“I did,” Taika said. “He responded with a casual lack of concern suggesting that one of you is about to be very surprised.”
Growl looked Jason up and down. Even after growing a few centimetres taller with his ascension to bronze rank, Jason was not a large man. His lean muscle was not emphasised by his well-tailored suit.
“You think this guy is some kind of arse-kicker?” Growl asked Taika.
“I’ve seen movies, bro. Huge white dude goes to beat up a little Asian bloke? He’s probably one of them secret kung-fu guys. Trained up in the mountains or something.”
Jason watched the exchange with an amused smile.
“What are you smirking at?” Growl asked him. He grabbed Jason by the arm and dragged him towards an alley. Jason let himself be pulled along, out of sight of the street.
“Mr Asano doesn’t like people pretending to be his dead family members,” Growl said. “First, you’re going to tell me what you’re up to. Then I’m going to make very clear the degree to which Mr Asano is upset.”
“What I’m here for is easy,” Jason said with a sinister chuckle as he took on a malevolent expression. “My job was to get you away from Asano while the others go in through the back.”
“What?” Growl asked, then his eyes went wide. He swore loudly, shoved Jason against the wall of the bar, and sprinted back the way they’d come.
Jason followed at a casual stroll. When he reached Taika, the big man was looking at the door Growl had just barrelled through.
“Did you kung fu Growl?”
“I just told him a little porky pie,” Jason said, moving under the awning over the door and closing his umbrella. “Nice to meet you, Taika. I’m going to go in.”
“Okay, bro.”
Jason followed Growl’s aura through a half-empty bar. The lights were as dingy as the atmosphere and no one noticed the umbrella vanish as he returned it to his inventory. Growl had rushed past a pair of beefy men standing in front of a doorway, who blocked Jason’s way when he went to follow.
Jason couldn’t be bothered dealing with them, giving them just enough aura suppression to severely unnerve them without causing any real harm. The pair, suddenly terrified of Jason for reasons they didn’t understand, quickly moved out of his way. Jason went through the door and up the stairs. The upper floor was completely unlike the downstairs, being clean and well lit. An angry voice was coming from an open door down the hall.
“No, no one has come in through the back. You installed that security door yourself. They’d have better luck coming through a wall. This is why you never move up, Growl. The only muscle you never work out is your damn brain!”
“Don’t be too hard on him, Uncle Hiro,” Jason said, stepping into the office where Growl was looking sheepish. Sitting behind a desk was Jason’s uncle. Hiro’s criminal connections had made him a black sheep of the family and Jason hadn’t seen him since before he had left for university seven years ago. He was in shape and looked younger than his age.
“Jason?”
Hiro came around the desk, tilting his head back and forth as he examined Jason’s face.
“Is it really you?”
“It’s me, Uncle Hiro.”
Hiro blinked a couple of times, then collected Jason into a fierce hug. When he let go, he placed his hands on Jason’s shoulders, unwilling to let him go as he looked at his nephew with a beaming smile.
“You can go, Growl,” he said without looking at his thuggish henchman.
“Are you sure?” Growl asked.
“Yes, Thomas.”
Growl flinched at the use of his real name and slinked away.
“How did you get past the guys downstairs?” Hiro asked.
“I’m very intimidating,” Jason said unconvincingly.
Hiro closed the door behind Growl as Jason looked around. Hiro’s office was decorated quite differently to the grimy aesthetic of the downstairs bar. It had exposed brick, stained wood, and subdued art. The chair behind the desk was old-school leather, practically a throne. The two in front of it weren’t much smaller.
Jason’s uncle waved him into one of the seats in front of his desk. Instead of going back around the desk, he sat next to Jason. Jason’s own chair was very comfortable, by the standards of someone who didn’t own a house made of magic clouds.
“It’s incredible to see you, Jason,” Hiro said. “Even before all this, it had been too long. The memorial service was the first time I saw your father in years. We’ve even kept in touch at least a little, since. Your grandmother still won’t have anything to do with me.”
“You did send a huge man to beat me up,” Jason said. “You aren’t exactly a model citizen.”
“I’m sorry about that, but you handled Growl deftly. He’s not very sharp, but that’s acceptable in a blunt instrument.”
“It’s fine,” Jason said. “He’s a giant tool either way.”
“Still a smart-arse, I see.”
“Yep. I considered dumb-arse but decided to go the other way.”
Hiro chuckled.
“It’s definitely you, alright. You’ve changed a lot since I last saw you, though. You finally grew into that chin a little.”
“Why is everyone so focused on my chin?”
“Are you kidding? You could have drilled for oil with that thing. Did you have some work done?”
“What work?”
“Like chin-reduction surgery.”
“I did not have chin-reduction surgery!”
Hiro chuckled, then his face grew more serious.
“What happened to you, Jason? Where have you been? Why hasn’t anyone heard from you?”
“Those questions have very complicated answers,” Jason said. “For the moment, let’s just say that I’ve been doing some work in a place completely cut off from outside communication. I didn’t even know people thought I was dead until I talked to your guys downstairs.”
“Didn’t the rest of the family tell you?”
“You’re the only one who knows I’m back. What does everyone think happened to me?”
“That you died in the gas explosion.”
“What gas explosion?”
Hiro’s eyebrows rose.
“There was a gas explosion in your apartment building in Melbourne. It wiped out your apartment entirely and a good chunk of the ones around yours. You were the only fatality, though.”
“My building didn’t have gas service.”
“That’s what your sister said. She threw up a big stink about it, but the feds were adamant.”
“Feds?”
“Your apartment blew up when there was one of those terrorist response exercises going on nearby. It was one of the first, actually; they’d only just started doing them.”
“What terrorist response exercises?”
Hiro leaned back in his chair, giving Jason an assessing look.
“You really were out of contact, weren’t you? The army’s been deploying forces all over the country for what they’re calling terrorist response exercises. The first ones started happening almost two years ago, but they didn’t get a lot of public attention until… well, until after you died. It’s happening in other countries too, all over the world. There’s media speculation about some kind of anticipated attack, but it keeps not happening. Since one of the exercises took place near your apartment at the same time, the federal police got involved.”