Scribbler's note: I won't make excuses for how long it has been, except as follows...this took a whole bunch of research. The hat worn by a Buddhist monk, the correct rank for Yamamura, etc., etc. For all of that there is a lot of faking as well. I've never been to Asakusa, for instance, so I described the Gion district instead.

As the story matures and becomes more serious more and more of my own understanding of modern Japan is reflected. The larger world is beginning to react, and the nature of the story is changing in response.

INT: MOTOR POOL

A large underground room, walls hewn from bedrock. There is little light. A glistening in the blue backlight, a drip from the ceiling, hints that this motor pool might be under water...perhaps buried under Tokyo Bay. The camera dollies smoothly under the curving roof of the access ramp, letting the ranks of vehicles reveal themselves from the sides of the frame.

They are ranked like soldiers, geometrically neat. Sophisticated-looking tracked vehicles, armored wheeled vehicles, shrouded shapes on the turrets and hulls that might be missile launchers, cannon, giant lasers. The camera tracks down the row. Tank after tank, armored car after armored car. All silent and waiting.

INT: CONTROL ROOM

The room is two-tiered, an upper walkway and a pit of banked stations around a large plot board. The wall is covered with screens, dark now. There is little dust here.

The camera tracks through, slowly, passing through the plot board before passing silent banks of control stations. Dust covers are on all the monitors; even the headsets by each chair hang neatly coiled in dust-proof bags. Stations pass like soldiers lined up for inspection. Labels are glimpsed briefly. Here are telephone and radio links to the police agencies, to the Self Defense Forces, to airborne radar, to Satellite Control, to the Ministries.

All is silent and dark, save for one station. There, at this one by the bomb-proof doors, LEDs blink in rapid code. This station monitors a super-computer, no doubt somewhere below in a triple-filtered hermitage of its own. The lights blink through a pattern, repeating endlessly. A pattern that seems somehow searching. One senses that the computer is looking for something, waiting for that combination that means the lights must come on again, the men arrive and take their stations, the room come to life as the nerve center of a complex and deadly operation.

The indicator lights continue to flicker. The room waits.

Cue the titles.

SEARCH FOR THE MOON PRINCESS

Episode Fifteen : The Truth is Out There

International Studies Institute, Minatoku Ward, Tokyo. 8:30 A.M.

"You must be the investigators they were sending today." The slight, spectacled teacher opened the door to them.

"Yamamura. This is Agent Taki." They both produced ID badges. Both were dressed identically in dark suits with white shirts. But then, so were most of the salarymen on the Tokyo streets this morning. "May we come in?"

"Shocking, just shocking," the teacher was shaking his head as he led them inside. "Professor Sven Johanson was such a friendly, outgoing man. He hadn't been here very long -- it wasn't supposed to be a long visit -- and of course he didn't speak the language, but we are all going to miss him."

"Let me assure you that the Japanese government takes the disappearance of a foreign national on Japanese soil very seriously," Yamamura said. "Now, Professor Johanson was here as a guest lecturer as part of a cultural exchange with Norway, is that correct?"

"Yes indeed. This series was developed to expand the horizons of our Junior High students. You understand, of course, how narrow the perspective of our educational system is, especially in the earlier grades. Too much focus on the coming exams, too little focus on our place in the world today."

Yamamura nodded briefly. Then --it was as smooth as if they had rehearsed it-- he and the other investigator turned towards the teacher. "This series," Yamamura said. "It wouldn't have included Juuban Junior High, would it have?"

"I would need to check my records, of course, but I am certain that school would have been included. There are a number of high-potential students in their roster and all attempt was made to create an outreach opportunity."

It was the older investigator who spoke again, taking the lead. "Did the Professor have any unusual interests or hobbies?"

The teacher blinked. "That's an odd question," he said. "I was expecting you'd ask if he had any enemies we knew of, if he had been in any kind of trouble, if he had illegal tastes or habits. But of course the other police asked all those sorts of questions already. And there weren't any. There wasn't anyone who might want to hurt him."

The teacher turned away, sat at a nearby desk. The small front office was all but filled with cultural knick-knack's; every bit of shelve space, every flat spot held a sculpture or model or mask or musical instrument.

The teacher spoke again, so off-handed he seemed surprised to find speech coming from his mouth. "He was of course a nut about Norse Mythology. Everything from comic books to the Elder Edda. Give him a chance and he would talk for hours about the myths and philosophy. About Sliepner and Freya and the one-eyed god. About how Balder was killed by mistletoe and how the world was formed from Ymir's left eyebrow."

