and they clanked onto corrugated metal, plipped onto plastic and dripped down onto the saturated pavement. One pulled out the magazine. Last bullet in this thing, he thought, remembering how he had taken the Glock from his latest victim earlier in the day.

(Flashback)
One placed his foot on the man's heaving chest. The man was wracked with terrified sobs, screaming and yelling, pleading with One to let him go. He hadn't done anything wrong! What did he do to deserve this? It was madness! Utter, utter madness! Unfortunately, he didn't know that One didn't care who had done what - if anyone got in his way, they were as good as dead. One was the epitome of ruthless and fearsome and nothing stood a chance.

He screamed for the last time. One drove his foot into the man's mouth, breaking all his teeth or knocking them completely out. The man groaned in pain as blood spurted into his mouth. He began to choke on it, but was able to turn his head to the left and spit out the deluge before One shot him in the leg with his favourite, a Pomentane Ballistics 9mm. The Pacitalian model, a C-610 with a ceramic frame, had much more forward torque and a much more powerful entry force into the target than the pathetic Glock this toothless man had tried to use on him earlier. It was also lighter and thusly, much less encumbering to carry. His yells of pain and torture turned quickly into gurgling. One watched with pleasure as this defeated man tried vainly to plead with him.

"Please, no! My name is Andrei Sergeyevich Barzanov, I have a family of three to go home to. And a wife. They are the most important thing to me! I wish to see them one last t--"

"Silence!" One yelled in a demonic gravelly baritone, interrupting Andrei. "Shut the fuck up. I did not tell you to speak."

Andrei went silent, while One rummaged through the dirty kitchen cabinets of the dark, mouldy room. He found what he was looking for. One limped swiftly back over to Andrei and shoved the plain old utensil, a fork, into the man's left eye. Andrei shook with pain and horror, vomit splattering the floor beside the dying man. One ripped the fork out, the eye sticking cleanly on the prongs, and shoved the fork into the other eye. This time, Andrei vomited up blood all over the wretched, mouldy shag carpet. He convulsed, his body wracked with pain and sobs. Andrei was getting quieter, resigned to the fact that he could not see a thing.

"Clean that up!" One hissed as he shoved Andrei's face into the reeking pile of vomit and coagulating blood.

Andrei resisted. Wrong move. One kicked him in the groin. One shot him in the head. Twice. Andrei was dead before his head splashed back down into the orange puddle of bodily expulsion.

One stepped over him, retrieved the Glock, and left the apartment, shutting the door and jamming the lock so that no one would ever find this sad excuse of a man. Not that anyone was brave enough to, anyway.

One shook his head, ending the reflections of the events that had taken place just two hours before. He looked up and realised he had managed to sit down in a shadow while he daydreamed. His pants and groin were soaked from having sat in the middle of a puddle. One looked back down at the Glock. He remembered there was one bullet left. One for One.

"Let's have some fun," he whispered. He shot out a window, and after hearing the minute-long satisfying shrieks of what sounded like a mother and a young girl, threw the empty handgun into an open garbage can and continued limping down the shadowy alleyway, his boots clomping and splashing, his shaggy, tattered black trenchcoat fluttering slightly in the light breeze. Thunder sounded and lightning flashed overhead.

Xiamen, the Slums:

“Ya know, you dirty piece a’ shit, I ought ter’ vaporize ya’ right this minute.”

The chrome lined barrel of an enormous revolver is waved right under my nose. The nauseating scent of gun oil seeps into my nostrils. I pull my head back slightly but my muscles refuse to obey me. It instead weakly droops to one side, where my greasy hair comes to a rest on my filthy t-shirt. I try to at least turn towards the threat, no good; my muscles still won’t obey me.

The threat instead grabs me with a heavy, muscular hand, turning my head towards his shrill and whiny nasal voice. I stare at a face. My view is blurry as hell, but I know the face is angry, because flecks of spit from his big, fat mouth are getting in my face and he’s screaming at me. It feels way too loud, like a freight train in the dead of night. He keeps waving the huge revolver in my face as it lolls back and forth. I blink and try to clear my eyes. All I can see are the details engraved into the gun he’s pointing at me… 500 S&W Magnum… Stainless steel frame. It’s a good gun… nice and intimidating. It’s probably because the bastard’s compensating for something. I try my best to spit back in his face. All that comes out is a thin stream of drool.

