1: Mission to School

15 April, 2137 Hours (Local Time)

80 km southeast of Khabarovsk, Soviet Union

Just kill me, the girl thought. The car jostled her back and forth as it bounced over the rugged terrain. Over and over, fresh mud from the slushy dirt road splattered on the windshield. In the headlights, visions of shadowy pine trees rose out of the darkness, then vanished. She looked into the side mirror and saw a face.

It was a pale face, chewing on her thumbnail like a woman possessed—her own face. Strange, she thought. Why do I look like that? I thought I was more tan from tennis club... But then, how long had it been since she last went to practice—a week? A month? A year?

Never mind, she told herself. It doesn’t matter. I’ll never make it back. I wish he’d just kill me.

“We’re almost there,” the middle-aged man at the wheel shouted. He wore a stiff coat over a military uniform. “The mountains are a few kilometers from here. We’re going to get back to Japan.”

Liar, she thought. You’re lying. We can’t shake them in a car like this. They’re going to catch me, strip me naked, drug me, lock me back in that awful water tank... That deep, dark, empty place... They’ll ask me all those bizarre questions, over and over again. I’ll beg and I’ll scream, but they won’t let me out.

“I’ll do anything! Just let me out!” I’ll cry, but they won’t hear me. Not even I will hear me. And little by little, I’ll keep breaking down.

My only fun will be biting my nails. That’s the only thing I can do, after all... I’ll become nobody, nobody whose only fun comes from chewing on nails... Nails are so good... It’s best when they hurt, best when they bleed... Bleedy bloody melty mails, nails, nailsnails snailsnails...

“Stop it!” The man slapped her hand away.

The girl, who up until then had been silent, in a trance, at last began to speak in a quavering voice. “Let me bite them. Or kill me. L-Let me... bite... or kill... kill, k-killkill kill...” She sounded like a broken cassette player.

The man’s face twisted in pity. He breathed out a curse for the men who had put her in this state. “Disgusting. The cruelty of it... Bastards!”

The man jerked the wheel in anger. Just then, he saw a flash of light behind him. It brushed over his speeding jeep and continued on past. He had enough time to think—that was a rocket. Then, deluged by a wall of roaring flames and hit by a hammer of a shockwave, he saw the whole world around him go red.

The windshield shattered, raining glass down on the two of them. The jeep spun out of control and skidded sideways. It hit a bump in the road, catapulted into the air, and flipped end-over-end through the fire.

The girl was thrown clear through the passenger-side window. If she had breathed in to scream just then, the swirling flames around her would have burned her lungs; she would have died on the spot. Unfortunately, she had lost even the will to do that.

Trailing smoke through the empty air, she plowed through the undergrowth, hit the muddy snow shoulders-first, then rolled like a ragdoll for three meters before finally coming to a stop.

For a while, she just lay there, a puppet with its strings cut. Then, her muddled consciousness cleared. She lifted her heavy head high enough to make out the damaged jeep. It was upside-down now, chassis bared to the night sky, back wheels spinning futilely.

She tried to pick herself up, but she couldn’t move her right shoulder. Maybe it was broken, or dislocated—strange how she didn’t feel any pain. She crawled her way to the remains of the jeep. She found the man, covered in blood, lying just beyond the crushed outer frame.

“Take this,” came his words, eventually—barely audible, and spoken from lips covered in red foam. With a trembling hand, he held out a CD case. “Keep going... south...” For some reason, his eyes were filled with tears. “Hurry... run a...” he managed. And that was the end.

His tear-stained eyes remained half-open, his face locked in an expression of grief. She didn’t know why he had been crying. Was it because he was in pain? Because he was afraid of dying? Or because...

Very slightly, her dulled instincts began to stir. She picked herself up on her shaky legs, took the CD case, and began to walk. She stepped with one mud- and blood-caked bare foot, then the other. She had no idea which way was south, but she would keep going, just as he had told her. Chewing on her brittle thumbnail, dragging her sluggish feet...

She could hear a helicopter approaching: the sound of the rotors churned through the air. The shrill engine growled and the air intake roared. The wind it kicked up made the forest around her rustle and hiss.

She looked up, and saw a gray attack helicopter rising from the pines; its frame was pocked and worn, like a gnarled old tree. She found it very ugly.

“Halt!” came a warning through the helicopter’s speakers. “Stop, or we’ll shoot!”

But the girl didn’t stop. She didn’t even think. She just kept walking.

The voice spoke again, this time a little muffled. “Where does she think she’s going?”

The autocannon in the helicopter’s nose flashed with fire. The shell slammed into the ground to her right. A spray of mud hit her, and the girl pitched forward.

“That’s what you get for being a naughty little girl,” the voice taunted.

She tried to pick herself up with her still-working arm. This time, she felt a shockwave from her left. The force rolled her over to face the sky. She let out a feeble moan.

“You’d better be careful,” the voice warned.

Another shell, then another, burst the ground nearby. Battered about by the force of the impacts, the girl struggled, squirmed, and writhed in the freezing mud. She heard laughter from the speakers, as if a few of them were in there, mocking her. Struggling for breath, the girl continued to crawl forward.

“Aw, poor little thing. All beat up, and still trying to r—” The voice froze up suddenly, leaving the only sounds the roar of the engine and the rotors booming out over the forest.

After a moment, the voice from the helicopter spoke again, this time sharp and urgent. “It’s an AS. I’m taking us hi—” That was as far as the pilot managed.

A squeal of shredding metal and a spray of sparks had erupted from the attack helicopter. The girl looked up, and saw something sticking out of its nose. It was a massive knife—a throwing knife, as long as a person was tall. Its red hot blade was buried deep in the machinery, sending sparks flying.

The helicopter was out of control. It zigged and zagged wildly before, at last, its nose dipped, and it began to plummet toward the girl. She had neither the time nor the will to escape. She was rooted to the spot, watching as the lump of metal came to consume her vision.

Just then, flying in from the corner of her eye, an enormous figure appeared. It strode over her, put itself in the helicopter’s path, planted its feet and spread its arms.

The helicopter continued its fall. There was a collision—shards flew, showering the ground around her. The ear-splitting grinding of gears sang a cacophony, together with the whirling of turbines.

She looked up, and saw the figure’s upper torso holding the helicopter aloft by its crumpled front half. Its back was arched as it strained against the weight, and steam jettisoned from its arms, its back—all of its joints.

Then, still clutching the helicopter in a death grip, the figure began to walk. Each step it took was a slushy stomp, displacing piles of muddy snow. Then, once it reached a safe distance from the girl, it hurled the helicopter into the forest. The craft’s battered remains exploded as they hit the ground.

Silhouetted by the rising flames, the figure—about eight meters tall—turned to face her. It was humanoid, powerful without looking slow. It had long legs and a pinched waist; a broad chest, and powerful arms. Its armor plating had a roundish cast to it, and the head looked like a person in a fighter pilot’s helmet. A gun, resembling the sort typically wielded by human soldiers, was strapped to its shoulders, and it wore a backpack clearly modeled after the human-sized kind.