Again Yamamura nodded. He seemed to have expected this. "He was a big man?" he asked then.

"Oh, yes. Of course, all foreigners seem so big. But he was tall and energetic and moved like a young man."

"He wasn't eight feet tall, though," Yamamura said. "Or blue."

"Why would you say a thing like that? Of course not. Are you trying to make a joke? Because I don't find it very funny."

"Neither do I," Yamamura said. "Neither do I."

Cafe Ohayo, Azabu Juuban, Tokyo. 9:00 A.M.

Lita went down the street for breakfast. She ignored the "Morning Service," the three-hundred yen egg, coffee and slice of toast favored by most of the dark-suited salarymen filling the coffee shop; she wanted a big breakfast and damn the cost.

She also didn't care that a junior high student eating breakfast out was not a common sight, especially not at a coffee shop. She plunked herself down in a seat, ordered firmly, and ate with gusto.

What had happened last night was still too fresh to have perspective on. Normally Lita didn't dwell on things. She had a healthy ability to put trouble behind her and focus on what was happening now. But this was different. And not just because she had gotten emotionally involved.

First off -- Lita couldn't help the grin that came to her then -- she had made an enemy. This Negaverse person wanted her dead. And Lita looked forward to meeting her again. Meeting her in battle and avenging Joe.

Her thoughts slipped away from her there. He had been so warm, so gentle. They had shared a moment there, at the arcade. A moment of understanding. Now he was gone. Terribly gone...changed before her eyes, then destroyed without mercy.

She sniffled, loudly. She didn't care who noticed.

In her pocket was the red crystal Kosuke had placed in her hand. The red crystal that was somehow summoned from Joe just before his terrible transformation. She took it out, then, in the bland friendliness of the crowded little cafe, and placed it by her blue-bordered plate and the large glass of orange juice. It glittered subtly, not as ostentatious as a ruby, not as simply as glass. It wasn't a stone she knew. It wasn't, she was sure, a stone anyone knew.

So who was this Yamamura and what did he know? He called himself a Police Inspector. And he sure looked like a cop. But he knew what a Negaverse General was. And he had known what was about to happen to Joe. Had he been the one to kill him? Out there in the dark with some strange weapon of his own?

And what about the two chimpira? There was something mysterious about them...some sort of kohai/sempai thing, with the smaller one always showing deference to the bigger one. But then there was the way the big guy -- Sanpai -- always seemed to be looking towards Kosuke for help on what to do and how to act. As if he was the student and Kosuke was the master.

And Kosuke was a pretty tough fighter. She could probably stand to learn some tricks from him.

It was a little strange how they had managed to show up right in the middle of things. Perhaps they had been following her. It would be interesting to know why. On the other hand, she had been following Joe without too much reason.

This was an unusual situation for Lita. She took a long drink of orange juice and half-closed her eyes. She'd never had to go out looking for trouble before. Usually it would find her. Stumble on a couple of bullies, or a girl sleepwalking across a busy intersection, and action was instinctive. Now she actually had to think things out.

Lita put down the empty glass, reached for a handful of packets and began spreading toast with a liberal coating of jam. There was only one thing to do, then. And one place to go.

Minatoku Main Branch Public Library, 10:00 A.M.

It was an older building; a solid, neo-classical little lump, dwarfed by the financial institutions' office towers around it. Stone lions, faux-patina bronze grill, fussy little details around the entry-way and outside windows.

The inside was all plastered notices and flyers and stack numbers and explanations. Computers were crowded into every free corner. The floor was very clean.

Lita found the very structured nature of the information system working against her. It was easy to find out where to go to read up on automobile repair or small business law. The books needed for every conceivable college major were listed in full. Special collections that went with this or that educational television program were marked with red, blue and yellow dots. But research on something unique...that was a little more difficult.

At last she came from one fussy and far too "helpful" information desk with a small pile of stack numbers on little slips of paper. Most of those were in reference collections to boot, and would need even more effort to retrieve.

"Ano..."

Lita hadn't heard the wheelchair coming. She turned. Her attention was captured by the girl's face, her dark serious eyes below hair so black it had blue highlights. Her legs were thin and oddly lumpy below the blanket.

The girl blushed briefly, then shook away her embarrassment and spoke. "They won't be able to help you here," she said.

"Ah," Lita said.

