"SYNCHRONICITY" (part 2)

Mamoru Yoshitora grinned perfect, custom-made white teeth at his smaller,
snickering companion.  She smiled back.  They had finally done what the Yakuza
needed done; or at least half of it.  Yoshitora reached into his pocket and
pulled out a small keypad remote-control, with just one flat, rubber key on it.
He depressed the rubber button and the curtain before them slid back, revealing
their captive.  The woman at Yoshitora's side grinned; she had done well.  Their
guest was... a mess.  He wasn't going to like THAT when - if - he came round.
Yoshitora flicked his long, erratic fringe out of his eyes.  He was a falsely
attractive figure, tall for a Japanese, slender, and generally describable as
grade B bishonen, though it came from three inches of practised make-up and not
from any natural base.  But their guest had always been so much prettier.  And
so much more skilled at the Job.  That was why he had climbed so fast and gained
a place at Vice President Kusanagi's side.  But the little shit had gone too
far, hadn't he?  Got himself arrested.  Yoshitora had managed to get reports
from his police contacts, here and there - Benten killed this, Benten killed
that, Benten got knifed, Benten got turned into a donner kebab, but guess what,
he survived.  *Well, bastard, I've got you, now.*  
    Emiko Hisakado was moving about now, busying about the room.
Yoshitora glanced over her.  God, she was a state.  A big, butch state.  They
were almost like Benten and Kusanagi, in a way, the two of them.  Kusanagi was
now the real problem, though.  Hisakado was strong, and an excellent shot, and
she could fight.  But she was human, and that meant Kusanagi would beat her.
Yoshitora himself was slight and reasonably weak in comparison to others of his
build, and it was only because of his large bodyguard that they had been able to
get hold of the fastidious Benten at all.  Still, they had him now, and Kusanagi
would be easy to detect, working alone; she'd be bound to slip up.   There was a
cough from behind the laser forcefield.  Yoshitora looked up.
   "Well, shit-wits, I see you're up!  You've been lying there a loooong time.
You must have terrible cramp."  His voice was wheedling and irritating, and
despite his state, Benten wanted to leap at him and tear it out.  Merill
Yanagawa blinked in the unfamiliar light.  His melanin-lacking eyes screamed at
him.  *Tint, tint, you wanker!*  Slowly his vision darkened, and he could see
Yoshitora.  What was wrong with him?  That function should have been
automatic....  "I hope miss Hisakado didn't do you too much damage, Benten,"
Yoshitora continued, smiling his thin, unpleasant smile.  Benten swallowed hard.
This was not going to be a good day.
    "What do you want?"  Benten rolled his dusty tongue around his mouth.  He
was so badly dehydrated, he thought he would asphyxiate.  He could almost feel
his throat closing up on him.  There was pain in the right hand corner of his
mouth, so he snaked his tongue past his cracked, smudged lips and located the
area.  There was a long split there, where his upper and lower lip met at the
edge of his mouth.  It must have been an inch long.  His jaw clenched at the
pain and he tasted blood.  He found that breathing through his nose was hard; he
became very worried about this when he tried to twitch it.  It wouldn't respond.
*If this son of a whore has broken my fucking nose....*
     "Yes," Yoshitora said in mock pitying tones, "It's a shame about that.  It
was such a lovely nose.  Still, never mind.  I'd say 'never mind, you can have
it reset once you get out'.  But you're not going to get out, so there'd be no
point."  He began to chuckle to himself.  Benten watched his pale, thin,
bloodless lips curl back over his stupidly white teeth.  *All that warpaint and
he still looks like a fucking horse.*
     "What do you want, cretin?"  Benten wasn't too worried about insulting
Yoshitora.  He would rather be beaten to death for that, and have some chance,
than die silent at the end of the other man's antique revolver.  Yoshitora
didn't take well to being called such names, particularly by people he didn't
like.  So he stopped smiling.  Benten was relieved.
  "I just want you dead, that's all.  The Yakuza has been losing money ever
since you and the 'Meija' got collared.  But the monthly turn over has gone down
a great deal more since you escaped.  We thought about getting you back; I tried
asking nicely, but I got a short answer. I thought about sending you back to the
pigs, but you were always too careful.  Then what happens?  The opportunity
falls right into my lap.  You go for a walk by yourself, and you drop your
guard.  You bloody moron."
      Benten was just a LITTLE annoyed by this rather one sided conversation.
He resisted the urge to shout, and instead asked in a sharp, acidic hiss, "Yes,
but what do you really want?"  Yoshitora seemed disturbed by the tone, and was
angered by the question.  He kept silent, though, and Benten leapt in again,
trying not to aggravate the agonising tear in his mouth.  "You were always
jealous, weren't you, Yoshitora?  Jealous of me.  Because I'm worth something,
and I always have been.  Kusanagi knew that then and she knows it know.  All of
Oedo knows it!  Even Hasegawa knows it.  And you?  You're just a pretentious
epsilon minor with no future.  I've got more skill in one bollock than you have
in your entire body!"  Yoshitora flew into a rage.  He picked up the computer
monitor off the desk and flung it towards the laser-screen that held his captive
in.  But it was a weak throw, and it didn't make it.  Benten laughed his most
devastating laugh, as the monitor exploded on the floor.  Hisakado looked up,
but ignored the event.  Yoshitora looked at her.  Then back at Benten.  To his
horror, the latter was shifting position on the floor.  He was...he was going to
stand up!  Benten rested one badly bruised arm in his lap and put his weight on
the other, only to find that it was broken.  He ground his teeth so hard he
thought they would snap, but used the fractured right arm to steady himself.
Yoshitora took a step back as Benten stood, painfully, stiffly, but
dismissively.  He straightened to his full height and smiled wanly at his
hapless captor.  Yoshitora turned his back on Benten, fury mounting in his
blood.  Yanagawa's voice from behind him - "You're a fucking failure!" Benten's
laughter hid the quiet metallic --thock-- that came from the door to the room.
   Then another voice, a woman's, young despite it's velvet depth, came from the
doorway.  
      "He's right.  You are a failure.  As if I would ever have wasted time
working with someone like you!"  Yoshitora turned.  It was Kusanagi.  Yoshitora
had not taken into account the fact that Benten might have mentioned that he was
going out for a walk.  He started to shake.  Kusanagi advanced into the room.
He whipped around, wondering why Hisakado had not attacked.  Then he saw why;
there was a tiny hole in her forehead from which the contents of her skull were
slowly pumping.  He stared back at Kusanagi, who was unscrewing the silencer off
the end of some huge automatic handgun.  She grinned.  "No cavalry, I'm afraid,
Mamoru."  She came closer and waved a hand in Benten's direction.  "Turn that
off," she commanded.  Yoshitora immediately did as he was told.  Kusanagi turned
to watch the field dissipate.
    "Are you all right, Bastard?  Fuck, you look awful!"  She accepted his
affirmative reply, but none-the-less she gave him an enquiring look.  Then she
felt pressure against her arm; it was flying backwards, and the gun had slipped
out of her grasp.  Before she knew what was happening, Yoshitora was behind her,
crouching over the weapon.  She and Benten both turned to look down on him,
sadly.  He wondered why they didn't seem as worried as people usually were when
you were about to point a gun at them.  Then he discovered why.  As he slipped
his right hand around the grip of the gun, he sagged.  It was a cyber-weapon; he
couldn't even lift it. Kusanagi sighed, shaking her head, and went out of the
door.  Benten followed, pausing only to snap Yoshitora's neck.  It made a
satisfying crunch as it went, and Benten shuddered with delight.

~~~
          
Hasegawa rolled his last cigarette between his fingers, and tapped the end on
his desk.  He had been doing this for fifteen minutes.  None of the old dances
would work this time; the 'take out one partner and the other'll come crawling'
ruse was useless when used against scum like Bonnie And Clyde. Their type didn't
give a shit about anyone.  A set-up, an ambush, was the best way to do it; but
those two knew everything there as to know about cyber police tactics.  This,
Hasegawa mused as he stuck the cigarette to his lower lip and lit it, was the
main flaw in the Kido idea.  Whatever it was, it would have to be subtle, and
quick, and big.  Subtle enough that neither of his prey would detect it; quick
enough that they wouldn't know what had hit them; and big enough to attract the
greedy little bastards.  What would lure them to their fates, hmm?  Clyde had no
knowledge of who she was, before her cybernetic rebirth.  Bonnie was utterly
self-obsessed.  If he could just engineer something that would entice them
both...  But there was only so far he could go, within the law.  It would have
to be something to do with money.
A great deal of money.  Something they already had, perhaps?  Steal it....?
        He switched on the reports terminal at the edge of the desk, and checked
Every one of Oedo's fifty-four news stations.  Every now and then there was a
story of some mysterious crime, or the discovery of a corpse with an insignia
slashed into it, but there was never a breath of Bonnie and Clyde.  He had come
to think of them that way, now.  And he had come to think of them a lot.  They
filled his every waking thought.  He would find them and send them back to the
Orbital Pen.  And he would have scanners direct-linked from their cells to his
bedside, his desk, in the fucking toilet, and watch Clyde beat her head against
the wall, and Bonnie die of claustrophobia and the lack of a mirror.  Hasegawa
snorted at the acrid smoke that had gone up his nose.  Even after all these
years, he still hated that.  He dragged on the cigarette and watched his
nicotine-stained fingers shake.  Two fingers.  No; there were three.  But they
weren't fingers, were they, Juzo?  No.  They were elephants.  Or off-duty
Bolivian traffic wardens.  They were whatever the hell Clyde said they were.  He
shook his head to clear the memories and tried to think.  He had always been an
excellent tactician, and he was going to think those two back into jail if it
cost him his sanity.  How long had it been?  Months?  Six months.  Thereabouts.

      He looked down at his fingers as they held the cigarette.  The nails were
now firmly grafted into the rest of his skin, which was a relief; they had
really given him some grief.  His scalp still ached from time to time, and he
had suddenly found he had dandruff, but other than that he hadn't been feeling
to bad, lately.  There were still some scars from the lift-cable, but they
weren't anything he couldn't live with.  He had often wondered what it would
feel like to do that to someone; his list of prospective victims was a long one,
but Benten's pretty face was at the very top of it.  Hasegawa wondered how
Benten would enjoy having his hair stripped off with the blunt edge of a kitana,
or his fingernails yanked out?  Perhaps the sick fuck would enjoy being flayed
raw... "Hmmph," he said in the dark.
      He stood up and moved to the picture window.  Oedo was in twilight, lights
just beginning to blink on in the skyscrapers.  *They're Out There, somewhere.
Waiting for me to try something.  Probably watching my every move.  Well.
You've won the battle.  We'll just see who wins the war.*