“Arm... slave...” the girl whispered.

The massive machine—the arm slave—began to walk back toward her. “Are you hurt?” the humanoid weapon asked. The voice was measured and male. “You were pretty close to the helicopter, so I used an ATD. My shotcannon would have been too powerful.”

When she failed to respond, the arm slave knelt down, placed a hand on the ground and dipped its head. It felt like a scene from a fairy tale—the gray giant, kneeling to the broken princess.

With a sound of rushing pressure, the arm slave’s torso split open. The girl watched, stunned, as a soldier appeared from a hatch behind the neck. The appearance of the arm slave’s operator reminded her vaguely of a ninja; he was dressed in a black piloting suit and wore a light, compact headgear.

He jumped down to her side, holding a first-aid kit. He looked East Asian, and he was young—the boy soldier, she thought to call him. He seemed not much older than she was, but he had none of a teenager’s air of immaturity or shiftlessness.

Disheveled black hair, piercing eyes, a furrowed brow, and a mouth drawn in a tight frown... “Does it hurt anywhere?” he asked.

She was a little surprised to hear him speaking Japanese. She said nothing.

“You do speak Japanese, don’t you?” he asked.

Uncertainly, she nodded. “Are you with him?” she asked eventually.

“Yes,” the boy soldier affirmed. “We’re from Mithril.”

“Mithril?”

“A secret military organization,” he explained, “not affiliated with any country.”

She fell silent once more, and the boy soldier began patching her up. Waves of pain washed over her and over her, and her breathing became ragged. She eventually spoke again, her shoulders jerking up and down from trembling. “He’s dead.”

“It appears so,” the boy soldier agreed.

“He died trying to get me out.”

“That’s the kind of man he was.”

“It doesn’t make you sad?” she asked.

The boy soldier fell into thoughtful silence, pausing in his work before he answered; “I don’t know.” He finished taping her shoulder and arm, then without any reluctance, began to feel around her body, touching and prodding her.

“What... What are you going to do with me?” she asked quaveringly.

“Take you with me.”

“Where?”

“First, my AS will bring you to our transport helicopter’s LZ. The helicopter will take us to our mothership which is waiting out in the ocean. After that, I don’t know...” he told her honestly. “This is all our mission called for.”

“Our... mission?”

As if to answer her question, two more gray arm slaves pushed aside the trees to make their appearance; they looked almost identical to the first one. One was armed with a rifle, the other with a missile launcher, and both seemed to be on high alert.

“No need to worry,” he told her. “They’re with me.”

Her consciousness began to grow hazy, and her field of vision narrowed. Her thoughts became sluggish, and she grew disoriented. “What’s your name?” she managed to ask, as if begging.

“You shouldn’t talk,” the pilot advised her. “Save your strength.”

“Tell me,” she pleaded.

The young soldier hesitated a moment. “Sagara. Sagara Sousuke,” he said at last.

She barely heard his words before she fell unconscious.

15 April, 1611 Hours (Greenwich Mean Time)

Amphibious Assault Submarine Tuatha de Danaan, 100 Meter Depth, Sea of Japan

The giant submarine’s sprawling hangar was lined with rows of arm slaves, transport helicopters, and VTOL fighters. They made up most of the Tuatha de Danaan’s main arsenal.

Sagara Sousuke, having finished his mission and written up his report, gazed at the AS currently under maintenance. In one hand he held a fruit-flavored CalorieMate; in the other, a checklist on a clipboard.

“Hey, Sousuke,” a haughty voice called out to him. He turned and saw his comrade, Sergeant Kurz Weber, approaching.

Kurz was a beautiful man, with blond hair and blue eyes. He had a tapered jawline, almond eyes, and a slender nose. His long hair, well-coiffed, lent him an appealing androgyny. No woman, no matter how modest, could see his smile on a first meeting without feeling her heart flutter. But that would be as far as it went, because...

“Hey, why the long face? Got constipation? Hemorrhoids?”

...when Kurz started speaking, it all fell apart. He was a man unburdened by things like “dignity” and “good taste.”

“I’m in perfectly good health,” Sousuke responded neutrally, as he chewed on his CalorieMate.

“Ugh, you’re such a pill... So what, they’re taking it apart already?” Kurz asked, looking at the stripped AS.

“They wanted to run a thorough inspection of the skeleton.”

“Well, you gave it a hell of a workout... I can’t believe you caught a helicopter! Weren’t you scared?”

“No,” Sousuke told him. “I knew it was within the limits of what the M9 is capable of.”

The AS used by Sousuke and Kurz was the M9 Gernsback. It was a state-of-the-art model, not yet available to the rank and file. Its power and agility were an order of magnitude beyond that of any AS before it.

“Well, if you wanted to pull off a stunt like that, I guess you’d need this machine to do it...” Kurz sat himself down on an empty ammunition case and peered keenly at the dissected M9.

The weapons known as “arm slaves” had their origins in the mid-1980s. The president of the United States at the time, Ronald Reagan, had pushed for this “Robot Squad” idea alongside his Strategic Defense Initiative:

“The next star in the field of localized warfare.” “A bold technological leap forward.” “A reduction of the burden on our fighting men and women.” Dressed up in such dubious rhetorical flourishes, and despite being initially laughed off as a fantasy, the humanoid weapons became reality in a mere three years. They could run at 100 kilometers per hour, handle a variety of weapons with ease, and pack firepower on par with a tank.

Specialists in the field were stunned—contemporary civilian robot technology had barely achieved bipedal movement. What genius, what group of brilliant minds, they wondered, could have possibly been responsible? But the answers were locked tight behind the word: confidential.

Occult researchers and UFO scholars, insisting it must come from alien technology, saw their books and magazines fly off the shelves. But it didn’t last long—humans soon began to see the ASes as just another piece of high-tech weaponry, no different from cruise missiles and stealth bombers.

And so, ten years passed. AS tech continued to evolve in leaps and bounds. Before long, they became so deadly that even attack helicopters had to approach with care.

“Anyway, I’m here about that girl you picked up,” Kurz said, as if only just remembering.

“Did she pull through?” Sousuke asked.

“Yeah. But they say she’s in serious withdrawal.”

“Narcotics?”

“Cannabinoids... or something like. We don’t know all the details yet. They pumped her full of ’em in a KGB lab... No idea what kind of experiments they were running, but they put her in one hell of a state.”

“Will she recover?”

“Who knows?” Kurz answered. “It’ll take a long time if she does, though.”

Sousuke fell silent. Their squad hadn’t been told what kind of experiments the girl was being used for. Their commanding officers seemed to know, but they rarely shared that kind of info with the soldiers on the ground.

The man who had saved her was a spy with Mithril’s intelligence department. His mission as conceived had been a low-risk one—smuggle some information out of the KGB lab—but when he saw her being used as a guinea pig, he’d decided he couldn’t just leave her there. He’d placed himself in the crosshairs to get her out; a chase had ensued, and he had died, leaving the CD and the nearly catatonic girl to Sousuke’s rescue squad.

