Fan Fiction ❯ TAU Elite Squad ❯ TAU 01 ( Chapter 1 )
[ P - Pre-Teen ]
By: CRose 
The introduction of Akiko the first hint of the world around her.
Anime/Manga: Fan Fiction | Genre(s): Comedy / Adventure / Action | Type: Other | Uploaded On: 02.28.2004 | Pages: 6 | Words: 8.9K | Visits: 868 | Status: Completed
The introduction of Akiko the first hint of the world around her.
Anime/Manga: Fan Fiction | Genre(s): Comedy / Adventure / Action | Type: Other | Uploaded On: 02.28.2004 | Pages: 6 | Words: 8.9K | Visits: 868 | Status: Completed
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TAU ELITE
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Just An Average Day
Chapter 01
Cory D. Rose
ertle2@msn.com
(c) 2004
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The lighting was perfect as she walked down the street wearing her brand new white dress. The light streamed through the multi colored clouds behind her, giving her an almost ethereal look. The rain had stopped and now there was a small river of water flowing down the edges of the road. Here and there a small puddle had formed and if you looked at it just right it would show a reflection of her legs as she stepped over them.
Akiko smiled as she walked over to a fence and looked out over Prime Light City. In the distance, hanging over the city, three different moons dominated the sky in all their splendor. The moon’s effect on the locals was always quite a site to see when all of them were full. Luckily it only happened once every few years.
The breeze made her long blonde hair trail behind her as she watched the clouds float over the city, occasionally obscuring one of the moons. She loved to watch the sun set at times like this. It brought a sense of peace to her that she rarely had a chance to experience these days.
As the sky slowly changed colors with the setting sun, she always managed to relax and feel better about herself, and the choices life had forced upon her. The last few years had been kind of hard on her so she always managed to appreciate times like this. She lifted the hem of her dress to reveal a multi colored tennis shoe and climbed up the chain link fence and straddled the top so that she could get a better look at the city as the sun set.
As she sat down the dress pulled up a little and revealed her thigh high white lace stockings. The breeze pulled at the dress a bit, but she ignored it even when it tried to yank her off the fence after a few minutes. She had done this dozens of times and learned to ignore the wind as she sat there. It wasn’t as if it could blow her off anyway.
In the distance, hanging over a canal, she could see a billboard sign advertising a full body fur cleanser that reduced shedding. It had a cat girl with shiny fur holding a little blue bottle. She was smiling out at the world with sharp pointed perfect teeth.
A few minutes later she heard something in the distance and realized that a motorcycle was heading her way. She grinned as she watched the bend in the road about half a block away and a black ninja motorcycle sped around the curve, leaning low. The rider dodged around the small flood of water flowing down the side of the street and pulled up a few feet away from her.
Akiko jumped off the top of the fence and landed on the side walk as the rider took off his helmet and waved at her. He had short spiky black hair and was wearing a pair of jeans, a black t-shirt, and a leather jacket. “Akiko!”
“Deric!”
“What are you doing in this mess?” He asked as he grinned at her.
“Just watching the sun set. I don’t get a chance to do it all that often.”
“You always like that kind of stuff.” Deric teased her.
“Hmph!” Akiko muttered.
“Where’s your ride girl?”
“At home, I’m on foot today.”
“You left Dragon at home!”
“I can’t ride her everywhere I go.” Akiko said and snorted. She brushed the hair out of her face, reached into the pocket of her dress to pull out a small band and quickly tied it up into a ponytail, even though it still hung clear down her back. She allowed it to blow in the wind as Deric handed her his helmet.
“Then get on, I’ll take you home or wherever you want to go.” He said.
“Great!” Akiko said as she pulled the helmet on and climbed on behind him. Then made sure her dress wouldn’t get caught in the wheels. “What do you want to do first?”
Deric just grinned as she wrapped her arms around him and he started the motorcycle. He revved the engine a couple of times before he kicked it into high gear and pealed out. This left a cloud of smoke floating above the road behind him as he continued to speed up and raced around the corner.
They had done this hundreds of times over the last year, even when they had actually been dating. That had been a long time ago, but they were still friends even after they found out they couldn’t stand being around each other day in and day out. Akiko screamed as they flew onto the freeway a few minutes later and picked up speed. They raced through traffic, dodging around cars, and passed between a pair of trucks rumbling down the road.
**********
The motorcycle skidded to a stop in front of a high rise apartment complex with fifteen floors, Akiko hopped off the bike, and handed the helmet back to Deric. “Thanks for ride.”
“No problem.”
“Want to come up?”
“I have to head home and get ready for work otherwise I’d have loved to come up.” He said and smiled at her.
Akiko pouted and looked a bit flustered as she stood there. “Well maybe you can come up next time.”
“Absolutely!” Deric said and put his helmet on and rode off.
She watched him ride off and stomped her foot. “He’s cute as hell and has the brains of a turnip.” She muttered.
“They’re all like that dear.”
Turning around Akiko came face to face with one of the female Tellraine. Several decades before the alien race made contact with Earth to trade for some animals and plant life that they needed on their own planet. At first things had been tense between the two races, but it was their similarities that helped them in the end.
Humans tended to be very untrustworthy and liked to destroy anything that could threaten them in anyway, but over time, the two races learned to live together in peace. The Tellraine race was basically humanoid except they tended to have features that were a different color or size than a human would have, like fur, claws, or animal like ears. They were just a number of little things, but enough to make them different.
Their fur for example was the most notable feature on any Tellraine. Tiger striped Tellraine were very popular among the teenagers these days. Then some others that looked human, except for their cat ears, tail, and a tendency to act kind of like a cat. Sometimes it was just the eyes, or they had claws for fingernails.
Or it went the other way and they were more animal than humanoid, running around on all fours, covered in fur, and more wild than civilized. Akiko could remember growing up around them all her life. The types and styles were almost impossible to list in one setting. In exchange for the animals and plants the Tellraine’s had given humanity a technological shot in the arm that seriously increased Earth’s technical level.
This allowed them to spread out across the solar system in a very short amount of time. From there they set up colonies on all the planets that could support them, even moons, and allowed humans to spread across space in a short matter of time. Over time the two races had kind of merged and learned to live together in peace.
There were still people that didn’t like the Tellraine, but they were a dying breed and rarely ever did anything these days. The old Tellraine in front of Akiko was of the cat girl type with light grey fur and blonde hair that was streaked with grey hair tied up in a bun that all old women seemed to acquire over time. She was wearing a simple grey and blue kimono and holding a bag of groceries.
“Hello Mrs. Tacicl.”
“Are you still chasing after that boy? He’s never going to settle down if you keep dragging your feet.” She said with a hint of amusement in her voice.
“Oh he’s not that bad and he does have a job. Which I figure has to be better than the last few boys I went out with.” Akiko said.
“Well I think you will get him one of these days if you keep trying.”
“I certainly hope so.” Akiko lied through her teeth. She’d already caught him and tossed him back, but Mrs. Tacicl didn’t need to know that. The old Tellraine laughs and walks off using her tail to wave goodbye.
Akiko could remember always liked the Tellraine race, even when she was a little girl growing up near the Zone. They didn’t seem to have most of the hang ups about relations that she noticed in humans. If they wanted someone, they went after them with everything they had until they either got them or failed completely.
Movies had been made about determined Tellraine who would do anything to get the one they wanted were being filmed all the time. Every now and then the news would play a sound bite of a Tellraine crawling up the side of a building trying to get to some guy’s apartment. Or a male Tellraine looking picking his mate and chasing her across the world just to talk to her.
She shrugged as she turned around and headed up to her apartment. As she exited the elevator on the fourth floor Akiko reached into her pocket and pulled out her keys. She hated purses and never carried the things with her if she could avoid it, they always got in her way when she was on the job. She walked down the small hallway and stopped in front of a door with 424 on it. It opened without a sound as she approached and stepped inside.
“Good evening Mistress.” The apartment’s computer said as she shut the door.
“Hello Jina.”
“Would you like me get supper ready for you?” The computer asked.
“Yes, just a small meal though, I’m not all that hungry tonight.”
“Dinner will be ready in twenty six minutes.”
Akiko nodded and headed for her room. The apartment was as empty as it usually was, even this late at night. She lived alone, so she didn’t bother to be quiet as she entered her room and grabbed a pair of blue jean shorts and a black t-shirt from her dresser. After quickly changing her clothes, she slipped her shoes back on, and walked back out into the front room.
She grabbed the remote and turned on the TV, and old classic version that took up the back corner of her loving room. Even with all the advances in technology over the years there were still quite a calling for the old technologies. Though AI developments had grown by leaps and bounds over the years.
“Jina? Were there any messages while I was gone?”
“There were seven messages.”
“How many are not useless?”