~~~

Benten had finished his tale of woe and now went back to plucking at the gold
spangled cat collar.  The disappearance of the little cat, and the subsequent
discovery of her torn off collar, had thrown him into despair.  From that he had
begun to go through a whole town full of memory lanes - recent ones.
Yoshitora's and Hisakado's faces glowed in his head, and the shame, the
humiliation of having been caught off his legendary guard flooded his brain.
Kusanagi had voiced her certainty that Keiko had probably just gone off into the
building somewhere, not realising, somewhat blindly, that the cat's going off
was not the sole cause of her business partner's depression.  Benten had
convinced her to sit down and have some tea.  She hated tea, but he'd seemed so
miserable, she'd been forced to accept.  Kusanagi had prodded him about why he
was so upset.  It had prompted a reluctant catharsis.  Kusanagi was now sitting,
numbed by his little autobiographical tale, staring at his shaking hands as they
picked sequins off the collar.  It's bell jingled quietly.  This seemed to
depress him, so he ripped it off and flung it across the sitting room.  "You
must...have been fifteen when that happened," she said slowly, in response to
his final chapter, "Because you were seventeen when you strolled into my office
that day..."
        "What about you, then?"  Benten asked, gloomily.
"What - what do you mean?" Kusanagi queried, pulling herself out of the past.
   "Well, since we're sharing my history, what about yours?"
"You know I don't have one."
     "Yes, you do.  I saw that CT-Scan."  His voice had regained a little of
it's bite, at least.
 "Bastard, what are you talking about?"
"After all that Puppetmaster bullshit.  When they were putting your pieces back
together, I saw the CT-Scan.  There's a pathway in there that leads right to
what you think you'll never know."  Kusanagi laughed at him.  She was sure he
was joking.  But when he turned to look at her she shuddered.  Was he serious?
   "Benten, that's not a pleasant subject to joke about."
"I'm not joking.  Do you see me laughing?  It's in there, along with all the
rest of that mess you call a brain."  She was sure he was taking the piss.
Benten just sat, plucking at the cat' collar, staring at her.  She was silent
for a long time.  Benten suspected she was searching her RAM for the pathway in
question.  Suddenly her expression changed.  There, hidden behind a behavioural
sub-routine, was the gate.  She could trace the path behind the gate right to
the cavity in her brain that housed her only real organic part, the only bit of
her that had ever existed as a human thing; the smattering of brain-cells that
held her Ghost.  Benten saw her face shift, and fall slightly.
     "It's there, then?"
She hesitated.  "Yes.  It's - it's there....."  she was shaking.  Benten cast
her a sympathetic look, which he cunningly disguised as a sneer.  But it's the
thought that counts.  He felt a sudden and frightening urge to reach out and
touch her - which he resisted, imagining what it would be like in hospital if he
did.  
"What are you going to do about it, then?" he asked, wondering with some anxiety
just what was in there.
     "I'm....I'm going to destroy it," she replied, still shaky.
Benten was shocked.  He gazed at her in amazement, scarcely believing what she
had said.
  "Just like that?  After all your worry, all your talk about doubting whether
you were alive?  You're just going to 'destroy it'?"  Kusanagi's brow furrowed,
and her thin Vulcan eyebrows almost crossed.  
     "I can't just....open that gate," she said at last.
"Why not?"  Benten had stopped picking at the cat collar, and was now waving it
about in a frantic 'what-the-hell-is-wrong-with-you?' sort of gesture.  He was
irritated by her attitude, and more than a little curious as to the bytes at the
end of that pathway.
     "Because...because I've never known.  If I were just to - to open up my
past....well, imagine!  I should most likely die of shock."  She didn't sound
altogether sincere.  Benten hit on an idea that MIGHT change her mind.
"What if I were here?  It might be easier to share it."  The Major laughed.
    "But YOU?  Aa, come on.  Benten, my legs are strong but I could never kick
you very far.  And I would sooner swallow infected medical waste than try it."
Benten got the message, revolting though it was.  He would not normally have
taken offence at such a comment coming from her, but he was trying to help, this
time, and she was being unfair.  He fiddled in feigned fascination with his
fingernails for a while.  Kusanagi noticed.
  "I'm s.....orry.  But you know what I mean."  He did.  "Maybe if you were to -
Benten!  Will you do me a favour?  Since I did save your life yesterday?"  He
looked up from his flaking nail polish.
     "What?"
"Could you...well, I suppose, review it for me? I mean, if you run it, but keep
it to yourself.  If I wasn't who I am now, I'll destroy it.  If I was, I'll open
it for myself."  Benten sat silent, mulling it over.  What would he find in
Kusanagi's brain?  It was a tip in there.
       "It might be some terrible horror-story, Major.  I could go mad."  He
waited for her jibe.  It came, but softly.
  "You're already as near to rabid as damn it," she said, her voice light for
once, not meaning any harm.

~~~

Benten resettled himself on the sofa, having carefully planned out how he was
going to get to this memory of hers without her seeing it.  She had eventually
agreed to go through her mind with him until he opened the gate, at which point
she would shut off the relevant pathways.  To Benten, it always seemed so
strange to talk of these things - the mind in the context of circuits and wires,
the body in metal and plastic.  Not that it got to him; it never had.  But he
had a human past all too vivid and real and prominent always in his head, and so
there was something alien about all the cybernetics talk.  Kusanagi just
accepted it, because it was all she had ever known.  Or all she had ever been
aware that she was able to know.  Benten was about to find out what it was she
had been hiding.  He checked the single, black wire that snaked from beneath his
hair, down his arm, curling around his fingers, and into the back of Kusanagi's
neck.  He hoped this would work; he was becoming quite interested.  There was a
blinding flash of virtual light as his companion's brain opened to him. Then all
cleared, and he saw the terrain of another mind, for the first time.  It was
beautiful.  Calm, pastel-blue-white criss-cross patterns, showing the roads and
highways and routes of Oedo, that represented neural net pathways.  Strange
mechanical insects sitting at junctions, wonderful glittering things, that were
system buffers.  An endless shimmering sky, that glittered like a billion
diamonds.  Benten stood transfixed, mouth agape and eyes wide, staring around
him.  In the centre of it all was a great looming metal city, the central
control of her brain.  Somewhere in there, protected like Momataru in his peach,
was her Ghost.  Suddenly, Benten was aware of Kusanagi's presence.  
     *Come on in, and don't bother to take your shoes off,* he heard - or rather
felt - her say.  He turned in the direction of the voice.  There, beside him,
was Kusanagi, all right; but she was made of the same mecha as the strange,
divine insects, and her eyes burned with electrical fire, and she had butterfly
wings.  This was her self image?  *Is this what brains look like inside?*
Benten's voice was hushed, overawed.  
     *No-one knows about human brains.  And this is just what mine looks like,*
replied Kusanagi's avatar, *Yours is probably a flower garden with dead people
in it, or something.  Come on, I'll take you to my Ghost.  Then I'm off.*
      Benten travelled through the mind of his ex-oyabun in electrical form, and
at length they came to the 'city'.  They passed through it's walls, and as they
went Kusanagi kept kicking at para-vortexes and sub-programmes and heaven knew
what else, so that Benten couldn't see them.  She reminded herself to keep house
more tidily in future.  Her Ghost-Barrier almost killed Benten; she had to
completely re-route it for a while so he could get inside.  Once he was granted
access by her brain, Kusanagi disappeared, without a word.  She just vanished.
Benten wondered what, in reality, she had done.  Probably just shut off the
relevant corridors.  Maybe knocked herself out with a cushion.  He could see the
red glow of her Ghost far off, now.  He threw his consciousness through hers
until he reached the source.  There was a kind of 'fountain' of light before
him, huge, and dark, comfortable, soporific red.  In it floated the visual
projection of the indefinable Ghost itself.  It was portrayed as Kusanagi, in
the form Benten knew, sleeping naked and curled in a ball with her arms around
her knees, head hanging forward slightly.  He gazed at the image for a long
time, lost in the calming redness and the wonderful, comforting figure of
Kusanagi, asleep.  The only time she was ever safe, he noted.  He scanned
through various bits of her memory, finally ripping himself  away from the red
glow, from the beautiful imaginary projection of the Ghost that threatened to
envelope him.  At last he came across the gate he was looking for.  
      It showed itself as a cast-iron gate in the literal sense, but it was
rusted and cracking and there was a padlock over it.  Benten tugged at it, and
it eventually came undone.  The gate swung open with a squeak, and from the open
gateway came a rush of memories, like the Sea breaking out of a dam.  
      *A rural community.  It might have been Kyoto.  The sky was blue, and
Kyoto was the only place - but no, this could have been centuries ago.  The
whole of Japan might still have been clean.  Inside a house, wood panelling,
paper screens, a healthy Japanese home. There were keypads in the walls, so that
put the time scale within the last two hundred years, anyway.  There was a man
standing in the big, open kitchen, throwing vegetables around on the hotplate.
He turned and grinned over his shoulder.  He was huge, looked like a sumo, and
he had a kind face.  There was a woman  in the sitting room.  She was kneeling
by the low, laquered table, reading a newspaper.  Her little girl sat before
her, smiling, and the woman, middle aged, tired and pleasant-looking, began to
brush her hair.  It was short and stuck out either side of her head in little
bunches.  The girl was wearing a blue dress, she was very kawaii.  And not so
little; closer up she seemed to be perhaps thirteen or fourteen.
Sitting opposite her reading some newspaper or other was a boy, older, probably
seventeen.  He was smiling at her, saying something, probably telling a joke.
The girl laughed.
           The memory fuzzed here, and moved on.  There was a field of rye,
golden - rather out of place in realty, but it seemed in keeping with the tone
of the memory.  Running.  She was running through it, fast.  Her brother was
chasing her.  She tripped on a loose stone and landed on her backside with a
giggle.  He caught up with her, and spoke again, but it was unclear what he was
saying.  He plucked a stray buttercup - the field was suddenly a meadow - and
tickled his sister's nose with it.  She laughed again.  Then the sky darkened.
'Oh,' she said, 'we should get inside!  There's a storm coming!'.  The boy
argued; they could get struck by lightning unless they stayed out in the open.
All of a sudden the sky over them was black, and evil, demon-headed lightning
forks pounded down around them.*
           Benten, who was still sat on the sofa through this, began to shiver.
The dark and the lightning were terrifying.  A bead of sweat rolled down from
his left temple to his chin.
      *There was a clap of thunder, loud and unkind, to the left.  The girl
turned to look in it's direction, and as she did her brother grabbed her by the
shoulder.  He pushed her to the ground.  Then there was no image but the
terrifying black sky, nothing but pain, and fear, and animal noises, and then
the girl's own weeping.  Then again the memory changed, and there was only the
view of the sitting room ceiling in the family house.  Then the girl's mother,
her face stricken with worry, loomed into view.  'Haha-san!'  The sumo was close
by, and could be heard muttering, 'going to tear the cunt to pieces when I find
him...'.  The voice of the brother was near the sumo, and he too was threatening
death to his sister's attacker.  Then the agony really began - a horrible
splitting agony, that threatened to tear the child's body in half.*
       With growing nausea Benten realised what was happening.  He was about to
become one of the few men in the living world who knew what it felt like to give
birth.  
     *Yet again the memory changed.  Now the girl was grown up, she was at least
thirty five.  She looked much older, and the sweetness was gone from her face.
She was bitter, and her face showed it, sour and bad tempered.  She was lounging
on a bed in 'fuck me' clothes, negotiating her fee with a fat, pinstriped
businessman.  Her arms were a circus of needlemarks, and her eyes  were
pinholes, the characteristic of the Ice-junkie.  Again the memory moved, though
not so far, this time.  It moved to a point just after the girl - the woman -
had started smoking another rock.  The pipe dropped from her eczma-wrinkled hand
onto the pink bed, and she started to choke.  And that was it.*
          Benten had to stop himself from screaming.  He tore the datawire out
of the back of his neck and stood up.  He crossed the room and slid down the
wall, and sat looking at Kusanagi.  She was still propped against the sofa's
back-cushions, her eyes pupil-less pools of blue.  She was unconscious.  Benten
shook his head hard.  That had been her?  No!  Can't have been.  But, someone
had cared about her.  Someone had cared enough to have her brain sent into
cold-storage....  *Don't fool yourself,* Benten scolded, *Nobody gave a shit.
The coroner probably had to do that.*  For ten minutes he sat trying to blank
out the images, and then he got up.

