Fic: Saiyuki (Tenpou/Nii) "Snapshot"
...Way late in archiving this. :(
Title: Snapshot
Author: freeradical9
Word count: ~11,500
Rating: NC-17
Pairing: Tenpou x Nii, with references to other pairings
Warnings: Explicit M/M. Mind games. Snark. References to character death. Spoilers for both Saiyuki and Saiyuki Gaiden.
Summary: A picture is worth a thousand words. The right picture at the right time is priceless.
Author's notes: This story was originally written for the 7thnight_smut AU fic exchange for absolutnegation who wanted Modern setting. Assassins; power struggle between equals. Long overdue credit goes to avierra for excellent beta comments and encouragement through all the bits and pieces. :) This is a happy word count record for me. This piece is longer even than Psion, my very first Saiyuki fanfic (heh, and I thought that one took forever to write!). I have to say that writing this one was a lot of fun, tho--it was a very fitting prompt for the pairing. :)
Part 1
Device number twelve was malfunctioning.
Nii Jianyi frowned, tapping the fingertips of his right hand against the console absently. The wall-sized display in front of him was currently split into 64 smaller screens, the views monitoring buildings in 14 different cities scattered across the globe. Near the upper right hand corner, one of the squares had just gone dark. It was the rented room in Cairo.
It had been nearly three weeks since the mobile monitoring units had been turned loose, and so far the monetary investment for their design and production had gone completely unrewarded. Indeed, this was the second one to have failed. Nii would clearly have to have a long heart-to-heart chat with this particular parts supplier. He typed in the code to recall the device, on the off chance that it was still functional enough to be mobile. Then he leaned back in his chair, lacing his fingers together and staring pensively at the remaining views.
Egypt had been a long shot, anyway.
"All my efforts, and still I get no love." Nii assumed an artfully mournful face at the enamel-framed display, then absently waved a hand over the white console. The 62 images and two blank squares vanished from the screen. "Completely unappreciated, don't you think, Hunny-bunny?"
The supercomputer made no comment. It never did. Nii wasn't stupid enough to design a machine that had the ability to talk back. Some deeply buried part of him might have been too tempted to program it with Komyou's voice. Rather than the dry and gentle chiding of a long-dead mentor and lover, all he got was the faint hum of finely-tuned electronics. The glassy console remained inscrutable, showing him nothing more than the pale sheen of the wall behind him, and his own scruffy and unkempt image.
In another lifetime, he might have been vain enough to keep looking. Even beneath the reflected stubble and the grease and the sloppy clothes, he could see the shadow of other men. He could become any one of those other men in a heartbeat, if he so chose. However, he did not. The appearance of the eccentric academic suited him well enough for now.
"Not unlike somebody else we know, eh Bunny?" Nii leaned forward, typing rapidly on one of the four touchpad keyboards in front of him, calling up the image of the man he had been hired to kill.
The photograph was imbedded into a computer program that was Nii's latest project. On the surface, the program was a rather straightforward piece of scientific image mapping software. Under Nii's capable hands, it had morphed into something both more subtle and more complex. It seemed to be working, as well. In the background, a scrolling script in the upper left hand corner indicated that he'd already collected a scant handful of hits.
Nii had been provided with a small selection of photos on accepting the assignment. The one that was most useful to him was also the one that had been taken most recently. The snapshot showed his target, offering a military-style salute. Back straight, all fingers extended, delicate face looking square-on at the camera. The perfection of the salute stood out in sharp contrast to the orange shirt with its unbuttoned collar, the long white coat of the laboratory variety, and the footwear known in some parts of the world as "toilet slippers".
Perhaps that was the reason Nii had taken this job. The combination of eccentricity and genuine intellect was surprisingly scarce. It was so rare for Nii to find himself presented with a job that was an actual challenge.
The international crime syndicate that called itself Heaven's Army had offered Nii a truly obscene amount of money for the successful elimination of this target, with a cash advance for anticipated expenses provided up front. The syndicate had also hired at least four other groups offering similar services. It was an age-old tactic. Throw enough money at a problem, and the odds were pretty good that problem would conveniently disappear.
The syndicate had every reason to be proactive. The professional assassin who was known in underground circles as the Marshal had been steadily working his way up the chain of command. Nii had been only a few days into this job when they'd found some poor bastard named Gamou in Rio de Janeiro. The man had been reduced to a collection of bloody chunks, identifiable only through DNA evidence.
The representative of Heaven's Army who had contacted him initially had neglected to mention that the Marshal had originally been one of their own, although it hadn't taken much digging for Nii to find that out.
"Rebellion in the ranks," Nii murmured to the image on the screen, "well-trained dogs might rip off the hand that feeds them." The reasons surrounding that rebellion were particularly interesting. Nii still hadn't pieced together all of the details, yet. But he'd seen enough of the pattern to be thoroughly intrigued by the remaining gaps.
Computer-generated glowing green lines had been overlaid onto the Marshal's image. Nii visually checked them now, examining the accuracy of the calculations. Anyone doing covert work tended to disguise predictable features. Hair, eye color, nose. Intrinsic characteristics were much harder to hide. The distance between the centers of the pupils and the width of the skull, for instance. Or the length of the finger bones in each hand, and the distance from the knee to the crease of the hip.
Nii had spent a lot of time examining the original photos to be sure that he had the best possible outcome for his work. The fact that they were such attractive hands and thighs was completely secondary, of course.
His verification of the measurements complete, Nii called up the first of the new matches that his computer program had found. Facebook, Photobucket, and a multitude of other Internet photo sharing sites were proving to be remarkably useful in his search. People often captured unintended bystanders in their photographs. It happened so frequently, it was difficult for a bystander to avoid them all, even if he sought to escape detection.
