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

she fired hit home and exploded, driving superheated plasma through the robot’s shell. It disintegrated, and the shaped blast went on to burn a hole through the wall behind it. Smouldering, semi-liquid plastic and cybernetic components rained down on the thin, burgundy carpet. The smell was unpleasant to say the least, and possibly somewhat toxic. Tatsu avoided the puddles as she ran out into the corridor and began searching for the bot’s owner.

There was no stealth-armoured assassin to be found as she checked the rooms along one side. She did find a few Funabashi mafiosi hiding behind the meagre furniture. Most of them knew her and refrained from firing at her. One even yelled for her to help. One fired wildly at her as she slammed the door of his room in. Not a single bullet hit home, and she ducked back out, ignoring him as she had done the one who had asked her to help.

It was as she was backtracking to check the other end of the floor that she found out where Kaede was. As she passed the stairwell, avoiding the cooling pools of molten plastic, she caught something in her peripheral vision and threw up her left arm. Warning indicators flashed in her sensorium as the sword bit deep, cutting through fake flesh, artificial muscle, and even the hardened metal of her skeleton. She fell, bouncing off the corridor wall before she found herself down on the carpet. Her sensorium was a confusing rush of damage messages and she had to struggle to get everything under control.

She heard the sword moving closer. It was humming. A sonic blade. Kaede had a sonic blade on her katana, a design made for defeating armour, and Tatsu’s limbs were not as protected as the rest of her body. She pushed up onto all fours – all threes really – and then rolled away from the noise, grabbing her fallen pistol as she went. The sonic whine of the katana changed as it was swung, but it did not hit home again, and Tatsu rolled out and up onto her feet, turning to look at the black-clad figure.

‘Good hit,’ Tatsu said. ‘It’s going to take my mechanic a while to repair the damage.’ Kaede said nothing in reply, so Tatsu went on, retreating a step as she did so. ‘Don’t make me shoot you. You won’t survive a hit from one of these rounds, fancy armour or no.’

Again, there was no reply. Kaede advanced a couple of steps, stalking her prey. The sword’s tip never deviated from where it was pointing: right at Tatsu’s eyes.

‘Don’t you think you’ve done enough, Kaede?’ Tatsu asked. ‘The Funabashi gang are finished. All the people responsible for your parents’ deaths are gone. You’re killing now because you like it. You’re making excuses to do it. Why would you even kill an old Chinese guy when what you want is the mafiosi?’

‘Pan was trying to stop the war,’ Kaede replied. ‘The war was meant to end them, but there are always more of them. Always.’

‘And your mother? Is it right that she’s taking the blame for your crimes?’

‘She’s not my mother,’ Kaede snapped. Her face was invisible thanks to the helmet, but there was genuine anger in her voice. ‘She took me in, but she never did anything to punish Zima for what he did. Now she’s paying for her lack of action.’

Tatsu stepped back again. ‘So, you decided to punish Zima yourself.’

Kaede closed the distance once more. ‘Letting him touch me like that was the hardest thing I’ve ever done, but exploiting his weakness was the easiest way to get to him. I thought I needed subterfuge back then, so I arranged to be invited into his apartment. I let them do what they wanted, and then I killed them both. They died as they lived, in perversion.’

Another backward step. ‘And the cards? I’ve never understood the cards. Why did you pick that ideogram?’

There was a slight falter in Kaede’s next step and her voice, when it came, was hesitant. ‘I… like dragons.’

Tatsu laughed. ‘It was a mistake. I’d never have been called in on this case if you hadn’t used that symbol. The same character that I use for my name.’

Kaede’s voice hardened. ‘It wasn’t a mistake. You won’t be around to use it for much longer.’ Her sword rose, preparing for an overhead, downward slash, straight at Tatsu’s head. She began a long step forward to bring herself in range, and Tatsu raised her pistol, firing from the hip. At this range, there was no chance of it missing. The slug hit Kaede in the chest and exploded. Tatsu barely felt the backwash from the detonation, but fragments of the casing lodged in her skin. Kaede fared far worse as a jet of plasma burned through her body like a blowtorch. Her step turned into a forward tumble. The sword fell, the humming stopping as it left her hands. She was dead before she joined it on the carpet and there was no chance that medical science might bring her back.

Tatsu gritted her teeth as the pain indicators from her arm reasserted themselves now that there was no longer immediate danger. Her software was telling her that the building was surrounded and that police officers were entering on the ground floor. They were late. Too late.

Looking down at the body at her feet, Tatsu shook her head. ‘What a waste,’ she said, and then she set off to meet the cops coming up the stairs.

Epilogue

Tokyo, Japan, 19th September 2099.

The sky was heavily overcast but the temperature was close to twenty-five and the humidity was oppressive. September in Tokyo had always been wet. This year, the rain had not been too bad so far, but there was no way that was going to last. Tatsu looked up at the sky, half expecting