Fic: Thicker Than Water: Chapter 2: In Search of Nathan, Part 1 (Blood+, T)
Title: Thicker than Water: In Search of Nathan
Author: xwingace/
xwingace
Summary: Saya sleeps, but life goes on for Kai and Saya's nieces. Including cleaning up the mess that was left behind. A mess which seems to mostly be caused by a rogue Chevalier.
Fandom: Blood+
Character(s): Kai, Nathan Mahler, Diva's daughters.
Rating: T.
Word Count: ~7500 in this part of the chapter.
Disclaimer: Not mine. I'm just having fun. No harm or profit is intended.
Spoilers: All of the series.
Feedback: Yes, please. Comments are more than welcome.
Note: Posting WIP, slightly against my better judgment.Part two took almost half a year to write. I've been stuck on part three ever since. So I've decided, to hell with it, I'll post. Maybe it'll help with inspiration for part three. And apparently Chapter 2 is too long for LJ posting limits, so I've had to split it into two parts. That's when you get titles like the above...
Previous Chapter
In Search of Nathan Part 1
“Sergeant Saunders?”
Mike Saunders turned around quickly at the mention of his name. The guy who had called out his name pointed at the sign the sergeant was holding. “I think you’re waiting for me,” he said, holding up a Red Shield ID card to prove it. Then he held out his hand, “Kai Miyagusuku.”
“Welcome to the US, sir,” Mike said, then looked sheepishly at the sign. It read ‘Mr. Miyagi’. Some joker from his squad had made it. Now, to be fair, the piece of card was a little small to carry the whole name in a readable size, but it really wouldn’t have been hard to stick two pieces together. He tore it apart. “Sorry about that, sir.”
Miyagusuku didn’t take offense. He offered up a smile, instead, and shook his head. “I’ve had people mangle it worse.” He lifted a small backpack. “Shall we?”
“Yes, sir.” Mike indicated the direction they should go. “This way, sir.” He let Miyagusuku take the lead. So far, the man wasn’t living up to expectations.
The whole thing was unusual, actually. Normally, Red Shield only provided consultants, people skilled enough in the theoretical ways of dealing with Chiropterans, or ‘mice’, as the vernacular went in the US military, but not fighters. While they did have their own strike team, Red Shield only brought that in on the explicit request of the government of whatever country had an outbreak. And even then the strike team was only used to supplement and train the regular troops. This time, however, from what Mike had heard, Red Shield had contacted the American government and had not only asked permission to operate on US soil, they had urgently requested the cooperation of the US armed forces. They would never have been allowed to operate without that cooperation, of course, but still the request was made. And it had been made and granted quickly.
Mike’s unit had only got the signal to move out late last night, and the strike would be made later this afternoon. That was apparently also the main reason Red Shield had requested the help of the Special Forces the US maintained to keep Chiropterans in check. There wasn’t enough time to bring in a large enough number of Red Shield soldiers. Yet despite the brief time-frame, they had insisted on bringing over this guy from Japan, even jamming him in on the earliest commercial flight because it would take too long to get their own transports there. From that kind of urgency to include Miyagusuku, Mike would have expected him to be some sort of superman. Or at least to look a little more like a soldier.
He barely even looked Japanese! The only real indication he was Asian was a slight slant to his eyes. He was about as tall as Mike, his skin was pale even for a white guy, and his hair was reddish-brown. He did have an accent, but it wasn’t very heavy at all.
They reached the exit and Miyagusuku looked back at Mike for guidance. Mike now led the way to the car (a rental; a military Jeep would have been too obvious). Miyagusuku got in without a further word. He kept silent, too, for the first part of the drive. He spent the time looking around and tapping his fingers on the windowsill. What did he have to be nervous about?
Mike wasn’t the chatty type, but the weird situation and, oddly enough, his guest’s silence drove him to talking. “You do this a lot, sir?”
Miyagusuku started, as if he hadn’t expected to be spoken to. He was slow to answer, too. “Not really," he said. "I only get asked for the really bad ones. And a few special cases.” He stared ahead, at the road for a short time. "Do you know what happened in Brazil six years ago?"
"Cleanup of Rio, sir?" That had been a much-publicized happening. It wasn't all that often that the UN sent troops to actually destroy most of a city. It had happened a few times since, but that had been the first time. As a matter of fact, Colonel O'Hare had been there as well, as part of the American delegation.
Miyagusuku nodded. "Got it in one. That was the first time I did something like this."
-x-
Kai came home to find the back door unlocked. Inside, Mao had fallen asleep at the kitchen table. She had to have let herself in, then fallen asleep waiting for Kai to come home. He wondered briefly why she would have come to see him, especially at this hour, but then decided it couldn't have been important enough to wake her up. She would have called him, were that the case.
He put a blanket over Mao's shoulders and went to take a quick shower. He still stank of the greasy kitchen he worked at. He could take it, but there was no need to subject Mao to it.
When Kai came out of the shower, Mao was still asleep. Now he saw that she had fallen asleep on top of the biology textbook he'd been planning to read. Oh well. Then he might as well make a start preparing breakfast and the girls' lunches.
He had just finished frying the eggs when Mao stirred. "Something smells good," she mumbled, then frowned. She pushed herself upright and rubbed her face. "Did I fall asleep?"
"Good morning," Kai said, and set a cup of tea in front of her. "You did." He put away the book Mao had used for a pillow and started laying the table. "So why did you show up at night?"
Mao ran her hands through her hair, pulling loose strands into a rough ponytail. "I was jet-lagged anyway, and David told me you worked nights." She nodded in the direction of the locked-up restaurant. "I just thought you'd be working them here."
Kai snorted. "I'd actually have to be a consistently good chef if I ever want to make anything of the Omoro again." He shook his head. "As it is, I can't keep enough customers to make a profit, so I had to close it down."
Mao eyed the eggs on the counter next to the stove, then walked over and tasted them. "This isn't bad."
Kai smiled. "I got lucky today." He pointed to the cookbook that was also on the counter. "I know all the basics. As long as I stick tightly to the recipes, then I'm fine while there's nothing funny going on with the ingredients. But if the eggs are larger, the peppers sweeter, or I left the fire a bit high or whatever, I can't fix it. I regularly get an earful from Elisa about it." He smiled sheepishly, then shrugged. "For a fast-food restaurant it's fine because nobody expects great cooking there. But from a normal restaurant, people expect a little more originality."
Mao frowned. "That's too bad," she said sympathetically. "The place deserved to be thriving." She sighed. "Or maybe that's just the nostalgia speaking."
"Much as I loved the place, it probably is. The Omoro was home." Kai, finished with the morning's tasks, sat down on the chair opposite the one Mao had taken. "And speaking of 'home', you're usually more than keen to avoid it, so what brings you here?"
Mao groaned and slumped down on her chair. "Don't start about my father, please. He's still got Okamura convinced that if he ever shows his face in Japan again, my father will have him killed." She walked back to the table and sat down. "It's probably not true, but Okamura's not taking any risks. However…" She shook her head and squared her shoulders. "I'm not here to talk about my daddy issues."
"I thought as much," Kai replied with a smirk. Then he looked up as he heard stumbling from upstairs. He checked the clock. "Time for the girls to get up." He got up and finished putting the food on the table.
It didn't take long for Irene to come racing down, calling back to Elisa to hurry up. "Hello, aunt Mao," she greeted Mao, "nice to see you again."
"Aunt?" Mao asked, sounding mildly insulted. "Hasn’t anyone told you it's not polite to call people that if they haven't asked you to?"
Irene's reply was forestalled by Elisa coming down, looking distinctly disheveled. She, too, greeted Mao with "Good morning, aunt Mao." Mao just groaned, this time.
"Oh come on now, girls, be polite," Kai interrupted. Mao shot him a look of gratitude, but he winked at her and continued, "Mao's had a promotion at her job. She's now a director, so you should call her 'Chairman' Mao, you know."
Irene, who had kept up with her history lessons, giggled immediately. Elisa looked nonplussed for a second, then laughed anyway. Mao scowled at Kai, and sighed. "Fine, if you're going to be like that, just call me Mao, okay?"
"Yes Ma'am, Chairman Mao." Irene saluted her with a grin, then quickly finished her breakfast and picked up her lunchbox. "Come on, Elisa, we're going to be late."
Elisa stuffed the last bits of her breakfast in her mouth while Kai helped her into her coat and handed her another lunchbox. He wished both of them a fun day at school, then sat staring after them until well after they were out of view.
"So how often do you follow them to school?" Mao asked.
Kai shook his head to clear it. Then he smiled. "Every day for about a month. Then Elisa caught me at it and made me promise not to do it again." He raised his voice in a fairly reasonable imitation of Elisa's: "We're old enough to go by ourselves now, Kai, you don't have to follow us." He stopped the imitation. "So I don't. Often."
