* * *
There was a mild chill in the night air as Michiko watched a blue delivery van roll up to an abandoned tenement and park in an adjacent alley. Drake was first out of the vehicle, wearing a black jacket and gray cargo pants tucked into biker boots. A sword handle projected over his right shoulder, and another, shorter blade was affixed to his left thigh. The rest of his men – she counted four – dismounted after him.
The crew followed Drake to the building. One of his entourage wrenched the door open with a crowbar. She waited for them to walk in before affixing a nylon rope to a nearby vent pipe. Michiko rappelled face-first down the wall, the wind whipping over her cheeks and through her long ponytail, before landing and releasing the line. She padded across the street and up to the double doors Drake had breached; they bore metal signs reading “CONDEMNED BY ORDER OF THE CITY OF PORT ELLIS”.
She drew a katana and peered in. The lobby was an open space with an L-shaped reception desk across from a collection of crumbling furniture that had once faced a mounted television. Michiko entered, allowing her vision to adjust to the absence of light. Crumbled plaster, papers, cans and discarded hypodermic needles lay scattered along the cracked tile floors. A mix of spray-painted gang signs and profanity decorated the walls. She crept toward the stairwell and found the door slightly ajar. Pushing her way in, she heard the sound of conversation and footsteps above her.
Michiko took the stairs two at a time, sacrificing stealth for speed. She hit the fifth floor and eased into the hallway, discovering a long white corridor lined with doorways. She stayed flush against the wall, blade at the ready, before stopping beside the target entrance.
She whipped around to face the open doorway, katana extended, and found nothing. The apartment was empty and mostly dark, save for the dull ambient glow of street lights below an outward-facing window. Michiko took careful steps, scanning for hidden occupants, investigating each room; nothing. She sheathed her sword and turned the situation over in her mind. Where the hell were they?
Michiko whirled at the sound of an object skipping along the floor toward her. A deafening bang and a brilliant flash of light sent her stumbling back, blind, head spinning. Her arms were seized from either side and she was slammed against a wall. She blinked to clear her vision, to see Drake and his men standing before her.
“Look what we have here.” He reached out and stroked a finger down her cheek. “This is none other than Michiko Akiyama, better known to the assassin community by her code name: Lotus. She’s SANCTUM’s latest version of, well, me, just with a bit more sugar and spice and everything nice.”
The man to his right turned. “She’s you? How’s that possible?”
“I’ve been reading about the non-localized nature of consciousness.” This from a man sporting a blue Mohawk. His nose, lips, cheeks, and ears were pierced with a variety of rings and studs. “It makes sense if you allow for a single source of identity potentially shared along multiple points of the time-space continuum –“
“Gentlemen.” Drake put his hands on their shoulders. “First of all, it’s called a figure of speech. And second, as fascinated as I’m sure Ms. Akiyama is by the finer points of quantum theory, it detracts from the air of menace I hired you to project.”
Mohawk nodded. “Oh.”
“As I was saying, she’s a SANCTUM elimination specialist, and it’s a good thing I still monitor their operations or I might have taken the bait. I’m sure the rest of you would be dead or dying as we speak.”
The thug holding her left arm looked at him. “What about you?”
“I’d like to think I would have anticipated the threat and emerged victorious after a protracted battle with Ms. Akiyama.”
She smiled. “Why don’t you let me go so we can test that theory?”
“A tempting offer. But, I’m running late for another engagement, so I’ll have to leave you to the tender mercies of my associates. They’re a hand-picked mix of felons and psychopaths, so their manners may be a bit lacking.” Drake bowed ever-so-slightly. “It was a pleasure meeting you, Ms. Akiyama. Enjoy what remains of your evening. And your life.”
The door closed behind him, and she was alone with them.
“So this is what passes for a SANCTUM agent these days.” Mohawk walked over to her. “You look more like an import model than a killer.” He pulled out a long, serrated knife, and slid the flat of the blade along her midsection. “You have an exceptional physique. But I don’t see what makes you special.”
“Well, I’ve got one quality you don’t.”
“And that would be?”
“I can walk.” She kicked the inside of his knee, splintering it and sending him tumbling sideways, screaming. Michiko pivoted her leg and drove her heel down onto the foot of the man to her right, crushing it. He gasped and released her arm; she turned and struck her remaining captor in the larynx with a ridge hand, knocking him backwards, choking and coughing up blood.
The remaining thug scrambled for the Glock shoved into his waistband. She took two steps and kicked him in the solar plexus, knocking the breath from his body and doubling him over. Michiko grabbed him by the jaw and base of his scalp and torqued his head sideways, snapping his neck.
She drew her katana and turned to the others; the man whose throat she’d struck was unconscious and on his way to bleeding out. A quick downward strike severed the head of the man with the crushed foot. She stood over the mohawked man, sliding the flat of the blade she held along his abdomen.
“You have an exceptional physique,” she said.
“Please...please don’t kill me. I’m – I’m sorry –“
“That’s an understatement.” A quick slash sent his head rolling, his piercings clattering against the tile.
