The Leningrad Variation
"Mercy, Mercy!"
Mercy came in through the mahogany doors, shoes skidding on the carpet. Eugene's hand closed around her wrist. He dragged her to the window and pointed at a park on the outskirts of the city, just barely visible from this distance. Two enormous moths had alighted on an adjacent radio tower; they were so large that, at certain angles, they obscured the park entirely from view. If Mercy really focused, she could just barely make out people scattering in panic as the moths cavorted. Perhaps they were mating.
"Did you know they were native to Japan, Mercy?" Eugene's eyes were alight with childish glee. Snatching up a camera from his desk, he snapped a couple of photographs. "Such beautiful creatures. Beautiful. Really." Without looking away, he swiped a finger across the adjacent window-pane and switched on the television. As he'd been expecting, the local TV station was reporting on the moths. Mercy sighed and turned away.
There was a small, ornate glass jar on Eugene's cluttered desk. If Mercy leaned in, she could see a tiny insect at the bottom. It looked dead, but it wasn't. Just dormant. Waiting.
Tor Maju had seen better days.
A jet-black hoof plunged into a puddle and emerged none the worse for wear. The owner of the hoof clomped forward, heedless. A trail of minuscule black particles trailed in its wake, spiraling into the dank air of the subterranean bazaar. There were dozens more of these horses, each one cool and dry to the touch in an obvious contrast to the warm, wet, almost tropical environment. Behind them walked Nightmare.
Garbage and other, less easily identifiable things lay scattered across the damp, slimy ground, but Nightmare paid them no heed as he made his way through the disheveled streets. Above his head, the ceiling yawned like a great gaping mouth, the teeming hordes of "normal" Japan going about their lives in blissful ignorance. Tor Maju had been built at the beginning of the Anarchy by a gang of mutants: the lost, the unwanted, the abandoned. Even today, it was a mecca to the underground dwellers of Tokyo, Nagoya and elsewhere. And no wonder. It was hard not to feel a little pride, a little awe, at what they had built, which stood even today. Despite what it had been twisted into. Despite what it had condoned.
His entourage came to a halt before a sprawling hodgepodge of concrete blocks. This complex - such as it was - had been built around one of the pillars that held up the ceiling. Tor Maju had no less than sixteen different pillars, most of which were redundant. (Only four had been built during the early Anarchy.) And yet, if any of those pillars were to collapse, it would have many unfortunate implications for Tor Maju. Not just as a settlement, but as a place to live, period.
This part of town belonged to the mutants. Nightmare left his horses at the entrance and ascended, his entourage in tow. He had a dozen Marshall clones and perhaps eight or so proper villains. The corridors were cramped and there was a prominent bloodstain still splattered across one of the landings. This complex had been the site of some of the heaviest fighting during the most recent anarchy ("anarchy", not "Anarchy"). Unfriendly, suspicious eyes peeked out at them from cramped, one-room flats. A pregnant woman with antennae growing out of her forehead; a faceless thug in a wifebeater, cracking his bruised knuckles; a mouse-faced man with eyebags and sores, twitching with withdrawal. This was their sanctuary.
"Nightmare," croaked King Frog. "Be welcome."
Nightmare inclined his head. "You're looking well."
He was. King Frog had once been known as Frogspawn; sold to the gangs by his disgusted parents as an infant, he had become a man in the fighting-rings. The Maidcorps raid had kicked off a full-scale mutant revolution in the retrograde cesspit of Tor Maju. Frogspawn had been a major beneficiary; after a few weeks of bloody internecine slaughter, he had emerged as the undisputed leader of no less than a quarter of Tor Maju's floor-space.
"You're here because you want something," King Frog croaked. His large, swollen eyes swiveled in their sockets. "Out with it."
Nightmare inclined his head. Not one to waste words, was King Frog. "I want to support you in your bid to unite Tor Maju."
King Frog croaked loudly. This was his version of a laugh. "What, in the name of solidarity? Cut the shit. We may both be mutants, but you passed by my cell dozens of times and never lifted a finger to help."
Instead of replying, Nightmare stepped aside. A Marshall clone stepped forward and dumped a crate on the floor. As it landed, the shock dislodged the lid. The light from the dim, unreliable fluorescent tubes above shone down, reflecting off the gunmetal within. Assault rifles, stacked on top of one another. King Frog frowned, then rose to his feet to inspect the merchandise.
"Two hundred," Nightmare said. "Five hundred rounds per. I'm sure you can find a use for them."
"And in return?"
"I'm expanding into Nara," Nightmare said. "Encircling Kyoto. I want information and contacts."
"You already have them." King Frog eyed him balefully. "You just want more."
Nightmare remained impassive. "There's more rifles where that came from. But only if you're specific."
King Frog croaked loudly and rapped his knuckles on the desk at his elbow. "I'm sure I can dig up Deccan from somewhere."
"What are you doing?"
Eugene turned. Grinned. "Nightmare! Oh, I'm just experimenting."
