Chapter Five



"Explain," said Himiko. She was still ruffled from the whole ridiculous chase. Not to mention that white flag business. What sort of professional drove around the place while waving a tablecloth and shouting, "Peace and love!" It was as bad as that character from Trigun. Worse. Putting aside thoughts of knives and what she'd like to do with them, she folded her arms sternly and stared at Ban and Ginji. From behind her, she could feel Akabane delivering his patent I-am-picking-the-best-place-to-gut-you considering glance over her shoulder.

All right, watching the two boys try to hide behind each other was moderately entertaining.

She decided that Ban was the more likely of the two to give a coherent answer, even if Ginji was more likely to give a truthful one. Mr No-Brake was busy working on opening the case that Ren was in, which he'd said was going to take a while. Too many complicated locks and too many circuits. There was a small panel in the side, which is how she'd been able to look inside, but the actual fastenings were far more complex than that. Corrosion Scent might have been faster, but it might also have damaged something, and Mr No-Brake had a remarkably light touch with technology. "What's going on, Ban?" she asked.

Ban met her gaze flatly. "We've got a murder and a kidnapping, Himiko. What I want to know is, how are you lot involved?"

She settled her fists on her hips, uncomfortably aware that she was settling back into the old pattern of accusation and counter-accusation, but unable for the moment to break it. "We're just doing our job. We were hired to transport that," she nodded towards the case with a jerk of her head, "to -- well, that's beside the point. If your perpetrator hired the best that there is to do the job, that's not our fault."

"Indeed not," Akabane murmured from behind her. "Gratified as I am to indulge Ginji-kun's curiosity . . ."

Himiko swore mentally yet again that she'd never tell Ban and Ginji quite how much she enjoyed watching Akabane put them on edge. Especially the way that Ginji shrank and started making little squeaking noises.

". . . I cannot help but feel that a full exchange of information is in order." There was a whisper of fabric as he shrugged. "To show our trust in you, we will be glad to go first. Lady Poison?"

He was such a bastard at times. "Of course," she said. Part of organising a mission involving Doctor Jackal was knowing when one could assert one's authority and when one should go along with what he suggested. She'd learned that a while ago. "I got the contact through the usual phone number --"

"You got the contact?" Ban interrupted.

"Of course," she repeated, trying not to roll her eyes. As if anyone would call Doctor Jackal to organise a mission -- undertake one, certainly, but if Ban could imagine Akabane doing the nitty-gritty work of timing and contacts and payoffs, then he had a better imagination than she'd ever given him credit for. "There's a particular phone number that people in the business use if they're contacting me for a mission. That was the one that got called. They wanted us -- they specified Doctor Jackal and Mr No-Brake, as well -- to take medical specimens down to Kyoto. We were to hand them over there. I met our contact this afternoon to get the precise details and arrange the payment."

Ban perked up and waved his hands invitingly. "Details, details! I'm sure even a brat like you must have noticed something useful --"

"I can give full and precise details," Himiko said through gritted teeth. "I was meeting him at an, ah, hotel in the city --" She hastily tried to think of a way of putting it that wouldn't give Ban a chance to amuse himself.

"Location?" Ban interrupted, much as she'd feared he would.

With a mental sigh, Himiko reeled off the district, street, and number. No reaction from any of them. Good, perhaps they didn't know the place. "So I turned up on time . . ."

"Wait," Ginji broke in. "Isn't that an, um, you know? One of those love hotels?"

Himiko was aware that her face was flaming, while Ban started to snicker. "It is a convenient place to meet contacts," she informed Ginji icily. "Especially when you want to make it look just like a usual meeting between two people." Inspiration seized her. "And how come you know where it is, anyhow?"

"Oh, Ban took me there," Ginji started, but was cut off by Ban's elbow hard in his side.

"On a case," Ban said brusquely. "That cheese sandwich one. Which reminds me, what the hell were you doing trying to get the sandwich?"

"Commission," Himiko replied, and folded her arms. "Have you any idea of how rare that thing was? Especially after it went up on ebay. We had a very nice contract indeed to transport it. In good condition. Which is more than it would have been, the way you were carrying it round in wrapping paper. Wrapping paper," she repeated, still hardly able to believe it. "Have you no damn idea about how to carry a sandwich around properly?"

