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

Who was delivering things to her at three p.m. on a Friday? Tatsu picked up her pistol and headed for the door, opening it by remote as she did so. It said something about the relatively jaded nature of your typical Tokyo citizen that the guy did not even blink at the sight of an attractive woman wearing nothing much more than a translucent swimsuit walking toward him with a gun in her hand. ‘Who’s it from?’ Tatsu asked.

‘Uh, sender’s name is… that can’t be right.’

Tatsu paused, raising an eyebrow. ‘I have never heard of that company or person.’

‘Huh. Sender’s name is Izanami. It can’t be the Izanami, right? But there’s no family name and… I mean, it can’t be her.’

‘Because you can’t imagine her sending something to someone in Chiba?’

‘I can’t imagine her sending anything to anyone using a parcel delivery service.’

Tatsu transmitted her ‘seal,’ her digital identity, to the delivery man. Back in the day, she would have been stamping a box with a hanko, a personal seal. The process was now entirely different, but a lot of people, often officials, still called the ID packets seals. ‘You would be amazed at what Izanami gets up to. That being said, I have no idea what she’s sent me. Maybe it’s cake.’

‘Your birthday or something?’

‘Not for two months.’ She took the box out of his arms. It was heavy and the ease with which the man had been carrying it suggested some cybernetics. ‘Thanks.’

‘Always our pleasure to see a satisfied customer,’ he replied, his tone suggesting a canned, company response. Then he added, ‘My wife’s never going to believe I delivered a parcel from Izanami.’

With the door closed again, Tatsu set the box down on her desk and stared at it.

‘Well, aren’t you going to open it?’ Izanami asked. She sounded a bit like a parent waiting for a child to open the best present at Christmas.

Without looking around, Tatsu asked the obvious question. ‘What is it?’

‘Open it and find out.’

Frowning, Tatsu opened the box. It was taped closed with some strong tape, but she had cyborg strength on her side. Within the cardboard box was a plastic box. An armoured plastic box with a digital lock. That was removed and the container discarded onto the floor. Then the open button was pressed and, on receipt of Tatsu’s ID, the case opened to reveal…

‘It’s a gun,’ Tatsu said.

‘It’s your new pistol, as requested. It’s a launch pistol.’ The AI sounded quite excited.

Tatsu was less so. ‘Launch as in rocket? It’s a rocket pistol.’

‘Launch pistol. It will fire homing or unguided projectiles propelled by a micro-turbine engine at approximately two thousand metres per second.’

‘That’s… actually pretty impressive, but they take time to accelerate, don’t they?’

Now Izanami sounded a little defensive. ‘They aren’t fully effective at close range.’

‘How close?’

‘About ten metres.’

‘Uh-huh, and most police actions take place at less than seven metres.’

‘Ah,’ Izanami said, readying her counterargument, ‘the full impact potential of a hypervelocity round is overkill under most circumstances.’

There were a number of magazines in the case with the pistol. Tatsu lifted one out and examined the round sitting at the top of it. ‘Pretty big. Fifteen millimetres? I guess that is going to put a big hole in someone at that speed. So, you think this will be effective at short ranges, if not as effective as a conventional firearm.’

‘I do, and you can also use a variety of payloads. The ones in that magazine are multi-role, smart explosively forged projectile warheads with multi-spectral homing heads. They are a little on the expensive side. For special occasions.’

Tatsu blinked, staring at the thick, fairly short rounds. ‘SEFOP? Those are for hitting the top armour of armoured vehicles. Or attacking over barriers. I know I said I needed something with more punch, but–’

‘You have solid, shot, high explosive, SEFOP, shaped-charge, and baton rounds. EMP and penetrative shock rounds. And two types of gas dispenser loaded with hot smoke and sleeping gas. The shaped-charge warheads have infrared homing, and I included a magazine of solid rounds with the same homing heads in case you need to work at extended range. The motor batteries burn out after about a second, but you’ll get to almost two kilometres on that.’

‘If I can see the target at that distance.’

‘You do have telescopic vision. I seem to recall you being trained on guided missiles.’

Tatsu sighed. ‘I was. Okay, I’ll download the appropriate fire-control software and try it out. Are you thinking of making these standard for cops?’

‘We’ll be starting a trial in Okayama next month. I’ve sent you a link to the software.’

‘Thanks.’ Tatsu took a breath and pushed down on her misgivings. ‘And thank you, Izanami, for your prompt response to my request.’

The avatar smiled, but she said, ‘I was created to serve.’ She really was a Japanese AI; there was no way she could accept a compliment without suggesting she was unworthy of it.

‘What are your projections regarding the situation with the gangs?’ Tatsu asked, rather than continuing to try to thank the AI properly.

Izanami’s smile vanished. ‘Frankly, they aren’t good. I think you should expect to see reprisal attacks against the other gangs tomorrow or the next day. This is likely to escalate. The first attack will probably be against the Shiratori-rengō.’

‘You think?’

‘The murder weapon is probably a sword. Swords are hardly an exclusively Japanese weapon, but the other gangs are likely to see it that way. Hence the deduction that the yakuza must have something to do with it.’

‘Shiratori’s not going to like that.’

‘No,’ Izanami said, ‘I am ninety-eight percent certain that she will not.’

11th August.

The violence began on Sunday. It took another death to trigger it. On Saturday night, Tatsu was out at a