MAGE | Chapter 8: Tokyo, Japan
Sharon Ede www.magethenovel.com © 2023 all rights reserved
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UMIKO SATOSHI BURST into the eighteenth-floor meeting room of the True Illusion Agency’s Tokyo office.
On any other day, she would stop to take in the view over the grounds of the Imperial Palace. Through the frosty windows, she caught a glimpse of the palace, dusted in white, but did not stop to admire it.
‘We know where he is!’
Her boss, Onmitsu Kaito, glared at her, but motioned her to a chair across the table from him. Several of her colleagues shuffled down the table to make room for her.
Umiko tabled a copy of La Stampa, and a handful of photographs she had printed from the electronic shots sent by the TIA’s office in Rome, concerning a strange drowning of a young American woman on the Rialto Bridge.
Kaito gathered up the Italian newspaper and photographs and spent what seemed like an endless minute assessing them. Umiko could barely sit still.
Finally, Kaito looked up.
‘In Venice. It can only have been him,’ he said.
‘Yes! We can deploy inside three hours. If I leave now, I can get there in, say, fourteen hours, maybe by late after- noon tomorrow. When — ’
‘Hold on,’ said Kaito quietly.
‘What do you mean, “hold on”? We’ve been looking for this character for over ten years! We know what he’s up to.’
‘Umiko, we are the TIA. Our mission is very specific — to create the illusion of environmental crises before they occur, so that the public demand for change is well ahead of the actual anticipated crisis. Not to pursue individuals who may or may not be terrorists.’
‘I know our mission, but unlike us, this character doesn’t want to create the appearance of anything — he actually is looking for a way to do it!’ cried Umiko. ‘And if we don’t stop him, even if he half-succeeds, we will get the blame if our agency and its work are ever revealed.’
‘You overestimate his capability. There is no proof of your suspicions. In any case, there are other intelligence agencies who can deal with him.’
‘But the other intelligence agencies have not dealt with him,’ Umiko pointed out. ‘If I can find him, I can find out more about what he’s planning, and how to stop him.’
‘What is he doing in Venice?’ enquired Kaito.
‘An international team of researchers has convened in Venice to release the results of some top-secret research. He’s after it, but I don’t know what it is or what he plans to do with it. That’s why I need to go there. I don’t know what this research is about, but if he wants it, then it is probably something we wouldn’t want him to have.’
‘Where are you at with your work program?’
Umiko’s face flushed. ‘I’m — er — in between projects right now.’
Kaito fixed his gaze on her. ‘You mean you’ve been off tracking Necro.’
Umiko pressed her lips together and did not reply.
Kaito sighed. ‘Very well. Go to Venice. That research is due to be released imminently, so by the time you get there, you will have only a small window of opportunity to find him.’
‘Arigato!’
Umiko Satoshi, Special Operations Officer of the Eurasian Branch of the TIA, was on the next flight out of Narita, en route to Marco Polo Airport, Venice.
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