The first matching photograph had been taken earlier this year, and had a glowing happy couple in the foreground. Newlyweds on a honeymoon trip, from the glittering gold rings on their hands. The foreground wasn't what interested Nii. Rather, it was the man standing in the shade of a nearby tree and casually smoking a cigarette which drew his eye. The image had automatically been adjusted using routine technology to sharpen blurred edges and smooth away noise. The dark haired man's face was turned to three-quarters view, his hair tied back out of his face in a fashion which meant he was "working". His intent gaze was focused across the street and upwards, centered on a second floor flat above a German grocery store.
Nii would have to check the tally of assassination jobs documented in the bio he'd been given. He had no doubt that this address would be a match for one of them.
Nii's computer program, using the client-provided information as a training data set, applied the known measurements of his target to previously unknown photos. Thin green lines on the image connected reference points, relating them to the bone-structure map data from Nii's stock photographs. Nii zoomed in on the series of lines which lay like a spider's web over the two extended fingers and thumb on the hand holding the cigarette. The numerical read-outs from the new photo, when corrected for perspective, were a perfect match to the photo he had just finished viewing.
Satisfied with the program's accuracy, Nii closed the image, allowing the software to return to its default running screen. The data log in the upper right hand corner of the screen indicated that he'd captured just three new images so far. None of them was likely to tell him his target's current whereabouts, but together they could provide some history as to his movements, and potentially provide some clues as to likely future actions.
A scrolling script a little farther down the screen told him that the program was halfway through entries that had become part of the World Wide Web in 2006, and it was still busily working its way backward through the years. The software had been running since about 4 AM Greenwich Mean Time, and Nii expected it to continue well into tomorrow's morning hours. Billions of images to search. Trillions upon trillions of individual measurements. The searching would become faster the farther back it went, as the data narrowed to that finite point in time which marked the beginning of the Internet.
The program required no further monitoring on his part. Nor did the robotic video surveillance units--Nii had tied their data feeds to a motion-tracking program. If they detected any change, Nii would immediately know. There was very little left to be done at this juncture, until new information emerged.
Nii lit up a fresh cigarette, idly wondering how his competition was getting along.
He doubted very much that any of his four known rivals had made any progress to speak of. He was familiar with each of the organizations in question. Only one of the four stood a chance of collecting any useful information at all. Nii decided he could use some entertainment, and so he let his image search program chug away in the background, and used a tiny little corner of his personal mainframe to quickly and efficiently hack into that competitor's secure system. It was late afternoon in their time zone.
A little harassment always put him in such a good mood.
He coded the video connection with Gyokumen Koushu's personal encryption, which meant that Professor Hwan had a delightful obsequious posture on the video monitor as she opened the connection, her eyes downcast and head half bowed. "My Lady…" she began. The words halted abruptly as her gaze came up enough to see the caller's true identity The change in her demeanor happened so fast that the temperature in the room seemed to drop by several degrees. "You."
"Good evening to you, too," Nii drawled pleasantly.
"You were warned," the woman said icily, "never to access this system again."
Nii feigned a hurt look. "I'm actually doing you a favor. See? There are holes in your security all over the place. You'd better get it fixed, or anybody could walk right in."
Hwan's right hand immediately rose to hit the key that would terminate the connection.
Nii intercepted. "The Marshal…" he said, trailing the word off tantalizingly.
Hwan's hand paused, hovering, as Nii had known it would. He let the words hang there between them for a long moment. Then, when he suspected her patience might snap, he resumed. "The Marshal was sighted in Kyoto last week."
Hwan sniffed. In a woman with more poise, it probably would have been interpreted as disdain. As it was, Nii thought charitably that she sounded like the recipient of a sinus infection. "That's old news," she said shortly.
Heaven's Army had apparently sent everyone the memo. "Did your sources tell you why he was there?"
She wasn't amused by the artful innocence of his tone. The question earned him a scathing look. "If you're fishing for information, you won't get it. In case you've forgotten, you don't work here anymore."
"Aww, do I detect a note of deeply repressed regret? I knew you missed me."
"Don't flatter yourself. Did you hack in here for a reason, or was it simply to waste my time?"
Truthfully, it was the latter; but since she asked, Nii seized on the opening. "Is the Lady herself in residence?"
"No." Hwan's facial features smoothed over with a look of satisfaction. She obviously assumed that he wouldn't be happy to hear it. "Lady Koushu isn't here. She left early this morning."
"Oh?" Nii leaned forward with interest. "Was she flying Turkish Airlines, by any chance?" Gyoukumen's organization had been going through some lean times since he'd left, and Nii knew that she had sold her late-husband's private jet last year, forcing her to fly business class.
He watched Hwan try and fail to keep the startlement from her face. It was a pleasure to see it again; the woman had always been so delightfully transparent. Brown eyes narrowed sharply as she regained control over her expression. "None of your business," she snapped.
"Temper, temper. It was just a harmless little question."
Hwan gathered the shreds of her dignity around herself. "When Lady Koushu finds out that you've hacked into our system and used her personal encryption, she'll skin you alive."
"Naww. I know she's still sweet on me. In fact," he paused, as if considering, "I bet she still calls out my name at the height of passion. Although I'm sure that's something you wouldn't know anything about."
Hwan's return glare was positively murderous. This time, Nii let her terminate the connection.
Nii smiled at his reflection in the blank monitor, feeling quite pleased with himself. In spite of her wishes to the contrary, Hwan had given him one useful piece of information, at least. Gyokumen Koushu had gone to Istanbul. That meant her organization was still side-tracked by the false trail that led to Milan. Unraveling that little bit of tactical genius would take Hwan several days, at the very least. Nii was now glad that he'd decided to leave the trail intact, rather than dismantling it or reporting it to his current employers.
