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A whole lot can change in twenty-four hours.
Before finding myself trapped with Katsuo Sanitoro in that tight spot, I was sitting in my office with the lights out, saving on the electric bill and minding my own business for the moment. I stared out the window behind my desk without seeing much in the way of variety. It was another wet night in the city, and the acid rain was doing what it did best: splattering my windowpane like oil, fizzing along the sill, eroding the building a little at a time and washing the crumbling detritus down into the gutters, out to the polluted seas. Microscopic destruction over time took its toll on a city. No stopping a force of nature like that. We were just along for the ride.
Of course, there was no shortage of ecological pundits on the Link saying we deserved what we got. Those chemical weapons unleashed during the war's early stages hadn't done much for our planet's wellbeing, after all. What were we thinking? Annihilate the enemy at all costs? Sounded about right. Regardless, we'd made our bed, and now we had to live in it, stained sheets and all. But the environmental damage wasn't done; the entropy would continue. All the electric and hybrid vehicles manufactured in the world couldn't change that. The slow-motion wrecking ball wouldn't be stopped.
So the skies over our fair city bled acid, and the Pacific glowed with poison instead of algae. Desert wastelands consumed the interior while your average citizen sat around waiting for the other shoe to drop. Not because we wanted the United World and the Eastern Conglomerate to duke it out all over again, spilling blood by the kiloliter. Nobody with half a conscience wanted that. We just wished the current cold war would finally be over so we could get on with our lives, regardless of the victor.
I'd done what I could to put my days as a UW marine sergeant behind me. Started working as a private eye in the city I called home. Detectives were a dying breed these days, now that anybody could investigate just about anything on the Link. But I held my own. There were still folks in this town who could use my brand of help. I charged only enough to pay the rent plus my assistant's salary. Maybe a little extra to grab a bite to eat every now and then. Not that I was a martyr or anything close. I just knew better than to overcharge for my services. Do that, and you're out with the dinosaurs for good.
"Mr. Madison?" came Wanda's perky voice from my desk intercom.
I flipped the switch.
"Thought I told you to go home." I glanced at the closed door adjoining my office to the front vestibule and receiving area where she kept her desk. I looked at my chrome and jade wristwatch—a gift from the Emerald Tiger yakuza clan for services rendered once upon a time. I wasn't a martyr, nor was I squeaky clean. My connections hailed from both high and low places, areas I didn't mind visiting, but I wouldn't want to live there. I preferred splitting the difference. "An hour ago, wasn't it? One of us needs a life."
"Somebody to see you, Charlie. A couple somebodies." She paused, lowering her voice. "Friends of yours."
Something about her tone made me doubt the veracity of the word friends. I reached for the .38 revolver in my shoulder rig. A semi-conscious gesture, just making sure it was still there. Like a good friend, it was. "Send them in."
Visiting hours should have been over by that time of night, but I never turned away a prospective client. Assuming these prospective clients were the paying type. But you know what they say about assuming things.
Wanda opened my door and held it. The glow from the streetlight outside pierced the slats of my venetian blinds and painted her in dull amber stripes. Gorgeous girl, day or night. Loose blonde curls that never stopped bouncing, legs that never quit. Eyes bluer than the sky our unfair city hadn't seen in weeks, and a mind built to understand the cosmos. I was the luckiest guy in town to have her working for me again. I'm sure the mayor's office missed her as much as I had when I was hiding out in Little Tokyo for a spell. But they'd have to learn to live without her.
Because, truth be told, I couldn't.
"Okada-san." I got to my feet and bowed at the waist as soon as the old man entered my office. "Konbanwa."
"Good evening, Mr. Madison," he said quietly, shifting his stooped shoulders forward as he returned a bow for a bow. He wore black traditional silk garments with a floral pattern that had probably made the voyage from Japan right along with him, and padded slippers that hailed from a local convenience store. When you got to be his age, comfort overruled the latest fashion trends. "Pardon this intrusion. I know the hour is late."
"You're always welcome here." I gave Okada's associate a nod. The muscular man in the tailored suit and wraparound sunglasses was none other than Katsuo Sanitoro of the Emerald Tiger clan, yakuza blue bloods who ran most of Little Tokyo. Their reach didn't extend far across the border, and most Japanese didn't stray much farther, particularly after dark. The same could be said for the Anglos in town; if we knew what was good for us, we avoided Little Tokyo's narrow streets once the sun went down. It was in our best interests not to get ourselves clobbered. "It's been a while, my friend."