~~~

"Major?" he shook her.  She woke, and he sat beside her on the sofa - not too
close.
    "Is it done?"  She rubbed her eyes.
"Yes," he replied, softly.
     "Well?"  Benten thought of the cute little girl, and then the soured
middle-aged hooker, and the pinhole eyes, and the needlemarks and the darkness
and the pain.  Then he thought of the avatar of Kusanagi's Ghost, her own self
projected, sleeping calmly.  And then he looked at her.  And he couldn't tell
her.
   "...Destroy it."
Kusanagi looked at him for a while.  He was staring at his fingernails again.
He felt her eyes on him and looked up.  In a sudden and incredibly
uncharacteristic moment of sympathy, Merill Yanagawa and Motoko Kusanagi both
felt some wave of...understanding, of 'kindred-spiritship' pass between them.
Benten rested a hand on Kusanagi's shoulder.  She reached up and twined her
fingers with his.  Then they both let go and wrapped their arms around each
other.  Benten almost smiled; he could see that balled-up, sleeping Ghost image
now.  He held Kusanagi a little more tightly.  She had her face nestling in his
hair, by his neck.  She could feel how close his skin was to her mouth.  And he
smelt so good.  As always, he smelt of Ylang Ylang and Orange Blossom, his
trademark scent, known all over Oedo by criminal and enforcer alike.  Mingled
with his perfume were other smells though; there was the smell of pain, and the
smell of blood from his injuries, but faintest of all was the slightly
intoxicating smell of a liar.  He was hiding something.  Something about what he
had seen.  But the thought of his pain seemed to cause Kusanagi strange
discomfort and the liar-scent didn't matter anymore.  When she saw the bruises
on the bony shoulder on which she had laid her head, her stomach knotted.  She
wondered why.  *Probably indegestion.*  She squeezed him, very hard.  Benten
didn't care.  Kusanagi destroyed the pathway.   
     
