GL Sandborn
1st March 2006, 03:27 AM
Since it appears the FFML doesn't like my latest post of Nabiki-New
Horizons (possibly demonstrating
its good taste), I will try something new and different. We'll see how
it likes Ai Yori Aoshi.
In my work, I'm often on the road 2-6 weeks at a time. On long flights
and longer nights in strange
places, I pass the time watching a lot of Anime. I came across Ai Yori
Aoshi almost by accident.
It took me less time to buy the entire series (both the original and the
Enishi arc) than it did to watch
them all. Like Takahashi, the author of AYA created a good plot and
interesting characters but left
things undone. This leaves the field open to fanfic interpretations,
something I tend to take maximum
advantage of. This story is one of those interpretations.
The Wild, Wild East centers on Tina Foster, the child with a home but no
real country.
Feedback always appreciated.
************************************************** ********************
This story has been written without the knowledge or approval of Kou
Fumizuki - Hakusensha/ AIAO Project
and Pioneer Animation. It is for the enjoyment of Ai Yori Aoshi fans
and written with respect for its
original creators and copyright holders.
************************************************** ********************
-- Attached file included as plaintext by Ecartis --
-- File: WWE1A.TXT
The Wild, Wild East
By G.L. Sandborn
1 New Zoo Review
"Come on, you fool!"
Steven Hunter stumbled at the admonishment. He couldn't help it. He had been running for what seemed like hours through downtown Yokohama and was exhausted.
The early summer heat made running in a full suit feel like exercising in a sauna. Sweat ran down his face and soaked his formerly freshly laundered white shirt. Besides worrying about getting killed by their pursuers, he also wondered how he was going to pay for cleaning his soaked clothes.
Glancing back, he caught a glimpse of Asian men, also in suits and wearing dark glasses, pushing their way through slower pedestrians in an effort to catch up. Despite all the tricks he and his partner had used to escape, there always seemed to be fresh pursuers waiting to take up the chase. It was as if they knew in advance where he was going.
He followed his partner into another subway station and quickly paid their way through the ticket gate. A subway train was just announcing its departure.
"Get in!" his partner growled, shoving Steve through the doors and following an instant before they closed.
The crowed subway car seemed to press in on him as the train started to pull from the station. Crushed against multiple bodies, he squirmed enough to look around nervously for the men who wanted them dead. Through the windows he caught sight of two pursuers as they jumped the gates only to come to a halt when local police intervened.
Steve drew a series of deep breaths in the stifling atmosphere of the subway car. Painfully twisting his way around, he intended to confront his partner about where they were going this time.
His partner beat him to it. "We'll get off at the next stop and double back. Maybe we can finally lose those bastards," his partner growled in a low voice.
Steve just nodded, glancing about for any sign of danger. When he noticed a couple of the other passengers eying them, he tried to smile and nod their way. That only led to quizzical expressions before they abruptly returned the nod and looked away again. He really couldn't blame them. His partner looked angry and a tall angry black man on a crowded subway train was sure to create no small degree of apprehension among the Japanese passengers.
Of course, he couldn't have been much better in their eyes. A sweaty white gaijin in a stuffy subway car was probably testing their tradition of foreigner accommodation to the max. Together, he and his partner had to be the oddest couple of gaijin most of these people had ever seen.
He turned back to his partner, who was now trying to act nonchalant. "How come the Ko...," he paused to consider his words carefully. There was no telling who was listening. "How come those guys always seem to know where we are?"
"Don't know," came the answer. It wasn't very assuring. After all, his partner was supposed to be a first-class agent. He was supposed to have all the answers.
Steve sniffed and tried to rub his nose. The press of commuters around him made even that act difficult. How did he get himself in such a situation? This wasn't what they told him in training it would be like. Besides, he wasn't an A Team operative. He was a linguist, proficient in ten languages. They told him he was going to eavesdrop on sensitive communication from someplace safe, not run for his life from killers.
Maybe it had something to do with that 'thing' they were able to get from the enemy hideout. Instinctively, he felt the spot on his suit that covered the tiny three inch long device that looked like a common USB flash memory drive. What it really was caused him to shiver.
"I just wish I knew why I can't contact headquarters," his partner said. "For some reason, my radio isn't working and every time I try to use a phone, the line goes dead."
"Jamming? Tapped?" Steve rummaged through the possible reasons, hoping none of them were particularly accurate.
"Don't know," his partner replied. "Something big is happening. I just hope we weren't the cause."
Weren't the cause? They had just stolen the key to a new and, if all reports were correct, horribly devastating weapon. It was the kind of action that was certain to cause an enemy to stop at nothing to get back.
Gentle tones sounded from the PA system overhead announcing the next stop. Sakuragi-Cho? Where was that?
When the subway pulled to a stop the doors hissed open and Steve felt himself being swept along by a human tide that spilled out onto the platform. He stumbled and might have fallen except his partner grabbed his collar and shoved him towards the exit.
Pressing their way through the crowd, they emerged at street level into the warm sunshine. Steve nervously glanced around but saw nothing of their previous pursuers. Maybe they lost them this time. "Where to?" he asked.
"North," was all his partner said before hurrying across the street along with a flood of other pedestrians.
"Why north?" He wasn't totally satisfied with such an abrupt answer.
"Trees," his partner replied as if that was all he needed to say.
Trees? Trees in the Tokyo area usually meant a park of some sort. Why would he want to go there?
He was still wondering about their destination as they crossed in front of a junior high school. He didn't trust the relative calm of their apparent escape and continued to glance warily around him. On one of those anxious recons, he spotted what he hoped he wouldn't see again.
"Don't look now but I think they're back," he said in a low voice.
His partner barely turned his head before grunting a curse. His steps picked up to become a fast walk. Steve matched his partner's long strides, chancing a quick glance back. Three Asian men in dark suits and sunglasses were matching his increased pace.
He was so intent on keeping an eye on their pursuers, he almost missed his partner's sudden dash across another street. With a panicked feeling of being abandoned, he quickly followed his long-legged companion. To the sound of blaring horns and the squeal of tires, he barely avoided being run over. Scrambling frantically, he gained the far sidewalk without further mishap only to be stopped by a tall fence.
"Who puts up an eight foot fence in Japan?" he complained before following
his partner to the right along the sidewalk that bordered the fence line. He
frantically looked for some opening they might exploit to gain the thick foliage beyond. It didn't appear promising. The fence looked like it continued unbroken for as far as he could see.
"Maybe they want to keep basketball players out," his partner growled.
"Just keep going."
Steve did just that. His raspy breath echoed in his ears and sweat poured down his neck into his already soaked white shirt. Looking back he took little satisfaction at two of their pursuers tumbling over the hood of a taxi as they failed to duplicate the Americans' escape route.
He almost collided with his partner when the man suddenly stopped partway
down the block. Frowning at the man for a brief moment before following his gaze to see why. They had found a gate but it was locked with a sign on it that read: Zoo Property. Keep Out, Please."
ZOO?" his partner yelled. "Oh MAN, I hate zoos. They got all them animals in there."
"Do we keep going?" Steve asked, gasping for breath while casting a
nervous glance back the way they had come.
"Hell, No!" His partner whipped out his automatic pistol with its heavily modified silencer. "We need cover." The man took aim at the lock. "DAMN! And I wore my best suit today."
Three shots sounding like someone hammering small tin can and the lock was history. Kicking open the gate, he grabbed Steve his sweaty collar and shoved him through.
Steve stumbled a few steps before he beginning to run again, negotiating a worn concrete path that had all the charm of a depression era country road. Branches from untrimmed trees grabbed at his coat as he ran and bushes tugged at his legs. He could hear his pursuers crashing through the partially open gate somewhere behind.
He was gasping for breath when they emerged in a clearing that was big
enough to build an apartment building. It was also housefly heaven. In the
middle was a massive net full of animal dung that dangled ten feet in the air
suspended from a large construction crane. The zoo people were either airing it out or preparing to load it into a poo removal truck.
"Now there's a sight you don't see every day," Steve wheezed as he bent
over, hands on his knees, gasping for breath. "I always wondered what they did with all the poop they scooped at the zoo."