"May I?" The girl indicated the fistful of paper slips. Lita handed them down to her. The girl was very pretty. And haunted. Her eyes were dark with lack of sleep. Her arms were slim and lightly muscled, but her legs rested feebly within the wheelchair, as if they were no longer a part of her.

"Negative space." The girl looked at the first slip. "That's in Art and Music. It's a term from the visual arts, meaning the necessary void, the area against which the rest of the image is seen." She looked at the next. "Negative reinforcement; psychology this time. It's the concept of making negative stimuli go away by doing the right thing; like taking aspirin to stop a headache."

She flipped through the rest of the slips. "Negative exponents. A way to write very small numbers. Negatron..." at this one she looked up. A quirky little grin came. "That's very good," she said. "It's a variant name for the electron. Only really useful when both electrons and positrons are involved in a particle-physics experiment."

"Thanks," Lita said dryly.

"They haven't heard of the Negaverse. Not under that name, at least." The girl turned her chair and began moving towards a quiet, less crowded part of the library.

Lita waited until they had that privacy. "But you have?" she said.

"I have. I have been looking, checking. I wanted to know if somehow something had slipped by us. By science, I mean." The girl sighed; actually, it was more like a shaky exhalation of breath. Lita sensed then that she had come to question everything she thought she knew, the very basis of her understanding of the world.

"The historical record is very clear. In 992 AD the Fujiwara clan ruled Japan and Lady Murasaki was a child learning her hirigana. The Byzantine Empire, the Seljuk Turks, the Capatian Kings of France...all left detailed records. There is no mention of an invasion from another dimension, or of a Silver Imperium."

The girl shook her head. "The astronomical data is even more convincing. There has not been liquid water on the moon for millions of years. It has never been possible, not since the formation of the solar system, for a human to live and breath on the surface of the moon. Ranger, and the later missions, have radar-mapped ninety-five percent of the surface to include any feature over ten meters in size. There are no ruins of palaces and gardens there. There can not have been a Moon Kingdom."

Science wasn't Lita's strong suit. She shrugged.

"So either I am losing my mind, or there is something involved here that can change reality itself. Because I KNOW there was a Silver Imperium, and they fought the Negaverse last time it appeared!"

"They turn people into monsters," Lita said. "They are after something, some treasure?"

"They are after energy. When they get enough, the dimensional barriers will open and the armies will be here. They mean to make us all their slaves."

"Good luck," Lita snorted.

"Yes," the girl said seriously. "You are one of the ones who will give them trouble. You, others I have known." She shivered. "And you will fall. Like we have fallen. The Negaverse will win in the end."

"Not on my watch," Lita said. She liked the sound of that, and repeated it. "Not on my watch."

Ebisu, Tokyo, 9:00 P.M.

It was the kind of place that didn't need a name. You saw the red lantern, the noren hung so low you had to stoop to see the door and the warm glow from the tiny wood-latticed windows, and you knew it for one of those miniature neighborhood places that stayed open until late serving drinks and yakitori and offering a friendly warm place to talk, drink and smoke after a long day at work.

A table of salarymen were doing just that as Yamamura and Shin Taki entered. Faces were already red and the cigarette smoke hung like a storm cloud. They had progressed past bantering insults and the inevitable letting-the-hair-down to a camaraderie of foolish jokes and smutty stories.

"Have a drink with me," Yamamura had said. Shin had agreed. So he still didn't know if Shin was acting as a good subordinate and doing what his boss said, or if he wasn't under Yamamura's orders at all and was just playing along.

Now they drank, in a strained politeness quite unlike the four men and their shift supervisor at the other table.

"I want to know what happened that other night," Yamamura said at last.

"That Negaverse witch transformed him. It looks like she is collecting some kind of crystals from human hosts."

"Not that," Yamamura said impatiently. "Did you shoot him?"

"Yes, I did." Shin answered without hesitation, as if he had only been waiting for Yamamura to ask him directly.

"With what?" Yamamura pressed for more information.

"Something special from Department Six. A prototype."

"Then they know, then this isn't the first..." Yamamura stopped. Tried to get control of himself. "Shin, I need to know more about what is going on here. I don't like being in the dark. I can't work at my best when I am kept in the dark."

"Why," Shin countered, "What is it you want to know?"

"Everything. All that's been hidden from me. Okay, one thing; who do you work for, Taki?"

"Department Six, same as you," Shin answered.

"Are you assigned to me?"

