1

[Right Now]

*Kazuo!*-

……

*Kurusu!*

Hilga "Verstand" Gottschalk is terrified. She can feel Kazkuo’s mind nearly 10,000 kilometers away - but he’s not responding to her telepathic pleas, and she really could use his help right now.

*Kazuo Kanai!*

Elvis wants her dead, so it is entirely understandable that Verstand is upset.
The fact that Elvis is accompanied by two combat-grade novas who plan on making Elvis’ wish come true only adds to Verstand’s anxiety.

No, no, not that Elvis. That's just ridiculous. Firstly, were The Pelvis still alive - which he isn’t - he’d be even older than Micheal Jackson - and chasing healthy young novas through back alleys in foreign countries would be difficult for him at best. Secondly, the King of Rock n’ Roll, the man who sang Love Me Tender and Don’t be Cruel, could never be behind a heinous murder. No sir, Ol’ Memphis Flash would never stand for such a thing! The very idea boggles the mind.

Besides, the King is dead. Long live the King.

So anyway, the particular Elvis who wants Verstand dead is neither the fresh young Rockabilly Elvis (with his rolled up jacket sleeves, dyed-black ducktail, and spotless blue suede shoes), nor the old, fat Velvis of Las Vegas fame (with his numerous sequined jumpsuits, ostentatious scarves, and ill-concealed beer gut), but is instead an Albanian drug runner who happens to have the perfectly ordinary Albanian name of Elvis. Also, this Elvis is a nova.
Verstand is currently on the outskirts of Prizren, in the UN Administered province of Kosovo, about ten miles from the Albanian border, so this makes more sense than it might at first seem. Not that Elvis is a nova though. This makes no sense, and there is no explanation for this. The fact that an Albanian drug runner named Elvis erupted and became a nova is just plain weird, and like death, taxes, and the fact that parachute pants were once fashionable, you just have to accept it.
No, Verstand’s proximity to the Albanian border only helps explain why there are Albanian drug runners chasing her rather than, say, a pack of Bangladeshi drug runners. Bangladeshis would be a whole different kettle of fish altogether. Thank goodness for small mercies, right?

Verstand really, really doesn’t want to die at the hands of someone named Elvis. This is not the kind of joke she finds funny. And it's not like Verstand is one of those Germans who has no sense of humor, ok? She’s got a great sense of humor. Laughs at all kinds of things. This is a girl who chuckled a couple of times while watching Men in Black II. If that doesn’t convince you that she knows how to laugh in a bad situation then clearly you are a lost cause.
Besides, implying that Germans have no sense of humor is racist and insensitive. You want to talk like that; you can just get on out, all right? Jeezus.

It’s just that dying in general is not high on her list of things to do. Being killed violently by someone who doesn’t like her is even lower on her list. Being killed by someone named - of all the god-forsaken ironic slaps in the face – Elvis? Well, just admit it, you’d be upset too. And the thought of all the subsequent OpNet articles with headlines like "Elite Killed by Elvis" just makes Verstand cringe. They’d have a field day with that kind of thing, the vultures.
So it’s understandable that Verstand is just about to have a full-blown panic attack when suddenly she feels Kazuo’s mind stir.

*…mmm?*

Several billion cells in this guy’s brain, and apparently all of them are misfiring! Certain species of phytoplankton would be more responsive than this loser.

*Kazuo KURUSU Kanai, are you sleeping?! Du hurensohn!!! Wake up!!*

Verstand’s mind temporarily reels with the sudden onset of an eruption-grade headache along with a wave of alcohol-induced nausea before she mentally compensates for the sensory overload that is coming her way via the radioactive wasteland Kazuo calls his brain. "Headache" doesn’t even begin to describe what she just felt. Having doctors surgically remove your node - without anesthetic - and replace it with a big-budget, Hollywood summer blockbuster starring Andy Dick would hurt less.

This idiot’s not only asleep, he’s drunk and suffering from a hangover. Der arschloch!

*Uhn… Yeah, yeah, ok. I’m awake. Wudduyawant?*

*What do I want? I want you to get your ass over right now, so you can save my ass! You asshole!*

*Wow, that’s a lot of ass.* says Kazuo suggestively, finally starting to wake up. *Where are you anyway? And what time is it?*

*It’s just after 9pm here and just after 4 in the morning there, now get over here Kazuo! I’m at the safehouse – the one you set up, remember?*

The "safehouse" in question is really just an old, run-down auto shop on the outskirts of Prizren. The floor is covered in old oil stains, the counters are covered in dust, and the walls are covered in Third World pornography and Baywatch posters. Once upon a time it was used for repairing Citroens, Yugos, and all of those other nameless little European cars that look like pregnant roller skates. Right now it serves as storage for a whole lot of shiny, phallic, metal-and-plastic manliness in the form of a couple of bad-ass guns that Kazuo had stored here about two days ago. There's two high caliber automatics and a shotgun, and there is the FatMac sitting over in the corner. Verstand thinks this is overkill, and that Kazuo is trying to compensate for something.
The FatMac isn't technically a kind of gun, it’s really the name for the bullets this gun fires, but Kazuo likes the name so this is what he calls it. And let’s get something straight: When Kazuo’s index finger squeezes the trigger on the 'Mac, shit happens. You want to talk muzzle velocities? The FatMac kicks out explosive 20mm shells necked down to .50 caliber. These crazy cats weigh in at 750 grains and they come screaming out of the barrel like Ares’ own ejaculate at over 3400 feet per second, plowing into their targets with over 19,000 ft./lbs. of lethal kinetic energy and leaving an exit wound the size of Geryon's fist.
You think one of those sissy little rifle-sized railguns is better? Maddafaka pleez! Railguns are for scared little bitches that can't handle what the FatMac has to offer. You pull the trigger on a railgun, it sounds like a pneumatic tube taking a shit. You pull the trigger on the FatMac, it sounds like God sneezing. Oh sure, the 'Mac's no Ultra-machine Gun, but in the world of rifles-less-than-two-meters-in-length the 'Mac stands tall, proud, and unafraid. The 'Mac is instructus pro fuckin' bellum, baby.

Or at least Kazuo likes to think so. That shit is all custom, kid, so you know it cost him some yen.

*The safehouse, huh? Alright, I'm comin', gimme a minute...*

Just about one minute later Verstand hears a clicking and scraping noise behind her, and whirls around to see Kazuo walking through one of his patented, trademarked, and highly marketable Supe-su no Tuneru warp doors while trying to light a Mild 7 with an uncooperative zippo. Kazuo speaks nearly perfect English, so the name "Supe-su no Tuneru" (lit. "Space Tunnel" as mangled by your average unilingual Nipponese) is just his idea of a joke. He finally gets the Mild 7 lit and takes a satisfied drag on it, completely ignoring Verstand's near heart-attack at his sudden appearance behind her.

