Chapter 1 Part 2/3“Ah, Watanabe-san, your order came in finally.” Risa smiled at the man in front of her, easily hefting the long box onto the tabletop.
“Good good. Can I have a look now?” The man asked, staring into the smaller woman’s bright blue eyes. He didn’t think they were natural, after all she was distinctly Japanese, but those eyes, combined her strawberry blonde hair and deliberate make-up, served to almost drastically change her look until she was almost foreign. So if she didn’t open her mouth, you might almost think she didn’t speak Japanese.
“Yes, of course.” Risa quickly sliced through the tape holding the box shut and opened it to reveal the hunting rifle inside. Almost reverently, Risa ran her hand down the weapon, admiring the craftsmanship and relishing in the feel of the cool barrel in her hands. Coming back to herself with a slight snap, she lifted the rifle out of the box and handed it over to the man.
Risa watched enviously as the man shouldered the weapon and sighted something across the room. He was a collector as well as a hunter, and Risa always made sure to personally handle his purchases, if only because they were one of a kind. Just once though, she wished she could fire one.
“Would you like to try it out on our range?” she asked, as she did every time the man came in to collect his orders.
“No thank you, Smith-san,” he replied, as he always did when she asked, using her alias, “A weapon this fine she not be tarnished with use.”
Risa begged to differ, but didn’t dare say it aloud. Instead, she thanked him for his patronage, and saw him out. Then she headed into the bowels of the store to the shooting range, which only their most distinguished customers and the employees themselves knew about.
“Oi, Daisuke. Take my shift up front will you?” The older man gladly agreed, he couldn’t read his mangas on the range anyway.
As soon as he was gone Risa snatched up a nine mm pistol and a small 22 cal. rifle and a case of ammo, as well as a handful of targets, and headed down to her favorite lane at the very end of the range. Soon she was set up and happily pumping bullets into the defenseless targets.
At first she started seriously, unloading two clips of each weapon into the target, and never missing a shot, then she began to make shapes. First a smiley face, then a flower, even a butterfly, until she was finished a solid hour later.
Realizing that her shift was almost over, Risa quickly cleaned up and paid for the ammo, pausing in closing her wallet when her eyes landed on the single photo that resided there. Affectionately, she traced the face of the girl in the picture with her, as she did every time she saw the picture.
Then she closed the wallet with a snap and headed upstairs to wash her hands, brushing away the mixture of love and sadness she felt every time she glanced at the photo.
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Lin Lin glanced around the airport nervously, shifting the bag on her shoulder to a more comfortable position. She felt like she was being watched, but she couldn’t find anyone that looked like they might be following her.
She tried to shake off the feeling, reminding herself that they wouldn’t be aware of her little transgression for at least another day and blaming it on her natural paranoia. She’d only been at the airport for a few hours, but it felt like days already.
She heard her flight number called with the message that they would soon begin boarding. Lin sighed in relief, the prickling on the back of her neck easing a little. Soon she’d be out of the country, a little wiser and a whole lot richer. She couldn’t help but grin at the thought of how much money she was going to have when she reached her destination.
Lost in thoughts of a new life, Lin almost missed it when her boarding call came, but quickly scampered into line. Eventually, she made it to her seat and flopped into it in exhaustion. She leaned her head back, closing her eyes for a minute.
Restlessly, she opened her eyes and watched the other passengers board and the seats fill up. Little by little, the plane became filled to capacity, and Lin felt more nervous by the second. Soon, she wouldn’t be around to deal with the consequences of her actions.
She started bouncing in her seat a little when no more passengers got on the plane, her anticipation rising to the point where she started to chew lightly on the inside of her cheek. Then, just as she was starting to relax, two men in black suits boarded the plane, flashing what she could tell were badges to the stewardess. They also showed her a piece of paper and began to scan over the faces of the passengers.
Lin knew right away that they were here for her. As calmly as she could, she rose from her seat and stated heading back towards the bathroom, hoping perhaps to hide until they were gone. Her plans failed when she heard her name being yelled out by a masculine voice.
Instantly she took off running towards the emergency exit, but her escape was cut short when a huge weight tackled her from behind, sending her to the floor. She struggled as hard as she could, but the man was not only stronger than her, but trained for this as well.
She refused to cry out when she was not so gently hand cuffed and hauled to her feet. Then the men began to drag her from the plane and she couldn’t help the pleading that left her lips.
Lin jerked awake when the plane suddenly started to move, realizing belatedly that she had fallen asleep in her seat and that the plane had begun take off without a hitch. Sighing, Lin wiped the tears that were beginning to form in her eyes, next stop, Narita International.
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“You’re wrong.” Ai nearly yelled at the sexist pig that was standing in her way, “The building’s only gonna fall sideways like this. You gotta strap the dynamite here and here,” she pointed out some columns on the blue prints stretched out next to her, “Because this beam here and here,” she pointed again, “Will prevent the building from pancaking.”
The condemned was a five story office building that had long since been shut down due to code violations. Before today, no one had dared to try and bring it down because of it’s precarious location sandwiched between two apartment buildings. Neither building had been evacuated, not a smart move on a normal day, but the foreman had so much confidence in his ability to bring the building straight down, he scoffed at the precaution.
Luckily, most people were smart enough to realize the danger and left for the day. But not all of them had.
“Listen here little girl,” Ai growled at the tone of his voice, “I think I know how to bring a building down safely. I’ve been in the demolition business since before you were an itch in your daddy’s pants.”
Infuriated beyond believe, Ai felt like telling him where to stick his experience. Instead, she only sighed once harshly, bringing her tension down considerably, “Fine. But I’m still gonna go clear this side of the site.”
Recognizing that that was probably the best he was gonna get out of her, Ai’s boss smiled condescendingly, “Right, you go do that, and come back here when you’re done.”
Ignoring his last little quip, Ai set off to do what she’d said she was going to do. Most of the men listened to her and headed for safety, but some laughed her off. Finally, Ai decided to wash her hands of the whole thing and started back towards the base.
She was about halfway out of the danger zone when she heard the sound of an explosion going off. Ai gasped, calculating that she only had about 15 seconds before she’d be playing the harp, and then sprinted towards safety. Behind her, the explosions continued and Ai counted in her head how many until the ones went off that would tip the building on top of her.
In the distance she heard cheering and guessed that so far the building looked like it would pancake solidly, then she heard one more explosion and the cheering stopped. Ai knew that meant, as well as the quickly growing shadow under her, that the building was falling towards her.
Behind her, Ai heard panicked screams, indicating that the men that hadn’t heeded her warnings were realizing that they were about to die. She put on the steam then, pushing her legs until they went numb, not daring to look up at imminent doom. She ran so fast, that she didn’t even realize she was clear of the debris until she ran headlong into her boss.
The two hit the ground at the same time the demolished building slammed into the building next to it and the crash was so big that for a second, Ai didn’t know what she was hearing. Finally, after about five seconds of silence, Ai pulled herself to her feet and glared at her boss.
“I told you so.” Then she took of her hard hat, pulled something out of the inside, threw the hat to the ground, and then walked away. After she felt that she was far enough away, Ai let her regretful tears start falling. Even though she knew logically that she did all she could to prevent that disaster, she couldn’t help but feel like she had failed.
She looked at the picture she’d removed from her hard hat, smiling tearfully at the girl in the photo, “I miss you.” she whispered, before she put the photo in the pocket and walked away from the sirens gathering behind her.
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Did I get anyone with Lin's part? I hope I did.