Mao smiled. "A real dad, I guess."
Kai's smile fell. "I'm not so sure." He rubbed his hands over his face. "But you're not here to talk about my daddy issues either, Mao." Kai got up to pour another cup of tea, then sat down and folded his arms with an air of finality. "What brings the new Director of Operations for Red Shield back down to Okinawa?"
"You knew about that, huh?" Mao scowled. "Could have said something sooner."
"Hey, I can talk to David a lot more easily than you can." Kai shrugged. "Although it was Julia who told me. Congratulations, by the way. You've worked hard enough for it."
"Thanks." Mao nodded her acknowledgment of the compliment. Then she sighed. "Unfortunately, that's also why I'm here."
Kai sat up straight, frowning. "I don't think I'm going to like this."
Mao held out a hand. "Hear me out first, please." At Kai's nod, she continued. "I think I told you about Brazil once, right?"
"Constant outbreaks of people transforming into Chiropterans in the slums of Rio de Janeiro," Kai confirmed. "It's been in the papers, too. It's been getting worse again, lately, it seems."
Mao nodded. "We had things almost under control. We made sure to exterminate all the vermin we could catch, and we've been working on a new vaccine that would protect against Diva's bloodline, not just counteract the effects of Cinq Flèches' conversion drugs. We had some limited success elsewhere. It worked in Rio, too, for a while. But the last few months, the vaccines just don't seem to be working."
"That doesn't sound too good."
Mao shook her head. "No. It's so bad, in fact, that the government of Brazil has finally given up trying to contain it. They've requested help from the UN to clean up this mess, and Red Shield has been hired to provide the expertise in dealing with Chiropterans."
Kai leaned back in his chair. "Good luck with that."
Mao allowed an upward twitch of her lips. "We are used to doing things like this. It's just that the scale is several orders of magnitude above anything we've done before, and we could use all the extra hands we can get."
-x-
Miyagusuku filled up the rest of the drive to the base with small talk. Mike pressed him a little about
Brazil - it was as good a chance as any to find out about what they might be dealing with here, but apart from an assurance that this case wouldn't be nearly as bad -- not within several orders of magnitude -- Miyagusuku didn't go into any details.
At the base, they were greeted by the Red Shield contact, an oversized black man who greeted Miyagusuku like an old friend. And in Japanese.
Mike's knowledge of Japanese was limited to a few random words picked up during a youthful obsession with anime. It was more than most of his squadmates would have managed, but it wasn't nearly enough to follow the conversation. All he could pick up on was that Lewis asked Miyagusuku about his daughters, and the response to that question was very lively and animated. It looked like Miyagusuku really opened up to his friends, although why a man who clearly loved his children would do this kind of work was a bit of a puzzle. In any case, Miyagusuku's mood dropped considerably once he caught sight of Colonel O'Hare.
The Colonel was waiting just inside the base. That surprised Mike, who had expected his commanding officer to only come out of his office for the mission briefing. He had, after all, no particular reason to meet the special representative of Red Shield. His liaison was, and would still be, Lewis.
Miyagusuku greeted the Colonel with a slight bow. "Colonel. It's good to see you."
Colonel O'Hare regarded the man with deep distaste. "Kept us waiting," he said, not even acknowledging the greeting. "This way." Then he turned around and led the way into the base.
Mike was briefly surprised when the Colonel walked right past the briefing room, and then even more surprised when the door he did open was the one to the infirmary. "Here we are." He addressed Lewis. "I'm going to brief my men. Be ready to go in half an hour. You…" he turned toward Mike, "stay here. Keep an eye on these two." Then, without even waiting for Mike's "Yes, sir", he was gone again.
"Friendly sort, isn't he?" Lewis remarked, to nobody in particular. But he did it in English, so Mike shrugged in response.
Miyagusuku, on the other hand, wasn't paying attention at all. He was checking the contents of one of the coolers. The cooler had a note stuck on the outside with Miyagusuku's name on it. From the brief glimpse Mike got of the contents, there was a lot of whole blood in there.
Miyagusuku closed the cooler again and checked the stack of equipment - a uniform and weapons, but no ammunition -- that had been left on the desk. Then he looked toward Lewis and asked something in Japanese.
Lewis shook his head and responded in English. "I don't think O'Hare'd allow you the dignity. But there's not enough time for it, anyway. Better just drink up."
"Right." Miyagusuku switched to English as well and started to change into the clothing. "What about my chase team?"
Lewis picked up one of the weapons, and took it apart to check for dirt. He easily put it back together. "Looks like I'm it. There's nobody else from Red Shield around. O'Hare said he'd make up the numbers on the team himself."
Miyagusuku's eyes widened. "I see." He turned toward. "I guess that makes you the fourth man, sergeant. What did you do to make your Colonel dislike you that much?"
"Sir?" Mike had no idea what the two of them were talking about. As far as he was aware, the Colonel didn't like him any more or less than any other soldier under his command.
"You just got volunteered for a very risky job, and you weren't even briefed about it," Lewis explained.
"I signed up for a risky job, sir," Mike countered. "And we got called out so fast there hasn't been time for extensive briefings. That's not unusual, either."
Miyagusuku nodded. "I can understand that attitude, sergeant." He had finished changing his clothes, and now wore a set of urban camouflage gear that seemed to have been made for Lewis rather than Miyagusuku. It hung loosely off his hips and shoulders. Oddly enough, he hadn't exchanged his sneakers for combat boots. Miyagusuku looked at Lewis. "Can you give the instructions?"
"Did you bring the tranqs?"
"In the bag." Miyagusuku pointed to the bag he'd brought himself.
"Then yes, of course."
"Good." Miyagusuku nodded, then walked back to the refrigerator and took out one of the bags of blood. "Take a good look at what you'll be up against, sergeant," he said. Then he bit into the top of the bag, and, with every sign of enjoyment, started drinking the blood.
-x-
"No."
"What?" Mao seemed surprised by Kai's reply to her still unspoken request.
"I can see where this is going," Kai said, "and the answer is 'no'. No way." Kai leaned forward, resting his arms on the table. Mao was going to ask him to help, but he was in no position to do that. "I have to take care of Elis- the girls." He rubbed his eyes. "And I think I have a better chance of keeping people safe just staying here."
"Don't talk nonsense." Mao leaned forward across the table. "We need your strength and your experience. And we can find someone to take care of the girls. If all else fails, we'll take them to a Red Shield safe house. They'll be protected by our people."
That would leave the girls in the hands of Red Shield, something Kai didn't want to happen if at all possible. But that wasn't a point that he could argue with Mao. He'd lost that argument before he'd been able to think to offer it, because it was through Red Shield that he had the girls at all. There were other arguments, however, that might have a little more power. They were just as true, and if Mao had been talking to David, she should know about them already, too. "And what about protecting anybody from me?"
Mao frowned, looking confused. "Why would anyone need protecting from you?"
"I have control issues." Kai sighed deliberately. "I know you talked to David. Don't tell me he kept that to himself. I still haven't got any sort of solid control over how or when I get into Chiropteran form, and I'm liable to go berserk if I don't get enough blood."
"He told me there were a few incidents he helped cover up, yes." Mao closed her eyed and slowly nodded. Then she opened her eyes again to look at Kai. "He also told me the last incident was almost a year ago. You seem to have gotten past it."
"Only because I'm here." Kai jabbed a finger down on the table for emphasis. "I know everyone I'm likely to run into here, and I know exactly how to avoid situations where I would feel the need to be stronger or faster." He let his head hang. "And I'm more motivated because I don't want Elisa and Irene to find out."
One corner Mao's mouth twitched upward. "It's not exactly as if we'd have any objection to you using that strength to help." She forestalled Kai's next comment by simply not pausing before the next sentence. "And we can get you blood, too."
"Sure," Kai said, letting some sarcasm shimmer through, "and I'm sure you can get it to me in the middle of a battlefield as well, if necessary." He shook his head. "I need a lot of blood to keep from going on a rampage here. If I get hurt, I'll need more blood, and probably a lot of it, right there and then, or I could attack anyone who's too slow to get away." He looked up. "Which would be just about everyone."
Mao frowned. "It's not that bad, surely?"
"It is." Kai looked down at his hands. This was going to be difficult. "Elisa and Irene get blood about once every month. Three weeks, maybe. I need as much as they get, every week, just to keep from going crazy. When I lost it the first time, I was on the same schedule as they were, and Julia just started giving me more after that. But that didn’t help." He shook his head. "I don't know why that is. Haji doesn't need even half as much as the twins do. I haven't ever seen him drink any."
"Haji does seem to be a bit of a control freak," Mao said sympathetically, "and he's also a lot older than you."
Kai forced a brief smile, then turned serious again. "He thinks it could be because Julia pumped me full of blood right after Elisa turned me. Maybe my body's gotten used to a regular supply." He shrugged. "It's a theory."
