Backward Compatibility

2069 - Erith Industrial Complex (defunct)

The sky was grey in a complete lack of contrast to the concrete expanse beneath the huge chimney stacks. The wind tossed the occasional filthy polythene bag as it blew through the separation between the cars. The black Lamborghini had already been there some time. It was from the other car that Shadbolt emerged.

From the first emerged the buyer - a stocky Japanese with an elegantly trimmed beard, dressed all in black with a highly polished knee-length leather jacket. He also wore a Predator shoulder gun. The name was a reference to 20th century cinema although hands-free weaponry had only really become a reality with the advent of the Plug. Even then it had hardly proved worth the effort in full-on combat. As an instrument of intimidation, however, as a scarcely veiled threat, it excelled. It was currently scrutinising the space between Shadbolt's eyes. The Jap was really showing a lack of trust. Very wise!

The two walked purposely towards a mutually, mutely determined space between the cars, the man in black swinging a metallic attaché case. As they came closer, Shadbolt noticed streaks of grey amidst the black of the other's beard.

"You have the data?" the man in the black leather jacket asked.

He had a name, of course, although it had not so far been mentioned. Shadbolt, of course, had other resources. The man's name was Yoshio Fuyukage, a senior partner of a Japanese Merc group called the Yon-Ju-Shichi. The man had spent time in certain specialist Swiss clinics normally reserved for GSSA bio-enhanced secret agents and had 29 accredited legal kills as well as any number of implications about slightly hairier demises, although absolutely nothing approaching a burden of proof. He was, in all, the sort of person that someone very rich and powerful hired to carry out transactions on their behalf when they wanted to make it one hundred percent clear that if you approached the deal with anything less than perfect good faith then you had better have written the letter to your family explaining that it was not their fault but life's cruelties were too much to bear.

"Data pah! You've got a bit of a backward compatibility problem. You hired me as a data pirate not a burglar."

"But you have the data?"

"Data? It's an antique book," Shadbolt snorted.

"But you have it?" Mr Fuyukage was cool but insistent.

"Yes. Of course. My price has doubled. I do not normally do burglaries."

Fuyukage ignored this, inscrutably. "May I see it?"

Shadbolt produced the diary, bound in tattered leather. Fuyukage said,

"It appears to have a small thermite bomb attached to it."

"I put that there, idiot..." said Shadbolt. Once he had got his wind back he finished, "it's insurance. The bomb is triggered by Plug. If I get nervous this antique is smoked." Shadbolt winced and rubbed the side of his face. "That was utterly uncalled for."

Fuyukage advanced as Shadbolt picked himself up from the Japanese's lazy yet indubitably powerful backhand.

"Do itashimashite?" The Ronin shrugged.

Once Shadbolt was righted and had dusted himself off, Fuyukage spoke again,

"Will it be missed?"

"Not specifically," growled Shadbolt, a note of bitterness still in his voice. "I grabbed a few valuable books too and fenced them, for tidy money actually. The rest of the place I burnt to the ground. Nobody's going to know that this one was stolen or the object of the exercise." The Japanese have reputation for being business-like but this goon is something else, thought Shadbolt. "Now show me some money."

Fuyukage opened the attaché case wordlessly and handed it to Shadbolt.

"My price has doubled," the swashbuckler reiterated.

"That was anticipated. Now give me the diary."

"You must really want this thing," muttered Shadbolt, handing it across. "I won't release the bomb until I'm out of here with the cash. Like I said, insurance. Do you mind if I check out the payment? Not that I don't trust you or anything."

"Dozo. You realise that this device, this insurance, makes it impossible to open the diary."

"So? The bomb will be deactivated and will unlock itself when I'm out of here." Shadbolt selected three crisp hundred dollar bills from the attaché case and scanned them. They checked out. He started counting the rest.

"So, how am I able to confirm whether you have provided me with the right book?"

"You didn't hire me because I'm stupid. Look, I'm bright enough to get the right book and I'm bright enough to know not to fuck with people like you."

"And what is to stop you from activating the bomb once you have your money?"

"Look, like I said. Your employer, whoever he is, strikes me as the sort of person who, if you were so utterly, moronically intellectually impaired as to fuck him, wouldn't so much fuck you back as fist you to the elbow. And I like my arsehole nice and tight."

Shadbolt stopped, wondering if he might have been too witty very recently. Fuyukage looked at him very intently and it seemed as though his mouth might, at any moment, curl into a snarl of contemptuous rage. Shadbolt did his best to look conciliatory. A bead of sweat rolled down his forehead. This display of naked fear seemed to appease the Ronin. He grunted in the affirmatory way that the Japanese did, wheeled sharply, and strode off back to his car. Shadbolt noticed that the Predator did not break its line on his forehead until the door of the Lamborghini hatchetted down. Even then he suspected that it might still be trained on him through the smoked glass window. Shadbolt finished counting his money.

* * *

2069 - Bankside

The room overlooked the piles that remained from the old Chatham Railway bridge and out across the river to St. Paul's, illuminated in the twilight with soft white flood-lighting. The scene was striped with the sharp horizontals of a Venetian blind.

His principal sat at a walnut table by the window. The room was decorated in elegantly minimalist japonaisérie: paper screens, cedar furniture painted calcium red, tatami. Fuyukage blinked in the harsh white light.

The employer stood as he swept across the room. "Fuyukage-san, dozo okake kudasai." He motioned to a chair.

"Arigato gozaimasu."

Fuyukage sat, as did his employer. He removed the two century old diary from his jacket and placed it on the table.

"I have already called Switzerland and actioned the payment. Do you wish to confirm this with the Yon-Ju-Shichi head office?"

"No," said Fuyukage. "You are a trusted and respected client of the Yon-Ju-Shichi."

"Would you care for some tea, Fuyukage-san?"

"Hai. Arigato."

His employer summoned his secretary over the intercom. "Marion, bring some tea for Mr Fuyukage and myself, please."

The two sat across the corner of the table so that both were afforded the view of Blackfriars and St. Paul's. Fuyukage sat patiently still as a woman in her mid-thirties in a charcoal trouser suit and a tight blonde bun brought in a teapot and cups. Her employer leafed through the diary gingerly, with a half-smile. Once the secretary had left, he poured the tea."

"Excellent. Thank you, Fuyukage-san."

"Mmm," said the Ronin, sipping his tea, "Oolong."

Geoff Hinkley, 22/10/00

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