Bullets ripped the air above his head, reminding him of their pursuit. Their adversaries were closing in; firing heavily silenced automatic weapons that sounded no louder than electric typewriters as they spit dozens of rounds his way.
Shoving Steve towards some crates of Purina Monkey Chow, his partner turned on their attackers with an almost cool efficiency. Firing twice, he dropped the first two who emerged from the narrow path. The others scrambled for cover in the thick undergrowth on either side.
"Find a way out," his partner called, smoothly inserting a fresh magazine in his weapon. "I'll hold them off."
"I can't leave you," Steve protested.
"My job is to get you and that 'thing' to safety. Now, MOVE!"
With a frustrated growl, Steve turned and dashed across the clearing before diving into the surrounding bushes and landing in the thick undergrowth. Taking to his hands and knees, making sure to keep as much cover as possible between himself and danger, he scrambled noisily away from the clearing. Two months of training seemed to pay off. Despite the occasional angry buzz of errant enemy shots, nobody seemed to notice his getaway. Not bad for a rookie, he thought.
He had gone only a few yards when he literally ran into another tall fence. Choked with bushes and weeds, it was topped with nasty looking razor wire. It was not the kind of obstruction they had time to deal with.
Rising into a crouch, he worked his way along the fence line hoping to find another gate or opening. It quickly became apparent that this section of the zoo was not one a person could easily get into or out of.
The first gate he came to had a lock that would have taken C4 explosives to open. A second, further along, was secured in such a way that even shooting the lock would have failed to open it.
Cursing, he slammed his fist on the locked gate. There didn't appear to be any point in following the fence line any further. The kinds of locks he had seen so far indicated anything else he might find would probably be more of the same. With a frustrated growl, he turned back towards the clearing. It looked like they were trapped.
As he approached the clearing, he remembered his training to remain under
cover and look for his partner. At first, he couldn't see him. He could hear the man's weapon along with those of their pursuers but there was little to suggest where his partner was holed up.
Moving a little further round the edge of the clearing, he suddenly jerked to a halt. His partner had taken cover almost in the middle of the clearing behind some cinder blocks. From there, he was single-handedly keeping the bad guys at bay.
Drawing his own weapon, Steve crouched a little lower in the undergrowth.
He wanted to aid his partner but with no obvious targets, he hesitated shooting. Firing his weapon would only draw attention to his hiding place. Getting himself pinned down wouldn't help his partner. It wouldn't do much for his own survival either. Unsure of what to do, he crouched down behind a large tree and prayed that the attackers would just run out of ammunition and go away.
As he caught his breath, feelings of guilt began to pick at his conscience. Only a worthless coward would hide under cover leaving his partner to fight off their attackers alone. He certainly wasn't a hero but there had be something her could do to help.
Cursing under his breath, he slithered through the thick undergrowth until he reached a spot where he might just be able to fire a few well-placed shots with his own heavily silenced handgun. If he was lucky, shooting a few assailants might just cause the others to retreat long enough for he and his partner to escape. Maybe they could double back through the trees and escape through the gate they had entered. Where they would go from there, he wasn't sure but anyplace had to be better than where they were now.
Guessing the location of one of the assailants, he started to rise up to
shoot but jerked back into hiding when he caught sight of movement off to his
right. Afraid to move lest he give his position away, he stared at the spot until he caught glimpses of a shadowy figure slipping through the brush. It had to be one of their pursuers. Any moment, that figure would be behind his partner.
Using the tree to steady himself, he tracked the figure's movement with his pistol until it disappeared behind the crane. Growling in frustration, Steve looked for some way of getting a clear shot. He couldn't let his partner of two whole weeks die from a bullet in the back. The paperwork alone would be murder.
Taking a deep breath, he quickly scurried to the relative cover of a
portable power generator. When he saw the figure climbing into the crane's cab, he knew now was the best shot he was going to get. He rose up, aimed and fired once. True to his West Texas heritage, his aim was good. The figure tottered for a moment before slumping forward. The dead man's body must have released the winch mechanism. With a loud 'crack', six tons of animal waste came hurtling earthward, directly towards his partner.
Before he could yell a warning, his partner looked up and shouted a most
ironic lament: "Aw SHIT!"
An instant later, the load buried him with a thunderous splat'.
The firing slacked for a moment, as if the assailants were deciding what to do. Steve knew that wouldn't last long. A lone agent is an agent in danger, his instructors told him. They weren't kidding.
When the attackers began firing again, Steve wavered between sheer terror
and astonishment that they seemed to know exactly where he was. Bullets tore
chunks out of the crates around him and riddled the trees behind. The fuel tank on the generator freely poured gasoline from countless holes. Almost without aiming, he returned fire as best he could but that did little more than remind his assailants where he was. He needed help. No, he needed a miracle.
Tina Foster yawned and stretched in the warm sun, trying to loosen her poor overworked muscles. After six continuous hours of hard physical labor, she was finally getting to take her lunch break. As usual, she was the last person allowed to go eat. She didn't like it much but that was just the way things were.
It was hard enough being the only woman zoo keeper in the Japanese zoo, all the other women guided tours, worked concessions or sold tickets. It was
especially hard because the other zookeepers couldn't understand why a young,
blond American female with a college degree would want to do the dirty work in a zoo. They weren't open about their confusion. Instead, they talked amongst themselves, sometimes loud enough for her to hear. Their discussions often suggested reasons they thought she was there. None of them even came close to the real reason.
It wasn't easy to ignore them. Every nasty insinuation burned inside her. She couldn't respond openly. That would only lead to trouble. Besides, she needed this job, if only for her own self esteem. As a Western graduate of a Japanese university, her career choices were limited in Japan. Not as bad as those of her Japanese female classmates. Their futures all seemed to be headed for marriage to a workaholic husband, producing a litter of children, and then spending their lives cooped up in a small apartment cooking, cleaning, and raising those children. She shuddered thinking of such a claustrophobic life.
No, being an American in Japan had some advantages. She could have gone
into translation work or teaching English somewhere. Both were steady and fairly respectable jobs. They just weren't jobs for her. She wanted more. She wanted the outdoors and excitement.
While the zoo didn't offer much excitement, it did offer her a chance to be outdoors and around the animals she loved. That almost made the comments and gossipy coworkers bearable.
Of course, her supervisor was the king of sexist pigs, always suggesting she should be looking for a husband instead of scrubbing hippo excrement off the side of their pool. He even slipped her a business card for a matchmaking service. She didn't need to look for a husband. She didn't even want a husband. That is, unless Kaoru was interested.
Kaoru. She smiled at the thought of the only guy in Japan that seemed to
need her as much as he appeared to like her. When they were alone together, she could almost feel a spark of something wonderful between them. Why he refused to respond the way she wanted was a mystery to her. Perhaps he was distracted by school or maybe just reluctant to commit. That had to be it. He was just scared of commitment. Given time, he was certain to eventually come around and return the love she felt for him. It was all just a matter of time.
She stretched again and dug into her bento lunch with renewed energy. Maybe she would just knock off early today. There were lots of places she could hide until quitting time. Nobody seemed to care anyway. Whenever she went missing, her supervisor made little effort to find her. It was as if he didn't really care about her work. He certainly wasn't going to look for her back by the Animal Waste Recovery Facility. Nobody wanted to hang around a bunch of animal droppings. That's why her bench outside the maintenance shed in the far back of the zoo was so perfect. So long as the wind was from the right direction, nobody bothered her here. Even if they noticed she was missing, they rarely radioed her.
They probably just assumed she was working in another part of the zoo.
Finishing her lunch, she set her empty bento aside and leaned back against the warm building. With a full stomach and the sun warming her, she easily slipped into daydreaming about what Miss Landlord and Kaoru-sama were doing right now. Closing her eyes, she could see Aoi and Taeko hanging laundry in the bright sun while Miss Manager, Miyabi Kagurazaki, sipped her after-lunch tea. Chika-chan was probably in school. It was still a week until summer vacation. Kaoru? Well, he was probably studying or working on a paper. Graduate school must be tough, she thought.