“Two, the other four are telemarketer calls trying to sell fur shampoo, a claw sharpening kit, home delivered doggie treats that come in several flavors, and an add for the local Chinese delivery Pang Wok Chong.”
“Play the other two please.”
She heard the computer pause for a second before the answering machine turned on. “Playing first message.”
‘…Akiko, this is Ciko, I was just trying to get a hold of you to tell you that Taka would like you to call him as soon as possible. He mentioned that he might have a job for you.’
‘…Akiko, call me if you get this before midnight, I have something I need you to take care of tonight. I’ll page you later if I don’t hear from you.’ Captain Taka’s voice said in his clipped tones.
She glared down at the answering machine as he stopped talking and wondered what he wanted now. It was her day off from work. If she wasn’t under the man’s command she would’ve thought he was going to fire her for something. He had that kind of personality, so even at the best of times he was a little hard to understand. She sighed and knew her day off was going to more than a long bath and a good movie.
“Thank you Jina.”
“Dinner should be finished in five minutes.”
“All right, I’m going to go and make that call. They wouldn’t have called on my day off unless it was important.” Akiko said as she picked up the phone and tapped a button to dial the preprogrammed number. She checked the clock, saw that it was around seven at night, and hoped the ‘little favor’ wouldn’t take her all night. It wasn’t as if she could actually refuse to do it after all, that would cause too many problems.
“Hello?”
“Captain Taka, its Akiko.”
“Ah, Akiko, I need you to head over to the house of that ‘friend’ of yours. She might be involved in a case we’ve been working on.”
“I can head over there tomorrow, no problem.” She said, wondering what Megan had done this time.
“I need you to go over there tonight and just talk to her. The girl’s name keeps popping up when we do our interviews in this one case. I want you to ask her some questions and you know how much she dislikes us.”
The blonde sighed. “What exactly does this deal with?”
“A murder, Group Two has been looking to it for several days now.”
“Alright, I’ll head over there and see what she’s doing.”
“Be careful, you know how dangerous she can be.” Taka warned her.
“She’s irritated because people keep accusing her of things she doesn’t do.” Akiko said. It wasn’t as if it was an uncommon occurrence for it to happen to people like them, but it was still annoying.
“I still don’t trust her.” Taka said.
“I’m a TAU just like she is.” She reminded her boss.
“Yes, but I know I can trust you. She is constantly doing things that make her appear suspicious.” He snapped. "I expect to hear from you when you get done. Swing by the station and fill out a report." Then he hung up on her before she could even answer.
Akiko rolled her eyes and sighed, it was already looking like her night off wasn’t going to go like she thought it would. The TAU had been around for some time now, even before the Tellraine came along decades before. Even after all this time passed, they still had a hard time gaining acceptance from certain portions of humanity. It was nothing compared to what a TAU went through as they grew up.
A few years back, she had almost been expelled from college because of her powers, even though the collages were designed to teach student like her and Megan to use them properly. This was why she was in her current job to begin with. Very few places would take TAU on the payroll without a lot of riders and provisions; it made life very hard for some of them.
“Why the hell do people have to deal with such idiots? I get so tired of it at times, day in and day out without ever taking a break.”
“I am unable to answer that question.” Jina said.
Akiko sighed. “Well I’m not in any hurry to go and deal with Megan right now, so I’ll eat dinner before I head out.”
“Then dinner is served.”
She walked over to the table as a small robot came out of the kitchen and quickly set the table. It vaguely resembled an old style trashcan on wheels. Then another one came out and set a bowl of soup down for her to eat. Akiko sat down and noticed that it was tomato soup and a grill cheese sandwich. “You usually make something more complicated Jina.”
“The odds suggested that you wouldn’t have time for a large meal tonight, so I substituted this instead of the other meal I was planning. You also mentioned that you wanted a light meal.”
“Thank you, this’ll work just fine.”
It only took her a few minutes to finish off dinner and even that was a bit much. “I need to change my clothes, again, before I go out. I’ll most likely be back somewhat late tonight, well after midnight I think.”
“I’ll implement the usual security measures, Mistress.”
“Thank you.” Akiko said as she walked down the hall and entered her room again. She moved over to her closet, pulled out a black bag, and sat it on the bed. Then she reached into the closet and grabbed a uniform inside a dry cleaning protective bag.
She ripped the bag and pulled out her uniform for the police department’s TAU unit. It only took her a few minutes to pull on the blue pants and boots. After that, she put on the black t-shirt, tucked it in, and put on the blue outer shirt and buttoned it up. Then she grabbed her jacket and made sure her badge was in place.
There was no way she could go to work without the badge in place, there were much easier way to get suspended. It was a special design that the state had come up with to identify her special unit within the force. Right in the middle of the badge was T.A.U. and below that was Elite Squad. She had seen the thing so many times that she didn’t really look at it anymore, it was just a reminder that she was different from other people.
There was a utility belt within the bag that held all the equipment that she was allowed to take home at the end of the day. She pulled it out and put it on. Making sure it was snug and comfortable on her hips before she walked over the dresser and picked up a helmet.
As a TAU she was legally bound to follow certain rules by the government. It was a pain at times, but one of the biggest ones was the Mark. It had to be on all of her clothing, visible for all to see, and tattooed on her body. It could go anywhere on the body, as long as it was obvious.
Her uniform had them placed on her color, a couple of small pins with the letter’s T.A.U. inside a small white circle. There were people that, when they saw the symbol, would start screaming at the top of their lungs until they had to be restrained. She was in the one job that TAU’s had been able to exceed at, a special branch of the Police that was used along side the regular police to help take care of TAU criminals.
Once she was fully dressed, she walked out of the room and made sure her jacket looked good on her and headed for the door. “I’m leaving Jina.”
“The security measures will go into effect in two minutes.”
Akiko stepped out into the hall and shut the door. She heard the automatic locks take hold a few seconds later and then headed for the elevator just down the hall. More than one person had broken into her apartment while she was gone and it had cost her a small fortune to get the AI into the apartment, forcing her to actually buy it and the apartments around it just to have a bit of privacy and safety.
Surprisingly it had been cheaper to do that than to buy a house. A TAU wasn’t allowed to live in like that, it frightened the normal people. This kind of confused her at times, because she was a police woman after all and oath bound to protect the peace. It was kind of depressing really, but there wasn’t anything she could do about it so she worked this way. It was a good thing she earned quite a bit of money for her job.
She grinned, her friend Deric didn’t even mind that she was a TAU and had even said he liked the dangerous element involved when he was dating her. A few minutes later she stepped out of the elevator and entered the below ground parking garage attached to the building. She made her way to the far side of the garage where a number of motorcycles were parked.
Hers was at the far end, gleaming like the dangerous machine it appeared to be. It was a chopper in every since of the word with chrome gleaming from the top of the front wheel to the bottom of the over sized back wheel. The bike was a gift she had gotten a few years back from a friend for saving his life in the middle of a mission. It had an air ride suspension system and been built around the TAU theme.
The gas tank was covered in what looked like a lightning storm to represent those TAU’s that could use the element. Akiko couldn’t even generate a spark or two, but her abilities were a bit different from the norm in other ways. Her helmet was pure black with realistic looking flames painted around the edges to represent those TAU that could use fire.
Her friend had also designed the bike to be fast and maneuverable no matter what she was doing with it. It could handle the cars or idle along at two miles per hour with no problems, even dirt roads and mountain trails. She called it Dragon, because she had added some special touches to it that gave it a dangerous appeal.
The fenders were looked as if they were formed out of reptile skin and several of the chrome pieces were shaped like the emblems that various ‘Heroes’ wore on their costumes. There were several well known heroes that could be found around the world. They liked to keep a low profile and only showed up in times of trouble, or when fighting crime.
What really made the bike live up to its name though was it’s exhaust pipes. They tripled the amount of noise it made as she roared down the road and through traffic. After making sure it was in perfect working order she climbed on and started it up. There was one piece about it that stood out from regular bikes, and that was that it used digital read outs instead of the normal ones.
She tapped a button, turned on the computer, and let it cycle as the chopper warmed up with a gentle roar that filled the garage. The computer had been a compromise for work, along with some police lights mounted just under the handle bars.
They needed to keep track of her and they normally did this by placing a tracker in their employee’s car computers. Her bike hadn’t had one of those and they had told her to get a car. She refused to give up Dragon so she installed this instead. It had worked out in her favor for various reasons.
‘Hello Akiko.’ Jina printed across the computer screen.
“Hi Jina, this is a test the microphone in the helmet.’ Akiko said.
‘Loud and clear.” Jina wrote.
“Good, please run a diagnostic on Dragon.”
‘Hold on, running Dragon Diagnostic 4.6’
She watched the screen as it showed a basic outline of her bike. Every few seconds an area would light up to indicate that the computer was scanning it. Almost instantly, she noticed that a red dot had appeared just below the seat and she knelt down to check out the area.