There really was nothing else for him to do, now. It was also getting to be fairly late, even for Nii's usual hours. He stifled a yawn and snuffed out his cigarette, rising from his chair.
"Work hard, Hunny-bun," he said, absently patting the computer. "Daddy expects you to have a nice gift-wrapped present for him in the morning."
<><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><>
Nii's faulty surveillance device arrived with the morning paper--which is to say that he retrieved it from the front step some time during the late mid-morning. It had gone into shutdown mode, and now looked like nothing so much as a dead bird. Humming idly, he tossed it on the corner of his already overburdened worktable. He'd examine it later, after he'd finished more immediate tasks.
Washed, fed, and as shaven as he ever got, he settled himself once again before his supercomputer to see what his image program had found. It had finished running several hours ago. When it stopped, it had come up with a paltry 10 photographs as a match.
This, if nothing else, would have convinced Nii that his quarry was good. Nii hadn't needed convincing. He'd recognized the challenge when he'd first perused the bio. Nii opened each image file one-by-one, setting it in its own window in neat rows across the console, looking for any obvious trends.
The picture of the newlyweds he'd already viewed yesterday. Two of the newer photographs also showed the Marshal with his hair tied back--clearly working on other assignments when he'd been captured on film or digital media. Three of the remaining photos contained signs written in Chinese, which tentatively confirmed what Nii had already suspected; despite the Marshal's record of world travel, he considered China as his base of operations. Further analysis of the images would allow Nii to narrow down his location, and rule out the possibility that the photos had been taken in one of the many Chinatowns spread over the globe. Those, too, he set aside to worry about later.
Of the last four photos, two were unremarkable. One was a scene in a city park where the foreground was an old woman feeding pigeons. The way the scene was composed, it was probably supposed to look artistic. The Marshal was sitting on a bench in the far right-hand corner of the picture, looking relaxed and reading from a very large book. The second photo showed the interior of an expensive and tastefully decorated restaurant, where a group of giggling girls were caught up in some inane teen celebration. Nii's target was at a different table, lost in conversation with someone who was beyond the field of view.
The last two photos… Nii leaned forward in his chair. The last two were unexpected outliers in his data set. "Mmm? What have we here?"
The background of the second-to-last photograph showed a busy city street, with Nii's quarry looking out the back window of a parked taxicab. The man in the photograph looked remarkably mature, considering that the picture had been uploaded in 1995. Tenpou Gensui should have been about twelve years old. When compared to the other photos, it didn't look like the Marshal had aged a day since this picture had been taken--1993, if the caption was to be believed.
The most fascinating photo by far, however, was an old black & white shot which had clearly required posing. It showed two figures, one seated, one standing. The seated figure was a match for the other nine photographs. Here he was turned to directly face the camera, his elbow leaning on a small, circular table. The second figure in the photo was leaning on the same table, his entire demeanor projecting careless indifference. Nii immediately recognized him. He was Kenren Taishou, the Marshal's recently deceased business partner and lover; and, if one believed the truth of rumors, his most apparent reason for taking Heaven's Army apart from the ground up.
The caption on the photo listed it as belonging to the public archives of the National Museum of Photography in Brussels. The date on the photo was 1867.
"Immortal," Nii murmured in enlightenment. A very great deal of the mystery surrounding the inner workings of Heaven's Army, as well as the Marshal himself, suddenly made perfect sense.
In the same instant that the revelation came to him, he suddenly knew; he knew. His gaze left the computer monitor, and his chair swiveled 90 degrees towards the room's only visible entrance.
"That's unfortunate," the voice of a stranger intruded into the breathless silence, emanating from a figure leaning against the frame of the door, "I was sure that we'd destroyed all copies of that photograph, including the collodion plate."
Nii didn't bother to ask how the man had gotten by the multitude of security measures that protected this room. It was a moot question at this point. No one else but Nii had been near this place since it was built several years ago, and the assassin felt an unmistakable and unexpected thread of excitement coil in the pit of his stomach.
As the courteous host, Nii inclined his head in greeting. "Marshal."
Tenpou Gensui cordially returned the nod. "Nii Jianyi."
Gone was the lab coat, the orange shirt, and the toilet slippers. Instead, the Marshal cut a striking figure in a black leather trench coat and boots. The clothing was at least somewhat appropriate the rainy season. However, Nii was almost certain that the real reason for the attire was that the 12th century katana that the man favored was lurking somewhere under that coat.
Nii propped his chin up on his fist. "I suppose it would be silly to ask what brought you to Mumbai?"
The Marshal favored him with a thin smile. "You, of course. Two failed attempts on my life, so far. I came here to ask you politely to stop."
"Hmm. Two, you say? Why would you think they were from me?"
Tenpou raised an eloquent eyebrow.
Nii had been careless. "You followed my surveillance device, didn't you? Broke it on purpose, and then trailed it back to my lair." A rather neat trick, that, since the devices could fly.
"I followed your first surveillance device," the Marshal corrected. It meant that he had known Nii's whearabouts for just under two weeks. "The second was just a precaution. I wasn't sure how much you tended to move around."
…Which led to the next logical question. "I'm a bit surprised that you didn't try to kill me in my sleep. Why announce your presence now?"
"Because of the scroll stashed away inside the access hatch of your computer."
Ah. Of course. A thorough search of personal items would have been the first thing that Nii would have done, also. Clever of him, to look inside the computer. Nii made a mental note to check it for traps later on. "That old thing? It's a family heirloom," he said dismissively.