~~~

Hasegawa slammed his fist down on the desk.  "Shit, that's IT!"  he yelled to
himself.  He shot up out of his chair, disrupting a mountain of papers Okyo had
been carefully arranging beside him, and making her jump.  She had been feeling
rather shaky since Hasegawa-san's return to work.  She was terribly worried that
he hadn't really been quite himself since that....horrible incident.  
    "Sir - are you all right?"
"What?  Oh, yes, perfectly thankyou.  Okyo, get Varsus in here."
    "Yes sir, right away, but what about the papers?"
"FUCK THE PAPERS!  GET THE DROID!"  Okyo gathered up her dignity - she had
become used to his course outbursts - and went to find Varsus.  Hasegawa strode
up and down the length of his office, shaking his fists by his sides and
chuckling to himself about 'IT'.  He had finally cracked it.  He had been
sitting at his desk for two days now, waiting for it to come to him; and now, at
last, it had.  He had it.  He had his Grand Plan For The Recapture And Utter
Demoralisation Of Bonnie And Clyde.  The office doors shimmied open and the
Varsus droid whirred in.
"Hai," intoned the voice synth-unit.
   "Varsus.  I want you to find me the names of anyone, and I mean ANYONE, who
owns shares in DeBeers-Japan.  Get me every single name.  Well?  Do it now!"
Hasegawa banged his fist down on the desk again.  Varsus replied in droning
monotone,
  "Processing command.  This may take several minutes."
"I don't care if it takes several hours, just DO IT!"

~~~

Kurosawa.  Matsuyama.  Koyo.  Ihide.  Asai.  That was it.  FUCK!  That last one;
Asai,  Kiruko.  Hasegawa had seen all of these names before, but Kiruko Asai was
special.  She was on Bonnie's datafiles.  One of his old 'partners'.  And she
held an auspicious number of shares in DeBeers-Japan.  Hasegawa snorted in
triumph and lit another cigarette.  

~~~
       
Benten opened one eye, cautiously.  The other followed.  He dragged his eyelids
up. He had forgotten just how tiring the Chase could be.  Still, it felt pretty
good.  Some sense of stability, at last!  Not for the first time, he raised a
hand to his throat and rubbed at the space where the collar wasn't.  There was
something very heavy leaning into him.  It wasn't uncomfortably heavy; just very
heavy.  What did he know that weighed two tons but felt good when it was so
close to him?  Well, it wasn't the cat.  Hmm.  He remembered.  Kusanagi.  They
must have fallen asleep, they were still half sitting on the big sofa, and she
was curled up beside him with her arms around her knees and her head against his
chest.  Benten yawned and thoughtfully scratched at an eyebrow.  His fingernail
came away with a scraping of black eyebrow pencil under it.  He prised this out
with his thumbnail and flicked it indiscriminately across the room.  He was
going to stop colouring his eyebrows; they just felt thick and heavy and it all
came off anyway.  Besides, he'd given up being a Goth when he was fourteen.  He
glanced down at his heavy companion and didn't smile.  Then he remembered the
Ghost image, and he did.  He reached one arm around her shoulders and hooked the
other under her legs, and lifted her, with difficulty, onto his lap.  She didn't
stir.  Benten sighed and rested his head against hers.  If she tried to kill him
now, at least he could nut her.

~~~

"Whu - what's happening?"  The woman in the pink satin negligee stammered
hopelessly at this policeman who was giving her so much trouble.  She was a good
citizen.  She always supported the government.  And she had just put her little
one to bed.  She shielded her eyes from the blinding headlights of the police
floater and tried to make out the man's face.
   "Miss Asai, I really am terribly sorry to disturb you.  You remember me,
don't you?"    Hasegawa stepped out of the headlight's glare and stood to the
side.  Asai groaned and her beautiful face pouted.
    "Oh.  Hasegawa."
"You do remember me, then."
   "You're the one who's got Merill Yanagawa in a dog collar.  Hmmph.  How could
I forget you?"  Hasegawa grinned at this remark; he couldn't help it.  The fact
that Bonnie had escaped had nothing to do with it; it was just amusing to see
how annoyed this woman was.  She was painfully precisely spoken and terribly,
soft-sounding middle class.  Just like Bonnie.  
   "Well, that's what I want to see you about, Miss Asai," Hasegawa went on,
"Merill Yanagawa shook off his bonds a few months ago.  And I think you may be
able to help me."
  "Look," said Asai, folding her arms and pulling a face, "I don't know where he
is, I didn't even know he'd escaped you.  And if you think I'm going to help you
find him, you can think again.  Now do you mind crawling back to wherever it was
you came from?  It's late, and I'm cold, and my daughter has to get her sleep
and we are making a lot of noise."
     Hasegawa smiled again.  "Would you please do me the honour of accompanying
me to Cyber Police Head Quarters, Miss Asai?  I really do want to speak to you.
It's very urgent."
    "No, now fuck off."
"All right, we'll play it your way.  Kiruko Asai, I am arresting you on
suspicion of aiding and abetting a criminal - "
    "You what?  Hasegawa, you can't do this!  This is wrongful arrest!"
   "...that anything you say will be taken down and may be used as evidence in a
court of law - "
     "You utter bastard!"
 "...Do you have anything to say?"  Asai stood in her expensive gravel driveway
in her satin night-wear and her bare feet and glared at him.  
    "Can I go and put some clothes on, please?"  Hasegawa nodded, and dispatched
one officer to follow her.  He wondered if that was wise; the woman had worked
with Bonnie, and Bonnie was tough.  Asai protested.  "I'm not going to run away,
you know!  I've just got to tell my daughter I'm...going out."  Asai went off
into the house.  Hasegawa told the man to wait one minute and then go in after
her, just to be sure.  
      Asai burst into the little girl's bedroom.  The child's body guard had
heard the noise from outside, and the enormous American was sitting,
clenched-jawed, beside the bed.  The girl was still fast asleep.  Asai could
hear the cop coming into the house below, so she addressed the bodyguard
quickly, without waking the girl.  "Velasco - find you-know-who.  She'll be
safer with him."  The giant nodded, re-adjusted his dark glasses, and mumbled a
word of good luck to his mistress in appallingly pronounced Japanese.  Asai gave
him a careful structured smile and ran off, into her own bedroom, to change.

~~~

Oedo Cyber Police HQ was unpleasant at the best of times, but tonight it was at
it's worst; it was Saturday evening.  Asai found herself being most annoyingly
manhandled in and out of a Police floater, along with two other women,
apparently for the same reason, and she was directed straight to an
interrogation suite.  One of the two women, a westerner with red hair and dead
white skin,  she had never seen before, but the other was instantly
recognisable; the Countess Shinobu Shoha, cousin of the Empress.  She was famous
for her 'cute, public-spirited criminality'.  And Asai remembered meeting her
once - with Benten.  She assumed the second woman was also one of Yanagawa's
acquaintances.  Asai sat down at the table in the interrogation suite, and
waited.  Hasegawa would be dealing with the royalty, she thought.  But no - he
came in and sat down.
"Well," Asai asked, "What do you want to talk about?"  She wasn't prepared to
talk; she was just curious. Hasegawa's answer threw her.
   "Diamonds," he replied, sitting back.

