Major Motoko Kusanagi walked into the bar, pausing for a moment
to carefully scan her surroundings for any signs of possible trouble.
She stood there, a shadowy figure at the doorway, dark purple hair
falling around her face. Piercing eyes were hidden behind sunglasses, a
heavy bomber-style jacket concealing the gun she always carried
The bar was an older place, and not particularly well kept up,
but it was quite popular in it's own way. Having been almost adopted by
the various intelligence agencies in Japan it was considered to be
neutral territory. No forms of electronic eavesdropping, wiretaps or
other information gathering activities were permitted within there, with
some fairly gruesome punishments coming to you if you dared to violate
those unwritten rules.
She knew all of that of course, but Motoko still carefully
checked the place out anyway. The major got a few nods of recognition as
she made her way through the smoky air towards the long bar,m the crowd
giving way with a respectful caution. The barkeep wiped out a dirty
glass before he set it down in front of her.
"You're usual?" the bartender asked calmly. The brown haired
woman nodded, and the man poured generously before moving off to attend
to the other customers. He knew hanging about and listening to
conversations could be bad for his health.
"Major," her boss nodded to her as he settled into the seat
beside her. Aramaki's ring of white hair stood up all around his bald
head, and the shorter man should have looked almost funny, but his eyes
were shrewd, piercing through the smoky haze. He wore a casual man's
suit, the sort a mid-level salaryman might wear, but he was no ordinary
man.
"Right on time," Motoko smiled.
"One for me, too," Aramaki tossed the credit to the bartender
and in moments a drink was set down in front of him.
The two of them had started meeting like this not too long after
the Major had began running the little anti-terrorist strike team for
him. They both talked entirely off the record here, with Aramaki getting
a feel for what was going on with his point operative while also keeping
her in the know about any political landmines that might be coming their
way. Both of them got something useful out of their discussions, and
both walked away satisfied.
"Are there any problems from that last job?" Motoko asked him
curiously as she raised up her glass ceremoniously, just like they
always did with their first drinks.
"To your health," Aramaki tapped his glass to hers gently, and
they each took a drink. "The Prime Minister is grimly accepting that we
didn't have too many options," he related, "but we're going to have to
watch our backs."
"As usual," Motoko agreed. She took another drink, "The unit's
shaping up pretty well, even that new kid's pulling his weight."
"I was a bit dubious about your having a mostly human agent on
the team," Aramaki calmly noted, "but it seems you were right." He took
another drink, "There is something else that I wanted to ask you about,
however."
"Here it comes," Motoko smiled, her red eyes crinkling with
mirth. She finished off her drink, then signaled the barman for another.
She closed her eyes, taking a deep breath of the scent of the place,
prefering the stink of decay to the sterility of other parts of town.
Aramaki waited until the bartender left the drink, his gaze on
Motoko thoughtful "You've turned down some very qualified applicants for
your team recently," he said quietly, "usually without any explanation.
I don't particularly care personally, but I often have to explain why.
It doesn't help that they've all been women."
"It's complicated," Motoko swirled her drink around in the grimy
glass, then drank. She felt the old man's gaze on her, holding up the
glass of amber fluid to look through it thoughtfully. She took another
drink before adding, "And a bit of a long story."
"I've got time," the older man waved for a refill.
Motoko met Aramaki's eyes, trying to get a sense of how
determined he was about this. The bartender refulled both their glasses,
then he asked, "Should I leave the bottle?"
"Why not?" Aramaki said dryly.
Motoko let loose a soft sigh, and she sipped a bit more of her
drink before starting, "It was a few years back, and I was still working
for your predecessor then...
The two women ran up the long hallway together with an almost
inhuman speed before taking up their positions on either side of a
closed door. Both of them were young looking, dressed in combat
fatigues, and carrying some impressive looking weaponry. They exchanged
a long glance, something sparking between them, then the purple haired
girl shook herself.
She knew that the entire building was locked down tight, but
Motoko used the com-link at the base of her throat to crisply ask, "Has
the evacuation of this floor been finished?"
A clearly resentful police officer replied with stiff formality,
"Evacuation complete, ma'am."
"Baka," Motoko muttered to herself softly. She switched over to
her unit command frequency to ask, "Everyone in place?"
"Yeah." "Hai." "Go." came across the system as various officers
around the building reported in. Standing right across from her Yayoi
smiled coldly as the black haired woman murmured like a lover, "Let's do
this."
