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  "Please excuse me," the sergeant blurts. He glances at the corpse of the assassin. "An incident was reported—"

  "Yes," Machiko says, forestalling further remarks that are not necessary. "Nagato security is responding to this location. These are my parents, both Nagato executives. See to their welfare. Secure the house and property and await further instructions."

  The sergeant casts another look at the dead assassin. "This person lying here—"

  "Is not your responsibility."

  "Please excuse my ignorance." The sergeant bows abruptly, then turns and curtly orders two other security officers to search and secure the grounds. He directs a pair of medics to attend Machiko's parents.

  Machiko turns to the green lacquered chest containing her wardrobe.

  She must dress.

  3

  For the warrior there can be no distinction between battlefield and bedroom. The sword must always be sharp, the arm prepared to wield it, the spirit ready. There is therefore only one uniform for the Green Serpent Guard, used for ceremony as well as combat.

  Machiko dons cushioned underwear to guard her breasts, her groin, elbows, and knees, and tabi for her feet. Over this, a lightweight reinforced silk gi. She straps an Ares monofilament dagger to her left calf and a compact Walter PB-120 holdout pistol to her right. She fixes armored vambraces to her forearms and armored guards about her shins. The vambraces mount snapblades, shuriken in the form of both stars and spikes, and, on the left, a rugged portable commlink.

  Over all this she pulls the montsuki, a large-sleeved top, and the hakama, broad-legged pants, and the kamishimo, or over-sest of the Guard. These garments are green with blood-red trim and insulated with ballistic armor. They bear the mon of Nagato Corp and, over disks of black, the twining green serpent logo of the Guard.

  At the left of her waist, she holsters a Beretta 200ST automatic with spare clips of ammunition. At the right, nunchaku. Over her belly, a tanto furnished to match her sword, and, at her back, she slings the katana.

  From the depths of her wardrobe chest she draws an SCK M-100 submachine gun. This she slings under her right shoulder.

  The guns are of course fully loaded and ready to fire. They are, like the katana, like the other weapons, furnished in the brilliant jade-green of the Guard.

  Machiko turns from her wardrobe to find her parents being attended by the medics. Her father lies on the floor on his back with an oxygen mask covering his nose and mouth. The look on his face is reassuringly familiar, a look of annoyed self-restraint, stubbornly resolute. It is on account of what he refers to as the "vile traitor" in his chest. One day soon he will have no choice but to agree to replace it with a cardiac prosthesis. Until then, he tolerates the occasional pain. He will not give himself to the surgeon's blade until he is left with no choice, and so he must tolerate the occasional pain.

  Mother kneels beside him holding his hand. She seems well, fragile but in control. The bodyguard stands nearby. The medics appear competent and focused on their work, monitoring her father's condition, communicating via portable telecom with a doctor at the local hospital.

  Machiko feels content to leave. Duty demands that she leave, leave at once, but now even her flawed heart is content.

  She catches her mother's eye. They exchange brief bows. Her father lifts a hand in acknowledgment. Machiko bows in reply, then turns and moves determinedly to the front of the house.

  She is barely through the entryway to the garden surrounding the front walk when she encounters a man in the dark gray blazer of a Nagato Security Service supervisor. She points this man to the room where the assassin lies, then steps toward the driveway and car. Her commlink begins beeping.

  She opens the cover on her left vambrace and glances at the small screen there. The face she sees is that of Gongoro, another senior GSG, tonight responsible for security at the Chairman's estate. His face, like hers, is a kabuki-style mask as white as chalk, eyes like black pools, his mouth a burning scarlet wound. He does not talk so much as growl.

  "Sukayo, Mitsuharu, and Jiksumi have all been attacked. They are disabled, if not dead."

  Machiko feels her pulse accelerate despite her effort to keep her spirit settled. These three whom Gongoro names are the three most senior of the Guard. That any one of them should be attacked and possibly killed is astonishing. That all three should be disabled in the same hour of the same night seems so far beyond comprehension as to require the intervention of gods. Sukayo-san studied the Way under sensei Kuroda himself. He is as close to becoming the perfect weapon as any mere meta might ever become.