The warning label on Kazuo’s pack (and indeed, all packs) of Mild 7s reads: "There's a risk of damage to your health, so let's be careful not to smoke too much." While this is both thoughtful and informative, the fact remains that Kazuo's definition of "too much" exceeds what the makers of Mild 7 brand cigarrettes, Nihon Tabako Sangyo Kabushiki-gaisha (JT, for short), had in mind by several orders of magnitude.
Now, in Japan, just about the only kinds of cigarettes sold are milds, but even those that aren't are reviled by most avowed smokers throughout the non-Asian world. There is an unspoken understanding, agreed upon by proud Western smokers everywhere, that good cigarettes are one of the last holdouts in a world full of things "made in Japan". Meanwhile, Asian smokers everywhere just keep right on smoking those Mild 7s and Seven Stars at an unbelievable rate that more or less single-handedly validates the Quantity-over-Quality economic point of view.

Kazuo comes through the warp wearing a wife-beater that has some unidentifiable stains on it, a pair of boxers that are so pristinely white it's distracting, and some black flip flops. That's it. He gets done lighting his Mild 7, tries to pocket his lighter only to realize he has no pockets, looks down at what passes for his outfit, and says, "Eh, kuso...."

Verstand tries not to stare.

Kazuo has more scars on his body than a cartoon samurai. He takes his nova-name, "Kurusu", from the cross-shaped scar that runs horizontally across his forehead and vertically across the ruin of his right eye, and just about everyone who's familiar with the nova Kurusu knows this. What many don't realize though, is just how many scars he has over the rest of his body. Most of them are readily identifiable as being the result of your garden-variety deep slash wound, but there are several that seem to have had more exotic origins, and two of them - just under his collarbone on the right-hand side - are very clearly bullet wounds. It is a matter of public record that Kazuo already had most of his scars long before he erupted. This has led some to speculate as to what kind of trauma it takes to cause someone like Kazuo to actually erupt at all.
In spite all of these scars (and some would say, because of all these scars), Kazuo is an attractive man. Not superhumanly attractive or anything but very good-looking nonetheless. This has less to do with actual looks however, and more to do with his physicality - with the way he carries himself. Kazuo moves with the slow, comfortable, predatorial pace and confidence displayed by those rare animals in nature - such as Kodiak bears, Siberian tigers, and Tyrannosaurus Rex - who can kick everything else’s ass, and who therefore have no naturally occurring predators intent on eviscerating and eating them, and who thus lead relatively carefree existences (right up until some fat, First World amateur hunter comes along and makes a lucky shot anyway). Also, underneath those scars, it has to be admitted that Kazuo is one of those novas who helps define what people mean when they talk about "nova physiques", and it can be reasonably assumed that this contributes in some measure to his sex appeal.
And of course, no description of Kazuo would be complete without delicately mentioning the legendary (some say infamous) dimensions of his “sushi roll” (wink wink), which is currently rather prominently visible underneath the thin fabric of his cotton boxers. Prostitutes, cheap whores, skank-ass bitches, and movie starlets all throughout Asia whisper in hushed, almost awed tones about Kazuo’s “Colt .45” (again with the winks) and more than one OpNet porn site catering to nova enthusiasts goes into great (and significantly less delicate) detail comparing and contrasting its measurements to the actual gun (apparently there are a lot of similarities). Kazuo maintains that he possessed this impressive appendage even before he erupted, but these claims are, as yet, unverified and the issue is likely to remain an unresolved and highly controversial topic on the aforementioned OpNet porn sites for the foreseeable future.

After a brief, contemplative pause, Kazuo looks back up at Verstand , takes a drag from his 7, and says, "Wassup, bijin? Got made, didja?"

"Yes", says Verstand, trying to hide her embarrassment. Verstand is supposed to be the ubermensch of private detectives. She's the one you hire when you want to know things about people without them knowing that you know what they don't want you to know. Got that? She prides herself on being virtually undetectable. So it really sucks that she got pegged by her mark. Especially when her mark is named Elvis.

"Huey's been tailing me, but they still think I haven't realized I'm being followed."

"You're sure?", says Kazuo.

"I'm sure", says Verstand. Kazuo doesn't question her further.

Huey is what they call the DeVries elite hired by Elvis as backup for himself and his fellow drug-runner with a node, Rotta. She doesn't actually call herself Huey though, this is just an inside joke. Her actual Elite name is Cobra, but even this is sort of a joke. Gossip around the DeVries watercooler says that she managed to piss off Sauvage when she first signed on. So he gave her the name of some old attack helicopter that saw a lot of use during 'Nam as an interim attack chopper while another old attack chopper, the AH-56 Cheyenne, was being developed. Now, technically, the "Snake" had a reputation as a solid attack 'copter, but the subtext here is clear: Cobra, just like her namesake, is a substitute - you hire her if there's nothing else available, or until you can afford something better.
The Cobra was originally a modification of the UH-1 "Huey", and when you're trying to downplay the potential lethality of a likely opponent Huey is much less threatening than Cobra, hence the nickname. But all you really need to know about Cobra is that she flies fast and packs a big telekinetic whomp.

"Kazuo?", says Verstand, her super-sensitive ears twitching.

"Yeah?", asks Kazuo. But then he spots the guns in the corner and says, "Oh!", in a pleasantly surprised tone of voice, apparently having completely forgotten that Verstand is talking to him.

"They're here", says Verstand anyway, with a slight tremor of fear in her voice.

"Yosh", says Kazuo matter of factly, taking another drag on the 7, and Verstand‘s word for it, simultaneously. He picks up one of the automatics and tosses it perfunctorily at Verstand, who just barely manages to catch it in her shaking hands. Then he reaches for the FatMac.

About two seconds later Elvis enters the building.

About three seconds after that, God starts sneezing.

2

[The Past]