I get smashed in the face with the revolver for that one. I can feel my cheek splitting to the bone as the stainless steel frame cuts into my flesh. I can feel my blood flow out, lukewarm and coppery as it trickles into my mouth.

“Where tha’ hell’s my money you cumbag whore?!?” the voice again. He’s agitated. Probably wants me to pay up for the huge tab I ran up.

“Go fuck yourself…” It comes out as a slur. My body won’t obey me anymore… I’ve hit rock bottom anyway. I guess I should go out with a bang. I can feel the bush hat’s brim on my forehead as its owner’s hand cups my jaw. I can feel him start to squeeze. His grip feels like an industrial strength vise. I can feel the bones in my jaw giving way slowly, my blood running into his fingers…. Take it all in…. Give the garbage men some variety… I laugh inside as the lower part of my jaw begins to detach from my head. The pain is excruciating but what do I care?

I feel as his hand plunges into my abdomen. His hand wiggles around for a second as he tries to find his grip. I feel my abdominal muscles tense desperately around his forearm, trying to prevent him from completing what he started.

No. Stop fighting it. Let it go. Relax. Let him do what he wants to do. I slowly relax my abdominal muscles against the pain. I feel my intestines slide out onto the floor. My spleen follows soon afterwards with a spurt of blood from the severed arteries. His hands move upwards, to my ribcage. He begins to pull at the sides of my ribcage, swinging it open with the sickening crack of cartilage. Bring on the end…. He taps my still beating heart lightly with the muzzle of his pistol… Then he smashes it in. My heart twitches hard against the grip of his pistol and my blood’s spilling jerkily from my wounds onto the floor. I try to let go, try to succumb to the darkness, but my body won’t let me. The floor doesn’t deserve to receive my blood any longer.

Finally, he gets tired of the game. Standing up and taking a few steps back, he cocks the huge cannon in his hand with a nasty, movie-like click and pulls the trigger.

I slump forward and embrace the darkness. Another worthless loser bites the dust.

I am free.

~*~*~

“Ugh, damnit Yogi… this has got to be the third one this week. You got to stop dealing with the junkies like this. Or on second thought, don’t. It’s good for business.”

The blood-soaked man in the bush hat glared at the burly looking cleanup man who had just entered. Cleanup men, so professional, so useful… What was running through Yogi’s mind was along the lines of “fuck those assholes, who needs them?”

But even Yogi knew the answer. Cleanup men were so that no one, no gang members, cops, or vengeful relatives would ever figure out the truth. A cadaver was both a blessing and a liability of course.

The cleanup man put on a butcher’s apron over his overalls and a pair of heavy rubber gloves on his beefy, well worn hands. Yogi left the room with a short grunt as the cleanup man began to go to work, scrubbing the blood out of the floorboards and scooping the entrails into a black trash bag.

(tbc)

Xiamen. Still twilight.

Neon signs flittered like fireflies in the street at the end of the narrow alley, as One limped past the soppy juices of corpses once filled with the spirits of human beings. The dank smells of garbage and rain-soaked pavement mingled with the fetid lingerings of rotting flesh and the metallic stench of dried blood. Spent shell casings, broken knives, jammed guns and wood debris from grenade explosions littered the black mass that stretched before him, the light ahead from those neon signs casting the faintest glow barely a couple of metres down the alley.

Suddenly, shots. And not just any shots. He could recognise the familiar, metallic, hollow pinging of a 500 S&M Magnum revolver from light years away if he wanted to. Stainless steel frame, lightweight construction. Beautiful piece of machinery. This time, he could feel the vibrations of the gun and its bullet exploding with force towards whatever poor target through the pavement. His pace quickened. Fresh blood.

He emerged onto a wide street, the neon signs a welcome change from the lightless, soulless streets and alleys of the past few minutes. A rumble sounded in his stomach, a guttural groan that seemed to scream its hunger for some sort of food nearly all the way down this short thoroughfare. One looked up at a sign. Joey's Noodle Shack, he read. Good enough. He paused, the smell of death intensified. The carnage lies within, he mused. He smirked and stepped into the shop.

