Prelude - Once Upon a Time in the Rings
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A clink sound pulled Goro from his torpor.
In front of him, his associate Keigo loudly exhaled, ogling at the muted cathodic television over the bar’s liquor shelves. The jubilant anchorwoman’s ghostly reflection danced on his glasses. Rolling his cigarette to the corner of his lips, he groomed his bleached mullet as the old-fashioned Some Velvet Morning echoed from the Wurlitzer in the alcove.
Meanwhile, Goro dusted his black power suit. The asbestos falling from the ceiling tiles sprinkled his padded shoulders. “Give me one,” he ordered in awkward English. Yakuzas rarely spoke the popular Solarian language. Even after years spent far from his clan’s stronghold on Titan, Goro had only learned a few common words he kept for public spaces.
Keigo folded his pocket comb, and nonchalantly hurled the Seven Stars package. Spinning, the latter bounced against the glass ashtray.
Goro opened it, spilling a few crumbs of tobacco on the Formica table. But the thin paper pack appeared to be empty. The mobster slowly ran his tattooed hand over his face, stretching his tired features and goatee. A gray strand of hair fell from his bun upon his temple. “You, punk…” he uttered, crushing the pack. Furious, he then flung it back. “That was my last one!”
Keigo gasped. The fateful cigarette slipped out his mouth. Hot ash seeped into his open shirt, he leaped to his feet, knocking over the chair he was slumped in. “Please—forgive me, boss. I didn’t pay attention!”
Reddened by effort and shame, Keigo picked up the smoke rolling under the table. Blowing on the filter to remove the collected dust, he scattered the ash into the round of glasses brought by the last member of the traveling trio: a tall overweight fellow clad in a gray pilot suit. They called him Kuma.
“You clumsy yarō! Beers are overpriced here!” this one roared as he placed the large pints on dog-eared coasters. Dipping his fingers into the warm foam, he tried to pick up the gold and gray flakes.
“There’s a vending machine by the jukebox!” Keigo said. “I—I’ll buy a new pack—and another round! ” He immediately grabbed his bulky wallet as discreet as his Type 54 pistol. The latter slipped from his underarm strap.
“Shut it, and sit down! You are embarrassing yourself!” the elder muttered before pointing with his chin at his associate’s apparent firearm. Seeing the bartender away, he kept scolding him in Japanese.
“Same with the ale, boss…” Kuma added, taking several sips. His face twisted as his lips brushed the brown brew. The harshness of the beverage made him gag. “It tastes far worse than nutri-soup, desu ne? But, as my wife always said… shikata ga nai.”
Goro sighed. Scraping his chair against the uneven tile floor, he meticulously buttoned up his jacket. “Wise words as always, Kuma.”
The mobster traversed the empty café, playing with the cap of his zippo. Bypassing one of the steel pillars covered with stickers and alluring parallax Polaroids from local harlots, he crossed the tapster coming back from the phone booth near the toilets. The skinny man grinned at him through his drooping mustache before returning polishing his countertop.
Goro paid no attention to him, and reached into his back pocket for a wad of crumpled bills. If his pilot could put aside some of his pride and drink adulterated moonshine, an old dog like him could poison his plastic lungs with gaijin tobacco. After all, the English info-ads on TV proudly extolled low-g crops’ virtues.
Dismissing holographic advertisements displaying as many sexual innuendos as the menthols they promoted contained health hazards, the yakuza pressed the faded Marlboro button. After a series of clicks followed by the echo of a spring, mechanized pincers appearing through the front trap door handed him a hard pack from another brand.
“Uzai…”
A car passed by outside. Its round headlights illuminated the room through the large tinted plexiglass windows. Between two puffs, Goro’s glance got lost beyond the volutes as the disappearing yellow lights woke an old acquaintance next to the men’s room. There, the interface overlaying his enhanced vision identified an antique pachinko machine.
Goro unfolded a plastic stool resting against the adjacent bar, then stroked the arcade cabinet’s cold frame with his artificial fingertips. A new cigarette rolling on his lips, he grabbed one of the free steel balls in the modest bucket hanging on the edge. Sliding it into his palm, memories of his nights spent in Neo-Babylon’s parlors flooded his cyber-mind. Long gone were the days of his nocturnal wanderings in the only Japanese enclave beyond Jupiter.
Propelled by the handle-powered spring, the ball raced across the playing field. It hit shiny iron pins, and flew around the board—free but mistreated, above the hole of all ends. After a wild dance dodging the upper narrow baskets, it struck a medium-sized cup which triggered a muffled sound through the time-worn built-in speakers.
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A dozen marbles loudly fell into the ceramic receptacle above Goro’s knees. High on natural dopamine, he shyly chuckled. He later chained for nearly an hour the highly addictive cigarettes as quickly as the balls.