  "You are the senior acting member," Gongoro growls.

  "What of Ryokai?"

  Gongoro's growling rises into a snarl. "Ryokai is junior to both you and I! If you do not feel competent to assume command, say so now!"

  So this is the point of his call. Machiko scolds herself for failing to grasp the fact sooner. Of course the chain of command must be made clear. Gongoro is right to snarl. And naturally he would be among the first to demand that the issue be settled. "If I am the acting senior, then command will be mine."

  "You are the acting senior!"

  "Then I command."

  "What are your orders?"

  "Dispatch details to stand watch over Sukayo and the others. Remain on alert."

  "What enemy are we expecting?"

  "That is for security to determine."

  Gongoro breaks the link. He has never been a man to waste two words when none will suffice. He cultivates martial valor by means of the deliberate attitude that he is inferior to no one and thus can never be defeated in combat. A worthy concept in a warrior. Fanaticism in all its forms may be extremely valuable. But Gongoro goes too far. He is like the man in the ancient parable, forever swinging a naked blade. Such men earn few allies. They may influence others by the fear they inspire, but not by respect.

  Machiko moves to her car, a Toyota Tachi Monarch. The gleaming body is tinted the green of the Guard and bears at front and rear the twining serpents of the GSG insignia. It starts with a throaty rumble. A key on the driver's console ignites the blue and amber emergency strobes that rise like louvers out of the front and back hoods.

  She is a registered security agent of the Nagato Corporation and is now engaged in urgent corporate business. That is meaningless in regard to New York law. However, in regard to the corps responsible for enforcing the law, it is not without significance.

  Machiko steers the Tachi Monarch down the curving driveway to the street, past a phalanx of arriving emergency vehicles, and on through the winding lanes of the Nagato Manor Residence Community. She exerts herself to keep her speed below 90 KPH, to keep her spirit settled, her mind balanced and calm. She keys Ryokai's commlink code into the car's console telecom. He answers in two moments.

  Her first glimpse of the man gives her concern. Ryokai appears to also be in a car, driving. He appears to be in some pain. The familiar white mask of his face is set into a grim mold. A black strip of some fabric rings the top of his head. The sable hair above it appears wet and matted. The rear of his left cheek is veined in red.

  "You are injured?" Machiko asks.

  "Head wounds," he says with a grimace. Yes, head wounds bleed profusely. What is his point? That his wounds look worse than they are? "It's minor." He curses. "Machiko-san, what's happening? Gongoro told me about Sukayo-san and the others. Were you attacked, too? Are you hurt?"

  "Not touched."

  Ryokai nods. Machiko glimpses this as she pulls the Tachi Monarch through a curve, tires shrieking. Ryokai's gesture is revealing. Under normal circumstances, Ryokai would express relief to hear that anyone had escaped injury. He must be feeling his wounds, minor though they might be.

  "I'm thinking that the Triads are behind this," Ryokai says. "The one who attacked me may have been Chinese. He wore a kill button. It split his skull wide open and ruined his face, but I thought his complexion, and the things he grunted as I took him—"

 
"He spoke?"

  "The inflections seemed Chinese. I'm not sure what he said, but it sounded like Chinese."

  Ryokai has many strengths. His skill at languages is not one of them. Machiko herself knows barely enough to make herself understood in Mandarin, and that is just one of a seemingly endless number of Chinese dialects she has encountered around the New York-New Jersey megaplex. "There are many Triad groups in the plex."

  "Yes, but how many would risk a war with Nagato Combine?"

  "Very few."

  "Perhaps we should speak of this to the Chairman, Machiko-san."

  Machiko shakes her head. She skids the Tachi Monarch sideways through an intersection, turning in front of oncoming traffic. Horns blare, tires scream. The Tachi Monarch immediately seizes the road, straightens, and accelerates. Machiko rides onto an entrance ramp of the Long Island

  Expressway. "Our first duty is to defend the Chairman. Let security examine the bodies of the dead. Then we will see."