As Sousuke and Kurz fell into silence, Master Sergeant Melissa Mao entered the hangar. “Oh, there you are.” She made a beeline for the two men.

Mao was Chinese-American, in her mid-twenties, and—like Sousuke and Kurz—qualified to operate an AS. The three of them were frequently put on missions together, with Mao acting as their team leader. She was a striking woman, with short black hair and a lively glint in her eyes. “I see you’re working overtime,” she said.

Sousuke nodded silently in response.

“What is it now, Big Sis?” Kurz asked, his expression confrontational.

“What’s with that look?” she bristled. “You got a problem?”

“Never said that.”

“Then loosen up already. You look like enough of a bozo as it is.”

“L-Like a bozo?! Me?” Kurz spluttered. “I’ve done modeling for Esquire!”

Mao got up in his face, eyes wide. “Yeah, I saw that. With your big, stupid grin... I thought it was a poster for one of those war spoofs, like Charlie Sheen in Hot Shots.”

Kurz growled. “You stupid bitch...”

Suddenly, Mao reached out and seized Kurz by the cheeks.

“H-Hey, thassh meeeeam!” he cried.

“What was that? What did you call me?” she asked sweetly. “‘You...’ what?”

“B-Beauuuufifuw, srennnerr, commhehant m-massssersarrgennt!”

“Better.”

Sousuke watched them sidelong while he finished off his CalorieMate. Mao noticed it, and asked him, “Was it good?”

“Yes. It had just the right amount of sweetness.” His face was as expressionless as ever, but there was a vague light of happiness in his eyes.

“Oh? Good to hear. Anyway, Sousuke. The major wants to talk to you.”

“Understood.”

“You too, Kurz.”

“Huh? But you said we could have a break...”

“Well, I take it back. I, on the other hand, will take a break. I’m going to take a shower and get to bed.” Mao cackled as she walked away.

“Stupid bitch. Some day I’m really gonna give it to her. I’ll make her scratch my back until she begs for mercy!” Kurz flipped the bird at Mao’s departing form.

Sousuke watched him and asked in confusion, “Is that some sort of magic ritual?”

Sousuke and Kurz knocked on the major’s door. The reply was immediate: “Come in.”

They did so. In the back of a room piled high with documents and bookshelves sat a large Caucasian man. He was absorbed in some reading material on his desk, and didn’t even spare them a glance as they entered. He was a broad-shouldered man dressed in an olive green uniform, and had an attractive face with strong features. His long gray hair was tied back in a tail, and he kept his mustache and beard clipped short. This was Major Andrey Kalinin, their commanding officer.

“Reporting in,” Sousuke declared, standing at attention.

“Yeah, we made it,” Kurz acknowledged sullenly.

Major Kalinin looked up from the documents he’d been reading, then flipped them over to hide their contents. He showed no sign of being bothered by Kurz’s attitude. “I have a mission for you,” he said, cutting right to the chase. He took out another document pack and tossed it in front of the young men. “First, look through this.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Sure thing.”

They skimmed through the information. It seemed to be someone’s personal history. There was a black and white picture attached, of an East Asian girl about twelve years old. She was smiling shyly, snuggled up to a woman who was probably her mother. She was fair-skinned and cute, with nicely proportioned features.

Kurz whistled. “She’ll be a heartbreaker some day.”

“That picture was taken four years ago. The girl is currently sixteen years old,” Major Kalinin added.

“Oh? Got a picture of that version?”

“No.”

Sousuke showed no interest in their exchange, and silently continued reading her history.

First came her name: Chidori Kaname. She lived in Tokyo, Japan. Her father was a high commissioner with the UN. She had one sister, eleven years old, who lived with their father in New York. Her mother had passed three years ago, and Kaname herself was attending school in Tokyo. Past that came more detailed information—height, blood type, medical history, etc.

Sousuke’s eyes stopped on one particular row, where a key word had been sloppily blacked out with magic marker: “W*******d potential: 88% (according to Mirror Method).” It seemed a rather perfunctory way to hide classified information, but perhaps that was a sign of how much he trusted them.

“So, something happen to her?” Kurz asked.

“Something might.”

“Huh?”

Major Kalinin sat back in his chair and gazed at the tabloid-sized map on the wall. It showed the world’s current borders—the complicated territories of the Soviet Union, China divided into North and South, and the mess of dotted lines that made up the Middle East region. “All you need to know is that the girl in that picture, Chidori Kaname, is under high risk of kidnapping from the KGB and an unknown number of other organizations.”

“How come?”

“You don’t need to know that,” Major Kalinin said shortly.

“I see,” Kurz sniffed.

The point was, people might be coming for Chidori Kaname. Might. Sousuke didn’t know why they wanted her, or what could have led to it. The situation was completely opaque. “So, what’s our mission?” he asked.

“We’re going to need you to keep her safe. I know Sergeant Sagara can speak Japanese, and I think you can too, Sergeant Weber.”

“Well sure, but...” Kurz’s father had been a special correspondent with a newspaper, and he’d lived in Edogawa, Tokyo until he was 14, so he could speak Japanese well enough.

“I’ve already briefed Sergeant Mao,” Major Kalinin told them. “It’ll be up to the three of you.”

“Just the three of us?” Sousuke asked.

“We can’t spare any more. It’s already been decided.”

“It’s not gonna be easy,” Kurz observed.

“That’s why we’re sending you,” Major Kalinin answered. Sousuke, Kurz, and Mao weren’t merely AS operators; they were soldiers trained in a variety of skills, including parachuting and recon. They were part of an elite team hand-picked from a large pool of candidates. To them, ASes were just another kind of weapon, no different from a gun or a vehicle. “And... because Sergeant Mao insisted, your equipment will be Class B.”

Kurz and Sousuke both stared in disbelief. Class B equipment: he was telling them to take an arm slave.

“Uh... in the middle of a city?” Kurz questioned.

“Use the ECS in invisibility mode,” Major Kalinin recommended, “and you’ll be fine.”

Most modern-day weapons, including the arm slaves, came equipped with an ECS—an electromagnetic camouflage system. It was a cutting-edge stealth device that used hologram technology to hide the user completely from radar and infrared sensors. The ECS employed by Mithril were even more advanced, capable of nullifying wavelengths on the visible spectrum—in effect, rendering you invisible. This consumed a lot of energy, of course, so it was unrealistic to use once maneuvers began. But for staying stationary and hiding, it was nearly flawless.

“You’ll get one M9,” Kalinin added. “Take minimal armaments, and two packs of external capacitors.”

“Sir.”

“Also, this mission must be conducted in utmost secret. We’ll have a mess on our hands if the Japanese government learns about it. Therefore, you must monitor Kaname—and protect her if it comes to it—without her awareness.”

Kurz’s attractive face grimaced. “The hell? That’s ridiculous...”

“It will be difficult,” Sousuke agreed. The idea of protecting someone without their knowledge or consent seemed absurd.

But Major Kalinin remained unfazed. “We have a way to make it easier. This girl, Chidori Kaname, attends a co-ed public high school, where she spends most of her day. Thus, we’ll install our youngest squad member there. He’s the same age as her, and he’s Japanese.”

