A pair of Ringo-Dango representatives did indeed appear later that day, a foppish looking Japanese fellow and a tiny girl in shiny blue-black leather whose light pulsing aura screamed damage reduction. My immediate impression was of a vampire slayer. The effect was strangely intimidating.
And the gigantic warhammer resting on her shoulder with the bloody stake protruding from the one side of the hammer’s head did nothing to quell my assertion that this was a high-level baddy if I chose to get on her bad side.
I shook my head to rid myself of the thoughts. I was pretty sure I’d just failed an intimidation check. There was no way she was as tough as she looked.
The only thing I registered about the guy was the thick black glasses and a tattoo on his cheek, the words Ringo Dango overtop one another in a cursive font best described as 18th century script.
The guy bowed while the girl said something in shrill Japanese, which was probably meant to be adorable, because she said it with a wide smile, crinkled up nose, and by bouncing several times on the balls of her feet.
“It is my pleasure to inform you that you have been invited to join the Ringo-Dango confederation,” the guy said. Not the same voice as the Boss guy. He produced a holographic business card in two hands and bowed it in my direction.
“That’s nice,” I said. “And who are you two, then?”
They shared a look for a moment before he answered. “We are emissaries of The Boss.”
“Fair enough.” I shrugged. “Okay, card me.”
He presented the card again, as though I was somebody worthy of being bowed to. This led me to think that maybe I ought to start acting like I really was somebody worthy of being bowed to, and not just a pretender to a throne.
Dress for the job you want and such, right?
A window appeared: IF YOU ACCEPT THIS INVITATION, YOUR REPUTATION WITH THE KEBUKAI-KOGAN YAKUZA WILL FALL TO ‘ENEMY’ STATUS. YOUR REPUTATION WITH THE BOSS WILL BE RAISED TO NOMINAL ALLY (+200). YOU WILL FALL UNDER THE PROTECTION OF THE RINGO-DANGO AND PAY TRIBUTE MONTHLY.
TAP HERE TO EXPAND, OR CHECK ‘I HAVE READ AND AGREE TO THE TERMS & CONDITIONS’ TO CONTINUE.
I did, and was confronted with this ominous pop up: ARE YOU SURE YOU WANT TO PROCEED? Y/N
I mentally hit Y, even though my quest already had me sabotaging Ringo-Dango. It’d be better to affect some change from the inside, I reasoned. And rebuffing them would make things awkward. There were tons of people higher up than Chuck who would be gunning for me. This vampire hunter enforcer, for instance…
A silvery flash of light enveloped me, and the dialogue ‘You have joined the Ringo-Dango Confederation’ appeared, then faded out of view.
Now that my organization was part of the Ringo-Dango, part of the deal was that, as boss, I had access to information on the members. Numbers started appearing on the huge menu filled with the city’s inhabitants. The Boss, for instance, was level 39. I examined the vampire hunter, and found her to be level 35, which was enough to convince me they weren’t messing around here. Also her name, according to the examine skill, was Flicker Blue.
Well, I’d just joined an organized crime outfit. I was sure Patches wouldn’t approve, but he regularly licked his own balls, so he didn’t get a say in these matters.
“We’re delighted to have you with us, Mr. Stone.”
“Glad to join the team.”
“This evening at nineteen hundred hours, we will be holding a summit to discuss some of the pressing issues for the Ringo Dango Confederation. I understand you’ll be unfamiliar with most everyone there, and your only point of contact will have some animosity against you, but I can assure you that everyone in attendance will be guaranteed safe passage in and out of the event.”
“That sounds intimidating, but I guess I’d better start networking ASAP, am I right?”
He nodded sharply. “Just so.”
“Can I get you two a drink? I have a couple of questions, if you have a few minutes.”
They shared another of those telepathic-looking glances, and the gentleman nodded slightly. “We would be honored.”
We rode the elevator in some of the most awkward silence imaginable, mostly because the girl wouldn’t dream of being parted from the gigantic hammer. It sat on her shoulder the whole way up, and I half expected her to suddenly swing it around and take my head off.
As soon as she entered my apartment, though, she spun it around a couple times, and balanced on her head on the floor beside the door. She screamed, which had me scrambling, but only a second. I found her down on the floor with Patches. Much petting and licking ensued, and wondered if maybe she weren’t one of the actual humans stuck in the system. But with that level, it simply wasn’t possible. I let her do her thing, and soon she’d located a bit of gnawing bone and was overjoyed when Patches settled in to gnaw the hell out of it.