  Eight lanes open wide before her, leading across the Nassau boundary to Suffolk County and the eastern districts of Long Island. She veers to the far left lane and presses the accelerator to the floor. A cruiser marked for the Lone Star corporate police briefly falls in behind her, perhaps to provide an escort, but cannot match the Tachi Monarch's pace. She has no need of an escort, regardless. When traffic fails to yield to the Tachi Monarch's flashing strobes, she slaloms onto the center median and continues on with unchallenged resolve.

  "I'm arriving," Ryokai says.

  "Two minutes."

  The commlink ends. Another kilometer and Machiko steers the Tachi Monarch down a ramp to a local highway surrounded by an ocean of trees and all but barren of traffic. Another minute brings her to the gates of the Chairman's enclave, a sprawling expanse of hills and woods used not only for the Chairman's personal residence, but as a park and recreation facility for Nagato executives and their families, and as a secure retreat for high-level meetings.

  The gateway is divided into entrance and exit lanes by an armored booth with gun ports and weapons pods. Tonight, ports and pods are open. Armored security vans occupy both the entrance and exit lanes. Troopers of the Nagato Security Defense Force bearing automatic weapons and wearing full body armor flank the vans. Troopers and vans wait behind blast shields risen out of the roadway. The blast shields bear the mon of Nagato Corp and the simple directive: STOP!

  Machiko dims her driving lights and slows and steers for the exit lane. A squad of troopers swarm around the sides of the Tachi Monarch. Machiko lowers her window. She must prove her identity via voice-rec and retina scan. The instant this is complete, a trooper orders the blast shield lowered, the exit lane cleared.

  "Proceed!"

  Machiko keys Drive. The console telecom bleeps. Machiko nearly forgets she is driving when she sees the face that appears on the small display screen.

  "Honjowara-sama." Reflexively, Machiko bows. The gesture here is little more than a nod of the head, but she gives it great reverence.

  The Chairman gazes at her sternly. The weight of his responsibilities shows clearly in the deep-etched lines of his face. The force of will that brought together the three main clans comprising the Nagato Combine burns fiercely in his eyes. "Machiko-san," he says in a tone both grim and momentous. "I now have the preliminary report of the Nagato Security Directorate. You must know that Mitsuharu-san and Jiksumi-san did not survive these despicable attacks. Sukayo-san's condition is very grave. For the immediate future, you, Machiko-san, must be prepared to act as senior member of the Guard."

  "Yes, Honjowara-sama." Machiko swallows. Breathes. Nearly puts the Tachi Monarch into the trees standing just beyond the exit lane of the SDF checkpoint. "I am prepared." Again, the Chairman watches her. This, the man who rose to control of the Honjowara-gumi by the age of eighteen, who founded Nagato Corporation and extended its holdings throughout North America, into Asia, Europe, the Middle East, who alone condemned anti-metahuman sentiment and brought his New Way to the clans. This man pauses to watch her, evaluating her reaction, perhaps seeing so deeply that he scrutinizes her spirit. Then he says, "Machiko-san. I know that Sukayo-san would give the Guard willingly into your hands. Do not doubt your ability. You are ready."

  "Yes, Honjowara-sama. Thank you."

  The telecom link ends. Machiko feels her pulse racing, her back and hips are drenched in sweat.

  Command of the Guard.

  Till this moment, it had not seemed real.

  By Buddha's mercy ... let her be ready.

  4

  The broad lane leading to the Chairman's estate is lined by the private vehicles of GSG, Nagato security cars, and armored shock vans. The lane ends at a cul-de-sac. A wall of reinforced stone rims the broad circle, rising high to embrace the gateway at the rear of the cul-de-sac. An MVN-17 armored personnel carrier with turret-mounted hard points sits squarely before the gates. More troopers in body armor wait beside the carrier. Lights atop the walls fill the circle with daylight; gun ports in the walls stand open. Armored drones and Yellowjacket light-attack helos buzz and thump, sweeping by overhead.

