Maldoror (![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} maldoror_gw) wrote,@ 2008-02-20 09:50:00 |
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OP Fic: Alienation, Part 8
Title: Alienation
Rating: PG15 for language, violence
Pairing: LuccixKaku, KakuxOMC
Warning: Some spoilers for Water 7 and Enies Lobby.
AN: This chapter is deliberately morseled, as it's a 'time passes' type of chapter with small snapshots of Kaku's development. Hopefully it reads okay, despite the odd format ^_^;
Chapter 8
'Fight the good fight!' the pamphlet boldly ordered him. Kaku read the blurb for the nth time, then dropped it back on the gym's work bench. Fight, it said, yet the picture showed uniformed men and women helping refugees, dealing with natural disasters, and doing this 'peacekeeping' thing that Kaku had barely gotten his head around, geopolitically speaking. What these soldiers were doing was good work. It was undoubtedly exciting and validating. It was truly admirable. It just wasn't him.
Kaku twisted around and shot across the dojo, Soru taking him to the center of the space, air ripping around him. It was shortly after two in the morning, nobody was around. The key to the place was one of the advantages that kept him working at the gym. There were times he just needed somewhere to cut loose.
It had occurred to him months ago already that there might be a better outlet for the coiled lethal energies inside him than a cheap gym in a low-rent area of Vancouver...The Canadian Armed Forces did not have the kind of job Kaku would need to feel like he was fulfilling his purpose in life, but they weren't the only ones hiring. Hell, for all he knew the Canadians might very well have carefully concealed black ops teams, and if not, their neighbors down south almost certainly did.
Fight the good fight...Kaku sent a low-powered Rankyaku whistling towards the reinforced concrete wall. He removed all the mattressed padding before he practiced. If the gym's owner ever peeked behind them one day, he'd undoubtedly be curious as to where all those chiseled gashes had come from.
Kaku interrupted himself in the middle of assassinating the air around him with a series of Shigan, and sank down on the bench with a tired sigh. He should get to bed...he could force himself to sleep if he concentrated hard enough, and it would be a pity to be tired for dinner tonight; Yoshi was putting together something special to celebrate their first meeting a year ago. That this was also the anniversary of Kaku's arrival on this planet and an event he might not want to celebrate hadn't crossed Yoshi's mind, and Kaku kept his silence about it. Hopefully Yoshi hadn't noticed his lover slipping out of their bed for the past five nights to go and sweat out a sense of restlessness and unease at two in the morning...
Kaku's view of the future had always been somewhat limited, starting with the Now and going no further than the end of his current mission; long-term planning was left to his masters. He'd gone for five years in Water 7 without ever feeling this itchiness beneath the skin, this need to do something...He'd always been adept at immersing himself in his role, as well as enjoying the simple pleasures of his life undercover, whether it was building ships or making friends. But in the background, there'd always been the mission. Kaku told himself his mission was survival in this alien world, but he'd been a little too successful at that; he was in now, he had a place here, a job, a companion, friends, an apartment and a paper trail like any other citizen. He should enjoy this - a part of him did enjoy this - but Kaku wasn't...he wasn't Karl Crandall, whatever it said on his tax return. Kaku had known who he was since the age of ten: a soldier, a weapon of Justice. A soldier obeyed orders without question...and he'd just run out of them.
The pamphlet was once more in his hand, he didn't remember picking it up. He couldn't figure out if finding new orders to follow, in the name of a cause he would not feel particularly bound to, was really the right thing to do or not. Did he really want to shed blood for this government? Canada was a nice place, but he didn't particularly feel the urge to kill for it. In the unlikely case they asked him to do so, it would no longer be for the same reasons as before. Changing causes...that would be like changing religions. When both positions claimed to be the absolute truth, switching would make both choices equally invalid...The very thought felt worryingly disloyal, Kaku tried not to dwell on it.
Besides, any move towards covert ops would mean Kaku would have to reveal himself, because his fake ID wouldn't hold up to truly close inspection and there was no way any government would buy a pig in a poke for that kind of job. Popping up out of nowhere saying "Hi, I'm an insanely strong alien, hire me!" would be one almighty risk.
Yes, it would, but taking a gamble like that would be part of the fun, argued his internal adrenaline junkie who was tired of cleaning gym lockers.
Kaku dropped the pamphlet like it was guilty evidence. Clear as the practice dummy shoved back against the wall, he could see Spandam on the last meeting they'd had, shortly before Kaku's dimensional accident. The director had been leaning over his desk in his usual puffed-up, aggressive way, waving The Finger of Command around. "Those peabrained Marines! But we owe them for letting us use the Buster Call, and I want to get rid of that debt. So listen up, both of you! You're going to assist them and take down those rebels, but - this is important - you are to let the Navy grunts storm the place first. It is out of the question for two of my agents to risk their lives in open battle. You two - all of you CP9 - are my resources. Sure, I know there was that failure last year at Enies Lobby," Spandam had added in the manner of one bravely overcoming a serious disappointment in cherished if not-too-bright underlings. Both Kaku and Blueno had kept their expressions set on dead neutral. "But that doesn't mean we're going to waste the years of training invested in you on some dumb attack. You are too precious for this government to lose! Your lives are not your own, you are not to take any unnecessary risks. Except when you're following my orders, of course."
