Monday, Dec. 2, 2069, 7 PM Eastern
It's been an interesting day for Jason. After finding Tracy's Tower was being assaulted by a group of VR adventurers from the Gloaming, then hacking into the Face Reality server to find out they appeared to be operating out of a base in Southern California, Jason donned his prototype suit for the first time and rushed to rescue Randall after his CERT officer friend was shot down over the Dregs. Sadly, Mav's Mavericks, the gang that had performed several vehicular robberies recently, proved too well ensconced and well armed for a one-man rescue to be practical. With a heavy heart, he vowed to return for Randall.
On top of that, he discovered that some mysterious agency, called Mr. X by Akiko though he has his suspicions, has caused email to him from Akiko to go astray. Normally that would be his top priority to uncover, but today he has a friend in need, and the means to increase his bargaining power: four security robots from Avatars LLC, courtesy of Holly. After he assembled them and beefed up their power and motivator systems, Tracy painted them in Irongrip colors (black and silver, iron glove clenching a hammer) and he then souped up two more with a cyberware upgrade to improve accuracy and fighting ability, then called a Rent-a-Lift to get them to the abandoned G-Motors Repair Center where his meeting with Mr. Desoto would take place.
Now Tracy and Cadena, her bodyguard dog, are in VR looking for the wayward Mike Dexter as well as clues to Face Reality's operations in virtual Potemkin, which may be a gateway onto North Bend, and he is on his way to the most terrifying part of the day...
Armored in a nice jacket recently cleaned with a tie over his shirt, and dress slacks, Jason steps out of Miguel's taxi - "Knock 'em dead, senor! Sure, I wait for you." - and onto the landing pad for this level of the Arcadia Towers. From the outside it looks like a normal anonymous lower level apartment complex.
As a practiced security consultant, Jason takes note of the safeguards. Guards at the entrance, a camera and viewscreen mounted behind them. Weapon scanning gates - not that weapons are illegal, but their bearers need to carry permits. From out here he can see tiny dome cameras mounted on the ceilings at every intersection, the direction of their gaze invisible behind the black glass, and a security robot on patrol.
"Sir, are you a resident of the Sunnydale Apartments, or a visitor?" asks a grizzled-looking old veteran guard as he approaches. His sideburns seem a Southern affectation out of place with his blue cap and uniform. He's clearly armed with a police sidearm on one side, a taser rod on the other.
"Visitor. I've got a gun and vest with me, as I often find myself in dangerous areas of town. I have all the appropriate permits with me, of course," Jason answers as he fishes out his small PDA he uses for notes and the like (as well as all official documents). This takes a small amount of juggling as carrying a small briefcase in addition to a bouquet of lilies tends to take up both hands ... and once again re-enforces the theory that everyone would be better off with three arms. RIU is a long for the ride too, but he's tucked away inside Jason's long coat he currently wears over his dress shirt, tie, and slacks. He can truly answer that yes, it is a dragon in his pocket ... not that he's happy to see someone.
"Very good," Jenkins says, or at least that's how his badge identifies him. "And who are you visiting?" Russells leans boredly on the other side of the entrance.
"Akiko Summers," Jason answers simply.
The guard nods. "Thank you, sir." He taps a phantom keyboard a few times. Rrring! Rrring!
Jason waits patiently, his fingers idly tapping on the plastic wrapped around the flower stems. "Have there been problems here lately that has warranted such security measures?" he asks the other, bored, guard as he moves the flowers idly to hide them behind the small briefcase. "Or is it just preemptive?"
"Well, we're just being extra careful today, sir, after the terrorist attack," Jenkins responds.
"Oh, right. The news this morning," Jason says and nods. "That was crazy."
Akiko's image appears on the monitor. She's redone her makeup, turquoise eyeshadow to match her blue shimmersilk dress and jade earrings, but still looks unfairly beautiful. "Jason! Yes, I'm expecting him, Mr. Jenkins. Would you mind buzzing him through?"
The guard nods. "Right away, Ms. Summers." To Jason, he adds, "I talked to someone who worked up there. Said when he came on the scene, all there were, were piles of some black goo. Just step through the gate, sir, Russells will scan the briefcase."
Akiko in makeup and a dress momentarily resets Jason's brain. "Evening," he says rather lamely to Akiko before his attention is once more hijacked by the guards. "Goo? That's even weirder," he claims as he steps through the gate, then pauses for a moment to let Russells scan the briefcase.
Russells runs it through a conveyor belt and a scanner. "Checks out, Harry," he says to Mr. Jenkins. Harry nods having verified that Jason isn't packing explosives or weapons himself. "Sorry, sir, just a formality. I'll open the door for you, just go in, then you'll want to take the third right."
