Los Angeles 2170, page 6
Red Tie moved now, as she suspected he would.
The others were just gunmen. They had not gotten the expensive cyberware that would let them move at the speeds Red Tie could achieve.
And Kumiko.
Whole battles might be fought in the blink of an eye.
Red Tie charged, weaving slightly to throw off her aim, but she wasn’t shooting. If he came around the vehicle, she could withdraw to the hood or go over it.
The man decided to come over the back of the tank at her, intent on body-slamming her and bowling her over backwards.
Already, he had forgotten about the bar, and his comrade in the blue tie.
Kumiko watched the man launch himself into a flying tackle that would skid across the trunk of the car. She fell to the ground next to the smoking ruin of a tire before he could react.
And there was nothing on the back of the vehicle to grab on to.
Red Tie went flying overhead like a jet liner landing.
Kumiko considered shooting him, but she needed to ruthlessly hoard her ammunition. For now.
She came to a squat as her foe began to tumble across the parking lot in surprise.
Like a sprinter, Kumiko rounded the trunk and went at the two men in the room, only now moving towards the door. Only one was looking up, the other having grabbed his wounded comrade to drag the man to safety.
So, bushido yet lived with these men.
She saw the eyes of the man closest to her begin to grow as she moved faster than any human he had ever seen. He was in slow motion to her, both hands frantically trying to drag his weapon up to fire, finger slowly squeezing the trigger.
He was in the doorway, so a flying kick would not work. Kumiko settled for aiming her body at his weapon, still to one side, the larger gap between man and door. She leapt slightly at the last step, one-hundred-fifty-five centimeters to his one-hundred-eight-five.
Rather than fist, she fell back on the ancient form known as water buffalo, fist close to her chest and striking with the flat part of the elbow, rather than the point. A sledgehammer made of bone, moving at high speed.
She tumbled the man over backwards, tangled up in his two friends on the floor.
Rather than try to stop, Kumiko parkoured up and back, off the inner wall, came over the bed, and struck the man who had been trying to pull his friend to safety. A kick to the side of the head as he tried to find his one weapon. A drop-punch to the remaining man, wounded and helpless on the floor, but not harmless as long as he was awake.
Elapsed time, one second. Three men unconscious. She had still not killed, regardless of provocation.
Up and too the door.
Duck, as Red Tie had finally gotten himself up and pursued her to the room. Under the fist, snap a soft punch into his thigh as she flowed around the man and back to open space of the sidewalk.
Jump backwards as he swung blindly behind him, twin blades popping out to extend his reach.
Kumiko felt a kiss on her hip. Nothing serious.
First blood drawn.
Red Tie turned and squared to her as they both found their footing on the rough concrete.
California still smelled like dead things left to dry in the desert sun.
Thai kickboxer. Compact form. Razored fists up, head down, elbows in tight, left leg forward as a fulcrum to block or kick.
It was an open form, blows coming in from the diagonal corners when they fought. Only crane took up a larger volume of space when fighting.
Kumiko taunted him with a smile as she fell into a looser stance: left hand up and open, right hand down and loose, left foot advanced, most of her weight back on her right. Somewhere, she had lost the pistol, but this would be solved with fists. She had known that with his man.
He growled, feinted once, struck. The man was right-handed. That fist came over the top at her, blades extended.
Master Francis had loathed Thai kickboxers. Every lesson had been about the importance of balance and flow, both when moving and striking. Proper form. Proper breathing. Harmony in motion.
And then how to kill a Thai kickboxer.
The punch was not a feint. It was an opening move to allow a kick with his left foot. Most arts would give ground slightly from the punch, evading by not being present. That would put them right into the path of the foot coming from the other side.
Master Francis growled happily in her memory.
Kumiko stepped forward with her right foot, into the man instead. Her left hand brushed the punch past her head, rotating her shoulders and hips to put enormous torque behind her right fist.
She assumed a titanium plate protecting his heart from bullets. It would work equally well against fists, or she might have been able to strike him in the sternum now, hard enough to rupture it and drive shards into his lungs and heart.
Master Francis hated Thai kickboxers.
She settled for driving the punch low, folding her legs a bit as she moved, a small Japanese woman striking a much taller man.
She went for the groin, punching him as hard as she could in the balls.
The man was smart, and a professional. He was wearing a cup of some sort, but it wasn’t titanium. Hardened plastic, perhaps. Flexible enough not to shatter under her blow, she still collapsed it enough to touch skin.
The man whooshed as his brain went white noise. He collapsed, rather than complete the kick. Kumiko honored Master Francis by kneeing the man in the side of the skull, and then kicking him once in the ribs, just because she was trapped in Garden Grove, rather than home in Kyoto, or with her love in Seattle.
She let time return to its normal flow around her, breathing heavily. Too much exertion today. Tapping that power once was acceptable. This second time would require that she eat like a horse in the next few hours to rebuild her stores.
Five men down, at least long enough. Limousine disabled.
That left the driver of the sedan, possibly shielded from all this by facing the wrong way and being close to the entrance driveway.
Kumiko tapped the power once more, and moved.
