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"West Meets East" “Welcome
to Tokyo, Japan. Please buckle your seatbelts. We will be landing in
approximately five minutes,” the pilot spoke over the P.A. system. “The
time is 12:45pm, Thursday. Best of luck to you on your mission,
gentlemen.” The yellow Nissan zoomed through the countryside at high speed. The road was deserted for the most part, but once in awhile a car on the opposite lane would pop up, passing them by. They had been driving for almost forty-five minutes now, but Dion assured that they were almost there. “Don’t you think you’re driving a little too fast?” asked Cody, somewhat tense. “What? I’m only doing 120,” he said with a look on his face. “120?!” shouted the boxer. “Are you crazy?” “Relax . . . 120 kilometers which is about 80 miles an hours if my conversion is correct. Besides, there’s nothing out here but rice fields and sugarcane plantations.” The car sped through rolling hills and to the left was Mount Fuji -- one of the most famous mountains in the world. “Ah, there it is . . . Mount Fuji . . . Akinowata is just a few kilometers from the base of the mountain.” “Cool . . . so what’s the story with this Inspector Sasaki. How come she’s an investigator for Tokyo and not your town?” the boxer asked. “Because my town is deader than a door nail. She is the police department of Akinowata. Nothing ever happens in my town, so she joined the Tokyo department as well to get some action in her life,” Dion explained. “I guess that sounds right,” the boxer stated, looking outside the window upon endless fields. What was a quiet ride soon faded away to an oncoming rumbling noise that could be heard getting louder and louder. A red Kawasaki motorcycle was approaching in the opposite lane. It passed by quickly, and both the boxer and the young martial artist turned around looking at it. “Sweet motorcycle,” Cody acknowledged. “Yeah, and as a matter of fact, it looks the bike to someone I know back in Akinowata, but the driver was definitely not him. Oh well, I guess.” Dion turned on a ramp that merged onto a dirt road. “Take a breath of fresh air Cody . . . no pollution, just nice and clean air,” he chanted. “And let me guess, you’re the only one who drives a car in your hometown?” the boxer asked sarcastically. “Nope, but not far from it. I’m only one of five people who actually own a car. Six if you want to count a motorcycle.” Upon passing another hill, the town of Akinowata came into view. A collection of houses set in a shallow valley. The road could be seen making a sharp left turn toward the end of the town, with two smaller roads branching off. The city was surround in a small, but dense forest. “There it is Cody, ain’t it great? See that house situated on the hilltop to your left? That’s my sensei’s house. If we have time after completing this mission, I’d like you to meet him.” “Yeah, that would be cool,” the boxer simply replied. The yellow Nissan slowed down and strolled into the town. Upon entering the small town, Dion’s demeanor changed. He couldn’t believe what he was seeing. Many buildings along the main road had fire damage. Small pieces of brick and rubble lie near the damaged buildings. It looked as if the town was under attack. “Whoa,” said Cody, looking at his foreign surroundings. “What’s all this?” Dion said out loud. “What happened here?” He looked at all the scared buildings while driving along the main road. “This is not right. Something has gone wrong. I hope no one has been hurt.” A young couple was walking down the side of the main road. The young Filipino instantly recognized them as a couple of friends and pulled over to have a word with them. “Sorry Cody, but I need to find out what’s going on,” he said, shutting off the car. “You can go out and take a stretch if you like, we’re walking distance from my house.” With that, Dion jumped out of his car and raced toward his two friends. Cody stepped out and stretched out a bit, leaning on Dion’s car. It was quite an interesting town, he admitted to himself. It had a pleasant atmosphere and the scent of pine in the air reminded him of his cabin back in Pickle Crow. It appeared that Dion was right about the car thing. Many of the people were either riding bikes or walking. The boxer could see a marketplace and several small shops, perhaps they didn’t need cars because pretty everything was already right here. As a matter of fact, Dion’s Nissan was the only car on the entire street. “Damn!” Dion shouted, “What else happened?” The commotion brought the boxer’s sense of consciousness back to reality. Cody walked over the young Filipino and his two Japanese friends. Cody listened in, but the young couple stopped talking and suddenly looked over at the boxer simultaneously. They were speechless . . . it wasn’t everyday that you saw a white guy in Akinowata. They both appeared to be about Dion’s age. The guy was somewhat thin, but not as thin as Dion. He was wearing khaki shorts and a green T-shirt. His hair was combed forward, but spiked somewhat at his forehead. It looked as if he was carrying an instrument case of some sort, perhaps he played