"Yes sir."
Your lives are not your own. You are not to take any risk. Yes sir.
Of course, a cold rational analysis of his situation would argue that that life and those orders were behind him, at least for now and the foreseeable future. Sure. Right. Of course. Kaku never even thought about a possible rescue anymore, in case it sapped his morale. And yet...four months ago, when he'd obtained his driver's license, he'd dropped Yoshi off at work and then, on a whim, driven out on the Trans Canada. He'd parked the car (totally illegally) on the side of the highway, finding his way to the right spot unerringly as if a part of him had been back there every day. The weather-worn markers had been untouched, no signs of-...no signs of anything and he hadn't been expecting anything anyway. Right. Right, but he'd still dug up the old poster from under its rock and penciled in his new address and directions. He told himself he wasn't losing anything by doing this, but he knew the gesture meant more to him than that.
Just thinking about that unheard cry for help made him hunch over a fraction, a small ache spearing through the layers of insulation around his feelings, an echo of the moment when he'd picked up a plastic globe attached to a pencil sharpener at year ago and realized he was lost. Kaku swallowed, rubbed his face. Then, with the discipline that was second nature to him, he put the gym back together again and in the same way gathered up the mask, the pleasant smile, the mannerisms, expressions, even thoughts and emotions of his alter-ego, all slipping over the dulling pain like well-worn and comfortable clothes.
The air outside was crisp and wet with the smell of the last leaves clinging to the gutter, the scent of the sea above it all, and there was the faintest hint of dawn on the horizon. Kaku breathed deeply. Seize the moment...he headed towards his bike, feeling much better for having exercised. Nothing like a bit of a workout to get the energy flowing again. Did this burgeoning feeling of cheer and optimism belong to the man he wore like a mask, or to the man beneath it...? Both...? He wasn't sure, and he supposed it didn't really matter. Today...today he was going to work on the wooden balustrade he was building for the apartment, he'd grab a nap before going to work this afternoon, and be home in time for that celebratory dinner.
The pamphlet was in his bag, along with a book on physics he was working his way through; if there was a way back from this side, he had to start somewhere. But he had the time, he'd only been here a year, there was no hurry to choose any particular path yet. It wasn't as if he was going anywhere.
January flew by, as Kaku decided to do something a bit more constructive at the gym than clean up (he'd checked out a physics course, but he'd have a lot more work to put in before he could make much of that).
"There we go." Kaku tightened the screw and checked the plane with a quick glance, so much more acute and less fiddly than a level. "You can let go now."
Yoshi took a step back, then walked down the stairs to get a better overall view of their new balustrade.
"It looks great! I still can't believe you carved that with your own hands."
"It gave me something to do," Kaku answered nonchalantly, though in fact he was rather pleased with the results. He'd tried and quickly abandoned the jigsaws, sanders and other machines this world had to offer. In his opinion, you just couldn't obtain quite the same finish with those mechanical devices that you could with your hands and a good ol' chisel. He'd used the money saved on renting the machines and spent it on good quality wood, incidentally becoming the bane of many a hardware store salesman in the process. The people here might be superb metalsmiths, but they didn't know their hardy ship-oak from their cork.
He went to stand next to Yoshi and they admired his handiwork for a minute. An arm slipped around Kaku's waist and Yoshi grinned at him. "You're wonderful company, you have buns of steel and you fix things. You're the perfect boyfriend all right." And then a more serious light kindled in his eyes despite the teasing expression. "You're perfect."
I'm a lie, thought Kaku, now forcing his own smile with the ease of years of practice. For some reason, he'd suddenly thought of Paulie slapping him on the back and saying "Kaku, you’re the best buddy a guy could have." Screaming "I thought you were my friends!"...Those words were a compliment to an infiltrator's skill. It'd meant Kaku had done his job well and won the target's trust. In the upside down world of CP9 where duty meant disobeying civil law, Justice was served with trial-free executions and one's only honor was in having none, it all made sense, it all hung together. But here...
Kaku wasn't exactly pretending with Yoshi anymore, since his lover now knew his origins. True, he'd withheld a lot of information about his past, but Kaku's world was so remote that the lack of knowledge wouldn't affect Yoshi either way. But, perfect? Kaku was a good listener, sure...because he'd been trained to be. He was a great conversationalist...a vast, if superficial education about everything from art to zoology had guaranteed it. He and Yoshi never argued...Kaku let his lover have his way most of the time - when one had stared death in the eyes on multiple occasions, matters such as the color of the new couch really had no impact whatsoever - and he automatically steered them away from any serious argument they might have about matters he cared about by gently maneuvering Yoshi into his way of thinking before a fight was even on the far horizon. Superficially speaking, Kaku was indeed the perfect companion. But all these qualities that made him such a good catch were part of masks he'd built and used all his adult life. Had they become part of his persona now, or was he still using them out of habit? Would he be any different if he had the possibility of living without any lies at all? The chameleon, asked its original colors, came up blank...
Yoshi returned with the good wine he'd bought the other day. Kaku accepted the glass and the kiss, and resisted the pervading urge to...to start a fight. To argue politics, for instance. Yes, that was certainly something they'd argue over for hours if he actually said what he thought. He raised his glass in a toast and looked at his companion through the red liquid. If I did that, would you still love me, Yoshi? Would you even know me?