Her musings were interrupted by her radio. What now? Couldn't they at least let her eat in peace?
Snatching it from her belt, she answered. "Tina here."
"Did you leave the wheelbarrow in the Animal Waste Recovery Facility again?" came her supervisor's annoying voice.
Tina groaned. Just before lunch she had dropped off a load of elephant dung at the facility. She remembered parking it next to an old power generator but was so anxious to get to her lunch break, she forgot all about it.
"Take it over to bear exhibit right away."
Tina wrinkled her nose at the thought of cutting her lunch short for a bunch of pooping bears. Still, she made the mistake of answering her radio, so she was trapped. "Fine," she growled into the radio before snapping it off. She didn't want to hear whatever reply her boss might have had to her attitude.
With a heavy sigh, she got to her feet and stretched again before starting up the path leading to the Animal Waste Recovery Facility. Every step was punctuated by another curse directed at her boss, her coworkers, and pooping bears.
She unlocked the main gate leading to the facility and slipped through. The odor of animal waste immediately assaulted her nose. With a sniff, she rubbed a hand across her upper lip and tried to keep breathing to a minimum. A few flies swarmed around her before heading off towards the more promising waste dump. There were also a few that sounded like bees whizzing past her head in the opposite direction. She expected flies to be thick in this part of the zoo but she didn't really remember this many bees.
"I sure hope there isn't a hive or something around here," she said while
trying to swat at the invisible insects as they flew past.
Stepping into the clearing, she froze. The large stinking mound of manure was not on the crane where it was supposed to be. For some reason, it was on the ground. Worse yet, there was a human leg sticking out from underneath it.
The whizzing bees abruptly stopped. From somewhere in the bushes ahead she heard a series of strange voices using very bad Japanese.
"Who is that?"
"It appears to be a member of this zoological collective."
"Is it permissible to kill a local zoological collective worker?"
"We are not to harm any locals until imperious leader tells us it is
acceptable."
"But she doesn't look like a local."
"Agreed. She looks like an American."
"That would make her a valid target, yes?"
"Not necessarily. She could be Canadian."
"Quite true."
"But didn't our imperious leader say both countries are running dogs of the bourgeoisie that deserved extermination?"
"Yes but he has also said that Canada has shipped us much wheat last year. We don't want to anger our meal ticket."
Tina had no idea what they were talking about but had a bad feeling about
the direction their conversation was heading. With a nervous laugh, she waved her hands in front of her. "That's okay, guys. I'll just go uh, clean a hippo pond or something."
"Stay where you are, female. We deciding your fate," came the sharp reply.
Tina began to slowly inch her way back towards the gate. "So, ya hosers
take your time, eh?" she called trying her best Canadian accent. It didn't sound very convincing to her considering her glaring Texas accent.
There was a pause in the conversation before one of the hidden men spoke.
"She sounds Canadian."
"How would you know?"
"I watched 'Strange Brew' last night on the television."
"That is unacceptable! You are NOT permitted to watch capitalist running
dog propaganda while in this country!" The angry retort was followed by two
gunshots and the groan of a dying man. "It was a lousy movie, anyway."
There was a long pause as Tina continued to inch her way back towards the
gate.
"How about Takeshi's Castle?" came another voice.
Three more gunshots rang out. That was enough for Tina. As she turned to run, it was as if all the bees in Japan were swarming around her. Doing her best Texas Two-Step dance, she hopped, skipped, wiggled, and weaved her way back the direction she had come. Despite being only a dozen or so yards from the gate, it looked to be a mile or more away.
A bullet tore through her utility belt, taking with it her two-way radio.
She felt another rip through her long blond hair, painfully tugging at her scalp. There appeared to be no escape. Any second, one or more of the dozens being fired her direction would find its mark.
She was beginning to ponder how Kaoru and the others would act at her
funeral when a figure leaped from behind a shot-up old generator, looped an arm around her waist and threw her into the bushes. She had just enough time to register that her rescuer was not an Asian man. He looked surprisingly Western and that business suit was totally out of place. Before she could protest the rough treatment, a bullet tore through his upper arm, spattering her zoo uniform with blood.
Tumbling to the ground next to her, the stranger rolled away and struggled to his knees. "DAMN IT! I knew that was going to happen!" he growled in English while holding his wounded left arm.
Laying on her back, supported by her elbows, Tina stared wide eyed at her
rescuer. "Why are they shooting? What did I do?" she whined.
"Because you were in the way," he growled. It looked to her like he was about to cry.
"What do you mean by that?" she snapped back, a flash of indignation momentarily overwhelming her fear. "I work here. I'm supposed to be here."
"Yeah? Well, it almost got you killed!" he shouted back, still holding his wounded arm.
There seemed to be fewer bullets whizzing through the bushes than before but she paid scant notice. This bozo was acting like a complete jerk. "That doesn't change a thing! You are trespassing on Nogeyama Zoo property. And what's with bringing a gun in here? You're not even supposed to have a gun in Japan."
"This gun is the only thing between you and those killers over there!"
"Who asked you to get between me and them? I was doing just fine before you showed up!" she screamed.
"You were doing fine at getting yourself killed! Maybe I should have let them kill you!" He glared back at her. It barely registered with either of them that the shooting had completely stopped.
"Oh sure, let the pretty blond girl get killed," she huffed. "YOU ARE SUCH A JERK!"
With balled fists, they glared at each other.
"Uh.. Excuse please," came a voice from across the clearing.
"WHAT?" they yelled together in answer to the voice.
"We are on very tight schedule. Imperious leader expects us back by five and you know how traffic is. Anyway, if zoological collective worker please to get out of way, we kill American now. So sorry for earlier."
Tina glanced at the trees bordering the far side of the clearing before returning to growling at the jerk with the bleeding arm. "I ought to do just that," she growled.
"Oh sure, let the handsome American get killed," he huffed.
"Better you than me," she said, starting to get up.
"That's a lousy way to thank someone who just saved your life!" He grabbed her hand and yanked her back under cover.
"LET GO OF ME!" she yelled, pulling her hand free and stumbling backwards. She tripped over a shot-off tree limb and fell hard on her back.
The voice from the other side of the clearing sounded irritated. "Oh, so sorry. Must catch train. Both must die now."
"HEY, WAIT A MINUTE!" Tina started to get to her feet again. The air around her became alive with buzzing bullets. Chunks of bark and a shower of dislodged leaves pelted her. She was just screaming something about not wanting to die when she was suddenly driven to the ground by a heavy male body and pinned there. "What are you doing?" she gasped.
"Protecting you," the man said.
She began pounding on his back with both fists, her bare legs kicking up a storm of leaves. "Get off me, you pervert!"
"They're trying to kill us both," he replied.
"Who's fault is that?" she yelled, still hitting him with her fists.
"We need to get out of here!"
"DUH!" she screamed, adding a shot to his head for emphasis.
"Will you knock it off? We need some place to hide!" he yelled, holding his pistol back over his head and squeezing off a couple of random shots.
She glared at him for a moment, considering the possibility of just kicking him where it would do the most good and making a run for it on her own, when a bullet tore a chunk of bark from the tree not more than a foot from her head. "Oh, all right! Let me think."
As more of their cover dissolved under the intense fusillade, it became harder to think. She was never good at thinking under pressure.
"Think faster!" The man rolled off her and rose up enough to fire off four shots at their assailants.
"Ah! I know just the place." Tina tugged at his shirt to indicate the way. He hesitated only long enough to empty his weapon at the bad guys before dropping back down and following her lead.
Scrambling almost on all fours, they crashed through the underbrush like a pair of hippos heading for a pond. Despite the undivided attention of their
pursuers, they made it back through the gate and down to the maintenance shed, the angry small caliber bees' haunting their every step.
"This way!" Tina called as she straightened up and began to run. Making a sharp right turn past the maintenance shed, she dashed up a gravel path that led deeper into the wooded section of the zoo. Somewhere back where they had come, she could hear men shouting as they got tangled up in the narrow gate. She couldn't be sure but it didn't sound to her like they were speaking Japanese.