"Better safe than sorry. The world has gone crazy," Jason offers the two guards as he collects is briefcase, "Thank you and have a good evening." There's a moment where he waits for the door to open, then he steps through. "Third right," he tells himself as he heads down the hallway. "And ... I wonder if I should be paranoid that the guard knew so much about the attacks and about the goo?" he asks himself, and perhaps RIU. "Not everything need be some secret plot, after all." Hm, perhaps the tie is restricting bloodflow to his brain.
At this level, the towers so wide at their bases that the curving hallways are divided into a grid pattern, faintly redolent of household cleaning chemicals. Between the apartment "blocks" (though it's all indoors) are miniature parks with an artificial sunlit sky overhead, faced onto by mini-laundrymats and communal gym facilities/showers. No swimming pools though - you don't get those unless you live Up There.
As Jason approaches, Akiko opens the door and beckons him inside. Her apartment is tastefully decorated with Japanese print-styled wallpaper and tatami mats on the floor, a coffee table and pillows on which one could sit around the table, and a standard video screen on the wall next to it, convenient for watching while sitting cross-legged. To the immediate right is the bathroom, door closed, and the kitchen to its left seems to be rarely used - Akiko must not cook much - though it does have the standard refrigerator, stove and oven, sink, and shelves with a selection of Top Soymen cuisine packs. Privacy screens with inkbrush prints of foxes and mountains block Jason's view of the back which is presumably where she sleeps.
"Come on in, Jason," Akiko says with a smile. Her dress looks to be made of blue silk, but shimmers in ocean wave patterns as if she were wearing the sea.
Jason stands there, blinking. It actually takes him a few seconds to register what Akiko said, in fact. "Oh, ah, right, yes. Doors are for entering," he babbles nervously. It's awkward, but he does fish out the flowers from behind his briefcase and present them to Akiko. "I know this doesn't make up for being so hard to reach and I'm not even sure you like lilies and I'm ... babbling." He must be nervous; he isn't even looking around for hidden cameras!
The room smells of sweet jasmine and tea. It's a far cry from the motor oil and electronic odors of Jason's lab and warehouse domicile. "Oh my God, you brought flowers! Do you know what this means, Jason?" Akiko says with a smile, accepting them.
"That I should have brought a vase too?" Jason asks nervously as he steps inside and now looks around. He's certain he forgot something. And right now he's also feeling poor when he compares all this to his home.
"Oh, no, it means this is a date!" Akiko grins impishly as she sets the lilies down on the table. "Me, little Miss Summers, on a date! I haven't been on one since... Since..." She frowns, then shakes her head.
"It is? I've never been on one," Jason admits as he sets his briefcase by the door. "and you're not exactly little. Er, I mean you're not young, er ... I think I'll stop right there before I say something even dumber." He elbows his jacket lightly in case RIU wants to come out and say hello too.
RIU squeaks! A second later, his head pops out of Jason's jacket, then the rest of him, and then Akiko is laughing as he greets her with a flying hug, his body wrapping around her neck. "Oh, you brought RIU! And Ms. Arcadia makes me feel all kinds of young and little, she's so together and mature."
"I've never met her," Jason admits as he can now shed his jacket. This unfortunately leaves him lookuing a bit bewildered as he tries to find a place to hang it without ruining her decor. "I feel like if I touch anything in here I'll ruin it. You've done so much to decorate this place," he admits. So, he folds up his coat and just sets it by his briefcase near the door. After resisting the urge to comb his fingers through his hair (since he actually bothered to actually comb it out and style it today), he says, "You look amazing. In just four years you've recovered from everything and become very successful. You endured the worst of what happened ... and turned out better than the rest of us. Wow."
Akiko, patting RIU's head, laughs. "Oh, you! I owe it all to Ms. Arcadia, really. I was just doing temp work after they discharged me from the hospital, and then she called me in to replace her secretary when she was out on maternity leave, and she decided to keep me around after that. She's taught me so much! And she got me into these apartments."
"Does she know much about, well, what happened?" Jason asks as he closes the door behind him finally.
"No, as far as she knows, I was one of those injured after the... Incident," Akiko says, tilting her head toward Jason thoughtfully. "I don't think she knows what happened. I do know she's been after that dataset from Avatar LLC because it contains her father's work, and she had a white dog guarding her daughter for a while, who was supposed to be some kind of Avatar product. Her daughter died earlier this year though, and the dog went back to Avatar. It was a lingering illness... Something about a genetic weapon. Ms. Arcadia was so devastated after that. And angry." She looks sad.
"Yes, about that data. Holly called me earlier today and demanded to know if I was the one who logged into the old quantum core today and crashed it. Someone actually obliterated the data set, or so Holly claimed. Or, well, something. I'm not sure it was a person; I don't know of many people who could break into a system like that. There are really strange things at work again," Jason admits, frowning slightly that a potentially happy evening has already grown a bit dark.
"It was destroyed?! Oh, Ms. Arcadia won't be happy about that at all," Akiko says, frowning. "But why would anyone go to the trouble? It was just a mock-up of how Arcadia was going to be built over North Bend."
