Oyabun

I marched into the war room like I’d been there before. Really though, I was just trying not to look out of place.

Even though I was.

It was a decidedly unimpressive space. Something like a board room ate someone’s digital rendering of what they thought a celestial board room would look like. Gorgeous purple and black swirled table, several comfortable chairs.

A glass partition separating the room in half from meeting room to ‘private meeting room slash office’. Mido Khan’s office, I recognized.

He'd been promoted to Primus months ago. I remember getting the holo. Not quite the leader of The Silence, but one of its quiet board of decision makers. Part of Thread’s Chaebol.

Made sense. A lot of The Silence were Korean nationals two centuries ago.

They had a wealth clique like you wouldn’t believe. Turns out going neutral technically makes you as evil as a lord of war.

Handing everybody bombs for oblivion.

An insanely big view out over the dark side of the moon made up the back window. It stretched all the way into the private meeting room. Speckling rock faces of dark, shimmering stone, inky black. Save for the sparkling nuggets of energy running through those rolling hills. All the way down into the mouth of the quarry where machines toiled carelessly.

Where droids and even some human members of The Silence coordinated on the glowing quarry floor of dark purple light. It emanated from beneath their feet. A dim reminder of how much of that stuff Meridian was made of.

Further still I could see out into space. The distance. The expanse of the illusion rolling out in front of me. A fire of lights with the occasional swirl in the distance, pronounced by that massive swirl close enough to still eat up a portion of sky.

I took a deep, soothing breath at it, but it didn’t distract me for long from what, to my immediate left, was the real danger in the space.

That window I was looking out of, extended down the wall to the left, where my head turned, seeing through the glass partition separating me from the office.

From the three men in it.

One of them I recognized as a relative safe space.

Mido Khan.

Still dressed darkly, still wreathed in that tattered poncho.

To his right was …

“Holy shit… Hey, it’s Pop.”

Berchinald Rembrandt.

My dad.

But then my eyes moved left.

To him.

That. Was a bad. Man.

Dvar. Zacatto. Olmedo.

If ever there was an impressive figure. Someone with enough muchness to outshine Berchinald. The Prime Minister. A man who in his own right looked like he was in his late 50s, was stylishly dressed in a fitting, well cut military dress and yet still he seemed… diminished in the room with Dvar.

Dvar stood beside these two titans of men, almost head and shoulders above the Prime Minister, and still quite a bit taller than the six foot Mido. He must have been a full five inches taller.

His shoulders were wide. The man was a mountain. Wearing a black jacket with orange Wild Petals on them. A flower known to grow chaotically. It didn’t have a fixed pattern of its petals. A fixed way that it shaped itself.

It grew in the direction of the light it liked the best. That’s what made it unique. It seemed to sprout however it sprouted.

Like Dvar. Chaotic neutral to his core, as the rumor went.

I don’t know how I felt about a man who had no true moral compass. But however I felt, I hated that it came wrapped in admiration.

He didn’t wear a shirt beneath his jacket. He didn’t need to. Tectonic plates of muscle moving beneath smooth skin. Yakuza tattoos threatening to show through the material. I could only assume he had them running down his back and arms but I’d never know.

Then again, he did say I was his type. That thought alone shot a spark of fear down my spine.

He had on black slacks and beautiful loafers. I noticed them. Even as I approached the door and pulled it open, stepping inside.

Mido gestured at me to come closer and I did.

As soon as I closed the distance I could smell it.

Dvar’s cologne.

It was immaculate, just like him.

He smelled like orange.

But not just orange. Like fresh mandarin peel and lemon zest. A hint of basil and mint. Maybe a little neroli and jasmine.

Why did I know that?

Years binge watching videos.

I really liked having things taught to me.

It was soothing.

I felt self conscious when I noticed him staring at me so I didn’t look back. I intentionally focused on my dad.

The fucking traitor.

But I was never unaware of Dvar. He was judging me. I felt out of place wearing black jeans, Jordan 11s and an untucked white button up. I at least knew it was a semi-formal occasion and remembered to fuck up a tie.

It was still loose and a little crooked.

I didn’t care.

Until now.

“Uno. Glad you could make it.” Mido said.

He didn’t sound glad.

I could totally tell he wasn’t glad.

“Sure thing, Boss.”

“Khan.” Mido corrected.

“That’s what I said.”

“Stop.” He said immediately, pointing that familiar finger at me.

I shut the fuck up.

I remember what not shutting the fuck up when that man spoke meant.

That was one of many futures I didn’t want to come true right now. Mido could put me back in the god damn oven.

Dvar?

My amber eyes wandered over to him. I forgot they were glowing.