"Right," Motoko gave her a fierce grin, feeling a bit of fire
deep in her belly at that lingering gaze. She pushed her scruffy purple
hair backwards, took a centering breath, and then she kicked the door in
with the nearly superhuman strength that her enhanced body gave her.
The deal was going down just as they had been told it would be,
the proscribed technology being exchanged for the solid gold bars, a
nearly untraceable form of payment. The shock of their arrival only
lasted for a few seconds, then the opposition's weapons were rapidly
broken out. Two large men, quite obviously bodyguards, took up defensive
positions even as the two dealers looked around them frantically for any
way out.
"Just drop your weapons and surrender," Yayoi softly appealed to
them, the slim cyborg being careful to move in a non-threatening way as
she stretched out her hand, "it's the only way that you're getting out
of here alive.".
"Never," the badly sweating dealer growled. His suit clung to
his body, his optic ports looking oddly beady in his fat face.
'They're very nervous,' Motoko thought to herself, 'good.'
Hitting a specific frequency on her communicator she softly gave the
order, "Go."
There was the sudden sound of breaking glass, Then one of the
two bodyguards jerked up slightly. He swayed there a moment, like a
puppet with the strings cut, then he dropped to the floor, stone dead
from the bullet of her best sharpshooter.
"What the hell," the money man blurted out in shock and fear,
his face becoming even more pale than it had been.
"We aren't playing games here," Motoko said to them coldly,
keeping her weapon level and aimed towards the money men. "We have
gunmen based in the building opposite, ready to fire on my order," she
pitched her voice carefully, sounding coldly ruthless, "and that is the
only warning I'm giving you. Surrender now, or pay the consequences."
Yayoi met their eyes in mute appeal before continuing gently,
"We don't want to see any more needless loss of life, please just give
up."
A short time later, all the captives were being led away by the
regular police forces and Motoko and Yayoi were sharing a hot cup of
tea. "You really do the bad cop role very well," Yayoi smiled up at her
gently as they leaned up against one of their unmarked vehicles. The
battered car looked like a piece of junk, but a powerful engine lurked
under the hood.
"Which wouldn't work at all without your good cop routine,"
Motoko smirked before leaning over and kissing her gently on the lips.
"Ah, ah," Yayoi chided her gently as she pulled back a bit, "no
victory celebration until we go see the boss, lover."
One of the things that Motoko was quite aware of, in dealing
with their employer, was that he didn't like her very much. That didn't
bother her at all, but it did color the way they dealt with each other.
No pleasantries were exchanged, no pleasant bits of chit chat, just
getting right down to business so that they could get away from each
other as quickly as possible.
"Good work," Colonel Akagi Tonada said not even looking up to
meet their gazes, "just a bit excessively theatrical, but quite
effective none the less." A dainty female android strutted on past them,
bending way over to wipe some sweat from his brow while revealing some
impressive looking breasts, and Motoko shuddered slighly.
"It got the job done," Motoko answered him crisply, "just like
you asked."
Yayoi raised an eyebrow, pushing her long black hair away from
her face, "So do we have a new assignment, or can we take some time
off?" She shot Motoko a seductive look, her dangerous smile implying
what she wanted the time off for.
"I need you two for a special assignment this evening," Tonoda
said, showing absolutely no regret over disrupting their plans. "A body
guarding assignment, for an important speaker visiting our city
tonight," he said with an odd degree of amusement.
"You aren't talking about that 'Humanity First' wacko, are you?"
Motoko asked suspiciously, but he only nodded, his smile widening.
"Gah," Yayoi made a face.
Dr. Gretchen Phillips was a firm believer in humanity, but in a
way that Mokoto thought did much more harm than good. She was firmly
convinced that humanity's decision to embrace cybernetic enhancement was
a mistake of the highest order, and that all of the human race must
strive to return to what humanity once was.
'Of course,' Motoko thought to herself cynically, 'a unmodified
human probably couldn't survive with all the pollution we've been
pumping into the air since the nineteenth century, not to mention the
more exotic poisons we've added in the past few wars.'
Yayoi shook Motoko out of her thoughts as the girl pointed out
to him, "You know that she's going to hate the two of us on sight."
"Irrelevant," Tonoda said, the fat man shifting uncomfortably,
"it's just for one night, then she's out of our region and someone
else's problem."
Motoko sighed, "Got it."
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