"I'm on this case," Shin said. It wasn't much of an answer. It wasn't even a good attempt at evading the question. Once again, it was obvious he just didn't care. That who ever he was in the organization, Yamamura's opinion of him meant little or nothing.

"Look, Shin," Yamamura tried a different tack. "I don't want you just shooting them. We're supposed to be cops. We don't just gun down suspects. We investigate, we arrest."

"You are still a cop." Shin was grinning, and it wasn't a nice grin. "Oi!" He motioned to the man behind the counter. "Another skewer of lamb!" Then he leaned forward onto his forearms. "That's your problem," he said seriously. "You still think like a cop. You need to start looking at the bigger picture."

Yamamura looked back at him. Coldly. "That isn't how things are done," he said.

"Isn't it?" Shin waved the bamboo skewer negligently. "Isn't it, now?"

Senso-ji, Asakusa, 8:30 A.M.

Lita dressed in a nice green blouse and a pair of hip-hugging slacks she had found on sale last Wednesday. She had her house keys, ID, and cash; nothing more. She wasn't going to study, or take pictures, or do anything but enjoy the festival.

She rode the Ginza line to Asakusa. The low, modernistic station had three exits and she followed the bulk of the people heading towards the middle one. Through the breezeway and she came to the magnificent Kaminarimon Gate. Raijin, the God of Thunder, glared from the left. Fujin, with the bag of the world's winds on his shoulders, was to the right.

The gate marked the south end of Nakamise-dori, the street that was more the point of a visit then the reproduction temple at its end. The style was blatantly "shitamachi," old Edo. Some of the buildings might have been the original wood, but many of the historic ones had not survived the war. Nor had the district, really; Shinjuku was the nightspot of Tokyo now.

But on this weekend, the street came alive for Sanja Matsuri, one of the biggest festivals in Tokyo.

Lita plunged right into the shops and souvenir stands and eateries. In moments she had piping-hot mochi in her hands, and the light powdering of chocolate was everywhere. The bandage wrapped around her wrist and forearm was really getting in her way. Still, it didn't stop her from buying a gift for her landlord, and a bag big enough for that and the next purchases as well.

The crowds were showing up. Families, a few younger children in brightly colored kimono, others in masks from favorite TV shows. Young people out on dates, shirts decorated with random English slogans, hair dyed anywhere from a mild russet to wild greens and blues. There were older couples, some old enough to wear kimono as well. Some people were already staking out spots for the passing of the mikoshi; folding chairs, umbrellas, tripods and of course plenty of cameras were made ready.

It was getting warm enough for shaved ice and green tea flavoring as the men in their happi coats began streaming towards the temple. Lita did that and as she ate she watched a street performer in white rice-powder make-up do the alternately humorous and creepy art of Budoh. Across the Nakamise-dori from him two monks stood silently with bowls out, faces hidden under their bamboo hats.

A little more gift-shopping and Lita decided she was getting properly hungry. She found a soba shop where she could kneel on a soft cushion right out front and eat and sip tea as the parade began. The chimpira would find her when it was time.

The first mikoshi appeared outside the Denpo-in temple. The crowd cheered. People craned their necks to see. Musicians clapped wooden blocks, pounded drums, and piped on high piercing flutes to the rhythmic shout of the shrine-bearers. The young men beamed and sweated under the five hundred pound portable shrine, bobbing and weaving through the packed crowd and doing their best to entertain the god inside.

Then the next appeared. For a moment they seemed about to jostle for position like they did at the rowdy "Quarrel Festival" of Hyogo. Great shouts of laugher came instead, the mikoshi circled each other in a ponderous dance, then the parade continued. The crowds were so thick now it was almost impossible for a person to cross the Nakamise-dori. Indeed, so many people were crammed into the noodle shop with Lita that warm breath was on her cheek on one side and an elbow was pressed into her ribs on the other side each time its owner lifted his camera.

Lita didn't mind in the least. It was part of the joy of a festival, this jam-packed humanity, this feeling of having one body, one skin.

Old Edo was out in force now. The decorated shrines, the streamers and paper lanterns, the bright kimonos. Men in full samurai regalia no longer looked so strange and out of place. In the heat, and the effort of carrying the portable shrines and shouting the chants, many men had stripped to the waist. Some had stripped as far as the fundoshi loincloth, and on those men the garish yakuza tattoos were quite obvious.