The sedan had not moved. A man was standing up outside the driver’s door. She aimed herself at the back of the sedan, where she could go up the trunk, over the roof, and kick him before he could turn to fire.
Her brain processed the size and shape the figure.
And that he was waving at her with a smile on his face.
Norville?
She slowed and ran to him instead.
“Where’s the driver?” she gasped.
“You make a lovely distraction, you know that, right?” he replied
Norville held something up. It took her a moment to recognize a hypo-spray bottle. He had used something similar early to inject her with anti-biotics.
He gestured to the front seat of the sedan, at the man currently laying on his side.
“What happened?” she asked.
“Sometimes, patients get unruly, and you have to sedate them in order to fix them,” he grinned.
“How did you sneak up on him?”
“I was in the army once. Remember?” he said. “And nobody was looking this way.”
“That was not part of the plan,” Kumiko felt cross.
“Helping pretty girls in need is kinda my kryptonite,” he replied. “Shall we go finish the level monster?”
More American idioms that she had to parse, and translate.
“Yes,” she finally said.
The limousine was blocked in by the sedan. And would need new wheels, and maybe a new axle. It had not moved, a sleeping, black dragon.
Kumiko found the shotgun she had dropped. And the man with ammunition for it.
Norville committed a form of American kinbaku with an assortment of plastic zip-ties from his medkit while she reloaded the weapon and stepped close to the vehicle.
“Abe-sama,” she said in a voice louder than speaking. “I offer you a life for a life.”
She pointed the weapon at the front tire and fired, shattering the beast’s third paw. It was lame now. She walked around to the other side and broke the last leg and then walked to the rear of the limousine.
“Do you care to deal?” she asked, aiming at the rear door. She wasn’t sure if the charge would penetrate. The glass was designed to stop bullet.
This wouldn’t be a bullet.
“Who’s life?” a voice emerged from a hidden speaker, somewhere under the car.
“Rosamond Watanabe’s, for yours,” she said. “You will withdraw the contract and never renew it, regardless of which corporation asks. In return, I will walk away now and never bother you again. If something happens to her, you will become Kira Yoshinaka in my eyes.”
There was a long pause.
Even Abe Ichiro would know of Akō jikin, the Akō vendetta, memorialized when the forty-seven ronin achieved their revenge, at the cost of their own lives. She would not need forty-six friends to kill this man.
No, forty-five. She already had one friend who would aid her. Perhaps there would be others, as well. The world was becoming a new place for Kumiko.
She felt Norville stand and step to one side. She noted that he was carrying one of the dropped submachine guns, and had the other two strapped across his back.
Yes, forty-five.
“I will agree,” Abe said. “Watanabe will face no threat from Yokohama. On my honor.”
Kumiko nodded and clicked the safety on the shotgun. She began to walk towards the hotel room to retrieve Norville’s handheld and what few things they had.
“That’s it?” Norville asked. “We’re done?”
“No, Norville,” she said. “We are only beginning. But the great challenge is over. Tomorrow, I must find a way to get to Seattle and Rosamond. I must still warn her.”
“This should help,” she heard him say.
She turned, and found him holding up a roll of bills almost as big as her fist.
“Where did you…?”
“Overpaid gangsters didn’t need them,” he grinned. “There’ll be more when we sell the guns, assuming you don’t want to keep them.”
Why would they keep illegal firearms? Because you are no longer a law-abiding citizen, she thought.
Tomorrow, she would try to her way in this world as a dancer, a Shirabyōshi. If that failed, she could always become Ronin.
“You are sure?” she asked, as they emerged.
Abe and his driver had not moved, so she and Norville walked towards the front of the hotel to depart. This much gunfire would eventually draw in police, but not immediately. Especially with all of Abe’s men still tied up in the parking lot.
“I got nothing better to do, Kumiko,” Norville replied in an earnest voice. “But help pretty ladies make the world a better place.”
Yes, she thought. Forty-five.
Summer Witch
She had learned to trust glass when making a kill, rather than relying on fancy, electronic optics. Especially after that time in Monterrey, when that one bastard had triggered an electro-magnetic pulse, the monster EMP, at ground level and fried her scope, her radio, and nearly killed her when the detonators went off on the outside of her armored vest.
Thank God she hadn’t pulled the plastique out of her backpack, yet.
Rebecca watched the back of the house through a simple tube with two pieces of ground glass, something Galileo might have made, if he could have gotten the heat and chemistry that perfect.
It was a lovely place. Hacienda might have been a more accurate description, considering it had seventeen bedrooms, twenty bathrooms, and two complete kitchens inside those white-washed adobe walls, itself contained within a five acre fenced compound.
She could only imagine how pleasant the building must be inside, where air conditioning would win a war against the dry, desert heat that wanted to bake her like a cookie. Or perhaps that magnificent pool on the vast patio, all marble and gold just out of reach, with a fountain on her left and a cabana on her right as she watched.
She would have liked to have been out in that sun, lounging by the pool in nothing, or next to nothing. Show off those rich curves, maybe with a white, string bikini that glowed against her caramel-bronze skin. Distract all the pretty Mexican boys guarding the place.