"Why is there never anyone around when you need them," she grumbled. If
there were more people around, they might be safe in the crowd. But this part of the zoo never saw more than a random workman or occasional zookeepers. Today, it was completely deserted. That meant her only hope lay in finding a particular place she knew well.
At the end of the gravel path, they came upon a small fiberglass-formed
building that looked a lot like an oversized outhouse. Ignoring the strange man's dubious expression, she yanked open its door. Inside, there was what appeared to be a submarine hatch set in the concrete floor. With the man's help, she got it open and the two scrambled down the ladder. Slamming shut the hatch, she inserted the locking pin and dropped to the floor below.
"That should keep em," she said with a grin.
Instead of grinning back, the man only looked at his surroundings with
obvious misgivings. She had to admit that it probably didn't look like much of a refuge. More like a concrete cylinder on its side, the small room was barely five feet from floor to rounded ceiling and a little over ten feet long. A thin layer of dust coated the floor and the atmosphere reeked of chlorine. A string of low-wattage light bulbs illuminated the area and continued down a tunnel beyond. One corner closer to the hatch looked like someone had made a nest of blankets and old magazines. "What is this place?" he asked.
"It's the utility tunnel that runs under most of the zoo. We pump water for the exhibits through those pipes on the ceiling and electrical power through the conduits along the wall." Tina grinned like she was giving a tour. "Pretty smart, huh?"
"Whatever," the man said as he leaned against the tunnel wall.
There he went being a jerk again. Why couldn't she bump into some nice guy who treated her like a lady? "I sometimes come down here to get out of work," she added.
The man sagged further against the wall and drew a deep breath. In the dim light, she could tell he wasn't much older than her self. Despite the rumpled suit and wounded arm, he didn't look all that bad.
She froze when her eyes caught on his bloody sleeve. "Oh, that's right, you're hurt," she gasped. Tearing herself from the sight of blood dripping down his hand, she turned towards a particular corner of the room. "We've got a first aide kit somewhere around here." Rummaging through a pile of old magazines and discarded candy bar wrappers, she finally dug out a metal box with a red cross on its lid. It looked like a leftover from the last war.
Helping him out of his jacket, she examined his arm. "Don't look so bad." The bullet had barely pierced the skin of his left bicep, leaving a dark bleeding hole on both sides.
The man's free hand suddenly shot up in warning. Unsure of what he had heard, she held her breath and listened. With a squeak and clank, someone tried to open the hatch overhead. There was silence for a moment before the dogging wheel jerked a couple of times but the locking pin held, giving the impression the hatch was not going to be opened from the outside. Another pause before muffled voices and the receding sound of running feet signaled the all clear.
Tina sighed in relief and cast a weak smile at her fellow escapee. He didn't return the smile. Instead, he was staring at the tunnel leading out of their hiding place.
Undaunted by his apparent inattention, she continued to bandage his arm. "You're an American, right? I can tell by your Japanese. You sound like one of those American guys they always put on TV. Anyway, we don't see many Americans around here," she noted. "People don't come to Japan to go to a zoo. Usually, we only get local school kids and old people. Maybe a few families, as well."
"Do you always talk so much?" he asked in a low, even voice without looking her way.
"What?" she gasped, stopping her first aid to extend him her most serious glare.
"Tell me something useful, like your name."
Her mouth dropped open. She couldn't believe how rude he was. Here she was trying to bandage his arm AFTER she found him a hiding place and the creep rewards her with an interrogation.
"You have a name, don't you?" he demanded, this time, looking directly at
her.
"Foster, Tina Foster," she growled. There was a strong urge to yank the
ends of his bandage hard enough to strangle him.
"Well, Foster Tina Foster, I gather you work here."
"I'm a zoo keeper third class," she replied with a sharp edge to her voice. "What's your name?" She resisted the urge to add creep' or something worse to her question.
The man sighed and rubbed his forehead. "Steven Hunter."
"Fine. Now that we know each other, perhaps you can tell me why those
fellas are chasing you?"
"I can't tell you," he replied with a deep breath.
"Oh, come on. I saved your life. I'm an American, too. You can tell me," she said with a mock flirtatious expression. When he didn't respond she tried something else. "Can you at least tell me why you're in Japan, Mr. Hunter?"
"I'm an an agent for the government," he said.
"Which government?"
"OUR government."
She eyed him suspiciously. Of all the 'come on' lines she had heard over the years, this was the lamest. "Right. You got any identification?"
"Inside coat pocket," he replied, rolling against the wall until his back
molded itself against its curved surface. He appeared to be studying the ceiling. She hoped he wasn't one of those claustrophobic types.
She reached into his coat pocket and found a tiny leather case. Pulling
cards from it, she read each one. "Let's see. You got a library card from the Library of Congress - I don't hang out in libraries much; a Blockbuster card - expired; a coupon good for one free full body wash at Soap Land - ewwww; and a student ID for the University of Texas. You really take a lousy picture," she said holding the ID up to the light. "What else?" She pulled out a few more cards. "You've got a Neiman-Marcus card? WOW! I've always wanted one of those."
"Look in the front of the case," he said, snatching the credit card from her fingers.
She pulled out another card. "A Montana driver's license. Who's Jeffrey
Lawrence?"
"A cover name," he said tiredly.
"And the picture, it doesn't even look like you."
"It's a disguise."
"I mean, what's the point of a photo ID if it doesn't look like you?" She turned the card over and back. "You also forgot to sign the organ donor
authorization."
"I was in a hurry," he growled, snatching the license and grabbing at the
case. Triggering a tiny switch, a hidden compartment opened. Pulling out a
plastic card he looked at Tina. "There," he snapped, holding it up for her to
see.
"You're a SPY?" she gasped. Now THIS was exciting. It also explained why he was being chased.
He dashed her hopes with a single word. "No."
"But you said --"
"I SAID I am an agent for the government. I'm not a spy," he insisted.
"That's not what your ID card says," she countered.
"Yes, it does. It says right there," he growled, pointing to the title 'Agent Steven Hunter'. "I'm an AGENT."
She skeptically eyed him for a moment. "What kind of agent?"
He sighed heavily. "I eavesdrop on people."
"That doesn't sound very exciting."
"Until today, it wasn't."
"I mean, why would they give you a gun and all, if you're just listening in on someone's phone call? What kind of government organization does that?"
"A secret one."
"You must have quite a headquarters," she said thoughtfully.
"It's a dump."
"You work in a dump?" she asked incredulously.
"Look, my boss can pass for Wilford Brimley, we work out of the basement of an old building in Washington, and I can feel myself bleeding again. Can we PLEASE get out of here?"
Tina shrugged. "I suppose so. Where to?"
"Where does this tunnel go?" he asked, looking into the darkness beyond.
"Oh, pretty much anywhere you want. It twists and turns and splits off at several locations. I've used it lots of times to sneak out early."
"Is there an exit where those guys who were chasing me won't find us?"
Tina frowned at the darkened tunnel. "Maybe. It depends on how well those fellas up there know the zoo."
Steve shook his head. "I doubt they know it any better than I do and I've never been here before."
"You never told me who those guys are," she said.
"I think, for now, it's better you not know. Let's just say they are very bad people."
"Fine," Tina said with a huff. Standing up and wiping her hands on her
khaki shorts, she regarded him with an irritated expression. "Can you, at least, tell me who is under that pile of poop?"
Steve groaned as he got to his feet. "My last partner."
"Oh. Do all your partners end up under piles of poop?" she asked, pushing past him.
"So far," he replied in a monotone as he retrieved his jacket.
"Boy, that stinks," she said, ducking to enter the tunnel.
"You'll get used to it partner."
Tina banged her head on the tunnel ceiling. Holding it with both hands, she spun around to glare at Steve. "I'm NOT your partner."
"They think you are," Steve replied, pointing to the hatch.
"What?" she gasped. She wasn't even involved in in whatever it is he was doing. She wasn't a spy or agent or whatever he really was. She didn't even have one of those nifty ID cards.
"Now that they've seen you helping me, they're probably convinced you and I work together." He slung his jacket over his wounded arm, hiding it from view. "Like it or not, you're now part of the operation."
