Sign of the Dragon (Tatsu Yamada Book 1) by Niall Teasdale (e reader TXT) 📕

Sign of the Dragon

A Tatsu Yamada Novel

By Niall Teasdale

Copyright 2021 Niall Teasdale

Amazon Kindle Edition

Contents

Part One: Tatsu

Part Two: Health

Part Three: Rapture

Part Four: Tourists

Part Five: War

Part Six: Killer

Epilogue

Part One: Tatsu

Chiba Refugee Zone, Japan, 7th July 2099.

There was a crowd gathered outside the incident exclusion area. If you posted an IEA, you could always expect a crowd to gather outside it. Live, free entertainment was a rarity in Chiba and the population would take any opportunity to enjoy it. Given the nature of life in the Chiba Refugee Zone, if bullets started flying, it would probably not clear out the onlookers.

Tatsu Yamada shouldered her way through the people, crossed the imaginary boundary of the IEA, and headed straight for the nearest police uniform she spotted. ‘What’s happening, Seki?’

The man turned, ready to bite a civilian’s head off from the look of it. His expression shifted almost instantly as he recognised Tatsu. He was a senior officer, on the Chiba beat for over five years which meant he had been there longer than Tatsu had, poor bastard. He had certainly been there last year when Tatsu had become briefly famous, among the local cops at least, for taking down a gang pretty much on her own. One of the local tongs had got a little too assertive, and Tatsu had dismantled it.

‘Sergeant Yamada,’ Seki said. ‘Robbery went wrong. Some ketō’s taken hostages. He’s using one as a shield. We have a special tactics team coming.’

‘He’s armed?’ Tatsu asked.

‘A pistol. Not a big one, but it’ll make a mess of the hostage.’

‘Fine.’ Tatsu paused briefly so that it looked like she was considering the situation. ‘Tell the special tactics team to go find some fun elsewhere. I’ll handle this.’

‘You sure? Want a vest?’ Seki grimaced slightly and, before Tatsu could respond, he waved the comment away. ‘Forget I asked.’

Tatsu smirked as she walked toward the shop at the centre of the incident. It was a generic 24-hour store, pretty much identical to any of a thousand you could find anywhere in the city. A thousand was probably a massive underestimate. You could not walk a block without finding something like that. The robber had probably been after booze; cash was a thing of the past, so robbing stores was something you did to get something material you could not afford. Alcohol was a popular choice. The store had an all-glass frontage with a display of manga and magazines off to the left of the door. Most people read that kind of thing online, but the stand drew people in to read for free and then maybe buy something before they left. Tatsu looked in through the glass door, then she pushed it open and walked in as though she was just there to shop.

The interior was your typical, fairly narrow local shop. Shelves were lined up and packed with goods. Markers on the floor suggested a route through for safe social distancing, but no one had really done that in decades. Off to her right was the service counter with the till toward the back. The man with the snub-nosed pistol pressed to a young woman’s head was beside the till and looking freaked out. Sweat was running down his face. He was terrified. Young, probably under twenty, he had probably done this on a dare from friends – if you could call them that – and now he was holding hostages and the police were coming in to arrest him. Moron. He was doing his best to keep as much of the hostage’s body between him and the door. His best was not great. He had two more people lying on the floor off to his right, Tatsu’s left. The unlucky shop assistant on duty was cowering behind the counter with her arms over her head.

‘W-w-what are you doing?! Can’t you see I’ve got a hostage here?’ The robber looked like he was Chinese. The hostage probably was too. There was a higher population of Chinese around this part of Chiba.

‘I’m Sergeant Yamada,’ Tatsu told the robber. ‘With the police, in case the title isn’t enough for you to figure that out.’

‘I’m not s-stupid. Get out of here before–’

‘Could’ve fooled me, kid. You come in here with a toy gun and expect to walk away with something for you and your friends to get drunk on, right? Everyone knows that these places are monitored.’ She waved a hand at the security cameras overhead which gave a very good view of the entire shop. ‘Then you grab hostages when the police show up instead of running for it. You wouldn’t have got far, true, but now you’re stuck and you’re going to die unless you give up now.’

‘If anyone comes in here, I’ll k–’

‘Kill the hostage?’ Tatsu shook her head sadly. ‘So, you kill her, I kill you, the world is down two ketō and I probably get a bonus. Do you honestly think I give one shit whether you blow away another shiftless parasite like you?’ She started walking forward at a slow, steady pace. ‘I’m Japanese. I work for a living. I didn’t turn up here with no money and no clue to sponge off the state. You want to put a bullet in her head? Another one just like you? Not only are you a useless coward, hiding behind a woman, but you’re not even loyal.’

The robber’s arm straightened, moving the pistol away from the girl’s temple and lining it up with Tatsu. ‘Stay back!’

‘Or what?’ Two metres. Tatsu was two metres away from her target and she had not been shot yet. It couldn’t last. ‘A coward like you isn’t going to–’

The pistol went off. In the confines of the shop, it sounded loud. The sound of the glass behind Tatsu breaking