Dirty hardwood floors and ratty leather-foam seating on hardwood tables and benches lined the entire length of the boxy restaurant. Rats scurried from point to point in the seating area, searching for crumbs or any sort of dropped food they could find. Blood, guts and brains were splattered over stained white tile, pools of blood lay on the floor where rats drank happily. Two noisy cooks in the back were yelling to each other in rapid-fire Mandarin. Something about putting the rat traps in the right way, getting the noodles strained without dropping them in the sink, and to pick the salad off the floor and put it back in the serving bowl. One looked over and saw a lone customer sitting in a corner booth. Poor guy, he thought. Disgusting place to be eating.

Still, it was three in the morning, and this was the only place to get food still open this time of night. One shrugged and advanced towards the kitchen, steam from the noodles emerging through the open hole in the wall where the cooks could keep a close watch over the patrons' "activities".

One could sense the trouble the moment he left the seating area. He knocked loudly on the door. He yelled in a deep voice, "Open the fuck up."

A moment's pause. "What do you want?" came a reply in Chinese-accented English. A poor attempt at English. "Fuck off, you wop."

"Open the damn door," One replied, his patience being tested, his irritance growing at the racist remark. He was barely Pacitalian any more, the lack of warm climate blanching his skin like an almond, his accent nearly replaced by an American-style English accent, but the comment still stung. "Now. I want some food, you shitheads!"

A snort, followed by another, easier-to-understand voice. The other cook. "Get the fuck out, you bum. We'll feed you when you've got money and, most importantly, when we're damn good and ready. You can't follow instructions, can you? Fuck... the... hell... off."

That was good enough for One. He put his hand over the butt of his 9mm PB C-610 ceramic handgun and kicked the door in. Pulling it out quickly, he moved his target from side to side so that the two cooks in the large kitchen had no way to rush him without being shot dead. He closed the door behind him, the lock creaking after being severely beaten by One's foot. He saw something in his peripheral vision move. The guy in the booth. Fuck. Moving forward, he aimed at the first cook's head. Terrified little shit.

"Pick up those pots and place them in that little window you've got," One said, pointing to the heavy iron pots filled with fiercely bubbling masses of white and gray. "And be sure not to use potholders," he said, noting the handles were also made of iron. The cook whimpered. One smiled widely. "Not so tough anymore, are you?"

The cook slowly walked, his hands and feet trembling in anticipation of the horrible pain and burns he was about to experience. His hands hesitated over the handles. "DO IT!" One yelled. The cook let his hands fall on to the pot handles, and screamed wildly as the searing hot iron scalded and burned his palms.

"Fuck! Oh, God!" the cook screamed, back to rapid-fire Mandarin. One may not have been fluent in Mandarin, but he felt and knew when his victims were suffering. One ended the cook's suffering with a bullet to the head. Brains and bone were turned to mush and dust as the lead-point 9mm bullet entered the cook's head just below his left ear, smashing the entire left side of the head in half. The cook crumpled to the floor, as his brains fell into the pots and pans and splattered the only clean white tile in the entire restaurant. The other cook screamed.

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry, oh, god, Xiao, why? Why, Xiao? You poor man. Oh, whoever you are, I'll do what you want. What do you want?" the second cook screamed in agony at One.

"Well, for starters, I'd like to see your attitude gone. But maybe we can do that while we kill you. Y'know, kill two birds with one stone? Or two cooks, in this case." One laughed mirthlessly, his guffaws reverberating around the windowless, stinking kitchen. The cook trembled and whimpered. A pussy just like the other one, One mused. No loss to society.

He advanced on the second cook, but remembered he had seen the mystery man in the booth move. In that second he turned, he lost his concentration. Big mistake, he thought too late, as the second cook delivered a near-perfect kick right to his jaw. He felt cartilage snap and bone bend and dent as the cook's shoe pummeled his mouth with amazing force. It was just like whiplash, but quite a bit more painful, at least in the short term.

