Sign of the Dragon (Tatsu Yamada Book 1), Niall Teasdale [books for 20 year olds .txt] 📗

then and nothing quite like this. And the circumstances don’t fit. Still, damn manager didn’t care about possible pathogens. Just wanted his doors open.’

‘I guess PIN has made people complacent about diseases.’

‘Far too complacent.’ PIN, Programmable Immunity Nanomachines, was one of Izanami’s greatest achievements. A colony of nanomachines in symbiotic relationship with the body’s immune system, PIN would eliminate a host of known pathogens as soon as it identified them, attempt to irradicate unknown pathogens, and even destroy cancer cells. It could even act as a switchable reproductive control in women, if you paid for it, eliminating sperm before they could implant. People with PIN were basically immune to disease and cancer, and their life expectancy doubled because of it. And they did tend to think themselves invulnerable because of it. ‘They were all tourists,’ Tatsu said, ‘so they probably all had PIN. Didn’t help them any.’

20th July.

Tatsu saw the message come in from HQ and decided that they could damn well wait a couple of minutes. Besides, her brain was otherwise occupied, and she doubted it would refocus for a short while. She was having a race with Sachiko to see who could get the other off first and she thought she might be winning. Clenched together in a sixty-nine on the bed of one of the Dream Castle’s medieval rooms, they had been going at each other as enthusiastically as they could since waking up ten minutes ago.

Sachiko let out a shriek. ‘Ah! No! I won’t let you–’ Her body tensed and began to shake, and then she was screaming.

‘Victory!’ Tatsu exulted right after Sachiko regained enough control to bury her face in Tatsu’s crotch again. ‘I get to chain– Oh, God!’ And then there was just screaming.

‘I get to chain you up next week,’ Tatsu said once they were in the shower, washing off the night’s emissions. She poked the message she had received into life as she turned to let Sachiko wash her back. Okay, so it had only taken two weekends to think of her as Sachiko.

‘Yes, I’ll be available for whatever depredations you’re planning,’ Sachiko said. ‘I’m hoping for something sufficiently depraved that I get a mental flag, okay?’

‘I’ll come up with something suitable. Huh, the lab finally got their act together.’

‘Sorry?’

‘I’ve been waiting for the final results from the lab. About that incident on Saturday night, yeah? All they’d give me yesterday was preliminary results. They finally sent the real thing.’

‘What’s it say? Oh, I guess you can’t tell me.’

Tatsu frowned. ‘Don’t spread it around and I think I can. They got nothing.’

‘It wasn’t a disease?’

‘No indications of biological or chemical agents. No unexplained nanomachines or evidence of such machines which self-destructed. Something dismantled five people into soup and bones without leaving a trace.’

‘That… doesn’t sound good. How do you stop it if you don’t know what it is?’

‘Good question. Like I said, don’t spread it around. I guess I’ll be looking into the backgrounds of the people who died. Maybe something there can shed light on what happened.’

‘I think I’m supposed to say something like “if anyone can do it, you can, Tatsu.”’

‘Ha! Thanks. Your vote of confidence is most appreciated.’

Tokyo, 21st July.

Hiroshi Hasegawa did his best not to groan as he spotted the length of the queue at the coffee shop. He got an hour for lunch but taking an hour for lunch was frowned upon without prior arrangement with his manager. You needed an excuse, like impending death, before they would accept taking your whole allotted lunch hour as anything other than company disloyalty.

He joined the line and, because he was a terribly loyal company employee, began working on the code he had left upstairs by remote. He was part of the ViraShield 14.0 team, responsible for nanomachine coding. Version fourteen had gone out at the end of February with no major problems reported. They were working on the first revision update, though there was nothing really major to revise. Minor bug fixes, that was all. None of them had affected users. Still, quality was important, and they would issue the update as soon as it was ready. ViraShield prided itself on having the best product in the business. Hasegawa intended to see that his part of it was up to the best standard, even if that meant working while waiting in the queue for lunch.

A wave of nausea passed over him and he frowned. Hunger? Was he really that hungry? No, it was not hunger. He felt terrible. He felt weak, nauseous, really ill. What was going on? He pulled up his medical monitoring system and checked whether there was anything he should be worrying about. Physical green, mental… Well, lime was probably right – he was under stress. Stress. Maybe that was what was causing this.

Ahead of him, several people left the line and it moved forward. Hasegawa went with it. He managed all of six steps before collapsing, unconscious, onto the floor.

~~~

Tatsu marched across the public foyer of the ViraShield building trailed by no fewer than three security officials. She had her badge hung in her cleavage, but they were still following along, complaining and trying to slow her down.

‘We understand the seriousness of the situation, Sergeant,’ the nearest was saying, ‘but we really can’t have someone, uh…’

‘Dressed like a prostitute?’ Tatsu suggested.

‘I would never suggest–’

‘I did for you. Also, my badge says I can be here dressed in whatever manner I wish. Where’s this coffee shop?’

‘If you would just follow–’

‘Tell me where the incident is or be arrested for obstruction. Your choice.’

‘You wouldn’t d–’

‘I assure you that I would. Where?’

And so, Tatsu arrived at the company mall on the second floor which looked like someone was filming a bioterror video. There were bodies everywhere and it was