Lita understood she had been meant to see this. The yakuza liked to see themselves as modern-day Robin Hoods, as protectors of the people, as holders of an honorable samurai heritage. Reality was sadly shy of that image. But at a festival, at least, they could show how they supported traditional events and "gave back" to their community. So their presence was strong here, and open.

Yakuza could sometimes be such sentimental traditionalists. It certainly explained why the oyabun had asked her to come here for a meeting.

Tokyo Metropolitan Government Offices, Shinjuku, 11:00 P.M.

Yamamura was not having a delightful day. Shinjuku boasted Tokyo's greatest concentration of skyscrapers, a mass of hundred-meter glass towers like the future metropolis out of some anime. The centerpiece of the massive Metropolitan Government Offices block was a triplet of towers of staggered height, an edifice from the then-young Kenzo Tange that visitors described as having Orwellian overtones, or being a left-over set-piece from Fritz Lange's "Metropolis."

They also, Yamamura thought sourly, had an awful lot of corridor. He was having very little luck finding out anything about Department Six, and not just because this was a Saturday.

The trouble started with the name, he reflected. On his paystubs it now said "detached duty," but to what level of the bureaucratic labyrinth was he attached? The Metropolitan Police of Tokyo, a semi-autonomous organization falling directly under the National Police Agency, echoed that umbrella organization in its multitude of Bureaus. Some of those Bureaus had in addition Divisions. There were also Districts to consider; under these fell such things as the neighborhood Kobans.

There wasn't a "Department" in sight. Yamamura had a working theory, though. It wasn't a comforting one. The National Police Agency had a Security Bureau as part of its internal structure. The Security Bureau had a certain reputation for "Black ops" and a mandate to formulate and execute responses to civil unrest and other national emergencies. Yamamura figured an invasion from another dimension qualified.

On the other hand, the Criminal Investigation Bureau had fingers in many pies, and approached those problems with a bewildering variety of Departments. Either way, though, Yamamura was no longer directly under the Metropolitan Police. Unless, of course, he was completely mistaken in all his guess-work, and "Department Six" was merely a dodge to get around budget over-runs, and he was in reality working for a small police station in some outlying ward of the city.

He hadn't gotten straight answers yet at the Metropolitan Government Offices. Japanese were by nature inclined to talk around things, and politicians had raised this indirection to a high art. Ask a Diet-man if it was raining out, and he could do upwards of twenty minutes in a steady monotone drone, like the chanting of a monk on the last day of a fast, without even admitting the existence of precipitation.

Yamamura leaned against a wall, lifted first one weary foot and then the other. Then he stomped on towards the next in a never-ending series of doors.

"I want to know about Department Six," he said. Indirection be damned.

"Department Six? Of what city agency, sir?"

"Can the 'Sir,' I'm a working cop. The Department Six that I'm assigned to. The one they would send a Police Inspector to, the one that issues laser guns to their men."

"I'm sure I have no idea what you are talking about," the functionary said in good humor. He sat back, steepled his fingers. "Do you want tea? You look worn out."

Yamamura bit back what he was about to say. He took the tea instead. And thanked the man. And when he was comfortably settled in a chair with a steaming cup in his hands he tried going after it from another direction.

"Look, when I was assigned to Department Six I was told I had special authority to request assistance. From any police department, and from any other agency under the Public Safety Commission umbrella. I was led to believe I could have a coast guard cutter at the drop of a hat, or a battalion of Riot Police for that matter."

The functionary nodded politely, waiting for him to continue.

"So what I want to know, is, how do they know I am authorized if no-one even knows who Department Six is? I mean; how am I supposed to get this assistance I was promised?"

The functionary sighed, opened a drawer and smoothly pulled out a form. "And what sort of assistance do you need?" he asked, pen poised.

"I don't...that was a theoretical question, dammit."

"Ah." The functionary moved as smoothly as before and the form retreated back to wherever it had come from.

"Now, just wait a minute. I said I might need something and you made all the motions of getting it for me. Yet you claim you have never heard of Department Six!"

"Inspector, let us be reasonable." The functionary began to speak, smoothly taking the offensive. "Have you ever had trouble getting the support you need to do your job?"

"Well, not in so many words..."

"And your pay is proper and sufficient? The health and retirement plans to your liking?"

"Yes, yes, yes. I just...I just want to know who I am working for. I want to know what it is I am supposed to be doing!"

"You are on detached duty from the Metropolitan Police, Inspector Yamamura. And as for what your duties should be, well, I suggest you contact your supervisor." This last was said without rancor. The man was polite, even friendly, but he wasn't going to volunteer anything at all.