One spat the blood out of his mouth and grabbed the man's leg as he was descending to the ground. He twisted the cook's ankle and watched with great pleasure as the man writhed and screamed, hanging by his dead ankle. Game over. His weapon too far away, One simply dragged the trembling, sickly, surviving cook along the dirt and food-encrusted floor. He dropped the disabled cook beside his dead friend's half-corpse and walked over to a drawer. I seem to be doing this a lot, he laughed inwardly, as he pulled a steak knife and a fork out of the drawer. He walked back over and forced the utensils into the man's hands.

"You hungry?" he said, putting on a mock voice of concern.

The cook trembled. "A little."

One replied as he sauntered back across the kitchen to fetch his ceramic gun off the floor. "Well, if you look beside you, my dear friend, you'll note quite aptly that there's quite a bit of meat for you to, uh, chow down on." One was once again pleased to see the cook's expression of abject horror and revulsion at his suggestion. "Eat some of him. Now. Or else you die. No joking, this time."

"N-n-no! I can't do that!" the second cook replied frantically in that heavy-accent English.

One was frustrated. He advanced on the cook and broke his nose with one heel to the face. "I said, DO IT!" He watched with a wide grin as the man cut a piece of the first cook's arm away with the steak knife. He began to chew, but the taste brought on the cook's gag reflex. He retched, but nothing came up. He spit out the piece of the dead man, trembling. "Is that good enough for you?"

"No, it most certainly is not," One said. He moved back over, dislocated the cook's arms and picked him up by his waist. The cook began to scream with terror, not knowing what One was about to do to him. "It seems you prefer cooked meat, anyway. Or boiled." He chuckled heartily. And with that, he shoved the man into the biggest pot on the stove, filled full up with boiling, salty water and freshly cooked noodles. He took in the man's slow death, the scalding water entering his lungs and burning him from the inside out. He turned the heat off on the stove. Then, just for kicks, he sodomised the now-dead cook with the kitchen knife, blood spurting in all directions. One moved to the sink and wiped himself off. Then he left the kitchen.

He came back into the hallway and saw the man in the corner. He was still sitting in that corner booth, waiting for something. Probably his food. He walked back out of the restaurant while quietly saying to the man - "I hope you like human meat. They seem to have a lot of that in this place." He stepped back into the rain and the familiar smells of death and destruction returned. So did the metallic pinging from the revolver. He broke into a run.

The Reporter's Apartment-

The man waited, and waited.....then, he got a call. He picked up the phone with some dread, and said, "Hello?"

A silky, seductive voice replied, "Is this the man who called for protection?"

The reporter said, "Who is this? Tell me, or I hang up and hunker down."

The voice said, almost tauntingly: "Temper, Temper! It's only National Police. I can't say who I am though. You never know what kind of pervert would listen."

The reporter said, "Well then, National Police....where do I met you?"

The voice sighed, and said, slighty disgusted "Such an impaitent boy, ayeeyah! Meet me at the Midori Manga Cafe, 12:00 Midnight. Look for a woman with sunglasses, a business suit, and strap-on kitty ears workin' a kiosk, surfing messageboards like a good anime freak does. I'll be there."

The voice hung up, and left our reporter in the lurch. He grumbled, "Damn this.....Alright...."

He loaded his Makarov, cocked it, and waited till it was time. He sat down and watched the TV, turning to a sermon by Batov, a music video, then Beavis and Butthead. He sat there, watching Beavis get punched in the nose by Butthead, and had a feeling of dread....good thing he had a gun. Even if it was a holdout model.

Boss Harlington wasn’t really named Boss Harlington. He just liked wearing suits that came from the famed Harlington Fashion House in Sarzonia. It was really quite an expensive habit. The Yakuza paid him an excellent salary, but at more than NS$150,000 a pop, the suits were really biting into his checking account. Of course, he skimmed some money from the side, but all the bosses did that. Currently though, his mind wasn’t focused on designer suits. He was the clean-up man in the Taka affair, which meant that he was in deep, deep trouble unless he could find that journalist that took those pictures. And to make things worse, the girl that assassinated Taka had turned, and two of Boss Nohara’s men had already gotten killed, painfully and publicly. Roger Jung had ended up at the bottom of an apartment building ventilation shaft and Jonathan “Shaggis” Yoon was discovered in the trunk of a Cadillac CTS that had somehow sunk in the harbor. Too much publicity there. Both men were decorated war heroes, so the press and police would be all over, and a mentally retarded parakeet could unearth their Yakuza connections. Harlington needed press damage control. The other issue was the photographer. Harlington had spoken with Nohara’s National Police contact earlier. He knew who the photographer was. He just didn’t know where he would be, and he had to find out before the National Police could move him to a secure location.
The phone on Harlington’s minimalist, post-modernist desk rang. Harlington wiped off his bald, sweaty dome with a handkerchief he produced from his pocket, and then picked up the phone.