The sound of Alejandra’s latest single, Iteration Duplication, is pouring out of Aušrine’s back pocket. This might, under other circumstances, seem odd, but Aušrine has a cellphone in her pocket, so that explains that.
She's currently in LA, shopping at the Glendale Galleria. Aušrine likes coming to LA because it's one of the few places left where she isn't mobbed the instant she shows her face in public. The citizens of LA are way too cool to ever freak out just because a nova crosses their path. But drop some rain on them and all of a sudden the whole city is in a panic, cars start swerving erratically, roads are shut down, and good people everywhere run screaming for the shelter of their cheap, small, but enormously expensive apartments, condos, and prefab housing units - many of which are overdue for a thrilling ride down the sides of the hills they were so inauspiciously built on. It’s not raining right now though, so everything’s groovy.
Even as cool as the people in LA are, and even though they aren’t mobbing Aušrine, nearly all of them stop and stare for an instant as she passes them (some of them for much longer than an instant). Someone just walking onto the mall’s concourse could track Aušrine’s movements for the past five seconds or so just by following the trail of currently-stunned and recovering-from-stunned individuals that she leaves in her wake. Aušrine’s eufiber-duplicated designer heels make clearly audible clicking noises as she moves through a perpetual vacuum of stunned silence created by her passing.
Honestly? Some days she feels like the day she erupted was the day she stopped being a person in most people’s eyes. Now she is The Body, admired the world over. Never mind that she has an IQ of 167, never mind that she is still arguably one of the most experienced eufiber network technicians on the planet, never mind that she is a skilled enough gymnast to compete at a national level (though not at an international level, and definitely not at a nova level), and never mind that she speaks four languages fluently and is currently teaching herself a few more in her spare time.
The only thing most people noticed about Aušrine anymore is The Body she found herself in after she erupted. More discerning and discriminating individuals see more than just The Body of course. These insightful individuals further divide Aušrine’s form up into categories such as: Breasts, Ass, Legs, and Feet (these being the most popular, but other categories include - but are not limited to - Hair, Lips, and Eyes, and there is at least one OpNet site devoted entirely to her Belly Button - go figure).
Aušrine’s Body possesses feminine curves of almost impossible to miss magnitudes, stacked onto a lithe and lissome form that somehow manages to be spare and lean at the same time that it is curvaceous, and that completely fails to communicate the massive and impossible strength hidden within it. Her features are fine, almost delicate, and her skin lightly tanned. Her eyes and her long, curly hair are the exact same shade of a deep and dark brown. Though all of her is beautiful, her eyes are particularly arresting, like deep pools that an unwary observer could easily fall into. And though she doesn’t smile as often as some, when she does it’s like watching the dawning of the sun.
Everything about Aušrine looks immaculate, her dark brown hair looks perfect as it hangs from the tail she hastily pulled it into earlier, and her eufiber is skillfully shaped into a gleaming white aira, some white Mexican Tile pants, and a pair of perfectly imitated Jimmy Choo Clue Snake slingbacks. A pair of delicate (and genuine) soleil hoops with London blue topaz (by Shaesby) hang from her ears, and an 18k (and also genuine) white gold Boston chain with marquis blue topaz stations (by Judefrances) encircles her neck. In her left hand is her Marin Foldover Calfskin Clutch (by Jimmy Choo). The smooth skin of her sculpted, high cheekbones possesses a healthy blush that appears to be natural, the reddish color of her pillow-soft lips look equally so, and her soft brown eyes are nicely set off by her thick black lashes.
Ever since her eruption, makeup artists, hair dressers, and stylists have found in Aušrine their own personal Holy Grail, Shangri-la, Jesus Christ, what-have-you. Internationally respected makeup artists have wept openly while applying makeup to Aušrine‘s face, meanwhile hair stylists work in quiet awe and a kind of religious fear since it seems to be literally impossible to do anything wrong with her hair, and fashion photographers regularly fall in love with her since she’s always ready to shoot in a fraction of the time of the typical model and she looks good in literally everything (and, presumably, in nothing as well, but Aušrine has steadfastly refused to pose nude) and from any conceivable angle the photographer cares to shoot from.
All of this is, of course, a polite PR-friendly description of how Aušrine looks, and as such it politely glosses over those “curves of impossible to miss magnitude”. The blunt truth is that Aušrine has The Body that little porn star bodies all over the world dream of turning into when they grow up. If it weren’t for The Body being a quantum-reinforced and perfectly toned chassis of perpetual Olympian caliber Aušrine would almost certainly suffer from constant back strain and she would always be worrying about whether her badonk-adonk looked fat in those jeans. Her measurements are a mathematically perfect (out to several decimal points at least) 36-24-36, and when she first signed on to DeVries and visited Sauvage‘s little shop of horrors, one of the veritable fleet of reps they had following her around jokingly suggested she take the Elite name of ‘Brick House’. Aušrine and Sauvage quietly sent that idea (and the rep’s career) right into an early grave and so far (and very wisely) no one has attempted to resurrect it. In the end, they decided to stick with her given name as it was more appropriate than just about anything else would be. Lionel Richie has yet to comment.

Aušrine pulled her cell phone from her pocket, checked the phone number on her display, and put it to her ear.

“Hello Vitaly”, she said, “don’t you know I’m already on a job?”

Vitaly Szuhay, the Regional Coordinator for DeVries National Tactical Solutions in Eastern Europe, only ever calls Aušrine when he has a job for her and Kazuo. And even then he normally calls Kazuo. So this call is a bit out of the ordinary, especially since she really is on a job (even if it is just a photo shoot today and a fashion show in three).

“Yes my dear”, he says in Russian, “but Kurusu isn’t answering his phone, and this is a job I know you two will want first shot at.”

Aušrine, her interest starting to rise, answers back in Russian, “Oh really? Go on.”

“How much do you know about Elvis Bajraktari?”

The various fashionistas and high society types that Aušrine found herself around most of the time would all be shocked and scandalized if they knew just how much Aušrine did know about people like Bajraktari.

“About as much as anyone else I suppose”, she says, still speaking Russian.
“I know he’s one of Zhukov’s sportsmeny, high-placed but not on the Council or anything, and that he controls and maintains the flow of the C-Z’s vice operations from the Black Sea to the South China Sea - except that they’ve been running into increasingly heavy conflict with both the Triads and the Yaks in that area - and I’d heard rumors the C-Z were withdrawing from that area and heading for greener pastures. Don’t know if that’s true though. Vitaly, are you offering me what I think you‘re offering me?”

“’As much as anyone else‘”, mutters Vitaly, “my dear, that’s more than I knew before this job found its way to my desk, and no, I don’t think I am offering you what you think I am. This contract has a lot of complications, and I won’t blame you if you turn it down.”

“What kind of complications, Vitaly?”, sighs Aušrine. She can’t remember the last DVNTS job she worked that didn’t have complications.

“Well, for one thing, the only piece of information I have for you, assuming you and Kazuo are going to accept this job, is the name of Bajraktari’s contact in Japan.”

This catches Aušrine off guard. “Japan?”

“Yes,” says Vitaly, “remember those ‘greener pastures’ you were mentioning earlier? Well it turns out that Tokyo has been looking very green and pastoral to the Russians lately. Lots of demand for what they’re selling I guess.”

“Huh”, says Aušrine, “that actually makes a lot of sense. What else?”

“Elvis knows there’s a contract out on him, that’s what. And it gets worse - I’m hearing rumors from down the hall. Rumors that say he’s trying to rent an elite of his own.”

“What?!”, exclaims Aušrine. “You mean we’re playing both sides on this one?”

“Exactly my dear, and you did not hear that from me, alright?”

“Yeah, I know, I know”, says Aušrine, her voice laden with sarcasm, “you don’t exist, this conversation never happened, etc, etc.”

“This is serious Aušrine! You know I could lose my job for sharing information like that!”

“I know Vitaly. Thank you.” She pauses for just a moment, and then says, “All right Vitaly, I accept. Give me the terms.”