something. The young girl had medium length brown hair and was somewhat thin, wearing blue jeans and a white blouse, where the bottom had been tied into a knot, exposing her belly button. She was pretty cute, but just a tad young. “Oh, I’m sorry -- I haven’t introduced you. Cody, this is Sachio Kanegawa and Aneko Matsuya -- two of my friends in my small click. Sachio and Aneko, this is Cody Onohan. He’s from the United States and a good friend of mine. The two natives smiled, bowing simultaneously. Cody did the same. “What else?” Dion continued asking. The young couple looked at each other, wondering how to start. “Um, there’s some good news and some bad news,” started Sachio, standing with his hands in his pockets. “Give me the good news. I need some right about now,” Dion said, crossing his arms. “The good news is that Sean is back in town,” Aneko answered, following her fingers through her hair. “Sean? Sean Dominguez? When did he come back?” he said in amazement. “He came in two nights ago,” she answered again. “He’s still looks the same way, but he’s sort of matured a bit.” “Well, that’s great news. Then . . . what’s the bad news?” Dion asked hesitantly. Sachio and Aneko looked at each other again. Sachio took a deep breath. “Yesterday Sean and I were in a fight with group of people, but they weren’t your normal punks. They’re a bunch of weirdoes, dressed in brown robes and can throw green fireballs.” Both Cody’s and Dion’s eyes lit up, but Sachio didn’t notice, as he continued with his story. “We beat them up and thought that we’d seen the last of them, but got their revenge today by kidnapping Miki.” “What!” Dion shouted as loud as he could. “Sean got a letter from them, an exchange -- Miki for a book that he’s in possession of. He stopped by his grandfathers to pick the book up, but knowing Sean, he probably got something planned up his sleeve,” stated Sachio, leaning against his instrument case. “And let me guess, he left and didn’t tell anybody. Right?” the young Filipino asked with his arm stretched out. “Yes,” Dion’s two Japanese friends said together. “That’s just like him. When did he leave?” Dion asked worriedly. “About fifteen minutes ago,” replied Aneko. “Heading for Tokyo on Shizue’s motorcycle.” “The red Kawasaki? That was Sean?! Fuck! . . . Fuck! Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!” The young Filipino squatted down, placing his elbows on his knees and covering his face with his hands. “DAMN!!!” he shouted at the top of his lungs. Cody reached for Dion’s shoulders. “Dion, come on. Pull yourself together,” the boxer encouraged. “He’s right,” continued Aneko. “Sean can take care of himself,” she insisted. She had never seen the young Filipino in this state before. He was always very strong and competitive. Dion stood up, a couple of tears in his eyes. So many thoughts ran through his head that it was giving him a headache. He was already dealing with a lot of stress, but this incident took it off the charts. “I know Sean can take care of himself, but this isn’t an ordinary group of people we’re talking about. These guys will kill both of them, . . . just like they’ve killed by grandfather,” Dion said with mixed emotions. Cody, Sachio and Aneko were somewhat in shock by his last statement. The young Filipino began pacing back forth in short steps. “Cody, we need to go back and do this thing . . . now! We need to help them,” he pleaded. “Dion,” Cody said sternly, grabbing his partner’s face with two hands. “I know that this isn’t a good situation for you, but we can’t accomplish anything if we run in there without a plan. We don’t even know the exact location of the complex!” Cody argued, releasing his grip. “We need to see Inspector Sasaki. We does she live?” The young martial artist looked away from the group. He wasn’t thinking clearly, but Cody was right. “Follow me,” said Dion. “Sachio, watch my car, I’ll be back soon.” “Sure thing,” he replied. Dion started running down the street with Cody not far behind. Passing only a couple of building made out of the same, concrete material, Dion opened a blue door that lead to an apartment building. The duo were greeted by a small courtyard, with a few trees planted in the middle. There were a couple sets of stairs that went up to a second floor of apartments. The young Filipino frantically pushed a doorbell to an apartment. After a few seconds, he began banging on the door. “Come on inspector, hurry up!” he said impatiently. The door quickly opened and Inspector Akemi Sasaki came out. “Dion, what on earth is wrong?” sensing an obvious worry in him. She appeared to be in her mid-thirties with long, shiny black hair. She was wearing a pair of brown pants and a tan blouse. She was about medium build and probably worked out a bit. Her eyes flipped back to Dion and Cody with suspicion. “Sasaki-san, this is Cody Onohan, from Metro City. He and I are here for the mission that Mayor Michael Haggar of Metro City contacted you about.” She looked at Dion strangely and went to shake Cody’s hand. “Greetings Mr. Onohan, you’ll have to excuse Dion. He gets a little hyper sometimes,” the inspector joked around. “The