Kaidan

[Avenger Assembled]

Kaidan

 

A possible future

Vibora Bay Reclamation Area 

 

With great dignity, the old Japanese woman walked up the steps of the Vibora Bay Carapace Corps Security Station, her heavy wooden cane striking the stone steps in front of her like a metronome as she went. She was the subject of some attention as she went, lacking as she did the cybernetic gewgaws that even old people in the United States usually wore in their clothing these days; and her clothing itself - a high-collared shirt, kimono, and hakama - looked more suited to a costumed drama than a denizen of Vibora Bay in the late 21st century. 

 

But she was not the only eccentric old person in Florida, not by any means. The hexagonal automatic doors swung open as she approached, seeming to stutter as they said “Welcome, Unk-Obaasan,” She walked inside the station and slowly, carefully made her way to a nearby bench, mindful to place herself in between the nubbed spikes that discouraged any sleepers. She sat there, leaned on her cane, and closed her eyes behind her heavy glasses. She tuned out the screens selling Carapace products she didn’t need, ignored warnings about criminals, and let herself see. 

 

The cats moved quickly through the station, finding it a familiar pattern. Here were the biometric sensor controls, here were the humans that read them; here were the armored security suits, here were the humans that wore them. Here were the cells, there was Koneko, asleep on her bunk. She pushed it, perhaps longer than she should have - and sensed a heightened alertness in the Carapace Corps soldiers as she joined the line waiting for service. Things weren’t as easy as they had been in her youth. There were no stray cats in America anymore.  

 

-

 

When Heikin Otoko heard the loud, firm elderly voice, for a moment he didn’t quite believe it - it had been a long time since he’d heard anyone speaking Japanese without an automatic interpreter. He set aside his game and stepped out behind the service desk, where he found an AutoHelper being shouted at by an angry Japanese woman who immediately reminded him of his great-grandmother. She was short and bent, with white hair and wrinkled skin, and her voice was loud. 

 

“<I don’t want to talk to a stupid machine! I want to talk to a person!>” A typical disorderly person was liable to be quietly put in a soft room until they calmed down but physical force with an elderly person was against company policy - and frankly tasteless to Heikin’s mind. He stepped up next to the AutoHelper, its hexagonal face downcast as it sensed the mood of its subject. 

 

“Hello, madam!” Heikin said respectfully, letting his accent color his words. “<I am sorry, the AutoHelper doesn’t speak Japanese - unless you use the translator.>” He pointed to the touch screen the old woman was striking her gnarled fist against. He checked the biometrics in her cybernetics when they made eye contact and found it a standard Model 2; the sort that many older people had gotten when the wearable devices (‘now as small as an contact lens’!) were new and found who she was easily enough; this was Hokama Nanako of Sapporo. The name coded a file and he nodded, guessing why she was there. 

 

“I speak English,” Nanako finally said, her voice thickly accented. Most people didn’t really bother learning new languages these days, not when innovations by Carapace and its competitors meant that everyone had access to portable visual and audio translators. “I am Hokama Nanako. I am here for my granddaughter, Hokama Koneko!” 

 

-

 

The young man led Neko down the corridor off the waiting room, her cane striking the tile in front of her like a metronome as she went. She’d been surprised to see a Japanese face here, and wondered if that would make things more difficult - but from his atrocious accent and Carapace jumpsuit, she judged him an American Japanese. It was so hard to tell who was from where any more - everything had all blended together. 

 

“You know,” he was chattering easily, “This would be much easier if you carried a Carapace Card! They’re good in any country and if you link to your biometrics, you never have to worry about losing them.” 

 

“American dollars are best,” Neko said coldly. “I changed them at the airport myself.” This was actually not entirely true; she’d stopped at several dealers in oddities in Tokyo before she found American currency of the old school, the sort where the Presidents inside never spoke and that lacked sensors that could track you. “Real gold. Not like now.” 

 

Heikin smiled the way one did with an elder who was not quite in their right mind; well he was polite at least, even if he was unsubtle. He led her to a machine where she could input her hundred dollar coins and even kept smiling as she slowly, deliberately fed the coins into the machine, clink-clink-clink, until it produced the amount of money necessary for Koneko’s bail. 

 

It took some time. “I’m glad we’re the ones holding Koneko,” Heikin commented, obviously trying to make conversation. “The local authorities, the regular American police, are very strict. They wouldn’t let her out even on lease bail.” 

 

Neko turned and stared at the young man, an eyebrow raising as she said, “What exactly what she charged with?” 

 

-

 

Koneko jumped awake in her cell when she heard her grandmother’s cane hit the energized barrier at its edge. “<Koneko! Wake up! We are leaving!>” 

 

Obaasan Musume did not look happy. “Nyeah! Obaasan!” She leaped out of the cot and onto her feet, automatically running her fingers through her thick white hair. She wasn’t particularly tall herself but she had inches on her grandmother; the young woman was closer in height to the Carapace Corp goon who was holding the keycard. “...you made it.” 

 

“And you are lucky I did!” declared Obaasan. “What did I tell you about getting mixed up in American trouble?” 

 

“I did not get mixed up in American trouble!” declared Koneko, yowling at her grandmother in a tone that would have gotten her a smack if the hexagonal barrier wasn’t still up. “I just came here to get some sun!” 

