Kids Games (Like Hide-n-Seek, Ghosts In the Graveyard and Tag)
Screaming filled the sky after Jun informed Ken that (1) there was an AI 'under' the J that went by 'Nambu'; (2) there was metaversal interest in her and Jinpei in regards to a conference on Random Technical Looking Devices and (3) this was related to the delivery girl he couldn't find, and (4) the reputations of the 'sponsoring' organizations of that conference were untrustworthy.
Before screaming filled that sky, Ken had been flying the G1 with casual precision, but when he asked Jun, "What does what's happening with Joe mean for him in the long run?" Only one of the four hypotheses she'd mentioned interested him and that he'd distilled into one word, "Immortality?"
"Uh," Jun had replied and Ken's focus intensified because Jun was a woman who was never caught off guard in the field.
"Does that also apply to us?"
"Uh..."
Upon hearing 'Uh' a second time, Ken had said, "Let's test that theory," grabbed the stick and pushed the envelope.
Jun screamed. The plane jetted high into the starry vaults of higher atmosphere, its engines shrieking louder than the rush of wind over the special plastic-alloy chassis as it approached 30,000 meters altitude -- then Ken let it go.
Jun's shock turned into hilarity, her laughter choking her in her seat while plane and passengers plummeted earthward. As the plane whirled around its axis, Ken's laughter joined hers and he pulled the plane out of its dive saying, "Sooner than later, Jun, I want a straight answer." His sky eyes twinkled for all that his voice was firm.
With a shattering-prism wave of light, the G1-Fighter assumed its mundane configuration and Ken brought the craft into HK airpsace. By the time they landed at the Kowloon Bay house, they'd hammered out a working plan between them.
In execution, it looked like an imprompto game of Tag. Jun descended from the plane with hair that was mussed and a crooked skirt. Ken followed her down the steps with enthusiasm, seemingly oblvious to the early morning chill in the air, the beauty of the grounds, or the approach of the housekeeper, Miss Sonel who met them at the end of walkway leading from the landing pad. Like everyone employed by Nambu's Estate, she was former ISO and she knew, in the considerable detail allowed by her security clearance, what Ken and Jun had been to the world.
"Washio-san, Jun-san, welcome and Good Morning."
Jun offered a scrupulously polite bow in return and responded in Malay, "Thank you, Miss Sonel."
Ken looked up from breathing down Jun's neck long enough to say, "Thanks."
The housekeeper asked, "How long will you be staying if it is permitted to ask? Would you like for your usual rooms to be prepared for you?"
"Thank you," Ken said, and hugged Jun from behind, folding his arms over hers and making a show of comparing the width of their wrists.
Blushing, Jun said, "Ken-san and I can amuse ourselves until the banks open, thank you."
"Yes," Ken said. "My room'll be fine," snaked Jun's bracelet off her wrist and ran away with it.
As they were who they were, their bracelet-facilitated survey of the grounds was thorough. They found nothing corresponding to the wavelength that allowed Jun and Jinpei access to the AI 'beneath' her office. Frustrated and annoyed, they broke off their two-person search long enough for Ken to fly Jun into the city so she could make the rounds of the banks. Ken returned to Nambu's place and combed the interior of the house.
In the course of the morning, Jun set up a number of accounts while asking discrete questions regarding the handling a variety of inter- and intra-kinds of businesses. Her small-talk utilized words like luck, man, dimensions, specific types of cattle and game, devices, lake, and random. Ken came up with nothing and left the house considerably put out. His terse replies to Jun's inquiries informed her that his search had been fruitless and with reluctance she admitted that no one from any mysterious banking or business firms had contacted her all that long morning.
Ken was about to land the plane when the housekeeper came running into view. She was waving her hands, and stumbling in her progress.
"Ken..." Jun said warningly but he was already rolling the craft up and away.
Three bursts of red bloomed on Miss Sonel's chest. She fell and lay still. Jun gasped. In unison, she and Ken yelled, "BIRD GO!" Their voices ringing in two-part harmony as the transformation overtook them. Using the G1's greater power and speed, Ken pulled them out of the path of a surface to air missile launched after Miss Sonel fell and opened fire with his twin laser canons, stitching the bushes where the gun fire had originated before taking them up and away.