"You talk a lot with Haji?" Mao asked.
Kai nodded. "He helped me get what control I have. Like you said, he's got experience with it." He looked up at Mao. "He's also had to keep me down when I lost control. It just doesn't come that easily to me."
Mao leaned forward, a mischievous smile on her face. "Want Red Shield to help with that?" She sat up straight again. "Research has been working on tranquilizers that'll work for Chiropterans - it's a lot easier to put them down if they're slowed down or completely asleep. We've got one that looks promising. It could help you keep control of yourself, too."
"You mean I can drug myself up to the point where I couldn't hurt anyone even if I wanted to, is that it?" Kai remained defensive, but in truth, he was tempted. Haji was a pretty strict teacher, and Kai'd picked up some meditation techniques to help calm himself down if necessary, but it still didn't always work. And he couldn't keep on relying on Haji and David to calm him down and cover up his screwups. Then again… "And to get this-" he started.
"-help in Brazil," Mao and he finished together.
Kai mimicked a sigh. "Mao, even if these drugs work, I can't take them going into combat. Which means they won't solve any of the problems I have with going in there."
Mao copied the sigh, probably for real. "We can set up a plan so we'll have someone nearby who can administer the sedatives, keep you calm until we can get you some blood. Yes, in the middle of a battlefield." Mao folded her hands. "They invented portable coolers for a reason."
Kai remained quiet. He didn't want to agree, even though Mao so far had at the very least tried to find solutions for every objection he could voice. He didn't want to say yes, but she was running him out of options. She hadn't gotten that director's post for nothing.
"So?" Mao knew he was running out of arguments, so she pressed the matter.
Kai had one possible counter left. It wasn't all that much, but it might just be enough. Haji had broken his total isolation to help Kai, but he had remained aloof from pretty much everything else. It was extremely unlikely he'd agree to come. He let his head hang. "Okay." He looked up again, and raised a hand to stop Mao from saying anything. "On one condition. Haji agrees to come along. If I lose control, he at least can stop me."
Mao's grin widened. "Well, that's decided, then." At Kai's look of surprise, she explained. "I talked to Haji yesterday evening. He agreed to come if you came." She pushed herself up out of her chair. "I guess we'd better start making arrangements to get you to Brazil."
-x-
Lewis explained the function of the dart gun that fired the tranquilizer darts. Mike listened with about half his attention and when prompted disassembled and reassembled the weapon. The other half of his attention, however, he kept focused on Miyagusuku. He had emptied the first bag of blood, and was now close to finishing a second one. "Sir, what are you doing?"
Miyagusuku didn't respond until he'd finished the second bag. Then he walked to the exam table and lifted himself to sit on it. "I was drinking the blood," he said when he was seated, "but that's not the question you wanted to ask, is it?"
"It was, sir." Mike's reasoning hadn't gotten beyond that, yet. Although there was a follow-up question. "Why, sir?" Among his squadmates, it might have been a great show of machismo; it was also the kind of stunt troops at this level were expected to be too mature to pull. Besides, there was nobody here to impress except Mike, and really the context for impressing him was wrong as well. And if it really was a stunt, there'd be no need for the second bag.
"Because I need it," Miyagusuku answered matter-of-factly. "And I need it because I'm a Chiropteran."
Mike raised the tranq gun he was still holding in reflex, before the ridiculousness of that statement penetrated. Then he laughed. "Yeah right. Good joke, sir." Chiropterans were huge, violent beast, not scrawny people. Yes, they went after people's blood, but then again, they might just as easily go for the meat. They bit big enough chunks out of their victims.
"Not a joke," Lewis confirmed.
"There are different types of Chiropterans, were you ever briefed on that?" Miyagusuku shook his head. "It's very unlikely. That's not something Red Shield likes to become common knowledge." He smiled briefly. "And the American government apparently agrees."
"What you'd call 'Mice' is the most common type - the violent beasts, just smart enough to be even more dangerous," Lewis added. "But there's other kinds that stay more human. Like him." He nodded at Miyagusuku. "They're rare, but they exist."
"Whatever you say, sir." It wasn't Mike's place to object, and he'd keep this information in mind, but he still had a hard time believing any of it.
Miyagusuku seemed to be able to tell. He smiled. "I don't think you believe me, sergeant." He shook his head. "Unfortunately, if I tried to prove it to you here and now, we'd never get around to the mission."
"Yes, sir." Mike still hadn't heard what the mission was, exactly, so he couldn't really say much else. "And what is the mission, sir?"
Lewis answered that one. "We think we have a lead on the last remaining director of Cinq Fleches, Nathan Mahler."
"Who is also Chiropteran," Miyagusuku interrupted, "and that's why I'm here. If Nathan decides to get violent, your people won't know what hit them until he's long gone. I should at least be able to keep up with him."
Lewis took over again. "The job for your colleagues is to deal with any distractions he may have set up, and help Kai corner Nathan, so we can take him into custody, or kill him if necessary. But we'd like to capture him alive." He gestured at the weapon in Mike's hands, then continued. "The dart gun you've got there shoots darts that contain a sedative strong enough to kill most humans. One dart'll slow down most 'Mice' long enough for you to run away, if necessary. But that's not what we've got them for."
Mike held up the gun. "So our job is to shoot Nathan?"'
"No," Miyagusuku said. "Well, not with these," he then corrected himself. "If you get the chance, you could try to shoot him with your normal gun. "
"Why not these, sir?"
"It's very unlikely they'll work." Miyagusu picked one of the darts out of an ammo belt and held it up. "These things were fine-tuned for me, and… well, it's a long, science-riddled explanation that basically boils down to that, even if the sedative works on him, it'll be much weaker. Shooting him with it wouldn't do you much good. I'm here to capture Nathan.
"The real reason for my chase team is to make sure I don't go out of control." He got up from the exam table and turned to face Mike fully. "There is a chance, if I get hurt too badly, that I'll lose control and start attacking friends." He shook his head. "I don't want to do that - I don't want to hurt anyone - and I've taken precautions against it, but it could still happen." He looked Mike in the eyes. "If it does, you shoot me. And you keep shooting until I drop."
Mike wanted to reply to that, saying all this was too ridiculous for words, but the Colonel chose that moment to reenter the room. "All done?" he asked.
"As much as possible, Colonel," Miyagusuku answered, but the Colonel ignored him.
"They brief you?" he asked Mike instead. At Mike's nod, he beckoned for Mike to come into the hallway. Once the door to the infirmary was closed, the colonel asked again, "What did they tell you?"
Mike recounted the story mechanically, refraining from making any comment. Strangely enough, the Colonel seemed to believe it. He nodded. "Good. At least they told you the truth, even if not all of it. That thing is dangerous. I don't understand why Red Shield hasn't killed it yet. You don't let it out of your sight. The second you even suspect it's going to do something, you first pump it full of darts, and then you start with the bullets. Got that?"
"Yes, sir."
"Good." The Colonel opened the door to the infirmary again and spoke into the room. "We're moving out."
--
"Ready to go?"
Mao entered the room of the evacuated hospital Red Shield was using as a base. A medic had just finished removing the IV needle from Kai's arm, and Kai was buttoning his shirt. Haji had watched the whole procedure from a corner of the room.
Kai sighed. "As ready as I'll ever be, I guess. Let's go."
"We're going to assign you to an American platoon today," Mao said while Kai and his team strapped on their equipment and checked their weapons. "There's a higher than expected amount of transformations in their sector, and they've requested additional personnel from us. "
The reward for hard work still was more work, it appeared. Kai had arrived in Brazil after a week of training and testing in the no-man's-land in Vietnam, where a large area had been given over to the Chiropterans that had appeared there due to experiments from Cinq Flèches. This in order to get used to the people he'd be working with, and to confirm the sedatives worked. They did, though not as well as Kai had hoped. They weren't even half as effective as Red Shield had thought they'd be, based on their tests. Still, they should work to subdue him, if he got them in sufficient quantities.
Then the team had come to Brazil and had been assigned a section of Rio to clean up - typically a few streets per day. Kai and Haji had proven very efficient at sniffing out the contaminated rats, and far more efficient than the Red Shield troops at dealing with any transformed humans. They'd even managed to catch one, for the Red Shield scientists to study and find out why the vaccines were no longer working. In the three days they'd worked so far, they'd gotten ahead of their schedule, and continuing now would take them too deeply into areas where there'd be no support, and the cleanup there would be undone after a night because the chiropterans would just come back in from the surrounding streets. So today they'd be supporting nearby areas that had fallen behind on their schedule.
On the way there, Kai studied the map of the area they'd be patrolling today. It was a more upmarket neighborhood, not one of the slums like he'd been working in for the past few days. On the one hand, there were probably fewer nooks and crannies for the rats to hide in. On the other hand, there were multiple floors to check, and line-of-sight would be significantly reduced.
