The Ghost in the Doll (Fox Meridian Book 6) (22 page)

‘That sounds excellent,’ Kit said, beaming.

‘Doesn’t it? Oh, and you’re not allowed to tell Fox about the new frame before she gets home.’

‘I’m not?’

‘No, you’re not. It’ll be our little surprise for her. Care package my sweet ass…’

Awara.

There were many little things you had to get used to when you switched cultures. Yuriko had had to correct Fox’s wearing of her robe before they left the room: Fox had absently, and randomly, wrapped it right side over left and that was wrong because that was how a corpse wore their yukata. There was that thing about chopsticks in bowls of rice, and there was how far to bow. And there was climbing into a pool of very hot water under the watchful gaze of a forty-year-old man who probably had more tattoos than Fox had ever seen outside of a yakuza vid.

Middle-aged and tending to the plump, the man had augmented his muscle mass with implants to offset his fat, but he seemed to have decided that aging was not a concern since his hair was receding and his jawline sagging, and he had done nothing about either. His eyes were on the small side and were an unimpressive pale brown, which did not help his looks, but it was not as though Fox had plans to seduce him.

He looked as though he would have liked to have plans to seduce her, though what they were was an open question. He watched Fox slip smoothly into the water with a sort of disdainful admiration, lust and disgust in one complex expression, but then Yuriko followed Fox from the washing area and the man’s eyes widened and things got weirder. There was a flash of anger, but then he was averting his gaze, staring up at the sky overhead until he thought Yuriko was submerged.

‘Know him?’ Fox asked, her voice barely audible.

‘Yoshimasa Inokuma,’ Yuriko replied. ‘He is a saiko-komon, an advisor of some standing. An unpleasant little bootlicker who would never have risen to such power under my father.’

Inokuma did not look like he heard the exchange; he was too busy heading for the side of the pool. Trying to rush through the water while maintaining a dignified look was, apparently, too much for him, possibly due to drag. He hauled himself clear of the water eventually and hurried off toward the changing rooms.

Fox grinned. ‘His eyes weren’t the only things that were too small.’

Yuriko covered her mouth and giggled behind it. ‘Fox-san!’

‘First, we’re naked and alone in a natural hot tub, you can drop the “san.”’

‘No, I really can’t…’

‘And second, are you saying I can’t make fun of a guy who looked like he wanted to hump me and kick me in equal parts?’

‘I am saying that it is unseemly behaviour for a lady.’

‘Few people ever accuse me of being a lady once they’ve spoken to me.’

Giggling again, Yuriko settled lower in the water with a sigh. ‘He will have gone to tell my brother that I am here. He did not seem to recognise you.’

‘No, he didn’t, but he’ll describe me, probably in considerable detail, and Taro will recognise me. After dinner, I’ll sleep and recharge. That should mean I’ll be awake around midnight and you can get some rest.’

‘Very well.’

‘Tell me about Taro.’

There was silence for a second. Fox was fairly certain that Yuriko was collecting her thoughts rather than delaying. ‘When we were younger, he was my older brother who stood up for me when needed, played with me. I could not tell you when that changed, but as he grew older, he grew distant. Father never wanted me to be part of the Fukui-kai and assumed Taro would take his place eventually. Perhaps Taro resented that. His teenage years were rebellious. He drank and smoked. I believe he took drugs. Certainly he used his status to sleep with any girl who caught his eye. Who would refuse the son of Motonobu Fukui?’

‘How did your father take that?’

‘Poorly, but he did not do enough to control his son’s excesses until Taro was eighteen. Then he clamped an iron fist around him and said he had to grow up. There were tutors with attitudes I would associate with military sergeants. It seemed to work, to some extent. Taro would go on and on about tradition and honour, and Father viewed this as a good thing.’

‘You didn’t?’

‘I saw another side, perhaps. Taro uses tradition and honour as weapons. He takes them out when they are convenient and hides them away when not. He hates foreigners, gaijin, except when he needs them. His attitude to women is… poor at best, unless he has need of their services. He is a political animal, but not especially good at it. He expects honour and loyalty, and he speaks of giri, but the only way to gain any of that from him is to have power over him, and few have. He is a bully, a womaniser, and he is without morals. He is a dangerous man.’