~~~

Kusanagi watched as Benten straightened out his futon and unrolled the heavy
mattress.  She was surprised to find that he didn't sleep in a pit full of
poisonous snakes. "Will you be all right?"  She asked, running her eyes
nervously over his back.  Blood had permeated his little vest.  He turned and
smiled, a little falsely, she thought.
   "Yes, perfectly.  Thankyou."  He gritted his teeth and finished shifting the
bedframe.  Kusanagi shook her head, sadly.  What the hell was his problem?  
   "Right then.  I'll be going."
"I thought you wanted a shower," Benten queried, going back to his concealed
cupboard and pulling out a couple of rolled, heavy cotton covers.
    "I have a bathroom at home, tofu-brain," she replied, trying to sound as
certain as she once had when insulting him.  But these days, it was becoming
hard to hate him.
  "Why not have one here?"  Benten was spreading the covers out over the
mattress, "I'll bet you any money my bathroom is better than yours."  He looked
up and grinned at her.  She twitched the lower half of her face in thought, and
decided.
   "Do you mind?"  
Benten smiled more broadly and with a little more sincerity.  
"Course not. Help yourself.  There's shampoo and soap and what-have-you in the
-"  She cut him off,
    "Thanks, but I think I'll stick to plain water.  If I start messing about
with your cosmetics I could be in there for years."

~~~

Benten sat up, pulling away from the dream, and he cried out: pain shot up
through his broken arm.  He had forgotten about it, and it would have to be
fixed.  Kusanagi was towelling off her hair and heard him, she dropped the
little white hand-towel, pulled her jacket around herself, and ran.  She drew
her gun outside Benten's bedroom door.  Couldn't risk calling out, there might
be others in the flat.  So she hooked her toes around the edge of the door and
pushed it back, wood grinding against wood.  It was dark.  She aimed into the
room.  Then she saw Benten, sitting up in bed, alone.
    "What's wrong?" she exclaimed, flustered.
"Nothing.  I leaned a little too heavily on my arm.  Are you going to shoot me?"
Kusanagi was still pointing the gun at him.
    "Oh - hell, no.  Sorry.  I thought you were being murdered."
"And that's your job, isn't it."
   "Right.  Are...are you okay?"
"So-da.  Watashi-wa genki.  Arigato."
   "I'm just going.  Oh - ah, after I get dressed, that is.  I'll see you
around.  Thanks for the use of the shower."
  "Are you sure you want to walk home in this?"  He waved back at the window,
covered, behind him.  Kusanagi could hear rain pelting it from outside.  "Give
me a minute and I'll drive you, if you want."  She eyed him curiously, her head
cocked on one side.  He really was...so very odd.   But he was so nice to look
at.  So very, very nice to look at...
    "No, that's fine.  I'll get the bus, or something."
"...I mean, if you didn't feel like walking, you know, you're always welcome to
stay..."
   "Thanks, Benten - but really, I just want to get home.  I'm hungry, and I'm
tired, and I'm cold."  Benten was silent for a while; there were words on the
tip of his tongue that made a question, and he wanted to ask her.  But somehow
it seemed wrong.  He had a feeling she would either demolish him verbally or
shoot him if he asked.  Either way, it would hurt.  *Sod it.  Just ask her.  She
can only say no, can't she?  All right, so she can shoot you.  You'd survive.*
That at least was true.
     "Kusanagi, it's raining.  You'll catch your death, if you go out there.  If
you're cold - do you want to share the bed?  There's plenty of room."  He waited
for her to shout at him, or laugh at him, or fly at him.  She didn't.  He looked
up, and she was standing on one hip, her big yellow jacket her only clothing,
slipping off one shoulder.  She was still holding the gun and her head was still
on one side, as if she were pondering some great mystery.  Benten waited in
silence, still leaning slightly on the injured arm.
    "All right...     ...thankyou."  Benten shifted over on the mattress,
leaving her room.  She came over and as she sat down, Benten peeled back the
covers slightly with his good arm.  His weight dumped itself onto the broken
right and he collapsed with a cry.   "What's the matter?"  He didn't answer, but
tried not to let her see him cradling his arm.  "Let me see," she said.  Benten
shook his head, but she insisted, and the inherent military tone in her voice
was unnerving.  Reluctantly Benten let go of the arm, and allowed her to pull it
away by the wrist.  He obviously hadn't looked at it whilst he was getting
undressed; the 'bone' had broken the skin.  Kusanagi twisted the arm around to
get a better look, and tutted.  It was evil with dirt and grime.  "Right," she
said sharply, "Don't move."
      She left the room, and returned ten minutes later, having found what she
needed in Benten's confusing flat.  She sat on the edge of the futon again, and
laid out a menagerie of medical bits; cleansers, antiseptics, and a small silver
cylinder, which contained a medical laser device affectionately known as a
molecular blow-torch.  Benten stared at the last item with one eyebrow arched.
"Uh, Major - what are you going to do with that?"
   "Shut up, lie down, and DON'T MOVE."  She flicked a small electronic
anaesthetic device against his arm, and activated it.  It's tiny syringe needle
punctured his skin and spread diamorphine into the area around the wound.
Benten smiled - it got to his brain quickly.  Kusanagi started to clean the raw
flesh.  Benten giggled.
   "Tickles!"  Kusanagi jabbed him in the ribs with a finger.
"Shut up, if I slip, you'll know about it!"  He pulled a 'naughty-schoolkid'
face and stopped laughing.  When Kusanagi finished cleaning the wound she began
blow-torching the 'bone'.  It's molecules sealed up quickly, and she started on
his shell, then his flesh.  He started to laugh again.  She slipped and jabbed
cotton wool soaked in antiseptic into his arm.  Benten howled.  Kusanagi gave
him a LOOK.  "I warned you, shit-mind!"  Despite her annoyance she worried about
him.  She was beginning to do this a lot; he couldn't go out for a walk without
her worrying about his safety.  She thought this was probably because if the
pigs got hold of him, he could, and judging by past experience would, give her
away.  She finished sealing his arm up.  The heroin hadn't been enough, he was
sweating.  "You okay?"
    "Uh-huh.  I think."  Kusanagi wiped damp hair out of his eyes.  She stood
up, and took off her coat.  Benten pretended to look away, and strained his eyes
half out of their sockets looking from their corners.  She slipped into the bed,
leaving as big a gap as she could between them.  The futon creaked worryingly as
she sat down, and even louder as she stretched out. She pulled the covers up
over her shoulders, turned her back on Benten, and closed her eyes.  She was
tired.  Benten lay on his back for some time, staring at the ceiling.  *What are
my options, then? I can go to sleep, or try to talk her into it, or I can pounce
on her and see what she does.  Hmm.  Don't want to die, so I won't pounce.*
"Um...Major?  Are you asleep?"
   "Yeah.  What is it?"
"I, uh, wanted to ask you something."
   "One of your famous 'something's, eh?  Well?  What?"
"Would you - I mean, do you -"  For the first time in his life, Benten was
finding it difficult to get these words out.  
    "Do I what?"
"Oh, shit...you know."
    "Do I want to fuck you?"  Benten made a small noise of shock.  Dammit, that
was embarrassing - he hadn't been able to say it.  And she had guessed - how the
hell had she guessed?  And had just come out with it.
  "That's more or less what I was going to ask."
Kusanagi cleared her throat and replied.  "Benten.  Are you mad?  Neither of us
is exactly safe as a person.  Neither one of us is actually very nice.  I
wouldn't trust you to make me a cup of coffee, let alone trust you enough to
shag you.  You got me into the whole damn fucking mess with Hasegawa.  Benten, I
had to FUCK the home secretary, two of his aides AND Hasegawa just to get you
out of prison.  I have turned my life upside down and risked it's continuation
on several occasions, and I have done it all for YOU.  And now you ask me if I
want to fuck you?"  She finished and Benten kept his silence for a time.  Then
it became clear that she was waiting for him to speak, so he said,
    "So...do you?"  
"In a word, yes."
    "Oh, good." He slipped his long arms around her waist, rolled her over,
pulled her in, and caught her mouth in  a kiss.  In his mind, Merill Yanagawa
grinned very broadly.  In her mind, Motoko Kusanagi punched herself in the jaw
for doing such a stupid thing.  But Motoko Kusanagi was too busy to notice.  She
was busy noticing Benten's cock, rock hard and pressing against her.  *Hmm.
Idea!*  Without warning she shoved him over onto his back, and started to touch
her lips to his bruises.  His left shoulder was purple with them.  Her kisses
brushed his collar-bone and he shuddered. She ran a fingertip down his chest,
playing over one nipple, and over his flat belly.  She felt muscles, hidden and
deadly, tense as her fingertip passed over them.  Benten wriggled, and then
whimpered quietly as her hand closed around his cock.  Kusanagi smiled, just a
little evilly, and slipped down, kissing him still, tracing the outlines of
muscles with her tongue.  She kept her hand almost still, moving it only
slightly at irregular intervals.  Benten clamped his teeth together and thought
of flowers and birds and nice things.  It didn't help.  He was, to coin a
phrase, at her mercy.  Her mouth had passed his navel and was still moving down
his body, over sparse, soft, white curls. *Aa, Me-Gami sama... is she going
to...?*  "Aah!"  She did.  Kusanagi snaked her tongue down Benten's cock and
closed her mouth over it, and teased.  Benten groaned and hooked his knees over
her shoulders, crossing his ankles behind her back.  She managed a smile,
despite the occupation of her mouth.  She felt his long slender fingers sliding
through her hair.  Artist's hands.  Killer's hands....  Benten was struggling,
now; he wanted her to finish it more than he wanted to breathe in and out.  But
he couldn't just give in to her like that, could he?  It would be tantamount to
surrender, if he let go.  He moved his hands to her shoulders and tried to pull
her up, but his legs were still wrapped around her and they wouldn't move.
*Come on, legs!  Don't do this to me...*  Kusanagi had increased her rhythm and
she obviously wasn't going to let go.  Benten had to.  Writhing catlike and
gripping the sheets in scarlet claws, he came - a lot - noisily.  Kusanagi
disengaged herself from his legs, swallowed, and wiped an escaped trickle away
from her mouth.  She smiled.  She laughed.  Under normal circumstances, Benten
would have taken offence.  But these were not normal circumstances, and he was
too exhausted to take anything, even offence.  He opened his eyes.
    "That," he panted, sweating, "Was very very cruel."
"What do you mean 'cruel'?  I thought it was rather generous of me, considering
all the trouble you've caused me since we first met."  She smiled.  But it was a
good smile; there was no malice in it.  And her laughter had not been unkind.
Benten shut his eyes again and his head fell back onto the pillow.  He fought to
get his breath back.  Kusanagi sat on the edge of the futon and pulled her
jacket off the floor, slipping her gun into the pocket.  Benten saw.
  "Oi!  Where d'you think you're going?"  She turned back to him,
and said, "Home, bastard.  Got things to do!"  She stood up.
 "You rat," Benten exclaimed, half grinning, "You're not going anywhere, I
haven't finished with you yet!"  He shot an arm out and grabbed her left ankle,
and yanked it backwards.  All six hundred kilos of her crashed onto Benten's
bedroom floor.
    "I'll get you for that, you sisterfucking pig," she said, climbing back into
the bed.

