Linnear 03 - White Ninja (17 page)

Tomi stood making puddles on the floor, but the Scoundrel did not seem to care. There were times when Tomi needed to escape from the real world, filled with male pressure, constant fear of censure and loss of face. Here she could hide out amid the clutter and the chaos and the Scoundrel's eternal high spirits. She would help him with whatever projects he was working on, and feel useful and appreciated. But tonight she needed to think, so she prevailed on him to take a break, and come out with her for dinner.

They went where they always ended up, Koyanagi, their favourite shitamachi, an old-style businessman's restaurant, where they invariably ordered unagi, the broiled eel, which was the house speciality.

'What were you working on at the apartment?' Tomi asked when they had settled in, and had their first gulps of Sapporo beer.

'Oh, you know me.' The Scoundrel flashed his boyish grin. 'Always fooling around. I'm working on a borer, a computer software program that penetrates into other programs encoded for security.'

'Don't they already have things like that?'

'Hackers, yeah. There are some nasty ones around. And if the government finds who's using them, they throw 'em into jail until the next world war.' He grinned again. 'But the one I'm working on is different. I've named it mantis, which stands for Manmade Nondiscriminatory Tactical Integrated-circuit Smasher.'

The Scoundrel's grin widened at the blank look on her face. "The essence of the long name is that mantis is adaptable, meaning it can, in its own way, think. Every locked program has its own individual defence, so normally if you wanted to break in, you'd have to contour a specialized program.. My borer is set up to attack any defence, and get through.'

Tomi laughed. His genius often stunned her. 'You'd

better not let the government know what you're up to/

'Nan. There's zip chance of that,' he said around a gulp of beer.

'I don't get it,' Tomi said, intrigued. 'You work for Nakano Industries, one of the largest electronics designing and manufacturing keiretsu in the country. The government must oversee Nakano the way they do all the major corporations.'

'Oh, they do. The MITI people are always over for meetings.' The Scoundrel paused as he craned his neck, peering around the restaurant. The gesture was such an outlandish parody of a spy at work that she giggled. 'The fact is,' he said, returning his gaze to her,, 'that my boss is head of the advanced research and development department at Nakano. The stuff we're doing is so theoretical, he tells me that the MITI people leave him alone.'

The Scoundrel finished his beer, ordered refills for them both. 'My boss is a vice-president at Nakano. I've been working for this guy for a year and a hah7 now. He reviewed my file, picked me out of the engineering section, interviewed me over the course of a week. I must have passed some kind of test he was putting me through. Anyway, six months ago, he agreed to let me work on this borer project I dreamed up, which is anything but theoretical. In fact, it's just about ready to roll now.' He grinned. 'I'm not really supposed to tell anyone anything about it, but I don't think that includes you.'

That was just like the Scoundrel, Tomi thought, making up the rules as he went along.

'Hey,' he said suddenly. 'Remember when I was promoted out of my engineering department?'

'How could I forget?' Tomi said, laughing. 'I threw you a party that lasted the entire weekend. Remember that woman from my office who told ghost stories all night?'

'Are you kidding? I'm lucky I remember my name

after that blow-out. We did in a case of Suntory Scotch, didn't we?'

Tomi nodded. 'Among other cases.' She was smiling. 'Those were the days.'

The Scoundrel, downing his Sapporo, watched the smile fade from her face like the colour out of a cherry blossom. 'I see you've got weight tonight.' To him, weight was synonymous with sadness, lightness with happiness. 'If that's the case, you've come to the right boy. What's hung the stone around your neck?'

'Around my heart, more like it,' Tomi said.

'Ah! L'affaire d'amour. Bien! Please explicate your predicament, madame.'

Tomi couldn't help but smile. 'Is everything a joke to you?'

'Sure. Life's a joke, Tomi. Or have you been too busy to notice?'

'I guess lately I have.'

He winked. 'We'll soon put you right. Now give it to me straight. Don't hold anything back. I can take it. I promise I won't faint.'

This was just what Tomi had wanted. But now she hesitated, wondering whether it made sense to tell the Scoundrel about Senjin Omukae. After all, this was very serious business to her, while to the Scoundrel it was already I'affaire d'amour, a situation of which he was more than likely to make fun.

'All right,' he said, crossing his arms over his chest. 'I can see those two vertical lines above the bridge of your nose. I know you well enough to know that they only come out when you're really concerned. So no jokes.' He gestured. 'Cross my heart.'

Tomi was immediately relieved, and she launched into her tale of attraction and uneasiness, of confused emotions, of the attendant submergence of her policewoman persona, and of her fear of the moral repercussions.

When she was finished, she watched the Scoundrel's face for any sign of what he thought. But he had his face buried in his beer glass, and she could tell nothing.

At last, the Scoundrel said, 'You obviously want my advice, so I'll give it to you, though I don't think you'll like what I'm going to say.' He drained his glass. 'It's very simple. Forget this guy. From what you've told me, he's not for you. But even if he were, he's your commander. The situation's so dangerous that the risk of going further's not worth it.' He put aside his empty glass. 'Now I'll shut up, we'll eat dinner, and you can digest what I've said along with the unagi.'

As she ate, Tomi tried to sort out her feelings. She knew that she should have been relieved by what the Scoundrel had said. She recognized in his counsel an echo of what a part of her had suspected all along. The best course was for her to bury her feelings for S,enjin Omukae, to continue with her life as if he were merely her commander.

But Tomi felt no sense of relief, only a growing despair. For now, as the Scoundrel had clarified the situation, she knew that she would not take the best course, that her path lay in another, darker, less understandable direction.

If she had been the kind of woman to bury emotions she felt deeply, to allow herself to live a life acceptable to those around her but not to herself, she never would have hung up the phone ob her brother. The dutiful sister, she would have bowed to his wishes, returning home to marry the man he had chosen for her.