The answer being no, his hard, practical side dropped the whole question into a black hole marked 'irrelevant'. The truth was an intangible concept anyway, and it was just as real to say that Kaku liked living with Yoshi, it was pleasant to have someone to grin knowingly when Kaku mentioned giraffes, or hold him at night when Kaku didn't want to think too hard or remember...There was too much to lose and nothing to gain by treading on forbidden ground, so the truth would have to be only skin deep. Yoshi was happy, Kaku was as contented as he was likely to be in the circumstances, so what did it matter anyway...
In March, Kaku got an intriguing offer of some part-time work from one of the gym's customers he'd accidentally flattened while sparring. The job was pretty easy for him, and often quite amusing.
The instructor who'd selected Kaku and two others for the last leg of their training was a retired CP9 agent, wounded in combat a couple of years ago. He had all the humor of a streak of vinegar, his crippled body curled into a perpetual hunch, expression cynical and worn. He was forty.
"All the other Cipher Pol agencies have their articles of conduct written down in legalese. CP9 doesn't have them written down at all, so listen up, girlies; I'll list them out and you'll remember them.
"Rule One: you obey orders.
"Rule Two: you lay down your lives to follow Rule One if that's what it takes. The mission is paramount. Our Justice is paramount. Your sorry asses don't mean jack-shit next to that.
"Rule Three: you don't exist. Our secrecy is absolute. There's no glory in these ranks, boys. Just a quick death, if you're lucky.
"Rule Four: you try not to kill any civilians unless rules One, Two or Three say you should. Then it's no mercy.
"Rule Five: you follow all the above rules to the letter if you value your salaries and your hides.
"Got it? Rules Six through Eleven are boring and deal with expense reports, chain of command, pay scales and such. Go bug the director's aide for them if you absolutely wanna, let's move on to the more interesting stuff now. You've mastered Soru, Geppou, Tekkai and Kami or you wouldn't even be here, but we've withheld the final two, Shigan and Rankyaku. So today, I'm gonna start teaching you how to kill a guy with your bare hands so quickly he won't even know he's dead until they bury him. My other colleague over there will teach you how to set up your cover story so you can get away with it and not bring this agency a whole lot of grief that would force them to terminate you, and I ain't talking severance pay here-"
"Kaku?" Yoshio prompted.
"Hmm?" Kaku looked up from where he was toying with his chicken parmigiani and a morass of memories.
"You were going to tell me about your job back there. Was it like being a cop here?"
"Yes, pretty much. How's the fish? This restaurant is nice, isn't it."
In April, strong with his past experience, Kaku found more interesting employment in an upper scale gym. Cleaning lockers was no longer part of his job description, unless he really, really wanted to.
The transport plane hummed through the upper atmosphere, the special ceramic alloy coating its sides ensuring absolute radar silence. Which did not mean that the insides didn't rattle like canned thunder. Kaku was so used to the noise, the weight of his gear and the rub of the high Kevlar collar against his chin that he'd have felt jumpy without them.
"So?" asked his colleague, lounging in one of the unbuckled jump seats contrary to security regulations.
Kaku held out the mission statement their captain had just handed him. The grainy picture and the name of the country where their target was hiding made the other soldier grin with anticipation.
"Classic search-and-recover," Kaku said, tapping the readout. "In and out with no-one the wiser, same as usual."
"It should be search-and-destroy," was the answering grumble. "It's easier and less prone to go FUBAR."
"That's not how the Special Ops do it, bud. At least, not the Canadians," Kaku amended.
"It should be. Here, look at this!" Jyabura ripped off his helmet and gestured at the maple leaf. "Don't that look like a bloody paw-print to you? Just a little?"
"Not even remotely."
"Come on, you know it does. Our motto shouldn't be 'United against fear', that's totally lame; it should be 'Covert, Fast and Deadly'. No, 'Deadly and Covert', rings better-"
"And Silent," was the very final-sounding suggestion from their captain, standing behind the pilot's seat. The pigeon on his shoulder reinforced the quasi-order with a haughty look.
Kaku's breath rattled in his throat in a strangled gasp as he sat straight up, sheets thrown back. Yoshi, who'd tiptoed in and had been removing his jacket as quietly as he could manage, stood frozen in shock with one hand stuck halfway up a sleeve.
"Shit, Kaku, you scared me. Did I wake you up? I'm sorry."
"I'm not." Kaku stared around the bedroom, dazed. "I was having a particularly disturbing dream."
"I told you to not eat all that pizza last night."
"Right you are. Never touching pizza again as long as I live." Kaku scrubbed his face, ran fingers through hair that was getting long and acquiring a faint hint of curl again. The clock on the bed stand ticked and tocked smugly to inform him that it was five in the morning and that he had to get up soon.
"What was your dream about?"
"I don't remember," said Kaku without a second thought. Deadly and Covert.
In June, Yoshi was promoted. He no longer had nightshifts; instead, along with his regular duties, he had a complicated research project on MRI and skull injury treatment that required him to be on call, occasionally at night. He complained that it was even more tiring than working shifts, but it was obvious he was pleased with the work.