Yamamura thanked him for the tea and stood up. "I don't suppose you've ever read Franz Kafka," he said at the door.

"Yes," the functionary said. He smiled. "I find 'The Castle' singularly appropriate."

Moto-Azabu Koban, Minato-ku, Tokyo, 4:00 P.M.

Yamamura was visiting the koban where his old friend worked. Two other patrolmen were assigned there, but both were walking their rounds as the two sat and ate take-out noodles.

"It bothers you, eh?"

"I don't like not knowing what I am supposed to do," Yamamura repeated. He hardly heard the words he said. He wasn't listening to them. Because, in truth, that was only part of the story. What he was afraid of was making mistakes. Already he had let a girl be hurt, injured so badly she might be permanently maimed. He didn't trust his own judgment and instincts. All this was too strange for him. He wanted there to be some great organization with formulated policies and written methods and training videos.

And yet, the truth of it might be worse. There was something out there, some organization that had sent Shin Taki to join him in dealing with this "Negaverse" thing. Shin had arrived with gun in hand and started shooting down the suspects. Was that truly the policy of this nebulous "Department Six?" If Yamamura ever found them, were those the kinds of orders he would be asked to follow?

They had invaded the Hikawa Shrine as well. Led the police there in force. Yamamura had got the word in time to observe but not to interfere as they closed the place down. And after all the effort he had gone to build a relationship of trust with the Shrine Priestess. Who was missing, now. The shrine and its guardians had been scapegoated, Yamamura was sure. Someone put pressure on for a fast solution to all the strange happenings in the neighborhood, and the Hikawa Shrine was handed to them on a plate.

Yamamura was an old-fashioned guy. He cried at all the Tora-san movies. And it bothered him that a place so important to the community could be sacrificed just to gain a few political points.

Plus it hadn't done anything to slow the Negaverse.

Yamamura could still see the hard face of that Negaverse General, Zoicite. Hear her laugher, as shrill and unmusical as...as a telephone?

His friend picked it up. "It's for you," the older policeman said bemusedly.

The voice was thin as a whisper. "Aqua City, nine tonight. Don't let anyone see you."

Asakusa, Tokyo, 7:45 P.M.

It was romantically dark in this old shitamachi neighborhood in the north-east part of Tokyo. Winding cobblestone streets, wooden fencing, paper lanterns making small warm patches of revealed dark woods and lush overhanging greenery. People in their good clothing, a few of the women in kimono and one in the white make-up of a geisha, their voices a soft laughter.

In this limited vision one could believe the narrow alley might open up again only to show old Edo in all its glory, samurai and lords striding the streets. Or you might come back to the main streets to find you were mysteriously on the other side of Tokyo from where you started, or all the way down in Kyoto, four hours away by high-speed train.

The chimpira had come to her after the parade of the mikoshi, and told her when and where. Now she frowned just slightly, reviewing the complicated directions any address in Tokyo required.

And here it was. The wooden sign was very small. Most of the light came from the garden behind the front gate, and that gate was as worn and rustic as the gate to a Shinto Shrine. There was no menu outside. Lita, who was more used to eating at the kinds of places that had plastic replicas of all the food outside, merely shrugged. The yakuza would be picking up the tab.

She went in. She didn't have a coat and the rest of what she wore didn't suggest the need for a search. The place was as classy inside as the outside had suggested. A very well-kept little garden that showed flashes of genius in the seemingly random clusters of mossy stones and twinning of low plants. A well-polished entryway with a few simple hangings and a loose bowl or two that probably deserved a museum. Yakuza were, as a rule, rude, blue-collar types more likely to be found at a strip club than at a geisha party. It was nice to see this one had a little class.

Lita was expected. She was led by a comely attendant at least a head shorter than she was. As she followed down the short corridor she heard the distinctive pling plang of the samisen. Geisha party indeed. Then a screen was whisked aside and she was invited to step up into a room. The attendant vanished with her shoes -- it was certain they would return cleaned, polished, probably re-soled if they needed it, too.

A broad-shouldered man of about fifty was there in a dark kimono. Around the low table with him were six other men in suits that ranged in class from herringbone tweed to the pinstripe of an unconstructed yakuza. The older generation of yakuza had learned how to dress from James Cagney movies. Even now they favored the garish colors and patterns of a used car salesman...and at that, they were the largest Japanese consumer of big American cars.