“Oh, I get it.” Kurz clapped his hands in realization. He and the major both turned to gaze at Sousuke.

Sousuke stood there silently at first, perplexed by their attention. “Major,” he finally asked, “are you suggesting...?”

Major Kalinin signed the directive as he responded. “First, we need to manufacture some documentation. We’ll have to find out what the school requires.”

“What the school requires for what?” Sagara Sousuke asked with trepidation, though he already knew the answer.

“What else?” Major Kalinin replied. “A transfer student application.”

16 April, 1150 Hours (Greenwich Mean Time)

1st Briefing Room, Tuatha de Danaan, 100 Meter Depth, Near Tsugaru Peninsula

Sousuke glared sullenly into the camera.

“Big smile, Sousuke,” Kurz cooed, beckoning. He was serving as an impromptu photographer.

Sousuke made an awkward attempt to twist his face into a smile. It ended up looking more like a muscle spasm.

“There we go,” Kurz said encouragingly. “You want to look nice and friendly on your ID, right?” He snapped the picture.

Sousuke immediately reverted to his blank expression.

Kurz sighed.

16 April, 2120 Hours (Greenwich Mean Time)

Dining Hall, Tuatha de Danaan, 80 Meter Depth, Near Kinkasan

Sousuke furrowed his brow as he surveyed the items scattered across the table. “What is all of this?”

Mousse and a brush, a portable CD player, CDs by enka singer Itsuki Hiroshi and pop icon SMAP, an amulet from Mt. Narita, Rohto Pharmaceutical eyedrops, a coupon to Tower Records, a Nintendo GameBoy, a Mr. Junko-brand watch, a Yunker Kotei health tonic, packs of Marlboro and Libera cigarettes, magazines like Popeye, Josei Jishin, and Dragon Magazine, etc, etc, etc...

“We rounded up everything on board that a Japanese high school student might have,” Melissa Mao explained proudly.

“I see,” he said, then paused. “What’s this?” It was a small ring of rubber in a square plastic wrapper.

“That’s a condom,” Melissa grinned.

“I know that,” Sousuke told her. “But what use would a high school student have for a condom?”

“Don’t play dumb, you perv!” she teased.

“What are you talking about?” he asked with perfect sincerity. “I’ve used them several times before. They’re meant for use in the jungle, to replace a lost canteen.”

Mao stared and said nothing.

“They can hold a liter of fresh water,” Sousuke added.

“Oh, really?” Mao sighed.

18 April, 1006 Hours (Greenwich Mean Time)

1st Briefing Room, Tuatha de Danaan, 50 Meter Depth, Near Boso Peninsula

“Here, have a look at this.” Kurz pushed Sousuke to the LCD screen, remote for the tape deck in hand. “This is how Japanese high school students act. Burn it into your brain, okay?”

It was footage of a classroom. It seemed to be around sunset, and there were only two students present—one male, one female. Though the classroom was large, they had holed up together in a corner, exchanging nervous conversation.

“Hey... listen. I used to just think of you as a childhood friend, but...” the boy stuttered out, while the girl remained silent. “But I’ve finally realized how I really feel. I... I...”

“Toru-kun!” she cried out.

The two of them embraced. Just then, there was a sound. They gasped and turned. Another girl stood in the door to the classroom. She was watching them and trembling.

“Naomi!” the boy cried.

“You’re awful,” the second girl whispered and then ran away, crying. The boy looked about to follow her, but the girl he was sitting with stopped him, and—

“Well?” Kurz asked, prompting Sousuke for his opinion.

Sousuke’s expression was one of ardent confusion. “I don’t understand. Why did the second girl flee the scene?”

“Flee the scene? You stupid—”

“No... I see now. She had learned their secret. She was afraid of being silenced, so she fled the scene. A wise woman. She’ll live a long time.”

Kurz sighed.

19 April, 0330 Hours (Japan Standard Time)

Flight Deck, Tuatha de Danaan, Ocean Surface, Near Miura Peninsula

The noise of the engine roared.

The de Danaan had surfaced and exposed its flight deck. The black vessel’s maw stood open to the sky above, allowing ASes, combat helicopters, and VTOLs to take off from within. On the deck, a seven-blade transport helicopter stood by for takeoff. Its storage compartment was loaded up with an M9 arm slave and its equipment.

Sousuke tossed his bags behind his seat, then fastened his seat belt. He pulled his forged certificate of residence from his inner pocket and double-checked the information.

From beside him, Mao peered at his documentation. “You’re using your real name?” she asked him suspiciously.

“It’s not as if I’m registered in that country anyway,” Sousuke explained. “You can always change the name of someone who doesn’t exist.”

“Well, I suppose...”

“It’s not a problem. Take us out.”

The helicopter began its smooth ride toward their take-off point.

“Are you sure you can handle this, though? You’re kind of a dunce about social stuff...” Kurz asked from the seat behind him.

“I’ll do my best.”

“Tessa was worried, you know,” Mao added. Tessa was the captain of the Tuatha de Danaan.

“That’s understandable,” Sousuke agreed. “It’s an important mission.”

“That’s not what I meant...”

Just then, the pilot in the bulky helmet said “We’re taking off.”

20 April, 0820 Hours (Japan Standard Time)

Tokyo Suburbs, 100 meters north of Jindai High School

“Ugh, it sucked,” Chidori Kaname whispered in disgust. Her dark brown eyes searched vacantly for something in the blue sky above. The black hair that hung down her back swayed limply with each step she took. She repeated: “Ugh, it just sucked.”

It was Monday, and she was part of a crowd of students on their way to school. Tokiwa Kyoko, the classmate who was walking beside her, chimed in. “This again? You been moaning all morning, Kana-chan. Was he really that bad?”

“I mean, he just kept going on and on about nothing...” They were talking about a boy she had gone on a date with yesterday. “I agreed to go out with the guy. Couldn’t he have put together a conversation with a little more depth?”

Who cares if your dad’s a designer, or you have a friend who’s a J-Leaguer? Who cares? What about you? she had ended up thinking.

“Hmm, fair enough,” her classmate agreed, deciding it was too much trouble to do otherwise.

“The life of Zhuge Liang, pollution in the West Pacific, religious strife in the Middle East...”

“Hmm, fair enough.”

“You can’t ‘fair enough’ your way out of this, Kyoko!” Kaname objected. “You’re the one who introduced us!”

“Well, he asked me to.”

“So? If someone asked you to auction me off in Macau, would you do that too?”

“Hmm, fair enough.”

Kaname groaned. “You’re such a bitch... Huh?” She had noticed a line of students out the front gate. “Oh, God, a bag check...” Her mood sank. The noncurricular guidance teachers were checking the pockets and bags of every student heading into the building.

“Hey, it is... Wait, Kana-chan, you’re not carrying anything dangerous, are you?”

“Uh? Well, not dangerous, but...” The problem was that her bag was full of strange books, like Murphy’s Laws of Success, History Edition — You Can Live Like Zhuge Liang! and So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish, and Miracles of Archaeology: Did the Moai Write the Dead Sea Scrolls?! and such. (She had borrowed them from another friend, and she was bringing them in to return them.)