Michiko charged out of the room, back toward the stairwell. If she was fast enough, she might be able to catch Drake before he made it to the van outside. She reached the end of the hall, ready to make her way downward, when a metal door closed above her. Keeping her katana drawn, she climbed higher, tracking his boot prints.
She pulled the door to the roof inward; a cool breeze brushed against her moist cheeks and forehead. Drake stood thirty feet distant, facing away from her, staring out at the glittering cluster of skyscrapers comprising downtown Port Ellis.
“It’s beautiful at night.” Pointing, he added, “I especially like the Global Technologies building. It’s the one with the green neon trim.”
“I know which one it is.” She walked onto the roof. “I’d ask why you didn’t leave, but I have a feeling you’re about to tell me.”
“I was waiting for you.”
“Waiting?”
He turned to face her. “Yes. I knew if you were really a SANCTUM agent that those fools were dead the second I left you alone with them. I see I was right.”
“So it was a test.”
“Yes.”
She shook her head. “Why? You had to know I’d come looking for you.”
“I wanted to make you an offer.”
“This should be good.”
“I’ve been where you’re standing,” he said. “Before you, I was the best hitter SANCTUM had. I spent years doing their dirty work. I bought into the whole idea I was making the world a better place, one warlord, one terrorist cell, one drug kingpin at a time. But things changed.”
“Really.”
He nodded. “Yes. I started getting targets who weren’t so cut-and-dried. Businessmen. Political figures. Bankers. And when I asked questions, SANCTUM told me to trust them. They assumed I was too jaded to care.
“I did some digging in my downtime. Found out more about SANCTUM than they’ll ever tell you. Did you know the organization’s been around since the Middle Ages?”
“I never really thought about it.”
“They’ve influenced the world at almost every level for hundreds of years. Kings, queens, popes, presidents – SANCTUM's had a hand in the selection and removal of most of them. The
network is bigger and more powerful than you can imagine.”
“You’re starting to sound like a bad conspiracy web site.”
“Think!” He tapped his forehead. “This is the cycle! They get someone to do their bidding under noble pretenses, and make him do hit after hit until he becomes an unthinking killing machine. And if he figures it out before then, suddenly he becomes a problem. And that's when they send somebody like you to silence somebody like me.”
Michiko shifted on her feet. “So you were getting to an offer.”
“Yes! Leave SANCTUM! Help me expose who they really are, take them down. I know a little about you, and I don’t think you’ve been in the game long enough to be dead to it. If I’m going to take them on, I’ll need the kind of help only someone like you can provide.”
She stood silently, considering his words, then shook her head. “Sorry. It sounds like a lot of paranoid crap to me. I’ve got a job to do, so either pull out your sword or turn around so I can finish this quickly.”
“Go ahead. If you think you have to –“
She leapt toward him, sword raised overhead, and slashed downward. He tucked and rolled out of the way, drawing his blade in time to block a follow-up strike. He shoved her and swung repeatedly, forcing her up against a ventilation duct. She rolled back as he slashed the metal, then sprang forward over his head, missing him again as her sword cut through the night air.
They battled toward the center of the roof, sparks flying, the sound of clashing steel punctuated by grunts and cries of exertion. Michiko and Drake circled one another, heaving for breath, sweat pouring down their faces.
He smiled. “Hell of a fight.”
“Yeah. Too bad nobody’s filming it.”
He chuckled. “YouTube would crash.”
She laughed and lunged again, feigning a high strike. Drake raised his blade to parry, and she dropped and performed a spinning sweep with her leg, sending him down hard onto his back, his sword clattering away. Michiko sprang forward, landing astride his chest, pinning one of his wrists with her free hand, her sword pointed down at his face.
“Checkmate,” she said.
They locked eyes, still panting, her blade trembling from the fatigue in her arms.
“What are you waiting for?” He swallowed between breaths. “It’s over. You got me. Finish the job.”
Michiko exhaled, her wind returning, and moved her free hand from his wrist to his chest. “Give me a name.”
“What?”
“A name. You said SANCTUM gave you innocent targets. I want an example.”
Drake furrowed his brow. “John Barrister. He’s an exports mogul. SANCTUM was using his company to funnel contraband to fund their operations. Barrister discovered it and became a liability. SANCTUM told me he had ties to arms dealers, but he was clean. I refused the hit. They still clipped him, just used somebody else to do the job.”
She tilted upright and slid her sword back into its saya. “I’m going to check this out. And if you’re lying, I will track you down and finish the job.”
“Outstanding. But what are you going to tell SANCTUM about me?”
“That I never saw you, just the thugs you sent to take care of me. It should buy me some time to look into your story.”
“Okay. Just don’t use company equipment to do the research. They monitor everything.”
”Hello? Not new at this. Who’s sitting on whom at the moment?”
“Touché.” He grinned. “You know, you could have come to this decision without trying to cut my head off.”
She patted him on the cheek. “What fun would that have been?” She stood up and walked back toward the stairwell.
“Michiko.” He propped himself by his elbows. “What happens when you find out I’m telling the truth?”
“Then I’ll track you down and accept your offer.”
She stepped through the doorway and was gone.
Drake sat up and exhaled. “Looking forward to it.”