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The lead carrier lumbered to the farthest of the four doors. An orange light in a wire fitting above it flashed, then, with a soft rumble, the door slowly rose. The light on the door nearest our caravan also began a similar display—one light, although we were two vehicles.
By the time Kim rose into position and began inching forward, the other freight-shifter had already passed through the dark opening, its progress marked by the swivel of a surveillance recorder. While I threw myself back against the seat and groaned, Jo calmly watched the lead freight-shifter ease its way through the portal. As it turned, its headlights caught the sentry, casting his truncated shadow against a wall.
With Kim and Kentaro now inside, the sentry stepped forward, motioning for us to proceed. As ordered, Jo carefully guided the craft inside, positioning it over a glowing circle with target-like markings on the bay floor. Kim's freight-shifter, I noticed, was also hovering atop one set at a staggered angle to ours.
On the sentry's command, Jo alit on the circular marker and disengaged our hovering mechanism. Beneath us, a high-pitched mechanical hum began. A discordant drone, which soon intensified to a near-deafening crescendo, as we began rotating in a slow circuit—one, which allowed a glimpse of a badly blood-stained zephyr-chaser. The sliding panel doors beyond it still bore ruddy smears.
The noise from the repositioning plates had also concealed the approach of another transport. Now, another door rose, allowing entrance for another (and much cleaner) zephyr-chaser. When I saw the hooded cowl and oxygen mask in the gnarled hand of one of those passengers, I fought to keep from gasping.
Three armed guards, all wearing high-collared, black silk uniforms, were crammed in the seating space behind Mazawa. One of them—the woman incapable of producing anything remotely resembling a smile—I recognized from my visit to Mazawa's house.
"Doctor Mazawa." The sentry clicked his heels together, laid a hand over his breast and bowed. In the other cab, I could see Kentaro and Kim, although still seated, affect similar poses.
Jo, who'd mirrored their deferential movements, nudged me. I followed his lead, secure in the knowledge that this would be the last day anyone ever bowed to the bastard ever again.
Wearing dark glasses and his trademark surgical mask, Mazawa disembarked. "Yes, yes. Carry on," he rasped, barely glancing in our direction.
Accompanied by his retinue, Mazawa made his way to the panel doors. After a retinal scan, they whooshed open, revealing the brightly-lit interior of a large elevator.
"Direct access to the main lab," Jo whispered.
"We still don't know where it's located."
The doors closed with a loud snap. Yellow lights, set in a long panel, winked on, then off, marking the group's upward progress.
"Do you think he'd settle for anything less than the very top, Renata? We'll need to disable it, of course, but first, I want to have a look around."
Outside, Kentaro, who'd disembarked to speak with the sentry, now signaled for us to exit the freight-shifter.
"Finding Juno and Ito is Tetsuo's job," I whispered, joining him on the circular dais.
"One he can't do from outside."
"That wasn't the plan," I hissed, ears already buzzing. So far, he'd shared the details of our mission only in piecemeal. Easier to deviate from it, that way, I decided, clenching my fists. Though I wouldn't have minded, seeing the lab blown to bits—the entire holodome, for that matter—both seemed too good an end for Mazawa. I'd been looking forward to killing the son of a bitch myself. "We can look for them all you want after Mazawa's dead."
"Just trust me, Renata. Oh, and don't forget that"—he indicated the carton with a knowing smirk—"but be careful. Its contents are quite sensitive.".
As we headed over to join Kentaro and Kim, another surveillance camera, this one bolted over a wide arch at the back of the bay, now rotated to trap us in its glassy gaze. Wow, paranoid much, Mazawa? Wondering how many more we'd have to encounter, I kept my head low, tightened my grip on the carton, and kept moving.
"He says we'll have to load the transports ourselves." Kentaro cocked his thumb at the guard. "There's only a skeleton crew on duty today because of all the refugee traffic. Doctor Mazawa's orders." The camera swiveled slightly, taking stock of him as he approached the arch.
"Did he say how many?"
"No, but we'll pass the security station on our way to the storerooms," he replied to Jo. "It's this way."
We followed him through the wide arch into a foyer of sorts, a crossroads, where each white corridor led to a barred metal door. Directly to our left and dimly lit, except for the bluish glows of monitor screens, a narrow, glass-walled room held a bank of glowing control panels, each with a manned station.