Tina groaned. "What have I gotten myself into now?"
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Horizons (possibly demonstrating
its good taste), I will try something new and different. We'll see how
it likes Ai Yori Aoshi.
In my work, I'm often on the road 2-6 weeks at a time. On long flights
and longer nights in strange
places, I pass the time watching a lot of Anime. I came across Ai Yori
Aoshi almost by accident.
It took me less time to buy the entire series (both the original and the
Enishi arc) than it did to watch
them all. Like Takahashi, the author of AYA created a good plot and
interesting characters but left
things undone. This leaves the field open to fanfic interpretations,
something I tend to take maximum
advantage of. This story is one of those interpretations.
The Wild, Wild East centers on Tina Foster, the child with a home but no
real country.
Feedback always appreciated.
************************************************** ********************
This story has been written without the knowledge or approval of Kou
Fumizuki - Hakusensha/ AIAO Project
and Pioneer Animation. It is for the enjoyment of Ai Yori Aoshi fans
and written with respect for its
original creators and copyright holders.
************************************************** ********************
-- Attached file included as plaintext by Ecartis --
-- File: WWE1A.TXT
The Wild, Wild East
By G.L. Sandborn
1 New Zoo Review
"Come on, you fool!"
Steven Hunter stumbled at the admonishment. He couldn't help it. He had been running for what seemed like hours through downtown Yokohama and was exhausted.
The early summer heat made running in a full suit feel like exercising in a sauna. Sweat ran down his face and soaked his formerly freshly laundered white shirt. Besides worrying about getting killed by their pursuers, he also wondered how he was going to pay for cleaning his soaked clothes.
Glancing back, he caught a glimpse of Asian men, also in suits and wearing dark glasses, pushing their way through slower pedestrians in an effort to catch up. Despite all the tricks he and his partner had used to escape, there always seemed to be fresh pursuers waiting to take up the chase. It was as if they knew in advance where he was going.
He followed his partner into another subway station and quickly paid their way through the ticket gate. A subway train was just announcing its departure.
"Get in!" his partner growled, shoving Steve through the doors and following an instant before they closed.
The crowed subway car seemed to press in on him as the train started to pull from the station. Crushed against multiple bodies, he squirmed enough to look around nervously for the men who wanted them dead. Through the windows he caught sight of two pursuers as they jumped the gates only to come to a halt when local police intervened.
Steve drew a series of deep breaths in the stifling atmosphere of the subway car. Painfully twisting his way around, he intended to confront his partner about where they were going this time.
His partner beat him to it. "We'll get off at the next stop and double back. Maybe we can finally lose those bastards," his partner growled in a low voice.
Steve just nodded, glancing about for any sign of danger. When he noticed a couple of the other passengers eying them, he tried to smile and nod their way. That only led to quizzical expressions before they abruptly returned the nod and looked away again. He really couldn't blame them. His partner looked angry and a tall angry black man on a crowded subway train was sure to create no small degree of apprehension among the Japanese passengers.
Of course, he couldn't have been much better in their eyes. A sweaty white gaijin in a stuffy subway car was probably testing their tradition of foreigner accommodation to the max. Together, he and his partner had to be the oddest couple of gaijin most of these people had ever seen.
He turned back to his partner, who was now trying to act nonchalant. "How come the Ko...," he paused to consider his words carefully. There was no telling who was listening. "How come those guys always seem to know where we are?"
"Don't know," came the answer. It wasn't very assuring. After all, his partner was supposed to be a first-class agent. He was supposed to have all the answers.
Steve sniffed and tried to rub his nose. The press of commuters around him made even that act difficult. How did he get himself in such a situation? This wasn't what they told him in training it would be like. Besides, he wasn't an A Team operative. He was a linguist, proficient in ten languages. They told him he was going to eavesdrop on sensitive communication from someplace safe, not run for his life from killers.
Maybe it had something to do with that 'thing' they were able to get from the enemy hideout. Instinctively, he felt the spot on his suit that covered the tiny three inch long device that looked like a common USB flash memory drive. What it really was caused him to shiver.
"I just wish I knew why I can't contact headquarters," his partner said. "For some reason, my radio isn't working and every time I try to use a phone, the line goes dead."
"Jamming? Tapped?" Steve rummaged through the possible reasons, hoping none of them were particularly accurate.
"Don't know," his partner replied. "Something big is happening. I just hope we weren't the cause."
Weren't the cause? They had just stolen the key to a new and, if all reports were correct, horribly devastating weapon. It was the kind of action that was certain to cause an enemy to stop at nothing to get back.
Gentle tones sounded from the PA system overhead announcing the next stop. Sakuragi-Cho? Where was that?
When the subway pulled to a stop the doors hissed open and Steve felt himself being swept along by a human tide that spilled out onto the platform. He stumbled and might have fallen except his partner grabbed his collar and shoved him towards the exit.
Pressing their way through the crowd, they emerged at street level into the warm sunshine. Steve nervously glanced around but saw nothing of their previous pursuers. Maybe they lost them this time. "Where to?" he asked.
"North," was all his partner said before hurrying across the street along with a flood of other pedestrians.
"Why north?" He wasn't totally satisfied with such an abrupt answer.
"Trees," his partner replied as if that was all he needed to say.
Trees? Trees in the Tokyo area usually meant a park of some sort. Why would he want to go there?
He was still wondering about their destination as they crossed in front of a junior high school. He didn't trust the relative calm of their apparent escape and continued to glance warily around him. On one of those anxious recons, he spotted what he hoped he wouldn't see again.
"Don't look now but I think they're back," he said in a low voice.
His partner barely turned his head before grunting a curse. His steps picked up to become a fast walk. Steve matched his partner's long strides, chancing a quick glance back. Three Asian men in dark suits and sunglasses were matching his increased pace.
He was so intent on keeping an eye on their pursuers, he almost missed his partner's sudden dash across another street. With a panicked feeling of being abandoned, he quickly followed his long-legged companion. To the sound of blaring horns and the squeal of tires, he barely avoided being run over. Scrambling frantically, he gained the far sidewalk without further mishap only to be stopped by a tall fence.
"Who puts up an eight foot fence in Japan?" he complained before following
his partner to the right along the sidewalk that bordered the fence line. He
frantically looked for some opening they might exploit to gain the thick foliage beyond. It didn't appear promising. The fence looked like it continued unbroken for as far as he could see.
"Maybe they want to keep basketball players out," his partner growled.
"Just keep going."
Steve did just that. His raspy breath echoed in his ears and sweat poured down his neck into his already soaked white shirt. Looking back he took little satisfaction at two of their pursuers tumbling over the hood of a taxi as they failed to duplicate the Americans' escape route.
He almost collided with his partner when the man suddenly stopped partway
down the block. Frowning at the man for a brief moment before following his gaze to see why. They had found a gate but it was locked with a sign on it that read: Zoo Property. Keep Out, Please."
ZOO?" his partner yelled. "Oh MAN, I hate zoos. They got all them animals in there."
"Do we keep going?" Steve asked, gasping for breath while casting a
nervous glance back the way they had come.
"Hell, No!" His partner whipped out his automatic pistol with its heavily modified silencer. "We need cover." The man took aim at the lock. "DAMN! And I wore my best suit today."
Three shots sounding like someone hammering small tin can and the lock was history. Kicking open the gate, he grabbed Steve his sweaty collar and shoved him through.
Steve stumbled a few steps before he beginning to run again, negotiating a worn concrete path that had all the charm of a depression era country road. Branches from untrimmed trees grabbed at his coat as he ran and bushes tugged at his legs. He could hear his pursuers crashing through the partially open gate somewhere behind.
He was gasping for breath when they emerged in a clearing that was big
enough to build an apartment building. It was also housefly heaven. In the
middle was a massive net full of animal dung that dangled ten feet in the air
suspended from a large construction crane. The zoo people were either airing it out or preparing to load it into a poo removal truck.
"Now there's a sight you don't see every day," Steve wheezed as he bent
over, hands on his knees, gasping for breath. "I always wondered what they did with all the poop they scooped at the zoo."