Nightmare came to the one-way mirror, lips tightening. "What are you doing?" he repeated. A woman was spreadeagled on the operating table, her chest a bloody ruin. Doctors flitted this way and that, surgical implements clutched in their hands.
"This is an old flame of mine," Eugene explained. He paused. Chuckled to himself. "Well, an old flame of one of my old friends. He called in a favor, so I shipped her across the Pacific. Two birds, one stone." He mimed tossing a ball in the air. "Fuck with her quirk, fuck with Kyoto. Win-win. Get it? Old flame?"
Nightmare leaned closer. The doctors were sweating underneath their scrubs. "It's winter."
"Exactly." Eugene clapped him on the back. "I'm sure the residents of Kyoto would greatly appreciate having a spot of summer in the midst of all this…" He waved a hand. "… freezing cold. And besides. If it gets too warm, I'll just have Three-Sixty and his goons bring her in." He smirked. "I live here too, you know." Pause. "And how's your liaison with King Frog going?"
"He found Deccan." Nightmare passed him a sheaf of paper, loose-leaf, covered in scribbles. "I had him write out all of his jobs. He usually keeps them locked up tight in his head. But I insisted. Just this once."
Eugene hummed as he flicked through the document. "Yes. I see. Very nice." Pause. "Two Shiketsu freshmen."
"They've been making waves," Nightmare said blandly.
"The children are our future," Eugene agreed lightly. "Lend this Owari boy a hand, why don't you? Two birds, one stone." His eyes glittered. "Him and his lady love."
Nightmare inclined his head. "I'll cancel the bounty."
Eugene flapped his hand. "And the folks who put out the hit. Ours?"
"Kyoto. Not ours."
"They can come to Osaka if they have a problem."
They spoke for a while more before Nightmare left. And then it was only Eugene, standing in the silent room, hands clasped behind his back as he watched the doctors go about their work. The glass was starting to fog up. The air inside was shimmering. One of the doctors turned, eyes wide. Muffled: Please let us out. He couldn't see Eugene, because there was a one-way mirror separating them. As far as they were aware, they were alone. The door was locked. No one was coming to help them. Eugene had shut them in there with one objective and one subject. And they had performed admirably, to be sure, to be sure. But they could always do better. That, Eugene had found, was the thing with people working under pressure. Miracles were possible if you were desperate enough.
He looked down at the papers again. Sandatsu Owari: in custody at the Public Safety Commission. Temporary custody. Eugene felt a strange kinship with the boy. Oh, he'd never come face-to-face with him, not now, not ever, but all the same. The odds were stacked against young Owari; hundreds of armed guards, a concrete bunker, a mother fully willing to use their relationship against him. And yet he was going to triumph. Eugene was no clairvoyant, but he'd stake his entire fortune on it. (Well, a few hundred million, at least.)
He headed out into the hallway. Out here, it was cool, not stuffy. The ceiling was high again. Mercy looked askance at him, head tilted to the left. "Keep an eye on them for me, Mercy. Apply some motivation if they complain."
Back to his office and its wonderful, holographic windows. Odaira-san's failure had been disappointing, but young Kazuo had managed to free himself, and had even fallen in with the Night Parade. Lucky boy. Eugene smiled faintly. He hadn't yet been able to deal with Midas properly, but he could wait. He could wait. So many targets, so little time. The Dai-Ichi clan had the potential to develop into a real problem, but there were ways to peel them apart. Family firms were fragile in their own way. And then there was Nightmare's lady love. Oh, he thought he was being sneaky. And he had been. Sneaky, that is. But Eugene had found out. He would always find out in the end.
A chart depicting a classroom appeared before him, followed by an overlay of a nuclear bomb going off. The twenty-four faces in the classroom grew dim and colorless, fading to grayscale. Epicenter: Sandatsu Owari. Caught in the blast: Inigo "Myoga", Kaylee Suzuki, Kyoda Hiro… Bobby Samson.
Eugene's eyes narrowed.
Fun tournament. Interesting. Minerva Kim. He swiped blindly across the window, dispelling the graphic, and pulled up her social media profile. Stroked his chin, then leaned forward. Ran his tongue over the glass.
Mm. Salty.
Notes:
- Inigo stole Mauler and Broad Daylight from me, but I can forgive that. In my head, they got recaptured because the Osaka prison riot was too flashy. Kyoto's police department isn't entirely useless.
- If Sandatsu ever ends up in a sticky situation, the Pax Organization can toss him a bone.
- The Pax Organization is putting pressure on the Dai-Ichi clan and the Night Parade. Snapping up smaller players in the Kyoto underground. They aren't known as the Pax Organization, though. It has a complicated structure. Lots of proxies, lots of intertwined organizations working towards the same (unspecified) goal.
- IT WAS ME,
BARRYBOBBY! Pax has an unexplained grudge against Bobby (though you can probably figure it out by reading my past writefags) and is responsible for his family's fall from grace following Sun Man's death.