When they reached the checkpoint where the American forces were waiting for them, their reception was less than cordial. Kai was introduced to the commanding officer, a Major O'Hare.
"I didn't ask for you," the Major greeted him. "I have trouble enough when the higher-ups just let me get on with my job. Now they want me to babysit civilians, as well."
Friendly fellow, that. Nevertheless, Kay shook his hand politely. "I thought you requested our assistance, Major."
"I didn't," the Major cut him off, "I was ordered to accommodate you in my plans by General Newstone." He shook his head. "I hear your people are good at finding these damn mice and rats."
"We've had good luck with that in the past few days, yes," Kai confirmed.
The Major nodded. "Good." He used his hand to metaphorically chop the team in three. "You two are with third squad," he said to Haji and the team leader, then indicated two team members, "You can join second, and you," he turned to Kai after glancing at the remaining team member, "can join me with the first squad."
"Um," Kai wasn't quite sure how to interrupt. "We usually work as a single team. I don't like to be without my team."
"What, you can't handle cooperation with professional soldiers?" the Major asked, drawing matching frowns from the Red Shield soldiers -all of whom had been the elite of their respective countries' armed forces before joining Red Shield and receiving more training. The Major ignored them. "If you can't even do that, you can't really expect me to trust you and your team not getting in the way while we do our work, can you?"
"I must insist, Major," Kai persisted. In an already strange situation and with only one backup his situation was precarious enough already. He kept up the argument with the increasingly annoyed Major O'Hare until he had persuaded the commander to at least let the two people the Major had assigned to second squad come along with Kai. That still meant no Haji and left his team without their usual commander, but Major O'Hare wouldn't budge on that point.
"If I understand the whole thing right, you and Mr. Long-hair over there are the best trackers. There's absolutely no point to have you both in the same squad, " the Major ended the argument. "Now let's move out!"
-x-
The building they were going to assault was a large freestanding villa. It looked far more likely to house some minor movie star who wanted somewhere to stay outside of Tinseltown than to play home to a bloodsucking mad scientist who had to hide from pretty much the entire international community.
Troops were planned to enter through all four possible entrances on the ground floor and through the balconies on the first floor using ladders, then converge on the central room, in this case a sitting room on the first floor. A small team would guard the tunnel that lead outside through the basement (also very Hollywood, that). Miyagusuku, and with him Mike, the Colonel and Lewis, would enter through the garden entrance, before the normal assault troops, and proceed according to Miyagusuku's judgment.
It all happened exactly like planned, and it almost felt a little silly to Mike. At least with exercises, they tended to play sound tapes of gunfire or Mouse roars. Now, at first, nothing. Complete and utter silence.
Miyagusuku moved his head around, scanning the surroundings. Then he nodded to the leader of the team also entering through the big glass doors and set off in a different direction.
He moved differently now. Gone was the nonchalance he'd shown at the airport and even, up to a point, at the base. He was clearly tense now, and his face was drawn with concentration. He led Mike and the others through the house quickly, at a pace that had Mike breathing hard after getting up the back stairs. The Colonel, in peak condition but not the youngest anymore, was breathing even harder. Mike hadn't really expected Lewis to keep up, what with his bulk, but he was still there as well.
Miyagusuku halted them in the middle of a hallway, cocking his head as if listening for something. Just as he started moving again, a panicked call came over the radio. It was accompanied by the sounds of gunfire carrying through the house.
"This is Six. We got Mice in the tunnel, a fucking army of 'em!"
The Colonel was responding almost before the message was finished. "Keep your underwear clean, Six. All units converge on the basement." He broke off the transmission, then shouted after Miyagusuku, who was still headed in the opposite direction. "That means us, too."
"It's a distraction," Miyagusuku argued, "Our target is going that way." He pointed down the hallway.
"I don't really care about your target," the Colonel said, almost calmly, "I do care about my men, and they're in trouble. You claim you can help, go help."
"I came here for Nathan." Miyagusuku made no move to rush to the aid of the soldiers. He spoke just as calmly as the Colonel, but his hands were curled into fists, and the words he spoke sounded clipped, as if he was speaking through clenched teeth. "He's causing this. Catch him, and he won't be able to trigger any more transformations. Your men are trained soldiers. They can take care of themselves." He made a move to continue after Nathan.
The Colonel brought up his tranq gun under Miyagusuku's chin, stopping the man in his tracks. "Oh no you don't, you friggin' leech. One more step in that direction and I'll put one of these in your brain, and we'll see how much chasing you'll do then. You asked for our help this time, and I'm not letting my men get killed over it. You got something to make up for, in my book."
"Kai, he has a point," Lewis spoke into the stalemate, the voice of reason. "Those Mice are the more direct danger, and we don't really want more bodies."
"Which there will be if Nathan keeps escaping," Miyagusuku answered, but then nodded carefully.
"Fine, Colonel, we'll do it your way." Before the Colonel could even twitch a muscle, he grabbed the barrel of the gun and disarmed the Colonel. With a brief nod, he handed the gun back and set off down the corridor.
"After him!" the Colonel shouted, but Miyagusuku's pace was now impossible to keep up with. They'd have to trust he was really going down to the basement to help deal with the Chiropterans there.
Mike ran back down the stairs as fasts as his legs would carry him, leaving the Colonel and Lewis behind. The sounds of gunfire and Mouse roars quickly increased in volume. It was still a surprise when turning a corner on the ground floor, Mike suddenly found himself face to face with an injured Chiropteran.
He didn't have time to react. The thing was moving towards him already, and by the time he could bring his gun in line, it would already be on Mike. He tried anyway, but in the next instant it would be bye-bye to Mrs Saunders' little boy.
Something else moved between them, so fast Mike could only see a blur. He was shoved towards the wall, while the Chiropteran was sent flying with a forceful tackle. It landed on its back several yards away, already moving to get up before it had even slid to a halt.
The rescuer was Miyagusuku. He stood between Mike and the Chiropteran and pulled his pistol - the only firearm he carried. He put two rounds into the Chiropteran's chest. When the creature opened its mouth to roar, he put a third bullet into its skull, through the opened mouth. The Chiropteran's skull exploded outwards, and the remains of the body slumped to the ground.
"Sergeant, are you okay?" Miyagusuku asked. Mike didn't answer, but kept his eyes fixed on the slowly crystallizing body of the Chiropteran. He hadn't seen this before. Hell, he hadn't ever been this close to a live Chiropteran before.
Standard procedure for dealing with Mice was to decapitate them with grenades, or, if the situation didn't allow for that, to do the same thing with fully automatic gunfire at fairly long range. The pistol clips everyone was issued with were loaded with alternating rounds - two armor-piercing and one exploding. It was theoretically possible to kill a Chiropteran in three shots, but the pistol was a weapon of last resort. Mike hadn't heard of the technique actually working, ever. It required faster reflexes and a steadier hand than such a situation tended to allow for. But Miyagusuku had just done it, by the book, as if he'd been standing on a shooting range, while Mike was still recovering from the shock of seeing a Mouse that up close and personal.
"Sergeant!" Miyagusuku's second call snapped Mike out of it. "Are you hurt? Did you get blood on you?" He was giving Mike a quick check, and Mike performed the double-check.
"Nothing, sir. Thank you."
"You're my back-up, sergeant, not the other way around. I need you alive." Miyagusuku helped Mike up, then nodded toward the basement. "I came up after this one. There's still plenty of trouble down there, though. You're better off staying up here."
The man looked different, now. His skin, already pale, now looked grayish, and the whites of his eyes were so bloodshot they were completely red. He looked like some creature from a horror movie. Which he probably was, come to think of it. He just hadn't seemed it until now.
Miyagusuku caught Mike's stare, frowned, and took a look at his own hands. "Sorry sergeant, I didn't mean to scare you.'' He smiled, showing elongated canines for good measure. "I barely even realize when this happens, especially in these situations."
"I'm not scared, sir," Mike denied, "just surprised, is all." He straightened up completely. "I can’t wait up here, sir. Orders were to go down and help the others."
Miyagusuku had his eyes closed, and opened and closed his fists a few times. As he did it, some of the color returned to his skin. When he opened his eyes again, the whites of were also mostly the proper color again. "As you wish, sergeant. Do stay out of the way. It will get messy down there."
"Yes, sir." It was a superfluous observation, but it was in some ways a comfort, these friendly words from a decidedly no longer friendly face. "Sir? Was this the proof you didn't want to show me earlier?"
"What?" Miyagusuku looked confused for a split second, then shook his head. He raised his hand.
"This is - an intermediate, is the word, I think. I'm trying to stay human, but it's not quite working. It tends to happen when I have to fight." He grimaced. "The full transformation is worse."
Couldn't hurt to ask. "What's it like?"
"You ever read the Hulk?"
"I've seen the movies, sir."
"Well, it's nothing like that."