pleasure is all mine, Inspector Sasaki, but we really don’t have much time,” insisted Cody. “Sasaki-san,” the young Filipino butted in. “They’ve kidnapped Miki Tomika and Sean went to go rescue her, by himself!” he shouted. “What!” she said in shock, placing her hand on her forehead. “Quickly, inside.” Cody and Dion filed in as fast as they could. The inspector closed the door behind them and locked it. The apartment was a decent size, comparable to Myrna’s apartment back in Metro City -- although a little messier. Her large, dining room table was full of papers, schematics and equipment. It appeared that she had been working on this particular case for awhile now. “Cody and I are doing this mission together,” the young Filipino said. “Please, tell us what we need to do.” He stood next to a dining room chair, while Cody and Inspector Sasaki sat down. “Perhaps this will test to see if you can make it as an agent,” the inspector said happily to Dion. “Normally in a mission like this, we would spend a couple of nights perfecting the method of attack. However, since the tables have turned, we must act quickly with the default plan that we have came up with. I will try to be quick as possible, but I’ll need to start from the beginning.” “Shoot,” said Cody. “We’ve had one of our own go undercover as a laborer, to see if they are smuggling illegal material through an obscure manner or if we could intercept any important information from them. He’s been working there for two weeks and reported no unusual activity until two days ago,” she explained quickly. “What happened?” the boxer asked. “One night, they received a shipment of kitchen cabinets, but these weren’t your typical boxes of wood for your dishes. Each one contained armaments and illegal substances. Here’s the interesting part. We once had a search warrant to search the entire shipping facility.” “Yes, Chief Inspector Yanagimoto said that you couldn’t find a trace of anything,” filled in Cody, resting his elbow on the dining room table. “Exactly, and here’s the reason. Instead of moving the goods to their normal location, they were transferred to a different area of the building. There is a secret entrance at the cargo bay, one that didn’t appear on any of the blueprints the police were using. There are many hills in that area and it’s not uncommon for buildings to be built right next to one. Over the years, they must have built a man made hill that would encase a passageway to their underground hideout.” “That would explain it,” added Cody. “But come on . . . a secret door? The police should have been able to find that,” the young martial artist complained. “This isn’t your typical false wall,” replied the inspector. “The door can only be accessed from inside the secret complex. There are two levers that release a locking mechanism, allowing the wall to rotate from the middle,” informed the inspector, searching for some papers. “I thought it would be more complicated than that,” the boxer stated. “Our undercover officer was able to transfer items to various areas of the secret area and found that there are two auxiliary entrances to the secret area other than the false wall from the shipping facility. The auxiliary entrances are few kilometers away from the main entrance and act as public storage areas, open to customers who need extra storage space. He was able to sketch out a map of the underground complex for us,” giving a copy of the map to both Cody and Dion. “As you can see, it’s quite an interesting set of tunnels. If you’ll notice on the map, there are five large chambers. Two of the outer chambers are storage areas for their armaments and equipment. The other two outer chambers are a training center and a laboratory respectively,” pointing to each of the chambers. “The large middle chamber is one large office with many files of their operations and contacts. Each of these chambers are vital to the architectural foundation of the underground facility.” “So what do we have to do?” asked Cody. “You originally had two objectives for this mission, but with the recent circumstances, you now have three. Your first objective is to retrieve a binder with several computer disks inside. This was confirmed by our undercover man and contains a history of all contacts and dealing operations concerning the Society of Deibiddo and it’s employees. It is located in the central chamber, so don’t forget about it when you are completing your second mission objective.” Inspector Sasaki stood up and grabbed a medium sized back pack. She unzipped it to reveal its contents. “These, gentlemen, are remote frequency explosives. There are five of them, one for each of the five chambers in the underground complex. These explosives are very unique in that you must first input the number of explosives you will be using. In this case five, but I have already done that part for you, so you need not worry about that.” “That’s a relief,” interrupted Dion. “But it get trickier I’m afraid. You will need to go to each chamber and set an explosive in place. To set the explosive, you must push this red button first,” she instructed, pointing to the small, red