Week 50: The Auction of Minoru Nakahara

The figure listened to the bidding, eyes widening a little as Dr. Khan angrily spoke. She kept her eyes on Xu still, though her gaze was more sorrowful and less intense. She was waiting for his eyes to fall on her again... Even though whenever he did, her arms tightened around her body. As the price rose and rose, she shook her head. Her already pallid face paled further.

When Xu looked back at her, she mouthed a few more words. She blinked hard, and even unaugmented eyes could see she was starting to silently cry. She mouthed a few more words, and brought her shaking hand to wipe her eyes.

Xu continued sitting, unreactive, to all of this, except for another almost imperceptible nod at the anonymous figure in the crowd.

Han rested his head against the steering wheel as his U-View feed began to blur. I...I think we should try. But I won't hold anyone else to that, and I can't do it alone. Just...just let Xu know, I'm sorry I couldn't save him.

Even over smeaker, the anger in Han's voice was palpable.


Tell me the second Ban leaves the building. I need to set something up.

The wooden doors at the end of the executive suite flew open and slammed into wall. They stayed open and the doorway framed the figure of an older gentleman in a white suit. Everyone recognised the rank 10 CEO of Oracle stood holding a large briefcase, glaring at Ban So Tzun from across the room.

"One hundred million." said James D. Lee.

There was silence for a moment, and then a loud snort of laughter from Romeo. "I'm at a hundred and fifty all ready. Want to try the dramatic entrance again?"

CEO Lee glared harder...

"Well... I tried." he said. Then the CEO nodded his head a little in a parting gesture to the room and walked away.

Xu's head turned along with everyone else's to watch the CEO's entrance, with an expression of curiosity. Then, at his announcement, he blinked. And as the CEO walked away, Xu gave a single wry chuckle, shrugged his shoulders, shifted his position slightly and returned his gaze to the crowd.

For the first time since the bidding began, the figure turned her face toward the room, and the door. She watched wide eyed as her CEO, CEO Lee entered, spoke, and left. Shock was plain on her face, brows raised, and the crying stopped. She stared at the door even as it closed, face to the room, and looked back in time to see Xu laugh.

Her head tilted once, tears gone. She nodded to herself, and waited for Xu's eventual eye contact. When he did, she mouthed a handful more words, then fell silent. Her jaw clenched, and she tried in vain to smile.

Once again, there was that virtually imperceptible nod, with what might have been the faintest suggestion of a smile.

Ace's heart leapt as the CEO burst into the room. After his announcement, when all was silence, his mind was working hard. Before Lee could leave the room he was standing again.

"Two hundred million."

“This is our last ditch. We are not going to win, but we can be sure to make them pay top dollar. Get the van ready, we are moving out soon.”

And to CEO Lee, a message only he could hear. "Thank you, Sir."

Darya hadn't been watching Xu. Instead she strode towards the door that the CEO had just closed as fast as she could, opening it and looking both ways down the corridor, half expecting CEO Lee to have already left. As Ace made his offer, her body tightened. She needed to find him, and quickly.

CEO Lee was stood a little way down the hall. He was leaning against a wall with the briefcase at his feet and a hand raised to massage his furrowed brow.

"Damn inflation... Was sure that was the right time... Need to work on the entrances..." he mumbled to himself.

Darya walked down the hallway towards the CEO, standing in front of him fairly sharply. "Excuse me, CEO Lee?" she asked, not bothering to hide the nervousness in her voice. "The rest of Oracle have managed to gather around a hundred million credits to attempt to buy back Xu. Would you..." she swallowed slightly. "Would you be willing to combine the bid you just made for him with that? It may well still not be enough, but it might help a bit...sir."

CEO Lee waved a hand at Darya in a sort of dismissive 'go away' gesture and threw the briefcase to her. As she caught it, Darya could feel how light the case was; it was practically empty. In the corporate super-future you could fit an awful lot of credits onto a single chip.

Meanwhile, in the auction room Romeo Romero let out a whoop of joy at the increasing bid. "Yeah! Two hundred and fifty million! Let's fucking DO THIS!" he shouted, and then threw his half-full glass on the ground, shattering it all over the expensive antique carpet.

Darya nodded to the CEO. "Thank you. I'll get one of the actual members of Oracle to return it if we don't manage to spend it." and slipped back into the room, holding the briefcase carefully, looked at the wooping Romeo, and sighed. "It's gone up again, hasn't it?" she asked, heading back to Ace.

Ban was trying hard to keep the smile from his lips, but it was difficult. He nodded knowingly to Romeo, and then turned to Ace. "Mm, Oracle? Any more grand displays to compete with EI?" The bounty hunter turned auctioneer sneered at the flight sergeant, his dark eyes glittering with darker amusement.

With a look of abstract hatred directed towards Romero and his behavior Ace sat back down. "No, that's more than he is worth."

"Two hundred fifty." He muttered to Darya as she sat back down beside him. His eyes flicked to the case in her hands. "Still not enough." His eyes raised to the face of the woman he cared deeply about. "We've lost him."

