“Come with me.”
Cormac looked up at the man who was helping him to his feet. “Makoto! How did you get here?”
Makoto smiled. “Same way as you.”
Cormac remembered hearing a plane in the sky when he was on top of the skyscraper. “You followed us? But how?”
“Your shōzoku contains a tracking device.”
“What about Renkondo?”
“It’s gone.” He bowed his head, but quickly he pulled himself together, his face grim. “Most of us escaped, but there were casualties.”
“Who?”
“You can’t stay here,” said Makoto, ignoring the question. “It’s too dangerous. Come with me.”
Makoto put Cormac’s arm over his shoulder and led him down streets strewn with wreckage. A woman holding her bloodied arm emerged from a doorway. Her face was pale and her eyes desperate. She started to hobble toward them, but Makoto drew Cormac away. They walked on through the chaos. It was as if someone had picked up the city, shaken it, and then dropped it on its head.
They eventually stopped in a doorway to rest. Cormac sat on a crate.
“Are you OK?” asked Makoto.
Cormac nodded. But he was far from OK.
Makoto put his hand on his shoulder. “Tell me what happened.”
Cormac gave Makoto a quick summary of events, telling him how Goda, Kiko, and Ghost had entered through a portal in Times Square and how Ghost had taken the Moon Sword. “The last thing I remember was the explosion. What was that?”
“Goda combined the power of the three swords to produce an electromagnetic pulse that affects anything electrical or metal.”
“He’s invading the USA,” Cormac said. “It’s really happening.” He looked up at Makoto. “But America has a massive army, right?”
“You saw what the pulse did to their weapons and tanks,” Makoto replied. “Without them, and without aircraft and communications, they’re powerless.”
Cormac had a sudden thought. “Have you found Kate?”
Makoto shook his head. “We were tracking her shōzoku, but the pulse disabled all our equipment.”
“We? Who else is here?”
“Come, and I’ll show you.”
Makoto led him around the corner to a large plaza surrounded on all sides by dark and lifeless towers. Words full of irony looked down at them from above the doorway of the GE Building: WISDOM AND KNOWLEDGE SHALL BE THE STABILITY OF THY TIMES.
But the place was empty.
And then something by one wall caught Cormac’s eye. A figure emerged from the stone—a shōzoku-clad shinobi, only visible because of his movement. Others appeared from hiding, rolling out from under tables, dropping down from trees, slinking out of the shadows. They approached Makoto, bowed, and stood before him in neat rows. Two of them stepped forward and pulled down their hoods.
“Bear!” exclaimed Cormac. “Sensei Iwamoto!”
The two men bowed.
Cormac looked past his teachers to what must have been two hundred shinobi. “You brought an army?”
Makoto shook his head. “Once the Renkondo students had been taken to safety, myself, the Bear, and Sensei Iwamoto flew here. We have Black Lotus agents all over the world. This is the New York division.”
“More are on the way,” said the Bear. “With all communications down, it’s been difficult to rally the troops.”
“Situation report?” ordered Makoto.
“Goda’s forces have entered Times Square through a portal. We estimate their numbers to be in the region of ten thousand.”
Makoto was silent for a moment, his face drawn.
“After Goda’s video message, the US Army stationed troops at all well-known national landmarks. They’ve spread themselves thin.”
“And rest of troops are at border,” added Sensei Iwamoto. “They expect external attack, not attack from interior.”
“It’s up to us, then,” said Makoto. “What sort of weapons have we got?”
“We have over two hundred firearms,” said the Bear, “as well as swords, knives, and spears for another three hundred.”
Makoto turned to Cormac. “The guns are all plastic or ceramic so they haven’t been affected.”
“You knew this electromagnetic thing would happen?” asked Cormac.
“We had to be prepared for the possibility that it could happen again.”
“Again?”
“It happened once before, in sixteenth-century Japan.” He looked at Cormac severely. “As you know from your trip to the map room.”
Cormac winced. There’d been no secrets at Renkondo after all.
Makoto faced the troop of shinobi. “Agents of the Black Lotus, we face grave danger. Goda has led an army ten thousand strong into Times Square via a sword portal. He plans to take control of the city to allow an Empire invasion. He wants to turn the world into medieval Japan.
“If we can defeat this army, the city has a chance to defend itself against an invasion. We have firearms, but we lack personnel. Seek out the people of New York City, convince them to join us and meet me at Times Square. You’ve spent your lives in a country free from the shackles of the Empire. You’ve been our dormant force of resistance in the free world. But now the time has come to wake, to defend your homeland.” He clenched his fists, his single eye burning. “The time has come to show Lord Goda that he cannot win.”