~~~     

And once again, Oedo blended into night and day.  Fifty-six hours passed.

~~~

"Shit shit shit!"  Kusanagi thumped the terminal hard and it juddered
dangerously.  "Shit!  Shit shit shit fuck!  Cunts!"
    "You seem vexed," Benten said, propping himself up on one elbow, "Something
wrong?"  Kusanagi turned to him, looking - yes, rather vexed.
  "Yeah, something's fucking wrong!  The fucking Yakuza have only gone and
fucking stolen our fucking fuckitty diamond-harvest, that's all!"  Benten's
smile sagged, and then fell off onto the bed.
   "What?"
"The entire cunting load is completely gone!  They've fucking pinched it all!
Bastards!  I don't believe it!"  Benten, who would have been suspicious of a
mouse sitting on a piece of cheese, asked,
    "Are you sure it was the Yakuza?  How do you know?"
"Well, whoever it was left a Yakuza calling card.  Those aren't easy to get hold
of."
    "Granted.  When, and how?"
"Last night, around midnight.  They broke into the fucking Nikko Bank and just
lifted the lot!"  Benten rolled his tongue around his mouth, chewed thoughtfully
on his lower lip, and ground his front teeth together.
     "I am annoyed," he said at last.  "I am really quite annoyed."
  "YOU'RE annoyed?  Do you have any idea how much planning it took to get hold
of those things?  I sat up all night before we did that DeBeers vault over!
UGH!  You know, this is the kind of thing that really, really PISSES ME OFF!
Why the FUCK did we put the sparklies in the bank anyway???"
      "It was your idea, as I remember," Benten said, a little nervously,
slipping out from underneath the covers and searching for his clothes on the
floor.
   "Droids took 'em," Kusanagi said.
"Oh, thankyou.  I'm getting bored with that suit anyway.  Well," he went on,
wrapping the covers around himself and standing up, "We'll just have to go to
the bank and, uh, ask about what happened."  Kusanagi turned to look at him,
intending to pull a face, but the sight of him standing pale and fluffy-haired,
wrapped up in black cotton sheets like a kid in his winter warmers, was
distracting.  She smiled at him instead and said,
    "The place'll be crawling with rozzers."
"Best time.  Jewel-theft is Sheriff's Department, not Cyber Police.  They won't
know us from Adam."  With that, Benten stepped to the wall, knocked on a panel,
which slid aside to reveal one of his wardrobes, pulled a few items out, and strode off into the bathroom.  Kusanagi watched him go.  *Oh fuck.  What have I done?*  She always seemed to lose partners after she fucked them.  Perhaps it went to their brains, or something.  Flynn had gotten himself killed the very day he woke up in her
bed.  She shuddered at the memory.  Flynn had been - special.  Almost as
beautiful as Benten, though not half as nasty.  She shook her head to clear the
thoughts, and waited for her companion to re-emerge from his small, perfect
bathroom.  She hadn't counted on the length of time he spent on his make-up.

~~~

The journey from Koto-ku to Shinjuku-ku was unnecessarily long and gruelling.
They had been idiotic enough to take a cab; it was Sunday morning, a chronic
air-traffic congestion time.  It took almost an hour to get that short distance
across town.  When Benten and Kusanagi arrived at the Shinjuku branch of Nikko
bank, it WAS crawling with police - but as Benten had predicted, they were
Sheriff's department officers, and not Cyber Police.  Benten made a little proud
noise - right again - and Kusnagi looked at him.  He was wearing a long white
tailcoat, a shirt with the most ludicrous ruffles she'd ever seen, and a pair of
frighteningly tight, fashionably creased trousers, and his heels were just
silly.  But he looked so good, she could have jabbed a pair of chopsticks in him
and eaten him, there and then.  Benten smiled at her.  "Shall we?"  They must
have looked a right pair, he mused, as they located the head police officer and
went for him:  A freak dressed like something out of an old English horror film,
and a woman who looked like a panther in army gear.  They approached the cop.
   "Excuse me," Kusanagi said firmly.  The little porky country fellow turned
and smiled nervously.  He was the deputy Sheriff of Oedo.  His job should have
been obsolete, but it seemed he was still fairly useful.
     "Yes?  How can I help you?  Oh - are you two from the Cyber Police?"  For a
moment, Kusanagi's face dropped, and she began to panic.  Then she realised it
had been a genuine mistake.
   "No," she replied, "We...are customers.  We had a substantial amount of
merchandise stored in this bank and we have been told that it was...stolen, last
night.  We were hoping you could shed some light on this - or at least tell us
where we can find the manager."  Benten leaned over her shoulder and looked down
menacingly on the cop,
    "And make it fast," he said, "We haven't got all day."  Deputy Sheriff
Kajizonda didn't need this.  He was sixty-four, and he was retiring in three
months, and he had a hernia.  The bishonen in the white parlour gear was very
tall and very unnerving, and his companion, though smaller, looked as though she
could crush human skulls between her fingers.  Kajizonda smiled thinly, and
replied,
  "Y- Yes, of course.  I'll, uh, I think the manager is in his office.  Won't
you come with me?"  He moved off and the twain followed him.  He sincerely hoped
they weren't Yakuza.  They looked the part; surely nowhere else would two such
odd, and diverse people come to have a joint account in a big national bank.....
      Manager Yamada WAS in his office, and he was looking very nervous.  When
he saw Benten and Kusanagi, and they entered, he almost fell off his chair.  He
immediately got up, fell on the floor before Kusanagi's feet, bowed himself down
right into hell, and started to gibber.  "Please, please forgive me, miss
Kusanagi, mister Yanagawa!  I had no control over the events which took place
last night.  I beg you, have mercy on me.  I have a wife and two children to
support - forgive me, I beg of you!"  His two visitors looked at each other, and
then down at him.  Benten laughed.  Yamada looked up, but Kusanagi gave him a
burning-eyed glare and he lowered his head once more.
     "Oh well.  It wasn't really his fault," she said, so he could hear.  Benten
replied,
   "No, no I don't suppose it was.  Still, this bank has pretty awesome
security.  It must have been an inside job....  Yamada?  Know anything about
that?"  The little man kept his head down and talked into the carpet.
     "No, mister Yanagawa.  Not a thing.  Forgive me, I was at home when I heard
that the bank had been broken.  I am so sorry...."  Benten reached inside his
coat and pulled out a small, wicked looking knife.  It was highly polished and
had 'Yanagawa' engraved on it in extremely elaborate kanji.  He dropped it to
the floor in front of Yamada, and it stuck, lop-sided, in the carpet.  Yamada
heard it land and looked up.  Benten smiled down on him and said calmly, 
  "You only need two to finger your bitch with.  Let's see how sorry you are."
Kusanagi thought at him.
      *Benten!  We're not in the fucking Yakuza now!*
*No,* he replied, *But if those idiots outside ask any questions and find him
with a digit missing, they'll assume we are.  Safety precautions, Major.*  She
sighed and looked down to see blood spraying out from Yamada's hand.  He got up
onto his knees, carefully wiped Benten's blade on a handkerchief, wrapped the
detached finger in the handkerchief, and held the knife and the parcel forward.
Benten took his knife back.  "Keep the finger, if you like.  And tell me where
that Yakuza calling card is."
Yamada gritted his teeth against the pain in his hand, and wished the two before
him would go away and die somewhere, preferably slowly and horribly.
    "It....is in the vault.  The police have not yet removed it."
"Thankyou, Yamada san," Kusanagi said softly, and they left.  
            The vault was open, and there were no police around, to be seen.
Kusanagi and Benten steeped to the doorway.  The vault was completely empty.
Not one tiny sparkle of diamond to be seen.  Shit.  Someone had taken great care
over this.  It had to have been the Yak; none of the rival mobs had the
brainpower of the finesse to pull a job of this scale off so well.  Benten
hissed in irritation.  He was rather fond of sparklies, and had for days been
looking forward to doing a bit of bank-vault diving.  Otherwise known as rolling
about in precious stones and cackling insanely at his own wealth.  He stared
sadly around the empty vault, hoping to see just a twinkle.  Nothing.  Then he
saw the four forensic cops scraping about in the far corner.  He stepped back,
but they had already seen him.
        "I'm sorry, this area is restricted until further notice," said one of
them, standing up and stepping closer to the pair.  She scrutinised them when
they didn't move.  Kusanagi whipped her jacket aside and pulled out a small
black wallet, which she opened out.  On one half of it's ayamatta-leather casing
was a photograph of her, and the legend '5579 Mitsuyama Kyohko'.  On the second
half was a large black enamelled circle with a silver edge, etched on which was
a silver dragon cradling a golden Sun-disc.  The forensic cop looked at it and
her eyes swelled with dread.  She stepped back, looked the pair over once more,
and went hurriedly back to her colleagues.  They said not a word.  Benten jabbed
Kusanagi in the ribs and held out his hand.  She placed the ID in it.  He
suppressed a laugh.  It was a very convincing fake; and he saw why the cop had
looked so afraid.  It was a Section 4 Imperial Rangers ID badge.  He was
surprised the woman hadn't spontaneously combusted.  He spotted the card first -
a little black square with a 'Y' printed on it, a double-headed snake curling
around it's stem, tongues meeting in the middle above it.  *BASTARDS!*

~~~

Hasegawa folded his arms.  It might be a long wait, but it was going to be worth
it.  It was most definitely going to be worth it.  He turned to his left and
addressed one of his kido dogs.
"Any traces of them yet?"   Gogul swivelled in his chair and grumbled noisily.
He wasn't enjoying this at all.
   "Nah, nothing.  I'll bet you any money they don't bite."
"Oh, they'll bite all right," Hasegawa said darkly, "The bait is big enough even
for them.  They'll bite.  And then I'll reel 'em in.  Keep checking, cretin."
Gogul glared electronically at Hasegawa, and went back to his security scans. He
made a point of not looking very hard, more out of spite towards Hasegawa than
out of any feeling for Benten or Kusanagi.