"Well, if it was destroyed. The crash could have been cover for someone copying the data. The timing, along with that raid on the towers, is too close together to be coincidence. ," Jason notes and shrugs. "I honestly don't know any more than that, though. I wasn't involved; I haven't seen that system in four years. And ... hm, do we have to talk about depressing things? It's been four years since we've really spoken. Surely one of us have had happy things in-between?"
Zen techno, assuming that's what's playing, is a weird layering of shamisen music with a techno beat.
Akiko smiles. "You sound like you haven't had any happy things happen to you... At all? Is that because it's been too quiet and you're at your best in the middle of problems?" She gently lifts RIU back up onto Jason's shoulder, then reaches up to one of the thin shelves near the door and brings down what looks like a white ceramic fox, though Jason can see a line running around the neck. A container, then. "Do you have somewhere to put this?"
"I'm not sure I have a best anything," he admits. His attention quickly goes to the odd urn and that causes his brow to dance for a second. "It might fit in my briefcase," Jason says as he goes to fetch the briefcase by the door. "Ah, if I am allowed to ask ... why the fox-shaped urn? That seems ... it probably has a mythology reference?"
Akiko grins impishly. "No, I just like foxes. And you always reminded me of one."
Ding! "Akiko, you have an incoming phone call," says a cartoon fox on her video screen.
"Me? I lack any sort of grace or style," Jason admits with a laugh as he returns with his briefcase. He finds a clear counter and enters the code to release its latches, then opens it. For the moment Jason is actually hiding behind the lid of the case, in case the call is someone who might not want to see him there.
Akiko says, "You're sly, though!" She nods to the screen, "Accept call, please."
Inari appears on the screen. There's no mistaking the golden vixen's face, but the background behind her is that of a public bathroom, and white noise plays over the speaker. "What's going on, Akiko?" she asks. "I've only got ten, maybe fifteen minutes before they get suspicious."
"Um... I was supposed to pass on a warning..." Akiko glances toward Jason.
Jason twitches from the sound of Inari's voice and peeks around the edge of his briefcase. He waves around the lid, then peeks over it and says a bit nervously, "Ah, hello Inari. The warning is from me. Uhm, well ... things are getting complicated again. Someone has restarted the VR experiments with world merging ... and also have begun targeting anyone involved with the events four years ago. I'm fairly certain we're all on the list..."
"Jason!" Inari looks surprised, but pleased for a moment before Jason begins his warning. "Was that you posting those mystery comments on my site?"
Akiko gives Jason a look. What sort of look, it's impossible to say.
Jason grins a bit sheepishly. "You know me; always the shadow in the background," he claims as his answer. "Mystery makes things more interesting."
"Did you know they're calling you the Phantom Commenter now?" Inari says with a laugh. "But what is this bull about 'failing me'? You gave me a chance to live, and I took it. It's not your fault I just chose..." She glances to the side. "I had no idea there could be such a thing as too much attention."
Akiko stirs, then gathers RIU up and starts patting him. RIU scrabbles at Jason's shoulders briefly before realizing it's Akiko and going with the flow.
"Two comments and I got a nickname?" Jason actually asks, "That's ... even I'm not that much of a conspiracy nut. And as for too much attention, you could always quit. But ... maybe attention is what keeps you safe right now. A group already went after Holly's daughter. Another ... has taken Randall."
"Quit? Have you read the termination clause? They get to fake my suicide and then I have to live in hiding like a witness protection program so I don't interfere with the story they're making out of my life," Inari says angrily. "But what-- Randall-- is Holly's daughter... Tracy, right? Is she, are they okay?"
Akiko squeaks. Randall's kidnapping is evidently news to her.
"Contracts can be modified," Jason notes, shrugging. "Tracy is fine; she's, well, hiding in my bunker, more or less. Randall is ... not as fine. He's being held by a gang. I've located their base and I have .. well, not great plans, but plans, on rescuing him. Frankly, dangerous plans ... but being one person doesn't give me a lot of options."
Inari frowns. Her vulpine eyes study Jason intently, with laser-like focus. "You don't have to do everything by yourself, you know. I could be out there in five hours..."
Akiko is giving Jason another Look.
"With all your cameras and entourage? Until Randall is safe I have to keep things quiet and everyone guessing," Jason says and rubs his temples finally. "And besides, if you came here, I would expect you to spend time with Akiko, not some crazy guy who lives in the slums."
"You're not a-- well, okay, you are a crazy guy who lives out in the middle of nowhere," Inari says with a smirk. "But Randall was... Is a friend to me too. Do you really want me to go nuts wondering if you just added yourself to some punk's notches on his gun? As for the entourage, well, surely the great Jason can come up with something to shut the cameras down, if I can ditch the live posse."