--
Continues in Part 2
XWA
This entry was crossposted from DreamWidth. The DreamWidth entry has
comments. You can comment on whichever entry you prefer.
Author: xwingace/
xwingace
Summary: Saya sleeps, but life goes on for Kai and Saya's nieces. Including cleaning up the mess that was left behind. A mess which seems to mostly be caused by a rogue Chevalier.
Fandom: Blood+
Character(s): Kai, Nathan Mahler, Diva's daughters.
Rating: T.
Word Count: ~7500 in this part of the chapter.
Disclaimer: Not mine. I'm just having fun. No harm or profit is intended.
Spoilers: All of the series.
Feedback: Yes, please. Comments are more than welcome.
Note: Posting WIP, slightly against my better judgment.Part two took almost half a year to write. I've been stuck on part three ever since. So I've decided, to hell with it, I'll post. Maybe it'll help with inspiration for part three. And apparently Chapter 2 is too long for LJ posting limits, so I've had to split it into two parts. That's when you get titles like the above...
Previous Chapter
In Search of Nathan Part 1
“Sergeant Saunders?”
Mike Saunders turned around quickly at the mention of his name. The guy who had called out his name pointed at the sign the sergeant was holding. “I think you’re waiting for me,” he said, holding up a Red Shield ID card to prove it. Then he held out his hand, “Kai Miyagusuku.”
“Welcome to the US, sir,” Mike said, then looked sheepishly at the sign. It read ‘Mr. Miyagi’. Some joker from his squad had made it. Now, to be fair, the piece of card was a little small to carry the whole name in a readable size, but it really wouldn’t have been hard to stick two pieces together. He tore it apart. “Sorry about that, sir.”
Miyagusuku didn’t take offense. He offered up a smile, instead, and shook his head. “I’ve had people mangle it worse.” He lifted a small backpack. “Shall we?”
“Yes, sir.” Mike indicated the direction they should go. “This way, sir.” He let Miyagusuku take the lead. So far, the man wasn’t living up to expectations.
The whole thing was unusual, actually. Normally, Red Shield only provided consultants, people skilled enough in the theoretical ways of dealing with Chiropterans, or ‘mice’, as the vernacular went in the US military, but not fighters. While they did have their own strike team, Red Shield only brought that in on the explicit request of the government of whatever country had an outbreak. And even then the strike team was only used to supplement and train the regular troops. This time, however, from what Mike had heard, Red Shield had contacted the American government and had not only asked permission to operate on US soil, they had urgently requested the cooperation of the US armed forces. They would never have been allowed to operate without that cooperation, of course, but still the request was made. And it had been made and granted quickly.
Mike’s unit had only got the signal to move out late last night, and the strike would be made later this afternoon. That was apparently also the main reason Red Shield had requested the help of the Special Forces the US maintained to keep Chiropterans in check. There wasn’t enough time to bring in a large enough number of Red Shield soldiers. Yet despite the brief time-frame, they had insisted on bringing over this guy from Japan, even jamming him in on the earliest commercial flight because it would take too long to get their own transports there. From that kind of urgency to include Miyagusuku, Mike would have expected him to be some sort of superman. Or at least to look a little more like a soldier.
He barely even looked Japanese! The only real indication he was Asian was a slight slant to his eyes. He was about as tall as Mike, his skin was pale even for a white guy, and his hair was reddish-brown. He did have an accent, but it wasn’t very heavy at all.
They reached the exit and Miyagusuku looked back at Mike for guidance. Mike now led the way to the car (a rental; a military Jeep would have been too obvious). Miyagusuku got in without a further word. He kept silent, too, for the first part of the drive. He spent the time looking around and tapping his fingers on the windowsill. What did he have to be nervous about?
Mike wasn’t the chatty type, but the weird situation and, oddly enough, his guest’s silence drove him to talking. “You do this a lot, sir?”
Miyagusuku started, as if he hadn’t expected to be spoken to. He was slow to answer, too. “Not really," he said. "I only get asked for the really bad ones. And a few special cases.” He stared ahead, at the road for a short time. "Do you know what happened in Brazil six years ago?"
"Cleanup of Rio, sir?" That had been a much-publicized happening. It wasn't all that often that the UN sent troops to actually destroy most of a city. It had happened a few times since, but that had been the first time. As a matter of fact, Colonel O'Hare had been there as well, as part of the American delegation.
Miyagusuku nodded. "Got it in one. That was the first time I did something like this."
-x-
Kai came home to find the back door unlocked. Inside, Mao had fallen asleep at the kitchen table. She had to have let herself in, then fallen asleep waiting for Kai to come home. He wondered briefly why she would have come to see him, especially at this hour, but then decided it couldn't have been important enough to wake her up. She would have called him, were that the case.
He put a blanket over Mao's shoulders and went to take a quick shower. He still stank of the greasy kitchen he worked at. He could take it, but there was no need to subject Mao to it.
When Kai came out of the shower, Mao was still asleep. Now he saw that she had fallen asleep on top of the biology textbook he'd been planning to read. Oh well. Then he might as well make a start preparing breakfast and the girls' lunches.
He had just finished frying the eggs when Mao stirred. "Something smells good," she mumbled, then frowned. She pushed herself upright and rubbed her face. "Did I fall asleep?"
"Good morning," Kai said, and set a cup of tea in front of her. "You did." He put away the book Mao had used for a pillow and started laying the table. "So why did you show up at night?"
Mao ran her hands through her hair, pulling loose strands into a rough ponytail. "I was jet-lagged anyway, and David told me you worked nights." She nodded in the direction of the locked-up restaurant. "I just thought you'd be working them here."
Kai snorted. "I'd actually have to be a consistently good chef if I ever want to make anything of the Omoro again." He shook his head. "As it is, I can't keep enough customers to make a profit, so I had to close it down."
Mao eyed the eggs on the counter next to the stove, then walked over and tasted them. "This isn't bad."
Kai smiled. "I got lucky today." He pointed to the cookbook that was also on the counter. "I know all the basics. As long as I stick tightly to the recipes, then I'm fine while there's nothing funny going on with the ingredients. But if the eggs are larger, the peppers sweeter, or I left the fire a bit high or whatever, I can't fix it. I regularly get an earful from Elisa about it." He smiled sheepishly, then shrugged. "For a fast-food restaurant it's fine because nobody expects great cooking there. But from a normal restaurant, people expect a little more originality."
Mao frowned. "That's too bad," she said sympathetically. "The place deserved to be thriving." She sighed. "Or maybe that's just the nostalgia speaking."
"Much as I loved the place, it probably is. The Omoro was home." Kai, finished with the morning's tasks, sat down on the chair opposite the one Mao had taken. "And speaking of 'home', you're usually more than keen to avoid it, so what brings you here?"
Mao groaned and slumped down on her chair. "Don't start about my father, please. He's still got Okamura convinced that if he ever shows his face in Japan again, my father will have him killed." She walked back to the table and sat down. "It's probably not true, but Okamura's not taking any risks. However…" She shook her head and squared her shoulders. "I'm not here to talk about my daddy issues."
"I thought as much," Kai replied with a smirk. Then he looked up as he heard stumbling from upstairs. He checked the clock. "Time for the girls to get up." He got up and finished putting the food on the table.
It didn't take long for Irene to come racing down, calling back to Elisa to hurry up. "Hello, aunt Mao," she greeted Mao, "nice to see you again."
"Aunt?" Mao asked, sounding mildly insulted. "Hasn’t anyone told you it's not polite to call people that if they haven't asked you to?"
Irene's reply was forestalled by Elisa coming down, looking distinctly disheveled. She, too, greeted Mao with "Good morning, aunt Mao." Mao just groaned, this time.
"Oh come on now, girls, be polite," Kai interrupted. Mao shot him a look of gratitude, but he winked at her and continued, "Mao's had a promotion at her job. She's now a director, so you should call her 'Chairman' Mao, you know."
Irene, who had kept up with her history lessons, giggled immediately. Elisa looked nonplussed for a second, then laughed anyway. Mao scowled at Kai, and sighed. "Fine, if you're going to be like that, just call me Mao, okay?"
"Yes Ma'am, Chairman Mao." Irene saluted her with a grin, then quickly finished her breakfast and picked up her lunchbox. "Come on, Elisa, we're going to be late."
Elisa stuffed the last bits of her breakfast in her mouth while Kai helped her into her coat and handed her another lunchbox. He wished both of them a fun day at school, then sat staring after them until well after they were out of view.
"So how often do you follow them to school?" Mao asked.
Kai shook his head to clear it. Then he smiled. "Every day for about a month. Then Elisa caught me at it and made me promise not to do it again." He raised his voice in a fairly reasonable imitation of Elisa's: "We're old enough to go by ourselves now, Kai, you don't have to follow us." He stopped the imitation. "So I don't. Often."
Mao smiled. "A real dad, I guess."