Fox shrugged, sending a ripple through the still water of the pool. ‘The thing with bullies is that, if you can get some measure of power over them, or they think you might, they get scared. Taro is already scared or he wouldn’t have tried to have me killed. He’ll make mistakes, and then we’ll nail him.’

‘I wish I had your confidence.’

‘Hang around long enough and I’m sure you will.’ Fox lay in the heat of the bath for a second or two and then added, ‘Of course, being housed in a bulletproof cyberframe
might
have something to do with it…’

19
^th
April.

Fox lay in the darkness, her eyes shut, reading reports. An extra four hours a night made catching up easier, but it was still boring. ‘You know, I’m an infomorph now. There has to be a better way of doing this.’

‘You are a rather… organic sort of infomorph,’ Kit replied. ‘You still have many of the limitations of a human brain. Your mind operates a little faster since it lacks a need for physical transmission of electrical impulses through neurons, and your perception rate is higher thanks to digital processing, but you are still limited to functioning in the same way as you did. If you wish to comprehend a report, you have to read it.’

‘Now, see, that’s not fair. The least Terri could’ve done if she was going to turn me into a science project was make it so I could just upload boring reports.’

‘I don’t think she considered that when designing the software. I’d imagine she was more concerned about, say, making sure it worked rather than adding nifty features.’

‘“Nifty,” huh?’

‘Yes. It’s a good word. Probably invented in the mid nineteenth century. It has a sense of frivolity about it which I feel applies in this situation. You know, I take all your reports, run them through keyword analysis software to generate an index, and then file them in a database for fast access. There’s no reason why you couldn’t access that database if you wished.’

Fox considered that for a second and sighed. ‘That sounds very useful, but I still need to understand what’s going on. At least I have an extra four or so hours a day to read this stuff in.’

‘Much better. Keep a positive attitude.’

A sound, a soft footfall outside the room, stopped Fox from responding. She listened. The door was open a crack to let cooler air in, though Fox suspected it was just increasing the humidity. Another step: whoever was out there was trying to be silent, but Fox’s body came with some top-notch audio processors. Whoever it was, they did not seem to be a guest returning to their room
very
late.

Fox moved, slipping out from under her cover and stepping lightly across to where Yuriko was lying nearby. Dropping to her haunches, Fox put a hand over Yuriko’s mouth which had the immediate and expected effect. ‘We have company,’ Fox whispered once the initial panic had faded in Yuriko’s eyes. Yuriko gave a nod and Fox released her, and a second later, they were occupying the dark corners of the room on either side of the door.

Hands appeared through the gap, paused for a second, and then began to slide the doors open with as little sound as possible. The hands retreated, and then a man stepped through the door holding a chrome-plated pistol. Behind him, two more men stepped through, these ones holding short Japanese swords, wakizashi. Fox decided the pistol was going to have to go fast: the relatively thin walls of the inn were not going to stop a stray bullet unless he was using hollow points. However, there was a swordsman in the way.

The gunman had just come to the realisation that the two sleeping mats were unoccupied when Fox moved. Her foot slammed into the back of the nearest swordsman’s right knee and he went down, crumpling to the floor as Fox moved around him.

On the other side of door, Yuriko was also moving. In a flurry of long robes, she stepped around her own swordsman, caught his wrist in her hands, twisted upward and back, and he let out a yelp as his weapon vanished out through the open door.

By now, the gunman was turning toward Fox. She stepped in close so that if he did get a shot off, it would likely hit her. Her hands wrapped around his wrist and the weapon, and then he shrieked in pain as she used his own gun to apply leverage to his wrist. And now his pistol was pushed into his own stomach. Fox smiled into the man’s face. ‘You got that one, Yuriko?’

Just at that moment, Yuriko’s swordsman let out a shriek. He had thrown a punch, had it blocked and trapped, and his arm was now in a painful lock. ‘I believe I have this one under control, thank you, Fox-san.’

‘Good, I–’ Fox stopped as her downed swordsman jabbed the point of his wakizashi into her shin. She frowned down at him, and then kicked him in the face. She turned back to the gunman. ‘Now… walking into a lady’s room uninvited is
extremely
rude.’