Bullets ripped the air above his head, reminding him of their pursuit. Their adversaries were closing in; firing heavily silenced automatic weapons that sounded no louder than electric typewriters as they spit dozens of rounds his way.
Shoving Steve towards some crates of Purina Monkey Chow, his partner turned on their attackers with an almost cool efficiency. Firing twice, he dropped the first two who emerged from the narrow path. The others scrambled for cover in the thick undergrowth on either side.
"Find a way out," his partner called, smoothly inserting a fresh magazine in his weapon. "I'll hold them off."
"I can't leave you," Steve protested.
"My job is to get you and that 'thing' to safety. Now, MOVE!"
With a frustrated growl, Steve turned and dashed across the clearing before diving into the surrounding bushes and landing in the thick undergrowth. Taking to his hands and knees, making sure to keep as much cover as possible between himself and danger, he scrambled noisily away from the clearing. Two months of training seemed to pay off. Despite the occasional angry buzz of errant enemy shots, nobody seemed to notice his getaway. Not bad for a rookie, he thought.
He had gone only a few yards when he literally ran into another tall fence. Choked with bushes and weeds, it was topped with nasty looking razor wire. It was not the kind of obstruction they had time to deal with.
Rising into a crouch, he worked his way along the fence line hoping to find another gate or opening. It quickly became apparent that this section of the zoo was not one a person could easily get into or out of.
The first gate he came to had a lock that would have taken C4 explosives to open. A second, further along, was secured in such a way that even shooting the lock would have failed to open it.
Cursing, he slammed his fist on the locked gate. There didn't appear to be any point in following the fence line any further. The kinds of locks he had seen so far indicated anything else he might find would probably be more of the same. With a frustrated growl, he turned back towards the clearing. It looked like they were trapped.
As he approached the clearing, he remembered his training to remain under
cover and look for his partner. At first, he couldn't see him. He could hear the man's weapon along with those of their pursuers but there was little to suggest where his partner was holed up.
Moving a little further round the edge of the clearing, he suddenly jerked to a halt. His partner had taken cover almost in the middle of the clearing behind some cinder blocks. From there, he was single-handedly keeping the bad guys at bay.
Drawing his own weapon, Steve crouched a little lower in the undergrowth.
He wanted to aid his partner but with no obvious targets, he hesitated shooting. Firing his weapon would only draw attention to his hiding place. Getting himself pinned down wouldn't help his partner. It wouldn't do much for his own survival either. Unsure of what to do, he crouched down behind a large tree and prayed that the attackers would just run out of ammunition and go away.
As he caught his breath, feelings of guilt began to pick at his conscience. Only a worthless coward would hide under cover leaving his partner to fight off their attackers alone. He certainly wasn't a hero but there had be something her could do to help.
Cursing under his breath, he slithered through the thick undergrowth until he reached a spot where he might just be able to fire a few well-placed shots with his own heavily silenced handgun. If he was lucky, shooting a few assailants might just cause the others to retreat long enough for he and his partner to escape. Maybe they could double back through the trees and escape through the gate they had entered. Where they would go from there, he wasn't sure but anyplace had to be better than where they were now.
Guessing the location of one of the assailants, he started to rise up to
shoot but jerked back into hiding when he caught sight of movement off to his
right. Afraid to move lest he give his position away, he stared at the spot until he caught glimpses of a shadowy figure slipping through the brush. It had to be one of their pursuers. Any moment, that figure would be behind his partner.
Using the tree to steady himself, he tracked the figure's movement with his pistol until it disappeared behind the crane. Growling in frustration, Steve looked for some way of getting a clear shot. He couldn't let his partner of two whole weeks die from a bullet in the back. The paperwork alone would be murder.
Taking a deep breath, he quickly scurried to the relative cover of a
portable power generator. When he saw the figure climbing into the crane's cab, he knew now was the best shot he was going to get. He rose up, aimed and fired once. True to his West Texas heritage, his aim was good. The figure tottered for a moment before slumping forward. The dead man's body must have released the winch mechanism. With a loud 'crack', six tons of animal waste came hurtling earthward, directly towards his partner.
Before he could yell a warning, his partner looked up and shouted a most
ironic lament: "Aw SHIT!"
An instant later, the load buried him with a thunderous splat'.
The firing slacked for a moment, as if the assailants were deciding what to do. Steve knew that wouldn't last long. A lone agent is an agent in danger, his instructors told him. They weren't kidding.
When the attackers began firing again, Steve wavered between sheer terror
and astonishment that they seemed to know exactly where he was. Bullets tore
chunks out of the crates around him and riddled the trees behind. The fuel tank on the generator freely poured gasoline from countless holes. Almost without aiming, he returned fire as best he could but that did little more than remind his assailants where he was. He needed help. No, he needed a miracle.
Tina Foster yawned and stretched in the warm sun, trying to loosen her poor overworked muscles. After six continuous hours of hard physical labor, she was finally getting to take her lunch break. As usual, she was the last person allowed to go eat. She didn't like it much but that was just the way things were.
It was hard enough being the only woman zoo keeper in the Japanese zoo, all the other women guided tours, worked concessions or sold tickets. It was
especially hard because the other zookeepers couldn't understand why a young,
blond American female with a college degree would want to do the dirty work in a zoo. They weren't open about their confusion. Instead, they talked amongst themselves, sometimes loud enough for her to hear. Their discussions often suggested reasons they thought she was there. None of them even came close to the real reason.
It wasn't easy to ignore them. Every nasty insinuation burned inside her. She couldn't respond openly. That would only lead to trouble. Besides, she needed this job, if only for her own self esteem. As a Western graduate of a Japanese university, her career choices were limited in Japan. Not as bad as those of her Japanese female classmates. Their futures all seemed to be headed for marriage to a workaholic husband, producing a litter of children, and then spending their lives cooped up in a small apartment cooking, cleaning, and raising those children. She shuddered thinking of such a claustrophobic life.
No, being an American in Japan had some advantages. She could have gone
into translation work or teaching English somewhere. Both were steady and fairly respectable jobs. They just weren't jobs for her. She wanted more. She wanted the outdoors and excitement.
While the zoo didn't offer much excitement, it did offer her a chance to be outdoors and around the animals she loved. That almost made the comments and gossipy coworkers bearable.
Of course, her supervisor was the king of sexist pigs, always suggesting she should be looking for a husband instead of scrubbing hippo excrement off the side of their pool. He even slipped her a business card for a matchmaking service. She didn't need to look for a husband. She didn't even want a husband. That is, unless Kaoru was interested.
Kaoru. She smiled at the thought of the only guy in Japan that seemed to
need her as much as he appeared to like her. When they were alone together, she could almost feel a spark of something wonderful between them. Why he refused to respond the way she wanted was a mystery to her. Perhaps he was distracted by school or maybe just reluctant to commit. That had to be it. He was just scared of commitment. Given time, he was certain to eventually come around and return the love she felt for him. It was all just a matter of time.
She stretched again and dug into her bento lunch with renewed energy. Maybe she would just knock off early today. There were lots of places she could hide until quitting time. Nobody seemed to care anyway. Whenever she went missing, her supervisor made little effort to find her. It was as if he didn't really care about her work. He certainly wasn't going to look for her back by the Animal Waste Recovery Facility. Nobody wanted to hang around a bunch of animal droppings. That's why her bench outside the maintenance shed in the far back of the zoo was so perfect. So long as the wind was from the right direction, nobody bothered her here. Even if they noticed she was missing, they rarely radioed her.
They probably just assumed she was working in another part of the zoo.
Finishing her lunch, she set her empty bento aside and leaned back against the warm building. With a full stomach and the sun warming her, she easily slipped into daydreaming about what Miss Landlord and Kaoru-sama were doing right now. Closing her eyes, she could see Aoi and Taeko hanging laundry in the bright sun while Miss Manager, Miyabi Kagurazaki, sipped her after-lunch tea. Chika-chan was probably in school. It was still a week until summer vacation. Kaoru? Well, he was probably studying or working on a paper. Graduate school must be tough, she thought.
Her musings were interrupted by her radio. What now? Couldn't they at least let her eat in peace?