"We've got to go back!" Jun said, but Ken was already slinging them towards the house, bringing the fighter low enough for Jun to attempt a rescue.
Jun unstrapped herself from her seat, readying herself to jump from the plane. The cockpit hatch slip open. Her wings snapped open and she dropped like a white shadow in the day sky. With the sun so high, she was hard to see. Wheeling and gliding she came down behind their attackers. Before they knew what had happened, she'd whipped out her razor ribbon and had cut them out of consideration. Looking all around her, she identified the other sources of enemy fire just as Ken's laser canons rendered them irrelevant to the fight.
In a crouch, she streaked to Miss Sonel, turning the poor woman over and assessing her wounds.
"Swan-san," said Miss Sonel, through grey lips.
"Shh, Miss Sonel. We're here to rescue you."
Miss Sonel's closed fist touched Jun's chin below the visor. Her lips parted. "For you..." she said, the last word breaking on a bubble of thin blood. Her hand dropped to her wounded chest, opening to reveal a medallion with a stylized phoenix on it, like the ninjatai bracelets. Jun wrapped her fingers around the sticky metal, closed Miss Sonel's eyes, and sprinted to the G1, executed a vertical leap, and climbed into her seat behind Ken. The hatch slid shut as soon as she seated herself and he took them out over the water in a display of speed and maneuvering that would have shaken a lesser craft apart.
"I can't reach Jinpei, Ryu or Joe," Ken said.
Jun opened her mouth to reply and a dark shadow came over them. Jun looked up in time to see a plane hovering over them. She clutched the medallion to her chest. A wave of energy passed over them pulling the craft out of formation and then, they were shot out of the sky. Down they went, the plane breaking up around them as they wheeled in the air. They heard each other call "Bird Go!" to no avail. When they landed, they landed hard and painfully. Above them, the waters surface looked shattered as if by a hard rain. Jun kicked out for the buggy that Ryu and Jinpei had sunk in the bay many years before. That buggy had been rigged to deliver O2 and to house emergency supplies in the eventuality that this location might be compromised. When she arrived, Ken was twisting out of his jeans. His feet were bare.
There was a telltale hum in the buggy. One, that Jun with satisfaction. A pass of their wristcoms failed to open the glove compartment or relase the back seats so Jun tripped the locking mechanism manually. Ken and Jun took turns with the O2, while figuring out how to open the hood. Once Jun got that open, they removed two of six sets of flippers, two of six sets of specialized lenses and two masks that allowed them to breathe underwater.
How long are these good for? Ken asked with his fingers.
Jun replied in the same way, I think the original prototype gave twenty minutes.
We should carry these these all the time.
They're uranium powered, if I recall correctly.
Ken's eyes widened.
Nambu's got a weapons grade uranium stockpile on the estate or somewhere nearby. Or at least, he's supposed to. It bothers me to leave without making sure it's secure.
First things first. We'll strike out for the boat dealership. We can get a transportation to Crescent Coral from there. Or contact the others. Find out what's going on, and from there figure out how we'll clean out this next of snakes and find your uranium.
We'll blend in better at the water park. And I don't want to chance contacting the others until we know we're not being followed or why our birdstyles aren't working. Jun replied.
He flicked his assent with his fingers. Jun flipped backwards and kicked away from him. They raced each other to the other side of the bay and found a waterside park to emerge from.
They walked out of the water, flippers dangling from their fingers while they held hands. They made a good-looking couple. Ken blended in fine in his dark briefs but Jun's water-logged white bra and pants set attracted the wrong kind of attention.
"What's everyone staring at?" Jun wondered aloud. Then looked down, and immediately flipped her hair forward to cover her breasts.
"At least nobody's gonna remember your face," Ken said, as he helped himself to a batik print shirt from one towelside, and a pair of athletic sandles from beneath a deck-chair.
Casually, Jun picked up a red sarong lying next to a beach towel and matching umbrella. She began to wrap it around her hips. Ken shook his head 'no' and suggested another, paler one further up the sandy beach. By the time they reached the park's dining area, they'd given up on trying to contact the others on the wristcoms and were wearing more clothing.
Ken walked about the docks, eyeing boats while Jun shopped for a laptop. She found a likely one in the parking lot, in a BMW that almost made her reconsider her passion for two-wheelers. Ken found a catamaran of beautiful lines and elegant rigging. He showed it to her with great admiration. "How's that for a combination of self-sufficiency, endurance and long range capabilities?"