It was obvious who was the oyabun. The word meant "father," and referred to the organization favored by the more traditional yakuza, in which certain subordinates were called "brothers" and others "children." His name was Shimizu. It had been in the papers often enough. Not only was the gang he ran the one operating in Lita's home neighborhood, but it was also the biggest gang outside the syndicates. Shimizu had formed strong agreements with other gangs in and around Tokyo, and in time might be able to challenge even the massive syndicates. Which, as far as the papers were concerned, meant another round of bloody gang warfare was coming.

Shimizu came up on his knees and bowed lightly. Lita knelt to return the bow, with her hands in her lap. Then she sat quietly, watching them, with no impatience for someone to make the first move.

Shimizu regarded her steadily, even as he had his sake cup refilled and drank it down in a single swallow. Tea was brought for Lita, and sake offered her as well.

Some five minutes after she had entered the room the oyabun spoke. "There is something happening in my neighborhood," he said. Lita didn't disagree. "You are involved." He gestured briefly, to one side then the other. Four younger men got up, moved behind Lita, smoothly took her arms in hard grips.

Lita tensed once, confirmed she was firmly held, then relaxed. "You are to be no longer involved," the oyabun directed.

Lita spoke then. "Sorry," she said brightly. She smiled.

"Sorry?" the broad-shouldered yakuza boss echoed.

Lita tried to shrug. That didn't work, not with her arms held. She settled for another smile instead. "I'm involved in this thing and I'm going to stay involved," she said. "I finish what I start."

There was a low growl from one of the men. "I could have you killed," the oyabun said.

"It happens, it happens," Lita said. "Tell you what, though...if you do, better make sure of it. I hold grudges."

"Makoto," the oyabun breathed. "The boy was right."

"Makoto?" This time it was Lita's turn to echo.

The oyabun made an impatient gesture and his men released her. One returned the tea cup to her hand before he retreated. "Out." The oyabun said briefly. The men all lined up to bow, then exited through the small sliding door. It took a while. When they were alone the oyabun relaxed his straight-backed stance. "You sure you don't want any sake?" he said.

"On second thought, I think I will," Lita said. She held out a fresh cup as he poured for her. But she sipped, not gulped. "Makoto. The sincerity of purpose. That total commitment to action of some of the old heroes. You have it. I didn't believe...I was testing you."

Lita merely nodded. She had no expectations when she went into this den of yakuza, therefor, nothing that happened could surprise her.

"Lita Kino, you are a hero. A champion," the oyabun said. "There is something evil happening in Azabu-juuban, all right. People have been hurt. Things have been seen in the shadows."

He leaned forward, elbow on the low table. "Miss Kino, there are strange men in Azabu-Juuban. You've met one of them. There are government agencies involved. It is starting to look like a private war is going on in my backyard, and I don't like it."

"Are you concerned for the people there, or are you just sore 'cause no-body bothered to talk to you about it?"

The oyabun laughed suddenly. He filled his own sake, drained that cup as well. "Honest to a fault," he said. "Take it at face value, then." He grew more serious. "I know I can't give you orders. I won't insult the both of us by trying. But you are of the neighborhood. You are one of us. I trust you where I don't trust these black-suited government geeks."

Lita smiled. She was touched by the trust. But she shook her head briefly. "What do you think I am, Shimizu-sama? Some sort of samurai?"

"Yes," the yakuza boss said. Then, even more strangely, he came to his knees again and bowed low, palms flat. "You ARE samurai in ways we yakuza can only struggle to achieve. Defend my villagers, Miss Kino. I will give you any aid you request."

The interview was over. As she left the oyabun told her one thing more. "Those two boys are my eyes and ears. If you need anything of the yakuza, tell them and it will be done."

Aqua City, Tokyo Bay, 9:00 P.M.

A world of concrete and steel. Low, flat, saving the simplified geometric shapes like the Fuji TV building with that odd sphere suspended between the two glass bricks, or the inverted pyramids of Tokyo Big Sight. It was an image from the future of Tokyo Bay, as the mindless automaton of development covered the bay in concrete and raised oddly identical, soulless buildings upon the flat surface that resulted. Yamamura thought he understood, now, the protesters during the last expansion of the Narita airport.

A light wind blew off the bay and the air was moist. The lights of Tokyo barely pushed through the haze. At least the Rainbow Bridge was at a good angle. It wasn't much of a rainbow, though.