 

“Aiding and abetting terrorism is some sun!?” declared Neko, striking her cane against the ground again. “What about your work?” 

 

“All I did was organize a bail fund while I was on holiday! That’s not aiding and abetting-” Koneko looked at Heikin, who was looking properly mortified to be witnessing this kind of family argument in person rather than behind a screen, and declared “Are you going to let me out or what?” 

 

-

 

Murmuring an apology, too polite to comment that of course a bail fund to support economic terrorists trying to stop necessary and vital lumbering operations counted as aiding and abetting, Heikin slipped in the keycard and watched as the shapely young prisoner strode out, the electric force field closing behind her with a snap - that made her leap in the air and yowl! 

 

Heikin watched, his heart in his throat, as the air seemed to ripple around Koneko - a singed white tail protruding from her backside, two tufted cat ears on top of her head, her big eyes yellow as she cradled her injured limb. “B-biomod!” he yelled, his voice cracking with surprise. “Biomod alert!” The guards further down the corridor came running, hands reaching for their weapons as he distinctly heard Koneko say “Sorry Obaasan…” 

 

There were flashes of light as stun charges rippled past him - and past Koneko, and past Nanako. What are they - what are they shooting at? He thought wildly as he looked at friends, colleagues, a lover, who were firing at nothing at all despite the holographic targeting sensors over their eyes. He looked from them to Nanako, thinking wildly that perhaps he should shield the old woman from the wild stunfire - when he saw she was no old woman. 

 

The age seemed to bleed away from her form, revealing a lean, graceful body that seemed hewn down to sharp edges of muscle and bone, white-brown hair that streamed down her back and not one, not two, not three, but a full seven writhing cat-tails behind her. He knew who this was; he followed meta-crime in Japan as a hobby, and gasped “Neko Musume!” a moment before he suddenly seemed to feel an invisible fist closing around his throat. 

 

-

 

“Americans are fools,” said Neko thoughtfully as she stared at the choking young man - well, the man who thought he was choking anyway. “This would be impossible in Europe. They have chosen steel there, you know?” From the heart of her cane she pulled out a sword, a katana that burned with three impossible flames, and held to Heikin’s face. “But Americans think you can have steel and flesh; giving you the weaknesses of both.” 

 

There was a crash and boom as the armored troopers arrived straight through the wall, firing charges designed to take down a metahuman at their allies down the way. Of course they were, she thought with satisfaction. They could see their enemies with their human minds; minds that were still the same even if they built new eyes for themselves. 

 

She looked to Koneko and was relieved to see her grand-daughter in action, leaping from suit to suit, ripping away vital components that would keep them from being pursued in case anyone out there was more clever than she thought. The girl didn’t actually need to be told what to do most of the time, which was why her silly lapse into sentimentality here had been so frustrating. Across nearly two centuries of life, Neko mused that young people never changed. “Your father is liberating your silly boyfriend!” she added as she casually bisected an autonomous drone that had understood she was the danger but not understood all of it. “You should buy him a card!” 

 

-

 

“I will, Obaasan!” said Koneko, pulling away a guidance system that would make for a fine profit on the black market back home. “I will buy him a card and a whole origami box!” She landed at her grandmother’s side, tucking her loot into a bag Neko helpfully provided her. “Now are we going to leave?” she asked, waving around the scene of carnage as cybernetic armored troopers cut each other down in flashes of laser and electric light, making her fur stand on end. “My tail hurts,” she admitted. 

 

“Silly girl,” said Obaasan with that grandmotherly confidence as she carved the characters of her name into the wall with the katana in between beheading another impertinent drone, “we already have.” They were just about to head out the hole left by the arriving armored group when Koneko elbowed her grandmother and said “isn’t that a little much?”

 

“I suppose - “ Koneko was relieved to see her grandmother end the illusion that made the Carapace guard think he was choking to death, and even more relieved when his bug eyes faded and his normal breathing actually resumed without vomiting or crapping his pants. It was really disgusting when they did that. 

 

-

 

Heikin looked up at the infamous metahuman terrorist, the living embodiment of the savage world his generation had long since hoped to leave behind, and realized his life had been spared. “...why did you come here?” he asked, his voice shaky only because he half-still-believed his trachea had been crushed. 

 

“I told you. I came here for my granddaughter.” The old woman smiled, showing her teeth as she sheathed her sword back into her cane. “I would say America can burn - but it already has. Now we are going home.” She leaned down over Heikin and he could smell the oil of the drones she’d cut apart, see the glowing yellow of her eyes, and could tell she’d eaten fish recently. “Remember - when you forget magic - you forget yourself. <Don’t let the Americans fool you, Heikin-san.>” 

 

She stood up - and suddenly a heavy anti-personnel charge tore through her chest and out the back. Heikin froze in terror and shock as he saw and smelled the blood, the gore of the gigantic, surely mortal wound, saw the old woman flinch - and then suddenly heard Koneko’s laughter. Neko smiled too; and then both women were gone like figures from a dream, leaving him clean and bloodless in a corridor full of very expensive hardware and well-trained personnel that had just torn each other to pieces. 

 

The escape of Neko Musume and her granddaughter Koneko Musume cost Carapace Corps hundreds of hours of drone work in architectural repair, psychological counseling, and hospital bills. It could have been much worse.