Kai's smile fell. "I'm not so sure." He rubbed his hands over his face. "But you're not here to talk about my daddy issues either, Mao." Kai got up to pour another cup of tea, then sat down and folded his arms with an air of finality. "What brings the new Director of Operations for Red Shield back down to Okinawa?"
"You knew about that, huh?" Mao scowled. "Could have said something sooner."
"Hey, I can talk to David a lot more easily than you can." Kai shrugged. "Although it was Julia who told me. Congratulations, by the way. You've worked hard enough for it."
"Thanks." Mao nodded her acknowledgment of the compliment. Then she sighed. "Unfortunately, that's also why I'm here."
Kai sat up straight, frowning. "I don't think I'm going to like this."
Mao held out a hand. "Hear me out first, please." At Kai's nod, she continued. "I think I told you about Brazil once, right?"
"Constant outbreaks of people transforming into Chiropterans in the slums of Rio de Janeiro," Kai confirmed. "It's been in the papers, too. It's been getting worse again, lately, it seems."
Mao nodded. "We had things almost under control. We made sure to exterminate all the vermin we could catch, and we've been working on a new vaccine that would protect against Diva's bloodline, not just counteract the effects of Cinq Flèches' conversion drugs. We had some limited success elsewhere. It worked in Rio, too, for a while. But the last few months, the vaccines just don't seem to be working."
"That doesn't sound too good."
Mao shook her head. "No. It's so bad, in fact, that the government of Brazil has finally given up trying to contain it. They've requested help from the UN to clean up this mess, and Red Shield has been hired to provide the expertise in dealing with Chiropterans."
Kai leaned back in his chair. "Good luck with that."
Mao allowed an upward twitch of her lips. "We are used to doing things like this. It's just that the scale is several orders of magnitude above anything we've done before, and we could use all the extra hands we can get."
-x-
Miyagusuku filled up the rest of the drive to the base with small talk. Mike pressed him a little about
Brazil - it was as good a chance as any to find out about what they might be dealing with here, but apart from an assurance that this case wouldn't be nearly as bad -- not within several orders of magnitude -- Miyagusuku didn't go into any details.
At the base, they were greeted by the Red Shield contact, an oversized black man who greeted Miyagusuku like an old friend. And in Japanese.
Mike's knowledge of Japanese was limited to a few random words picked up during a youthful obsession with anime. It was more than most of his squadmates would have managed, but it wasn't nearly enough to follow the conversation. All he could pick up on was that Lewis asked Miyagusuku about his daughters, and the response to that question was very lively and animated. It looked like Miyagusuku really opened up to his friends, although why a man who clearly loved his children would do this kind of work was a bit of a puzzle. In any case, Miyagusuku's mood dropped considerably once he caught sight of Colonel O'Hare.
The Colonel was waiting just inside the base. That surprised Mike, who had expected his commanding officer to only come out of his office for the mission briefing. He had, after all, no particular reason to meet the special representative of Red Shield. His liaison was, and would still be, Lewis.
Miyagusuku greeted the Colonel with a slight bow. "Colonel. It's good to see you."
Colonel O'Hare regarded the man with deep distaste. "Kept us waiting," he said, not even acknowledging the greeting. "This way." Then he turned around and led the way into the base.
Mike was briefly surprised when the Colonel walked right past the briefing room, and then even more surprised when the door he did open was the one to the infirmary. "Here we are." He addressed Lewis. "I'm going to brief my men. Be ready to go in half an hour. You…" he turned toward Mike, "stay here. Keep an eye on these two." Then, without even waiting for Mike's "Yes, sir", he was gone again.
"Friendly sort, isn't he?" Lewis remarked, to nobody in particular. But he did it in English, so Mike shrugged in response.
Miyagusuku, on the other hand, wasn't paying attention at all. He was checking the contents of one of the coolers. The cooler had a note stuck on the outside with Miyagusuku's name on it. From the brief glimpse Mike got of the contents, there was a lot of whole blood in there.
Miyagusuku closed the cooler again and checked the stack of equipment - a uniform and weapons, but no ammunition -- that had been left on the desk. Then he looked toward Lewis and asked something in Japanese.
Lewis shook his head and responded in English. "I don't think O'Hare'd allow you the dignity. But there's not enough time for it, anyway. Better just drink up."
"Right." Miyagusuku switched to English as well and started to change into the clothing. "What about my chase team?"
Lewis picked up one of the weapons, and took it apart to check for dirt. He easily put it back together. "Looks like I'm it. There's nobody else from Red Shield around. O'Hare said he'd make up the numbers on the team himself."
Miyagusuku's eyes widened. "I see." He turned toward. "I guess that makes you the fourth man, sergeant. What did you do to make your Colonel dislike you that much?"
"Sir?" Mike had no idea what the two of them were talking about. As far as he was aware, the Colonel didn't like him any more or less than any other soldier under his command.
"You just got volunteered for a very risky job, and you weren't even briefed about it," Lewis explained.
"I signed up for a risky job, sir," Mike countered. "And we got called out so fast there hasn't been time for extensive briefings. That's not unusual, either."
Miyagusuku nodded. "I can understand that attitude, sergeant." He had finished changing his clothes, and now wore a set of urban camouflage gear that seemed to have been made for Lewis rather than Miyagusuku. It hung loosely off his hips and shoulders. Oddly enough, he hadn't exchanged his sneakers for combat boots. Miyagusuku looked at Lewis. "Can you give the instructions?"
"Did you bring the tranqs?"
"In the bag." Miyagusuku pointed to the bag he'd brought himself.
"Then yes, of course."
"Good." Miyagusuku nodded, then walked back to the refrigerator and took out one of the bags of blood. "Take a good look at what you'll be up against, sergeant," he said. Then he bit into the top of the bag, and, with every sign of enjoyment, started drinking the blood.
-x-
"No."
"What?" Mao seemed surprised by Kai's reply to her still unspoken request.
"I can see where this is going," Kai said, "and the answer is 'no'. No way." Kai leaned forward, resting his arms on the table. Mao was going to ask him to help, but he was in no position to do that. "I have to take care of Elis- the girls." He rubbed his eyes. "And I think I have a better chance of keeping people safe just staying here."
"Don't talk nonsense." Mao leaned forward across the table. "We need your strength and your experience. And we can find someone to take care of the girls. If all else fails, we'll take them to a Red Shield safe house. They'll be protected by our people."
That would leave the girls in the hands of Red Shield, something Kai didn't want to happen if at all possible. But that wasn't a point that he could argue with Mao. He'd lost that argument before he'd been able to think to offer it, because it was through Red Shield that he had the girls at all. There were other arguments, however, that might have a little more power. They were just as true, and if Mao had been talking to David, she should know about them already, too. "And what about protecting anybody from me?"
Mao frowned, looking confused. "Why would anyone need protecting from you?"
"I have control issues." Kai sighed deliberately. "I know you talked to David. Don't tell me he kept that to himself. I still haven't got any sort of solid control over how or when I get into Chiropteran form, and I'm liable to go berserk if I don't get enough blood."
"He told me there were a few incidents he helped cover up, yes." Mao closed her eyed and slowly nodded. Then she opened her eyes again to look at Kai. "He also told me the last incident was almost a year ago. You seem to have gotten past it."
"Only because I'm here." Kai jabbed a finger down on the table for emphasis. "I know everyone I'm likely to run into here, and I know exactly how to avoid situations where I would feel the need to be stronger or faster." He let his head hang. "And I'm more motivated because I don't want Elisa and Irene to find out."
One corner Mao's mouth twitched upward. "It's not exactly as if we'd have any objection to you using that strength to help." She forestalled Kai's next comment by simply not pausing before the next sentence. "And we can get you blood, too."
"Sure," Kai said, letting some sarcasm shimmer through, "and I'm sure you can get it to me in the middle of a battlefield as well, if necessary." He shook his head. "I need a lot of blood to keep from going on a rampage here. If I get hurt, I'll need more blood, and probably a lot of it, right there and then, or I could attack anyone who's too slow to get away." He looked up. "Which would be just about everyone."
Mao frowned. "It's not that bad, surely?"
"It is." Kai looked down at his hands. This was going to be difficult. "Elisa and Irene get blood about once every month. Three weeks, maybe. I need as much as they get, every week, just to keep from going crazy. When I lost it the first time, I was on the same schedule as they were, and Julia just started giving me more after that. But that didn’t help." He shook his head. "I don't know why that is. Haji doesn't need even half as much as the twins do. I haven't ever seen him drink any."
"Haji does seem to be a bit of a control freak," Mao said sympathetically, "and he's also a lot older than you."
Kai forced a brief smile, then turned serious again. "He thinks it could be because Julia pumped me full of blood right after Elisa turned me. Maybe my body's gotten used to a regular supply." He shrugged. "It's a theory."
"You talk a lot with Haji?" Mao asked.