“Boss, I’m at his apartment. He already took off. But I think know where he is.”

On the other end of the line was the bag man that Harlington had sent to take care of the photographer. The photographer had fled, but it didn’t mean that he didn’t leave any evidence of where he went.

“Continue.” Harlington waited.

“I’ve recovered MapQuest directions to the Midori Anime Internet Café on his PC hard drive.”

“Good, now take a kill team there and await my further instructions.” Harlington hung up.

Now about publicity, somebody had to keep the media’s eye off of the dead auxiliaries. A rather simple affair; bribing editors to keep it away from the front page, intimidating a few reporters, nothing really fancy. The only problem lay in those really daring, incorruptible sorts that don’t quit. But what’s two corpses to them? They chased the really big stories, which meant that they were really only a pain in the ass when the government or a big corporation was deeply involved.

The Midori Anime Cafe, 12:00 midnight-

The poor reporter (we'll call "Bob") drove down through the mess that was Tokyo traffic. Zipping through the bright lights and hordes of pedestrians, to the tune of Robert Johnson's "The Sky is Crying" on his car radio, he drove until he found a place to park. Parallel parking, he stopped, shut off the car, and looked at the directions he wrote down from the damned phonebook. Yeah, it was close. Just a few hundred yards ahead.

He got out, patted himself to ensure his Makarov was there and his kevlar vest was good, and walked carefully but unpanicked to the Cafe. As he approached the opening, he felt, admist the pounding engrish songs, a feeling of eerie calm as he opened the door....

OOC: Your cue.

=================

The Asahi Shimbun and the Dongjing Times looked the other way-indeed, it wasn't like the Japanese, as belligerent as they were in their time as Xenizens, to rock the boat when it came to the Yakuza-only the most miniscule of bribes were needed to ensure only a passing mention in the Police Logs. Still, those dead Auxiliaries were indeed decorated soldiers, veterans of the fighting for Wuhan-a good many vets were getting into trouble, but to have two die in such horrid deaths? Well, that didn't go well with the people of Tokyo. The attention granted forced Tokyo Metro PD and National Police to rope off the murder scenes, and begin performing the usual dance, with CSI examining the bodies, and the law's best examining the scene for clues, including milking witnesses for all they were worth. Still, it didn't take a Sherlock to recognize it was the Yakuza at work; the witnesses said it didn't look like a Mod hit, and general concensus was that the Yakuza were behind it anyway, evidence or not.

========================

Iniata, meanwhile, drove about, when the radio came and reported the deaths of "a shootout resulting in a man named Roger Jung found dead in Narita at the bottom of a shaft..."

Iniata mumbled, "S**t." That news could only mean the man Nohara had sent was dead as Eddie Money's career. She fumed, but thought, "Well, it can't be that bad, just tell the boss, and go after the cockbag myself with my kill team."

Then, she heard...

"...and as well, the death of a man identified as Jonathan Yoon, was found in the trunk of an automobile in Tokyo Harbor. Police are investigating the murder, but police are assuring the public that Mr. Yoon, a decorated veteran of the Civil War with several medals for valor, will be avenged."

Iniata's heart almost fell to the brake. That had better not have been the Jon Yoon she was thinking of...no....it couldn't be. There had to be more than one Jon Yoon in this town. No....

If it was Shaggis, the murderer would pay. Oh they would pay.....


(TBC)

The Marksman in a nearby 30th story hotel room had his crosshairs right over the main entrance of the Midori Manga Cafe. It was midnight. Bob had just crossed the threshold and had entered the building. But why no order to fire? He put his hand to his ear and radioed his superior, his eye never leaving the scope of his Doomish made sniper rifle.