"I've prepared a few things that would make it a bit hard for me to end up a notch on a gun. I always have at least two plans ready," Jason claims, "And I really didn't want to drag either of you back into this." At that he motions to Akiko and Inari before continuing, "You have both made new, successful, lives. It's just ... it's wrong for me to ask either of you to ruin that. I can't stop you from coming, of course. I just ... it's hard to explain."
Akiko sighs. "You are so very, very, very White Knight," she says, rubbing under RIU's chin as it purrs. "I can handle a gun, but I know that I would get in the way. Inari though..."
"I'm still a sly fox, with her little bag of tricks," Inari claims with a smirk. "See you at the airport in five hours, Jason?"
Jason groans and rubs his face. "I never win," he complains, "You're just going to give Tracy bad ideas, too. This is going to be really dangerous and ... fine, midnight."
Inari winks. "With bells on!" She clicks the call off. The white noise sussurus vanishes.
Akiko leans onto Jason's side, holding his arm. "Oh God," she says. "She's coming."
"Are you going to yell at me now?" Jason asks Akiko as he stuffs his hands in his pockets and looks at the floor. "I didn't mention Randall earlier because it's been four years and I wanted ... well, one night of fun and normalcy before everything. Inari's right in a way, I could be dead by morning. But ... what can I do? Randall is my friend; I can't give up on him. I have to try. I just didn't want anyone else hurt in the process."
Akiko shakes her head and presses her cheek against Jason's shoulder. "It's just... I feel so useless," she says. "I don't have magic computer skills like you, I'm not athletic and good with illusions like Inari, I'm not in charge of a big company like Holly. And she's coming and all I can do is to cheer her on. And you. And pray that you get out okay, and Randall'll be safe, and..."
"You're wrong, you know," Jason says as his weight shifts a bit as he continues to look at the floor. "About being useless. We all have various skills, yes, but you gave us a reason to use them. Inari protected you back then, she exists because of you. We all worked together to save you. It wasn't because you were useless; it's because you inspired all of us. You endured, survived and have now succeeded. Don't underestimate what it means to be that for people. It's what kept us going even when it seemed hopeless. You're the anchor; not less than any of us - you held us together before, and after, everything. Where would any of us be without that?" He never looked up through that; maybe not having to look at someone made it easier to be honest. He even takes a small risk and slips his arm lightly around Akiko's wait and hugs her to his side quietly.
Akiko smiles a little. "Thanks, Jason." She hugs Jason back, leaning on him for a silent moment, then says at last. "If there's anything I can do..." Her eyes fall on the video screen showing the time. "Oh no! Did you make reservations? Are we late?"
"No, there's still time. I made them a little at the Zen Garden restaurant up in the spires at a later hour later since I figured you would want to talk some before we went," Jason admits, seemingly oddly reluctant to let Akiko go at the moment. "And since I also expect you to come to the airport to greet your counterpart, you're going to be out late as it turns out. So a later meal works out, right?"
Akiko relaxes, leaning up against Jason in his arms. Then realizes what she's doing, and squeaks. "Um, sorry, I didn't mean to... It just felt..." She looks up at him blushing and letting him go. "That's fine! Um. Will I be driving the getaway car then?"
"Getaway cab? I don't own a car," Jason admits as he looks a bit embarrassed himself. His thoughts return to the urn and that at least helps make things feel a little less awkward. "So, ah, about the urn, did the clone ever ... wake up? It's hard to believe there's a copy of me inside that."
"Well, if you hire a taxi, the driver will talk, so it's better to rent a car, or to buy one anonymously. More plausible deniability for everyone," Akiko points out. She switches the video screen to live mirror mode and touches up her makeup, looking a bit embarrassed. Then shivers as he switches subjects. "I don't want to know what kind of testing they did. They claimed he was just a vat clone. An object. They said he never woke up, that it was a mercy."
"I'm honestly not sure I believe that," Jason admits as he gingerly carries the urn to his suitcase and packs it inside. "But that may just be me being paranoid. Given how he was created ... I suspect that maybe he intrigued them and they wanted to keep him. And so ... faked his destruction. But then I've also been called crazy. And I guess we can rent a car at the airport."
Akiko nods, "What about the cameras? Are you going to just... Hack them somehow? I've heard they're really hardline on security, otherwise, well, you know how some people are about wanting to get up close to their stars."
The urn appears completely innocuous.
Jason has this sudden mental image of Inari in the shower. He nearly drops his briefcase! Recovering, he closes it up and secures the latches. "Do you know what models they are? I'll have to try and break them, so knowing their models will help. The simplest solution would be for them to just repeat-play some events, mixing them up so as to not be too noticeable." he suggests.
"They're, um... Amaranth Eye of the Beholder orbs, or something," Akiko recalls, voice distant as she tries to recall. "You can see them sometimes, when one camera gets a view of the other ones." She sits in front of her videoscreen and pulls up some of Inari's past public appearances. "But aren't the fans going to catch on pretty quick if they're watching?"
