According to the two business cards I had, the summit was being held at a hotel convention center, on the ninety-fourth floor.

It immediately brought to mind some movies where ninja people in tactical gear broke through high rise windows and attacked everyone except the ancient Japanese boss, who was in a kimono or something. Then you had geishas who were actually androids of some kind or another, killer robots.

Possibly these were two different movies jockeying for space in my head for how this summit was about to go sideways.

I had Eric Joel and Patches as my personal escorts, Eric in a full-length white tuxedo with a rose over his breast, his tail sticking out through a hole in the ass of the trousers.

If Chuck was going to attack East Gojira-X, now would be the time. Either he’d try to hit the summit, which seemed super doubtful, or he’d come after my people while I wasn’t there.

Much more likely, and that meant the high level people intermingling with the level 4 and 5 NPC noobs on security detail. I had a soft spot for my rat people.

Oh, and Jack was there.

He looked quite dapper, clean-shaven, with his hair slicked back sporting business threads that honestly put my own navy pinstripe suit to shame. Between himself and myself, Eric in his white tux, and Patches in his chainmail bikini, we made for quite the stylish posse.

Forty-five minutes later, we got in the wickedly gray-steel chrome of a slightly hovering limo, then took in the city for a good thirty minutes of driving before finally coming to the Hotel Hiji.

An army of trim Japanese guys in suits all bowed as we entered the hotel from below, and said something in Japanese that most likely meant ‘we are honored to have you here today, prick.’

Possibly just my imagination.

Another few servants, these ones furry fox people in elaborate kimonos, offered to take our nonexistent coats, and served up appetizers when we declined.

We were shown to a huge room, which took up almost the whole floor. The ceiling was at least twenty feet high, and featured floor to ceiling windows with a commanding view of the fog blanketing the city.

And as we entered in, conversation died. I totally understood it as they gazed or, in some cases, glared in our direction. We were new to their turf, we were cocky, and we looked damn good. It was almost a shame that these people, all of them, were the baddies. Because at that moment, I finally knew what it was like to be an officer. To have people admire and fear you all at the same time.

And it felt spectacular.

I strutted at the head of our crew, a checkered tie of red and lavender squares as my heraldry, with little hints of twinkle woven into the fabric.

On my right walked Eric Joel in his white suit. He got some extra menacingly glares and grunts, and he gave them all back a gaze that told them all what would happen if they laid a single finger on him, me, or mine. Patches positively jingled alongside him. And on my left, Jack was stout and focused, acting like he didn’t even notice the changes we had wrought.

I’d slotted him as my diplomat in the system, and wow was that the right choice. Dude was already in full-on let’s make a deal mode.

It was hard to imagine that, just days ago, this was my old neighbor. Legless, tired, not always able to see straight. Deus Ex had straight-up remade him and his entire life.

The place was done up simply: no decorations except for some of those rice paper partitions. In the middle of the abstract geometric designs were nine small bonsai trees in a circle, surrounding a fat, smiling Buddha. The one with the pendulous earlobes. This was the The Godfatherman, and we were the bonsai trees.

Nothing said ‘expendable subordinate’ like a tiny, sculpted tree you kept on your kitchen table and occasionally pruned just the way you liked it.

“Tacky,” I whispered to Jack.

“Tactics,” he whispered back. Conversation had slowly started up again, and we walked on past a gaggle of several high-level gang members. Syndicate, my information tab told me. They wore black leather biker jackets and sported thick pepper-black beards underneath faces only a mother could love.

“Why not?”

“Everything here has to go perfectly,” he grunted back. “I’m the diplomat. Let me do the insulting.”

I looked over the party and saw a man in a shiny blue-metal vest talking and laughing with a gaggle of beautiful women, done up in sparkling evening dresses. Over in the corner a man on a bowler hat was banging away some blues of the age-darkened wood of a grand piano. A trio of girls in short and tight sailor outfits brought around drinks and cigarettes.

Yeah, I was way out of my league. The last time I’d been to something this posh, some guy had ended up telling me that only losers and idiots join the military.

I’d spent the night in jail, and he’d spent the next few weeks drinking his breakfast through a straw.