"Boss, why didn't you let me take the shot?" he whispered.

"Just watch the main entrance. Harlington said he has a plan."

"It'd better be good." The marksman shifted uncomfortably in the hotel chair he had been sitting in for the past half hour.

~*~*~
Sitting at one of the tables, basking in the sterile glow of a bargain basement cathode ray tube, another kill team member adjusted her studded dog collar. Yakuza professionalism at its finest. Now, her job was to distract Bob and his National Police contact long enough for one of her colleagues to slip a tracking device on whatever car he would be taking. New generations of microelectronics were making everything smaller and more durable, hopefully, the device wouldn't be detected.

Tokyo:

I'm on the roof of a cheap apartment building, quietly observing the street below. I really want to sit down, but water pools on these rooftops, making the unpleasantly wet. Across from me is a greasy spoon. One of its many dumpsters is now the temporary resting spot for the other auxiliary. The one with the grandkids. Unlike Shaggis, nobody's going to find him here, not in this place. Below, some guys, maybe four or five of them, are sitting on the street corner, conversing idly in their standard lower class British accents. None of them seem to be of the criminal type though, no bulging trenchcoats or shifty eyes. I can't see anything on them besides a few cigarettes and maybe a couple of utility knives.

The night had set in long ago, the moon half-covered by the smog choked skies. A single black and white police car rolls down the street, moving slowly with cocky authority, the grit covered rowhouses and cracked sidewalks reflected off of its windshield. Tokyo PD. Great guys. They're so corrupt, that they would make a Pacitalian securities trader blush. They're probably scouring this district, mourning that filthy pig Lieutenant Rzhev by beating down a few poor folks. I have an auxiliary's combat knife stuck in the waistband of my jeans, and there are some things in a cop car that I could use.

The cop car comes to a halt. Two night shift guys pop out. Both of them have grins on their faces. I would intervene... but first, let's see how this plays out. If I killed those two guys. It would be the second and third cops in 20 hours that died at my hand. If the local gangbangers show up and start a scene, things would get bad, very bad.

The Marksman in a nearby 30th story hotel room had his crosshairs right over the main entrance of the Midori Manga Cafe. It was midnight. Bob had just crossed the threshold and had entered the building. But why no order to fire? He put his hand to his ear and radioed his superior, his eye never leaving the scope of his Doomish made sniper rifle.

"Boss, why didn't you let me take the shot?" he whispered.

"Just watch the main entrance. Harlington said he has a plan."

"It'd better be good." The marksman shifted uncomfortably in the hotel chair he had been sitting in for the past half hour.

~*~*~
Sitting at one of the tables, basking in the sterile glow of a bargain basement cathode ray tube, another kill team member adjusted her studded dog collar. Yakuza professionalism at its finest. Now, her job was to distract Bob and his National Police contact long enough for one of her colleagues to slip a tracking device on whatever car he would be taking. New generations of microelectronics were making everything smaller and more durable, hopefully, the device wouldn't be detected.

Bob wandered through the stacks of manga and girlie idol books, passing by the dog collar girl, until he spotted, sure enough, the foretold girl with kitty ears. She was indeed surfing NationStates in a little cubicle, and she was listening to her iPod, mumbling about the GFFA...

She then turned, and drew a Colt Officers LP. Pointing it at Bob, she then said, with a grin: "Are you my contact?"

Bob said, "Well, the lady said to look for-"

The lady then said, lowering her gun: "Oh...it's you. Please follow me. I was just waging a war of national survival."

She then led him into the stacks of Shounen-ai manga, logging off from the terminal. Bob grew nervous-this was not his favorite place to be, he being on the straight and narrow in terms of what gender he liked. Still, she insisted, tugging at him, mumbling about how the fangirls would make it a place to hide.

She then began talking.

"Now, I have to know-we're you followed?"

Bob said, sheepishly, "Not to my knowledge, ma'am."

The agent then said, curtly with some relish: "It's fine. I've got..."

She then opened her vest slightly to reveal dual Glock 18s, and two extended magazines each gun, with Pepper Spray and a Stun Gun.

