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Chapter 13

Chapter Thirteen

April 11th 2157

            It had only taken about four hours before he had received the confirmation that the contract belonged to him.  And within that hour two first class tickets had been bought that would land him and Brit in Tokyo.

            A short cab ride took them into Asahi, a ward in the city of Yokohama, just southwest of Tokyo.  After paying the cab, they turned down the street and walked.  While in pubic, Brit liked to walk upright on two legs, but would move on all four appendages when speed was required.  His hands and feet had three fingers and two opposable thumbs.  The only difference would be that the feet were three inches longer than the hands.

            Having the multiple opposable thumbs gave Brit a walking gate similar to an orangutan or chimpanzee.  Slightly awkward looking, the reasoning was to never be seen as threatening to anyone.  NBS’s were still rare enough that seeing one would stick out in people’s minds.  The trick was to not do anything that drew any more attention than was needed, or to look threatening.

            Jean on the other hand, tried never to make an impression on anyone.  Dressed in a tan tweed pull over with charcoal grey slacks, the seventy year old played to part of a tired and frail old man.  He even allowed a slight hunch in his back as if he were suffering from early stages of osteoporosis.  No one would have guessed that he had mastered four forms of martial arts, had the endurance to run a marathon, or had an IQ of over one hundred and eighty.

            The unlikely pair walked down the busy street, and down into an alleyway that was barely wide enough for both to pass abreast of each other.  Several neon signs advertised any number of businesses, and the pair stopped at a fairly nondescript door with a pail white dragon stenciled over the light grey paint.  The shades of the two colors of paint were so similar, that many couldn’t tell the difference even when looking strait at it.

            Jean knocked lightly on the door and waited.  Twenty seconds passed before the door opened a crack and a muscular Japanese man could barely be seen through it.  “What do you want?”  He asked.

            “I am Jean Luke, and this is Brit,” Jean said gesturing to Brit.  “Madam Hitomi is expecting us.”

            The large man took a second look at the two and dumbly said, “expecting you?”

            Jean didn’t miss a beat and said, “Yes, Madam Hitomi is expecting us.  She and I are old friends you see.”

            The eyebrows on the large man knitted together and he made a show of looking back and forth from Jean to Brit to Jean and back to Brit.  A loud bark escaped the man as he began to laugh.  “Old friends you say?”

            Jean smiled, “yes.  I do believe that she knows we are here, and we had better not keep her.”

            The large man continued to laugh as he opened the door the rest of the way and let the duo enter the small room.  The room was small maybe three meters by eight meters, and only had a few pieces of furniture.  A small table filled a space near the back corner and only had one chair.  On the table was a very well read paper book.  Its pages were torn and tattered, and the cover was missing.

            The man had shut and locked the door behind them, and then moved around them to the door at the far end.  The large man pressed his hand against the wall in a way that revealed a small terminal that was not previously there.  A quick few strokes on the keypad and a hand scan unlocked the door.