Snatching it from her belt, she answered. "Tina here."
"Did you leave the wheelbarrow in the Animal Waste Recovery Facility again?" came her supervisor's annoying voice.
Tina groaned. Just before lunch she had dropped off a load of elephant dung at the facility. She remembered parking it next to an old power generator but was so anxious to get to her lunch break, she forgot all about it.
"Take it over to bear exhibit right away."
Tina wrinkled her nose at the thought of cutting her lunch short for a bunch of pooping bears. Still, she made the mistake of answering her radio, so she was trapped. "Fine," she growled into the radio before snapping it off. She didn't want to hear whatever reply her boss might have had to her attitude.
With a heavy sigh, she got to her feet and stretched again before starting up the path leading to the Animal Waste Recovery Facility. Every step was punctuated by another curse directed at her boss, her coworkers, and pooping bears.
She unlocked the main gate leading to the facility and slipped through. The odor of animal waste immediately assaulted her nose. With a sniff, she rubbed a hand across her upper lip and tried to keep breathing to a minimum. A few flies swarmed around her before heading off towards the more promising waste dump. There were also a few that sounded like bees whizzing past her head in the opposite direction. She expected flies to be thick in this part of the zoo but she didn't really remember this many bees.
"I sure hope there isn't a hive or something around here," she said while
trying to swat at the invisible insects as they flew past.
Stepping into the clearing, she froze. The large stinking mound of manure was not on the crane where it was supposed to be. For some reason, it was on the ground. Worse yet, there was a human leg sticking out from underneath it.
The whizzing bees abruptly stopped. From somewhere in the bushes ahead she heard a series of strange voices using very bad Japanese.
"Who is that?"
"It appears to be a member of this zoological collective."
"Is it permissible to kill a local zoological collective worker?"
"We are not to harm any locals until imperious leader tells us it is
acceptable."
"But she doesn't look like a local."
"Agreed. She looks like an American."
"That would make her a valid target, yes?"
"Not necessarily. She could be Canadian."
"Quite true."
"But didn't our imperious leader say both countries are running dogs of the bourgeoisie that deserved extermination?"
"Yes but he has also said that Canada has shipped us much wheat last year. We don't want to anger our meal ticket."
Tina had no idea what they were talking about but had a bad feeling about
the direction their conversation was heading. With a nervous laugh, she waved her hands in front of her. "That's okay, guys. I'll just go uh, clean a hippo pond or something."
"Stay where you are, female. We deciding your fate," came the sharp reply.
Tina began to slowly inch her way back towards the gate. "So, ya hosers
take your time, eh?" she called trying her best Canadian accent. It didn't sound very convincing to her considering her glaring Texas accent.
There was a pause in the conversation before one of the hidden men spoke.
"She sounds Canadian."
"How would you know?"
"I watched 'Strange Brew' last night on the television."
"That is unacceptable! You are NOT permitted to watch capitalist running
dog propaganda while in this country!" The angry retort was followed by two
gunshots and the groan of a dying man. "It was a lousy movie, anyway."
There was a long pause as Tina continued to inch her way back towards the
gate.
"How about Takeshi's Castle?" came another voice.
Three more gunshots rang out. That was enough for Tina. As she turned to run, it was as if all the bees in Japan were swarming around her. Doing her best Texas Two-Step dance, she hopped, skipped, wiggled, and weaved her way back the direction she had come. Despite being only a dozen or so yards from the gate, it looked to be a mile or more away.
A bullet tore through her utility belt, taking with it her two-way radio.
She felt another rip through her long blond hair, painfully tugging at her scalp. There appeared to be no escape. Any second, one or more of the dozens being fired her direction would find its mark.
She was beginning to ponder how Kaoru and the others would act at her
funeral when a figure leaped from behind a shot-up old generator, looped an arm around her waist and threw her into the bushes. She had just enough time to register that her rescuer was not an Asian man. He looked surprisingly Western and that business suit was totally out of place. Before she could protest the rough treatment, a bullet tore through his upper arm, spattering her zoo uniform with blood.
Tumbling to the ground next to her, the stranger rolled away and struggled to his knees. "DAMN IT! I knew that was going to happen!" he growled in English while holding his wounded left arm.
Laying on her back, supported by her elbows, Tina stared wide eyed at her
rescuer. "Why are they shooting? What did I do?" she whined.
"Because you were in the way," he growled. It looked to her like he was about to cry.
"What do you mean by that?" she snapped back, a flash of indignation momentarily overwhelming her fear. "I work here. I'm supposed to be here."
"Yeah? Well, it almost got you killed!" he shouted back, still holding his wounded arm.
There seemed to be fewer bullets whizzing through the bushes than before but she paid scant notice. This bozo was acting like a complete jerk. "That doesn't change a thing! You are trespassing on Nogeyama Zoo property. And what's with bringing a gun in here? You're not even supposed to have a gun in Japan."
"This gun is the only thing between you and those killers over there!"
"Who asked you to get between me and them? I was doing just fine before you showed up!" she screamed.
"You were doing fine at getting yourself killed! Maybe I should have let them kill you!" He glared back at her. It barely registered with either of them that the shooting had completely stopped.
"Oh sure, let the pretty blond girl get killed," she huffed. "YOU ARE SUCH A JERK!"
With balled fists, they glared at each other.
"Uh.. Excuse please," came a voice from across the clearing.
"WHAT?" they yelled together in answer to the voice.
"We are on very tight schedule. Imperious leader expects us back by five and you know how traffic is. Anyway, if zoological collective worker please to get out of way, we kill American now. So sorry for earlier."
Tina glanced at the trees bordering the far side of the clearing before returning to growling at the jerk with the bleeding arm. "I ought to do just that," she growled.
"Oh sure, let the handsome American get killed," he huffed.
"Better you than me," she said, starting to get up.
"That's a lousy way to thank someone who just saved your life!" He grabbed her hand and yanked her back under cover.
"LET GO OF ME!" she yelled, pulling her hand free and stumbling backwards. She tripped over a shot-off tree limb and fell hard on her back.
The voice from the other side of the clearing sounded irritated. "Oh, so sorry. Must catch train. Both must die now."
"HEY, WAIT A MINUTE!" Tina started to get to her feet again. The air around her became alive with buzzing bullets. Chunks of bark and a shower of dislodged leaves pelted her. She was just screaming something about not wanting to die when she was suddenly driven to the ground by a heavy male body and pinned there. "What are you doing?" she gasped.
"Protecting you," the man said.
She began pounding on his back with both fists, her bare legs kicking up a storm of leaves. "Get off me, you pervert!"
"They're trying to kill us both," he replied.
"Who's fault is that?" she yelled, still hitting him with her fists.
"We need to get out of here!"
"DUH!" she screamed, adding a shot to his head for emphasis.
"Will you knock it off? We need some place to hide!" he yelled, holding his pistol back over his head and squeezing off a couple of random shots.
She glared at him for a moment, considering the possibility of just kicking him where it would do the most good and making a run for it on her own, when a bullet tore a chunk of bark from the tree not more than a foot from her head. "Oh, all right! Let me think."
As more of their cover dissolved under the intense fusillade, it became harder to think. She was never good at thinking under pressure.
"Think faster!" The man rolled off her and rose up enough to fire off four shots at their assailants.
"Ah! I know just the place." Tina tugged at his shirt to indicate the way. He hesitated only long enough to empty his weapon at the bad guys before dropping back down and following her lead.
Scrambling almost on all fours, they crashed through the underbrush like a pair of hippos heading for a pond. Despite the undivided attention of their
pursuers, they made it back through the gate and down to the maintenance shed, the angry small caliber bees' haunting their every step.
"This way!" Tina called as she straightened up and began to run. Making a sharp right turn past the maintenance shed, she dashed up a gravel path that led deeper into the wooded section of the zoo. Somewhere back where they had come, she could hear men shouting as they got tangled up in the narrow gate. She couldn't be sure but it didn't sound to her like they were speaking Japanese.