Akabane coughed behind her.

"Anyhow," she hastily resumed, before Ban or Ginji could interrupt again, "the contact was already there. He looked like a freelancer himself, not a businessman or scientist, so I did suspect that the medical specimens might not be strictly legal -- but that's not our problem. He paid the usual half cash down beforehand, promise of half cash afterwards. That's fairly standard."

Akabane nodded. "Lady Poison is correct."

"So what did he look like?" Ban asked.

Himiko's eyes narrowed as she focused on the memory. "Tall -- taller than you, Ban, about Doctor Jackal's height, but broader in the shoulders and heavier build. Dark hair, to the shoulders, worn loose. White overcoat with shoulder-capes. Deep voice. Deep-set eyes. Professional controlled air with that undertone that shrieks professional killer."

Ban muttered something that might have been, "Well, you'd know."

Himiko decided to be adult and ignore him. "Long case over his shoulder -- I assumed it held his weapon or weapons, but I didn't get a chance to look at it. Dark sober clothing otherwise. Long-fingered hands. Paused occasionally in the conversation as though he was trying to think something through."

"Or as if he was talking to himself?" Ginji suggested.

Himiko frowned. "Could be," she agreed grudgingly. It had seemed a little like that at times. She'd tried not to stare too much. "He recognised me, and he knew who he was dealing with."

Ban looked over her shoulder at Akabane. "Do you think --?"

"It certainly matches his description," Akabane agreed. "Would you agree, Ginji-kun?"

Ginji nodded seriously, not twitching this time. "It sounds exactly like him. Himiko-chan -- there weren't any other people there, were there? Male or female, probably looking a lot like him, wearing the same sort of white coat?"

Himiko shook her head. "No. But you all clearly know this man. Who is it?"

"What name did he give you?" Ban countered.

She shrugged. "Teshimine. That was all."

"That's impossible!" Ginji snapped, in a sudden burst of Raitei-like temper.

Ban grabbed his friend's arm. "He just used his name, Ginji. It doesn't mean anything -- unless it means that he's involved with Mugenjou somehow."

"It sounds increasingly that way," Akabane agreed. There was a snapping noise from where Mr No-Brake was working on the crate. "But there may be some more concrete evidence by now. Shall we?"

The group hastily reassembled around the case. Mr No-Brake didn't bother to look up, but merely grunted, and set his crowbar under the last fastening. It came off with a resounding snap, burying itself in the ground half an inch from Ban's foot. "There," he said finally. "That'll do it. You can take the lid off now."

Ban and Ginji leaned forward and got their fingers under the lid. With a vigorous heave they toppled it off onto the ground on the other side. Akabane drifted back half a pace in order to avoid having his feet crushed, and peered down curiously.

The case was empty.

"But I saw her in there!" Himiko protested.

"Hologram," Mr No-Brake stated. "There, there, and there." He pointed at the circuitry which lined the interior of the case. "Straightforward surround projection. Could probably even adjust itself for external factors, so that if you looked inside through the window you'd see what you should be able to see depending on the positioning of the case. Perfectly straightforward."

Ban frowned. "It couldn't be anything more complex, could it? Maybe something that could have maintained a virtual interior?"

Mr No-Brake shook his head. "Nah. Don't think so. Nice work, and I'd like to look it over more closely, but it's just straight hologram technology. Nothing special."

Akabane's mouth curved into what was only technically a smile. "It would seem that we have been played for fools and used as lures, Lady Poison."

Himiko could feel the same anger mounting inside her. "It would." This was unendurable. Who dared to do something like that? She hadn't spent the last three years in hard work and danger just to be tagged and sent cross-country with a fake cargo in order to lead the GetBackers, of all people, on a false trail. "So who was this person who I met who you all seemed to recognise?"

"Oh, he was Miroku Natsuhiko," Ginji explained. "At least that's who he sounds like. He's got six siblings and he works as a bodyguard a lot. The problem is . . ."