3

[The Past]

On the Eastern edge of the Kabukicho district of Shinjuku are a few narrow alleys taking up all of one block that are collectively referred to as the Golden Gai district. The Golden Gai started life as a red light district during the early years of US occupation after WW2, but it has since gone through several permutations until, at present, it is home to some two hundred and fifty (plus) bars that have an average square footage of a guest bedroom. Seriously. Sure, some (like Araku) are larger than this, but some are actually smaller. This situation is in part responsible for the somewhat humorous - but mostly awkward - situation the district now finds itself in.
Tourists are beginning to flock to this confusing maze of tiny bottle-keep bars tucked away down narrow alleys and up dangerously steep stairs because of the atmosphere, but the bars themselves have long subsisted on the patronage of long-time regulars who come to their favorite Golden Gai bars because they share some common passion (music, arts, cinema, etc), and they don‘t want ignorant outsiders coming and ruining the vibe. The result is that newcomers are often greeted with cold stares, exorbitant cover charges, and even pricier drinks. Outsiders are not welcome, and the area can be intimidating even for many of the local Nipponese.

Nestled in amongst this tiny chunk of fantastically valuable Tokyo real estate is Shot Bar Shadow - or just Shadow - and this is where Kazuo “Kurusu” Kanai is headed tonight.

Japan is rabidly pro-nova, as everyone knows, and while it is true that Nipponese people are in general an extraordinarily polite culture, this does not mean that they are above swarming a nova who shows his face in public - it just means that they swarm novas in an extremely polite fashion. This is a very peculiar phenomenon to observe, and it can only be seen in Japan, but anyone attempting to follow the nova known to the Elite industry as Kurusu in an attempt to observe said phenomena would be sorely disappointed. No one swarms Kazuo as he makes his way to Shadow - everyone around here knows better.
The entire underworld and street culture of Tokyo, especially within Shinjuku, and even more especially within Kabukicho (of which the Golden Gai is a part), knows the name Kazuo “Kurusu“ Kanai. Kazuo has a reputation, and it is not the kind of reputation that encourages people to walk up to him at random and hit him with a barrage of inane questions that mostly seem to spring from the basic (and very annoying) assumption that all novas everywhere are close, personal friends with every other nova on the planet. Kazuo hates this, the idea that he can answer any nova-related question just ‘cause he‘s got a quantum-charged chunk of cancer in his forebrain. As if he has any fucking clue about some half-Yank busu named Salamander (“So you’re telling me she controls fire but she named herself after an aquatic lizard?” asks Kazuo, “fucking dumb-ass Americans”. Kazuo is not much for silly things like mythology or biology, or much of anything else that ends in ‘-ology‘.), or whether Geisha is as hot in real life as she looks on camera (she is, but Kazuo got himself rejected hardcore when he came on to her once, so she aint gonna be getting any free press out of him). “Grow a node or get a life!” he wants to shout at them, “but get out of my face!”. Yes, Kazuo has a reputation to say the least, so as he makes his way up the narrow alleys of the Golden Gai and heads up the steep stairs to the nondescript door of Shot Bar Shadow, no one bothers him, and no one asks him inane questions.

It is past 3 in the morning, and Shadow has a membership-only policy after midnight (Kazuo isn’t a member), but no one tries to stop him as he walks in. At one of the two small tables that comprise the only other seating in this tiny place are three artsy types talking philosophy or modern cinema (or maybe both) in no less than four different languages. Why three people need four languages to hold a conversation in is beyond Kazuo, but this sort of thing is pretty normal in the Golden Gai, so he doesn’t spare them a second glance. Instead he sits down next to next the solitary figure seated at the bar, lights up a Mild 7, and joins him in his silent staring contest with the wall behind the bar. Shino (Shadow’s owner/operator/bartender) already knows what Kazuo’s drinking, so he doesn’t even ask and no words are exchanged. During the entire time that Shino is getting Kazuo his drink the only thing that happens is that Kazuo takes another drag on his 7 and blows smoke into the already close air. Kyuudousha (the solitary figure) hasn’t so much as blinked since Kazuo walked in.

Kyuudousha (which is a Nipponese word that basically translates as “the Detective”) is Mr. Mysterious around these parts (read: all of Asia) . A regular cyber-ninja of the twenty-first century. He’s so fucking mysterious, just knowing about him makes Kazuo feel cooler. The Detective is a walking, talking, surveillance center with a brain more powerful than a room full of super-geniuses, he knows the entire criminal underworld of Asia like the back of his hand, he can tell when you’re lying just by listening to your heart rate - from across the street, find a needle in a field of hay, and he has less QBS than most baselines.
The Nipponese branch of the Directive has a crush on Kyuudousha this big. Kuro-Tek would hire this guy in a second, the Nakato-Gumi are still courting him, and supposedly even Nippontai has tried to recruit him before. At the same time, these organizations are all just a little scared of Kyuudousha because he’s so fucking mysterious. Seriously, no one knows where this guy came from. He just showed up a few years ago, working freelance jobs for all of the major Elite agencies, and anyone else who could afford his prices.
But Kyuudousha’s won‘t work for any of the established organizations. Kazuo doesn’t know why he won’t because if he did then the Detective wouldn’t be very mysterious now, would he? He just knows that Kyuudousha has chosen to remain a free agent. Which is good for people like Kazuo, because it means he’s available for small favors like the one Kazuo asked him for a couple of days ago.
If Kazuo had to take a guess as to why Kyuudousha won’t work for organizations like the Directive or Kuro-Tek, he’d probably say it’s because of how paranoid the Detective is. Straight up - get this guy started - and he’ll rant for half an hour talking in hushed tones about things like node-draining drugs (he calls it Slite), vast conspiracies to - of all the ridiculous things - make novas sterile (as if Kazuo would want kids in the first place), a shadowy faction within Utopia bent on world domination (Kazuo, who used to be in T2M, finds the idea that those Toopy idiots could do anything without calling a major press conference to announce their intentions, generating at least three major toy lines to commemorate the occasion, and creating multiple comic book spinoffs while they were at it, to be fucking hilarious), and the inherent dangers of eufiber clothing (Kazuo finds this shit even funnier, because he knows for a fact that Kyuudousha was wearing a eufiber outfit himself - while telling the story). It’s all some of the wildest and freakiest shit Kazuo’s ever heard, but it‘s also pretty damn funny too. Yeah, that Kyuudousha is pretty freakin’ paranoid all right; what a character. But even though he’s kind of a paranoid wack-job, he’s still all dark and mysterious and cool, and he’s really fucking good at finding out secret shit, so Kazuo likes him.

Kyuudousha hasn’t acknowledged Kazuo (or anyone else for the past several minutes) because he’s not really there at the moment. His body might be sitting on a barstool in a little joint called Shadow, with a dangerous and moody Elite sitting next to him, but his mind is several blocks away wandering through the computer networks of ViaSoft’s Tokyo offices. In addition to being a really kickass (and mysterious) investigator, Kyuudousha also happens to be what the media calls a “cyber kinetic”. A damn good one too, if the rumors are to be believed, but this particular talent is one that Kyuudousha keeps under wraps and it takes a significant amount of money to find out how good he really is.