Not a boat girl, Jun smiled because it looked as fast as the wind. Inside there was food, and ill-fitting clothing warmer than what they'd stolen on the beach. They made themselves at home as two combat assassins could. Ken authoritatively learned the controls while Jun managed to hack into a phone line, track down the intranet, and log onto the more unreliable than usual lj. Just as she was about to type a response to Joe's last post Ken interrupted her to ask for help starting the boat's enginges.
"Type a message to Joe," she said handing him the laptop. "The window's already opened. And hit 'post comment' when you're done."
Boat started and message sent, they headed for the open sea reaching a top sailing speed of 25 knots. They learned the boat before they ran out of fuel and rains came. Ken by pushing it through its paces, running the engine way into its red-zone, Jun by dragging the technical manuals to the engine, and listening with every pore of her body to the sounds it made as they sped towards Cresecent Coral and she absorbed the written information with tight focus.
By moonrise, it was hard to tell the difference between the water of the ocean and that driven from the sky. They gave up navigating by the stars. Luckily, both were trained navigators but they made miserable progress in the rain. Neither could prove it, for both were exhausted as they approached Cresecent Coral, but for part of the way, during the worst part of the storms, they could have sworn they'd been escorted by dolphin song.
They dropped anchor a few kilometers out, and zipped themselves into wet suits they found in the boat.
"Whatever's jamming the birdstyles and communication shouldn't have any effect on the security measures, should it?" Ken asked.
"No. Sharks can't bite into birdstyles. That's about it."
Ken chuckled. "Well, maybe those big old fins that we can see, are really from Jinpei's friends and not his friends' enemies."
"Maybe." Jun felt a shiver. Of anticipation, excitement, or pride at their bravery. It was simply getting the job done, and a sort of homecoming, but it had been years since she'd visited the rebuilt Crescent Coral base. "Though it might be better if we wait."
"For what?" He masked himself.
"For our birdstyles to start working again."
"Wait here if you want." He dropped backwards into the water.
She slipped on the mask and mastered her fears.
Their faces were serious as they cast themselves beneath the waves. For good measure, while they were still near the surface they tried to transmute once more, but as expected, flat dark accompanied them into the depths of the living reef.
Before screaming filled that sky, Ken had been flying the G1 with casual precision, but when he asked Jun, "What does what's happening with Joe mean for him in the long run?" Only one of the four hypotheses she'd mentioned interested him and that he'd distilled into one word, "Immortality?"
"Uh," Jun had replied and Ken's focus intensified because Jun was a woman who was never caught off guard in the field.
"Does that also apply to us?"
"Uh..."
Upon hearing 'Uh' a second time, Ken had said, "Let's test that theory," grabbed the stick and pushed the envelope.
Jun screamed. The plane jetted high into the starry vaults of higher atmosphere, its engines shrieking louder than the rush of wind over the special plastic-alloy chassis as it approached 30,000 meters altitude -- then Ken let it go.
Jun's shock turned into hilarity, her laughter choking her in her seat while plane and passengers plummeted earthward. As the plane whirled around its axis, Ken's laughter joined hers and he pulled the plane out of its dive saying, "Sooner than later, Jun, I want a straight answer." His sky eyes twinkled for all that his voice was firm.
With a shattering-prism wave of light, the G1-Fighter assumed its mundane configuration and Ken brought the craft into HK airpsace. By the time they landed at the Kowloon Bay house, they'd hammered out a working plan between them.
In execution, it looked like an imprompto game of Tag. Jun descended from the plane with hair that was mussed and a crooked skirt. Ken followed her down the steps with enthusiasm, seemingly oblvious to the early morning chill in the air, the beauty of the grounds, or the approach of the housekeeper, Miss Sonel who met them at the end of walkway leading from the landing pad. Like everyone employed by Nambu's Estate, she was former ISO and she knew, in the considerable detail allowed by her security clearance, what Ken and Jun had been to the world.
"Washio-san, Jun-san, welcome and Good Morning."
Jun offered a scrupulously polite bow in return and responded in Malay, "Thank you, Miss Sonel."