Kaku knew what the three men wanted as soon as he spotted them, and the look he gave them - which included the two trying to hide behind the dumpster - was meant to warn them off. He might have done a bit more in that regard, perhaps...But then again, if these men were from a certain criminal going by the name of Chang Wei Ling who'd suddenly decided to tidy up his accounts, or frogmarch Kaku into another hit, Kaku would rather deal with them here than back at the apartment.
And maybe there was another reason, a dark current that stirred him and whispered that it'd been a long time since he'd felt something break beneath his fingers...Kaku turned his back to lock the gym's service entrance, leaving himself wide open, an invitation to an attack.
"Don't close that, man." The voice full of menace tried to disguise the fact that the speaker wasn't yet at an age where shaving was a daily requirement. Kaku rolled his eyes to the dumb heavens which couldn't even send him a decent threat. These yahoos were after the gym's cash register and his wallet, no more.
He turned towards the kid, and let himself obligingly get jumped by the other two behind the dumpster. They were older, bigger, tougher, they had knives. Kaku let them have it without a second thought.
The kid goggled at Kaku and his two fallen buddies, a flick-knife looking ridiculously small in his hand; he was rather big and bulky for his age. Then he did the smart thing: he turned and ran like the devil himself was after him. It wasn't the devil though; a kicked garbage can lid - the strength behind it toned down to avoid cutting the kid in half - caught him across the back of the legs and sent him hurtling into a chain-link fence at the end of the alley. He wasn't going anywhere for a few minutes, so the next logical step was to take care of the ones who were still mobile before they could get away.
Kaku realized his thoughts were heading down the 'no witnesses' tracks and applied the brakes.
The guy who'd collapsed at his feet made a retching noise, curled up around a badly bruised solar plexus. Kaku absently moved aside to avoid getting anything noisome on his shoes. The third attacker had been hurled back with a kick into the dumpster. There'd been a nasty sound as the mugger's head hit the lid, but it looked like he was still alive.
Now what...
Kaku scowled and shoved up his cap, gaze going from one to the other, with a quick glance around for any bystanders that could conceivably have wandered around a back alley at midnight. Now what? They'd tried to mug him, he'd kicked their asses in retaliation, fair enough...but what about the little old lady these thugs bushwhacked tomorrow? Justice - the Justice Kaku believed in - said that her blood would be on his head if he did not take steps to remove this threat permanently. The good of the whole was more important than a few lives, innocent or otherwise. But the Canadian legal system had somewhat different views on the matter. There were practical considerations as well, especially if the cops could trace the bodies back to the gym-
The cops. He could just call the cops. That's what an honest, upstanding citizen named Karl Crandall would do.
An almighty internal argument started on cue.
The solar-plexus guy made a sound like a drain being emptied, shuddered and craned his neck to look up at Kaku's expression. Whatever it was that the mugger saw there scared the shit out of him; he picked himself up, edged around Kaku as far as he could and stumbled towards the mouth of the alley, grabbing his friend by the dumpster in passing. They backed away from him, heads low, free hands out with fingers wide and harmless, whole body language that of wolves who'd just had a mighty realignment in their pack politics and knew who Alpha was now. The kid at the chainlink fence must have had a particularly thick skull, and was already recovered and gone.
Caught between two equally unappealing choices on how to proceed, Kaku watched the thugs skedaddle, letting them go out of sheer indecision which was, to his way of thinking, as bad as actually making a wrong call. But he didn't want to get involved with the police again, and as for the other approach, he had no orders, no cause, the situation hardly called for extremes, he wasn't likely to see that lot here any time soon from the looks on their faces, and as for the little old lady, she would just have to watch her back. Kaku jerked down his cap and stomped off towards his bike, feeling unsatisfied with his evening all in all.
In August, Yoshi suggested they plan a trip to Japan that winter. Kaku had to remind his lover that he wasn't so sure what the international airlines and customs would make of him and his fake papers.
"Look, there's one!" Yoshi shouted. "Kaku, come here and look, you're missing it. I think it's a humpback."
"Great," said Kaku, not moving from his seat. He was wearing a life-jacket, a clip-on harness to the boat's railing and his fingers were digging into the bench every time the prow hit a wave at high speeds; he didn’t think he could move if he tried. Even a hammer like him was comfortable on sailing ships. He understood sailing ships. In a way he understood the theory behind speed boats too, but the way they ploughed through the sea like they were trying to dig a hole in it put him on edge.
Huang grinned and slowed down, turning the boat in a large arc so that Kaku could also see the spouts fifty yards away.
"Wow, they're huge," said Kaku a little indulgently. They'd be a tunafish snack for Sea Kings, but these whales were nonetheless quite big in their own rights. It was all a matter of which frame of reference you used.
"That was great," Yoshi said, loud enough to be heard over the wind as they sped back to the harbor where sake, sushi and good company waited for them. Huang, Diana and their daughters were up near the front of the boat, and Yoshi had joined Kaku on the bench, sitting close. "I can't believe I've lived here all my life and never bothered to see them before. How about you. Happy?"
"Yes," Kaku answered automatically, and then he realized he was. He wondered if it was a lie, part of the mask...but decided it was like the whales, all a matter of your frame of reference.
But then in September...
TBC...