There was a small thumbnail sized box on the under side of the seat and carefully pulled it off with her fingernail. The magnetized chip took a bit more effort to free than she expected. She held a little closer to her eye and tried to figure out what it was. There was a very tiny little red light in the center of the thing.
Standing up she glanced at the screen and noticed that it had found six others during the scan and she spent the next couple of minutes pulling them off. She had never seen anything like them before. As far as she knew a tracking device couldn’t be this small, so she had no clue what it was. “Jina, do you know what these things are?”
‘No, they seem to be tiny little circuits, but I can’t get a proper reading on them from Dragon.’
“Well I might have to head by the station and drop these off. It’s been a while since I’ve had anyone try anything against me.”
‘Four months.’
“I haven’t even been on duty for an hour and already things are getting interesting.” Akiko said as she straddled Dragon and revved the engine. “Please inform the station that I should be there in ten minutes.”
‘Sending information.’ Jina typed on the screen.
Akiko tapped the button again and the screen changed back to the digital readings for the motorcycle. She leaned the bike up and locked the kick stand in place as she slowly pulled the bike out of the space and headed for the exit. The Dragon’s roar continued to fill the garage as she idled out the main exit and out onto the street. The sound echoed off buildings as she entered traffic and headed down town.
It was quite a show and several people took notice when she left, which was another reason why she liked Dragon. It made people take notice of her when it was needed. Across the street, standing beside a tree, a man watched as she rode off and took some notes in a small pad.
**********
Her name was Sara Tetshiko and she had just celebrated her fourteenth birthday the day before, but things hadn’t gone quite the way she had expected them to. She had black hair just as everyone in her family did, except Uncle Ichiru, but he wasn’t around all that often anyway, so it didn’t matter. Her birthday had been a complete disaster.
It had only taken her, Riyka and Seki, a few minutes to put the fire out, and to toss her little sister Nyoko out of the room. The little pest just reached out, grabbed a candle off the cake, and used it to set the tablecloth on fire.
As if she had done the exact same thing a thousand times before and never had a thing happen. The day before Sara’s hair had been down to her knees and was the envy of every girl in school. She spent hours and hours making sure she looked as good as possible.
Now, because of the fire, she had lost ten years worth of growth and been forced to cut her hair into short mockery of what it had been. She could feel the wind caressing the back of her neck and it made her shiver in dread. What made the whole situation even worse was that her parents were blaming the whole thing on her. Because she was the older daughter and she was supposed to control her younger sister from doing things like that.
They had lost the tablecloth, her birthday presents, the cake, and the table itself before they managed to put the fire out, and her parents were making her suffer because of it. Her little sister hadn’t even stuck around to witness the punishment. Instead she ran out of the house and vanished to a friend’s house while Sara was being punished.
Riyka and Seki had been tossed out of the house when the fire was put out and told, point blank, that they were not allowed to come back, ever. Sara tried to tell her mother that Nyoko had been the one to set the fire, but they would just not listen to her. The more she thought about the unfairness of the situation the angrier she became.
As far as she could tell, she lost just about everything because of the fire and her sister. Her parents had even grounded her because of it. Then they exiled her to her room and been told to finish her homework as her parents removed her TV, games, and even the phone. The only electrical things left in the room had been her alarm clock and a desk lamp by the time she went to bed a few hours later.
She took a few minutes to throw a few things at her door just to blow off some steam. Things her mother had bought her over the years like dolls, some china, even books and pictures. It made a horrible mess, but she didn’t stop for close to an hour when she ran out of steam. Then what had her mother said to her?
“If you ever cuss like that again I’ll tan your ass red and really make you suffer.” And slammed the door in her face and locked her in.
Sara was not a happy camper.
**********
Dragon roared as Akiko sped around the corner, her knee nearly touching the pavement as she accelerated out of the narrow curve and headed up the street. She weaved through several lanes of traffic and dodged a couple of jaywalkers that got in her way. Her long blonde hair streamed out behind her as she sped down the road.
She glanced down at the computer and saw that Dragon was running perfectly. A few minutes later, she came to a stop at the top of a hill and looked around at the sea side area of Prim Light City below her. Megan’s house, situated on top of a cliff at the edge of town, over looked the beach below. The girl had managed to make quite a stir in the community a few years before when she bought the old lighthouse at the top of the cliff and build her house around it.
The fact that Megan was a TAU was only been part of the problem though. She was one of the few that had managed to make a name for themselves over the years. Megan was a retired actress/model that liked to dabble in various projects. Akiko even had to admit that she wasn’t aware of everything the girl did at times. Megan was a bit of an eccentric even at the best of times.
It was also what made Taka mention her name every time they had a case that happened anywhere near her place. If there was a break in Taka would blame it on Megan, if someone jay walked, Taka would blame it on the girl. Akiko couldn’t prove it, but it was pretty obvious that Megan had done something to Taka at some point. As a PL City TAU officer she didn’t have the position or contacts needed to look into it further.
Even though they were friends, Akiko only came up to her place a couple times a month. It was usually for dinner, to watch a movie, or just to talk about something besides the crap they put up with in their daily lives. Lately though, it seemed as if she was swinging by her place about once ever three or four days to look in on something. She would really have to find out what was making the police take such an interest in her friend.
She revved Dragon a couple of times and inched the motorcycle forward and let it coast down the hill. Getting to Megan’s place could be tricky if you didn’t know where the entrance to her private driveway was located. The road was hidden between some trees at the bottom of the hill and if you didn’t have an idea what you were looking for it was unlikely you wouldn’t see it.
It was a sharp turn, but she made it with ease and entered the drive that made a sharp curve up the side of the edge of the cliff and right to Megan’s house. She wasn’t all that surprised to see a police car sitting off to the side of the road as she passed the trees on either side of the road.
Dragon slowed to a stop beside the car and she looked over to see one of the regular patrol officers. In the seat beside him was a harsh looking man glaring at her over the edge of a pair of sunglasses. A rather ugly hat covered his ratty looking hair too, giving him an unpleasant looking appearance.
Taking off her helmet and hanging it off the handle on Dragon, she reached inside her jacket to pull out her wallet and showed them her ID card and the badge. “Morning guys, anything new to report today?”
“Hello Mrs. Shoo, I see Taka managed to get a hold of you.” The driver said as he checked her ID card.
“On my day off too.” Akiko muttered.
“Your friend has been quiet lately. She hasn’t been out of her house in several days at least, as far as we can tell anyway.”
Akiko took her ID back and quickly put it away. She had to go through something like this every time she came here. “I’ll go and talk to her.”
“She’s a suspect in a murder that happened about two blocks from here. You’re the only person she will talk to about things like this.” Officer Levin said.
“What makes her a suspect?”
“She was nearby.”
She glanced at the guy in the passenger seat and noticed for the first time that he wasn’t in uniform under his trenchcoat. “Since when do civilians hang out on stakeout duty?”
“Don’t mind Carl, he’s been assigned to this case from his own department.”
“Which one would that be?” Akiko asked.
The man glared back at her. “That is none of your concern, now leave, before I have you arrested for obstructing justice.”
“I out rank you Carl, so you had better keep your mouth in line or I’ll have YOU arrested.” Akiko snapped.
“Listen here you freak of nature…” Carl started to yell at her from across the car.
“Oh &%$#.” The officer muttered as he ducked down as he saw the friendly look in her eyes turn flat, and then flare up into unreasoning anger. He made a hasty check of his seat belt, recalling the last time someone had called Akiko names like that. “Mommy.”
Scowling, Akiko reached down, grabbed the bottom of the car, right below the driver’s side door, and lifted. The side of the car lifted up off the ground as Akiko made sure Carl knew he was going to pay for insulting her like that. Then without breaking eye contact with him, she gave a little heave and tossed the car over on its top. She grinned as she listened to Carl cussing his head off inside the car.
“Hey, Carl, have you ever played spin the bottle?” She asked as she grabbed the back bumper of the over turned car, it just happened to be within reach, and with the flick of her wrist sent it spinning around about a dozen times or so.
By the time it stopped Akiko decided that the jerk had been punished enough. Carl was leaning out the one window and looking a little green. She glanced at the officer were he was sitting there with his eyes closed, holding onto his seat belt, before she dismissed them and put her helmet back on. She revved Dragon and peeled out as she raced up the side of the cliff.
Once they were out of the car, officer Levin staggered over to Carl and clocked him one before the man could say anything, finally knocking him out for a while. Then he turned to look at his over turned car and sighed as he assessed the damage. Akiko was normally a very nice person and did a good job.
There were times when someone would push her too far and things would get out of hand. He crawled back into the car and got on the radio to inform dispatch that Akiko had arrived and taken a dislike to the observer. They had been told to ferry him and several others around all week. He had no idea what he was going to do about the car, normally it was Akiko they asked to come out and fix things like this, he wasn’t what he was supposed to do when she was the one that flipped the car over.