“So, what’s the big deal? If you had a machine gun or a bomb, that might be a reason to freak...”

“What kind of weirdo would bring in something like that?” she laughed, then paused. “Hmm?”

Beyond the gate, at the head of the line, a crowd had formed. She could hear the sounds of an argument.

“What’s that all about?” In the spirit of curiosity, Kaname and Kyoko approached and peered through the crowd to see what was going on.

Their homeroom teacher, Kagurazaka Eri, was apparently grilling a student. “You think we’ll tolerate this kind of attitude your first day here?”

“No, I...”

“You’re not going inside until you show me your bag!”

“But...” It was a boy. He seemed to be trying hard to stay cool, but couldn’t completely hide his distress. His eyes darted all around, suggesting unease with the attention he was getting.

“Who’s that?” Kaname whispered. “I’ve never seen him before...”

He was wearing the same high-collared uniform as the other boys, but there was something strange about him. He was handsome enough, but Kaname’s real first impression of him was “grim.” He had disheveled black hair; his mouth was in a tight frown, with the air of someone on constant alert. He seemed skinny at a glance, but he carried himself like a practitioner of judo or some other rough sport.

“Show it to me! Now!” The teacher grabbed the student’s hand and snatched his bag away.

“Ah...”

“Don’t tell me... You’ve got cigarettes, don’t you?” She opened the bag and rummaged around inside. She pushed aside textbooks, and notebooks, and...

At the very bottom, she found an Austrian machine pistol with three 34-round magazines. There was also a cylinder of plastic explosives with a detonator, a stun grenade, a miniature camera, piano wire—

“This has to be a joke,” she said after a pause.

“What?” The boy looked distraught.

“You can’t bring toys like these to school. I’m confiscating them.”

He blinked. “What?”

“Go on, wait for me in the office!” the teacher ordered. “It’s almost time for homeroom!”

The student just stared at her. The onlookers dispersed, laughing. Kaname mustered her most disgusted tones to say, “Ugh, a military geek. Gag me...”

Kyoko laughed. “I don’t know, he seems hilarious to me...”

Kyoko’s prediction would turn out to be right. Sagara Sousuke had grown up on battlefields. He had traveled all over the world... but tragically, here in this microcosm known as high school...

He was an idiot out of his element.

I can’t believe they searched our belongings... Sousuke thought as he followed Ms. Kagurazaka down the quiet hallway.

His first thought—when the noncurricular guidance teacher first asked him to show her his bag—was, have I failed in my mission already?! His second thought—after his weapons were discovered and confiscated—was, I suppose now they’ll take me to the basement for interrogation. (He was unaware that most schools didn’t have basement interrogation rooms.)

But as it turned out, that kind of inspection was an everyday occurrence at this school.

Does that mean students regularly try to smuggle in guns and explosives? Sousuke wondered. It’s hard to imagine, but... If students regularly brought firearms to school, it would make his bodyguard duties that much harder; a passing member of the volleyball club could whip out a submachine gun and start firing at any moment.

Then again, Kurz Weber had the M9 Gernsback waiting in the copse behind the school. Sousuke had a miniature transceiver disguised as a watch—one call, and backup could be there in ten seconds.

“Uruz-6, what’s your status?” he whispered to his comrade through the transceiver.

“Hungry. Want booze,” Kurz replied into Sousuke’s earpiece. Only morning, yet already brimming with complaints.

But I suppose my infiltration was successful, at least... Sousuke consoled himself.

Kagurazaka Eri, the teacher leading him down the hall, was in her mid-twenties. Her hair was done in a short bob, and she wore a trim gray skirt suit.

“Ma’am?” he asked eventually.

“Yeah?”

“That gun you confiscated...”

“Oh, you’ll get it back... at the end of the term,” Eri responded with a slightly teasing air.

“No, it’s not that... I wanted to warn you. There’s a shot loaded in the chamber. You need to not touch the trigger under any circumstances.”

“Oh, really?” she deadpanned.

“It’s an extremely lethal splat bullet,” he told her seriously. “An accidental discharge would be fatal. Please.”

“I get it,” Eri sighed. “Calm down.”

You don’t get it and I can’t calm down, Sousuke thought. But he just shook his head in silence.

When Kaname and Kyoko saw Eri lead Sagara Sousuke into the room, they flew into a conversation of silent gestures.

“Hey! It’s him!”

“The firearm geek!”

The students buzzed, and the teacher raised her voice over the din. “Okay, quiet down! It’s time to meet your new classmate!” She slapped the blackboard with the attendance roll, sending the students of class 2-4 into temporary attention mode. “All right, Sagara-kun. Introduce yourself.”

“Right.” Sousuke took a step forward and struck an ‘at ease’ posture: chest out, shoulders back. “I am Sergeant Sagara Sousuke,” he announced in a clear, resonant voice. Then he realized his mistake, and his face went pale.

“Sergeantsaga Rasousuke?”

“I think it’s one long title, like Hashiba-Chikuzen-no-Kami-Hideyoshi.”

“Sergeant... like a drill sergeant? The army trainer guys?”

Nobody seemed to take the statement very seriously.

“Quiet!” Eri barked. “He’s not done yet! And Sagara-kun, stop fooling around!”

“I... I’m sorry...” He’d never felt this kind of nervousness before. One careless word could condemn his mission to failure. The very thought of it brought beads of sweat to his forehead. “Sagara Sousuke. That is who I am. Please forget the ‘Sergeant’ part. That is all.” Then, he fell silent.

After a pause, Eri asked, “Is that it?”

“Yes. That is it.”

She turned back to the students. “Any questions?”

“Me! Hey Sagara-kun, where do you come from?” one student asked.

“Many places,” he answered. “Afghanistan, Lebanon, Cambodia, Iraq... I’ve never stayed in one place for very long.”

A hush fell over the class, and Eri spoke up to fill the awkward silence. “What Sagara-kun is saying is... he’s lived overseas for most of his life. You were in the United States until recently, weren’t you?”

“That’s right,” Sousuke confirmed. She had likely read his transfer form, which listed his prior residence as ‘Fayetteville, North Carolina, USA.’ It was untrue, of course—He had chosen that location because he knew someone who lived near there, which would make it easier to keep his story straight.

Another student raised a hand. “What are your hobbies?”

Before Sousuke could respond, someone else interrupted, “Model guns, right?” which caused the room to break out in laughter.

“No,” Sousuke corrected, “fishing and reading.” That part was true: he typically spent his free time at Mithril’s West Pacific base, fishing while reading munitions manuals. If it was raining, he’d bring an umbrella, and lock himself up in his own little world... It was a little depressing, really.

“What kind of books do you read?” someone in the back asked. This time, Sousuke’s eyes lit up.