"Possibly. I could just have them register some sort of a fault. Technical difficulty, that sort of thing. Make it look like some super crazed fan hacked them and did it," Jason suggests. "Inari has had boyfriends, correct? One of them would probably be suspected..."
Akiko sniffs disdainfully. "If you can call those pieces of street trash 'boyfriends'. I call them 'boy-nacles'." She pulls up a picture of a camera bot and cross-references - as much as she claims to be ineffectual, she seems to be handy with search engines, at the least - and then sends the data to Jason's PDA.
"Were they just for the appearance of the show, or did she actually, er, like them?" Jason asks as he brings up the pictures of the security bots to get an idea of what model they are.
"The last one was a Zachary Barkowitz... At first she thought they were, y'know, really honestly liking her, until she caught one rehearsing his lines," Akiko says as she digs up a bio of the latest boyfriend, the one who went for an unexpected flight from an aircar. "Then she realized what people wanted. They didn't want to see real romance. They wanted drama."
"I now understand why she threw that one out of the car," Jason admits, "I would laugh, but ... I expect that actually hurt her to discover that it was all rigged."
Akiko touches Jason's hand. "Her first boyfriend... He looked a lot like you. Long brown hair. Tough on the outside, sensitive look in his eyes. Stop laughing! She ditched him when he wanted her to quit and start a family, and couldn't understand why she didn't want to have a child... Or adopt."
"I admit I was wondering what they thought of how she looked. The whole, not human, thing," Jason admits as he studiously looks through his PDA. "And I guess it sounds like that one was being serious, not a story hire."
"No, that's the thing," Akiko says, looking serious. "I looked him up... They made up his whole character. He didn't exist before he met Inari, and he dropped out of sight after they split up."
Akiko adds, "And as far as anyone's concerned, she's a human... With some serious gene mod surgery. They don't know... She doesn't know if she can ever have a child."
Jason blinks a few times. "Then that doesn't explain why he looked like me," he remarks and looks up from his PDA. "Were you able to get his real name? Or even his virtual one? As for her having a child, I don't know if that is possible, either."
"He was supposedly 'Brian Montagne', and well, she was surrounded by guys who wanted to get close to her," Akiko says. "I guess she picked the one that..." She gives Jason a significant look. "You don't even realize she liked you, do you?"
"Kimon, do a search on a Brian Montagne, please. As he relates to Inari," Jason thinks to his implant and his home-connection. He blinks, focusing back on where he is now and says, "I always new she considered me a friend. Well, after we got over trying to kill each other..."
Kimon's voice responds to Jason, confirming Akiko's story. Brian Montagne was evidently a rising young actor on a subscription-based sci-fi thriller, his first appearance in the public eye, but said thriller was cancelled after he was dropped by Inari. Present whereabouts, unknown. Educational record and past work, falsified.
"Send me the last known photos of him," Jason instructs the computer. He then pauses to rub his forehead a bit. "Did Inari running off to become a crazy star happen because of me?" he asks Akiko.
"Well, Randall was... Is the good looking one," Akiko admits, trying not to speak of Randall in the past tense as she puts the lilies into an improvised pot. "But he was so busy trying to be the captain, that he didn't want to play favorites, and risk throwing a wrench into things on the ship. And I think you must have made an impression on Inari back when, because I saw her looking your way a lot, on the Ozymandias. Studying you."
Akiko coughs. "I don't think she intended for it to be 'crazy star'... Just plain 'star'! But she wanted what you wanted for us, and what I wanted too. To be successful, on our own."
"Well, she could have been trying to decide the best way to kill me," Jason points out in reference to being studied on the ship. "And ... well, even if it turned out to be crazy star, at least both of you did become successful on your own. I'm sorry that it came at the coust of the closeness you two had, though."
"Oh, she considered that from time to time," Akiko says with a laugh as Jason mentions killing. Then sighs. "I'm jealous of how much Inari has done, really. I'm going to be in her shadow again when she gets here. But she's right, if Randall did get kidnapped by a group like you said, you're going to need all the help you can get. And she's built a career on being dangerous... Or looking dangerous."
Kimon attaches a photo of Brian Montagne. The man does look like Jason. He doesn't have any of the more recent scars though, those acquired in the Avatars LLC adventure, and he seems a bit more handsome, tanned and polished in clothes. Suave. Sharp, like a knife.
"You will not be in her shadow," Jason insists and shakes his head. He goes to grab his coat by the front door now while instructing, "Kimon, do a wire frame comparison between his facial structure and build to mine. I have an long shot suspicion." "And just like how you're the one going to dinner tonight, not her," he adds out loud.
"I wish I were going on the rescue too, but... I can't picture me being other than in the way," Akiko says. She kisses Jason's cheek.
"Besides, you'll just have to see me get shot if you did," Jason admits as he opens the door for Akiko. Of course it's only afterward the kiss registers and his legs wobble.