~~~

Benten finished demolishing his fourteenth dry, bare rice-cake, wiped crumbs off
his lip-gloss, and waited.  They had managed to trace the glove-fibres on the
Yak calling card, and Kusanagi was just running a final trace, to make sure.
Suddenly the car door buzzed upwards and open, and she jumped in, rocking the
vehicle dangerously.  "Yep," she said, shoving a disk into the auto-drive unit
of Benten's brand-new shiny Lotus Elan, and the door closed as the car took off.
Benten watched in amazement as she pulled a tub of something out of her jacket
pocket, followed by a spoon, and started to eat.  He gawked at her.
    "What are you doing?"
"Eating, shit-mind, what does it look like?"
    "Yes, but WHAT are you eating?"
"Ice-cream."
    "Oh, VERY healthy."
"I don't have to be healthy, I'm a fucking cyborg."
    "That's' no excuse!  What flavour is it?"
"Cherry and chocolate-fudge.  Smell."  She held the tub under his nose and he
inhaled, reluctantly.  His eyes watered; it smelt gorgeous.  It was pale pink
and cold and full of whole cherries and great lumps of crunchy chocolate fudge.
Benten felt his resolve quake.  He was about to ask her if she fancied sharing,
but fortunately his sanity kicked in.  It would have been too rich.  It would
have made him sick.  Probably.  
    "Just you watch my upholstery!  That's real leather!"
Kusanagi stopped eating and gave him a totally nauseated look.
  "You mean these seats are made from some animal's hide?"  It was a matter of
some irritation to Benten that you couldn't get away with wearing or owning
leather these days.  The practise of using animal hide to make things had been
discontinued in the mid 22nd century, and the trade had never gotten back on
it's feet.  But there was something so inherently decadent about having leather
upholstery in your car.... 
       "Yes, Major, that's what leather is."  Kusanagi dropped her spoon, and
flicked on the 'window down' switch.  The reinforced glass descended, and the
daytime air rushed in, and she threw the ice-cream tub and the spoon out into
the city stratosphere.
   "That's disgusting," she said, and concentrated furiously on the roads they
were about to land on.

~~~

"Gogul?  Any signs yet?"  Hasegawa rubbed his hands together as he paced up and
down the corridor outside the building's security office.  The repetitive bump
and grind music from the shag-bar next door was becoming annoying.  It was all
he could do to keep his officers from wandering.  
"Same as last time you asked, no."  Gogul was getting tired of this.  He wanted
to go home and get some sleep.  And it was futile looking at the security
screens anyway; Benten and Kusanagi were bound to have thermoptics, and no
infra-red or visual system in the world would be able to detect them.  If he'd
had a tetrion-sampler, he might have been able to see the two if they actually
did arrive.  But even then it'd be sketchy.  Tetrions were tricky things.  He
pushed his chair back, folded his hands behind his head, and put his feet up on
the security desk.  Maybe he could slip out and pop into that bar.  Sengoku had
disappeared into it half an hour ago, and Hasegawa still hadn't noticed.  *Talk
of the devil!* Sengoku came back in, smiling a lot, and ever so slightly drunk
and reeking of booze.
   "How's things, Gogul?"  he seemed only half gone, so that was all right.  
  "Useless.  You know the score."  Gogul yawned.  It was going to be a fucking
long day.

~~~

"This is the place," Kusanagi said, leaping out of the birthed car.  Benten
hopped out after her, somehow managing to be graceful in those trousers and
heels.  Kusanagi cursed those heels.  They were going to click and give them
away.  That was if the dodgy black-market thermoptics didn't!  The suits were
overalls, and though the visors were high-tech, she always felt as though the
whole shebang was going to fail on her whenever she was using it.  Benten
reached back into the car and pulled out his gear, which had cost a bomb.  He
was too tall for ready-mades, so he'd had to have it done specially.  He pulled
it over his clothes, taking off his coat, and engaged the thermoptic field, and
then did the same to the car.  Getting hold of a camouflage device for the car
had been very difficult - such things were top secret and expensive - but it was
necessary.  The pair moved off.  Benten was finding thermoptics addictive.
There was something very attractive about invisibility, about being able to hide
from anyone and anything and never be traced.  You could slip in and out of
existence, and no-one would ever know.  Well, being invisible was less damaging
to the brain than Ice dependency.  But it's effect on the psyche?  He didn't
know.  He didn't want to know.  He was already insane, though.  What could one
more addiction or obsession possibly do to him in the way of harm?
    *The bar is on the eighth floor,* Benten projected,  *I have seen this place
before.*    
  *Well, that's a start.  I suppose the old chainsaw method will have to do this
time, find Someone Who Knows and pester them for names.*  Kusanagi was creeping
along, very silent, Benten following behind on his toes to keep his heels
silent.  They got into the lift.
       *I wonder who it was that took the sparklies,* Kusanagi asked, more
talking to herself than to Benten.
  *Hmm.  Who do you think could have done it?  Benisato?*
*No.  Not her style.*
    *Agreed.  Iwase?*
*Too old.  He would have died on the job.*
    *Okiura, Shukkon?*
*Nah.  Too stupid.*
    *What about Hagata?*
*Robert Hagata?  Come on!  He's afraid of his own shadow!*
    *Tong?*
Kusanagi fell silent as she recalled Teddy Tong, the cuddly (not!) bloke from
Beijing.  Tong was into theft.  And the care and skill with which it seemed
their diamonds had been swiped just about fitted Tong's MO.  *Could be,* she
replied.  The lift came to a halt on the eighth floor and they stepped out into
the security corridor.

~~~

"Sir!  I've got something!" One of Hasegawa's patrol officers was fidgeting
excitedly - he'd probably get a promotion for this!  He waved his little
detector box at his kacho, who strode over dramatically.
"Let me see that!"  Hasegawa tore the device out of the man's hand and
scrutinised it.  Ah!  It was a tetrion sampler.  And it was showing a scan of
the corridor.  Coming out of the lift were two readings, two jumbled up
splatterings of tetrions.  Bonnie and Clyde.  He grinned triumphantly and
instructed everyone to shut-the-fuck-up.

