Perilous Waif (Alice Long #1)

I smiled. “So you can’t rely on them to send you reinforcements? How convenient. But I’m sure that would turn into a huge mess for everyone, and none of us want that. So why don’t you girls just tell your masters that you delivered the message, and give me some time to extract myself from this situation. If you really want me gone, maybe you could even help with that.”

Maybe, but I wasn’t counting on it. I warmed up my field, syncing it with Emla’s and using the combined power to clear away the invisible cloud of microbots that was trying to gather around us. I felt my hair warm up, and unraveled the complex knot I’d had it tied up in so it could float free in the air around me. If this got serious I’d be burning a lot of energy really fast, and that was my best way to get rid of the waste heat.

The kitsune suddenly laughed.

The inugami all looked startled at that, and took a couple of steps back.

“You silly puppies have no idea what you’re dealing with, do you?” The kitsune said. “Well, far be it from me to interfere in your foolishness. Alice, my faction will be pleased to deal with you in good faith so long as you extend us the same courtesy. For now we shall simply observe, and trust in your assurances. Should our trust be misplaced, however, you may expect an appropriate response. Good day.”

The hologram winked out.

The inugami all milled around for a moment, trading uncertain glances. “What did she mean?” One of them asked.

“You don’t know? Then maybe you should find out,” I suggested.

They all looked at me. Finally, the leader of the group in front of me nodded.

“Yeah. We’re just here to deliver a message today, Alice. If you listen, that’s fine. If not, well, the next message will have to be a little more forceful. Get it?”

“I understand,” I said.

The last group must not have wanted to press their luck alone, because they let us go after a little more trash talk. Emla fumed all the way back to our rooms.

You aren’t really going to let those bitches tell you what to do, are you? She sent.

Weren’t you just telling me that getting involved with Akio was a bad idea?

Yeah, but that’s before those thugs got all pushy. You should do him just to spite them all.

Emla! I’m not that kind of girl, I protested.

How do you know? I can tell you’re thinking about it, you know. You’re not the only one here with super senses.

I am not having this conversation in the middle of a hallway.

Okay, okay, I can wait until we get back. I wasn’t serious anyway. But you have to admit, he’s pretty dreamy.

Yeah, I sighed. Part of me really wants to just forget about everything else, and see where this can go. But you saw how much trouble it would be. We’d be so busy fighting off assassins we’d never get anything else done.

You’d need your own gang, she suggested. You know, Strange Loop Sleuth didn’t lock my hardware. I bet if we put our heads together we can figure out a way to get you some more retainers like me.

That was an intriguing idea, but we didn’t get a chance to follow up on it. When we got back Naoko was waiting in the front room, wearing a hole in the floor with her pacing. By the time I got her calmed down and explained why I’d been gone so long the captain had shown up, and I had to tell the whole story again. Then he insisted on bringing Chief West in to talk about security, and before I knew it the whole day was gone.

Akio had warned me that we had to be careful about how much contact we had, so I wasn’t surprised when I didn’t hear from him the next day. I just wasn’t sure if that was a good thing, or a bad thing. Did I really want to get out of here, like I’d told the inugami? Or did I want to get involved with Akio?

There were ways to do it that wouldn’t paint too big of a target on my back. He could take me on as a personal retainer, for instance. Each of the yakuza lords had his own little group of personal agents, who did everything from bodyguard duty to spying on rivals to wet work. The fact that I wasn’t from a Masu-kai clan would offend some people, but once I proved I could hold my own most of them would just shrug and concede that Akio had the right to recruit whoever he wanted to.

But if I agreed to that now, would I ever get to be anything more than a servant? Not to mention that part of me was offended by the very idea. I was no one’s minion.

I spent an awful lot of time in the next few days trying to figure out what to do. It wasn’t easy to come up with a plan when I couldn’t even seem to decide what I wanted. It was almost a relief when we got word that Jiro Kaneda had arrived on Taragi. By then Azalea and I had put together a whole wardrobe of fancy outfits I could wear, so it only took a few minutes to change and head down to the audience chamber with the rest of the crew.

“Is it just me, or did he get here suspiciously fast?” I asked as we walked. “Even if we assume the Masu-kai have radio relays in the Gamma Layer, and he took a courier ship to get back here, it should have been at least another three days.”

“It does appear that Mr. Kaneda was already on his way, doesn’t it?” The captain said. “Perhaps he heard that I was arranging alternate delivery methods for some of our cargo, and became concerned about where we might be going?”

“Wouldn’t that imply that he knew about your connections here, sir?”

“I’m sure Mr. Kaneda will protest that this information came to light only after the attack. Regardless, it seems likely that we’ve been caught in some intrigue between the Masu-kai clans. Please allow me to do the talking here, Alice. Matters may be a bit delicate.”

“Yes, sir.”

Honestly, it was a relief to know he was here to handle things. I’d probably mess everything up if I opened my big mouth. Better to leave it to someone who’d been doing this kind of thing before the Masu-kai were even formed.

The servants escorted us into a smaller private audience chamber, instead of the big public one where we’d initially spoken with Lord Himura. Akio was already there, along with Lord Yamashida. There were a bunch of servants around too, including a group of inugami I’d last seen back on Felicity.

Captain Sokol and Lord Himura made pleasant small talk for a few minutes until Lord Kaneda arrived. They were both so smooth it sounded perfectly natural, but I had to wonder if even this was some kind of arranged scene. Someone had made sure we’d get here before Kaneda did, to make it look like he was keeping everyone else waiting.

Ugh! This stuff makes my head hurt.

When Kaneda showed up things got tense. He obviously knew he’d messed up, and he started to sweat as Lord Himura grilled him about exactly what he’d been trying to accomplish and why.

He had his defense lined up pretty well though, just like the captain had predicted. No, of course he hadn’t had anything to do with it personally. It was all just a big misunderstanding. One of his subordinates had heard that we might know the location of a valuable lost cargo, and arranged to capture the ship so he could interrogate the survivors about it. A bit crude, yes, but what can you expect from eager young men?

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