Kimon chimes. "Working... 96% match," it assesses. "Slight differences found." A graphic of the differences appear - facial structure, mainly. Someone looking at Brian Montagne and Jason side by side would suspect they were brothers, or even identical twins. Or maybe an illustration of the story about the prince who swaps places with a peasant who looks like him...
If anything, the difference map suggests to Jason minor cosmetic surgery... Stubbled chin a bit more defined, thinner face, things he'd have done if he wanted to look more like a movie star.
"Okay, that's worrying," Jason remarks as he fetches RIU and lets him crawl back into his jacket, then grabs his suitcase and closes the door behind himself and Akiko. In a rare act of politeness, he even offers his arm to Akiko should she wish to take it, now holding his suitcase in his right hand. "I just had my home system run a comparison check between myself and Inari's first ... it's a 96% match. Remember when I said I think my 'clone' lived?"
Akiko takes Jason's arm as if it were completely natural. "But if he's alive... Whose ashes are those in my urn?"
RIU snuggles back around Jason's waist again.
"That is a good question. I have no idea ... and I'll have to track down where they came from. Looks like the company that claimed to incinerate him needs a little virtual visiting, if you catch my drift," Jason notes as the pair heads down the hallway together. "This does make me glad of one thing ... he was different enough hat no one has ever come up to me and asked me if I was Inari's former boyfriend."
Akiko wrinkles her nose. "When was the last time you went out and gave anyone the opportunity to ask?" she points out.
"Oh sure, burst my fantasy like that," Jason mock-complains. He even sticks out his tongue at Akiko afterward. "Four years of heads-down work on a project hasn't exactly made me social, no."
Akiko giggles. "You weren't social before... The perfect target for a murder, Inari said, because no one would notice you were gone for at least a year. You were always head down in the engine room."
Jason actually laughs at that. "So you really meant it when you said she was planning to kill me," he remarks, shaking his head. "I always had RIU watching my back, though. He could take down anyone!"
Akiko says defending Inari, "In fairness, she and I had just come from a world where we had to plot all the time! I think by then it was just a reflex... She wasn't really going to kill you." She wrinkles her nose. "Scare you a bit, maybe! Kitsunes love their jokes, you know."
RIU peeps from inside Jason's jacket.
"Scaring me could have been done by threatening to kiss me," Jason points out, "I've seen her teeth." He then nods, remembering something. "One more thing you should know," he adds, "The outfit that hired the thugs to grab Randall was Irongrip. So ... stay away from them."
Akiko nods. "Ms. Arcadia calls them 'jumped up thugs in jackboots'. They came by trying to sell us on their services... She wasn't impressed."
The Zen Garden turns out to be a restaurant set in a large greenery area, with a lake beneath a painted background of sunset sky -- no, wait, the clouds are moving, so it must be a virtual sky. It looks like an old style Japanese teahouse on the outside. The kimono-garbed waitress ushers them into a waiting room, and a minute later, from there into their own private sitting room with pillows around a low table. The paper screen walls do a suspiciously good job of shielding them from the noise of the restaurant's main area.
Miguel winks as he bids Jason a goodbye. "You have a good evening with the lovely senorita now, you hear?" The taxi floats away.
Akiko blushes.
"Cab drivers are really strange," Jason claims as he tries to defuse the Cabby's comment and peers at the holograms. He hears his bank account whine, but ... even the condemned deserve a good last meal. "I also wonder if it was Brian that made sure I never got any messages from you. Making sure I was 'out of the picture'. Hm."
"So the nefarious Mr. X has a name now?" Akiko asks. The holographic sun and lake outside look amazingly real, down to the smells of water and the trees. A koi curves through the waters.
"My possible clone; Brian," Jason answers. "It's creepy to think there is another me running around out there. One that has been cuddly with a very dangerous superstar. What if he was better than me at everything? I now have something to live up to. That's just ... horrible!"
Akiko curls up on the pillows, looking pretty as she takes in the ambiance... Though hers is more that of a delicate flower than Inari's katana-like sleek beauty. The waitress bows as she enters, then sets down green tea and their first course, fried gyoza each served individually on its own platter with a green onion curled around it like a tail, two dots of dipping sauce on the side like punctuation.
"Maybe he's got something to prove," Akiko says.
Jason and Akiko each have three gyozas... While they appear identical at first, they turn out to contain different things: the leftmost one contains a mix of scrambled eggs and some kind of fancy ham, the middle one has a slice of lap cheong sausage in a bed of minced pork and cabbage, and the right one has a filling of caramelized sugar and chopped peanuts.
"That he's his own person and not just a copy?" Jason asks as he settles himself down on a pillow in not nearly as graceful a fashion as Akiko did. "I hope that he's not involved in the current things, then. I can ... forgive past actions but I don't really want to have to fight myself at some point," he admits. All his years of eating Chinese takeout has at least earned him some moderate level of skill with chopsticks, so he actually uses them to pick up one of the gyoza and actually offers to feed it to Akiko.