"The problem," Ban continued, when Ginji showed no sign of doing so, "is that we've got descriptions that make it sound as if he was involved in old man Gen's murder and Ren's kidnapping. So with him being the person who hired you, that sounds fairly conclusive."

"It would explain why the contact was made through Lady Poison," Akabane put in. "She has never met him before and would not necessarily recognise him. However -- you say that he committed freelance murder and kidnapping, Midou-kun? That hardly sounds like him."

"He can define the whole "bodyguard" thing very widely," Ban said briefly. "If it suits him."

"Yes, Ban, but Yukihiko -- " Ginji put in.

"Yukihiko wouldn't necessarily have a say in it!" Ban snapped. "You don't think that it's usually Natsuhiko just because he's the oldest, do you? It's because he --" He bit the words off. "Besides, maybe someone's controlling him."

"Yukihiko?" Himiko asked. "I thought you said Natsuhiko."

"There are seven of them, Lady Poison," Akabane explained. "But you only ever see one of them at any time."

As explanations went, Himiko felt, that lacked a certain something. She frowned, trying to gauge the possible trails. "We've got two options that I can see," she said. "One is that we go ahead to the arranged rendezvous to see if we can find out anything there. But if we were just intended as a diversion, then they might not be there. The other is that we try to backtrack Miroku Natsuhiko. Haven't you always said that Miss Negotiator can find anyone if you need her to, Ban?"

Ban shrugged. "I can try Hevn, sure. But I think we're missing something. Why bother having a decoy, especially as expensive and dangerous a decoy as you guys --"

"Why, thank you, Midou-kun," Akabane murmured.

"-- if it's not to hide something else?" Ban continued determinedly. "Either they moved Ren in the other direction out of Tokyo, or . . ."

". . . or they didn't move her at all," Ginji completed the sentence, eyes narrowing. "She may still be inside Mugenjou."

Himiko shook her head. "Can't see it. We know how good Makubex's computers and cameras are. If she were inside Mugenjou, he'd see her."

"Not if he didn't know to look." Ban's eyes sparkled with growing enthusiasm, and against her will, Himiko found herself grinning in response. This was how it had been, then. The wild ideas, thrown between the three of them like a ball that had to stay in the air as long as possible, spinning higher with each new suggestion. The possibility. The sense of the hunt. "Computer boy can't scan everything. What he does is make algorithms that'd scan for relevant material, then look at what the system brings him. If he thinks Ren's left the building, he doesn't bother to look for her. Convincing him that she was out of the place is the only way he'd stop looking. And if they've moved her to somewhere camera-free in the place while his attention's elsewhere, they're safe."

"Mugenjou is a large place," Akabane agreed. "And Ginji-kun is the only one here who knows it well . . ."

Himiko frowned so hard that she could feel the wrinkles in her forehead. "Ginji, just a moment. Don't answer till I've finished this." She held up both hands. "I'm trying to remember some things. I'm going to tell you a list of things, and I want you to tell me if there's anywhere particular in Mugenjou where you could expect to find all of them."

Ginji's eyes widened, then narrowed in comprehension. He nodded, waiting.

So assuming that Miroku Natsuhiko came directly from Mugenjou to the hotel where I met him, and assuming that any odours on him were from where he had last been in Mugenjou . . . "Chalk," she said, remembering. "Calcium carbonate, plain chalk, the white sort. Gunpowder. Ink." Those had been the obvious ones. She struggled to remember more. "Saffron. Fresh saffron, not dried. Indian tea, taken black. Ink -- the sort you'd use in a computer printer. Fresh blood."

"He smelt of blood and you didn't notice anything odd?" Ban demanded.

Himiko shrugged. "A lot of people I know do, Ban. Should I start making judgements?" She looked over at Ginji hopefully.

Ginji was nodding. "There's only one place in Mugenjou that you could buy saffron fresh, Himiko-chan. You could get most of the other stuff there as well. The Spice Market, down in the basement of the West Block." He glanced around at the others, then shrugged. "I think it's worth a try."