Ah yes, the FUN chapters are about to start. I should post the next one on Saturday, depending on when I can get my rear in gear for a revision. Sorry about what might read as a bit of a cliffhanger ^_^
Link to chapter 9
Title: Alienation
Rating: PG15 for language, violence
Pairing: LuccixKaku, KakuxOMC
Warning: Some spoilers for Water 7 and Enies Lobby.
AN: This chapter is deliberately morseled, as it's a 'time passes' type of chapter with small snapshots of Kaku's development. Hopefully it reads okay, despite the odd format ^_^;
Chapter 8
'Fight the good fight!' the pamphlet boldly ordered him. Kaku read the blurb for the nth time, then dropped it back on the gym's work bench. Fight, it said, yet the picture showed uniformed men and women helping refugees, dealing with natural disasters, and doing this 'peacekeeping' thing that Kaku had barely gotten his head around, geopolitically speaking. What these soldiers were doing was good work. It was undoubtedly exciting and validating. It was truly admirable. It just wasn't him.
Kaku twisted around and shot across the dojo, Soru taking him to the center of the space, air ripping around him. It was shortly after two in the morning, nobody was around. The key to the place was one of the advantages that kept him working at the gym. There were times he just needed somewhere to cut loose.
It had occurred to him months ago already that there might be a better outlet for the coiled lethal energies inside him than a cheap gym in a low-rent area of Vancouver...The Canadian Armed Forces did not have the kind of job Kaku would need to feel like he was fulfilling his purpose in life, but they weren't the only ones hiring. Hell, for all he knew the Canadians might very well have carefully concealed black ops teams, and if not, their neighbors down south almost certainly did.
Fight the good fight...Kaku sent a low-powered Rankyaku whistling towards the reinforced concrete wall. He removed all the mattressed padding before he practiced. If the gym's owner ever peeked behind them one day, he'd undoubtedly be curious as to where all those chiseled gashes had come from.
Kaku interrupted himself in the middle of assassinating the air around him with a series of Shigan, and sank down on the bench with a tired sigh. He should get to bed...he could force himself to sleep if he concentrated hard enough, and it would be a pity to be tired for dinner tonight; Yoshi was putting together something special to celebrate their first meeting a year ago. That this was also the anniversary of Kaku's arrival on this planet and an event he might not want to celebrate hadn't crossed Yoshi's mind, and Kaku kept his silence about it. Hopefully Yoshi hadn't noticed his lover slipping out of their bed for the past five nights to go and sweat out a sense of restlessness and unease at two in the morning...
Kaku's view of the future had always been somewhat limited, starting with the Now and going no further than the end of his current mission; long-term planning was left to his masters. He'd gone for five years in Water 7 without ever feeling this itchiness beneath the skin, this need to do something...He'd always been adept at immersing himself in his role, as well as enjoying the simple pleasures of his life undercover, whether it was building ships or making friends. But in the background, there'd always been the mission. Kaku told himself his mission was survival in this alien world, but he'd been a little too successful at that; he was in now, he had a place here, a job, a companion, friends, an apartment and a paper trail like any other citizen. He should enjoy this - a part of him did enjoy this - but Kaku wasn't...he wasn't Karl Crandall, whatever it said on his tax return. Kaku had known who he was since the age of ten: a soldier, a weapon of Justice. A soldier obeyed orders without question...and he'd just run out of them.
The pamphlet was once more in his hand, he didn't remember picking it up. He couldn't figure out if finding new orders to follow, in the name of a cause he would not feel particularly bound to, was really the right thing to do or not. Did he really want to shed blood for this government? Canada was a nice place, but he didn't particularly feel the urge to kill for it. In the unlikely case they asked him to do so, it would no longer be for the same reasons as before. Changing causes...that would be like changing religions. When both positions claimed to be the absolute truth, switching would make both choices equally invalid...The very thought felt worryingly disloyal, Kaku tried not to dwell on it.
Besides, any move towards covert ops would mean Kaku would have to reveal himself, because his fake ID wouldn't hold up to truly close inspection and there was no way any government would buy a pig in a poke for that kind of job. Popping up out of nowhere saying "Hi, I'm an insanely strong alien, hire me!" would be one almighty risk.
Yes, it would, but taking a gamble like that would be part of the fun, argued his internal adrenaline junkie who was tired of cleaning gym lockers.
Kaku dropped the pamphlet like it was guilty evidence. Clear as the practice dummy shoved back against the wall, he could see Spandam on the last meeting they'd had, shortly before Kaku's dimensional accident. The director had been leaning over his desk in his usual puffed-up, aggressive way, waving The Finger of Command around. "Those peabrained Marines! But we owe them for letting us use the Buster Call, and I want to get rid of that debt. So listen up, both of you! You're going to assist them and take down those rebels, but - this is important - you are to let the Navy grunts storm the place first. It is out of the question for two of my agents to risk their lives in open battle. You two - all of you CP9 - are my resources. Sure, I know there was that failure last year at Enies Lobby," Spandam had added in the manner of one bravely overcoming a serious disappointment in cherished if not-too-bright underlings. Both Kaku and Blueno had kept their expressions set on dead neutral. "But that doesn't mean we're going to waste the years of training invested in you on some dumb attack. You are too precious for this government to lose! Your lives are not your own, you are not to take any unnecessary risks. Except when you're following my orders, of course."
"Yes sir."