  The manicured parklands flanking the approach lane are full of troopers, some accompanied by paranatural hounds.

  Machiko slows the Tachi Monarch to a quick halt just short of the cul-de-sac, pulls the car onto the grass beside the lane, and parks. The sight of the vehicles, the armed and armored personnel, gives her pause. She has played a part in many alerts, both for real and for purposes of training. This time is different. This time the responsibility is uniquely her own. She is the one who declared the alert. Was she right to do that? Would Sukayo-san have initiated Rapier Wind? the highest level of alert? The enormity of the forces she has called into action brings her a twinge of anxious uncertainty.

  But she remembers one essential fact. That was no gutterpunk who attacked her. An assassin so lavishly augmented as the one who attacked her would not come cheaply. And no unprincipled "samurai" of the streets murdered two GSG and brought a third, the most senior, Sukayo-san, near to death. Assassins so highly skilled and so fortunate as to succeed where others have failed could only be purchased by those with serious resources, dire motivations, objectives that must be identified and plans that must be neutralized.

  No . . . she must dispense with uncertainty. There is a threat in the events of this night. A threat that must be answered. A threat that goes beyond the attempted assassinations of the senior five members of the Guard.

  A threat against the Chairman, perhaps all Nagato holdings. And therefore against all that she values, all that has ever had meaning, and all that she serves.

  What must she do? Is Rapier Wind enough? Or does duty demand she go further? Machiko is unsure. The express purpose of the Guard is to defend the Chairman from harm. However, she is well aware that the Chairman has occasionally called upon various GSG, herself included, to perform special tasks, to act as his personal agent in certain special matters. But will he allow her to take on a task of her own choosing? A mission to lay bare this new threat to Nagato Combine? To see it defeated, by force if necessary?

  This she does not know.

  Her spirit yearns to seek out this new enemy and send her steel slashing viciously, mercilessly, through any who would threaten the Chairman, but she calms herself, settles herself.

  She breathes.

  Tonight, her duty is clear.

  5

  "Another GSG, sir."

  Major Hakatoro Saru of the Nagato Corporation Security Defense Force nods once to his executive officer and waits, arms folded and set, feet planted upon the hard black pavement of the cul-de-sac. He has seen the dark green-tinted Tachi Monarch gliding smoothly up the approach lane to the verge of the cul-de-sac. He is familiar with the expensive and flashy vehicles favored by the elves of Nagato Combine's Green Serpent Guard. He considers such vehicles an arrogance, yet another proof of elitist attitudes, and thus another indication of the contempt with which most elves regard the balance of
humanity, Japanese or no.

  Hakatoro is also familiar with the slim, supple figure now coming into view, standing up beside the flamboyant Tachi.

  A rare exception to the rule.

  She is known as "Machiko-san," but many of the security troopers under his command privately refer to her as "Jade Tiger." She walks with the bold, long-legged stride of the warrior who knows no fear. She can be harsh and arrogant in manner when she perceives a need for discipline to be reinforced. Hakatoro, though, understands the need for discipline. He knows the difference between the necessary arrogance of a commander, or leading member of the Guard, and the brand of arrogance that is no better than puerile vanity.

  Machiko-san knows this, too. This and more. Hakatoro has heard that other appellation used for her by the younger members of the GSG. "Sword witch," they call her. It is said that in the training hall of the GSG, located here on the estate, Machiko-san has never been defeated, not with swords, not even by Sukayo-san, who, if mere talk can be believed, once actually defeated the master swordsman who founded the Guard, he who trained the first of the GSG, the one known as Kuroda-sensei.

  These elves are of course the most arrogant of warriors, and even the lowest warrior will exaggerate. Yet there is something about Machiko-san that gives credence to the stories about her. One does not have to look very closely to see the steel in her eyes, or the warrior's compassion in her heart, forever battling to win her spirit. One does not have to listen to much talk to realize that she is a physical adept and that the mana in her is strong. A ferocious combatant. One who rightly approaches the Chairman's estate with the warrior's bold stride.