Akiko accelerated around the last of the curve at the top of the cliff and started to slow down as she passed the old lighthouse. The city had asked that it stay open to alert ships in the area, so the large lamp at the top was throwing a beam of light out over the water below that could be seen for miles. There was a computer that ran the while thing.
The road straightened out a little ways after that and she came to a stop in front of a large gate swing gate. She was right next to the gate control so she tapped in the code that Megan had given her. The gate swung in and she headed up the driveway for the last leg of the journey.
Megan had taken the time to personally plant about a thousand trees and plants in the front yard of her home. So, this made getting up to the house a bit tricky at the best of times since she rarely took the time to keep everything trimmed and neat. Akiko did what she could to make her way through the over grown driveway and eventually would up at the house. This lead to the garage and she tapped a button on the computer and let it open the door for her.
She rode inside and came to a stop next to a large black Hummer that Megan used to get through her over grown yard. There were four other vehicles in the garage other than the Hummer, though they hadn’t been used in a while. A bright blue Porsche, a large motor home that Megan used to drive from movie set to movie set, and Megan’s own Harley motorcycle.
Akiko figured it would take about a thousand years, but by then she hoped she would be able to understand her friend’s oddness. She parked Dragon beside the Harley and placed him on standby mode, letting the computer keep the motorcycle ready to go at a moments notice.
‘Security activated.’ Jina printed across the screen.
She nodded and reached into her pocket as she got off the bike and glanced at the little chips she had found earlier. Once she got back to the office she would have to have someone look at them just to see what they were. She was pretty sure they were some kind of tracking device, but she wasn’t sure how they worked.
It also meant that she would have to program Jina to scan for things placed on the bike from now on. The computer was designed to make sure no one could steal or vandalize her motorcycle, not to stop people from touching it when she wasn’t around. Then she wondered if there was some connection between the chips and her trip to see Megan.
Shrugging, she stepped inside the door that led into the house that went directly into the kitchen. She nodded to the robot maid that was standing by in the corner. Then made quick turn into the over sized living room beyond that. Where she stopped and looked down at a rather large robotic collie with angry red eyes as it moved from behind the couch and growled at her.
She knelt down and held her hand out so it could smell her and let it scan her fingerprints with its computer, and take a couple of other random readings. “Hello Barney.”
It nodded at her and wagged its tail as it recognized her. Then it started to hop around and barked a few times.
“You wouldn’t happen to know where Megan is, do you”
It nodded again and headed deeper into the house, looking over its shoulder every now and then to make sure she was following it. They headed down a set of stairs, to the bottom portion of the house, and into Megan’s private studio. The doors opened automatically as they approached, designed to allow the robotic dog access to every portion of the house.
Megan’s room and several others were actually below ground, build right into the rock below the house. Being rich, from over a decade of being in several very popular movies and a modeling carrier, Megan tended to lead a rather odd life style. Her studio was actually a large room where she was always messing around with something.
She patted Barney on the head as it sat down and used its head gestured towards the far side of the room where her friend was doing something to the wall. “Thanks Barney. I figured she would be here.” Akiko said and yelled at her friend. “Megan?!”
“Akiko! Come on over!” Megan called as she turned around and saw her friend standing next to her security dog.
Megan had a nasty habit of starting a new hobby every other week and the room had been converted several times so it could be used for whatever hobby she was doing at the time. Here and there were hints of a hobby she had abandoned or hadn’t finished. Akiko always glanced around the room whenever she stopped by if she had the chance. It was never the same.
Half finished paintings covered the walls and were even piled up in the far corner, sculptures were piled on top of those, and even model cars and planes were tossed here and there. All of them were quite good, but Akiko thought that Megan got bored way to easily at times. She was almost afraid to see what she was working on now.
The floor of the large room was covered in drop cloths covered in paint and other things that Akiko didn’t want to know about. At that moment Megan appeared to be to be painting one wall with orangish colored paint. Bright orange paint with what looked like glitter mixed in to add to the effect.
Akiko had to blink her eyes a few times as she looked around the room and the changes it had gone through since she came by a week earlier. It looked like Megan had just started repainting the room and she noticed that there was a large object in the corner of the room covered in drop cloths.
She walked over and lifted up a corner to see what was underneath it. At first she wasn’t sure what it was and looked over at Megan. The girl was dressed in overalls and had a red t-shirt on underneath it. Her shoulder length brown hair was hidden under a hat with several paint splotches on it. “What the heck is this thing?”
“A loom.” Megan said.
“A what?” Akiko asked and gave her friend a weird look.
“A loom, you know, for making cloth for clothes and carpets.”
“You have got to be kidding.” Amy sated.
“Nope.” Grinning, Megan whipped a bit of sweat off her forehead and put some more paint on her brush. “Want to help me paint this wall?”
She shook her head. “Not while I’m in uniform.”
“I have some overalls I can let you borrow.” Megan told her and smirked impishly.
“No thanks, but I might be able to help out later.” Akiko said as she turned away from the loom and dropped the cloth back in place.
Megan nodded and went back to painting the wall and humming quietly. “So why did you stop by?”
“You seem to have become a suspect in a case again.”
“Oh? I thought they had dropped that silly thing. It’s not like I leave this place very much these days. You know what happens to people like me in town without a good reason.”
“I know.” Akiko muttered.
“So what is it this time? Did I supposedly kidnap a cat for lunch or something? I have BBQ sauce in my fridge, maybe I’m going to use it for flavoring.” Megan muttered sarcastically.
“Murder actually.”
Megan sighed. “I haven’t left the house in three weeks.”
“You haven’t been working?”
“Nope, my manager hasn’t been getting offers lately. So I’m stuck here bored out of my mind. At least a murder investigation will be interesting.”
“You aren’t going to take this seriously?”
“Why? They’ll just force my actions to match whatever evidence they have. You know how this works.”
Akiko sighed and nodded. “I know, but you need to fight back a little.”
“That just makes things worse.”
“Yes it does, but hiding from it isn’t going to help things either.”
Megan shrugged. “I’ve had cops sitting at the base of the cliff for the last several months tracking my movements. They are looking for something to arrest me on. You told me that yourself, so I figure so long as I don’t tempt them they can continue to waste their time.”
“Alright, but I think they are going to have me looking at this case.”
“They tend to be kind of selective at times, it’s the reason I never took the job you do. It has limited my options somewhat, but it’s better than being forced to do things like hunt down criminals and kill people.”
“The job isn’t that bad and I’ve never had to kill anyone in my life.” Akiko told her.
“Akiko, I’ve met TAU like you who have done this job for years and all of them are old and bitter. I’ve never met one that was happy with his job. We’ve talked about this before, so you know my feelings.”
“Sorry, no need to argue then.” Akiko told her.
“Good, then pull up a paint roller and do that wall over there in blue with green sparkles.” Megan told her and pointed at the far wall.
“No way!” Akiko laughed. “I have to go, but I’ll stop by when I get off work in a day or two and we can finish the room.”
“I’ll be done by then.” Megan muttered and pouted a little.
Akiko grinned. “I know, but I figure by then you will have started something else.”
“You know me to well.”
“Well I have to get going, I just wanted to check up on you.”
“See you later, I’ll have Barney walk you out.”
“Cool, we can play fetch or something.”
Megan stared as Akiko’s back as she walked out of the room, then she turned to the far wall and glared at it. “Maybe it would look better if it was bright pink and gold flecks instead?” She wondered out loud.
**********
End Part One
End Notes – This story is about the life and times of a series of individuals with powers and abilities that make them more then they would seem. I’m going to be aiming for a touch of realism mixed with a bit of humor as I build this world. Some of the characters happen to have been part of an old RP game I did a long time ago. They never had a chance to really shine though I hope to give them a bit of life as I tell this story.
I’m not going sit down and start listing all the details of a characters life in the story. That would be boring and kind of ruin the reason people are reading it in the first place. So I’m going to write up stories around two or three people and slowly reveal more and more about them as it goes along, letting the characters make the story. Really, it’s the way things should be done anyway.
Fight scenes are a specialty of mine, at the same time I’m going to attempt to teach myself the other areas of writing that I need to work on. Any and all help you can lend me would be greatly appreciated as I strive to improve this. I want all the advice I can get, good, bad, or even worse. Whatever it takes to make me a better writer.
As with everything I do, I plan to make this into a very large story. At the moment I’m planning on eventually hitting 1MB at least.
Thanks to Master Yume for helping me come with the name TAU or Terestrial Auctorita Ultraterreno which means Terran Power Supernatural. A rather complicated name some scientist came up with in the story to describe people with powers and abilities like Akiko has. I was originally going to use Mehta or Omega, but one was to close to Megahuman from DC comics and Omega is an over used word that didn't seem to fit the story. TAU on the other hand just stands out to me as the perfect acronym. I’ve never seen it used anywhere, so I think I’m the first to use it, but I could very easily be wrong.