Ken looked up from breathing down Jun's neck long enough to say, "Thanks."
The housekeeper asked, "How long will you be staying if it is permitted to ask? Would you like for your usual rooms to be prepared for you?"
"Thank you," Ken said, and hugged Jun from behind, folding his arms over hers and making a show of comparing the width of their wrists.
Blushing, Jun said, "Ken-san and I can amuse ourselves until the banks open, thank you."
"Yes," Ken said. "My room'll be fine," snaked Jun's bracelet off her wrist and ran away with it.
As they were who they were, their bracelet-facilitated survey of the grounds was thorough. They found nothing corresponding to the wavelength that allowed Jun and Jinpei access to the AI 'beneath' her office. Frustrated and annoyed, they broke off their two-person search long enough for Ken to fly Jun into the city so she could make the rounds of the banks. Ken returned to Nambu's place and combed the interior of the house.
In the course of the morning, Jun set up a number of accounts while asking discrete questions regarding the handling a variety of inter- and intra-kinds of businesses. Her small-talk utilized words like luck, man, dimensions, specific types of cattle and game, devices, lake, and random. Ken came up with nothing and left the house considerably put out. His terse replies to Jun's inquiries informed her that his search had been fruitless and with reluctance she admitted that no one from any mysterious banking or business firms had contacted her all that long morning.
Ken was about to land the plane when the housekeeper came running into view. She was waving her hands, and stumbling in her progress.
"Ken..." Jun said warningly but he was already rolling the craft up and away.
Three bursts of red bloomed on Miss Sonel's chest. She fell and lay still. Jun gasped. In unison, she and Ken yelled, "BIRD GO!" Their voices ringing in two-part harmony as the transformation overtook them. Using the G1's greater power and speed, Ken pulled them out of the path of a surface to air missile launched after Miss Sonel fell and opened fire with his twin laser canons, stitching the bushes where the gun fire had originated before taking them up and away.
"We've got to go back!" Jun said, but Ken was already slinging them towards the house, bringing the fighter low enough for Jun to attempt a rescue.
Jun unstrapped herself from her seat, readying herself to jump from the plane. The cockpit hatch slip open. Her wings snapped open and she dropped like a white shadow in the day sky. With the sun so high, she was hard to see. Wheeling and gliding she came down behind their attackers. Before they knew what had happened, she'd whipped out her razor ribbon and had cut them out of consideration. Looking all around her, she identified the other sources of enemy fire just as Ken's laser canons rendered them irrelevant to the fight.
In a crouch, she streaked to Miss Sonel, turning the poor woman over and assessing her wounds.
"Swan-san," said Miss Sonel, through grey lips.
"Shh, Miss Sonel. We're here to rescue you."
Miss Sonel's closed fist touched Jun's chin below the visor. Her lips parted. "For you..." she said, the last word breaking on a bubble of thin blood. Her hand dropped to her wounded chest, opening to reveal a medallion with a stylized phoenix on it, like the ninjatai bracelets. Jun wrapped her fingers around the sticky metal, closed Miss Sonel's eyes, and sprinted to the G1, executed a vertical leap, and climbed into her seat behind Ken. The hatch slid shut as soon as she seated herself and he took them out over the water in a display of speed and maneuvering that would have shaken a lesser craft apart.
"I can't reach Jinpei, Ryu or Joe," Ken said.
Jun opened her mouth to reply and a dark shadow came over them. Jun looked up in time to see a plane hovering over them. She clutched the medallion to her chest. A wave of energy passed over them pulling the craft out of formation and then, they were shot out of the sky. Down they went, the plane breaking up around them as they wheeled in the air. They heard each other call "Bird Go!" to no avail. When they landed, they landed hard and painfully. Above them, the waters surface looked shattered as if by a hard rain. Jun kicked out for the buggy that Ryu and Jinpei had sunk in the bay many years before. That buggy had been rigged to deliver O2 and to house emergency supplies in the eventuality that this location might be compromised. When she arrived, Ken was twisting out of his jeans. His feet were bare.
There was a telltale hum in the buggy. One, that Jun with satisfaction. A pass of their wristcoms failed to open the glove compartment or relase the back seats so Jun tripped the locking mechanism manually. Ken and Jun took turns with the O2, while figuring out how to open the hood. Once Jun got that open, they removed two of six sets of flippers, two of six sets of specialized lenses and two masks that allowed them to breathe underwater.
