With a groan, Freya pushed the weight of the unconscious medic off her back and struggled to her hands and knees. She gingerly scooted to the open helicopter door and extended her toes toward the white-tiled floor below. She ignored the crunch of broken glass beneath her feet. Still struggling to catch her breath, and still dazed, she stepped out of the wreckage and looked around through the haze of medication and adrenaline.
A dozen startled shoppers stared back at her, frozen in place. Finally, her eyes began to adjust to the glassy storefronts, mannequins, bright lights, and cartoonish posters. The mall was mostly empty, but a crowd of shoppers and workers had instinctively formed a ring around both levels of the courtyard. Several silently raised their phones, recording her.
Freya looked down at herself, taking in her bloody, rain-soaked hospital gown, her skin slick with high-octane aviation fuel. She cleared her throat, feeling the distinct sensation that she should say something. But she didn’t. Instead, she just stepped into the midst of the crowd.
They parted easily, their phones silently swiveling to follow her. Freya quickened her pace, her careful steps accelerating to a quick gait, and finally, she broke out into an open, desperate run. Then, the shouting started. The crowd escaped their paralysis as their echoes followed her down the endless corridors of the shopping mall.
Focus. Breathe in—
But she couldn’t focus, couldn’t breathe. And she couldn’t escape. Not on foot. Her pulse pounded in her ears as she spotted the exit to an underground parking garage. She turned abruptly, slipping against the smooth tile as she sprinted towards the heavy double doors. Freya burst through them, their metal handles slamming against the bare cinderblock walls with a bang that shot across the concrete structure.
The garage was all but empty, with only a few cars parked near the exit doors. Water trickled in a thin stream down the corner of the main ramp, and she could hear the rain and thunder from the distant entrance several floors above. A single car, a compact hybrid, slowly descended the ramp, lights on, wipers struggling against the rivulets of rain streaming from the roof.
The driver didn’t notice her. He did a careful three-point-turn as he selected a parking space and began to back in. Frey tiptoed across the bare concrete, her feet barely brushing against the cold floor, wet hospital gown gently swaying as she cracked her knuckles and rolled her shoulders. She waited.
He stepped from the car, mumbling to himself and coughing as he straightened his sweater vest, using a single finger to tap the nose of his double-bridged glasses. Then he turned toward Freya, keys jangling in his hand.
He saw her bare feet first. Then, eyes wide, he took in her soaked, half-dressed form. “Keys,” said Freya, pointing to his hand. She gestured for him to give the keys to her.
The middle-aged driver looked down at his keys, and then back to her again. His hesitation was all she needed. She gently plucked them from his hand and pushed him aside with a muscled shoulder as she took the last two steps to his car.
Regaining his sense, he swore in protest as he reached out to grab her by the elbow. Freya whipped around and buried her fist in his face, the skin of her knuckles splitting with the sheer force of impact. His head snapped back as he fell, landing flat. Her lungs heaved, hot like fire, rage flowing through her veins, jaw clenched, the vision of Himura’s face in her mind. The things she’d done for him — the people she’d hurt, the pain she’d inflicted on herself — it all flashed through her memory like wildfire.
“The world has reached a tipping point, one that will inevitably consume us all,” he’d said. She could still hear the sound of his soft voice in her ears. But now, she would make sure Himura would be the first one consumed. She’d take something of his, something that would hurt, something he couldn’t replace.
Freya slid into the car, slamming the door shut behind her. She looked at the dashboard, confused — there was no steering wheel, no pedals beneath her feet.
Wrong side.
Cursing, Freya climbed out of the passenger’s seat and walked around the front bumper, her hand now clutching the back of her immodest hospital gown shut. The crowd had begun to spill into the garage, staring at her, and the unconscious driver on the ground from safe distance.
She slid into the driver’s seat and locked the door. It was a small car and the seat and steering wheel adjustments were wrong, set for a significantly smaller person than herself. There’d be time to fix it later. She activated the handheld GPS suction-cupped to the windshield. It chirped merrily as it powered up, displaying lines of indecipherable Japanese characters. Freya poked at the ‘back’ button until an icon resembling a cogged gear slid into view. She scrolled through the setup options and selected the English option.
Knuckles tapped against the window, startling her. Freya looked up to see three white-shirted security guards surrounding the car. She ignored them as the tapping became louder and louder. The men on the other side of the glass starting to shout. There were sirens now, too, barely audible in the distance.
“What is your destination?” requested the GPS unit in a friendly female voice.
The security officers started pounding their fists on the windows, their faces now twisted in anger; they were furious with her refusal to acknowledge them.
“SACB headquarters, Tokyo,” said Freya, almost unable to hear her own hoarse voice over the shouting, muffled security guards.
A route flashed up on the tiny screen as Freya slipped the car into drive. She hit the gas and brake simultaneously, the car lurching six inches before squealing to a stop. The security guards stepped back, immediately scattering as she hit the accelerator a second time. She pulled away, tires chirping as she slammed into the ramp, flying up towards the entrance and around the corner. She jerked the wheel towards the exit, crashing through the parking arm and flying past the payment booth, both front wheels leaving the payment as she blasted out of the garage and onto the stormy Tokyo streets.
So Himura wanted a war? She’d give him a fucking war.
CHAPTER 19
Lighting danced across angry skies, silhouetting the skyscrapers towering over the Scorpion. The submarine crept up through a Tokyo aqueduct like a primordial creature on the hunt, prowling between roads and apartment buildings, passing shuttered shops and moored sailboats, the churn of her diesel engines masked by pounding rain and the echoing retort of distant thunder. Roiling floodwaters strained against earthen banks and concrete bulwarks, swelled by the heavy storm. The surrounding buildings were lifeless and streetlights dark — entire districts had lost electricity in the storm, shrouding the long, angular Scorpion in rain-drenched, impenetrable darkness.
Jonah stood at the conning tower platform, the seams of his thick yellow slicker barely holding against the torrential downpour. Alexis was at his side, hair wet, rain streaming down her face, seemingly oblivious to the deluge as she silently watched the passing city. Vitaly stooped over a ruggedized, waterproof laptop networked into the Scorpion’s central systems, using his elevated perch to warily navigate the submarine through the shallow, winding canal. The trio winced as the steel hull gently brushed against sunken debris with a sharp scraping clearly audible over the pouring rain.