“Mostly technical manuals and trade magazines. I frequently read Jane’s Fighting Ships, and I enjoy Soldier of Fortune, as well as Arm Slave Monthly from Harris Publishing.” He paused to think for a moment. “Oh, and I’ve read the Japanese publication AS Fan. I’m impressed by the level of information they get access to... It’s a good magazine. These days, I’ve been more interested in maritime matters, though. I recently acquired the latest ten publications from the Naval Institute Press...”

Silence.

Sousuke trailed off, and looked down at his fingernails. “Forget all that,” he said at last.

But nobody even remembered it.

Another girl raised her hand. “Um, do you have a favorite musician?”

This was a hard one; Sousuke hardly ever listened to music. Then he suddenly recalled the CDs that Master Sergeant Mao had gathered up on the submarine before they deployed. And so, he proclaimed with confidence:

“Itsuki Hiroshi and SMAP.”

20 April, 1508 Hours (Japan Standard Time)

2nd Floor, Athletics Club Building, Jindai High School, Tokyo

“He’s a total freak, I’m telling you.” Kaname stressed to Kyoko as she undid the ribbon on her chest. “Have you heard him say one thing that’s in tune with reality? There’s no way he’s doing it to be funny, either. He’s just one card short of a full deck, right? First-class crazy?” She talked and talked.

While she did, she unbuttoned her blouse, removed it, and reached out to arrange it on its hanger. But the sleeve got caught, and knocked over the Mizuno bat she had leaned against the locker. “Oh, for the love of...” she grumbled, but then went back to her rant. “And did you see the way he kept looking around all during class? And at lunch break, how he kept going back and forth from the hall?”

Kyoko was next to her, undoing the hooks on her skirt. “Oh, did he do that?”

“Yeah, he did! Ugh, I hate watching nervous types like him. It so gets on my nerves...”

“Then... don’t watch him, maybe?”

“I wasn’t!” Kaname stammered. “Like I’d ever be watching that geek!” But, as she adjusted her bra, she went right back to it. “Oh, oh, also! I made eye contact a few times. He was totally watching me!”

“Who was?” Kyoko questioned.

“That guy, duh! Then he’d look away like ‘oh, I wasn’t really looking at you,’ but come on, it was so obvious! Ugh, it’s just creepy...”

“Well, you’re pretty attractive, Kana-chan,” Kyoko whispered with the smallest hint of jealousy. She put on her stirrup socks and reached for her orange pants.

“Well, thanks, but that’s beside the point. Those eyes were the eyes of a total sicko.”

“You know, Kana-chan, you’ve been spending a whole lot of time dissing Sagara-kun...”

“I have?”

At that exact moment, Sousuke was striding across the athletic field. He stopped in front of the sports clubs building, looking up at the line of six second floor windows. There should be a staircase... yes, there it was. He checked the paper he was holding one more time, then started to climb.

“You have,” Kyoko affirmed, back in the club room. She knew her friend all too well.

Kaname was a loudmouth, but that was actually something people liked about her; her no-holds-barred attitude was a large part of why last year she’d been dragged (reluctantly) into the student council vice presidency. She also had a fundamentally people-pleasing nature, which was why she was here now, helping out Kyoko’s team. It was odd to see her complain this much about someone she barely knew, and odder still for her to badmouth him behind his back.

“Are you that into him?” Kyoko asked.

“Oh... what? No way!” Kaname denied. “Ah... ahahahahaha!”

Kyoko knew what that “ahahahaha” meant, too. That was her way of saying, “I don’t know, but this conversation is over”—even if Kaname didn’t realize that herself.

“Okay, let’s go.”

With their uniforms on, Kaname and Kyoko headed for the door. But as they swept open the curtain that cordoned off the changing area...

There were two sharp knocks, followed immediately by the club door opening wide. The boy who had opened the door—Sousuke—locked eyes with a girl in the middle of changing.

“Y...” The girls present—eighteen or so in total—all sucked in a deep breath, and then...

“Yaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!!” Their scream was loud enough to shake the windows.

Sousuke stood there, first confused, then alarmed; he was probably more surprised than they were. The first thing he did was clear his mind of the information “most of these girls are in their underwear” (a trivial factor during an emergency). Then he dove into the room, grabbing Kaname’s collar and pulling her to the ground as he passed. In one fluid motion, he yanked the revolver from his ankle holster, shouted, “Everyone, get down! Get down!” and rolled onto his back with his gun aimed at the door.

It had taken less than two seconds in all; his reaction speed was remarkable, honed by years of practice. Sousuke remained just as he was, senses on full alert.

Then after a moment, he switched to confusion. There was no one in the doorway—no one at all. Kaname still on the floor under his back, his gun still pointed at the door, he looked around and around, growing more and more puzzled.

There was no sign of threat anywhere in the room.

Correction: he was surrounded by girls with murder in their eyes.

Ten minutes later, the chaos in the club room had finally subsided.

“You had another one of these on you, huh?” Kagurazaka Eri, who had been notified by one of the girls, snorted as she picked up his .38 five-shot revolver.

“Yes,” Sousuke said. Then he added after a moment, “I’m very sorry.” He shrank into the folding chair they’d sat him in, looking completely run-down. His uniform collar was torn, and he could see traces of scratches forming on his flesh here and there. His hands were cuffed behind him, holding him in place—they had used the very aluminum alloy handcuffs Sousuke had brought with him. It was like a prisoner interrogation.

“I’ll be confiscating this, too,” Eri told him. “I’m sure you won’t object.”

“Right. But...”

“But what?”

“At least remove the bullets,” he pleaded. “They’re hollow points. Extremely dangerous.”

“Yes, I’m sure they are...” Eri said dismissively. Then she stood up and declared, “Chidori-san, he’s all yours.”

“Huh? But...”

“I have a teachers’ conference to get to. There’s a field trip coming up, remember? He’s unequivocally in the wrong here, so talk it over with the others and deal with him as you see fit.” Whether from her trust in Kaname or a basic lack of giving-a-damn, Eri turned authority over to the girls and stepped out. Sousuke, facing an uncertain future, viewed Eri’s exit like the UN peacekeepers’ departure from Cambodia.

“All right...” Kaname, Kyoko, and the other girls all glared down at Sousuke.

Anticipating the torture in store for him, he timidly said, “The Geneva Convention specifies...”

“The what?”

“...Nothing.”

Kaname had never heard those words before—She actually thought “Geneva” was the capital of Brazil. “All right, Sagara-kun, let’s go right to it. What were you thinking?” Kaname hissed. “The Peeping Tom stuff is bad enough, but what about that whole scene? You pulled out that model gun, you threw me around the room... You don’t think that’s crazy? Like, the first-rate kind?”

“F-First rate?” he stammered. ‘Crazy but first rate?’ What kind of contradiction is that? Is it I who am mad, or the world? No, wait, what is it I did that was crazy? Crazy is normal, normal is... (abridged). Such (pointless) philosophical agonies turned over and over in Sousuke’s mind, in an instant that felt like eternity.

“First rate, you know? First-rate crazy?” Kaname pointed an index finger to her temple and moved it in a looping gesture. Then she yanked up her sleeve. “Look at my elbow! You broke the skin! What are you gonna do about that, huh?” There was a very slight red spot on her porcelain arm. You’d barely notice it if it wasn’t pointed out—The harm they’d caused Sousuke was far more severe, but none of them seemed to care about that.