Back in the day, the Shot Bar Shadow was known mostly for all the French crap they serve (which Kazuo has never so much as glanced at, so he couldn’t tell what any of it actually is), and the nice selection of stringed instruments that Shino‘s got hung up on the wall behind the bar (which is what Kazuo and Kyuudousha are actually staring at). Now Shadow is known for two things: its drinks and its music selection. Somehow, old Shino has gotten a line on a whole slew of first rate bootlegs of all the hottest Novox tracks, many of which haven’t even been released yet.
When Kazuo first came in that new British Novox chick, Mayhew or whatever-her-name-is, was coming out the speakers, but that finishes up just as Shino brings his drink over and a new one starts winding up. Kazuo’s still trying to place the track as he brings the glass to his mouth. He thinks he’s prepared for what comes next, but two things happen at once that he‘s one hundred percent not prepared for. Firstly, the track that’s been “warming up” is actually The Raging Node Blossom’s brand spankin’ new (as in, “not actually released yet” new) cover of Typhoon 24‘s Tell Me Why, which goes from “winding up” to “wall of sound” within a span of time so tiny a quantum computer couldn’t measure it. Secondly, and at the same time as The Raging Node Blossom’s Wall-O-Sound attempts to shatter Kazuo’s eardrums, the drink Shino’s just served Kazuo hits the back of his throat with all the gentleness of lit napalm and for added fun it goes down the wrong pipe entirely. If a skunk were to come sidling up the length of the bar, plant itself directly in front of Kazuo and say, “pull my tail”, and Kazuo fell for it, the effects would be no less dramatic.

The reason that a nova like Kyuudousha, or a nova like Kazuo for that matter, comes to a little place like Shot Bar Shadow has nothing to do with its music collection, as impressive as that might be. The reason they come here is that it’s one of the very few places that has Zanshin. Now, historically speaking, zanshin (with a lower-case z) was what a really good Samurai would feel as he cut his enemies down with impunity while screaming his lungs out. It was the concentrated essence of badassness that all true Nipponese warriors spent their lives trying to reach and maintain. Literally translated, zanshin means “follow-through“, but this doesn‘t do a very good job of conveying what the word is actually used for. A better translation would be “emotional intensity”, and it is this definition that led to Zanshin (with a capital Z) being given its name.
Zanshin is a beverage that is based loosely off of the same formula as the Amp Room’s eponymous Amp Well, except that where an Amp Well tastes more like your average bitch-pop drink, Zanshin tastes more like Saki, and it has a few other ingredients (like battery acid, if you believe the rumors) added for extra kick. After a nova gets plastered off this shit, they generally have enough “emotional intensity” to win the World Cup single-handedly. It’s good stuff.
Unlike normal Saki however, you cannot order Zanshin hot. This drink has so many incredibly dangerous ingredients in it that it qualifies as an unstable compound, and aside from being lethal enough to drop a rhino, it can supposedly be put to use as a pretty decent primer for high explosives in a pinch. Needless to say, heating it over an open flame is a pretty dumb fucking thing to do.
Zanshin is a Nipponese original, and it’s new enough that hardly anyone serves it yet. Even the Amp Room hasn’t gotten its hands on this stuff yet. But there are a handful of places in the Shinjuku area where a nova can get themselves good and buzzed on Zanshin. Shot Bar Shadow is one of them, and it is Zanshin that Shino pours into Kazuo’s glass as he sits there staring at the wall, and it is Zanshin that is currently putting Kazuo’s nova power of tissue regeneration to the test by burning holes in his windpipe and lungs.

Kazuo’s sudden plunge away from the bar startles everyone quite a bit, but what really makes everyone jump out of their skins is Kyuudousha’s simultaneous (but much louder) outburst. Just as Kazuo’s bending over at the waste with the apparent intention of puking up at least one of his lungs, Kyuudousha leaps off his stool with such explosive force that it goes careening backwards for what would undoubtedly have been several feet were it not for the fact that Shot Bar Shadow is not several feet wide. He pumps his fist in the air and shouts, “ Brrrrrrraah!”, at the top of his lungs, trilling his ‘r’s with more ballistic force than a Mac-10. One of the three patrons in the corner actually hits the deck.

In the darkened offices of ViaSoft, several blocks away, an otherwise perfectly ordinary computer is just finishing up erasing all the files concerning a piece of technology that Utopia’s S&T Department would find “interesting” to say the least. Conveniently (for ViaSoft), when the next morning rolls around, and the Utopian S&T squads come waltzing in at 9am sharp (as they announced they would do just yesterday evening about five minutes before closing time), there won’t be any “interesting” files for them to confiscate at all. The technology itself has already been shipped out to a company whose name starts with a K and ends with a Tek. Kyuudousha’s bank account has also just gotten much larger as well.

“Yosh!”, shouts the Detective with a look of deep satisfaction on his face. He smacks the choking Kazuo on the back hard as he walks by him to retrieve his stool, and then returns to the bar and requests a shot of Zanshin for himself. Kazuo stumbles back to the bar and signals for another shot as well while attempting to rediscover the mechanism for breathing normally. The heads of the philosophers in the corner slowly emerge from underneath their table, and everything returns to normal.

Kazuo and Kyuudousha spend about five minutes recovering themselves, rebuilding their auras of pure badassness and mysteriousness respectively, and contemplating the wood grains of the various stringed instruments hanging from the wall in front of them. The philosophers in the corner attempt to pick up the thread of their previous conversation but it keeps stalling out because they’re too busy stealing covert glances at the two insane novas between them and the exit to remember how to speak all four of the languages that are necessary to have this particular conversation. Eventually they give up and settle on getting really drunk instead. Raging Node Blossom and their cover song are a distant memory. So far, neither nova has even made eye contact with the other.

About halfway through his second cigarette since reseating himself Kazuo shifts his weight and turns to look over at Kyuudousha. The Detective responds to this by ignoring Kazuo and pulling out a cigarette of his own, lighting it up, puffing on it, and then putting his lighter back in the pocket he pulled it from. When his hand emerges from the pocket its holding a slip of paper. Kyuudousha slides the paper across the bar’s counter towards Kazuo, and then finally turns to look Kazuo in the eye.
Kazuo picks up the piece of paper and unfolds it so he can read it. Written, presumably by Kyuushouda, in the Roman Alphabet, is one word: “Tolkach”.

Kazuo stares at this with his good eye for a moment and then looks back up at Kyuudousha (his dead eye, being dead, makes no pretense of staring at anything). “You sure?” he asks.

“Yosh”, answers the Detective and then takes another swig of Zanshin. He immediately makes a face as he swallows that looks like he’s trying to hold back a scream.

“Fuck”, says Kazuo. And then, “Fuck!”

“Yuppa,” says Kyuudousha hoarsely, his throat still reeling from shock and disbelief after its brief encounter with the Zanshin.

Kazuo runs his index finger along the length of his scar just above his right eye and broods for a moment. Then he looks back at Kyuudousha and asks, “How the hell am I supposed to score a meeting with The Fixer?”