Tenpou's mouth quirked up, and there wasn't much humor in the curved line of it. "The Muten Sutra has been lost for about 150 years, ever since it passed from Goudai Sanzo's hands. I'm sure there are a number of people who would be very interested to know where it is."
"My, they weren't kidding when they said you were an expert on eclectic subjects."
"As it happens I'm more than passingly familiar with Buddhist theology."
"I fail to see how this is relevant to the question of why you haven't tried to kill me yet."
"It's relevant because there are few enough immortals walking the face of the Earth," Tenpou observed calmly. "I'm not in a hurry to reduce the number, except for the ones who have earned death from me."
Ah. Nii carefully masked his surprise. The ending words still stung, however. "Two assassination attempts don't count?"
Tenpou gave him an odd look--one that saw far too much for his liking. Nii backpedaled quickly. "You think I'm immortal? That's an astonishing claim, based on very little evidence. Don't you think you're jumping to conclusions?"
"No. And to be quite honest, I couldn't care less about the sutra--or about the fate of Goudai Sanzo's earthly remains. Your attentions are interfering with my work. I'd like to resolve the situation."
Nii tented his hands in front of himself. This first face-to-face meeting was not going at all as he had expected. He found it quite refreshing. "Resolve the situation without killing me," he clarified.
"Well, I'll kill you if you intend to be difficult about it. I thought I might resort to bribery, first."
"Oh?" Interesting. "You do realize the size of the price Heaven's Army has put on your head?"
"I have some idea, yes. As I'm sure you're aware by this time, I am not without my own resources."
"Mmm." Nii gave a calculated sideways glance at the computer monitor, to the 1867 photograph of the two men. "I imagine that you came into some money recently, since the late General didn't have any surviving relatives." Nii made a clucking noise with his tongue before turning away. "I'm amazed the two of you were together so long. He wasn't your equal, and you could have done far better for yourself."
Tenpou was standing across the room, separated from Nii by a good seven meters of distance. Nii should not have felt the shiver of anticipation that went down his spine at the expression that crossed Tenpou's face. The Marshal pushed off the doorframe, for the first time setting foot in the room. He moved with deliberation--one might even say slowly, but with absolute intent, narrowing the distance between them.
Oh yes, come to Papa.
There were over a dozen security countermeasures within easy reach of Nii's hand. He reached for none of them, however. He simply watched as the Marshal sidestepped the trapdoor and the pressure plate, and neatly cleared several tripwires and laser sensors. Nii was vaguely disappointed when his visitor came to a halt nearly three full paces away.
"If the General were here, I'm sure he would say 'Fuck off and mind your own damn business'. Since he isn't, I'm obliged to speak in his stead. For a bright man, you can be surprisingly dense. …And if you speak ill of him again, I will kill you."
The rumors didn't lie. Even in death, Kenren Taishou really was Tenpou Gensui's point of weakness. The Marshal didn't reach for the katana as he spoke, but he didn't need to. The weight of the threat was clear in his voice. Nii felt the giddy high of the immediate peril, and shifted in his chair to ease the unmistakable pressure of resulting sexual interest. Pretty, dangerous man. I do believe I'm in lust.
Finding out Tenpou was an immortal changed Nii's perspective on this whole situation rather drastically. Prior to meeting Tenpou in person, the lure of this job had been the thrill of the chase, the challenge of testing himself against unusually canny prey. Now, however Nii was discovering an entirely new attraction. The sheer power of Tenpou's presence was causing his thoughts to take a turn to the crude and visceral.
As suddenly as it had appeared, the burning, barely-leashed fury was gone from Tenpou's violet eyes, and the mask of calm civility clicked into place over the delicate features once more. "To return to our previous topic," he said evenly, "I'd like to know if there's anything I can do to convince you to turn your focus elsewhere."
After our little conversation here? Don't bet on it. Aloud, Nii said, "Even if I accept, it won't change anything. They've hired other assassin groups, as I'm sure you know."
"I'm not concerned about any of them."
"But you are about me?" Nii smiled, feeling oddly flattered. "I'm touched. And you're quite persistent."
"A necessity, in this line of work."
"Agreed." Nii yawned and stretched theatrically, while his mind mapped out potentials and possibilities. "About your request. In fact, there is something that I want."
"Oh? I'm listening."
"I would be willing to take the matter under consideration, if…." Nii leaned back in his chair and smiled lazily, unable to resist the direct approach. "You agreed to have sex with me."
Nii wasn't above a little non-consensual sex if he had to--but verbal coercion was preferable to physical force always, and a willing partner would be the most satisfying by far. It would be infinitely better that masturbating over a handful of printed photos… and it had been a long, long time since Nii had slept with anybody that he considered a true peer.
For the barest of moments, Tenpou's self-possessed mask slipped, and Nii could tell that he was startled. Maybe he understood that Nii hadn't been joking. In the instant before the mask snapped back into place again, Nii was encouraged to see, not revulsion or disbelief, but the spark of genuine amusement.
Then Tenpou's gaze rose to the monitor, to settle on the black and white photograph still shimmering on the screen. The Marshal's expression had turned closed and unreadable, and Nii found himself suddenly ambushed with an inexplicable surge of jealously. It bothered him much more than he would have cared to admit, to have the man's attention so divided. He casually touched the console, and the entire monitor went dark.
Tenpou didn't react to the blanking out of the screen. Instead, his steady gaze fell back to Nii. "I'll think about it," he said lightly.
Not an outright rejection, then. Maybe even an encouraging start. "Oh, please do."
"Well. This has been entertaining. I'm afraid, however, that I do have a bit of a tight schedule to keep. I'm sure we'll get the chance to chat again. One way or another."
"Indeed."
The Marshal turned and left. Nii let him go, knowing that this wasn't over.