I also need to Thank Burger Bill for giving me some advice on some areas where I wasn’t explaining things well enough.
C. Rose
Ertle2@msn.com
TAU ELITE
**********
Just An Average Day
Chapter 01
Cory D. Rose
ertle2@msn.com
(c) 2004
**********
The lighting was perfect as she walked down the street wearing her brand new white dress. The light streamed through the multi colored clouds behind her, giving her an almost ethereal look. The rain had stopped and now there was a small river of water flowing down the edges of the road. Here and there a small puddle had formed and if you looked at it just right it would show a reflection of her legs as she stepped over them.
Akiko smiled as she walked over to a fence and looked out over Prime Light City. In the distance, hanging over the city, three different moons dominated the sky in all their splendor. The moon’s effect on the locals was always quite a site to see when all of them were full. Luckily it only happened once every few years.
The breeze made her long blonde hair trail behind her as she watched the clouds float over the city, occasionally obscuring one of the moons. She loved to watch the sun set at times like this. It brought a sense of peace to her that she rarely had a chance to experience these days.
As the sky slowly changed colors with the setting sun, she always managed to relax and feel better about herself, and the choices life had forced upon her. The last few years had been kind of hard on her so she always managed to appreciate times like this. She lifted the hem of her dress to reveal a multi colored tennis shoe and climbed up the chain link fence and straddled the top so that she could get a better look at the city as the sun set.
As she sat down the dress pulled up a little and revealed her thigh high white lace stockings. The breeze pulled at the dress a bit, but she ignored it even when it tried to yank her off the fence after a few minutes. She had done this dozens of times and learned to ignore the wind as she sat there. It wasn’t as if it could blow her off anyway.
In the distance, hanging over a canal, she could see a billboard sign advertising a full body fur cleanser that reduced shedding. It had a cat girl with shiny fur holding a little blue bottle. She was smiling out at the world with sharp pointed perfect teeth.
A few minutes later she heard something in the distance and realized that a motorcycle was heading her way. She grinned as she watched the bend in the road about half a block away and a black ninja motorcycle sped around the curve, leaning low. The rider dodged around the small flood of water flowing down the side of the street and pulled up a few feet away from her.
Akiko jumped off the top of the fence and landed on the side walk as the rider took off his helmet and waved at her. He had short spiky black hair and was wearing a pair of jeans, a black t-shirt, and a leather jacket. “Akiko!”
“Deric!”
“What are you doing in this mess?” He asked as he grinned at her.
“Just watching the sun set. I don’t get a chance to do it all that often.”
“You always like that kind of stuff.” Deric teased her.
“Hmph!” Akiko muttered.
“Where’s your ride girl?”
“At home, I’m on foot today.”
“You left Dragon at home!”
“I can’t ride her everywhere I go.” Akiko said and snorted. She brushed the hair out of her face, reached into the pocket of her dress to pull out a small band and quickly tied it up into a ponytail, even though it still hung clear down her back. She allowed it to blow in the wind as Deric handed her his helmet.
“Then get on, I’ll take you home or wherever you want to go.” He said.
“Great!” Akiko said as she pulled the helmet on and climbed on behind him. Then made sure her dress wouldn’t get caught in the wheels. “What do you want to do first?”
Deric just grinned as she wrapped her arms around him and he started the motorcycle. He revved the engine a couple of times before he kicked it into high gear and pealed out. This left a cloud of smoke floating above the road behind him as he continued to speed up and raced around the corner.
They had done this hundreds of times over the last year, even when they had actually been dating. That had been a long time ago, but they were still friends even after they found out they couldn’t stand being around each other day in and day out. Akiko screamed as they flew onto the freeway a few minutes later and picked up speed. They raced through traffic, dodging around cars, and passed between a pair of trucks rumbling down the road.
**********
The motorcycle skidded to a stop in front of a high rise apartment complex with fifteen floors, Akiko hopped off the bike, and handed the helmet back to Deric. “Thanks for ride.”
“No problem.”
“Want to come up?”
“I have to head home and get ready for work otherwise I’d have loved to come up.” He said and smiled at her.
Akiko pouted and looked a bit flustered as she stood there. “Well maybe you can come up next time.”
“Absolutely!” Deric said and put his helmet on and rode off.
She watched him ride off and stomped her foot. “He’s cute as hell and has the brains of a turnip.” She muttered.
“They’re all like that dear.”
Turning around Akiko came face to face with one of the female Tellraine. Several decades before the alien race made contact with Earth to trade for some animals and plant life that they needed on their own planet. At first things had been tense between the two races, but it was their similarities that helped them in the end.
Humans tended to be very untrustworthy and liked to destroy anything that could threaten them in anyway, but over time, the two races learned to live together in peace. The Tellraine race was basically humanoid except they tended to have features that were a different color or size than a human would have, like fur, claws, or animal like ears. They were just a number of little things, but enough to make them different.
Their fur for example was the most notable feature on any Tellraine. Tiger striped Tellraine were very popular among the teenagers these days. Then some others that looked human, except for their cat ears, tail, and a tendency to act kind of like a cat. Sometimes it was just the eyes, or they had claws for fingernails.
Or it went the other way and they were more animal than humanoid, running around on all fours, covered in fur, and more wild than civilized. Akiko could remember growing up around them all her life. The types and styles were almost impossible to list in one setting. In exchange for the animals and plants the Tellraine’s had given humanity a technological shot in the arm that seriously increased Earth’s technical level.
This allowed them to spread out across the solar system in a very short amount of time. From there they set up colonies on all the planets that could support them, even moons, and allowed humans to spread across space in a short matter of time. Over time the two races had kind of merged and learned to live together in peace.
There were still people that didn’t like the Tellraine, but they were a dying breed and rarely ever did anything these days. The old Tellraine in front of Akiko was of the cat girl type with light grey fur and blonde hair that was streaked with grey hair tied up in a bun that all old women seemed to acquire over time. She was wearing a simple grey and blue kimono and holding a bag of groceries.
“Hello Mrs. Tacicl.”
“Are you still chasing after that boy? He’s never going to settle down if you keep dragging your feet.” She said with a hint of amusement in her voice.
“Oh he’s not that bad and he does have a job. Which I figure has to be better than the last few boys I went out with.” Akiko said.
“Well I think you will get him one of these days if you keep trying.”
“I certainly hope so.” Akiko lied through her teeth. She’d already caught him and tossed him back, but Mrs. Tacicl didn’t need to know that. The old Tellraine laughs and walks off using her tail to wave goodbye.
Akiko could remember always liked the Tellraine race, even when she was a little girl growing up near the Zone. They didn’t seem to have most of the hang ups about relations that she noticed in humans. If they wanted someone, they went after them with everything they had until they either got them or failed completely.
Movies had been made about determined Tellraine who would do anything to get the one they wanted were being filmed all the time. Every now and then the news would play a sound bite of a Tellraine crawling up the side of a building trying to get to some guy’s apartment. Or a male Tellraine looking picking his mate and chasing her across the world just to talk to her.
She shrugged as she turned around and headed up to her apartment. As she exited the elevator on the fourth floor Akiko reached into her pocket and pulled out her keys. She hated purses and never carried the things with her if she could avoid it, they always got in her way when she was on the job. She walked down the small hallway and stopped in front of a door with 424 on it. It opened without a sound as she approached and stepped inside.
“Good evening Mistress.” The apartment’s computer said as she shut the door.
“Hello Jina.”
“Would you like me get supper ready for you?” The computer asked.
“Yes, just a small meal though, I’m not all that hungry tonight.”
“Dinner will be ready in twenty six minutes.”
Akiko nodded and headed for her room. The apartment was as empty as it usually was, even this late at night. She lived alone, so she didn’t bother to be quiet as she entered her room and grabbed a pair of blue jean shorts and a black t-shirt from her dresser. After quickly changing her clothes, she slipped her shoes back on, and walked back out into the front room.
She grabbed the remote and turned on the TV, and old classic version that took up the back corner of her loving room. Even with all the advances in technology over the years there were still quite a calling for the old technologies. Though AI developments had grown by leaps and bounds over the years.
“Jina? Were there any messages while I was gone?”
“There were seven messages.”
“How many are not useless?”
“Two, the other four are telemarketer calls trying to sell fur shampoo, a claw sharpening kit, home delivered doggie treats that come in several flavors, and an add for the local Chinese delivery Pang Wok Chong.”
“Play the other two please.”
She heard the computer pause for a second before the answering machine turned on. “Playing first message.”
‘…Akiko, this is Ciko, I was just trying to get a hold of you to tell you that Taka would like you to call him as soon as possible. He mentioned that he might have a job for you.’