Yamamura went towards the water, towards the lights of Shingawa. He fancied he could see the glitter of the Ginza, further inland, even from here.

Out by the water was a familiar shape. A scaled-down reproduction of that Statue of Liberty that had been given by the French to the Americans for their own island in the bay. The statue was alone and ignored in this small, windy bay-side park. That seemed symbolic of something in itself.

By instinct, Yamamura headed in that direction. He saw the flare of a cigarette being lit before he saw the man himself.

"Inspector," the man said quietly as he neared. He was silent, then, as he tended to his cigarette. When he had it going to his satisfaction he took a deep drag. Let it out slowly, savoring it. "You've been asking questions," he said at last. "People are becoming concerned."

"Then answer them," Yamamura said easily. He couldn't help the chill that suddenly crept under his coat, though. The man had spoken in such a matter-of-fact way, it somehow made it real to Yamamura what a dangerous world he had entered the day he transferred.

"I can't tell you everything," the man said with a slight impatience. "In time you will understand why." He puffed on his cigarette some more. "I will tell you what you need to know."

"Department Six..." Yamamura started. Stopped. Thought it through once more, briefly, then gave the question that was really at the heart of the matter. "What is it that I am supposed to be doing?"

The man seemed to smile. It was difficult to tell, here in the dark and the sea-fog. He paused, working out the best way to say what he wanted to say.

"Think of us as the Department of Mommy," he said at last.

"Eh?" Yamamura didn't understand.

"Well, who do you call when you have monsters in the closet?"

"So Department Six deals with things that go bump in the night?"

"Well, not exactly," the man said. "Moomy doesn't lead a SWAT team in a closet assault. She shuts the door and turns on a night light,"

"I don't like what you are suggesting," Yamamura said unhappily. "That sounds like a cover-up. Don't we have a public duty?"

"You are looking at this the wrong way, Inspector. Look," the man said briskly, "We have a national economy to worry about, a rising trend in youth crime, a national dissatisfaction with modern life. We don't need people worrying about monsters as well. The number of people who run afoul of, shall we say, supernatural events is vanishingly small. There is no need to burden the general public with the problem."

"It seems...disingenuous." At least the "father knows best" attitude of the bureaucracy was familiar enough.

"There is another, better, reason," the man said. "The disease carries its own specific. Monsters (for lack of a better word) seem to call into being anti-monsters to control them. Bonzes and other under-employed mystics, would-be heroes, and so forth. Often as not they are excellently equipped to deal with the monsters on their home ground."

Yamamura didn't reply immediately. He looked out through the fog, watching the lights break up into smaller and smaller patches of soft color. His hands gripped the night-chilled railing, tightly. At last he spoke. "So we assist these people, then? These monster-fighting antibodies?"

"It happens that a field agent will become personally involved. We generally leave that agent in place, as we have found then when that circumstance arrives that agent can often be effective in that role. The Department would prefer a more hands-off approach, however. The general intent is to liase, to provide assistance otherwise difficult for a private individual to apprehend, and to smooth the way with other agencies. In fact, I'd rate the latter as about the most important. It tends to work a lot better for everybody if the regular police are dissuaded from taking an interest."

"A fancy way of saying we sweep things under the rug."

"I prefer to think of it as keeping the national consciousness untroubled by certain nightmares," the man said dryly.

Yamamura studied the water some more. "So what happens if there's something too big to handle in-house?"

The man put out his cigarette in a few brisk movements, buttoned his coat back up. "I believe there is a draft policy," he said.

"Draft?" Yamamura turned from the rail.

"It has not been necessary to formulate a detailed policy. Such a thing has never happened." The man was already walking away. As his last words faded, so did he into the darkness and fog.

Azabu Juuban, 9:30 P.M.

Molly had snuck out of the house again. She had found, with practice, that she could get by on less sleep than her mother thought she needed. If Serena had known where she was going she would have been concerned, too, but it really wasn't any of her business.

She had a warm coat. She had clothes that didn't look quite so much like a school uniform. And she still had that false I.D. She only needed money for the cover charge, and maybe something sweet and non-alcoholic. And maybe the club owner would be there again, at his private table. At the tiki lounge; at Max's.

Next --

The slow flowering of hope comes to Azabu-juuban, as Amy begins the long road to recovery, as a wandering monk works to bring a sundered family back together, and as Lita tackles the Negaverse problem head-on. But flowers are not the only things blooming in a Garden of Evil. Be there "when squirrels attack!" ...and I'll show you!

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