Aberrant: Infinite Earth - Cosmos Nova - Echolocation [Fic]

[SalmonMax]

Pulse

A single disturbance that moves through a medium from one point to the next point

Assistant Director Senjiro Takashi was out of his league, and knew it. His glossy black car, standard issue to high ranking executive staff of Department Zero, cruised through the back roads of Tokyo, sticking out like a sore thumb but avoiding the snarls of traffic that congested the main thoroughfares. He watched neon signs and streetlights and salarymen scurrying along the sidewalks, all overlaid with the ghostly, pallid image of his own face. This was the city he loved, the people he wanted to protect. Was he doing the right thing?

,,

When Senjiro had been a kid, he’d loved spy movies and stories…dangerous men, seductive women, intrigue and high power weaponry. It was part of what led him to campaign so vigorously for the D0 posting. He was mostly an administrator though; he'd never been a spook himself. The job of the Assistant Director was to keep the office and bureaucracy going, not oversee the spies or the 'talent.' Normally he wouldn't be the one to be doing this. It had landed in his lap though, and he saw the potential for himself if it went well. There would be blowback if it didn't though, and that idea was making him increasingly nervous.

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The GPS on the dashboard beeped, then calmly told his driver to make a turn. Senjiro jumped at it, as if he’d been goosed. It was as if the woman he was going to meet was sitting in the car with him, even if that almost assuredly wasn’t how her voice sounded. About three blocks out from D0’s main building, the GPS had started issuing directions, even though no address or destination had been entered. She was controlling it…via wireless, he supposed. Her instructions to leave it on had been clear about leaving that function on as well. It still tickled the superstitious streak that hid deep within Senjiro. Could she see him? Was there a dash cam in these cars? Could she see him? What did she know?

,,

Superhumans. Novas. Gifted. Freaks. A book could be filled with names for them, the accidental offspring of an interdimensional rift and the people who came through it. Something about them had been…contagious, in some way. The science crew had names and theories, and bandied about words like ‘quantum’ and ‘brane fatigue’ and ‘telluric radiation,’ but Senjiro dealt with facts on the ground. The first novas had come from another universe…and their presence in his universe had catalyzed other superhumans here. And now things were becoming…messy.

Oh, they weren’t all bad, not even most. But even a well-meaning nova could do damage unwittingly. And a so-called ‘supervillain’ was a nightmare; the kind of nightmare Department Zero had been dreamed up to try to wake up from. Japan had a small number of novas on payroll, and was always angling for more because China had more…but sometimes things came up where the ‘in-house’ novas just weren’t suitable. Their time for any one project was limited, for one…and the spectra of powers available to them wasn’t comprehensive. And, Senjiro had noted, many of them were themselves potential security hazards. There was really just no way to make a telepath ‘safe’ in a spy agency. Better to make them friends than foe, but some things even friends should not know.

That’s when Senjiro realized the car had stopped. His heart nearly followed suit.

The GPS said, “Exit vehicle and walk three blocks north. Turn west and sit by the Shinobazu pond.” There was a pause, and it added in its bright female voice, “Come alone.”

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Then it beeped, and the map reset. She had left the vehicle.

“Wait here,” Senjiro told his driver. He considered adding an ‘if I don’t come back’ clause, but decided against it. If he didn’t come back, he didn’t give a damn what happened next. Coming back was #1 on his personal agenda now.

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He walked alone the three blocks to the Ueno Koen park. Off a little ways was the tiered, flared roof of the park’s shrine, and not far away from that was the pond, surrounded by meticulously maintained lawn, and neatly manicured gardens. Cherry trees, in summer green, ringed the walkways around the pond.

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Senjiro chose the nearest bench out of the many that lined the pond’s edge. She hadn’t specified which, but he figured the route she chose would lead him more or less directly to the one she wanted. The bench was warm, and comfortable, and he began to wish she’d told him where to meet directly so he could have brought seed for the birds and squirrels. It would have been a nice distraction.