I spotted several Brass Crosses, their tattoos flaring a dry incandescence under the chandeliers above. They all stared at me and I stared back. Yeah, I couldn’t help but think. Bring it if you think you’re hard enough.

Nearby, a pair of serious-looking people in what can best be described as evening wear military camouflage sipped champagne. The one nudged her partner, and both of them turned a death glare over toward us.

Scratch that. Maybe I was right where I needed to be. Thinks were definitely looking like they might turn interesting.

I shared a look with Jack, who very briefly shook his head no. “We have a bit of an emergency to deal with,” he whispered.

It was a bit too late to be dealing with an emergency, surrounded as we were by literal enemies. I hadn’t noticed at first, and that seemed amazing to me, but several mecha-suits lined the walls of this room, two on each of the three glassy walls, in front of the support columns.

They were dark, so they didn’t have pilots. That I could see.

No, there was no dealing with fresh emergencies when so much planning had gone into this and so much was on the line. I took a deep breath and kept my composure.

“Don’t,” I told him. “Don’t do that. Please don’t tell me–”

Jack cut me off. “You need to come up with something. I don’t know if you have noticed, but all of the gangs here have their own colors. Their own gimmicks. Some way to tell whose who. We need that. And here we are at the officers’ table without a uniform on.”

“You’ve got to be kidding me.” I looked around the place, trying to find some ideas. Thinking back to my people in my Gojira territories.

“Look around,” Jack said. “The Syndicate has biker jackets and thick beards. The Brass Crossed have full body tattoos.”

I glared at him. “Yeah, I get it.”

“Hey, don’t shoot the messenger. The West Side Warblers look to be wearing luxury military camouflage, which I didn’t even know was a thing.”

“Wasn’t when I was in,” I said. “But, yeah, I get it.”

“Point is, this is important. Look around you. They’ve all got their thing. And they’re gonna ask us at the table. You need to have an answer when they do,” he said. “We need branding, and we need it now.”

“Okay…” 

Jack had practically given me a heart attack, but he wasn’t wrong. These gangs all had theme names. Stuff that at least from the outside sounded like it had meaning. Dark thoughts crossed his mind, thinking of the civilians he was leading. How it had been civilians who spit on him when he got off the C-130 on emergency leave to visit the grave of his newly deceased wife and child.

I felt my pulse rising, the pounding of my heartbeat loud in my ears. Patches brushed my pant leg, the chainmail bikini clinking musically through the sound of my anger, and I let it go.

That sort of thinking, that wasn’t helping. That wasn’t them. That was some other dickholes. From another time and another place.

“Okay think,” I told myself. “Think, Dirk Stone.”

“That’s not thinking,” Jack chastised me. “That’s just commanding yourself to do something you weren’t doing.”

I shot a glare at him, but immediately softened when I realized he wasn’t mocking me. “Thanks Jack. Yeah, I’ll get on it. On the double.”

I fired up all three and a half cylinders, scorching through my gray matter in search of a good answer. Bandit Troop was what we’d called ourselves in the arena. It’d been a good name then. Maybe it was a good name now too.

“Can we use Bandit Troop? Bandit Troop is fine.”

“No,” Jack replied, “I don’t think that the people here are going to appreciate the martial implications. They don’t strike me as very pro-government.”

I wanted to stare him down and just tell him to shut up, that we’d be called Bandit Troop. Trouble was he was probably right. As far as image was concerned, he had it right and I could learn something from him.

Respect your elders and all of that because they’d been around the block many more times than you had. All of that yadda yadda jazz.

Looking at his slicked back hair and smooth, unwrinkled face, it was so hard to imagine he had wisdom locked in behind those eyes of his.

But he was right. There had to be something better.

For a second I wanted to name the gang after Stayin, because he’d given his life to protect us, but as awesome as the dude had been, his name was straight-up trolling.

More ideas pushed through my mind, but they were all too military. I nixed the idea of the ‘Hoorah’ gang and the Bush Rangers. Then an idea rose up in my mind, rolling to the front —

And bursting before it had a chance to finish. Jack’s elbow stuck hard in my side.

“He’s here,” Jack whispered.