‘…Akiko, call me if you get this before midnight, I have something I need you to take care of tonight. I’ll page you later if I don’t hear from you.’ Captain Taka’s voice said in his clipped tones.
She glared down at the answering machine as he stopped talking and wondered what he wanted now. It was her day off from work. If she wasn’t under the man’s command she would’ve thought he was going to fire her for something. He had that kind of personality, so even at the best of times he was a little hard to understand. She sighed and knew her day off was going to more than a long bath and a good movie.
“Thank you Jina.”
“Dinner should be finished in five minutes.”
“All right, I’m going to go and make that call. They wouldn’t have called on my day off unless it was important.” Akiko said as she picked up the phone and tapped a button to dial the preprogrammed number. She checked the clock, saw that it was around seven at night, and hoped the ‘little favor’ wouldn’t take her all night. It wasn’t as if she could actually refuse to do it after all, that would cause too many problems.
“Hello?”
“Captain Taka, its Akiko.”
“Ah, Akiko, I need you to head over to the house of that ‘friend’ of yours. She might be involved in a case we’ve been working on.”
“I can head over there tomorrow, no problem.” She said, wondering what Megan had done this time.
“I need you to go over there tonight and just talk to her. The girl’s name keeps popping up when we do our interviews in this one case. I want you to ask her some questions and you know how much she dislikes us.”
The blonde sighed. “What exactly does this deal with?”
“A murder, Group Two has been looking to it for several days now.”
“Alright, I’ll head over there and see what she’s doing.”
“Be careful, you know how dangerous she can be.” Taka warned her.
“She’s irritated because people keep accusing her of things she doesn’t do.” Akiko said. It wasn’t as if it was an uncommon occurrence for it to happen to people like them, but it was still annoying.
“I still don’t trust her.” Taka said.
“I’m a TAU just like she is.” She reminded her boss.
“Yes, but I know I can trust you. She is constantly doing things that make her appear suspicious.” He snapped. "I expect to hear from you when you get done. Swing by the station and fill out a report." Then he hung up on her before she could even answer.
Akiko rolled her eyes and sighed, it was already looking like her night off wasn’t going to go like she thought it would. The TAU had been around for some time now, even before the Tellraine came along decades before. Even after all this time passed, they still had a hard time gaining acceptance from certain portions of humanity. It was nothing compared to what a TAU went through as they grew up.
A few years back, she had almost been expelled from college because of her powers, even though the collages were designed to teach student like her and Megan to use them properly. This was why she was in her current job to begin with. Very few places would take TAU on the payroll without a lot of riders and provisions; it made life very hard for some of them.
“Why the hell do people have to deal with such idiots? I get so tired of it at times, day in and day out without ever taking a break.”
“I am unable to answer that question.” Jina said.
Akiko sighed. “Well I’m not in any hurry to go and deal with Megan right now, so I’ll eat dinner before I head out.”
“Then dinner is served.”
She walked over to the table as a small robot came out of the kitchen and quickly set the table. It vaguely resembled an old style trashcan on wheels. Then another one came out and set a bowl of soup down for her to eat. Akiko sat down and noticed that it was tomato soup and a grill cheese sandwich. “You usually make something more complicated Jina.”
“The odds suggested that you wouldn’t have time for a large meal tonight, so I substituted this instead of the other meal I was planning. You also mentioned that you wanted a light meal.”
“Thank you, this’ll work just fine.”
It only took her a few minutes to finish off dinner and even that was a bit much. “I need to change my clothes, again, before I go out. I’ll most likely be back somewhat late tonight, well after midnight I think.”
“I’ll implement the usual security measures, Mistress.”
“Thank you.” Akiko said as she walked down the hall and entered her room again. She moved over to her closet, pulled out a black bag, and sat it on the bed. Then she reached into the closet and grabbed a uniform inside a dry cleaning protective bag.
She ripped the bag and pulled out her uniform for the police department’s TAU unit. It only took her a few minutes to pull on the blue pants and boots. After that, she put on the black t-shirt, tucked it in, and put on the blue outer shirt and buttoned it up. Then she grabbed her jacket and made sure her badge was in place.
There was no way she could go to work without the badge in place, there were much easier way to get suspended. It was a special design that the state had come up with to identify her special unit within the force. Right in the middle of the badge was T.A.U. and below that was Elite Squad. She had seen the thing so many times that she didn’t really look at it anymore, it was just a reminder that she was different from other people.
There was a utility belt within the bag that held all the equipment that she was allowed to take home at the end of the day. She pulled it out and put it on. Making sure it was snug and comfortable on her hips before she walked over the dresser and picked up a helmet.
As a TAU she was legally bound to follow certain rules by the government. It was a pain at times, but one of the biggest ones was the Mark. It had to be on all of her clothing, visible for all to see, and tattooed on her body. It could go anywhere on the body, as long as it was obvious.
Her uniform had them placed on her color, a couple of small pins with the letter’s T.A.U. inside a small white circle. There were people that, when they saw the symbol, would start screaming at the top of their lungs until they had to be restrained. She was in the one job that TAU’s had been able to exceed at, a special branch of the Police that was used along side the regular police to help take care of TAU criminals.
Once she was fully dressed, she walked out of the room and made sure her jacket looked good on her and headed for the door. “I’m leaving Jina.”
“The security measures will go into effect in two minutes.”
Akiko stepped out into the hall and shut the door. She heard the automatic locks take hold a few seconds later and then headed for the elevator just down the hall. More than one person had broken into her apartment while she was gone and it had cost her a small fortune to get the AI into the apartment, forcing her to actually buy it and the apartments around it just to have a bit of privacy and safety.
Surprisingly it had been cheaper to do that than to buy a house. A TAU wasn’t allowed to live in like that, it frightened the normal people. This kind of confused her at times, because she was a police woman after all and oath bound to protect the peace. It was kind of depressing really, but there wasn’t anything she could do about it so she worked this way. It was a good thing she earned quite a bit of money for her job.
She grinned, her friend Deric didn’t even mind that she was a TAU and had even said he liked the dangerous element involved when he was dating her. A few minutes later she stepped out of the elevator and entered the below ground parking garage attached to the building. She made her way to the far side of the garage where a number of motorcycles were parked.
Hers was at the far end, gleaming like the dangerous machine it appeared to be. It was a chopper in every since of the word with chrome gleaming from the top of the front wheel to the bottom of the over sized back wheel. The bike was a gift she had gotten a few years back from a friend for saving his life in the middle of a mission. It had an air ride suspension system and been built around the TAU theme.
The gas tank was covered in what looked like a lightning storm to represent those TAU’s that could use the element. Akiko couldn’t even generate a spark or two, but her abilities were a bit different from the norm in other ways. Her helmet was pure black with realistic looking flames painted around the edges to represent those TAU that could use fire.
Her friend had also designed the bike to be fast and maneuverable no matter what she was doing with it. It could handle the cars or idle along at two miles per hour with no problems, even dirt roads and mountain trails. She called it Dragon, because she had added some special touches to it that gave it a dangerous appeal.
The fenders were looked as if they were formed out of reptile skin and several of the chrome pieces were shaped like the emblems that various ‘Heroes’ wore on their costumes. There were several well known heroes that could be found around the world. They liked to keep a low profile and only showed up in times of trouble, or when fighting crime.
What really made the bike live up to its name though was it’s exhaust pipes. They tripled the amount of noise it made as she roared down the road and through traffic. After making sure it was in perfect working order she climbed on and started it up. There was one piece about it that stood out from regular bikes, and that was that it used digital read outs instead of the normal ones.
She tapped a button, turned on the computer, and let it cycle as the chopper warmed up with a gentle roar that filled the garage. The computer had been a compromise for work, along with some police lights mounted just under the handle bars.
They needed to keep track of her and they normally did this by placing a tracker in their employee’s car computers. Her bike hadn’t had one of those and they had told her to get a car. She refused to give up Dragon so she installed this instead. It had worked out in her favor for various reasons.
‘Hello Akiko.’ Jina printed across the computer screen.
“Hi Jina, this is a test the microphone in the helmet.’ Akiko said.
‘Loud and clear.” Jina wrote.
“Good, please run a diagnostic on Dragon.”
‘Hold on, running Dragon Diagnostic 4.6’
She watched the screen as it showed a basic outline of her bike. Every few seconds an area would light up to indicate that the computer was scanning it. Almost instantly, she noticed that a red dot had appeared just below the seat and she knelt down to check out the area.
There was a small thumbnail sized box on the under side of the seat and carefully pulled it off with her fingernail. The magnetized chip took a bit more effort to free than she expected. She held a little closer to her eye and tried to figure out what it was. There was a very tiny little red light in the center of the thing.
