Weiss Kreuz Fan Fiction ❯ To Those About To Die ❯ Chapter 14 - Japan ( Chapter 14 )

Chapter Fourteen -- Japan

"Berger here."

"Your team is going active. Special assignment. A package will arrive shortly. A car will transport you to the airport in six hours. You will be flying to Japan."

I ended the call and folded the tiny phone into my pocket, my hand shaking. I tried to make my voice sound casual, though my mouth was suddenly dry. "We're on. Get packed."

"Where is it this time?" Kiko asked, already bored from a recent series of unproductive trips.

"Japan. I'll know more when the materials arrive. But we fly out in six hours, so get ready."

The Girl got up to go pack without a word.

"Japan?" Kiko sounded unhappy.

"Yes, Kiko. Japan." I sighed, not wanting to banter today.

"What for? They wouldn't go back there, would they? It would be stupid of them."

"I'll let you know as soon as I know. Fair enough?"

A courier dropped off a briefcase within half an hour of the call. I flipped it open and looked at its contents. Already I could feel a headache coming on.

There were three small tape players with headsets, six tapes, three textbooks, some highlighters and pens, and a locked folder. I keyed in the combination even as Kiko helped himself to the other items in the case.

"Aw, it's not even music," he grumbled, switching the first tape back off. "It's some whiny guy talking gibberish."

"It's your crash course in Japanese. Get busy," I told him, barely looking up from the folder. "You have five hours to become passable. You'll get a little more time on the plane."

"Great. I bet it doesn't even have cursing on it."

I tossed the folder back into the case and went to look for some headache pills. Once that was taken care of, I returned to the main room to find Kiko and the Girl with headphones on and sour expressions on their faces. I almost smiled.

While they listened to and supposedly absorbed the basics of Japanese grammar from the Rosenkreuz-approved subliminal learning tapes, I handed around the contents of the folder. Our team had been assigned to act as bodyguards for a woman named Tsujii Mayumi, a prominent scientist involved in human genetics and artificial intelligence. Something about the assignment suggested that the research involved a synthesis of the two fields, though there seemed to be some conflict with a Project: Epitaph.

Epitaph. Figures, I thought to myself, frowning.

"It's the cloning experiment," the Girl stated. "Haven't you been reading the training materials they've been sending the last few months? Oh, that's right, if it isn't Schwarz or Sherlock, you haven't read a damn thing."

"Spill it, then," Kiko growled at her before I had the chance to say anything. "We don't have a lot of time, here."

"Just that," she said flatly. "They've been trying to figure out how to clone psis. They keep getting normals. The talents didn't figure into the mathematics or something. But that hasn't stopped the great scientists of Esset from plowing on, seeking that elusive key to the mind and soul of mankind."

"If I didn't know you better," Kiko said, sounding almost impressed, "I'd say you were being cynical."

The Girl glared at him. "Not at all. Esset will become the master of the world, in spite of humanity. I've never doubted that for a moment. It's just that their brilliant scientists are usually too full of their own egos to know what the hell they're looking at. More often than not, they're bound to fail, and rather than try another approach Esset keeps funding them."

"Oh, so you're not being cynical, you're just bitching. I see." Kiko went back to staring at his Japanese workbook.

Cloning psi talents? That would fit with the chemical sterilization imposed upon us at Rosenkreuz: they didn't want us procreating at will. Esset wanted a world composed of engineered psi soldiers and compliant normals, a custom-made game board for its own unfathomable designs.

The entire situation left a sour taste in my mouth. In fact, between the current assignment and the recurring dreams that had plagued me for months now, I felt positively ill.

Over and over, I had dreamed I would die in Japan.

Epitaph.

The few hours sped past, and all too soon the three of us were on the plane for Tokyo. We kept trying to use the learning tapes, but they gave me a headache, and Kiko was having far too much fun mocking the lessons to allow the Girl to gain any real benefit from them either.

"They don't even have an alphabet."

"Kiko..."