How long are these good for? Ken asked with his fingers.
Jun replied in the same way, I think the original prototype gave twenty minutes.
We should carry these these all the time.
They're uranium powered, if I recall correctly.
Ken's eyes widened.
Nambu's got a weapons grade uranium stockpile on the estate or somewhere nearby. Or at least, he's supposed to. It bothers me to leave without making sure it's secure.
First things first. We'll strike out for the boat dealership. We can get a transportation to Crescent Coral from there. Or contact the others. Find out what's going on, and from there figure out how we'll clean out this next of snakes and find your uranium.
We'll blend in better at the water park. And I don't want to chance contacting the others until we know we're not being followed or why our birdstyles aren't working. Jun replied.
He flicked his assent with his fingers. Jun flipped backwards and kicked away from him. They raced each other to the other side of the bay and found a waterside park to emerge from.
They walked out of the water, flippers dangling from their fingers while they held hands. They made a good-looking couple. Ken blended in fine in his dark briefs but Jun's water-logged white bra and pants set attracted the wrong kind of attention.
"What's everyone staring at?" Jun wondered aloud. Then looked down, and immediately flipped her hair forward to cover her breasts.
"At least nobody's gonna remember your face," Ken said, as he helped himself to a batik print shirt from one towelside, and a pair of athletic sandles from beneath a deck-chair.
Casually, Jun picked up a red sarong lying next to a beach towel and matching umbrella. She began to wrap it around her hips. Ken shook his head 'no' and suggested another, paler one further up the sandy beach. By the time they reached the park's dining area, they'd given up on trying to contact the others on the wristcoms and were wearing more clothing.
Ken walked about the docks, eyeing boats while Jun shopped for a laptop. She found a likely one in the parking lot, in a BMW that almost made her reconsider her passion for two-wheelers. Ken found a catamaran of beautiful lines and elegant rigging. He showed it to her with great admiration. "How's that for a combination of self-sufficiency, endurance and long range capabilities?"
Not a boat girl, Jun smiled because it looked as fast as the wind. Inside there was food, and ill-fitting clothing warmer than what they'd stolen on the beach. They made themselves at home as two combat assassins could. Ken authoritatively learned the controls while Jun managed to hack into a phone line, track down the intranet, and log onto the more unreliable than usual lj. Just as she was about to type a response to Joe's last post Ken interrupted her to ask for help starting the boat's enginges.
"Type a message to Joe," she said handing him the laptop. "The window's already opened. And hit 'post comment' when you're done."
Boat started and message sent, they headed for the open sea reaching a top sailing speed of 25 knots. They learned the boat before they ran out of fuel and rains came. Ken by pushing it through its paces, running the engine way into its red-zone, Jun by dragging the technical manuals to the engine, and listening with every pore of her body to the sounds it made as they sped towards Cresecent Coral and she absorbed the written information with tight focus.
By moonrise, it was hard to tell the difference between the water of the ocean and that driven from the sky. They gave up navigating by the stars. Luckily, both were trained navigators but they made miserable progress in the rain. Neither could prove it, for both were exhausted as they approached Cresecent Coral, but for part of the way, during the worst part of the storms, they could have sworn they'd been escorted by dolphin song.
They dropped anchor a few kilometers out, and zipped themselves into wet suits they found in the boat.
"Whatever's jamming the birdstyles and communication shouldn't have any effect on the security measures, should it?" Ken asked.
"No. Sharks can't bite into birdstyles. That's about it."
Ken chuckled. "Well, maybe those big old fins that we can see, are really from Jinpei's friends and not his friends' enemies."
"Maybe." Jun felt a shiver. Of anticipation, excitement, or pride at their bravery. It was simply getting the job done, and a sort of homecoming, but it had been years since she'd visited the rebuilt Crescent Coral base. "Though it might be better if we wait."
"For what?" He masked himself.
"For our birdstyles to start working again."
"Wait here if you want." He dropped backwards into the water.
She slipped on the mask and mastered her fears.
Their faces were serious as they cast themselves beneath the waves. For good measure, while they were still near the surface they tried to transmute once more, but as expected, flat dark accompanied them into the depths of the living reef.