“Oh, it shouldn’t be that hard”, says Kyuudousha with entirely too straight a face, “you both have so much in common after all.” He’s referring to the fact that Boris Sladivgorod, aka Tolkach, aka The Fixer can open up warp doors just like Kazuo can. The Detective is also being sarcastic. Scoring a meeting with Tolkach will be about as easy as making it out of the Addis Ababa complex alive after telling Caestus Pax that his shaved look “isn’t fooling anyone, everyone can tell that you’re prematurely balding, man, so stop fooling yourself.” Although the meeting with Tolkach probably won’t be quite as potentially dangerous. One way or another though, Kazuo has to score a meeting with this guy if he wants to take down Elvis Bajraktari, fulfill the terms of his contract and, oh yeah, maybe get fucking paid sometime this month.
Elvis Bajraktari is the nova in charge of moving the C-Z’s vice trade from Europe and into the South Pacific arena. But Tolkach is in charge of moving everything, not just prostitutes and drugs, but everything throughout Europe itself. Tolkach is the source, the well spring that supplies all of the Megasyndicate’s illegal rivers, and without which people like Elvis cannot survive.

Kazuo gets to go tell the Coordinator for the world’s largest contraband network to fuck off for a while so he and his partner can haul in one of the chief lieutenants of this network in exchange for a large bounty, none of which they’re planning on sharing with Tolkach. Good times.

Kazuo gets up, downs one last shot of Zanshin, immediately regrets it, chokes out a goodbye to Kyuudousha, and walks out the door of Shot Bar Shadow without another word.

4

[The Past]

“Trust me, if you look good in white”, says the man, who isn’t wearing any white at all, “you look great in black!” He isn’t wearing any black either. But he does have a lot of pink on.

Aušrine just nods, and keeps her best “no really, I’m interested” smile going and takes another sip of her champagne. Not like the smile really matters though. Like moths to a flame, the people gathered around her have been simply and irresistibly drawn to her quantum-enhanced beauty. None of them really want to talk to her, they wouldn‘t even know what to say if they had the chance. Half the people in this group are visibly relieved that Mr. WearingPinkbutlooksReallyGoodinBlack is going on at such great length about colors and clothes, because they haven’t come up with an excuse yet for why they’re standing so close to her, and as long as this guy keeps it up they don’t have to.
Pinky’s not showing any signs of stopping soon anyway, so everyone’s feeling pretty relaxed at the moment. Aušrine has to admit that she’s kind of impressed at how well this guy’s doing. Most baselines only last about five seconds into a conversation with her before their eyes start straying, their words start sticking in their mouths, and any pretenses begin peeling away like a bad paint job (for that matter, novas don’t do much better). Pinky may be a bit weird, but at least he’s an interesting sort of weird.
She’s been at this party for almost an hour now, and her target still hasn’t shown. “This party” is an after party for a fashion show for Burnin’ Nation’s new line of clothing. Aušrine was not asked to model in the show, for obvious reasons, but it wasn’t difficult to get herself invited to the party afterwards. Now she just has to find her target and get herself invited to another party, albeit a much smaller and potentially more dangerous one.

While Pinky continues his astoundingly long monologue about the virtues of single-color wardrobes, Aušrine finds her mind wandering. The subject matter of Burnin’ Nation’s clothing line has her feeling contemplative. Aušrine isn’t sure yet how she feels about Miss McClendon’s message that novas like herself are “Quantum Accidents”, but she knows she’s bothered by it to some degree.
The eruptions of both Aušrine and her partner, Kazuo “Kurusu” Kanai, could not possibly have been more of an accident, more of a result of random chance or capricious fate without being flatly impossible. Neither she nor Kazuo had any idea that they might be latent novas waiting to happen (they hadn‘t even known each other before it happened), and once they did erupt there was no going back. Even worse, the circumstances of their eruptions (which Aušrine rarely thinks about, let alone talks about) mean that she probably didn’t even have much choice in the powers and abilities she wound up with, making her even more of a “Quantum Accident” than most. In short, Aušrine agrees with the title that Burnin’ Nation has slapped on her, but that doesn’t mean she likes it.
So what does all this mean? Is she really just an accident? A walking mistake? She doesn’t want to think so, she doesn’t actually believe it, but the questions nag at her.
Immediately after she erupted she joined up with Team Tomorrow, even convinced Kazuo to join with her which was an extremely impressive feat in itself. But when she looks back on that time in her life now all she finds is an empty place in her heart. The actual period of time itself is a blur of public relations events, charity events, boring meetings, relief aid missions, and occasional life-threatening battles. But what overshadows it all is the personal loss that resulted from her time with Utopia. Aušrine doesn’t blame the Utopians for what happened to her parents, far from it, but she still left the group.

Aušrine first began to suspect during her time with T2M-Eu and their raids against the C-Z just how evil some of the men (and women) they were going after were. Sure some of them were just people caught in a bad situation and trying to do a job and earn a paycheck, but a lot of them were vile in a way she’d never have believed possible before she saw it for herself. The idea that criminals might actually be “bad” might seem obvious at first, but there’s a large difference between acknowledging in one’s mind that “criminals are bad” and knowing from personal experience that “there are evil men in this world”.
What she realized was that the men behind organizations like the C-Z were willing to destroy anything and anyone. People’s lives, livelihoods, relationships, morals, and communities. And not because those things stood between them and their goals, or represented a threat to their continued safety - it might almost be forgivable if that were the case. No, they did it for profit and for power. That’s all. If it would earn them greater riches or more power than they already had, they’d destroy the entire world and everyone in it. It didn’t matter if you were in their way or not, because these men would destroy you all the same.
The death of her parents at the Camparelli-Zukhov Megasyndicate’s hands left her with a desire for revenge which was only reinforced by the several weeks immediately following her resignation from T2M that she spent dodging one assassination attempt after another. Then came the offer from DeVries and her current contract with them, which more or less gives her and Kazuo first pick on any C-Z related jobs. After that she and Kazuo had the resources of the world’s largest mercenary organization at their disposal, and the assassination attempts stopped in short order. Since then she’s been a driven women, single-mindedly working towards the downfall of the entire C-Z Megasyndicate (the downfall of all the other criminal organizations out there would be ok too).
But looking back on everything that’s happened to bring her here, Aušrine can’t help but notice that all she’s done is react to situations entirely out of her control. One accident after another all leading to… what? Why is she here?

In the short term, she’s here because this is what she does. Aušrine is the one who networks, the pretty face that woos the baseline masses and distracts the Syndicates from hers and Kazuo’s true intentions. She’s had to work very hard, against the wishes of DeVries’ PR people, to separate herself as much as possible from the Combat Elite image that she was pegged with early in her career as an Elite. The particulars of Aušrine’s abilities make her extraordinarily marketable as a Combat Elite, and DeVries loses money as long as she persists in letting combat jobs go by in favor of the much less lucrative modeling contracts. But she’s losing money too, so that’s just too bad for them.
The point of all this isn’t to fool the Syndicates or anyone else into thinking that she’s not a Combat Elite, because anyone who’s paying attention will know full well that she takes a large number of bounty contracts, and almost all of them for Syndicate boys someone wants brought in. The point is to make sure that when she shows up at a high society event of any kind no one is surprised. No one wonders what brought the Combat Elite to the fashion show, because they aren’t thinking of her as a Combat Elite in that context, they’re thinking of her as a supermodel who’s just doing another show. The wrong people don’t immediately ask themselves why she’s at the same functions they are, they just accept it as natural. And once she’s talking to the people she needs to talk to face to face, they’re not really thinking of much of anything at all, at least not with any real clarity. That’s why she’s here in the short term, to bedazzle some poor fool with exactly the information and the connections she and Kazuo need to reach the next stage of their operation.