He returned the look immediately. But not quickly.

Like he knew I was going to do it.

He blinked slowly. Cat like. His half Asian, half Indian eyes opening with his irises on me.

Dark and dangerous. Cutting from that handsome face.

I blinked back.

Slow.

But more because I had no idea what else to do so I copied him.

I shut my eyes again, breaking our stare.

When I opened my eyes again they were back on Berchinald. My dad.

I heard Dvar cough a quiet chuckle beside me as my eyes retreated from him.

I could tell he was studying my face.

I felt it. The pressure.

I felt watched… like an animal in a field.

I even felt it when he turned his eyes off of me.

“In the end it will come down to timing. If you want one of his gates you’re going to have to strike while the iron is hot. The treaty is in five years.”

“No irons. No heat.” Dvar said. He didn’t have to raise his voice. He had the stoic solidity of a Yakuza Oyabun. He spoke with deliberate calm.

The scary kind.

“I know something you don’t know.”

“Nonsense.” Mido said.

Dvar gave that short, quiet chuckle again, a little smile pulling up at the corner of his mouth.

“Fox knows it too. That’s why he chooses the route of treaty. If we sign, we agree. If we agree… we are all honor bound. Something none of us would dare disrupt. I’m sure.” He said, looking at Mido.

I got that joke.

Mido.

Ghost.

Dishonor.

Assassination…

Yeah. The Silence would do it.

We would kill to make sure one of the factions, the random gangs, the random war lords of the galaxy didn’t look dishonorable.

In a non-lethal universe, he who could kill and he was fine with being killed were highly sought after.

Funny. Cute even.

I even chuckled a little. “Heh. I got that one.”

Dvar cleared his throat and threw those dark eyes at me.

“Not while humans are talking.” He said, staring me right in the eyes.

I opened my mouth to say something. Felt my lips twitch. But all I could do was glare at him.

Eventually that failed. My eyes retreated.

His didn’t.

Fuck.

He kinda had me over a barrel here.

I threw back the dirtiest look I dared and turned my eyes back to Berchinald.

“The gates have a flaw. Or a failsafe. I guess it depends on which side of the coin you look.”

“Nonsense.” Mido said.

“Hear me out,” Dvar intoned, a playful singsong in his voice as he lifted a hand to Mido.

“As long as you make sense,” Mido said, lifting his eyebrows as if Dvar hadn’t yet done that.

“Every fifty years,” Dvar went on, “the gates need their encryption key re-entered. Every one hundred years, they can be changed. Completely. If they aren’t… they default back to the passcode previously set.”

“And how do you know this?” Berchinald finally asked after his long silence.

I watched my Dad. The man I barely knew. The man who barely gave a shit I existed. The guy who had me commissioned by The Silence just in case he never had a son.

Guess things change.

I tilted my head a little and flicked an eyebrow up, moving my head back and forth between the ‘humans’ while they spoke.

“Because I know the man. I know Valentine. I know what he knows. We were allies once.”

“I knew that, but I didn’t know he knew about the gates before he ran off to join Trigate.” My dad said.

“That’s why he ran off to join Trigate, Rembrandt.” Dvar responded. “We found out at the same time…”

“From where?” Mido asked.

“Never you mind. Keep your secrets, Silence. I’ll keep mine.” He offered that partial smile again.

“Banal as always.” Mido waved a hand dismissively. “The source aside, if what you’re suggesting is true-…”

“It is,” Dvar interrupted.

“Be that as it may,” Mido went on, gesturing at him to politely request the floor. “It’s one-hundred years to the day of Fox Valentine taking control and the gates becoming his. That’s five years from now the gates are due to… as you say ‘be reset’.”

“Mm.” Dvar nodded.

“Does that mean they’re locked again for another 100 years?”

“Mm… you caught up.” Dvar nodded again.

“That’s incredible,” Berchinald said. His tone flat, but amazed. “That’s why you want one.”

“Everyone has arrived.” Dvar said, his hands out at his sides as if hugging the universe.

“Holy shit…” I said, “You’re gonna steal a gate?!”

“Not while humans are talking,” Dvar reminded me.

Almost playfully.

Smiling as he took a step closer to me and gave me a nudge in the side.

Alright, fine. I couldn’t help it. I gave a little smile and a dork laugh as he nudged me.

“Sorry.” I said, biting my lip.

Wait! Biting my li- oh, come on, Uno. You’re better than that.

I righted my posture and went quiet.

Mido looked at me.

I mean really looked at me.

Not in the good way. His eyes were big as fuck.

Everything about his expression said:

Shut. The fuck. UP.

