Evolve

Eight

It was not long after Miguel's awakening that my day began. The sun was barely in the sky when Delilah came down the stairs once more and informed me on my orders. I was to find Yokozuna, and eliminate him. However, he was a hard man to get a hold of when he wanted to be.

Yokozuna was the head of the Yakuza groups in the city, which meant all the smaller gangs and groups affiliated with them reported to him. Two of these groups happened to be close enough for me to go interrogate. The first was an all female gang lead by Osaka Ibushi, who specialized in exotic weapons for many in the black market. Her guards were very well trained in various martial arts and marksmanship.

The other group was lead by a man named Matsui Kazawa, a rather large, well built man who specialized in the drug trade. He and his men were responsible for half of the yakuza's illegal activities and exotic drug smuggling. Admittedly, he had a quality product, if nothing else. They kept to themselves on the high end of the city, but were not hard to track down. Kazawa had an ego and wanted people to know who was the best dealer in town.

Delilah sent me on my way and went off to attend to business. I assumed she would get someone to watch Miguel, but that was not my concern. Although I would not leave such a young child alone. I gathered my necessary things into a black bag that I wore over my shoulder. I sat on a rooftop, facing my temporary home. I could see through the walls and see the whole house at once, except for what lay hidden on the second floor. I did not know there was a material I couldn't see through, and this realization... annoyed... me.

I sighed and went about my business. I traveled by rooftop, adjusting how high or how softly I needed to jump and land. This was the quickest and most convenient way of travel I knew when I did not want to be seen. It wasn't as if I could fly. My main problem was when I landed on rooftops. I occasionally had some trouble landing on a roof with no sound or damage. The material I was made of was relatively lightweight and strong, but falling several stories added a lot of momentum. I accidentally dented in a few cement rooftops as I traveled.

Osaka was my first target, as she was closest. I did not necessarily have to kill her, just receive information from her. If she failed to tell me what I needed or somehow died in the process, I would move on to Matsui. I could always kill her guards, though, along with his if needed. I made my way as quickly and quietly as I could and arrived at her last known base of operations. I saw some of the yakuza's cars pulling into the parking lot of a small store, but I knew this couldn't be my real target. The cover for her weapons business was a pawn shop, and rumor had it this place could get you whatever you were looking for. I wondered if my command key had ever come through here.

I couldn't exactly open fire in broad daylight on a somewhat respectable business, so I would have to go to their warehouse where they supplied everything. That's where Osaka would be. As luck would have it, the warehouse wasn't too far off, almost literally a hop, skip and a jump away. I just had to make sure Osaka wasn't here. I scanned the area quickly but began to grow concerned.

My eyes couldn't penetrate through all of the pawn shop. In fact, they couldn't see through any other building either. I blinked rapidly, around 15 times per second, and went through all my different visual programs.

Infrared, check
Ultraviolet, check
Long range/short range, Check
Motion detection, Check

I made a mental note of each system operation as I went through them. I couldn't just have a bug, I never glitch.

X-ray... Check.

That last performance check took a few more seconds than I would have liked. Finally I got my vision working again and adjusted it back to my preferences. I would have to run a full diagnostic exam on myself when I had free time, if I had free time. Perhaps getting shot in the face was not the healthiest experience for me.

I turned back around to examine the pawn shop and realized I might have made a small mistake. There were now two armed guards standing in front of me, both female wearing well made work suits and dark sun glasses. Oh yes, and they each had a gun and a dagger, of course. I had been so careless when caring for my eyesight that I had not noticed these two sneak up on me. I was more worried now than I was a few moments ago. I never made mistakes like this, and I never glitch. What was wrong with me?

One of the two women raised her gun at me and yelled in Japanese. Even switching languages through my automatic translator took a fraction of a second longer than normal.

"Drop any weapons you have now, and get to the ground." The guard ordered me.

"I'm gonna call this one in." The other said while hitting a button on a cell phone.
"This has to be the...girl... we've heard so much about." She added mockingly, spitting out the word girl as if I didn't deserve it just because I wasn't as human as she apparently was.

"Wait, you don't have to do that. See?" I said as I knelt on the ground with my hands up. Since I was my own weapon I believed this followed both of the orders I was given. Unfortunately, guard number 2 decided to dial the phone anyway.

"Boss? We have her. She'll be there shortly." The woman said.

Well this made my job easier. I could let these two take me to Osaka, but then again they did not listen to me and they also threatened me.

"Let's go." The one who thought she was my boss said. She smacked me hard with the butt of her gun, perhaps trying to knock me out, but it didn't work. It did succeed in helping me make my decision, however.

I snapped my head back in my enemy's direction and glared at her. She attempted to hit me with her sidearm again, but I caught her arm and spun so she flipped over my shoulder and held her down. Her partner shot at me and the usual sound echoed off the rooftops as the bullets bounced off my head. One of them hit rather hard and I forgot I was still holding on to an arm when I turned swiftly to meet my second opponent. The result was a loud scream from the woman beneath my foot.

Separated shoulder, muscle damage, numbness settling in from shock of the pain.

I was not usually so careless, but I reasoned that my judgement may have been slightly off given my last few stressful days. The one woman left with a gun opened fire on me as I kicked her friend away. I was getting tired of being hit with bullets and I lunged at her with inhuman speed. First thing I did was take the gun away from her, and I may have admittedly broken some of her fingers in the process. I disassembled the gun within the blink of an eye and tossed it's components to the ground.

This security guard unfortunately did not give up. She pulled out a knife and lunged at me while also pulling off some rather impressive kicks. She moved fast, and I could feel the CPU in my head instantly quickening to keep up. I examined her patters and began to mimic them, all within the blink of an eye. I blocked each kick with my forearms and grabbed her hand holding the knife. She tried to do a spinning maneuver to escape, so I tightened my grip.

Several broken metacarpals

The woman yelled out in pain and fell to a knee. She cursed at me in Japanese, which I chose not to translate for her sake. It would only have angered me further. She dropped her knife and spat at me. I was going to return the gesture when I noticed her phone was vibrating.

"Answer it," I said and knelt to her level,
"Put the phone on speaker, and answer it."

"Yes, boss," she said after a moments hesitation.

"Have you disposed of the target yet? She cannot be allowed to reach me." The voice of my target said over the phone. Osaka's voice was cold and direct.

"There has been a complication," the guard said in reply.

I took the phone from her and punched her just hard enough in the temple to knock her unconscious with no severe damage. I was in a giving mood now that I could reach my goal.

"They found me, Ibushi. Now, listen. I don't care about your empire at the moment, I am even a little impressed by it. I just need to know where Yokozuna is."

After a moment of cursing in Japanese, I got my reply.
"You should be more worried about me. I don't know where he is, but I do know if I see you anywhere near me, then there won't be enough pieces of you left to sell on the black market." She said and hung up. Unfortunately for her, I had already hacked the signal and traced the call.