Standing up she glanced at the screen and noticed that it had found six others during the scan and she spent the next couple of minutes pulling them off. She had never seen anything like them before. As far as she knew a tracking device couldn’t be this small, so she had no clue what it was. “Jina, do you know what these things are?”
‘No, they seem to be tiny little circuits, but I can’t get a proper reading on them from Dragon.’
“Well I might have to head by the station and drop these off. It’s been a while since I’ve had anyone try anything against me.”
‘Four months.’
“I haven’t even been on duty for an hour and already things are getting interesting.” Akiko said as she straddled Dragon and revved the engine. “Please inform the station that I should be there in ten minutes.”
‘Sending information.’ Jina typed on the screen.
Akiko tapped the button again and the screen changed back to the digital readings for the motorcycle. She leaned the bike up and locked the kick stand in place as she slowly pulled the bike out of the space and headed for the exit. The Dragon’s roar continued to fill the garage as she idled out the main exit and out onto the street. The sound echoed off buildings as she entered traffic and headed down town.
It was quite a show and several people took notice when she left, which was another reason why she liked Dragon. It made people take notice of her when it was needed. Across the street, standing beside a tree, a man watched as she rode off and took some notes in a small pad.
**********
Her name was Sara Tetshiko and she had just celebrated her fourteenth birthday the day before, but things hadn’t gone quite the way she had expected them to. She had black hair just as everyone in her family did, except Uncle Ichiru, but he wasn’t around all that often anyway, so it didn’t matter. Her birthday had been a complete disaster.
It had only taken her, Riyka and Seki, a few minutes to put the fire out, and to toss her little sister Nyoko out of the room. The little pest just reached out, grabbed a candle off the cake, and used it to set the tablecloth on fire.
As if she had done the exact same thing a thousand times before and never had a thing happen. The day before Sara’s hair had been down to her knees and was the envy of every girl in school. She spent hours and hours making sure she looked as good as possible.
Now, because of the fire, she had lost ten years worth of growth and been forced to cut her hair into short mockery of what it had been. She could feel the wind caressing the back of her neck and it made her shiver in dread. What made the whole situation even worse was that her parents were blaming the whole thing on her. Because she was the older daughter and she was supposed to control her younger sister from doing things like that.
They had lost the tablecloth, her birthday presents, the cake, and the table itself before they managed to put the fire out, and her parents were making her suffer because of it. Her little sister hadn’t even stuck around to witness the punishment. Instead she ran out of the house and vanished to a friend’s house while Sara was being punished.
Riyka and Seki had been tossed out of the house when the fire was put out and told, point blank, that they were not allowed to come back, ever. Sara tried to tell her mother that Nyoko had been the one to set the fire, but they would just not listen to her. The more she thought about the unfairness of the situation the angrier she became.
As far as she could tell, she lost just about everything because of the fire and her sister. Her parents had even grounded her because of it. Then they exiled her to her room and been told to finish her homework as her parents removed her TV, games, and even the phone. The only electrical things left in the room had been her alarm clock and a desk lamp by the time she went to bed a few hours later.
She took a few minutes to throw a few things at her door just to blow off some steam. Things her mother had bought her over the years like dolls, some china, even books and pictures. It made a horrible mess, but she didn’t stop for close to an hour when she ran out of steam. Then what had her mother said to her?
“If you ever cuss like that again I’ll tan your ass red and really make you suffer.” And slammed the door in her face and locked her in.
Sara was not a happy camper.
**********
Dragon roared as Akiko sped around the corner, her knee nearly touching the pavement as she accelerated out of the narrow curve and headed up the street. She weaved through several lanes of traffic and dodged a couple of jaywalkers that got in her way. Her long blonde hair streamed out behind her as she sped down the road.
She glanced down at the computer and saw that Dragon was running perfectly. A few minutes later, she came to a stop at the top of a hill and looked around at the sea side area of Prim Light City below her. Megan’s house, situated on top of a cliff at the edge of town, over looked the beach below. The girl had managed to make quite a stir in the community a few years before when she bought the old lighthouse at the top of the cliff and build her house around it.
The fact that Megan was a TAU was only been part of the problem though. She was one of the few that had managed to make a name for themselves over the years. Megan was a retired actress/model that liked to dabble in various projects. Akiko even had to admit that she wasn’t aware of everything the girl did at times. Megan was a bit of an eccentric even at the best of times.
It was also what made Taka mention her name every time they had a case that happened anywhere near her place. If there was a break in Taka would blame it on Megan, if someone jay walked, Taka would blame it on the girl. Akiko couldn’t prove it, but it was pretty obvious that Megan had done something to Taka at some point. As a PL City TAU officer she didn’t have the position or contacts needed to look into it further.
Even though they were friends, Akiko only came up to her place a couple times a month. It was usually for dinner, to watch a movie, or just to talk about something besides the crap they put up with in their daily lives. Lately though, it seemed as if she was swinging by her place about once ever three or four days to look in on something. She would really have to find out what was making the police take such an interest in her friend.
She revved Dragon a couple of times and inched the motorcycle forward and let it coast down the hill. Getting to Megan’s place could be tricky if you didn’t know where the entrance to her private driveway was located. The road was hidden between some trees at the bottom of the hill and if you didn’t have an idea what you were looking for it was unlikely you wouldn’t see it.
It was a sharp turn, but she made it with ease and entered the drive that made a sharp curve up the side of the edge of the cliff and right to Megan’s house. She wasn’t all that surprised to see a police car sitting off to the side of the road as she passed the trees on either side of the road.
Dragon slowed to a stop beside the car and she looked over to see one of the regular patrol officers. In the seat beside him was a harsh looking man glaring at her over the edge of a pair of sunglasses. A rather ugly hat covered his ratty looking hair too, giving him an unpleasant looking appearance.
Taking off her helmet and hanging it off the handle on Dragon, she reached inside her jacket to pull out her wallet and showed them her ID card and the badge. “Morning guys, anything new to report today?”
“Hello Mrs. Shoo, I see Taka managed to get a hold of you.” The driver said as he checked her ID card.
“On my day off too.” Akiko muttered.
“Your friend has been quiet lately. She hasn’t been out of her house in several days at least, as far as we can tell anyway.”
Akiko took her ID back and quickly put it away. She had to go through something like this every time she came here. “I’ll go and talk to her.”
“She’s a suspect in a murder that happened about two blocks from here. You’re the only person she will talk to about things like this.” Officer Levin said.
“What makes her a suspect?”
“She was nearby.”
She glanced at the guy in the passenger seat and noticed for the first time that he wasn’t in uniform under his trenchcoat. “Since when do civilians hang out on stakeout duty?”
“Don’t mind Carl, he’s been assigned to this case from his own department.”
“Which one would that be?” Akiko asked.
The man glared back at her. “That is none of your concern, now leave, before I have you arrested for obstructing justice.”
“I out rank you Carl, so you had better keep your mouth in line or I’ll have YOU arrested.” Akiko snapped.
“Listen here you freak of nature…” Carl started to yell at her from across the car.
“Oh &%$#.” The officer muttered as he ducked down as he saw the friendly look in her eyes turn flat, and then flare up into unreasoning anger. He made a hasty check of his seat belt, recalling the last time someone had called Akiko names like that. “Mommy.”
Scowling, Akiko reached down, grabbed the bottom of the car, right below the driver’s side door, and lifted. The side of the car lifted up off the ground as Akiko made sure Carl knew he was going to pay for insulting her like that. Then without breaking eye contact with him, she gave a little heave and tossed the car over on its top. She grinned as she listened to Carl cussing his head off inside the car.
“Hey, Carl, have you ever played spin the bottle?” She asked as she grabbed the back bumper of the over turned car, it just happened to be within reach, and with the flick of her wrist sent it spinning around about a dozen times or so.
By the time it stopped Akiko decided that the jerk had been punished enough. Carl was leaning out the one window and looking a little green. She glanced at the officer were he was sitting there with his eyes closed, holding onto his seat belt, before she dismissed them and put her helmet back on. She revved Dragon and peeled out as she raced up the side of the cliff.
Once they were out of the car, officer Levin staggered over to Carl and clocked him one before the man could say anything, finally knocking him out for a while. Then he turned to look at his over turned car and sighed as he assessed the damage. Akiko was normally a very nice person and did a good job.
There were times when someone would push her too far and things would get out of hand. He crawled back into the car and got on the radio to inform dispatch that Akiko had arrived and taken a dislike to the observer. They had been told to ferry him and several others around all week. He had no idea what he was going to do about the car, normally it was Akiko they asked to come out and fix things like this, he wasn’t what he was supposed to do when she was the one that flipped the car over.
Akiko accelerated around the last of the curve at the top of the cliff and started to slow down as she passed the old lighthouse. The city had asked that it stay open to alert ships in the area, so the large lamp at the top was throwing a beam of light out over the water below that could be seen for miles. There was a computer that ran the while thing.