The old mobster only stopped because of the never-ending chortle coming from Keigo. It’s through a pyramid of wobbly glass that his advanced optics witnessed the distracting young man draining a seventh pint under Kuma’s disapproving look. The mustached tapster laughed at his associate and his well bounced belly full of alcohol. Another gaijin, a lady of the night accompanied the ribbing while boorishly chewing a handful of 3D-printed peanuts.
The yakuza rolled his eyes, which flickered in red. He decided to intervene before Keigo could bring a new large pint to his lips. Yet, the pachinko player stepped back halfway through, and leaned against the steel pillar he crossed before. His foolish partner deserved this moment—as a reward for his years-long loyalty on Neptune.
A last marble rolled between Goro’s fingers. Mentally preparing himself, he cracked his vertebrae’s metal frames.
But something else immediately caught his attention. Behind the windows fogged by Keigo’s dishonorable aerobics appeared two shadows wrapped in long dust covers. Screwed on their heads, broad hats with raised rolls drew demons’ horns over those silhouettes assembling on both sides of the front door.
The jukebox made a click. Goro’s heart stopped at the same time as the music. His gaze slid from the main entrance to the bartender on his left.
The publican froze, and a pearl of sweat ran over his temple. Feeling observed, he anxiously glanced at the yakuza, before glimpsing back at the gate.
A second later, the dastard ducked behind the counter.
Goro’s cyber-mind displayed an ominous warning. His vision turned fully red as the main door flew open, jumping from its plastic hinges. His hand automatically reached for his shoulder holster, dropping the pachinko ball. “Keigo! Kuma!” he yelled as he hurried behind the pillar.
The glass on Keigo’s lips exploded, as did the mirror and half the taps adorned with some local beer levers. In the cold brown rain, his mortally wounded associate staggered before falling backwards.
Sharper, the pilot turned—foldable Uzi in hand. His shoulders with subcutaneous Kevlar-pads had taken the brunt of the lead storm. He aimed at the man standing in the doorway; but his arm outstretched, he left his torso open for a different shooter on the other side of the exploding window. After four rounds whose detonation would deafen the whole moon, Kuma went down on the table.
Swearing, Goro jumped from his cover. Caught off guard while stepping over the wide frame, the second gunner stared at him ; his silver-circled iris glowed beneath his frond dip. IR-linked to the yakuza’s brain, the wired Beretta fired by itself, hitting the assassin in the guts.
Yelling, his target fell backwards. But Goro couldn’t deliver the fatal double tap as the first shooter at the door retaliated. The mobster managed to take cover again while the anti-tank rounds dug wide half-melted cones in the column, vaporizing the enticing Polaroids.
Breathing heavily, Goro reloaded clumsily. White blood trickled down his trembling fingers as he inserted new purple cartridges into the magazine. “Who the hell are you? What is it you want?” he asked first in Japanese before translating into Solarian English. The elusive survivor hoped to save time, but also to learn the attackers’ position.
“We’re just lazing about, lad…” replied one of the assailants with a thick Essex accent.
The nasal voice didn’t arise from the door nor behind the shattered windows. It came from a third man, casually leaning on the pachinko in front of Goro. In the shadows, the Englishman held between his gloved fingers the last marble the yakuza had dropped. His other hand remained hidden in his dust cover’s left pocket.
Still facing the Japanese man, the space cowboy introduced the steel ball into the slot before calmly sitting down on the creaking plastic stool. On the wooly lapel of his greatcoat shone the round palladium badge of the Alliance of the Auxiliaries of Justice.
“Bauntihantā…” Goro growled.
The bounty hunter pulled the rusted handle. Livid, the mobster cocked his bloodstained Beretta. But as he aimed at his enemy, the arcade began to play a jingle while brightly glowing.
“Bingo!” the smiling stranger uttered shortly after. His winnings poured onto the tile floor like a waterfall.
The racket covered the shot that hit Goro in the throat.
Surprised, the yakuza dropped his weapon before bringing both his hands to the flowing wound. As the vermilion blood spilled onto his white shirt, he slid down the perforated pillar.
Struggling to breathe, Goro rolled on his back among the steel balls, his faltering gaze lost on the bouncing marbles chaotically banging into each other. These kept clashing as the man approached, but got slowed in the sticky red plasma and ivory cyborg fluid spreading all over the tiles.
“That’s what you Nips say, innit? When you win…” Reaching above his victim, the justice mercenary pulled his hand from his dust cover’s pocket. Snickering, he spun the still smoking sawed-off shotgun he slyly fired.
“No—no…” the mobster coughed, spitting blood. He felt the fool-tasting cyber-plasma running down his throat.
As Goro’s mind wandered, the man insisted: “Then… what do you say?”
“You—you just collect your reward…”
The old yakuza had trouble distinguishing the hunter as static invaded his red vision, but he heard him chuckling: “We’ll certainly do that too, lad.”
The shadowy figure finally disappeared behind a dark double muzzle. When the Englishman pulled the trigger, Goro was already gone.