Kai nodded. "He helped me get what control I have. Like you said, he's got experience with it." He looked up at Mao. "He's also had to keep me down when I lost control. It just doesn't come that easily to me."
Mao leaned forward, a mischievous smile on her face. "Want Red Shield to help with that?" She sat up straight again. "Research has been working on tranquilizers that'll work for Chiropterans - it's a lot easier to put them down if they're slowed down or completely asleep. We've got one that looks promising. It could help you keep control of yourself, too."
"You mean I can drug myself up to the point where I couldn't hurt anyone even if I wanted to, is that it?" Kai remained defensive, but in truth, he was tempted. Haji was a pretty strict teacher, and Kai'd picked up some meditation techniques to help calm himself down if necessary, but it still didn't always work. And he couldn't keep on relying on Haji and David to calm him down and cover up his screwups. Then again… "And to get this-" he started.
"-help in Brazil," Mao and he finished together.
Kai mimicked a sigh. "Mao, even if these drugs work, I can't take them going into combat. Which means they won't solve any of the problems I have with going in there."
Mao copied the sigh, probably for real. "We can set up a plan so we'll have someone nearby who can administer the sedatives, keep you calm until we can get you some blood. Yes, in the middle of a battlefield." Mao folded her hands. "They invented portable coolers for a reason."
Kai remained quiet. He didn't want to agree, even though Mao so far had at the very least tried to find solutions for every objection he could voice. He didn't want to say yes, but she was running him out of options. She hadn't gotten that director's post for nothing.
"So?" Mao knew he was running out of arguments, so she pressed the matter.
Kai had one possible counter left. It wasn't all that much, but it might just be enough. Haji had broken his total isolation to help Kai, but he had remained aloof from pretty much everything else. It was extremely unlikely he'd agree to come. He let his head hang. "Okay." He looked up again, and raised a hand to stop Mao from saying anything. "On one condition. Haji agrees to come along. If I lose control, he at least can stop me."
Mao's grin widened. "Well, that's decided, then." At Kai's look of surprise, she explained. "I talked to Haji yesterday evening. He agreed to come if you came." She pushed herself up out of her chair. "I guess we'd better start making arrangements to get you to Brazil."
-x-
Lewis explained the function of the dart gun that fired the tranquilizer darts. Mike listened with about half his attention and when prompted disassembled and reassembled the weapon. The other half of his attention, however, he kept focused on Miyagusuku. He had emptied the first bag of blood, and was now close to finishing a second one. "Sir, what are you doing?"
Miyagusuku didn't respond until he'd finished the second bag. Then he walked to the exam table and lifted himself to sit on it. "I was drinking the blood," he said when he was seated, "but that's not the question you wanted to ask, is it?"
"It was, sir." Mike's reasoning hadn't gotten beyond that, yet. Although there was a follow-up question. "Why, sir?" Among his squadmates, it might have been a great show of machismo; it was also the kind of stunt troops at this level were expected to be too mature to pull. Besides, there was nobody here to impress except Mike, and really the context for impressing him was wrong as well. And if it really was a stunt, there'd be no need for the second bag.
"Because I need it," Miyagusuku answered matter-of-factly. "And I need it because I'm a Chiropteran."
Mike raised the tranq gun he was still holding in reflex, before the ridiculousness of that statement penetrated. Then he laughed. "Yeah right. Good joke, sir." Chiropterans were huge, violent beast, not scrawny people. Yes, they went after people's blood, but then again, they might just as easily go for the meat. They bit big enough chunks out of their victims.
"Not a joke," Lewis confirmed.
"There are different types of Chiropterans, were you ever briefed on that?" Miyagusuku shook his head. "It's very unlikely. That's not something Red Shield likes to become common knowledge." He smiled briefly. "And the American government apparently agrees."
"What you'd call 'Mice' is the most common type - the violent beasts, just smart enough to be even more dangerous," Lewis added. "But there's other kinds that stay more human. Like him." He nodded at Miyagusuku. "They're rare, but they exist."
"Whatever you say, sir." It wasn't Mike's place to object, and he'd keep this information in mind, but he still had a hard time believing any of it.
Miyagusuku seemed to be able to tell. He smiled. "I don't think you believe me, sergeant." He shook his head. "Unfortunately, if I tried to prove it to you here and now, we'd never get around to the mission."
"Yes, sir." Mike still hadn't heard what the mission was, exactly, so he couldn't really say much else. "And what is the mission, sir?"
Lewis answered that one. "We think we have a lead on the last remaining director of Cinq Fleches, Nathan Mahler."
"Who is also Chiropteran," Miyagusuku interrupted, "and that's why I'm here. If Nathan decides to get violent, your people won't know what hit them until he's long gone. I should at least be able to keep up with him."
Lewis took over again. "The job for your colleagues is to deal with any distractions he may have set up, and help Kai corner Nathan, so we can take him into custody, or kill him if necessary. But we'd like to capture him alive." He gestured at the weapon in Mike's hands, then continued. "The dart gun you've got there shoots darts that contain a sedative strong enough to kill most humans. One dart'll slow down most 'Mice' long enough for you to run away, if necessary. But that's not what we've got them for."
Mike held up the gun. "So our job is to shoot Nathan?"'
"No," Miyagusuku said. "Well, not with these," he then corrected himself. "If you get the chance, you could try to shoot him with your normal gun. "
"Why not these, sir?"
"It's very unlikely they'll work." Miyagusu picked one of the darts out of an ammo belt and held it up. "These things were fine-tuned for me, and… well, it's a long, science-riddled explanation that basically boils down to that, even if the sedative works on him, it'll be much weaker. Shooting him with it wouldn't do you much good. I'm here to capture Nathan.
"The real reason for my chase team is to make sure I don't go out of control." He got up from the exam table and turned to face Mike fully. "There is a chance, if I get hurt too badly, that I'll lose control and start attacking friends." He shook his head. "I don't want to do that - I don't want to hurt anyone - and I've taken precautions against it, but it could still happen." He looked Mike in the eyes. "If it does, you shoot me. And you keep shooting until I drop."
Mike wanted to reply to that, saying all this was too ridiculous for words, but the Colonel chose that moment to reenter the room. "All done?" he asked.
"As much as possible, Colonel," Miyagusuku answered, but the Colonel ignored him.
"They brief you?" he asked Mike instead. At Mike's nod, he beckoned for Mike to come into the hallway. Once the door to the infirmary was closed, the colonel asked again, "What did they tell you?"
Mike recounted the story mechanically, refraining from making any comment. Strangely enough, the Colonel seemed to believe it. He nodded. "Good. At least they told you the truth, even if not all of it. That thing is dangerous. I don't understand why Red Shield hasn't killed it yet. You don't let it out of your sight. The second you even suspect it's going to do something, you first pump it full of darts, and then you start with the bullets. Got that?"
"Yes, sir."
"Good." The Colonel opened the door to the infirmary again and spoke into the room. "We're moving out."
--
"Ready to go?"
Mao entered the room of the evacuated hospital Red Shield was using as a base. A medic had just finished removing the IV needle from Kai's arm, and Kai was buttoning his shirt. Haji had watched the whole procedure from a corner of the room.
Kai sighed. "As ready as I'll ever be, I guess. Let's go."
"We're going to assign you to an American platoon today," Mao said while Kai and his team strapped on their equipment and checked their weapons. "There's a higher than expected amount of transformations in their sector, and they've requested additional personnel from us. "
The reward for hard work still was more work, it appeared. Kai had arrived in Brazil after a week of training and testing in the no-man's-land in Vietnam, where a large area had been given over to the Chiropterans that had appeared there due to experiments from Cinq Flèches. This in order to get used to the people he'd be working with, and to confirm the sedatives worked. They did, though not as well as Kai had hoped. They weren't even half as effective as Red Shield had thought they'd be, based on their tests. Still, they should work to subdue him, if he got them in sufficient quantities.
Then the team had come to Brazil and had been assigned a section of Rio to clean up - typically a few streets per day. Kai and Haji had proven very efficient at sniffing out the contaminated rats, and far more efficient than the Red Shield troops at dealing with any transformed humans. They'd even managed to catch one, for the Red Shield scientists to study and find out why the vaccines were no longer working. In the three days they'd worked so far, they'd gotten ahead of their schedule, and continuing now would take them too deeply into areas where there'd be no support, and the cleanup there would be undone after a night because the chiropterans would just come back in from the surrounding streets. So today they'd be supporting nearby areas that had fallen behind on their schedule.
On the way there, Kai studied the map of the area they'd be patrolling today. It was a more upmarket neighborhood, not one of the slums like he'd been working in for the past few days. On the one hand, there were probably fewer nooks and crannies for the rats to hide in. On the other hand, there were multiple floors to check, and line-of-sight would be significantly reduced.
When they reached the checkpoint where the American forces were waiting for them, their reception was less than cordial. Kai was introduced to the commanding officer, a Major O'Hare.