But why’s she here in the long term? What’s all this accomplishing? What happens when all this is over (assuming she doesn’t get herself killed) and there’s no one left for her vengeance to latch onto? Will she just find someone or something else to exact “justice” upon? And that’s something else that’s been nagging at her lately; this whole business of Vengeance. What gives her the right? And even assuming she has the right, is she even accomplishing anything worth being proud of?
At one point in her seemingly-distant and unbelievably naïve past, Aušrine once entertained a desire to rejoin those “baseline masses” and return to a normal life - once she’d taken care of her promise to her dead parents. But she’s been doing this long enough to have realized that all of those “evil men” in the world are actually “evil men”. They’re people just like everyone else, except that somewhere along the way they took a wrong turn. So at this point she’s not so sure she wants to rejoin the masses, she‘s not so sure “the masses” are as full of good people as she once believed. But, she has to admit to herself that this is mostly an excuse.
The thing is that, aside from a number of moral and practical questions regarding the validity of her life-choices over the past few years, what’s been bothering Aušrine more and more lately is how removed she feels from most of the people around her. And no, not just because she’s “oh-so-fucking-beautiful” and everyone stares at her all the time, although that’s a part of it. It’s the whole thing, the entire Being-Aušrine package.
Something that Aušrine began to realize early on was that people’s perceptions of her had been entirely skewed by her eruption. An example: when she was being hounded by C-Z goons intent on her death, even Utopia only made a token effort to protect her. Oh sure, they and virtually all of the international law enforcement agencies wanted to help, but they were far more interested in using Aušrine as bait to capture the culprits than in offering her protection.
Why? Well, because she’s Aušrine Vasiliauskiute, that’s why. She can generate a giant, invisible sphere possessing a gravitational field so strong that baselines caught within it collapse under their own weight and have trouble breathing, let alone moving. More importantly she’s on record as one of the strongest and toughest novas on the planet - she can more or less move mountains or a survive a fall from low Earth orbit. Oh, and she can fly. Put in the kind of clear cut terms that, for whatever reason, no agency uses in polite conversation (or PR Announcements), she’s considered one of the most powerful beings alive. So what does she have to worry about, right?
Imagine living in a world where national governments are so scared of what you could do if you ever went on a rampage that it never occurs to them that you might actually need their help or protection from time to time. It kind of isolates you.

And then, yes, there is the “oh-so-fucking-beautiful” problem. In the four years since she erupted, Aušrine has met, and spoken with, all of - maybe - three or four people (all of them novas) who were able to successfully hold an intelligent, meaningful conversation with her without her ‘Dorming first, and this problem has only become more pronounced as time has passed. And it isn’t because she’s so much smarter than everyone else that no one can keep up with her either. Eruption didn’t make Aušrine any smarter or more perceptive than she’d been as a baseline. It’s because, man or woman, young or old, nearly every single person she meets simply can’t get past staring at her long enough to have an intelligent conversation at all. On a fairly regular basis she runs into people that can’t even manage to control themselves once in her presence, and then things get really fun.
Women either start to fall for her (which can be awkward and embarrassing for them, but is always awkward for Aušrine, who has a definite sexual preference for men), or they become extremely jealous of her. The former can often be highly entertaining for any observers, even if it never comes to anything, and the latter merely devolves into the kind of catty snipe-fest that sends even the most ardent male suitor/bystander running for the hills. Interestingly, the problems with men are much the same. They either start falling for her (which can also be embarrassing or humiliating for them, if they happen to be homosexual), or they also become jealous and/or defensive if they have significant others who are also falling under Aušrine’s spell. When Aušrine enters a crowded room, conversation always stops for at least the briefest of seconds, and even once it picks up again it normally takes no more than a quarter of an hour before it all revolves around Aušrine. And this is not to say that there are lots of people trying to talk to her once this happens, there are just lots of people trying to talk at her or about her, or trying to pretend they‘re not talking about her.
It’s actually, and not at all coincidentally, a lot like what she’s experiencing right now. Pinky’s starting to show signs of running out of things to say, and everyone’s beginning to look nervous and sweaty. Soon they’re going to have to justify their presence around her, and most of them haven’t figured out how to do that yet. Worse, many of them are starting to realize that they’re going to have to justify their behavior to their Significant Others after the party, and they really haven’t figured out how to manage that.

The end result of all this is that Aušrine is really starting to wonder if maybe that Divis Mal guy is on to something. The plain and simple truth of the matter is that she is surrounded by a world full of fragile baselines, all of whom seem intent on crawling all over her personal space every time they lay eyes on her, but around whom she must constantly exercise great care lest she accidentally injure or kill one of them with a casual gesture or destroy a romance with a careless smile. As it is Aušrine is spending nearly all of her downtime either ‘Dormed or living as a recluse, and she has all but given up on the idea of being able to live normally within the baseline world she came from.
Two things give her pause in regard to the Teragen question. One: most novas are, from her perspective, only slightly less fragile than the baselines around them, and the vast majority of them are no better behaved when she’s around, and Two: there’s a whole lot of really intimidating novas that seem to be involved with that Teragen group.
Aušrine didn’t get any smarter when she erupted, nor did she get one of those “quantum-reinforced personalities”, and so, in the same way that many find her to be overwhelming and intimidating (when they aren’t too busy staring at her chest to notice) , she finds most hyper-intelligent and/or superhumanly charming novas (of which the Teragen seems to have quite a few) to be more than she can easily deal with.
But even that is dodging the issue. The real issue is that, in Aušrine’s opinion, all of those agencies out there that seem convinced that she’s “one of the most powerful beings alive” are wrong. Sure, she’s a force to be reckoned with, she can admit to that, but she burns through her quantum reserves faster than a stoner goes through Cheetos and, more importantly in her opinion, there’s more to being “powerful” than being able to lift a few hundred thousand tons or being able to take a hit from the main gun of a tank without flinching. She thinks that most of the national and international groups out there, maybe even including Utopia, haven’t really figured out yet who the really “powerful” novas are, but she suspects that when they do they’re going to find a whole lot of them claiming Teragen sympathies.

Aušrine has this idea that there are people within the Teragen who will see past her beauty and their own projected desires in a way that no one except maybe Kazuo ever has, and see her for who she truly is. What she’s afraid of is that they’ll see her… and find her wanting.