The Ringo-Dango guy (Hirataka) was also smiling down at Patches as well, but perked up and ordered for the two of them. I didn’t know what the word was, but CALAMARI came to my aid. The chibi anime character waved a chubby, short little tentacle my way and winked.
“Greetings DIRK STONE! It’s good to see you’re no longer SECONDS FROM DEATH. Instead, you’re rising through the ranks of the city’s powerful underworld? Good for you! Your success is admirable indeed! Would you like a celebratory Mochi ice cream? On the house! It’s velvety red bean flavored ice cream wrapped in sticky rice cake, which is green tea flavored! The flavor combination is distinctly East Asian.”
I declined, ordered whatever the guy wanted, and a beer for me. It turned out he wanted a type of saké, which made sense. Soon, fifty credits poorer, I had the milk carton-looking thing with the cat on the front and the Japanese lettering, along with three shot glasses, and a frosty mug of ale. Mr. RD came over and had a seat, gave me a quiet but sincere ‘kompai!’, then drained his tiny glass while Flicker Blue gleefully played with my doggo.
“How can I assist you, Mr. Stone?”
“Some basics if you don’t mind. How many sub-gangs are part of this confederation, anyway?”
The city seemed enormous, and crammed full of people, but Colorado Springs only had a pre-game population of about a hundred fifty thousand. I figured it could’ve held maybe five or six gangs, without police opposition. Now… there was no way of telling.
“Nine, though there are minor gangs jockeying for territory among larger territories… like you.”
Flicker Blue now had a rope and was playing tug of war with Patches, who was growling and shaking his head back and forth. She was laughing delightedly.
“Nine! Okay. And about this rival operation…”
“Ten, now that we include you. The Kebukai-Kogan are our sworn enemies, and formidable foes. Though their turf does not seem large, it encompasses some of the wealthiest and most technologically advanced areas of the city. They employ a small army of hunter-killer robots who are more than capable of handling anything we send against them. They constantly seek to undermine us by hacking our Credit accounts, ruining our finances, and by sending spies to work against us from within. Constant vigilance is needed.”
“Noted.” I turned to Flicker. “Do you want to give him a treat?”
She literally jumped up and down several times in delight, and squealed like she was in the front row for her favorite pop group. “Give him a treat?” She turned to Hirataka. “I can give him a treat.”
“Only if you really want to,” I said.
She turned and fell to her knees before Patches. “Would you like that, huh, woujoo foojoo moohoojoo cyushey wooshy puppy, woojoo like a treatsie weatsie? I bet you would! I bet you wanna treat!”
Patches was wagging so hard I thought his butt might break off and go flying out the window. He was dancing around and licking her face and giving involuntary mini-barks.
After that her speech disintegrated into nonsense baby talk syllables. They approached critical mass of cuteness, but I handed her a few treats before they both disintegrated into cotton Jack butterflies or exploded with rainbows.
She was hard to reconcile being a super tough. On the one hand it was cute as hell to see her so geeked about everything she’d seen so far. That lent it an air of weirdness I had trouble coping with. Afterwards I gave her a bag of treats and she was getting Patches to shake, roll over, and balance them on his nose before snapping them up.
“I need to get in good with this The Godfather you’ve got. We didn’t altogether start up on the right foot. How can I go about doing that? Raid up into enemy territory, make a whole bunch of money, run some other Ringo-Dango outfit out of town?”
“Infighting is generally not tolerated without a declaration of intent, with an inciting incident put up for approval before the Boss.” Great, just was the apocalypse needed: bureaucracy and red tape.
“I think the first order of business is taking out the Brass Crosses. They’ve been up to things, and they’re tough enough that they’ve got clout.”
“I don’t know as it would be wise, considering you’ve just joined, but if you feel it necessary, file your inciting incident with me, and I will relay your wishes to the Boss.”
Steps needed to be taken before I jumped off that bridge, and before I went looking for this ultimate Ringo-Dango bossman. More potent weapons, higher levels, better cards… and I’d have to find the bastard. I did well enough under a command structure like the Cav Scouts, but I had this nagging feeling the Ringo-Dango didn’t have the sort of discipline or hierarchy the military did.
And that meant I’d always be chafing under whoever was above me.
No, I was definitely joining specifically to ruin someone’s day.
I showed out the two Ringo-Dango representatives, and immediately called up Nolan down in the crafting department. This was as easy as flipping my holographic phone into my hand and saying his name.
From there it was just a matter of telling him I needed someone versed in computers to help me out on a little project I had going. Then I met up with Nolan, showed him exactly what I had in mind, then retired for a quick nap.