Continue on to Part 2
Title: Snapshot
Author: freeradical9
Word count: ~11,500
Rating: NC-17
Pairing: Tenpou x Nii, with references to other pairings
Warnings: Explicit M/M. Mind games. Snark. References to character death. Spoilers for both Saiyuki and Saiyuki Gaiden.
Summary: A picture is worth a thousand words. The right picture at the right time is priceless.
Author's notes: This story was originally written for the 7thnight_smut AU fic exchange for absolutnegation who wanted Modern setting. Assassins; power struggle between equals. Long overdue credit goes to avierra for excellent beta comments and encouragement through all the bits and pieces. :) This is a happy word count record for me. This piece is longer even than Psion, my very first Saiyuki fanfic (heh, and I thought that one took forever to write!). I have to say that writing this one was a lot of fun, tho--it was a very fitting prompt for the pairing. :)
Part 1
Device number twelve was malfunctioning.
Nii Jianyi frowned, tapping the fingertips of his right hand against the console absently. The wall-sized display in front of him was currently split into 64 smaller screens, the views monitoring buildings in 14 different cities scattered across the globe. Near the upper right hand corner, one of the squares had just gone dark. It was the rented room in Cairo.
It had been nearly three weeks since the mobile monitoring units had been turned loose, and so far the monetary investment for their design and production had gone completely unrewarded. Indeed, this was the second one to have failed. Nii would clearly have to have a long heart-to-heart chat with this particular parts supplier. He typed in the code to recall the device, on the off chance that it was still functional enough to be mobile. Then he leaned back in his chair, lacing his fingers together and staring pensively at the remaining views.
Egypt had been a long shot, anyway.
"All my efforts, and still I get no love." Nii assumed an artfully mournful face at the enamel-framed display, then absently waved a hand over the white console. The 62 images and two blank squares vanished from the screen. "Completely unappreciated, don't you think, Hunny-bunny?"
The supercomputer made no comment. It never did. Nii wasn't stupid enough to design a machine that had the ability to talk back. Some deeply buried part of him might have been too tempted to program it with Komyou's voice. Rather than the dry and gentle chiding of a long-dead mentor and lover, all he got was the faint hum of finely-tuned electronics. The glassy console remained inscrutable, showing him nothing more than the pale sheen of the wall behind him, and his own scruffy and unkempt image.
In another lifetime, he might have been vain enough to keep looking. Even beneath the reflected stubble and the grease and the sloppy clothes, he could see the shadow of other men. He could become any one of those other men in a heartbeat, if he so chose. However, he did not. The appearance of the eccentric academic suited him well enough for now.
"Not unlike somebody else we know, eh Bunny?" Nii leaned forward, typing rapidly on one of the four touchpad keyboards in front of him, calling up the image of the man he had been hired to kill.
The photograph was imbedded into a computer program that was Nii's latest project. On the surface, the program was a rather straightforward piece of scientific image mapping software. Under Nii's capable hands, it had morphed into something both more subtle and more complex. It seemed to be working, as well. In the background, a scrolling script in the upper left hand corner indicated that he'd already collected a scant handful of hits.
Nii had been provided with a small selection of photos on accepting the assignment. The one that was most useful to him was also the one that had been taken most recently. The snapshot showed his target, offering a military-style salute. Back straight, all fingers extended, delicate face looking square-on at the camera. The perfection of the salute stood out in sharp contrast to the orange shirt with its unbuttoned collar, the long white coat of the laboratory variety, and the footwear known in some parts of the world as "toilet slippers".
Perhaps that was the reason Nii had taken this job. The combination of eccentricity and genuine intellect was surprisingly scarce. It was so rare for Nii to find himself presented with a job that was an actual challenge.
The international crime syndicate that called itself Heaven's Army had offered Nii a truly obscene amount of money for the successful elimination of this target, with a cash advance for anticipated expenses provided up front. The syndicate had also hired at least four other groups offering similar services. It was an age-old tactic. Throw enough money at a problem, and the odds were pretty good that problem would conveniently disappear.
The syndicate had every reason to be proactive. The professional assassin who was known in underground circles as the Marshal had been steadily working his way up the chain of command. Nii had been only a few days into this job when they'd found some poor bastard named Gamou in Rio de Janeiro. The man had been reduced to a collection of bloody chunks, identifiable only through DNA evidence.
The representative of Heaven's Army who had contacted him initially had neglected to mention that the Marshal had originally been one of their own, although it hadn't taken much digging for Nii to find that out.
"Rebellion in the ranks," Nii murmured to the image on the screen, "well-trained dogs might rip off the hand that feeds them." The reasons surrounding that rebellion were particularly interesting. Nii still hadn't pieced together all of the details, yet. But he'd seen enough of the pattern to be thoroughly intrigued by the remaining gaps.
Computer-generated glowing green lines had been overlaid onto the Marshal's image. Nii visually checked them now, examining the accuracy of the calculations. Anyone doing covert work tended to disguise predictable features. Hair, eye color, nose. Intrinsic characteristics were much harder to hide. The distance between the centers of the pupils and the width of the skull, for instance. Or the length of the finger bones in each hand, and the distance from the knee to the crease of the hip.
Nii had spent a lot of time examining the original photos to be sure that he had the best possible outcome for his work. The fact that they were such attractive hands and thighs was completely secondary, of course.
His verification of the measurements complete, Nii called up the first of the new matches that his computer program had found. Facebook, Photobucket, and a multitude of other Internet photo sharing sites were proving to be remarkably useful in his search. People often captured unintended bystanders in their photographs. It happened so frequently, it was difficult for a bystander to avoid them all, even if he sought to escape detection.