“It should heal quickly enough...” he said, foolishly.

Immediately, the girls pounced on him. “How dare you!”

“A scar can haunt a woman all her life!”

“I can’t believe what a jerk you are!”

He felt bombarded from all sides. It was worse than a crossfire between tank battalions.

“Well? Say something already!”

“Tell Kana-chan you’re sorry!”

After a struggle, he managed to put together that they had found his behavior unacceptable. So at last, in the name of good faith, he said, “I apologize for being overly rough with you. I wasn’t trying to harm you or your friends.”

“Then what were you trying to do?!”

“I can’t tell you. You don’t have appropriate clearance.”

And like that, the good faith was down the drain.

“Huh? What clearance?! Tell us!”

“I can’t. I’m sorry...”

Kaname mussed up her hair with her hands. “Why did you even come here in the first place?!”

“I wanted to join the club,” Sousuke said evenly.

In perfect unison, the girls responded, “Huh?”

“I was in this same club at my last high school. I believe the team found me very useful, so I wanted to join your club as well. I’m quite athletic, and I believe I could be an asset to you. Will you let me join?” Confidently, he recited the lines he’d memorized in advance. He thought it was a pretty good performance, all in all.

“Sagara-kun...” Kaname intoned, as if fighting off a pounding headache. “This is the girls’ softball club...”

Sousuke furrowed his brow. “Boys aren’t allowed to join, then?”

“Of course not!” she shrieked.

He thought for a minute. Then at last, he spoke, “Isn’t sexual discrimination a serious issue in these cases?”

“What cases?!”

The girls cast Sousuke out of the room, chair and all, and sent him flying down the stairs.

20 April, 1845 Hours (Japan Standard Time)

Room 505, Tigers Mansion, Chofu, Tokyo

The viewfinder followed a girl with black hair as she opened a door, went inside, and shut it behind her. The highly directional microphone picked up the sound of a lock clacking into place.

“1845 hours. Angel arrives home. No sign of pursuit.” Melissa Mao, who was stationed to watch Chidori Kaname’s home, reported into a nearby microphone.

A portable display tracked the location of Kurz’s AS on a map. The M9—invisible thanks to its ECS—was heading south along the city roads. He’d probably be in the neighborhood within two or three minutes.

Melissa was in an apartment thrown together by Mithril’s intelligence department: a safehouse for staging and surveillance. It was positioned across the street from the apartment complex where Kaname lived, at an angle where they could look down on it. It was a large apartment, with no real furniture except for four chairs and a cheap table she’d brought in that morning. Its only other occupants were a few firearms and a small mountain of surveillance equipment.

“Why is everything in Tokyo so expensive, though?” she mused to herself. Having finished her 320 yen hamburger, she pulled out a 240 yen pack of menthols and lit up.

Sousuke returned shortly, and Mao was dumbstruck by the state he was in. He was handcuffed to a folding chair, which he was dragging along behind him.

“What the hell is that?” she demanded.

“It’s a folding chair, obviously,” he said as he managed, with great effort, to remove his shoes.

“Well, sure... But why are you dragging it along with you?”

“Because I can’t remove the handcuffs,” he admitted. “They’re hinged, and the keyhole is facing away from my hands, so...”

“Sousuke, come on...” Mao groaned, and used her own master key to remove his restraints.

“Thank you,” he said. He then proceeded to explain the day’s events. “...And that’s that,” he finished. “The hardest part was buying the train ticket at Sengawa Station...” He paused as he noticed her reaction. “Is something wrong, Mao?”

Mao was clutching her head in her hands. “Nothing, just a headache...”

“I see. Maybe you should get some rest.”

There was a soft electronic beeping sound—a call from Kurz. “Uruz-6 here. I just made it back. Would one of you please swap with me?” He sounded like he was restraining a scream. Kurz had just parked his M9 in a large trailer in the parking lot—a camouflaged hangar.

“Kurz, did anyone notice you?” Mao asked.

“I almost kicked an old man,” Kurz admitted. “His dog barked its damned head off at me... A kei-truck nearly plowed into me, I came this close to smashing into a pachinko parlor, and I rested a hand on the wall of a cram school and it cracked the freaking glass! Scared the shit out of the kids inside...”

After all, the people around him couldn’t see the M9. To make matters worse, he’d had to navigate an urban area full of narrow streets—a lesser pilot than Kurz might have caused a serious accident.

“Maybe we need to rethink our plan,” Mao said thoughtfully.

“Round-the-clock surveillance might not be possible,” Sousuke suggested. “We could leave the AS here during the day, instead?”

“Hmm. I’d hate to lose the firepower and the sensors, though...” Mao folded her arms and thought.

The M9 was a cutting-edge AS, mounted with billion-yen vetronics. These were so sensitive, they could even pick red flag phrases like “grab her” and “use of force approved” from nearby conversations and radio transmissions. On top of that, the machine had two heavy machine guns mounted on its head that could sweep through twenty or thirty unarmored enemies at once. It was a bit excessive for a mission of this scale—but then, Mao came from the US Armed Forces, who were world leaders in “excessive.”

“I think I’d like to keep the M9 close to Kaname as much as possible,” she decided. “If we avoid rush hours and move along the river... yeah, I think we can work it out.”

“If that’s your decision, I’ll respect it,” Sousuke said, honoring his team leader’s opinion.

“Whatever, just swap with me already. I’m exhausted,” Kurz whined over the radio.

“Hold your horses...” Mao said, then changed focus. “Oh, Kaname’s getting a call...” She fooled with the switches on the monitoring equipment, then offered Sousuke a headset. “Want to hear, Sousuke?”

“I suppose I should,” he said, taking the headset.

The call seemed to be from her little sister, who was living on the east coast of the USA. They joked around a little, and Kaname filled her in on how things were going in Japan. Eventually she brought up the “transfer student,” whom she referred to wryly as “hilarious.” Then at last, with obvious reluctance, she hung up.

“What a sad story,” Mao said wistfully as she flicked off the listening device. “A beautiful girl, living all by herself, gets a pick-me-up once a day from her family thousands of miles away...”

With a thoughtful expression on his face, Sousuke offered the most cloddish interpretation possible: “I’m not sure that I follow, but I agree that routine contact is a wise practice.” Then he thought again and said, “She seemed different, just then, from when I met her this afternoon. She was much less harsh and combative.”

“Of course she was,” Mao told him. “She was talking to her sister.”

“Is that how it works?”

“Yep, that’s how it works.”

“Hmm...” Sousuke said thoughtfully. “Also, I’m surprised that she doesn’t seem to hate me.”

“I guess she doesn’t.” Mao peered at him closer. “You seem pleased about that.”

Sousuke turned to a window and examined his reflection. “Do I?”

20 April, 1130 Hours (Greenwich Mean Time)

Amphibious Assault Submarine Tuatha de Danaan, 50 Meter Depth, Pacific Ocean

“It sounds like he’s having a hard time,” the girl in the captain’s seat mused.