Rebecca stayed perfectly still under her tarp. It had been a long day yesterday, watching. It would be the same today. And hopefully tomorrow as well.
It was early yet. The kitchen staff beyond the big windows were only just finishing the salad prep as the sun approached zenith in a sky so clear she swore she could see Los Angeles in the distance.
She watched now as the prep cooks worked industriously, back and forth inside. Over to the big, industrial refrigerator. Back to the grill. Into the pantry. More.
Miguel would have the Shrimp Louie with a white wine. Adriana would have a chicken breast, skin removed, fried in olive oil, with a small green salad on the side, oil and vinegar in separate bottles. She would go either for the white wine, or lemonade, depending on her mood.
And who the hell built their mansion in Barstow, anyway? Technically, she was in territory that the French Foreign Legion was contracted to protect, but Miguel paid enough of a bribe monthly that the Frogs generally looked the other way.
That might change shortly, but it would be worth it.
Rebecca snarled to herself as she contemplated Bogota. Miguel had thought he had killed her there, two years ago. Not her, personally, but the person who had killed his nephew. Which had turned out to be her.
It had taken her eighteen months to find Miguel through all the double-crosses involved. Five months to find his mansion in the desert on the way to what used to be Las Vegas, two hundred years ago when the United States of America was a thing, and not a forgotten punchline. A month to scout the terrain. And then plan the stalk around her period, because five days of sneaking in wasn’t going to work with cramps.
Somewhere along the way, Miguel had gotten a message that vengeance was coming for him. It even had a name. Again, not one he would know, but a reputation.
A sniper.
The sniper.
The Winter Witch, as she had been known then, coming for him.
Rebecca grinned as she contemplated Miguel’s gunmen patroling the distant slopes and hilltops behind her. He had his pick of veterans from any of the available armies: Cali Guard, Frenchies, Tejanos. even former Mexican Federales.
And a winter witch coming for his soul.
The gunmen were a kilometer away, or three, depending on the cover. After all, was not the Winter Witch known for making kill-shots at such dazzling distances? Did she not use the most sophisticated weapons and electronics available to calculate the distance, temperature, humidity, and breeze, before lofting a bullet into the air to land as much as two seconds later?
Was she not still the greatest assassin alive?
Boy, ain’t y’all in for a surprise.
Rebecca really wanted to scratch an itch on her neck. A sand flea or something had gotten in under her collar and bitten her. But to move at this moment would probably be her death. Even Miguel might see her now if she did, stretched out in his weird rock garden, there in his very back yard, not forty yards from the table where he would lunch in a few minutes.
So she laid perfectly still, covered over with a lumpy crimson tarp that had the exact texture and appearance of the larger stone she had curled up halfway under and against, after slipping in here under dead of night. It had been expensive, but worth every Euro she paid. And the dirty white gravel underneath her would shift noisily if she did scratch, and maybe puff with dust.
But she would not appear as a human on a thermal scan, so they would not see her.
Rebecca had buried her radio under a foot of sand, ten kilometers away, with the battery in a separate bag. Miguel’s men carried special sensors that could pick up a radio, even on standby. Or the electronics of a modern, range-finding, scanner-scope such as the best snipers used to make those impossible shots.
The Winter Witch would not appear on their device’s screens, so she must not be striking today. Their patrol rounds would be perfunctory, but still professional. Drones would fly overhead, scanning the sky and the ground for any shape that was larger than a rabbit. Men would walk in foursomes, weapons in hand, radios constantly transmitting, so she could not manage to kill a whole team without one of the others noticing.
There was no place within four kilometers of the hacienda where she could hide, so Miguel was safe.
Rebecca let the scowl own her face now. The simple telescope she used to watch was so starkly primitive, that they could not envision a defense against it, let alone embody one. Miguel and Adriana would take their lunch on the porch in the sun that had not yet grown stifling, if you were not under a blanket to hide your heat.
The weapon in her hand was also primitive by comparison to the rest of her arsenal of choices. A good craftswoman has more tools in her box than just a hammer, but Miguel had only ever considered nails.
She reached out with her lips for another sip of tepid water from the camelback device by her side. Canvas, lined with wax, with a simple plastic tube that attached to her collar, just out of the way when she didn’t need it.
Rebecca had been careful for three days with her water intake, balancing the rule of threes against the need to pee at an inopportune moment.
Threes. That had been pounded into her very soul in basic training. Had it really been fifteen years already? Damn, she was getting old. That drill sergeant was probably in her sixties, if the crazy, old bitch was even still alive.
You can survive, as long as you consume the necessary resources in threes.
You will die without air in three minutes. Without heat in three hours. Without water in three days. Without food in three weeks. Rebecca could push the envelope on any of those, but she had been through enough survival training in her years in the Texas Militia to know there were hard limits, even for her.
Husband the water, carefully. Let breath and sweat dry you off. Your bladder can hold the tiny amount of excess for another day.
Miguel never let his guard dogs inside the brick and wrought iron fence that separated the hacienda grounds from the rest of the thing he called his ranch. Not after one of them had apparently shit on this very gravel and stone art installation thing the man had inherited from whatever fool had paid good money to install previously.