The first matching photograph had been taken earlier this year, and had a glowing happy couple in the foreground. Newlyweds on a honeymoon trip, from the glittering gold rings on their hands. The foreground wasn't what interested Nii. Rather, it was the man standing in the shade of a nearby tree and casually smoking a cigarette which drew his eye. The image had automatically been adjusted using routine technology to sharpen blurred edges and smooth away noise. The dark haired man's face was turned to three-quarters view, his hair tied back out of his face in a fashion which meant he was "working". His intent gaze was focused across the street and upwards, centered on a second floor flat above a German grocery store.
Nii would have to check the tally of assassination jobs documented in the bio he'd been given. He had no doubt that this address would be a match for one of them.
Nii's computer program, using the client-provided information as a training data set, applied the known measurements of his target to previously unknown photos. Thin green lines on the image connected reference points, relating them to the bone-structure map data from Nii's stock photographs. Nii zoomed in on the series of lines which lay like a spider's web over the two extended fingers and thumb on the hand holding the cigarette. The numerical read-outs from the new photo, when corrected for perspective, were a perfect match to the photo he had just finished viewing.
Satisfied with the program's accuracy, Nii closed the image, allowing the software to return to its default running screen. The data log in the upper right hand corner of the screen indicated that he'd captured just three new images so far. None of them was likely to tell him his target's current whereabouts, but together they could provide some history as to his movements, and potentially provide some clues as to likely future actions.
A scrolling script a little farther down the screen told him that the program was halfway through entries that had become part of the World Wide Web in 2006, and it was still busily working its way backward through the years. The software had been running since about 4 AM Greenwich Mean Time, and Nii expected it to continue well into tomorrow's morning hours. Billions of images to search. Trillions upon trillions of individual measurements. The searching would become faster the farther back it went, as the data narrowed to that finite point in time which marked the beginning of the Internet.
The program required no further monitoring on his part. Nor did the robotic video surveillance units--Nii had tied their data feeds to a motion-tracking program. If they detected any change, Nii would immediately know. There was very little left to be done at this juncture, until new information emerged.
Nii lit up a fresh cigarette, idly wondering how his competition was getting along.
He doubted very much that any of his four known rivals had made any progress to speak of. He was familiar with each of the organizations in question. Only one of the four stood a chance of collecting any useful information at all. Nii decided he could use some entertainment, and so he let his image search program chug away in the background, and used a tiny little corner of his personal mainframe to quickly and efficiently hack into that competitor's secure system. It was late afternoon in their time zone.
A little harassment always put him in such a good mood.
He coded the video connection with Gyokumen Koushu's personal encryption, which meant that Professor Hwan had a delightful obsequious posture on the video monitor as she opened the connection, her eyes downcast and head half bowed. "My Lady…" she began. The words halted abruptly as her gaze came up enough to see the caller's true identity The change in her demeanor happened so fast that the temperature in the room seemed to drop by several degrees. "You."
"Good evening to you, too," Nii drawled pleasantly.
"You were warned," the woman said icily, "never to access this system again."
Nii feigned a hurt look. "I'm actually doing you a favor. See? There are holes in your security all over the place. You'd better get it fixed, or anybody could walk right in."
Hwan's right hand immediately rose to hit the key that would terminate the connection.
Nii intercepted. "The Marshal…" he said, trailing the word off tantalizingly.
Hwan's hand paused, hovering, as Nii had known it would. He let the words hang there between them for a long moment. Then, when he suspected her patience might snap, he resumed. "The Marshal was sighted in Kyoto last week."
Hwan sniffed. In a woman with more poise, it probably would have been interpreted as disdain. As it was, Nii thought charitably that she sounded like the recipient of a sinus infection. "That's old news," she said shortly.
Heaven's Army had apparently sent everyone the memo. "Did your sources tell you why he was there?"
She wasn't amused by the artful innocence of his tone. The question earned him a scathing look. "If you're fishing for information, you won't get it. In case you've forgotten, you don't work here anymore."
"Aww, do I detect a note of deeply repressed regret? I knew you missed me."
"Don't flatter yourself. Did you hack in here for a reason, or was it simply to waste my time?"
Truthfully, it was the latter; but since she asked, Nii seized on the opening. "Is the Lady herself in residence?"
"No." Hwan's facial features smoothed over with a look of satisfaction. She obviously assumed that he wouldn't be happy to hear it. "Lady Koushu isn't here. She left early this morning."
"Oh?" Nii leaned forward with interest. "Was she flying Turkish Airlines, by any chance?" Gyoukumen's organization had been going through some lean times since he'd left, and Nii knew that she had sold her late-husband's private jet last year, forcing her to fly business class.
He watched Hwan try and fail to keep the startlement from her face. It was a pleasure to see it again; the woman had always been so delightfully transparent. Brown eyes narrowed sharply as she regained control over her expression. "None of your business," she snapped.
"Temper, temper. It was just a harmless little question."
Hwan gathered the shreds of her dignity around herself. "When Lady Koushu finds out that you've hacked into our system and used her personal encryption, she'll skin you alive."
"Naww. I know she's still sweet on me. In fact," he paused, as if considering, "I bet she still calls out my name at the height of passion. Although I'm sure that's something you wouldn't know anything about."
Hwan's return glare was positively murderous. This time, Nii let her terminate the connection.
Nii smiled at his reflection in the blank monitor, feeling quite pleased with himself. In spite of her wishes to the contrary, Hwan had given him one useful piece of information, at least. Gyokumen Koushu had gone to Istanbul. That meant her organization was still side-tracked by the false trail that led to Milan. Unraveling that little bit of tactical genius would take Hwan several days, at the very least. Nii was now glad that he'd decided to leave the trail intact, rather than dismantling it or reporting it to his current employers.