The control room was the brain of the de Danaan. It was about the size of a lecture hall; from within, the submarine was monitored and orders were doled out.

“I think it will be a good experience for him,” Major Kalinin said from his place beside her.

The girl was holding the report recently submitted by Melissa Mao. It ran down, in purely businesslike terms, the details of Sagara Sousuke’s hectic day. “A good... experience?” she asked. “Even though ‘His firearms were confiscated,’ he was ‘assaulted by the protectee and several civilians,’ and he ‘returned to the safe house in a state of significant impairment’?”

“All within the allowable range, Colonel.”

The girl whom Kalinin referred to as “Colonel” looked no older than her mid-teens. She had large gray eyes and carefully braided ash-blonde hair that hung over her left shoulder. Rather than a uniform, she wore a simple pale brown skirt-suit that was just a bit too large on her—the cuffs partly obscured her hands. Nevertheless, she had a “colonel” rank insignia gleaming on her collar. Normally, someone of her position would also have a ribbon bar displaying her accomplishments, but on her there was none to be seen.

This was Teletha Testarossa—and though only a select few knew how she had acquired the title, she was the captain of the Tuatha de Danaan.

“Well, I suppose it’s all right...” she responded at length. “Mao-san and Weber-san are with him. And Sagara-san is at the top of his class at dealing with trouble if any occurs.” Teletha Testarossa—Tessa for short—gazed at the large screen that made up the control room’s front wall. The date and time (in both Japan Standard and Greenwich) were displayed at the edge of the screen. “So, Major. How long do you think we’ll need to keep them in Tokyo?”

“A few weeks, Colonel. Until we can cut the problem off at the root.” Despite the girl’s youth, Kalinin answered her with complete sincerity.

Tessa turned her eyes to the nautical map on the screen. “Then it will be up to us here. If all goes smoothly, Chidori Kaname will no longer need protection.”

“Yes, ma’am. And not just Chidori. All potential Whispered will be safe.”

“For now, you mean.”

“Indeed. Regrettably.” Major Kalinin saluted Tessa, then took his leave.

Same Timeframe, Outskirts of Khabarovsk, Soviet Union

A bridge spanned a frozen river. There was no traffic there—only two vehicles stopped nearby. The freezing silence of a Russian night hung heavy over the scene.

Three men stood at the center of the bridge. One was an East Asian man dressed in an Italian coat. Two were Russians in KGB officers’ uniforms; they bore ranks of colonel and captain.

“I feel a chill,” the East Asian man whispered. He had mousse-slicked hair that he was constantly adjusting. There was a large vertical scar on his forehead—put there by a knife, or perhaps even a bullet. It conjured the image of a third eye, tightly shut.

“You’re the one who chose to meet here. Don’t complain,” said the colonel with the copious jawline.

“That’s not what I meant. I meant your foolish conduct sends chills up my spine.”

“What was that?” The captain—a large, burly man—tried to step forward, but the colonel held him back.

The East Asian man laughed. “That’s right. You know better than that, don’t you, Colonel?”

The colonel snorted. “We’re not here to talk about our mistakes. Our test Whispered was stolen, and there’s a good chance that the candidate list was stolen as well. We can’t continue our research without a test subject...” The colonel’s voice seethed with irritation. He’d been conducting his research without notifying the party leaders; if his failure were made known, he’d be sent to an internment camp for sure. “So now I will ask you, Gauron: have you identified who’s behind it?”

“I’d say so. Have a look.” The East Asian man, Gauron, handed a photograph to the colonel. “I ran one of the photos you gave me through an image processor. I think you’ll find the result extremely interesting.”

It was a faint outline of an arm slave, taken from behind. The image was blurry thanks to the ECS, which caused it to partially blend in with the background. It was running up the side of a mountain with a VIP transport backpack on. It looked slender and nimble, with proportions that were close to a human’s.

The colonel’s brow furrowed. “What’s this? I’ve never seen this model before.”

“That’s a Mithril AS. It’s... probably too much for you lot to handle,” Gauron said with amusement.

“Mithril?”

“A secret mercenary squad with weaponry about ten years beyond that of the rest of the world. They hire only the best, and they’re highly elusive. You haven’t heard the rumors?”

“Only the name.”

Mithril: a special forces team that worked in the shadows of international disputes. They’d strike the strongholds of armed guerrillas, destroy narcotics factories... One minute they were wiping out a terrorist training camp, the next they were blocking a black market nuclear weapons trade. To serve as firefighters for regional strife, independent of superpowers like the USA and the USSR—that was the nature of Mithril.

“Why would that band of do-gooders care about my plans?” the colonel asked with a slightly persecuted air.

“Because they’re dangerous,” Gauron told him. “Your success could upset the power balance of the entire world.”

“Will this make it harder to capture another one?” For their plan to succeed, they needed that girl—that “Whispered.” With their sample stolen away, they would now need to find another candidate.

“I can get you one. Now, kidnapping is harder than killing, and it’s going to require a lot of effort...”

The colonel glared at Gauron. “Fishing for a better fee?”

“I am a businessman, after all. Not a Communist.”

“Don’t make me laugh, you yellow ape!” the captain, silent up until now, suddenly roared. “We have countless other operators we could hire. Be grateful to the colonel for his generosity in choosing you!”

“But I am. He’s a valued customer.”

“Oh, please. You Chinese are all untrustworthy.”

Gauron hummed skeptically. “I’m not Chinese.”

“You’re close enough. But a drop into the coal mines of Ural will blacken that grinning yellow face of yours! You snobbish little—”

“Ah, you’re getting on my nerves...” Gauron pulled an automatic pistol from his coat. The motion was so casual that the two Russians barely noticed. It looked like he was just pulling out a cell phone—but it was, in fact, a gun. The red dot from a laser sight fixed itself on the captain’s forehead, and then—

The gunshot echoed over the midnight riverside. Brain matter, blood and bits of skull splattered across the snow. The captain’s body fell limply to the ground—absent the top half of its head.

“That’s better. Now, let’s see... I think we were discussing a kidnapping.” He watched the speechless colonel sidelong as he put his gun away. Then he began rooting through his files as if nothing had even happened. “Here we are... What’s the matter, Colonel?”

“Th-That was my subordinate. How could you...”

“You mean that musclebound accessory you keep around to make threats? You really should have left him at home; you look foolish enough already.” As expected, he didn’t seem to feel any guilt about the murder... but he didn’t seem to take any pleasure or pride in it, either. He had the air of a man hassled for smoking in a non-smoking area. “Now, let’s talk business.”

The colonel said nothing.

Gauron pulled out a few documents. There were about fifteen packs in all, each with a photo attached. Boys and girls, all in their late teens, a variety of nationalities and races.

“Now, who to abduct? Just kidding, I’ve already decided... It’s this girl. Cute, isn’t she?” Gauron showed the file and photo to the colonel. At the top were the words “Chidori Kaname.”

Chidori Kaname—That was the name of this terrorist’s next victim.