~~~

*It's very quiet in here,* Kusanagi said, feeling for her weaponry.  She hooked
her finger around the trigger-guard of the (stolen) Zastober chain-gun.  Benten
laid a hand on her shoulder.    
      *Do you notice anything else, or is it just me?* he asked.
*What?*
      *Too warm.  The corridor's deserted, it's silent.  It's too fucking warm.*
Kusanagi looked at him in shock.  
   *Oh goddess, no......*
Three squads of cyber police streamed out of the security office, all armed to
the teeth.  They couldn't see their prey, but they knew roughly where they were.
They stood row upon row, blocking the way ahead.  Hasegawa strode out of the
office and stood behind his officers, flanked on either side by Sengoku and
Gogul.
"Well.  The chase ends.  Disengage the gear and drop the weapons, both of you."
He was smiling.  Benten shuddered and started to shake.  Kusanagi turned to him.
She couldn't see his face clearly, not details anyway, but she could tell he was
in serious shock.
    *I'm not going back to that fucking penitentiary!*  She heard him and laid a
hand on his arm.
   *No, you're not,* she said.  It sounded brave and full of energy and surety
and power.  But her belly was somersaulting on her again.  She couldn't believe
she'd fallen for this, been taken in by one of Hasegawa's moves.  SHIT SHIT
SHIT!  And now they were very probably going to get killed.  But they had the
advantage, didn't they?  They were invisible.  
"Hasegawa Juzo!"  She shouted over the heads of the officers in front of him,
"We have fought hard to escape you, and the country's judicial system.  And you
have done well to trap us.  But I am afraid neither of us is willing to spend
the rest of our lives in jail.  So...."  She raised the gun and tapped Benten on
the arm.  The first row of officers fell headless, victims of the wire.
Kusanagi grabbed Benten by a wrist, then, and whilst the rest of the pigs, and
Hasegawa, Sengoku, and Gogul were in confusion, She dragged him between two
officers and on down the corridor.  
    "FUCK!!!"  Hasegawa screamed at no-one in particular, "GOGUL! SENGOKU!  GET
AFTER THEM!!!"  The two aforementioned kido detectives stood looking at each
other in puzzlement for a moment, until Hasegawa's glare spurred them on and
they both started to leg it down the corridor.
"Fucking hell," Sengoku growled, "Why us?"
    "Uh - helps keep up moral among the ranks if a couple of Kido get killed on
assignment," Gogul panted, as they came to an intersection between three other
corridors.
   "Which way d'you think...?"  Sengoku asked.
"The way out, I guess," Gogul replied, and charged off following the 'exit'
sign, followed by Sengoku The Reluctant Dragon.  They came to a flight of stone
steps which led up to an open door, onto the building's roof.  Gogul thundered
up them.  As he came out onto the roof he raised his shotgun.  Sengoku came up
behind him, and cocked his revolver.  Benten and Kusanagi were fleeing across
the roof, visible now.
   "STOP!"  Gogul shouted.  "OR I'LL SHOOT THE SHIT OUT OF BOTH OF YOU!"  Benten
stopped, sparks flew off his heels as they scraped against the concrete.
Kusanagi, too, stopped running and turned to look.  "Come on, kids.  Don't make
this hard.  I got to bring you in or finish you."
      "Fire away, Rikiya!"  Benten called, turning on his feet, "We're leaving!"
He pulled the visor down over his face, and disappeared.  Kusanagi cursed at
him, did the same, and followed him as he ran.  She heard a shot.  Two.  Three.
She felt a small, hot bullet thud into her left shoulder, another into her left
arm.  Either Sengoku wasn't really try to kill her, or he was a crap shot.  She
heard arguing behind her.  By the time Gogul and Sengoku got to the roof's edge,
Kusanagi and Benten had already leapt off it.  An invisible Lotus Elan sped away
beneath them, and they didn't even notice.  Sengoku knelt down by the edge.
There were splatter-patterns of blood there.
     "Well, I hit her!"  He smiled triumphantly.
"You hit one of them.  At least we can tell Hasegawa we can track them now."
Sengoku grinned nervously.  
    "N...not exactly.  I uh....didn't have any trackers."
"You mean you just shot ordinary bullets into Pussy-Cat and Fairy-Tail?  You
mean we have to tell the kacho we fucked up?"  Gogul was clenching and
unclenching his right fist.
   "Ummm.....yes," Sengoku said at last.  Gogul drew his arm back quickly.
  "Prick!"  He said as his football-sized fist thudded into Sengoku's face.  

~~~

Benten sat on his sofa, waiting for Kusanagi to come back from the bathroom.  He
had never seen her so depressed.  The fact that she had been taken in by a lousy
fucking police ambush scheme had really done her some damage, it seemed.  Fuck -
where the hell was she?  She'd gone in there more than half an hour ago.  Benten
decided to check and see if she was all right.  He got up and went to the
bathroom door.  When he knocked, it opened.  Kusanagi wasn't in there, and the
window was open.  But the bath was full.  It was full of hot water, turned dark
red with blood, and there were lumps of flesh floating in it.  He stared down in
disgust as bubbles brought Kusanagi's face, limp and removed from her body,
eyeless, rising to the surface.  Holy shit, what had she done?!?  Benten raced
to the window-sill and looked out.  There were plenty of architectural bits and
bobs on the outside of the building to get a hold on.  She'd gone and done a
fucking King Kong act!  Benten Ran back through he flat, panicking.  He knew
just what she was going to do.  He didn't know if it would work, but he wasn't
willing to let her try.  They were thirty stories up; it just might work.  He
raced through the hall outside, up the stairs to the roof-door.  He kicked it
open, and she was there.   
     Kusanagi stood on the edge, as she so often did. It felt so strange to walk
around in just your shell. *This is true nudity*, she thought, as she stared
over the edge of the roof.  She could barely see the road below, it was so far
down.  She had wondered a thousand times if she could kill herself by leaping
off tall buildings.  Probably.  She had never had the courage to find out; until
now.  Time to go; Hasegawa would never have the satisfaction of knowing he had
humiliated her.  Stripped of her skin, no-one would know who she was.  A dead,
trashed cyborg on the road wasn't enough to warrant an investigation anymore.
The bastard would never know.  She felt the wind whipping past her, but her
feelings were dulled; the shell was barely sensitive.  She stood, a bald,
steel-blue marionette, beside one of the tremendous griffins, and prepared to
go.  "Don't."  The voice from behind startled her.  Benten didn't come too
close, but she could tell he was there.  She could always feel it when he was
near.
    "I'm not going to let Hasegawa win."  
"Listen you stupid woman!  If you kill yourself, he wins the entire fucking
game!"
    "Not so.  Look at me!  No-one will ever know."  Benten looked over her from
the shadows.  Stupid, stupid woman.
 "I shall know," he said, suddenly coming to a plan, "And if you jump, I'll go
straight to Hasegawa."
     "And get your arse thrown back in jail?  I doubt it."  Benten at last
stepped forward.  She'd trashed that idea.
   "Oh shit - you've got me.  Fair enough, Major.  But if you're going...I might
as well join you."  He stepped up to the edge, resting one hand on the griffin.
"It's dark down there.  How very apt."  Kusanagi gave him a queer look, but
accepted his behaviour as truly Benten-esque.  He held out his free hand.  "Come
on," he said, "No one will ever know."  Kusanagi smiled wistfully at him, and
slid heavily into his arms.  *She's so COLD!*  From a distance, Benten seemed
like a waxwork embracing a shop-front mannequin.  Wax melts; mannequins rust.
They stepped to the edge.
     "See you on the scrap-heap, Meriru-ku," Kusanagi whispered, hoping he
couldn't hear.  And then the edge of the roof was receding, and the stars were
flying past.  Oedo loomed beneath their feet. Four clumsy, segmented fingers
curled around Benten's right shoulder, and a heavy Kevlar-coated hand rested on
his hip.  He leaned into his companion and shut his eyes.  *Fuck the city. Fuck
the whole damn world.*  Kusanagi's dead weight was dragging them down fast.
Benten held tightly onto her.  The wind burned at the soles of his boots.  The
crash disrupted the entire pavement.
    Kusanagi stared up at the nigh and the looming city.  She tried to move.  It
worked.  She was still alive.  *FUCK!*  She wanted to cry.  Benten moved beside
her.  He moaned.  The side he had landed on was bloodied and torn.  *OH FUCK!*
"What a....fucking pair," he said at last, "Couldn't...even get that.....right -
ah!" They both started to laugh, miserably.  Neither noticed the three large
strangers who had arrived and were looking them over.  One bent down, tapped
Benten on the shoulder, and addressed him in appallingly pronounced Japanese.
    "Merill Yanagawa?"  Benten raised an eyebrow and looked up.  There was a
giant American standing over him, with a little girl sitting on his shoulder.
Benten groaned and smacked his head against the concrete.