It looks precarious, like it might fall any minute... But Akiko looks first surprised, then leans up, mouth open, and as Jason releases it, she snaps it up and then blinks as she realizes it's the sweet one. "Mm! This is different. But good," she says.
Being less confident about her ability to handle chopsticks quite as deftly, Akiko offers Jason one in return, holding the tiny plate out. "But no... I mean, maybe he wants to prove he's better than you."
"I'm well known for being different," Jason claims and decides to not tempt fate again with such an experiment and instead just takes one from the offered plate. So, now he tries his own and chews thoughtfully. "Maybe," he agrees after he swallows, "It doesn't take much to be better than me. He's already been a star for a short time. That's more than I've done. Well, outside of helping save the world back then ... but I never really claimed any credit for that."
Akiko shakes her head. "Well, what can you to top saving the world? I don't know... But if this Brian wasn't just someone Voya hired, if he really is your clone, he won't just have been idle all this time, will he?"
"Might be part of the Face Reality group, the one Sasha is helping," Jason offers, then shrugs a bit. "As for what you could do, is destroy the world. I guess one advantage I have over him is, well, he was a clone of me at an earlier age. Less experience."
Akiko blinks. "But... Why would you want to destroy the world? Who are you going to brag to afterward?" Blush. "Oh, not you you. The other you."
"Right. Undo whatever the other did. Maybe that's also why he went after Inari," Jason suggests before taking a sip from his tea. "The irony there being ... he got closer to her than I ever did."
The waitress comes in to take away the plates and bring in more bite-sized dishes. Miniature noodles with Kobe beef and asparagus, with really thin noodles and micro asparagus; tempura vegetables, again with tiny versions of the vegetables, so one could eat an entire head of cauliflower in a single bite, and what looks at first like a normal-sized pork tonkatsu on a bed of rice... Except that on cutting it, it's actually thin layers of pork with layers of some other sauce.
Akiko shakes her head. "If he had been more patient, he might have won Inari's heart too," she says sadly. "She was really torn by her decision. She loved him, but she couldn't give up her career too. She didn't want to be just his wife."
"We used to do a lot of bathroom talking, back when," Akiko admits.
"This place is ... it puts my sandwiches to shame," Jason admits as he explores his food as much as he does eat it. "I'm also not one who can really give any sort of advice on wooing anyone," he admits, "It just always seemed to me is that if you cared for someone you never forced them to do anything. Let them shine and do not stand in their way; if they come back to you, then it was meant to be. If they don't ... it wasn't. It sounds good, but I have no idea if it really works or not."
"That's a good approach," Akiko says smiling. She looks over at Jason beneath long hair - how she gets it to stay out of her face like that instead of feathering into a million strands, he can't be sure, but suspects a very good hair stylist. "But sometimes you have to let them know... You're interested. Or they think you don't call them because you aren't."
"Easier said than done," Jason admits. "Everything sounds so .. fake when I rehearse it in my mind. And when I consider I don't exactly have much to offer it's..." He shrugs slightly and takes another sip from his tea. "Easier to just bury in a project with intentions of calling when you can think of the right thing to say, then weeks and months pass. Honestly, anyone can do better than me. I'm a borderline criminal given the things I deal with and work in. Dig in my past enough you'll find out I was a criminal once. How could someone as beautiful as you or Inari ever really want that?"
The waitress brings in more courses: individual palm-sized okonomiyakis, egg-flour pancakes with a topping of shredded duck covered in some savory sauce, whole baby fish wrapped with rice sushi-fashion, drizzled in vinegar, and takoyaki, or baby octopus battered and fried whole. This last one gives Akiko pause as she recalls... tentacles past.
"Raw, hm," Jason remarks as he stares at the alien-looking food before them. Still, he can't look like a wimp in front of someone ... he actually tries bits of each of the rolls and even the fried octopus. Better than you eat them, than they eat you, he figures.
"I'm not beautiful!" Akiko says. "Not like Inari! I guess... If anything, Ms. Arcadia taught me how to dress up well, that's all. And we spent years being criminals in our own ways, too. Supervillains! But not a single one of our plots ever succeeded..." She pauses, then looks curious. "What kind of criminal were you? I mean, you know all about what we did, but I never heard what you did."
Akiko nibbles on the okonomiyaki, using her chopsticks to roll it up and then nibbling it like a canape. "This is ruining me for Top Soymen," she says.