Skeleton crew, my ass! Aside from the sentry, three other guards manned this enclosure. Men, whose eyes I could feel crawling over me like ants. Men I refused to acknowledge, despite their greetings. According to Goro, the Operative whose uniform I was wearing had quite a reputation for being a cold bitch—a role I was only too happy to play.
With Kentaro in the lead, we followed the length of the security station, our path taking us to the closed door at its end. As we reached it, I saw that part of the station’s glass wall contained a large partition, what appeared to be a sliding compartment.
Spying my carton, one of the sentries rapped on the glass with his baton. "You know the rules! No unauthorized parcels allowed inside the warehouse." He activated the partition, which fell back to reveal a slot, an opening large enough to accommodate an emergency rations carton.
You asked for it. I shoved the parcel through the opening as hard as I could. Before he could react, it hit the floor on its side and erupted in a thick, white cloud.
"Respirators on, everyone!" Jo urged.
Soon, a door opened, and the sentries staggered out, gagging and gasping for breath. A few even made it midway across the foyer to us before falling to their knees. While Kim and Kentaro kept watch, Jo strode over and began speaking with the dazed men in low, even tones. After they rose, one went back inside the cubicle and released two door mechanisms: one for the storeroom and a narrow one directly inside and to the right of that entrance, which opened on a stairwell.
While three of the sentries headed into the warehouse, Jo instructed the other one to disable the security cameras, as well as Mazawa's elevator.
We were far from getting in free, however; a quick glance about the room yielded another potential problem: another freaking camera bolted high in the wall and trained directly over the drop-off slot. "What about surveillance here at the station? Can anyone else see that footage?" I pointed to it.
"Not without a direct order."
While Jo seemed content with that answer, I wasn't. "Erase it, now."
"Erase it?" The sentry gawped, as if he'd never heard the word before, then looked pleadingly over at Jo. "Erase?"
"Mazawa's orders." Only when he nodded encouragingly, did the sentry go to work.
"What the hell, Jo? The NX-7's supposed to turn people into sheep. Why didn't it work?"
"After the initial exposure, it takes a little time before the afflicted will obey more than one person," Jo reassured me.
The guard's peers soon returned with a box of Seismi-Shells, each equipped with a timer and remote detonator. Jo let each of them keep one and then, distributed the remainder among himself, Kim and Kentaro.
"How many other guards are in this building?"
"Only those with clearance to access the upper level: a sentry from the Matsudo Corridor and Saisei contingent, as well as Mazawa's personal retinue," one of the sentries said to Jo.
That meant six or seven, maybe more. I wasn't crazy about those odds but reasoned the Saisei drivers probably wouldn't be allowed to stick around after dropping their load of dead weight and neither would Goro, which thinned the battlefield to a more manageable number.
Jo tapped his wristlet. "Tetsuo, we're in the Spire Lab. Target and devices acquired."
"All hell's about to break loose out here: people have started to notice that the only things moving at the gates are Kufugaki."
"Can you give us fifteen minutes before you open fire?"
"I'll try, but I can’t make any promises."
"Alright, guys, you know what to do." Jo nodded curtly at the sentries, who then strode off in different directions. To Kim and Kentaro, he said, "After you place those, I want the two of you to get out of here. We'll rendezvous later, just as we discussed. Renata, come with me." He headed to the stairwell inside the entrance to the storeroom.
"Stop ordering me around!" I whipped out my naginata and pushed past him, taking the stairs two at a time, deaf to his whispered admonitions. As I reached the mid-point to the second floor, he caught me by the arm.
"What's gotten into you?"
"It might surprise you, Jo, but I have a great deal of experience killing— probably a hell of lot more than you!"
"This isn't a Kufugaki hunt, Renata, it's war. It requires stealth, strategy—"
As had every kill I'd ever made, so I wasn't willing to make the distinction. "You want me on your side? Let me in!" As I whirled away, he caught my arm again.
"Mazawa's a monster but he's no fool. We've been lucky so far— too lucky." Turning me to him gently, he placed his hands on my shoulders and said, "I thought I lost you once, Renata. I'll be damned if I ever let that happen again."
"I don’t want to lose you, either," I said, as simply as I could, though not liking the unexpected turn our argument had suddenly taken. Could he have picked a worse moment for this discussion? Right now, we needed to stay sharp, we couldn't afford to slip into any nostalgic, mushy-gushy lapses, and dull what little edge we had on Mazawa. "Come on, you can fill me in on the way up. Hope you've been working your thighs and glutes in the Jukai. I'm guessing we have about a dozen more floors to go."