“Who– oh.” My eyes had followed Jack’s, and I spotted Chuck with The Boss. They were arrayed in the perfect pose: Boss in the middle looking far more intense than was necessary, Chuck behind him on the right, glaring at me.

 

Beside me, Eric gave him a friendly wave and he scowled.

I noticed that there was a new heavy with The Boss as well. This was a fox woman with several more tails than foxes generally had, dressed up in a kimono with those gigantic sleeves so you couldn’t see her hands.

You had to keep an eye on people like that; you never knew when one of them would whip out a short sword or a pistol.

Or magic

They stood there at the entrance, stone still and peering about. Surely we hadn’t looked to absolutely–

“Hurry!” Jack whispered.

“What’re we hurrying?” Eric asked.

“Need to name our gang before this thing adjourns. Jack thinks we need a snappy name and a gimmick, which I think it’s complete bullsh–”

“He’s right. What’ve you got? The East Enders?”

“Warmer, but no.”

“East side Eclipsers?”

“Nope, cooler. How about the Dog Pound?”

“Pound Town,” Eric said, which cracked up Jack pretty hard. “What?”

I laughed. “Come on down to Pound Town, ladies and gents. You’ll get East Ended after a Dishonorable Discharge. Nope, not that one. ”

Eric looked back and forth between us, lost. Jack thought it was funny, at least, but he sobered up in a hurry. “He’s heading this way,” he warned.

Okay, well, we had here a dog, a catman named Eric, and an army vet turned male fashion model.

The most Yakuza looking dude in the place, The Boss, sauntered over. He had a pair of balls in one hand. I couldn’t believe it at first, but each of the ornamental, glossy jade-colored balls were criss-crossed in gold trim, and the faint sound of chimes came out of them. They twirled in his hand, over and over, and I realized neither of them touched.

Ever.

The effect was sort of hypnotic.

The Boss got into my personal space, like confiding close, twirling those balls in one hand.

“It’s good to finally meet you in person, Mr. Stone.”

“I’m afraid I can’t say the same,” I said.

“Don’t be like that, Mr. Stone. You and I don’t have to be enemies. We’ve gotten off on the wrong foot, surely.”

“If you call burning my neighbors to death ‘the wrong foot’ then I guess you’re right.”

Jack jerked my elbow and stepped in close. “Ill will is something that could be pushed aside,” he interrupted. “But we’re not just gonna pay you tribute and roll over. We need guarantees on our territory and our people.”

He grinned, and of course he had perfect rows of rather sharp-looking pearly whites.

“Oh, yes, take a piece of my land and call yourself offended. I’m well aware that you feel slighted, but this is the typical cost of doing business in Gojia-X. It was you, after all, who excised a significant portion of turf belonging to me.”

The Boss looked me up and down before turning back to Jack.

“Valuable income and prestige have had to be sacrificed, and that says nothing of the face I’ve lost. Reputation does not come easy here, I’ll have you know. But, I’m very impressed by the work you and your gang did. I respect it even. I want us all to be family.”

I opened my mouth to speak, but Jack elbowed my side. I wisely shut my gab.

“I’m offering you a chance at a truce,” The Boss said. “No recompense, no concessions, no whatever he’s offering.” He waved a hand in the direction of Jack.

I moved up into his personal space. “Guarantees must be made. I can’t have my people looking over their shoulders from now to the end of time, just waiting for you and yours to decide its time to finish what you all started.”

He backed up, his eyes wide, an astonished laugh on his lips. “You’ve got guts, Dirk Stone.”

“You’re going to have a hard time being at war with me,” I answered. “We’re Ringo-Dango now.”

“And who, pray tell, are we?” He chuckled. “I’m afraid no one here knows who you are, and that includes me. I heard you signed the dotted line, and I know it is a confederation of all of us. But, know this, Dirk Stone. The reason I’m called The Boss? It’s because they all answer to me.”

I couldn’t help it; I snorted laughter. His smile froze.

“Even the Brass Crosses? I bet half the people in this room have a bullet or a blade back on home turf with your name carved into it.”

“Bah, you’re no one,” The Boss said.