"...protection."

Bob sighed. Well, at elast she came prepared, and didn't do anything weird besides bringing him into the Yaoi manga section...yet.

The agent then whispered into his ear, "The names Agent Kari Konno. You know what force I'm from. I'm here to provide protection, y'know, WITSEC."

Bob then said, "Well, that's all and good. But how am I going to do this? And why are you less fun than over the phone?"

Kari then replied, "Well, that was something to keep you listening. Having said that..."

She then leaned in once more, and whispered, "There's a nondescript Ford Focus out back, my ride. It's a NP Car. It's been bulletproofed, and whatnot. Cop shocks, cop brakes. You'll be safe with me. Now, let's move."

She then took him by the hand, and began to leave. Just as they moved, they passed by that dog collar girl again....

The girl with the dog collar got up immediately when she saw Kari and Bob walk past. Of course, this move was made so openly, that in nobody's mind, could she be actually following the two of them. Oh, heavens no. The people that tried following would try to be all sneaky and not look so obvious. She left the building about the same time too. Again, too obvious to be following them.

High above in the hotel room, the Marksman muttered something;

"Damn. I thought they would leave the building seperately."

As the two targets rounded the corner, the girl in the dog collar leaned up against the wall and lit up a cigarette. Ok, distraction failed. It would have worked if Bob was going to take his own car, and the kill team was too small to inspect the entire street behind the cafe. Down on the back street, a kill team member got into his beat up old Camaro, pretending to try and start it over and over again. Cursing angrily, he got up out of the car and opened the hood up, looking around inside.

The Marksman sighed and moved back into his hotel room. He sat on the bed and stripped his rifle down. If they couldn't track it the car, they could at least I.D and follow it.

As Kari and Bob rounded the corner, the kill team member ran up to them.

"Hey, my car's having some trouble starting, could I get a jumpstart?"

ooc: Btw, UX, you're meant to RP the mods on the street below Akira.

Tokyo:

I'm on the roof of a cheap apartment building, quietly observing the street below. I really want to sit down, but water pools on these rooftops, making the unpleasantly wet. Across from me is a greasy spoon. One of its many dumpsters is now the temporary resting spot for the other auxiliary. The one with the grandkids. Unlike Shaggis, nobody's going to find him here, not in this place. Below, some guys, maybe four or five of them, are sitting on the street corner, conversing idly in their standard lower class British accents. None of them seem to be of the criminal type though, no bulging trenchcoats or shifty eyes. I can't see anything on them besides a few cigarettes and maybe a couple of utility knives.

The night had set in long ago, the moon half-covered by the smog choked skies. A single black and white police car rolls down the street, moving slowly with cocky authority, the grit covered rowhouses and cracked sidewalks reflected off of its windshield. Tokyo PD. Great guys. They're so corrupt, that they would make a Pacitalian securities trader blush. They're probably scouring this district, mourning that filthy pig Lieutenant Rzhev by beating down a few poor folks. I have an auxiliary's combat knife stuck in the waistband of my jeans, and there are some things in a cop car that I could use.

The cop car comes to a halt. Two night shift guys pop out. Both of them have grins on their faces. I would intervene... but first, let's see how this plays out. If I killed those two guys. It would be the second and third cops in 20 hours that died at my hand. If the local gangbangers show up and start a scene, things would get bad, very bad.

As it was, the Mods did notice the cops, and then began taunting them like gangers of all kinds all over this world of ours were wont to do. They gave them wolf whistles, and cries of, "Hey piggy! How's the donuts!?"

Still, one man kept his hand on his pocket, which concealed a .44 Magnum. Tokyo MetroCops generally were as nasty as their Combine counterparts, and if they didn't want a bribe, they wanted a fight. The Mod waited for the consequences...

-----------

Bob then said, replying to the man who seemed to need a start: "Well, Kari, do you have Jumper cables?"

Kari then said, taking one look at the person who asked, "I dunno. Looks kinda funny to me...."

Bob then said, "Come on. He's-"

Kari then said, thinking, "Wait...do you have your auto?"

Bob then said, "Yeah. I do."

Kari then said to the man, "Well, I don't have jumper cables, but he does. Lemme take you to his car."