I nodded rapidly like a seven year old emphatically requesting cookies, my eyes dancing around the room a bit before resting on the safest place I could find.

Dvar.

Wait. No. Fuck that guy.

My dad. Ex dad… w— it was complicated right now.

Mido finally said, breaking the awkward moment in two with seriousness.

“Okay, two things. One? No more out of you,” He pointed hard at me, then he threw his attention to Dvar, “Two… I don’t like where this is headed, but I think we need to hear it. So let's be less vague, shall we?”

“Okay. Fox knows that I know that the gates reset.” He lifted a hand to correct himself, “Can be. Reset.”

He was so precise. I felt like he could be a cult leader or something.

“And since they can be reset, that means there’s a time limit on fame. Fox Valentine is more myth than man. He’s no dummy though. The reason he exists like a pop star in Zolotov is because it preserves an idea. One that we need to prove can be broken. And I think we can do that by making him give us a gate.” Dvar concluded.

I put the gears together in my head. I got it. We get a gate, with a one hundred year time limit on it…

“You want to force him to acknowledge us by proving God’s can bleed. Bold.” Mido said.

“Precisely.” Dvar said.

“You are so boring.” Mido sighed.

Berchinald’s mouth fell open.

“Boring? I don’t understand how. That was incredible.”

“So you said.” Mido said. “Despite how easily you can be impressed, Rembrand. Have we all forgotten the biggest problem here?”

Every eye fell on Mido.

“This guy is a criminal!” Mido explained, gesturing his hand hard at Dvar.

Oh, right… Yeah, that’s kind of a thing. I turned my eyes on Dvar.

“He’s not wrong,” Dvar shrugged with a confident smile.

Why did I like him?

“I know I’m not wrong.” Mido said, “Prime Minister. Need I advise you, as I often have when dealing with Dvar Olmedo. You probably shouldn’t take your advice from. a. Criminal.” He finished, gesturing with his hand for emphasis.

“I would ask if I’ve ever steered you wrong. But the answer to that is yes,” Dvar said, nodding once more. Sternly.

He tightened his lips a moment in thought, then turned to face the prime minister.

“It’s happened a time or two, Olmedo, yeah.” Berchinald nodded, returning the stern look. Suddenly suspicious.

“Berchinald.” His chin dropped. Those broad shoulders flexed and his hands went to his hips. He lifted those dangerous eyes at him and waited politely for some sign that he was paying attention.

“What?” Berchinald responded, straightening himself.

Let us not forget he was a man of power and means. He set his own stern look on Dvar.

Shit was about to go down.

But wait…

“You have two choices,” Dvar said into the penetrating silence. Bursting the tight bubble of masculine frame between them with a voice of reason.

I knew what that was. I’d felt it before. I could feel it in the air.

Palpable.

That thing I hated and liked at the same time. Raw, animal dominance displaying itself. Two men of will, testing one another out. As if invisible psychic tentacles lashed between them, feeling one another out. Punching at egos.

That moment when it could have been combat or confluence.

Dvar brought the pace down with words.

The moment replayed in my head.

“You have two choices. Either you sign yourself away to one hundred more years of the same. Taxation. Unwarranted raids. Forever negotiating trade route costs to the real. Or… we play the game. I wouldn’t negotiate unless I thought I had the upper hand, Rembrandt. At least tell me you understand that about me.”

The silence between them that followed was deeply considered. My eyes were dancing about in thought, feeling my own ticks tock.

“I see your point.” Berchinald said, walking over to that broad window. “I see your point… But.” He took a deep breath, letting it out slowly. “It comes at a high price. I won’t sacrifice my men to a fight that to me seems ignorant.”

“Ignorant but warranted.” Dvar corrected.

“Ignorant but warranted.” Berchinald agreed. “Okay. Let’s say we entertained the notion. Let’s play the decision out to its furthest conclusion.” He said.

My eyebrows lifted. I snapped my amber eyes onto him.

“Go on.” Mido said, gesturing at Berchinald. Even he was intrigued. “I just want to hear what you’re going to say so I can laugh at you.”

“Hold on,” Berchinald said, patting the air with a hand. “What if… I mean you’re Dharma Yogs, right? What if we assume he knows what you know. Well he doesn’t have the forces to defend them all, right? So… we pick one. What’s the one he’d never think of?”

“You don’t want that answer.” I said, shaking my head. I was so locked into the conversation I forgot the part about shutting up.

I paid for it.

Dvar’s large hand exploded into my face with a vicious backhand that bashed me to the floor. My back hit the ground so hard my neck jarred and thumped my head against it.

It bounced.

The world bounced.

What the fuck…

I felt like I left my body…