"Please. You're both beautiful. You reflect each other, elegance and danger. You're grace and flow, she's fire and fear," Jason remarks and waves his chopsticks. "As for what I did. Plenty of things I never got caught for, some things I did. Corporate spying for a time, stealing secrets from one corporation for another and getting paid for it. Broke into a few military systems way back, before they started putting up Quantum ICE systems. Never really did anything bad with that, more pranks. Like when I replaced the orders of two hundred pair of BVD underwear for the marines with an order for two hundred bright pink bikinis. I do wish I could have seen the Quartermaster's face with that one. Finally got caught over some invasive attacks on Dantech way back; it's how I ended up in the Hospital. You know what happened there. Afterward I was put on trial and I had to plead. Either I would have spent the rest of my life in jail, or I could do some 'black ops' for the Government and they
would delete my files and leave me be. I helped deal with some cyber warfare against a few minor despots and when it was deemed 'paid in full' they erased my files as agreed. Afterward I opened my own security company. After seeing what the Government gets up to, I figured everyone might benefit from understanding what risk they were at."
Akiko blushes at Jason's compliment, and then looks surprised, even impressed. "A real desperado! But if Brian is a copy of you from the hospital... Would he remember any of that?" She pauses. "Or if it was a government program that did that to you, maybe he wound up in their hands. Doing black ops for them."
"Depends on if memories were copied," Jason notes, "Which of that I have no idea. As for if he ended up ... again, no idea. I stayed far away from all of that. I don't exactly want to be in those claws again. I went legitimate. Well, mostly. I still end up in trouble because I try to help people. Tracy has helped get me into a mess with the same group that grabbed Randall. The only good thing from that was it gave me a hook to lead them into a trap."
More courses. Eight-grain rice with a variety of toppings which the waitress claims are shark derived, supposedly a horrifically bad meat - but which has been cooked with apricots to completely change its flavor and odor. Slivers of raw Kobe beef, marinaded in something sweet. And for the dessert, a fried banana... except this is no ordinary fried banana; it's been sculpted somehow into the appearance of a golden-hulled ship, with sugar wafer sails, on a "sea" of ice cream. Akiko's eyes get huge at this last. "Omigod I can't eat that... It's so pretty!"
Akiko inquires about Jason's plans for the trap as well, but all the food is blunting her curiousity a bit, which is probably good for Jason's sanity.
"Wow, now that is showing off," Jason has to admit at the carved banana-ship. "And if you don't eat it, the ice cream will melt ... and you might offend the chef. Do you really want someone who can carve that well mad at you?" As for the plans, he's vague about it; and definitely leaves the part out about he might be shot during it as part of a mis-direction. "Do you think Inari would be mad if only you picked her up?" he asks, "I never said where the ambush will be and ..."
Akiko gives Jason the spoon. "Here! Take the first bite, then I won't feel so bad about digging in," she says, smiling. "And if you try to leave Inari out of it, I think she'd follow through on some of those plans to kill you."
Jason has no qualms about digging into the banana and ice cream and eating a large bite. "You said you and her used to talk," he notes and offers back the spoon, "I probably shouldn't ask ... but was any of it about me?"
Akiko pauses, then smiles impishly at Jason. "Which of us you were going to call first. But does leaving mysterious comments on her site count as a call?" She takes a bite of banana, crispy batter, and ice cream.
"Was she mad I never did?" Jason asks, "And I'm not sure if a comment counts."
Akiko shakes her head, "It got hard to tell. One day you're waiting for the call... The next day you realize he's not going to call. And then you figure out what you're going to do after that, because you're going to be doing it by yourself. That was when we stopped talking so much, because we were trying to fill in our lives."
"I'm sorry," Jason says as his attention shifts back to the slowly being devoured dessert. "I wanted to call, but I wanted you two to get your lives in order, then it just became easier to not as time went on. Always was a reason, well excuse. You're happy, you don't need reminders, and on, and on."
She looks at the dimming sky. Even though it's only a hologram, perhaps it's meant as a subconscious reminder that the meal is drawing to a close. The waitress, of course, does nothing so gauche as bringing in a bill. Jason will be getting that as an email. Instead, she inquires gently if there's anything else the gentleman and the lady would like.
"And of course, Mr. X... Brian... had a little something to do with it," Akiko admits, smiling at Jason. "But we're having a date. I think I win that race!"
"I'm fine, but if there is anything at all she wants, please get it for her," Jason tells the waitress. There's a pause as he ponders for a moment about the upcoming evening, airport included. "On second thought, bring me a small hot sake. I may need the fortification later."
"Even without his involvement," Jason then adds, "I should have called you and Inari. I was just afraid to, I guess."
The waitress smiles. "Of course, sir." She bows deeply and backs away. Before long she brings a heated bottle of sake and a shallow dish for Jason, a small cup of a different kind of tea for Akiko. This one smells strongly of jasmine.
Akiko shakes her head. "I can promise I don't bite," she teases Jason. "But Inari might!"
Jason carefully pours out a bit of the sake into the masu. He lifts it, sniffs, then has to comment, "I do hope I can find my feet after this." A wry grin and a long drink later, he sets the wooden dish back down. "And thank you for bringing up memories of those dreams," he complains at Akiko. "I think I had a month of dreams of being hunted by her in the remains of our old ship. I always lost, then woke up right before her teeth ..." He pours another cup!