Your lives are not your own. You are not to take any risk. Yes sir.
Of course, a cold rational analysis of his situation would argue that that life and those orders were behind him, at least for now and the foreseeable future. Sure. Right. Of course. Kaku never even thought about a possible rescue anymore, in case it sapped his morale. And yet...four months ago, when he'd obtained his driver's license, he'd dropped Yoshi off at work and then, on a whim, driven out on the Trans Canada. He'd parked the car (totally illegally) on the side of the highway, finding his way to the right spot unerringly as if a part of him had been back there every day. The weather-worn markers had been untouched, no signs of-...no signs of anything and he hadn't been expecting anything anyway. Right. Right, but he'd still dug up the old poster from under its rock and penciled in his new address and directions. He told himself he wasn't losing anything by doing this, but he knew the gesture meant more to him than that.
Just thinking about that unheard cry for help made him hunch over a fraction, a small ache spearing through the layers of insulation around his feelings, an echo of the moment when he'd picked up a plastic globe attached to a pencil sharpener at year ago and realized he was lost. Kaku swallowed, rubbed his face. Then, with the discipline that was second nature to him, he put the gym back together again and in the same way gathered up the mask, the pleasant smile, the mannerisms, expressions, even thoughts and emotions of his alter-ego, all slipping over the dulling pain like well-worn and comfortable clothes.
The air outside was crisp and wet with the smell of the last leaves clinging to the gutter, the scent of the sea above it all, and there was the faintest hint of dawn on the horizon. Kaku breathed deeply. Seize the moment...he headed towards his bike, feeling much better for having exercised. Nothing like a bit of a workout to get the energy flowing again. Did this burgeoning feeling of cheer and optimism belong to the man he wore like a mask, or to the man beneath it...? Both...? He wasn't sure, and he supposed it didn't really matter. Today...today he was going to work on the wooden balustrade he was building for the apartment, he'd grab a nap before going to work this afternoon, and be home in time for that celebratory dinner.
The pamphlet was in his bag, along with a book on physics he was working his way through; if there was a way back from this side, he had to start somewhere. But he had the time, he'd only been here a year, there was no hurry to choose any particular path yet. It wasn't as if he was going anywhere.
January flew by, as Kaku decided to do something a bit more constructive at the gym than clean up (he'd checked out a physics course, but he'd have a lot more work to put in before he could make much of that).
"There we go." Kaku tightened the screw and checked the plane with a quick glance, so much more acute and less fiddly than a level. "You can let go now."
Yoshi took a step back, then walked down the stairs to get a better overall view of their new balustrade.
"It looks great! I still can't believe you carved that with your own hands."
"It gave me something to do," Kaku answered nonchalantly, though in fact he was rather pleased with the results. He'd tried and quickly abandoned the jigsaws, sanders and other machines this world had to offer. In his opinion, you just couldn't obtain quite the same finish with those mechanical devices that you could with your hands and a good ol' chisel. He'd used the money saved on renting the machines and spent it on good quality wood, incidentally becoming the bane of many a hardware store salesman in the process. The people here might be superb metalsmiths, but they didn't know their hardy ship-oak from their cork.
He went to stand next to Yoshi and they admired his handiwork for a minute. An arm slipped around Kaku's waist and Yoshi grinned at him. "You're wonderful company, you have buns of steel and you fix things. You're the perfect boyfriend all right." And then a more serious light kindled in his eyes despite the teasing expression. "You're perfect."
I'm a lie, thought Kaku, now forcing his own smile with the ease of years of practice. For some reason, he'd suddenly thought of Paulie slapping him on the back and saying "Kaku, you’re the best buddy a guy could have." Screaming "I thought you were my friends!"...Those words were a compliment to an infiltrator's skill. It'd meant Kaku had done his job well and won the target's trust. In the upside down world of CP9 where duty meant disobeying civil law, Justice was served with trial-free executions and one's only honor was in having none, it all made sense, it all hung together. But here...
Kaku wasn't exactly pretending with Yoshi anymore, since his lover now knew his origins. True, he'd withheld a lot of information about his past, but Kaku's world was so remote that the lack of knowledge wouldn't affect Yoshi either way. But, perfect? Kaku was a good listener, sure...because he'd been trained to be. He was a great conversationalist...a vast, if superficial education about everything from art to zoology had guaranteed it. He and Yoshi never argued...Kaku let his lover have his way most of the time - when one had stared death in the eyes on multiple occasions, matters such as the color of the new couch really had no impact whatsoever - and he automatically steered them away from any serious argument they might have about matters he cared about by gently maneuvering Yoshi into his way of thinking before a fight was even on the far horizon. Superficially speaking, Kaku was indeed the perfect companion. But all these qualities that made him such a good catch were part of masks he'd built and used all his adult life. Had they become part of his persona now, or was he still using them out of habit? Would he be any different if he had the possibility of living without any lies at all? The chameleon, asked its original colors, came up blank...
Yoshi returned with the good wine he'd bought the other day. Kaku accepted the glass and the kiss, and resisted the pervading urge to...to start a fight. To argue politics, for instance. Yes, that was certainly something they'd argue over for hours if he actually said what he thought. He raised his glass in a toast and looked at his companion through the red liquid. If I did that, would you still love me, Yoshi? Would you even know me?