"Why is there never anyone around when you need them," she grumbled. If
there were more people around, they might be safe in the crowd. But this part of the zoo never saw more than a random workman or occasional zookeepers. Today, it was completely deserted. That meant her only hope lay in finding a particular place she knew well.
At the end of the gravel path, they came upon a small fiberglass-formed
building that looked a lot like an oversized outhouse. Ignoring the strange man's dubious expression, she yanked open its door. Inside, there was what appeared to be a submarine hatch set in the concrete floor. With the man's help, she got it open and the two scrambled down the ladder. Slamming shut the hatch, she inserted the locking pin and dropped to the floor below.
"That should keep em," she said with a grin.
Instead of grinning back, the man only looked at his surroundings with
obvious misgivings. She had to admit that it probably didn't look like much of a refuge. More like a concrete cylinder on its side, the small room was barely five feet from floor to rounded ceiling and a little over ten feet long. A thin layer of dust coated the floor and the atmosphere reeked of chlorine. A string of low-wattage light bulbs illuminated the area and continued down a tunnel beyond. One corner closer to the hatch looked like someone had made a nest of blankets and old magazines. "What is this place?" he asked.
"It's the utility tunnel that runs under most of the zoo. We pump water for the exhibits through those pipes on the ceiling and electrical power through the conduits along the wall." Tina grinned like she was giving a tour. "Pretty smart, huh?"
"Whatever," the man said as he leaned against the tunnel wall.
There he went being a jerk again. Why couldn't she bump into some nice guy who treated her like a lady? "I sometimes come down here to get out of work," she added.
The man sagged further against the wall and drew a deep breath. In the dim light, she could tell he wasn't much older than her self. Despite the rumpled suit and wounded arm, he didn't look all that bad.
She froze when her eyes caught on his bloody sleeve. "Oh, that's right, you're hurt," she gasped. Tearing herself from the sight of blood dripping down his hand, she turned towards a particular corner of the room. "We've got a first aide kit somewhere around here." Rummaging through a pile of old magazines and discarded candy bar wrappers, she finally dug out a metal box with a red cross on its lid. It looked like a leftover from the last war.
Helping him out of his jacket, she examined his arm. "Don't look so bad." The bullet had barely pierced the skin of his left bicep, leaving a dark bleeding hole on both sides.
The man's free hand suddenly shot up in warning. Unsure of what he had heard, she held her breath and listened. With a squeak and clank, someone tried to open the hatch overhead. There was silence for a moment before the dogging wheel jerked a couple of times but the locking pin held, giving the impression the hatch was not going to be opened from the outside. Another pause before muffled voices and the receding sound of running feet signaled the all clear.
Tina sighed in relief and cast a weak smile at her fellow escapee. He didn't return the smile. Instead, he was staring at the tunnel leading out of their hiding place.
Undaunted by his apparent inattention, she continued to bandage his arm. "You're an American, right? I can tell by your Japanese. You sound like one of those American guys they always put on TV. Anyway, we don't see many Americans around here," she noted. "People don't come to Japan to go to a zoo. Usually, we only get local school kids and old people. Maybe a few families, as well."
"Do you always talk so much?" he asked in a low, even voice without looking her way.
"What?" she gasped, stopping her first aid to extend him her most serious glare.
"Tell me something useful, like your name."
Her mouth dropped open. She couldn't believe how rude he was. Here she was trying to bandage his arm AFTER she found him a hiding place and the creep rewards her with an interrogation.
"You have a name, don't you?" he demanded, this time, looking directly at
her.
"Foster, Tina Foster," she growled. There was a strong urge to yank the
ends of his bandage hard enough to strangle him.
"Well, Foster Tina Foster, I gather you work here."
"I'm a zoo keeper third class," she replied with a sharp edge to her voice. "What's your name?" She resisted the urge to add creep' or something worse to her question.
The man sighed and rubbed his forehead. "Steven Hunter."
"Fine. Now that we know each other, perhaps you can tell me why those
fellas are chasing you?"
"I can't tell you," he replied with a deep breath.
"Oh, come on. I saved your life. I'm an American, too. You can tell me," she said with a mock flirtatious expression. When he didn't respond she tried something else. "Can you at least tell me why you're in Japan, Mr. Hunter?"
"I'm an an agent for the government," he said.
"Which government?"
"OUR government."
She eyed him suspiciously. Of all the 'come on' lines she had heard over the years, this was the lamest. "Right. You got any identification?"
"Inside coat pocket," he replied, rolling against the wall until his back
molded itself against its curved surface. He appeared to be studying the ceiling. She hoped he wasn't one of those claustrophobic types.
She reached into his coat pocket and found a tiny leather case. Pulling
cards from it, she read each one. "Let's see. You got a library card from the Library of Congress - I don't hang out in libraries much; a Blockbuster card - expired; a coupon good for one free full body wash at Soap Land - ewwww; and a student ID for the University of Texas. You really take a lousy picture," she said holding the ID up to the light. "What else?" She pulled out a few more cards. "You've got a Neiman-Marcus card? WOW! I've always wanted one of those."
"Look in the front of the case," he said, snatching the credit card from her fingers.
She pulled out another card. "A Montana driver's license. Who's Jeffrey
Lawrence?"
"A cover name," he said tiredly.
"And the picture, it doesn't even look like you."
"It's a disguise."
"I mean, what's the point of a photo ID if it doesn't look like you?" She turned the card over and back. "You also forgot to sign the organ donor
authorization."
"I was in a hurry," he growled, snatching the license and grabbing at the
case. Triggering a tiny switch, a hidden compartment opened. Pulling out a
plastic card he looked at Tina. "There," he snapped, holding it up for her to
see.
"You're a SPY?" she gasped. Now THIS was exciting. It also explained why he was being chased.
He dashed her hopes with a single word. "No."
"But you said --"
"I SAID I am an agent for the government. I'm not a spy," he insisted.
"That's not what your ID card says," she countered.
"Yes, it does. It says right there," he growled, pointing to the title 'Agent Steven Hunter'. "I'm an AGENT."
She skeptically eyed him for a moment. "What kind of agent?"
He sighed heavily. "I eavesdrop on people."
"That doesn't sound very exciting."
"Until today, it wasn't."
"I mean, why would they give you a gun and all, if you're just listening in on someone's phone call? What kind of government organization does that?"
"A secret one."
"You must have quite a headquarters," she said thoughtfully.
"It's a dump."
"You work in a dump?" she asked incredulously.
"Look, my boss can pass for Wilford Brimley, we work out of the basement of an old building in Washington, and I can feel myself bleeding again. Can we PLEASE get out of here?"
Tina shrugged. "I suppose so. Where to?"
"Where does this tunnel go?" he asked, looking into the darkness beyond.
"Oh, pretty much anywhere you want. It twists and turns and splits off at several locations. I've used it lots of times to sneak out early."
"Is there an exit where those guys who were chasing me won't find us?"
Tina frowned at the darkened tunnel. "Maybe. It depends on how well those fellas up there know the zoo."
Steve shook his head. "I doubt they know it any better than I do and I've never been here before."
"You never told me who those guys are," she said.
"I think, for now, it's better you not know. Let's just say they are very bad people."
"Fine," Tina said with a huff. Standing up and wiping her hands on her
khaki shorts, she regarded him with an irritated expression. "Can you, at least, tell me who is under that pile of poop?"
Steve groaned as he got to his feet. "My last partner."
"Oh. Do all your partners end up under piles of poop?" she asked, pushing past him.
"So far," he replied in a monotone as he retrieved his jacket.
"Boy, that stinks," she said, ducking to enter the tunnel.
"You'll get used to it partner."
Tina banged her head on the tunnel ceiling. Holding it with both hands, she spun around to glare at Steve. "I'm NOT your partner."
"They think you are," Steve replied, pointing to the hatch.
"What?" she gasped. She wasn't even involved in in whatever it is he was doing. She wasn't a spy or agent or whatever he really was. She didn't even have one of those nifty ID cards.
"Now that they've seen you helping me, they're probably convinced you and I work together." He slung his jacket over his wounded arm, hiding it from view. "Like it or not, you're now part of the operation."
Tina groaned. "What have I gotten myself into now?"
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