The man was trying to move his gun hand, but Fox was considerably stronger than he was and had the leverage on him. ‘We’re to take you to Fukui-sama,’ the gunman grunted.

‘At two in the morning? With guns and swords? I don’t think so. What about you, Yuriko?’

‘I think that if my brother wants to see us, he can ask nicely. In the morning. It isn’t like he doesn’t know how to contact me.’

‘Valid point.’ Fox found the magazine eject on the pistol and there was a soft thud as she worked it. Then she worked the manual extract to eject the round he had chambered, and then she let go of his wrist and stepped back. ‘Take your friend and get out of here. Quietly. You don’t want to disturb the other guests.’ He pulled his gun back, ready to swing it, and Fox raised a hand. ‘If you try that, I will snap your arm like a twig and you won’t be able to carry Stupid out.’ She turned her hand downward, pointing at the man bleeding from the nose.

A hesitant burst of Japanese came from the doorway and Fox looked around as the subtitles appeared. Mister Kagabu was asking if there was a problem. Yuriko pushed her victim out of the room past the proprietor, telling him that everything was fine and he should not worry, and Mister Kagabu noticed the fallen man and started to chatter.

Fox grabbed the back of the gunman’s jacket and half-lifted him out through the door. ‘See what you did? Causing trouble…’ She bowed, deeply, to Mister Kagabu. ‘My apologies, Kagabu-san, we have brought trouble to your house and made something of a mess. We will, of course, make all necessary recompense, and these… gentlemen will not cause further problems. You have my assurance.’

It was in English, but the middle-aged innkeeper seemed to be verging on horrified that an American could be so polite and apologetic after being attacked on his premises. He returned the deep bow. ‘No apologies are necessary, Meridian-sama. I will see to it that a new room is made available immediately while we clean up this mess.’

‘Oh, I must
insist
on helping with that just a little.’ Marching back into the room, Fox lifted the fallen man as though he was a bag of shopping and carried him to the door. Then she tossed him out at the feet of his colleagues. ‘I’ll get dressed now,’ she added, and turned to walk through into the bathroom.

‘That is
so
Japanese,’ Kit commented.

‘What?’

‘A fight, a lot of formal apologies, the sight of you tossing an unconscious man around lack a sack of potatoes, and not even a funny look at the fact you were naked throughout.’

‘I’m pretty sure it would’ve been impolite to mention it.’

‘Yes. So
very
Japanese.’

~~~

Rising bright and early for breakfast, the full Japanese deal at that, Yuriko showed no signs of sleep deprivation. She actually seemed remarkably rested, as though the late-night fight had been restorative. She suggested that they go out to take a walk around Awara after their meal and Fox agreed.

It was not a large place, and it was largely a Japanese agricultural town. It still had a lot of personally owned houses which looked little different from suburban America, aside from the style of the roofs. If the signs had not been in Japanese, Fox might have thought herself in just about any western country. There was actually something rather Dutch about the place, so maybe it was just that country towns tended to look that way.

They had lunch in a small restaurant Yuriko had gone to frequently before breaking off with her family, and again the proprietors recognised her and looked worried that she was there. But nothing happened. There were no more yakuza goons, no messages, no contact.

In the afternoon, they returned to the onsen, and the baths. Yuriko sank her tired feet rather gratefully into the hot water while Fox started thinking about options like walking up to the gates of the Fukui estate and knocking.

‘Oh!’ Yuriko exclaimed suddenly. ‘I have received an invitation to a party tonight.’

‘Oh?’

‘Yes. My brother is throwing it. The invitation includes a plus-one.’

Fox shrugged. ‘If that’s how he wants to play it. Do I have to sleep with you or anything to be your plus-one?’

Yuriko blushed and once again covered her giggle with a hand. ‘Fox-san!’

‘Now, see, that embarrassed giggle means you’ve thought about it.’

‘I have not!’ Pause. ‘Of course, now I won’t be able to stop myself. That is a mean thing to do to someone.’

‘Yeah… sorry. I apologise for my unladylike behaviour in the baths, which we are alone in.’

‘Apology accepted.’