Okada met my gaze briefly. Were we still friends? He'd offered me refuge above his sake bar last year, back when Ivan the Terrible put a bounty on my head. I owed Okada for the hospitality he'd shown me. But how had I repaid his kindness? By joining forces with the Blackshirts and going after his invisible brother.
No, not invisible. That would have been crazy enough. The guy was immaterial—able to walk through walls and turn anything he touched into something just as immaterial as he was. Great for robbing banks and stealing top secret war machines from the Federal government. Not so great for keeping a low profile.
"Yes, it has been quite some time." Okada shuffled toward my desk but hesitated when he reached the faux-leather armchair across from it.
"Please." I extended a hand toward the chair. "Take a load off."
Okada frowned curiously at Sanitoro.
"Suwatte kudasai," Sanitoro translated the idiom, mimicking my gesture toward the chair. Old man Okada nodded, seating himself like a stiff-feathered bird.
"If you won't be needin' anything else, Mr. Madison..." Wanda kept a wary eye on the two visitors—Sanitoro, in particular. She'd made it clear on more than one occasion that she didn't approve of my yakuza associations. She wasn't the only one.
"Thank you, Miss Wood." We tried to keep things formal while we were entertaining guests. "I'll see you in the morning."
She nodded, giving the back of Sanitoro's tattooed neck one last distrustful glance before shutting the door.
"How's that nephew of yours?" I said, sinking into my desk chair.
"He is an idiot," Okada replied.
"Some things never change." I glanced at Sanitoro, who remained standing like a bodyguard behind Okada. One of these days, I'd invest in another armchair. Maybe end up with a fortuitously matched set like the pair I used to have in my old office, before Ivan the Terrible burned the place down. He'd owned the building; guess he thought he could do whatever he wanted with it. "And your brother? Has he started working on World War III yet? Somehow, I figured he'd be slouching toward Armageddon by—"
"I do not know where he is," Okada said a little too sharply for his own taste. He paused to center himself before adding, "I am sure your Blackshirt friends are still looking for him."
Technically, Agent Adams and her goons were only acquaintances, if even that. Ours was a relationship of mutual benefit. She'd made it possible for me to return to the city by scrambling Ivan's brains, making him forget all about wanting my severed head on a platter. In return, I promised to help her out whenever a need arose for my services. Thankfully, that wasn't often, and I remained a free man. Free to help this crumbling old city the best way I knew how—one client at a time.
"What brings you across the border tonight?" I decided to steer clear of Okada's brother as a conversation topic.
"My nephew."
"Junior's stirring the pot again?"
Okada frowned at the idiom. You'd think I would have learned from my earlier faux pas and spoken clear Common. But thankfully Sanitoro was right there to the rescue, bowing slightly to offer a suitable translation into the old man's ear.
"Your government has taken his friends," Okada said at length. "Others who...like to stir this pot of which you speak."
Anti-Anglo sentiments ran sky-high among many of Little Tokyo's youth. Junior, as I referred to him, happened to be one of their ringleaders. He liked to force confrontations with Anglo citizens and record the altercations with his vidLink implant. Then he posted the footage online for all the world to enjoy. In his spare time, he was known to hurl rocks and garbage at the Federal police guarding the border. In addition, Junior would often lead his cronies in wild welcome parties for any cars carrying Anglos into Little Tokyo. Most vehicles turned back before the real fun started. Those who appreciated keeping their windows fully intact usually decided that crossing the border wasn't worth the effort.
"Taken them." I glanced at Sanitoro, who nodded mutely. I'd heard rumors about internment camps, but I'd hoped reason would prevail, that the governors of the Unified States would be wise enough to avoid repeating a historical misfire. Apparently not the case. "Where?"
Okada turned in his seat, deferring to Sanitoro who said, "A Federal detention facility. Out in the Wastes."
The desert—or what had once been the desert. A hundred years ago, places like Palm Springs and the Salton Sea had attracted all manner of tourists looking for clean, dry air and plenty of sunshine. But that was before the war, before the Eastern Conglomerate's scorchers transformed the interior of our continent into a barren wasteland. Nothing grew in the Wastes, and dust storms were the only variety of weather roaming across that arid moonscape. Unbearable heat reigned supreme during the day, followed by bone-aching cold after the sun dropped out of sight. The kind of people who braved such a hostile environment on a regular basis weren't the type usually invited to respectable dinner parties in the high society end of town. Some called the Wastes the wild west of the twenty-first century.
