Chapter 16:
(11/17/01)
The cabal, minus Michael, got on the plane and went to Hokkaido in search of the blade of the missing dagger. Once there, they settled down in another hotel and planned to work everything out in the morning. Late that night, Jennifer woke up to what sounded like someone scurrying across the outside wall of the hotel. She looked out the window and saw a shadowy figure disappearing into Takeshi’s room, so she left her room and went down the hall to check it out. When she knocked on his door she got no answer, so she opened it. Inside, she saw only darkness—until a face suddenly appeared upside down in front of hers and a voice shouted “BOO!” Jennifer screamed and stumbled out into the hall as the shadowy figure fell to the ground, laughing hysterically. The rest of the cabal came running to Takeshi’s room to see what had happened.
When the lights came on, the cabal saw Takeshi and three other figures within his room. The man who had frightened Jennifer stopped laughing long enough to introduce himself as Makoto. With him was a seductive-looking woman who called herself Kima. Finally, in the shadows, there stood a hulking, quiet man who seemed to exude dangerous strength and gave his name as Ome. Takeshi apologized for their sudden appearance and explained that they were allies of the Bone Court who were based in Hokkaido and had been sent to help the cabal get back the blade. Many of the cabal members went back to bed, grumbling, but Saxon and Wan had a great time getting drunk with Makoto, and Ripple got to know Ome (since she was the only one he seemed not to dismiss as a stupid Westerner, no doubt due to her Korean heritage).
The cabal spent the next few days working up a plan for attacking the area where the Bone Court had told them the blade of the dagger would be. In the end, they hit upon a very good solution. Since Gabriel’s current “digitally remastered” state meant he couldn’t be physically harmed, they sent him in as a distraction and had him pick up the dagger with Forces. Then, he would try to draw whatever was guarding it out into the open so the cabal and their allies could be on more equal footing when they fought it. If anything went wrong, Jennifer and Christie would be standing by to Correspondence everyone away. As it was, everything went as planned, and the cabal found it relatively easy to defeat the six snakelike creatures that were guarding the blade and make off with their treasure. Shortly thereafter, the cabal and their allies returned victorious to Tokyo to carry out the rest of their plan.
However, getting the blade had only made a number of the cabal members question the real necessity of their mission in the first place. After all, getting the dagger to give to the Fujito Corporation so Bria could see her parents seemed like a rather unnecessarily complicated sequence to follow when it would be so much easier just to try to locate Bria’s parents and liberate them. (Plus, as Wan so succintly put it, “I can’t really say I’m looking forward to hell.”) The rest of the cabal agreed, but also thought they should continue to do things through established channels just in case the rest of the leads ran dry. While he’d stayed behind, Michael had learned about a group of Virtual Adepts working within the city, and thought they might have some information about disgruntled Fujito Corporation employees or the like that might help them find someone or something that could lead them to Bria’s parents. He enlisted the help of Ra Lei and Jennifer to pursue that lead, Ra Lei because she was Japanese, and Jennifer because she was a Virtual Adept.
That night, Ra Lei invited the entire cabal to dinner at her father’s house. Everyone showed up, and Wan brought a guest—Julie Ann. Everyone was not-terribly-pleasantly surprised to see her (especially Jennifer and Ra Lei, neither of whom had ever seen her before). Ra Lei’s father, however, took the entire situation in stride, saying only, “I’ve seen worse-looking geishas.” Wan never bothered to explain why he’d decided to bring her along. Other than that, dinner was mostly uneventful except for Bria talking back to Ome, an event which completely amazed and impressed Makoto.