There really was nothing else for him to do, now. It was also getting to be fairly late, even for Nii's usual hours. He stifled a yawn and snuffed out his cigarette, rising from his chair.
"Work hard, Hunny-bun," he said, absently patting the computer. "Daddy expects you to have a nice gift-wrapped present for him in the morning."
<><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><>
Nii's faulty surveillance device arrived with the morning paper--which is to say that he retrieved it from the front step some time during the late mid-morning. It had gone into shutdown mode, and now looked like nothing so much as a dead bird. Humming idly, he tossed it on the corner of his already overburdened worktable. He'd examine it later, after he'd finished more immediate tasks.
Washed, fed, and as shaven as he ever got, he settled himself once again before his supercomputer to see what his image program had found. It had finished running several hours ago. When it stopped, it had come up with a paltry 10 photographs as a match.
This, if nothing else, would have convinced Nii that his quarry was good. Nii hadn't needed convincing. He'd recognized the challenge when he'd first perused the bio. Nii opened each image file one-by-one, setting it in its own window in neat rows across the console, looking for any obvious trends.
The picture of the newlyweds he'd already viewed yesterday. Two of the newer photographs also showed the Marshal with his hair tied back--clearly working on other assignments when he'd been captured on film or digital media. Three of the remaining photos contained signs written in Chinese, which tentatively confirmed what Nii had already suspected; despite the Marshal's record of world travel, he considered China as his base of operations. Further analysis of the images would allow Nii to narrow down his location, and rule out the possibility that the photos had been taken in one of the many Chinatowns spread over the globe. Those, too, he set aside to worry about later.
Of the last four photos, two were unremarkable. One was a scene in a city park where the foreground was an old woman feeding pigeons. The way the scene was composed, it was probably supposed to look artistic. The Marshal was sitting on a bench in the far right-hand corner of the picture, looking relaxed and reading from a very large book. The second photo showed the interior of an expensive and tastefully decorated restaurant, where a group of giggling girls were caught up in some inane teen celebration. Nii's target was at a different table, lost in conversation with someone who was beyond the field of view.
The last two photos… Nii leaned forward in his chair. The last two were unexpected outliers in his data set. "Mmm? What have we here?"
The background of the second-to-last photograph showed a busy city street, with Nii's quarry looking out the back window of a parked taxicab. The man in the photograph looked remarkably mature, considering that the picture had been uploaded in 1995. Tenpou Gensui should have been about twelve years old. When compared to the other photos, it didn't look like the Marshal had aged a day since this picture had been taken--1993, if the caption was to be believed.
The most fascinating photo by far, however, was an old black & white shot which had clearly required posing. It showed two figures, one seated, one standing. The seated figure was a match for the other nine photographs. Here he was turned to directly face the camera, his elbow leaning on a small, circular table. The second figure in the photo was leaning on the same table, his entire demeanor projecting careless indifference. Nii immediately recognized him. He was Kenren Taishou, the Marshal's recently deceased business partner and lover; and, if one believed the truth of rumors, his most apparent reason for taking Heaven's Army apart from the ground up.
The caption on the photo listed it as belonging to the public archives of the National Museum of Photography in Brussels. The date on the photo was 1867.
"Immortal," Nii murmured in enlightenment. A very great deal of the mystery surrounding the inner workings of Heaven's Army, as well as the Marshal himself, suddenly made perfect sense.
In the same instant that the revelation came to him, he suddenly knew; he knew. His gaze left the computer monitor, and his chair swiveled 90 degrees towards the room's only visible entrance.
"That's unfortunate," the voice of a stranger intruded into the breathless silence, emanating from a figure leaning against the frame of the door, "I was sure that we'd destroyed all copies of that photograph, including the collodion plate."
Nii didn't bother to ask how the man had gotten by the multitude of security measures that protected this room. It was a moot question at this point. No one else but Nii had been near this place since it was built several years ago, and the assassin felt an unmistakable and unexpected thread of excitement coil in the pit of his stomach.
As the courteous host, Nii inclined his head in greeting. "Marshal."
Tenpou Gensui cordially returned the nod. "Nii Jianyi."
Gone was the lab coat, the orange shirt, and the toilet slippers. Instead, the Marshal cut a striking figure in a black leather trench coat and boots. The clothing was at least somewhat appropriate the rainy season. However, Nii was almost certain that the real reason for the attire was that the 12th century katana that the man favored was lurking somewhere under that coat.
Nii propped his chin up on his fist. "I suppose it would be silly to ask what brought you to Mumbai?"
The Marshal favored him with a thin smile. "You, of course. Two failed attempts on my life, so far. I came here to ask you politely to stop."
"Hmm. Two, you say? Why would you think they were from me?"
Tenpou raised an eloquent eyebrow.
Nii had been careless. "You followed my surveillance device, didn't you? Broke it on purpose, and then trailed it back to my lair." A rather neat trick, that, since the devices could fly.
"I followed your first surveillance device," the Marshal corrected. It meant that he had known Nii's whearabouts for just under two weeks. "The second was just a precaution. I wasn't sure how much you tended to move around."
…Which led to the next logical question. "I'm a bit surprised that you didn't try to kill me in my sleep. Why announce your presence now?"
"Because of the scroll stashed away inside the access hatch of your computer."
Ah. Of course. A thorough search of personal items would have been the first thing that Nii would have done, also. Clever of him, to look inside the computer. Nii made a mental note to check it for traps later on. "That old thing? It's a family heirloom," he said dismissively.