button on the explosive. “Then you need to input a detonation code on the numerical keypad of each of the explosives. The detonation code number is 122, remember that. Once the number has been inputted, press the green button -- this will set the explosive.” “That’s seems simple,” replied Cody. “But wait there’s more,” the inspector said in a cheesy infomercial voice. “The explosives act as a transmitter and a receiver. Once an explosive is set, it emits a burst frequency transmission for up to a half hour that can be picked up by other explosives of the same frequency. I have already fine tuned the frequency for you. The countdown timer begins only when it receives and detects the number of explosives that was to be used, through the frequency emitted by the set explosives. In our case, the timer won’t begin until the each of the explosives detects that five have been set into place.” “How much time to we have till the place goes boom?” asked Cody. “Ten minutes -- and this poses yet another problem. Since the explosives can only send the burst frequency transmission for half an hour, you only have thirty minutes from setting the first explosive to set the remaining four, and . . .” “And?” asked the young Filipino, in amazement. “And . . .” the inspector continued, “since you only have ten minutes once the timer begins, you only have a maximum of forty minutes, from setting the first explosive, to complete your objectives and make it out before the underground facility is destroyed. Needless to say that you should avoid setting the first explosive too early.” “So what’s objective three?” asked the boxer. “The third objective is a rescue mission - mainly that of Miki Tomika if Sean Dominguez hasn’t already found her,” the inspector answered calmly. “So in a nutshell, we’re to rescue the girl and aid this Sean character, retrieve the computer disks and set the bombs. Correct?” asked the boxer with an emotionless face. “Yes,” the inspector answered. “It’s all cake, but I’m going to need your help inspector,” Cody said standing up. “What do you need?” asked the inspector. “Dion and I will go in through one of the side entrances, we’ll have a better chance of slipping in undetected. We’ll locate Dion’s friends first. Then, I’ll set the bombs, setting the last one in the central chamber, that way I can pick up the disks and we can make a run for it, but it looks as if the closest exit to the central chamber is the secret entrance to the shipping facility. We’ll need you, inspector, to wait for us there by car, so that we can hightail it out of there before the place goes off,” the boxer explained quickly. “That sounds like an excellent plan of attack, Cody, but my car is out of commission. It’ll take days before it gets fixed,” informed Inspector Sasaki. “That’s alright, I have my car,” Dion replied. “You can drop us off at the side entrance and then wait for us by the shipping complex.” “Then, gentlemen, I think we have a mission. Now, we must hurry. There’s not much time.” The inspector gave the bag of explosives to Cody. “All other guns and equipment you might need are OSP -- on-sight procurement. My department can’t risk being exposed if something should happen to you. If you are caught, you’ll be on your own. Both our governments cannot find out about our involvement to aid you.” “Understood,” said Cody flatly. The trio ran out to the courtyard, with the inspector locking the door behind. “You guys go ahead to my car, I need to go get something from my apartment first,” the young Filipino shouted out to them. “Hurry up!” yelled Cody, going through the blue door the led to the main road. The inspector followed the boxer outside while the young Dion shot up the stairs to his apartment. He didn’t bother searching for his keys, as he knew that his grandmother never locked the door. He burst in and went straight into his room. He began searching for something in his closet. “Where are you?” he said to himself, moving some shoes and equipment stuff from the floor, but then his eyes caught a fix to it. He grabbed a peculiar-looking harness, with a strap to go around a waist and a strap that looped in a diagonal fashion, attached to the other strap. There were a few slits in certain spots where an object could be inserted. “Hold on you guys, I’m coming. I’m not letting them take more of my family away.” With that, Dion ran out and down to the courtyard, making his way toward his yellow Nissan. “Thanks for watching my car you two. I’ll see you all tonight.” “Good luck, Dion,” said Sachio. Aneko simply waved at him. Dion jumped into the drivers seat, throwing the harness to the back. “You got the directions Sasaki-san?” the young Filipino asked. “Of course,” she replied from the back seat. “Then buckle your seat belts everyone. Next stop is Tokyo in approximately twenty-five minutes,” he told everyone. “Dion, it took us nearly an hour to get here from Tokyo,” the boxer said, looking at him confusingly. “I know,” he replied, fixing his rear view mirror. “I’m about to set a new record.” He quickly started up his car and made a U-turn, heading back to Tokyo with Cody and the inspector. |