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He roved his eyes on the other people nearby. Lots of joggers, of course. A few couples strolling along the path. A young woman was standing near her little girl as she threw stones into the pond to scare the fish. Bicyclists. One of the joggers paused nearby to take his heart rate, and Senjiro tensed. Not a woman, but might she use a proxy? After a minute the jogger took off again, and Senjiro relaxed. Slightly.

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That’s when he realized the little girl had come over to him, and was beaming up at him; her face adorable and open and innocent. Absolutely heartwarming. He smiled back and leaned a little down to say, “Hello little one. What can I do for you?” in the indulgent voice people use to speak to children.

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Smile never fading, she said, “You can give me what we agreed on, and then keep out of my way,” in a flawless ‘little girl voice’ spoiled only slightly by the adult intonation.

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Senjiro felt as if he’d been suddenly plunged into ice cold water. What was happening here? Had she been a child all along, pretending to be older? Had she adopted the form of one? Was she mind controlling a poor little girl to do this? He’d never actually seen or met her, but this seemed a bizarre twist even considering that.

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“Echo?” he whispered.

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The girl’s bright smile turned scowly, and she swatted his leg in a perfect ‘angry little girl’ slap.

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“Aiko, come here and leave the nice man alone,” the girl’s mother called, patting her thighs. She gave Senjiro an embarrassed bow. “Please forgive my daughter!”

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The chill deepened in the Assistant Director, even as he smiled mechanically and waved. “It’s fine,” he called. “Everything’s fine!”

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“Tell me it’s not in the briefcase,” the little girl pleaded in a long-suffering sigh. “At least there’s no handcuffs, right?”

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A little stung, Senjiro pulled out of his breast pocket a little plastic knob with a USB port on one end; a thumbdrive. “Your advance. As we discussed.”

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Echo, or the little girl she was puppeting, took the thumbdrive and closed her hand around it. After a moment she nodded. “Not to belabor the point, but it would not be a wise thing to welch on the rest of my fee after it’s done.”

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Senjiro bobbed his head, plastic smile still showing, and glanced towards the mother again. Only for a moment though. “This is as much as I could requisition without approval from above, as you required,” he said quietly. “Once that restriction is eased, getting more won’t be a problem.” He hesitated and then added, “I trust my superiors. If you trust me, you can trust them.”

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She shook her head, with a distracted expression. “I don’t have time to do due diligence on everyone north of you on the chain of command,” the little girl replied gruffly…or as gruffly as a little Japanese girl can sound. Then she handed him the thumbdrive back.

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“All right. I’ll contact you when it’s done. If there’s a problem on your end email the account you’ve been using, or tweet hashtag dolphinslayer any message with the numbers 1133 in that order. I’ll get in touch.”

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Senjiro stared. “Dolphin slayer?” He let that go though, shaking his head and repeating something he'd told her before, when they'd corresponded online. "You realize I won't be able to give you any logistic support for this. There can be no hint of involvement from Department Zero."

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The little girl rolled her eyes and dropped the thumbdrive in his lap. He hadn’t taken it. He looked at it, then back up at her. She shrugged. “I’m done with it. Transfer cleared. And I don't need logistic support in the field. Intel maybe, but since this is all about gathering intel in the first place..." She shrugged. "Goodbye, Senji-kun.”

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“Wait,” he said suddenly…perhaps spurred by the mocking honorific, or the increasing realization he was a twig on a river right now…”What is your plan? I need something to brief the director with.”

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“My plan,” she replied, “is to keep my plans to myself. We’ve been over this. You pay me, I get you results. I don’t need to know why you want this…though it’s not hard to guess…and you don’t need to know how I get the results. If that’s a problem with the Director, it’s your problem.”

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She turned and ran back to her mom, arms raised happily. Her mom caught her and hugged her, then smiled warmly at Senjiro and waved at him.

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His heart caught a little. She was a pretty woman. It was hard not to be touched by her obvious love for her child.

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Did she know, he wondered, who she really was?

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But then again, did anyone?

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Senjiro got to his feet with a groan. When he started thinking things like that, it was time to get some sake before heading back. Just a little. For the nerves.

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As he left, the girl and her mother walked off the other way, along the path following the bank of the pond. Very quickly, they were lost among the press of people, and the stands of trimmed shrubs and cherry trees.