The answer being no, his hard, practical side dropped the whole question into a black hole marked 'irrelevant'. The truth was an intangible concept anyway, and it was just as real to say that Kaku liked living with Yoshi, it was pleasant to have someone to grin knowingly when Kaku mentioned giraffes, or hold him at night when Kaku didn't want to think too hard or remember...There was too much to lose and nothing to gain by treading on forbidden ground, so the truth would have to be only skin deep. Yoshi was happy, Kaku was as contented as he was likely to be in the circumstances, so what did it matter anyway...
In March, Kaku got an intriguing offer of some part-time work from one of the gym's customers he'd accidentally flattened while sparring. The job was pretty easy for him, and often quite amusing.
The instructor who'd selected Kaku and two others for the last leg of their training was a retired CP9 agent, wounded in combat a couple of years ago. He had all the humor of a streak of vinegar, his crippled body curled into a perpetual hunch, expression cynical and worn. He was forty.
"All the other Cipher Pol agencies have their articles of conduct written down in legalese. CP9 doesn't have them written down at all, so listen up, girlies; I'll list them out and you'll remember them.
"Rule One: you obey orders.
"Rule Two: you lay down your lives to follow Rule One if that's what it takes. The mission is paramount. Our Justice is paramount. Your sorry asses don't mean jack-shit next to that.
"Rule Three: you don't exist. Our secrecy is absolute. There's no glory in these ranks, boys. Just a quick death, if you're lucky.
"Rule Four: you try not to kill any civilians unless rules One, Two or Three say you should. Then it's no mercy.
"Rule Five: you follow all the above rules to the letter if you value your salaries and your hides.
"Got it? Rules Six through Eleven are boring and deal with expense reports, chain of command, pay scales and such. Go bug the director's aide for them if you absolutely wanna, let's move on to the more interesting stuff now. You've mastered Soru, Geppou, Tekkai and Kami or you wouldn't even be here, but we've withheld the final two, Shigan and Rankyaku. So today, I'm gonna start teaching you how to kill a guy with your bare hands so quickly he won't even know he's dead until they bury him. My other colleague over there will teach you how to set up your cover story so you can get away with it and not bring this agency a whole lot of grief that would force them to terminate you, and I ain't talking severance pay here-"
"Kaku?" Yoshio prompted.
"Hmm?" Kaku looked up from where he was toying with his chicken parmigiani and a morass of memories.
"You were going to tell me about your job back there. Was it like being a cop here?"
"Yes, pretty much. How's the fish? This restaurant is nice, isn't it."
In April, strong with his past experience, Kaku found more interesting employment in an upper scale gym. Cleaning lockers was no longer part of his job description, unless he really, really wanted to.
The transport plane hummed through the upper atmosphere, the special ceramic alloy coating its sides ensuring absolute radar silence. Which did not mean that the insides didn't rattle like canned thunder. Kaku was so used to the noise, the weight of his gear and the rub of the high Kevlar collar against his chin that he'd have felt jumpy without them.
"So?" asked his colleague, lounging in one of the unbuckled jump seats contrary to security regulations.
Kaku held out the mission statement their captain had just handed him. The grainy picture and the name of the country where their target was hiding made the other soldier grin with anticipation.
"Classic search-and-recover," Kaku said, tapping the readout. "In and out with no-one the wiser, same as usual."
"It should be search-and-destroy," was the answering grumble. "It's easier and less prone to go FUBAR."
"That's not how the Special Ops do it, bud. At least, not the Canadians," Kaku amended.
"It should be. Here, look at this!" Jyabura ripped off his helmet and gestured at the maple leaf. "Don't that look like a bloody paw-print to you? Just a little?"
"Not even remotely."
"Come on, you know it does. Our motto shouldn't be 'United against fear', that's totally lame; it should be 'Covert, Fast and Deadly'. No, 'Deadly and Covert', rings better-"
"And Silent," was the very final-sounding suggestion from their captain, standing behind the pilot's seat. The pigeon on his shoulder reinforced the quasi-order with a haughty look.
Kaku's breath rattled in his throat in a strangled gasp as he sat straight up, sheets thrown back. Yoshi, who'd tiptoed in and had been removing his jacket as quietly as he could manage, stood frozen in shock with one hand stuck halfway up a sleeve.
"Shit, Kaku, you scared me. Did I wake you up? I'm sorry."
"I'm not." Kaku stared around the bedroom, dazed. "I was having a particularly disturbing dream."
"I told you to not eat all that pizza last night."
"Right you are. Never touching pizza again as long as I live." Kaku scrubbed his face, ran fingers through hair that was getting long and acquiring a faint hint of curl again. The clock on the bed stand ticked and tocked smugly to inform him that it was five in the morning and that he had to get up soon.
"What was your dream about?"
"I don't remember," said Kaku without a second thought. Deadly and Covert.
In June, Yoshi was promoted. He no longer had nightshifts; instead, along with his regular duties, he had a complicated research project on MRI and skull injury treatment that required him to be on call, occasionally at night. He complained that it was even more tiring than working shifts, but it was obvious he was pleased with the work.