Others called it hell on earth.
"A detention center?" I cursed under my breath. "So they've gone and done it."
"Your government does not tolerate dissent," Okada said quietly. "I warned my nephew, but he would not listen. He said...they were being targeted. The gifted ones."
I glanced at Sanitoro. No expression at all on that granite face of his.
"Gifted ones," I echoed. "Like your brother."
"Like him, but unlike him," Okada said. "He is able to walk through walls and change the material composition of any object he touches. But according to my nephew, his young friends have...other unique talents."
I'd met a Japanese girl able to cry pearls instead of tears and a Russian thug who could control people's minds, forcing them to see and do whatever he wanted them to. Not to mention the incredible Immaterial Okada himself, able to appear and disappear at will. My favorite Fed, Agent Adams, had a special name for these freakish individuals: suprahumans. She seemed to think it was her duty to keep them hidden from the public eye. Avoiding mass panic was one of her top priorities.
Life can be real funny. Ironic, maybe. I'd been around the world and managed to survive the height of the war. Came back to my hometown to find it cowering under a Russian kingpin's hairy fist. And just when I thought I'd seen everything, life decided to introduce me to a whole new species of human being I never could have imagined.
The Blackshirts did their best to keep the public at large from finding out about these suprahumans, but they wouldn't remain hidden for long. Not with everybody so connected on the Link these days. All it would take was one sighting, one spectacular event recorded and shared around the world like an epidemic, and the secret would be out. The Feds wouldn't be able to sweep everything under the rug, as they were so fond of doing. Eventually the truth would rear its bizarre, unbelievable head.
I had a feeling that would be sooner than anybody was ready for.
"I'm not sure what I can do," I said. Did he expect me to break into a Federal internment camp singlehandedly and set Junior's friends free? Sure, I was good at picking locks, but I was no superhero. Nor did I own a suit of body armor.
Old man Okada motioned to Sanitoro, who produced a wafer-thin tablet from under his coat. He handed it to me.
"My nephew's Slate," Okada said as I took the device. "Everything you need to begin your investigation will be found on there."
"Right." I glanced from Okada to Sanitoro. "My investigation. So...you want me to track down your nephew's pals and—"
"Not the friends," Sanitoro said. "The nephew."
It was good to see him looking out for the old man. I'd promised Immaterial Okada I would keep an eye out for his elderly brother, but I hadn't told him exactly how I planned to go about doing that. It wasn't like I was welcome to wander the streets of Little Tokyo anytime I pleased, stopping by for a cup of sake and to shoot the breeze. So Sanitoro became my eyes and ears, agreeing to look in on the old man from time to time without charging for protection.
Immaterial Okada wouldn't have approved. Some Japanese hated the yakuza more than they despised Anglos. But I trusted Sanitoro. He could be a dangerous killer when the situation called for it, but in a city ruled by Ivan the Terrible, you needed a pit bull on your side every now and then.
"You see, Mr. Madison, my nephew has a rather large following on the Link," Okada continued with a dismissive gesture toward the Slate. "Not that I would ever use such mind-numbing technology, but from what he has told me, there are many youth in Little Tokyo who agree with his radical political views. Over the past few months, I am afraid he has succeeded in rallying many of them against your government."
"I thought you shut him down," I said to Sanitoro.
"We did," he replied. The Emerald Tiger clan hadn't wanted the youth stirring things up between Little Tokyo and the United World government. The yakuza had a good thing going on Unified States soil; no reason to take a dump in their own bath water. "A localized EMP only managed to slow him down. He found a way around it."
"My nephew can be something of a genius, I must admit—but only when it comes to modern gadgets." Okada motioned at the Slate in my hand with a flutter of his fingers. "I would not know where to begin with something like that."
"You and me both," I muttered, glancing at my office door. Had Wanda left? She was the resident tech wiz at the Charlie Madison Detective Agency, and I would need her help in a big way if I was going to find out what Junior had been up to lately online.
"I am worried that his anti-UW diatribes on the Link may have gotten him into serious trouble this time." The old man leaned forward in his chair, the wrinkles on his face more pronounced as his sparse eyebrows contorted with concern. "My nephew has disappeared, Mr. Madison. I need you to find him for me."