But there’s no more time for ruminations, it’s time to get to business.
Aušrine has just seen her target come in through the front doors, with a young and very attractive (baseline) woman seemingly attached to his shoulder. She sets her nearly empty champagne glass down and excuses herself, and before Pinky or anyone else has a chance to recover their wits and try to stop her, she’s gone.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, Aušrine still hasn’t picked up on the fact that when she really wants to get from point A to point B, no one ever tries to stop her. People clear right the hell out the way when Aušrine’s got that look about her. And right now, she’s got that look in spades.

Her target is one Viktor Sholz, a German baseline in the employ of Boris Sladivgorod (aka Tolkach), and he really doesn’t stand a chance, whether he knows it or not.

“Hello Dr. Scholz”, says Aušrine when she reaches him, speaking English, “do you know who I am?”

At this moment Scholz has a face that’s lit up like Moses right after he got a look at God’s ass (look it up…).

“I… uh, yes. Yes, I know who you are, Ms. Vasiliauskiute.” There’s a second or so where it looks like Scholz might be praying or something. Maybe in thankfulness. He recovers his composure rather quickly though, something Aušrine doesn‘t fail to notice. He even gets her name out right without stumbling over it like most people do, but she can still see the hormonal confusion creeping in around the edges of his bearing.

Aušrine gives him one of her most dazzling smiles, at the apex of which about a dozen of the crowd of people openly staring at her more or less simultaneously stifle suspicious-sounding grunts and begin engaging in strategic shuffling and thigh-squeezing motions. Aušrine studiously ignores all this and says, “Good! Because I know who you are as well.”

This in turn prompts Scholz to begin mounting a smiling offensive of his own, but he only gets about halfway into it before his smile is wiped right off his face. The reason for this is that Aušrine continues after only a short pause with the words, “and I know who you work for as well, Dr. Scholz”, spoken in her crispest, clearest, Eastern European accented English at a volume that ensures that those standing nearest will have heard her, and with a look that brooks no misinterpretation from Scholz as to what she‘s talking about.

Aušrine’s English has one of those Eastern European accents that are almost impossible to place. It’s not quite Russian, not quite German, totally exotic, and really fun to listen to. Like a French accent spiked with vodka. But Dr. Scholz doesn’t look like he’s enjoying himself very much at the moment. Looks pretty uncomfortable, truth be told.

The reason for this, so Aušrine assumes, is that, like many other fringe-criminals, Dr. Viktor Scholz is under the erroneous belief that his association with the Camparelli-Zukhov Megasyndicate is a well-guarded secret, when it is in fact something of an open secret. In all likelihood none of the people gathered around have any idea what Aušrine meant by what she just said, and that’s because it isn’t widely known that Scholz is anything other than a highly respected Professor who writes papers for the Institut fur Wirtschaftsforschung Halle who is evidently in some sort of position (financially- or personality-based) wherein highly attractive women roughly half his age are willing to accompany him to fancy parties.
Oh wait, that’s sort of suspicious, isn’t it?
Well, now you know why it’s something of an open secret. The people at this party might not know, and might not even be suspicious, but for someone with Aušrine’s connections finding out everything there was to know about someone as indiscreet as Scholz was about as difficult as finding out what time it is in London.

Before he can gather his wits and become angry or retreat, Aušrine smoothly interjects herself between Scholz and his escort, who has foolishly begun to pull away from him the better to see his look of surprise and discomfort. Disgruntled at this intrusion, the harpy attempts to resist as Aušrine slides in between her and her client, but Aušrine is stronger than this woman by entire orders of magnitude and so she might as well go resist a brick wall. Aušrine simply turns and gazes at the young woman for an instant, her nostrils flaring just the slightest bit, and that’s all it takes. The harpy backs down fearfully, gives up, and goes in search of a tall glass of something alcoholic.

Aušrine turns back to Viktor, inserts her arm under his, and laughs lightly, saying “don’t look so concerned Dr. Scholz! I only bring it up because I would like very much to speak with you and your employers. I have a business proposition that I feel your employers would like very much to hear.”

“A business proposition?”, asks the doctor, clearly off-balance and trying desperately to get it back so he can catch up with whatever the hell is going on here.

“One that will benefit all of us”, answers Aušrine.

Scholz cocks an eyebrow quizzically.

“You don’t believe me?”, asks Aušrine in a mildly hurt tone.

Dr. Scholz only gapes at her. He doesn’t believe her, that much is obvious. And really, why should he? He’s not a stupid man, his lack of discretion notwithstanding, and he probably has some idea of what sort of work Aušrine does when she isn’t playing supermodel. But it really doesn’t matter whether he believes her or not. She’s the most stunningly beautiful woman he’s ever met in his life, a goddess come down to earth in fleshly form who has deigned to speak with him. If he tells her the truth, that he doesn’t believe her, he might hurt her feelings or - much, much worse - actually make her angry. For the hormone-addled brain of Dr. Scholz that is just about the worst thing he can imagine at this particular moment in time.

So he closes his mouth and stops gaping, then opens it again and lies through his teeth in as straightforward and earnest a voice as he can manage, “Of Course! Of course I believe you, madam! I am terribly sorry if I made you feel otherwise. Please, forgive me.”

And there it is, Aušrine has him now. When she erupted, Aušrine did not erupt with the scalpel-edged social skills of someone like Count Orzaiz, who can persuade anyone of nearly anything (or so say the rumors). But she does have her quantum-enhanced superhuman beauty, which she can use as a kind of social sledgehammer to knock someone senseless, leaving them in an irrational frame of mind where they’re prone to doing all sorts of foolish things. As in the case of Dr. Viktor Scholz who is now lying to himself and to her and who is now, in essence, tacitly agreeing to something that he should not, according to good common sense, be agreeing with under any circumstance.

In response, Aušrine merely smiles again and says, “Very good then!”, and then lowers her voice to a more conspiratorial level and continues, “this is a rather sensitive matter, and I fear that - besides yourself, of course - the only sort of person who will be able to appreciate its significance, and be in a position to help me, would be someone who is already accustomed to arranging difficult transactions and fixing things.”

“If you take my meaning.”

The melanin all throughout Scholz’s epidermis appears to be going on strike and he promptly turns white as a sheet. “Ah…”, is all he manages to get out, then he swallows hard.

“Do you know of anyone who might be able to help us?”, asks Aušrine innocently.

“I… might know of someone… yes. But… it would be, ah, difficult to arrange a meeting with, ah… this person”, says Scholz, looking sicker by the moment. Aušrine gives him her best lost puppy dog look (please sir, if you don’t help me, who will?), and the doctor appears to undergo some sort of spiritual cave in. His lower lip actually quivers briefly as he blurts out, “but I am sure it can be done, Ms. Vasiliauskiute. It will take some time, but I believe I can arrange it for you.”

Aušrine beams happily at the doctor and favors him with her brightest (and most sincere) smile yet. “Fantastic!”, she says.

Then she adds, “So, what day should we set for the meeting?”

“……”, says Dr. Viktor Scholz, though his mouth moves a great deal more than one would think necessary while he says this.

No, Dr. Viktor Scholz never stood a chance.