Kaku knew what the three men wanted as soon as he spotted them, and the look he gave them - which included the two trying to hide behind the dumpster - was meant to warn them off. He might have done a bit more in that regard, perhaps...But then again, if these men were from a certain criminal going by the name of Chang Wei Ling who'd suddenly decided to tidy up his accounts, or frogmarch Kaku into another hit, Kaku would rather deal with them here than back at the apartment.
And maybe there was another reason, a dark current that stirred him and whispered that it'd been a long time since he'd felt something break beneath his fingers...Kaku turned his back to lock the gym's service entrance, leaving himself wide open, an invitation to an attack.
"Don't close that, man." The voice full of menace tried to disguise the fact that the speaker wasn't yet at an age where shaving was a daily requirement. Kaku rolled his eyes to the dumb heavens which couldn't even send him a decent threat. These yahoos were after the gym's cash register and his wallet, no more.
He turned towards the kid, and let himself obligingly get jumped by the other two behind the dumpster. They were older, bigger, tougher, they had knives. Kaku let them have it without a second thought.
The kid goggled at Kaku and his two fallen buddies, a flick-knife looking ridiculously small in his hand; he was rather big and bulky for his age. Then he did the smart thing: he turned and ran like the devil himself was after him. It wasn't the devil though; a kicked garbage can lid - the strength behind it toned down to avoid cutting the kid in half - caught him across the back of the legs and sent him hurtling into a chain-link fence at the end of the alley. He wasn't going anywhere for a few minutes, so the next logical step was to take care of the ones who were still mobile before they could get away.
Kaku realized his thoughts were heading down the 'no witnesses' tracks and applied the brakes.
The guy who'd collapsed at his feet made a retching noise, curled up around a badly bruised solar plexus. Kaku absently moved aside to avoid getting anything noisome on his shoes. The third attacker had been hurled back with a kick into the dumpster. There'd been a nasty sound as the mugger's head hit the lid, but it looked like he was still alive.
Now what...
Kaku scowled and shoved up his cap, gaze going from one to the other, with a quick glance around for any bystanders that could conceivably have wandered around a back alley at midnight. Now what? They'd tried to mug him, he'd kicked their asses in retaliation, fair enough...but what about the little old lady these thugs bushwhacked tomorrow? Justice - the Justice Kaku believed in - said that her blood would be on his head if he did not take steps to remove this threat permanently. The good of the whole was more important than a few lives, innocent or otherwise. But the Canadian legal system had somewhat different views on the matter. There were practical considerations as well, especially if the cops could trace the bodies back to the gym-
The cops. He could just call the cops. That's what an honest, upstanding citizen named Karl Crandall would do.
An almighty internal argument started on cue.
The solar-plexus guy made a sound like a drain being emptied, shuddered and craned his neck to look up at Kaku's expression. Whatever it was that the mugger saw there scared the shit out of him; he picked himself up, edged around Kaku as far as he could and stumbled towards the mouth of the alley, grabbing his friend by the dumpster in passing. They backed away from him, heads low, free hands out with fingers wide and harmless, whole body language that of wolves who'd just had a mighty realignment in their pack politics and knew who Alpha was now. The kid at the chainlink fence must have had a particularly thick skull, and was already recovered and gone.
Caught between two equally unappealing choices on how to proceed, Kaku watched the thugs skedaddle, letting them go out of sheer indecision which was, to his way of thinking, as bad as actually making a wrong call. But he didn't want to get involved with the police again, and as for the other approach, he had no orders, no cause, the situation hardly called for extremes, he wasn't likely to see that lot here any time soon from the looks on their faces, and as for the little old lady, she would just have to watch her back. Kaku jerked down his cap and stomped off towards his bike, feeling unsatisfied with his evening all in all.
In August, Yoshi suggested they plan a trip to Japan that winter. Kaku had to remind his lover that he wasn't so sure what the international airlines and customs would make of him and his fake papers.
"Look, there's one!" Yoshi shouted. "Kaku, come here and look, you're missing it. I think it's a humpback."
"Great," said Kaku, not moving from his seat. He was wearing a life-jacket, a clip-on harness to the boat's railing and his fingers were digging into the bench every time the prow hit a wave at high speeds; he didn’t think he could move if he tried. Even a hammer like him was comfortable on sailing ships. He understood sailing ships. In a way he understood the theory behind speed boats too, but the way they ploughed through the sea like they were trying to dig a hole in it put him on edge.
Huang grinned and slowed down, turning the boat in a large arc so that Kaku could also see the spouts fifty yards away.
"Wow, they're huge," said Kaku a little indulgently. They'd be a tunafish snack for Sea Kings, but these whales were nonetheless quite big in their own rights. It was all a matter of which frame of reference you used.
"That was great," Yoshi said, loud enough to be heard over the wind as they sped back to the harbor where sake, sushi and good company waited for them. Huang, Diana and their daughters were up near the front of the boat, and Yoshi had joined Kaku on the bench, sitting close. "I can't believe I've lived here all my life and never bothered to see them before. How about you. Happy?"
"Yes," Kaku answered automatically, and then he realized he was. He wondered if it was a lie, part of the mask...but decided it was like the whales, all a matter of your frame of reference.
But then in September...
TBC...
Ah yes, the FUN chapters are about to start. I should post the next one on Saturday, depending on when I can get my rear in gear for a revision. Sorry about what might read as a bit of a cliffhanger ^_^
Link to chapter 9