"I didn't ask for you," the Major greeted him. "I have trouble enough when the higher-ups just let me get on with my job. Now they want me to babysit civilians, as well."
Friendly fellow, that. Nevertheless, Kay shook his hand politely. "I thought you requested our assistance, Major."
"I didn't," the Major cut him off, "I was ordered to accommodate you in my plans by General Newstone." He shook his head. "I hear your people are good at finding these damn mice and rats."
"We've had good luck with that in the past few days, yes," Kai confirmed.
The Major nodded. "Good." He used his hand to metaphorically chop the team in three. "You two are with third squad," he said to Haji and the team leader, then indicated two team members, "You can join second, and you," he turned to Kai after glancing at the remaining team member, "can join me with the first squad."
"Um," Kai wasn't quite sure how to interrupt. "We usually work as a single team. I don't like to be without my team."
"What, you can't handle cooperation with professional soldiers?" the Major asked, drawing matching frowns from the Red Shield soldiers -all of whom had been the elite of their respective countries' armed forces before joining Red Shield and receiving more training. The Major ignored them. "If you can't even do that, you can't really expect me to trust you and your team not getting in the way while we do our work, can you?"
"I must insist, Major," Kai persisted. In an already strange situation and with only one backup his situation was precarious enough already. He kept up the argument with the increasingly annoyed Major O'Hare until he had persuaded the commander to at least let the two people the Major had assigned to second squad come along with Kai. That still meant no Haji and left his team without their usual commander, but Major O'Hare wouldn't budge on that point.
"If I understand the whole thing right, you and Mr. Long-hair over there are the best trackers. There's absolutely no point to have you both in the same squad, " the Major ended the argument. "Now let's move out!"
-x-
The building they were going to assault was a large freestanding villa. It looked far more likely to house some minor movie star who wanted somewhere to stay outside of Tinseltown than to play home to a bloodsucking mad scientist who had to hide from pretty much the entire international community.
Troops were planned to enter through all four possible entrances on the ground floor and through the balconies on the first floor using ladders, then converge on the central room, in this case a sitting room on the first floor. A small team would guard the tunnel that lead outside through the basement (also very Hollywood, that). Miyagusuku, and with him Mike, the Colonel and Lewis, would enter through the garden entrance, before the normal assault troops, and proceed according to Miyagusuku's judgment.
It all happened exactly like planned, and it almost felt a little silly to Mike. At least with exercises, they tended to play sound tapes of gunfire or Mouse roars. Now, at first, nothing. Complete and utter silence.
Miyagusuku moved his head around, scanning the surroundings. Then he nodded to the leader of the team also entering through the big glass doors and set off in a different direction.
He moved differently now. Gone was the nonchalance he'd shown at the airport and even, up to a point, at the base. He was clearly tense now, and his face was drawn with concentration. He led Mike and the others through the house quickly, at a pace that had Mike breathing hard after getting up the back stairs. The Colonel, in peak condition but not the youngest anymore, was breathing even harder. Mike hadn't really expected Lewis to keep up, what with his bulk, but he was still there as well.
Miyagusuku halted them in the middle of a hallway, cocking his head as if listening for something. Just as he started moving again, a panicked call came over the radio. It was accompanied by the sounds of gunfire carrying through the house.
"This is Six. We got Mice in the tunnel, a fucking army of 'em!"
The Colonel was responding almost before the message was finished. "Keep your underwear clean, Six. All units converge on the basement." He broke off the transmission, then shouted after Miyagusuku, who was still headed in the opposite direction. "That means us, too."
"It's a distraction," Miyagusuku argued, "Our target is going that way." He pointed down the hallway.
"I don't really care about your target," the Colonel said, almost calmly, "I do care about my men, and they're in trouble. You claim you can help, go help."
"I came here for Nathan." Miyagusuku made no move to rush to the aid of the soldiers. He spoke just as calmly as the Colonel, but his hands were curled into fists, and the words he spoke sounded clipped, as if he was speaking through clenched teeth. "He's causing this. Catch him, and he won't be able to trigger any more transformations. Your men are trained soldiers. They can take care of themselves." He made a move to continue after Nathan.
The Colonel brought up his tranq gun under Miyagusuku's chin, stopping the man in his tracks. "Oh no you don't, you friggin' leech. One more step in that direction and I'll put one of these in your brain, and we'll see how much chasing you'll do then. You asked for our help this time, and I'm not letting my men get killed over it. You got something to make up for, in my book."
"Kai, he has a point," Lewis spoke into the stalemate, the voice of reason. "Those Mice are the more direct danger, and we don't really want more bodies."
"Which there will be if Nathan keeps escaping," Miyagusuku answered, but then nodded carefully.
"Fine, Colonel, we'll do it your way." Before the Colonel could even twitch a muscle, he grabbed the barrel of the gun and disarmed the Colonel. With a brief nod, he handed the gun back and set off down the corridor.
"After him!" the Colonel shouted, but Miyagusuku's pace was now impossible to keep up with. They'd have to trust he was really going down to the basement to help deal with the Chiropterans there.
Mike ran back down the stairs as fasts as his legs would carry him, leaving the Colonel and Lewis behind. The sounds of gunfire and Mouse roars quickly increased in volume. It was still a surprise when turning a corner on the ground floor, Mike suddenly found himself face to face with an injured Chiropteran.
He didn't have time to react. The thing was moving towards him already, and by the time he could bring his gun in line, it would already be on Mike. He tried anyway, but in the next instant it would be bye-bye to Mrs Saunders' little boy.
Something else moved between them, so fast Mike could only see a blur. He was shoved towards the wall, while the Chiropteran was sent flying with a forceful tackle. It landed on its back several yards away, already moving to get up before it had even slid to a halt.
The rescuer was Miyagusuku. He stood between Mike and the Chiropteran and pulled his pistol - the only firearm he carried. He put two rounds into the Chiropteran's chest. When the creature opened its mouth to roar, he put a third bullet into its skull, through the opened mouth. The Chiropteran's skull exploded outwards, and the remains of the body slumped to the ground.
"Sergeant, are you okay?" Miyagusuku asked. Mike didn't answer, but kept his eyes fixed on the slowly crystallizing body of the Chiropteran. He hadn't seen this before. Hell, he hadn't ever been this close to a live Chiropteran before.
Standard procedure for dealing with Mice was to decapitate them with grenades, or, if the situation didn't allow for that, to do the same thing with fully automatic gunfire at fairly long range. The pistol clips everyone was issued with were loaded with alternating rounds - two armor-piercing and one exploding. It was theoretically possible to kill a Chiropteran in three shots, but the pistol was a weapon of last resort. Mike hadn't heard of the technique actually working, ever. It required faster reflexes and a steadier hand than such a situation tended to allow for. But Miyagusuku had just done it, by the book, as if he'd been standing on a shooting range, while Mike was still recovering from the shock of seeing a Mouse that up close and personal.
"Sergeant!" Miyagusuku's second call snapped Mike out of it. "Are you hurt? Did you get blood on you?" He was giving Mike a quick check, and Mike performed the double-check.
"Nothing, sir. Thank you."
"You're my back-up, sergeant, not the other way around. I need you alive." Miyagusuku helped Mike up, then nodded toward the basement. "I came up after this one. There's still plenty of trouble down there, though. You're better off staying up here."
The man looked different, now. His skin, already pale, now looked grayish, and the whites of his eyes were so bloodshot they were completely red. He looked like some creature from a horror movie. Which he probably was, come to think of it. He just hadn't seemed it until now.
Miyagusuku caught Mike's stare, frowned, and took a look at his own hands. "Sorry sergeant, I didn't mean to scare you.'' He smiled, showing elongated canines for good measure. "I barely even realize when this happens, especially in these situations."
"I'm not scared, sir," Mike denied, "just surprised, is all." He straightened up completely. "I can’t wait up here, sir. Orders were to go down and help the others."
Miyagusuku had his eyes closed, and opened and closed his fists a few times. As he did it, some of the color returned to his skin. When he opened his eyes again, the whites of were also mostly the proper color again. "As you wish, sergeant. Do stay out of the way. It will get messy down there."
"Yes, sir." It was a superfluous observation, but it was in some ways a comfort, these friendly words from a decidedly no longer friendly face. "Sir? Was this the proof you didn't want to show me earlier?"
"What?" Miyagusuku looked confused for a split second, then shook his head. He raised his hand.
"This is - an intermediate, is the word, I think. I'm trying to stay human, but it's not quite working. It tends to happen when I have to fight." He grimaced. "The full transformation is worse."
Couldn't hurt to ask. "What's it like?"
"You ever read the Hulk?"
"I've seen the movies, sir."
"Well, it's nothing like that."
--
Continues in Part 2
XWA
This entry was crossposted from DreamWidth. The DreamWidth entry has
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