The road straightened out a little ways after that and she came to a stop in front of a large gate swing gate. She was right next to the gate control so she tapped in the code that Megan had given her. The gate swung in and she headed up the driveway for the last leg of the journey.
Megan had taken the time to personally plant about a thousand trees and plants in the front yard of her home. So, this made getting up to the house a bit tricky at the best of times since she rarely took the time to keep everything trimmed and neat. Akiko did what she could to make her way through the over grown driveway and eventually would up at the house. This lead to the garage and she tapped a button on the computer and let it open the door for her.
She rode inside and came to a stop next to a large black Hummer that Megan used to get through her over grown yard. There were four other vehicles in the garage other than the Hummer, though they hadn’t been used in a while. A bright blue Porsche, a large motor home that Megan used to drive from movie set to movie set, and Megan’s own Harley motorcycle.
Akiko figured it would take about a thousand years, but by then she hoped she would be able to understand her friend’s oddness. She parked Dragon beside the Harley and placed him on standby mode, letting the computer keep the motorcycle ready to go at a moments notice.
‘Security activated.’ Jina printed across the screen.
She nodded and reached into her pocket as she got off the bike and glanced at the little chips she had found earlier. Once she got back to the office she would have to have someone look at them just to see what they were. She was pretty sure they were some kind of tracking device, but she wasn’t sure how they worked.
It also meant that she would have to program Jina to scan for things placed on the bike from now on. The computer was designed to make sure no one could steal or vandalize her motorcycle, not to stop people from touching it when she wasn’t around. Then she wondered if there was some connection between the chips and her trip to see Megan.
Shrugging, she stepped inside the door that led into the house that went directly into the kitchen. She nodded to the robot maid that was standing by in the corner. Then made quick turn into the over sized living room beyond that. Where she stopped and looked down at a rather large robotic collie with angry red eyes as it moved from behind the couch and growled at her.
She knelt down and held her hand out so it could smell her and let it scan her fingerprints with its computer, and take a couple of other random readings. “Hello Barney.”
It nodded at her and wagged its tail as it recognized her. Then it started to hop around and barked a few times.
“You wouldn’t happen to know where Megan is, do you”
It nodded again and headed deeper into the house, looking over its shoulder every now and then to make sure she was following it. They headed down a set of stairs, to the bottom portion of the house, and into Megan’s private studio. The doors opened automatically as they approached, designed to allow the robotic dog access to every portion of the house.
Megan’s room and several others were actually below ground, build right into the rock below the house. Being rich, from over a decade of being in several very popular movies and a modeling carrier, Megan tended to lead a rather odd life style. Her studio was actually a large room where she was always messing around with something.
She patted Barney on the head as it sat down and used its head gestured towards the far side of the room where her friend was doing something to the wall. “Thanks Barney. I figured she would be here.” Akiko said and yelled at her friend. “Megan?!”
“Akiko! Come on over!” Megan called as she turned around and saw her friend standing next to her security dog.
Megan had a nasty habit of starting a new hobby every other week and the room had been converted several times so it could be used for whatever hobby she was doing at the time. Here and there were hints of a hobby she had abandoned or hadn’t finished. Akiko always glanced around the room whenever she stopped by if she had the chance. It was never the same.
Half finished paintings covered the walls and were even piled up in the far corner, sculptures were piled on top of those, and even model cars and planes were tossed here and there. All of them were quite good, but Akiko thought that Megan got bored way to easily at times. She was almost afraid to see what she was working on now.
The floor of the large room was covered in drop cloths covered in paint and other things that Akiko didn’t want to know about. At that moment Megan appeared to be to be painting one wall with orangish colored paint. Bright orange paint with what looked like glitter mixed in to add to the effect.
Akiko had to blink her eyes a few times as she looked around the room and the changes it had gone through since she came by a week earlier. It looked like Megan had just started repainting the room and she noticed that there was a large object in the corner of the room covered in drop cloths.
She walked over and lifted up a corner to see what was underneath it. At first she wasn’t sure what it was and looked over at Megan. The girl was dressed in overalls and had a red t-shirt on underneath it. Her shoulder length brown hair was hidden under a hat with several paint splotches on it. “What the heck is this thing?”
“A loom.” Megan said.
“A what?” Akiko asked and gave her friend a weird look.
“A loom, you know, for making cloth for clothes and carpets.”
“You have got to be kidding.” Amy sated.
“Nope.” Grinning, Megan whipped a bit of sweat off her forehead and put some more paint on her brush. “Want to help me paint this wall?”
She shook her head. “Not while I’m in uniform.”
“I have some overalls I can let you borrow.” Megan told her and smirked impishly.
“No thanks, but I might be able to help out later.” Akiko said as she turned away from the loom and dropped the cloth back in place.
Megan nodded and went back to painting the wall and humming quietly. “So why did you stop by?”
“You seem to have become a suspect in a case again.”
“Oh? I thought they had dropped that silly thing. It’s not like I leave this place very much these days. You know what happens to people like me in town without a good reason.”
“I know.” Akiko muttered.
“So what is it this time? Did I supposedly kidnap a cat for lunch or something? I have BBQ sauce in my fridge, maybe I’m going to use it for flavoring.” Megan muttered sarcastically.
“Murder actually.”
Megan sighed. “I haven’t left the house in three weeks.”
“You haven’t been working?”
“Nope, my manager hasn’t been getting offers lately. So I’m stuck here bored out of my mind. At least a murder investigation will be interesting.”
“You aren’t going to take this seriously?”
“Why? They’ll just force my actions to match whatever evidence they have. You know how this works.”
Akiko sighed and nodded. “I know, but you need to fight back a little.”
“That just makes things worse.”
“Yes it does, but hiding from it isn’t going to help things either.”
Megan shrugged. “I’ve had cops sitting at the base of the cliff for the last several months tracking my movements. They are looking for something to arrest me on. You told me that yourself, so I figure so long as I don’t tempt them they can continue to waste their time.”
“Alright, but I think they are going to have me looking at this case.”
“They tend to be kind of selective at times, it’s the reason I never took the job you do. It has limited my options somewhat, but it’s better than being forced to do things like hunt down criminals and kill people.”
“The job isn’t that bad and I’ve never had to kill anyone in my life.” Akiko told her.
“Akiko, I’ve met TAU like you who have done this job for years and all of them are old and bitter. I’ve never met one that was happy with his job. We’ve talked about this before, so you know my feelings.”
“Sorry, no need to argue then.” Akiko told her.
“Good, then pull up a paint roller and do that wall over there in blue with green sparkles.” Megan told her and pointed at the far wall.
“No way!” Akiko laughed. “I have to go, but I’ll stop by when I get off work in a day or two and we can finish the room.”
“I’ll be done by then.” Megan muttered and pouted a little.
Akiko grinned. “I know, but I figure by then you will have started something else.”
“You know me to well.”
“Well I have to get going, I just wanted to check up on you.”
“See you later, I’ll have Barney walk you out.”
“Cool, we can play fetch or something.”
Megan stared as Akiko’s back as she walked out of the room, then she turned to the far wall and glared at it. “Maybe it would look better if it was bright pink and gold flecks instead?” She wondered out loud.
**********
End Part One
End Notes – This story is about the life and times of a series of individuals with powers and abilities that make them more then they would seem. I’m going to be aiming for a touch of realism mixed with a bit of humor as I build this world. Some of the characters happen to have been part of an old RP game I did a long time ago. They never had a chance to really shine though I hope to give them a bit of life as I tell this story.
I’m not going sit down and start listing all the details of a characters life in the story. That would be boring and kind of ruin the reason people are reading it in the first place. So I’m going to write up stories around two or three people and slowly reveal more and more about them as it goes along, letting the characters make the story. Really, it’s the way things should be done anyway.
Fight scenes are a specialty of mine, at the same time I’m going to attempt to teach myself the other areas of writing that I need to work on. Any and all help you can lend me would be greatly appreciated as I strive to improve this. I want all the advice I can get, good, bad, or even worse. Whatever it takes to make me a better writer.
As with everything I do, I plan to make this into a very large story. At the moment I’m planning on eventually hitting 1MB at least.
Thanks to Master Yume for helping me come with the name TAU or Terestrial Auctorita Ultraterreno which means Terran Power Supernatural. A rather complicated name some scientist came up with in the story to describe people with powers and abilities like Akiko has. I was originally going to use Mehta or Omega, but one was to close to Megahuman from DC comics and Omega is an over used word that didn't seem to fit the story. TAU on the other hand just stands out to me as the perfect acronym. I’ve never seen it used anywhere, so I think I’m the first to use it, but I could very easily be wrong.
I also need to Thank Burger Bill for giving me some advice on some areas where I wasn’t explaining things well enough.
C. Rose
Ertle2@msn.com