But she was not one to go blindly where an outdated notion of duty would heartlessly thrust her. At the terrifying moment of her break with her family, she had promised herself that from that moment on she would be true to herself, and to her own wishes. That must become the meaning of her life, or else her grand gesture, rejecting the traditional life, would have no meaning.

'I wish I could take your advice,' Tomi said.

The Scoundrel shrugged. 'Advice is cheap, even here where everything is expensive.'

'I know. But I value yours.'

He leaned forward. His face was unusually sombre. 'Then take my advice, Tomi. Go out. Have a fling. You deserve some fun.' That grin flashed again, lighting up his face. 'You're far too serious for your own good.'

She put her hand over his. 'Thanks, Seji. You're a good friend. Your heart is true.'

The Scoundrel, perhaps embarrassed by the compliment, slid his hand out from under hers. He studied her darkened face. 'Come on,' he said, spilling yen on to the table, 'I know a club in Roppongi where they don't allow either day or night to intrude on the non-stop festivities. We'll dance, get drunk, and say, To hell with everyone!'

Tomi, laughing again, let him lead her out into the rain-and colour-swept night. For the moment, at least, she could allow her anxieties to wait in abeyance while she floated in the Scoundrel's never-never land.

Cotton Branding sat naked and shivering on the edge of the porcelain tub, his head in his hands. Shisei stood in front of him, dripping water on to his bare legs. Behind him, the shower rattled the plastic curtain with its painted violets so that they appeared to dance as if in a wind.

'So,' Shisei said, 'now that you have seen all of me, you are like the rest. Your desire has turned to disgust.'

'That's not true.'

'If you could only see yourself. You can't even look at me.'

It was the contempt in her voice that broke the spell of horror that had enveloped him. He raised his head, stared at her. 'Nothing has changed, Shisei.'

'Oh, please. Spare me your politician's easy lies. I see your face. Everything has changed.'

'Not everything,' he said. He rubbed his hands one against the other, as if needing to warm them before a fire. 'Give me a moment. Please.' He stood up. 'We've startled - maybe even frightened - each other. The least we can do is retire to neutral comers before we come out for the next round.' He gave her a wan smile. 'And perhaps there won't be a next round.'

Shisei gave a little shiver, and he reached past her, handed her a towel. "Thank you,' she said. She wrapped it around herself, letting the moisture soak into the absorbent cloth.

Branding turned off the shower. He said, 'I think I've had all the shocks I care to have in one night.'

'The shock,' she said sadly, 'is what most people feel. But it isn't all. The tattoo revolts them.'

Branding registered surprise. 'If you care what other people think, then why did you have it done?'

She looked at him for a moment. 'I'm cold,' she said. 'I want to put some clothes on.'

He handed Shisei her cover-up, but she said, 'No. I want something of yours.'

He went and got one of his pyjama tops, gave it to her. That was all she needed; it came midway down her thighs. She buttoned it, her gold nails shining. The shoulders hung off her in an endearing fashion.

As if the enormous house had suddenly become too small, or still retained the detritus of the recent emotional conflagration, they went outside.

They stared out into the night. The Atlantic crashed all around them, and periodically the doleful foghorn from the nearby lighthouse intruded on the pull and suck of the surf. For once, the gulls were quiet, walking stiffly along the beach, peering here and there for the last morsels of food of the day.

Above their heads, the sky was perfectly clear, strewn with glittering stars, hard, bright, piercing the canvas of

the heavens with their blue, yellow and white light.

But off to the south, the horizon was cluttered with a long cloudbank, which Branding estimated must stretch for several hundred miles.

Now, as they watched, lightning began to flicker and spark within the clouds. Seen sometimes as fiery, jagged flashes, sometimes as great flowering bursts illuminating sections of the cloudbank, the heat lightning played out its stunning silent concerto across a keyboard too vast to comprehend.

This exhibition of Nature's handiwork was humbling, indeed. For Branding, it served to put into perspective human concerns and anxieties, which seemed, in comparison, both fleeting and inconsequential.

After a time, the cloudbank relapsed into darkness; the show was over. They went back inside.

They sat on the down-filled sofa, low lamplight spilling warmly across them. The eerie revelation of a while ago seemed not to have happened, or to have been something they had imagined.

The shock was gone. And, in its place, what? Branding knew he very much wanted to find out.

He had poured out snifters of brandy for them both, and they sipped slowly, deliberately, silently understanding that they needed to rescue their equilibrium.

Shisei's hair, shining and still damp, reminded him of a mink's pelt, close and soft and precious. The fringe of blond colour above her eyes made her seem at this moment somehow more vulnerable. Then, like a shock of cold water, he remembered the spider etched across her back, and he thought, This is a different kind of mink.

'Shisei,' Branding said, before she had a chance to speak, 'I don't want to be like all the others.'

For a long moment, she said nothing. Her eyes, dark as night, held steady on his. 'Is that the politician or the man talking?' she said finally.

'The man, I hope. I want it to be the man,' Branding said truthfully.

Shisei briefly closed her eyes. 'And I want to believe you.' She put her snifter down. 'You scared me, Cook, when you came in on me like that. I wasn't prepared. The truth is, I hadn't yet thought of a way to tell you - or to show you all of me.'

'Is all of you so terrible?'

Shisei snatched up her brandy, and Branding caught a hint of the vulnerable woman she was so afraid of revealing. 'You tell me,' she said.

'The image is a terrifying one.' He caught the momentary flash of anger in her eyes as she glanced at him, then away. He was reminded of his daughter when she was a child. She had often looked at him that way when he had said no to her. But it passed, and her love for him would always prevail.