---

Ban was concentrating on current events rather than on the road. He was confident in his ability to keep driving, no matter how close to the edge of the road his car might wander. That, and the fact that Ginji would scream and grab his shoulder if they got into any real danger.

"Any luck?" he asked again.

"None, Ban-chan." Ginji sighed, and shook the cellphone hopefully, as though that might persuade it to make the connection. Makubex was out of touch. Ban wasn't sure whether to blame this on the phone -- perhaps buying the cheapest model had been a false economy after all -- or Mugenjou, or some external interference. Of course, he'd never tried phoning computer boy before, but then again, why should computer boy have given Ginji his phone number if he was unphoneable? Or was this some sort of knock-on effect from whatever had messed with the place's cameras last night?

Ahead, Mr No-Brake's lorry turned off to the left. He followed it, still thinking.

"See if you can get Hevn," he directed Ginji. Hevn, after all, probably had the best phone technology available, stuffed into her huge handbag or her even huger bosom. "We'll keep on trying Makubex, but if we can't reach him, then she'll probably be able to get a message through by email or something."

Ginji's face brightened at this solution to the problem. "Sure, Ban-chan!"

As Ginji dialled, Ban mused. He was concerned. Not just about himself or Ginji, but about Himiko, and about how Akabane was involved in this. Doctor Jackal had an interest of some sort in what was going on, that was obvious. Was it Gen's name that had made him stop and listen earlier? Ban rather thought so. He'd run through the brief facts that they had before they started back to Tokyo and Mugenjou, and Akabane's face had been as still and as dangerous as the winter ocean with a killing undertow beneath the surface. What could the two have had in common? Something medical, perhaps? Something to do with Babylon City?

And then there was Himiko. At least the brat had listened to him this time, rather than got into a temper and flown off in some sort of hysterical fury. Leaving aside the question of her having meetings with Miroku Natsuhiko in love hotels (in fact, he wanted a word with her about the whole having assignations in love hotels business, at some point when Akabane wasn't there to stare over her shoulder and make helpful comments), he just wished she wasn't involved. She was competent. He wasn't arguing that point. He wasn't even going to bring up the way she'd taken to wearing gloves like the Witch of Poisons avatar on those cards -- what business of his was it how she used her powers, after all? Or the way she'd calmly decided that she was going to be involved in this because of the damage to her prestige and the fact that she'd known Ren too . . . uncomfortably, Ban realised that this loop of thought was not only going round in circles, it was building a figure-eight train track to do it faster and more efficiently.

This was going to be messy, and she was still the girl he'd promised her brother to protect. Voodoo Child . . . It was that simple and that complicated.

At least Akabane would be some safeguard for her. He'd never thought he'd be grateful for that bastard's presence before.

And then there was the whole question of taking Ginji into Mugenjou. Well, they'd just have to keep this strike nice and quick and surgical, and if it started getting complicated or Babylon City looked like getting involved, then they were damn well pulling out and letting Makubex handle it. He wasn't risking his partner over this.

At least this whole business meant that Ren hadn't been taken out of Mugenjou, which got rid of some of the problems about virtual reality and whatever.

"Ban-chan! What do I tell Hevn!" Ginji had achieved contact, and clamped the phone to his ear as the car rocketed down the road.

Ban thought. "Tell her -- tell her we've made contact with Akabane and Himiko and found out that they'd been hired as a decoy without realising it." Whoever was behind this couldn't have expected that the transporters would have been willing to stop and talk things over, or that the decoy itself would be found out so soon. "Tell her to contact Makubex and let him know that we're going to that Spice Market place to investigate, and ask if he's got any information from Kazuki or the others. And that we've got a fairly positive confirmation on the Miroku. Oh, and anything else she thinks is relevant. And get her to phone us back as soon as possible."

"Right!" Ginji cheered, and started babbling into the phone.

Yes, they'd been remarkably lucky; Hevn getting the information about the transporters, then being able to negotiate with them . . . Ban hoped they wouldn't have to pay for this good luck later.

Ginji finished and snapped the phone shut. "She says be careful, Ban-chan."

"Don't worry," Ban muttered, as they drove towards the lights of Tokyo. "I intend to be."

---

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