“We’re…” I nearly had it. It was on the tip of my tongue. Dog, Eric, Jack, and me… an angry guy with more guns than sense.

“I’m waiting.”

“Loony Toons. Call us the Loony Toons. Meep meep,here come the crazies.” I turned to Jack. “Come on, Jack, Eric, Patches. Let’s go find someone cool to talk. Maybe whoever slotted to be The Boss after this bozo.”

On the surface I’m sure it all looked super cool. That I was composed, unafraid, not at all to be messed with.

But inside my heart was up and beating again. That guy, he really didn’t care. Like a warlord from the sandy mountains of abroad, it didn’t faze him at all that he was responsible for the deaths of innocent civilians.

Someone was laughing. Everything seemed very far away, given that I was seeing red and nearly ready to leap onto my own sword if it would end that monster.

Instead I held myself back, repeating in my mind that The Boss was just an NPC, that it wasn’t a real being, that I was mad at a stupid machine.

A lady in a sailor suit sashayed by and I accepted a flute of champagne. Across the room I caught Flicker Blue waving at me… nope, waving at Patches.

And that was worth a chuckle.

The traitor started wagging, hard, and bounded over to her. She’d already fallen to her knees and laughed as she was bowled over by eighty pounds of fluff and muscle.

Several other notable things happened: first of all, my reputation with The Boss dropped to -500 in an instant. The rating with the rival gang itself stayed right where it was: neutral.

I also gained two points in a skill called Mic Drops. I had no idea how to use that, but somebody must’ve overheard, or read lips, because my rating with The Syndicate rose by 200.

The name ‘Loony Toons’ now appeared overtop my portion of the city map. I relayed a series of commands letting everyone know that security needed to be doubled tonight, and probably tomorrow as well. I was technically on the same side as The Boss.

But I was pretty sure that we both knew better.

The summit hadn’t even started and instead of making piece, I’d pissed of the current gang boss. Chalk that up to me being me, I thought dourly. If I hadn’t let myself be so angry, this all could have been sorted by now.

“Who’s your new girlfriend?” Jack asked, inclining her head toward Flicker. “She’s cute.”

“Not my girlfriend, and she’s an enforcer for Ringo-Dango. Flicker Blue.”

“Don’t let her hear you talking like that,” Eric chimed in. “She can take your head off with that hammer. She wrecked the November Ninjas single-handedly two weeks back. They don’t exist anymore.”

Gojira-X hadn’t existed two weeks back, but I didn’t mention it. Instead, I tried to imagine what that would have been like in game terms, seeing her in some cosmically awesome armor slapping around low-level goons. She was certainly an intimidating figure.

“What’d they do?” Jack asked.

“They were working jobs for The Boss. The last one, not the current one. He paid them to run a chop operation on all the gang leaders, brought them all together to a Ringo Dango wedding of all things, then tried to unify our happy little confederation into a single group. When the guns and blades came out, Flicker and Hirataka wrecked them. And then, when that smoke cleared, they wrecked The Boss as well.”

I nodded, mesmerized. Also confused. “If he was The Boss, then why did they kill him? Aren’t they Ringo Dango?”

“Yeah,” Eric said. “But Ringo Dango and The Boss aren’t the same thing. They are loyal to Ringo Dango. They keep the confederation going, and enforce its rules. The Boss, he’s the guy accepted to give big orders. But when he breaks the rules of Ringo Dango, he sets himself up for the big fall.”

I smiled broadly, taking that bit of information in. The Boss and his gang were tough, for sure, but they had rules to follow. And if they broke them, the rest of Ringo Dango would be on my side.

After a bit more chit chat and more tiny appetizers of squid balls, sushi, and lemon meringue tarts the size of my thumbnail, a table appeared.

It just… constructed itself out of the floor, bit by bit, seeming like hologram at first. The holograms then solidified into oddly shaped geometric scales. A large tablecloth running the whole thirty foot length suddenly appeared a few inches above the table. It drifted down and was settled by the wait staff. Ten chairs also constructed themselves out of that same non-holographic material.

“Would the ten leaders of the Ringo-Dango Confederacy kindly take their seats. You will find your name on your plate.”

Let the show begin.