"I'm sorry, Berger, but English was hard enough! This is ridiculous!" Kiko flipped through his textbook one more time, scowling at the pages. He pointed at one of the characters. "Hey, this one's not too bad. I don't know what it means, but it looks like a cute little house! And this one..." Frowning in concentration, he contemplated the kanji. "This one looks kind of like two dogs fucking!"

"Shut up, Geisel," the Girl snarled.

A few moments of silence, then: "You know, they eat raw fish there."

"Kiko..." I tried to believe that the headache medicine would be enough to keep me from strangling him. Not willing to trust it entirely, I made myself count to ten, in Japanese. Very slowly count to ten.

I have never been fond of flying. When they announced we were descending at long last, I exhaled a grateful prayer. My relief came too soon, as we were not yet safely down.

The landing, if one were to call it that, defied description. Suffice to say, we bounced. I held onto the armrests for dear life. Beside the window, the Girl reached for the little paper bag in the seat pocket, her eyes wide.

Between us, Kiko gave a hearty shout. "Whoo-hoooo! Do it again, Mr. Pilot!"

I could have killed him.

We gathered our dignity and stashed our tapes and books in the Girl's carry-on. Rosenkreuz had already sent our other bags ahead via special courier. Now all we had to do was find our driver.

Striding onto the concourse, I was keenly aware of how foreign we must look. That could be a good thing. My long hair seemed truly green under these lights. That, too, could be a good thing. I concentrated on an air of menace and moved my team forward, eager to avoid contact with the locals as much as possible.

To my right, the Girl seemed too young with her auburn hair pulled into two pigtails and a fashionable powder blue coat hiding any hint of curve. To my left, Kiko strutted like a delinquent, hands in the pockets of his butt-length denim jacket. The lights, so unflattering to my hair, made his blue-tinted mane shine. We looked like a trio of European punk trash. I smiled.

The man who met us was not the one we had been told to expect. Kiko started to say something to me but I hushed him with a thought. As we approached the man, I ignored the proffered handshake and strode past him, gleaning his name and the location of his car from his sycophantic little mind. Disgusting troll.

Unfortunately for my lingering headache, Shimojima was not content to keep his ego inside his own head. As he drove, he droned on in self-congratulatory prose about Project: Epitaph and the failures of Rosenkreuz. He thought himself above the herd, one of the chosen, and he considered us lackeys of a bloated bureaucracy grown lazy.

Then he brought up the unresolved matter of the Elders.

I had heard enough. ::Mädchen, drive.::

Shimojima panicked as he felt the car lurch out of his control. The Girl had taken control of the car, driving it neatly if a little quick. I grabbed Shimojima's weak mind and showed him a vastly accelerated view of the traffic. "I heard that the speed limit on Japanese motorways was 80 kilometers," I murmured. "Aren't you going a little fast?"

Shimojima screamed and pulled at the steering wheel to no avail.

Behind us, Kiko gave a delighted whoop at the ride, and the Girl smiled smugly to herself.

"Are you trying to kill us?" I said, quite calmly.

"Stop it!" Shimojima yelled. "I'm going to report this to Epitaph!" He gagged as blood fountained from his nose and mouth, my grip on his mind too strong for him.

I felt disgusted, soiled by my contact with his thoughts. "Are you okay? Do you feel sick?" I mocked, my lingering headache and my distaste for the man spurring me on to unaccustomed cruelty.

Shimojima screamed, his eyes frantic. "Stop it! Stop it!!"

"We will follow Epitaph's orders," I assured him. "But we are agents of Rosenkreuz, and we expect a certain amount of respect." If he did not acknowledge this, there was no way we could fulfill our contract. Shimojima was a loose cannon, and those always made me nervous.

"Yes! Yes I understand! Please stop!"

My head hurt so much by now my vision blurred. Then suddenly I realized what we were doing: we were abusing a normal, as if he were nothing to us. As if Esset were right.

::Okay, done,:: I told the Girl. Obedient for once, she released her hold on the car slowly, allowing Shimojima time to catch up.

"Please, do drive safely," I chided softly, trying to ignore the blood that poured from his nose and the fear coloring his wide eyes.

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