Tenpou's mouth quirked up, and there wasn't much humor in the curved line of it. "The Muten Sutra has been lost for about 150 years, ever since it passed from Goudai Sanzo's hands. I'm sure there are a number of people who would be very interested to know where it is."
"My, they weren't kidding when they said you were an expert on eclectic subjects."
"As it happens I'm more than passingly familiar with Buddhist theology."
"I fail to see how this is relevant to the question of why you haven't tried to kill me yet."
"It's relevant because there are few enough immortals walking the face of the Earth," Tenpou observed calmly. "I'm not in a hurry to reduce the number, except for the ones who have earned death from me."
Ah. Nii carefully masked his surprise. The ending words still stung, however. "Two assassination attempts don't count?"
Tenpou gave him an odd look--one that saw far too much for his liking. Nii backpedaled quickly. "You think I'm immortal? That's an astonishing claim, based on very little evidence. Don't you think you're jumping to conclusions?"
"No. And to be quite honest, I couldn't care less about the sutra--or about the fate of Goudai Sanzo's earthly remains. Your attentions are interfering with my work. I'd like to resolve the situation."
Nii tented his hands in front of himself. This first face-to-face meeting was not going at all as he had expected. He found it quite refreshing. "Resolve the situation without killing me," he clarified.
"Well, I'll kill you if you intend to be difficult about it. I thought I might resort to bribery, first."
"Oh?" Interesting. "You do realize the size of the price Heaven's Army has put on your head?"
"I have some idea, yes. As I'm sure you're aware by this time, I am not without my own resources."
"Mmm." Nii gave a calculated sideways glance at the computer monitor, to the 1867 photograph of the two men. "I imagine that you came into some money recently, since the late General didn't have any surviving relatives." Nii made a clucking noise with his tongue before turning away. "I'm amazed the two of you were together so long. He wasn't your equal, and you could have done far better for yourself."
Tenpou was standing across the room, separated from Nii by a good seven meters of distance. Nii should not have felt the shiver of anticipation that went down his spine at the expression that crossed Tenpou's face. The Marshal pushed off the doorframe, for the first time setting foot in the room. He moved with deliberation--one might even say slowly, but with absolute intent, narrowing the distance between them.
Oh yes, come to Papa.
There were over a dozen security countermeasures within easy reach of Nii's hand. He reached for none of them, however. He simply watched as the Marshal sidestepped the trapdoor and the pressure plate, and neatly cleared several tripwires and laser sensors. Nii was vaguely disappointed when his visitor came to a halt nearly three full paces away.
"If the General were here, I'm sure he would say 'Fuck off and mind your own damn business'. Since he isn't, I'm obliged to speak in his stead. For a bright man, you can be surprisingly dense. …And if you speak ill of him again, I will kill you."
The rumors didn't lie. Even in death, Kenren Taishou really was Tenpou Gensui's point of weakness. The Marshal didn't reach for the katana as he spoke, but he didn't need to. The weight of the threat was clear in his voice. Nii felt the giddy high of the immediate peril, and shifted in his chair to ease the unmistakable pressure of resulting sexual interest. Pretty, dangerous man. I do believe I'm in lust.
Finding out Tenpou was an immortal changed Nii's perspective on this whole situation rather drastically. Prior to meeting Tenpou in person, the lure of this job had been the thrill of the chase, the challenge of testing himself against unusually canny prey. Now, however Nii was discovering an entirely new attraction. The sheer power of Tenpou's presence was causing his thoughts to take a turn to the crude and visceral.
As suddenly as it had appeared, the burning, barely-leashed fury was gone from Tenpou's violet eyes, and the mask of calm civility clicked into place over the delicate features once more. "To return to our previous topic," he said evenly, "I'd like to know if there's anything I can do to convince you to turn your focus elsewhere."
After our little conversation here? Don't bet on it. Aloud, Nii said, "Even if I accept, it won't change anything. They've hired other assassin groups, as I'm sure you know."
"I'm not concerned about any of them."
"But you are about me?" Nii smiled, feeling oddly flattered. "I'm touched. And you're quite persistent."
"A necessity, in this line of work."
"Agreed." Nii yawned and stretched theatrically, while his mind mapped out potentials and possibilities. "About your request. In fact, there is something that I want."
"Oh? I'm listening."
"I would be willing to take the matter under consideration, if…." Nii leaned back in his chair and smiled lazily, unable to resist the direct approach. "You agreed to have sex with me."
Nii wasn't above a little non-consensual sex if he had to--but verbal coercion was preferable to physical force always, and a willing partner would be the most satisfying by far. It would be infinitely better that masturbating over a handful of printed photos… and it had been a long, long time since Nii had slept with anybody that he considered a true peer.
For the barest of moments, Tenpou's self-possessed mask slipped, and Nii could tell that he was startled. Maybe he understood that Nii hadn't been joking. In the instant before the mask snapped back into place again, Nii was encouraged to see, not revulsion or disbelief, but the spark of genuine amusement.
Then Tenpou's gaze rose to the monitor, to settle on the black and white photograph still shimmering on the screen. The Marshal's expression had turned closed and unreadable, and Nii found himself suddenly ambushed with an inexplicable surge of jealously. It bothered him much more than he would have cared to admit, to have the man's attention so divided. He casually touched the console, and the entire monitor went dark.
Tenpou didn't react to the blanking out of the screen. Instead, his steady gaze fell back to Nii. "I'll think about it," he said lightly.
Not an outright rejection, then. Maybe even an encouraging start. "Oh, please do."
"Well. This has been entertaining. I'm afraid, however, that I do have a bit of a tight schedule to keep. I'm sure we'll get the chance to chat again. One way or another."
"Indeed."
The Marshal turned and left. Nii let him go, knowing that this wasn't over.
Continue on to Part 2