There was a tiny derisive snort from Ban as he turned to make momentary eye contact with Xu... And then he was back facing the crowd, doing his best to look humble and apologetic and failing miserably. "Well then, with Oracle no longer wanting to spend your money, the final bid stands from Eurasia Incorporated at two hundred and fifty MILlion credits." Ban looked around the room. He radiated self-satisfied happiness, but to his credit, was doing his best to focus on everyone in the room to let them know he was watching, waiting, listening... As if every bid was just as important to him as the insane amount Mister Romero was offering.

Xu held Ban's gaze briefly, and then, once his captor had finished talking, he addressed the crowd for the first time. His voice was strong and confident, and even slightly friendly.

"Well? Anyone? I mean, it's not often you see this kind of opportunity sitting here before you. Surely this fine gentleman deserves more of your money for his...incredible successes?" There was a small edge of smug scorn in those last words, obviously directed at Ban. "I'm sure that more money can only make him happier. It is my pleasure, no, my honour, to do whatever I can to help him. And I'm sure he's happy to have my help, no?"

With that, he fell back into silence, simply turning and directing a wink towards Ace.

Romero looked around with a huge grin, clearly happy that he had won at being rich today. His joy was short lived, however, as the Shi Yukiro representative suddenly leapt into action.

"ENOUGH!" he bellowed without warning or even a hint that such an outburst was approaching. "This ends NOW!"

The two bodyguards flanking the high ranking agent stepped aside to give him room to walk purposefully up to the auction block. A black box appeared in the palm of the agent's hand, possibly via teleportation or possibly by sleight of hand, it was the size and shape of a ring box. The man tossed the box up in the air, without looking, so that it landed in Ban's hands and stepped up to the restrained Xu.

"This will serve as a warning for the other traitorous scum like you, deserter." spat the Shi Yukiro agent. At that moment Ban opened the ring box and found the slip credit chip inside. Before Ban could check the amount of credits being stored on the chip there was a blur of motion.
The Shi Yukiro agent moved so fast he was almost impossible to see. All of a sudden there was a katana in the agent's hand and moving through the air at Xu's eye level. The blade's edge glowed with a near-invisible blue light, ionising the air molecules as the weapon travelled the distance between the scabbard on the agent's hip and Xu's head. The agent drew the sword from his right side up and to the left, and then right, cutting horizontally. He then wiped the bloody sword off and put it back into it's sheath.

Over Ace's U-View, Han felt as if time slowed to a crawl. Unable to think, unable to speak, unable to even breathe, he sat, rooted in place as if he were carved out of stone as he watched the blade carve through Xu's face.

As the blade sheathed, Han stammered out just a single name over his smeaker. "S-Shinzo Aso." His voice was ragged, breathless, and those that knew Han would recognize the tone as one that heralded Han's highest form of hatred.

In the long moment of silence, Ban removed a chip from the box and his phone from his pocket. Without a glance to the assembled audience, he scanned the chip. He read the read out on his phone. He read his phone again. His head snapped up, eyes bright and glassy. "The bidding is over. Thank you everyone, for coming." His voice was warm and conciliatory despite the stunned look on his face. The bounty hunter gently rubbed his face with his hand, taking short, deep breaths. He glanced around the room without even bothering to look behind him. "How about a drink, everyone? On.. on me."

Ban took a single step off the low stage, half-laughing and looking around to politely greet the audience, more personally.

In the car, Bell turned her head sharply to the side, facing away from Han. Moving with jerky, fast motions, she grabbed the bag of weapons she was going to use to free her captive friend. She pulled open the door of the van, rocking the whole vehicle with the force of her motions. "Humans are pathetic." For the first time in Han's short experience with Bell, she sounded... upset.

She didn't wait for her brother or for Han to react as she jumped from the van, walking away at speed.

Inside the auction room, the figure kept her eyes on the slumped corpse of Xu for a full minute, before turning her head away and striding to the door in jerky motions. Despite most of her face being obscured, it was obvious to Ace--at the very least--that the diminutive and silent figure was Sosie. A pale haired, terribly underweight, exhausted Sosie who trembled slightly even when standing still, but Sosie, none-the-less. She made her way to the door slowly, arms still folded tight across her chest.

Without missing a beat Dusty turned to watch his sister. For a moment he simply turned between her and Han as if waiting for something. Then he leapt from the van in one smooth movement and followed his sister. An expression of one part shock and two parts despondency masked his face and he said no words, audibly at least. He did not look back as he followed along, slouched in his sisters footsteps.

Ace sat and stared. He hadn't had time to react, time to think, before it had happened. In his right hand he held the sub-dermal tracer tag he was going to use, loosely held now. For the longest moment he just looked at the scene before him, the destroyed head of his friend and the stunned but jubilant Ban So Tzun.

Then he moved.

Slowly he got to his feet, took the case from Darya and walked to the door. He did not stop to talk. His vision sharing and bio-status monitors deactivated. He did not even look at Darya as he left. He just walked out. He did not look at the CEO as he walked past, merely dropping the case to the older man's feet. Back straight and head tall Ace walked away from the celebrations and from the murder of his friend, and he did not look back.