Gunpowder Geishas (The Phoenix Initiative Book 8) by Kay Carolyn

Author:Kay, Carolyn
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Seventh Seal Press
Published: 2023-10-03T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 22

A ten-minute maglev ride saw Sakura, Jeni, Jung, and Taka to the Low Level stop closest to Tomi-san’s noodle cart. None of the people in suits exited, but multiple people in brightly colored clothes did. The counterculture was alive and well in spite of the government’s attempts to steer Japan back to a more “traditional” culture. Some of it had survived, like the Geisha, but once people got a taste of Western freedoms, there was no putting the genie back in the bottle.

Though they’d all dressed to blend in, only Sakura and Jung actually did. Jeni was a tall, bright spot in a sea of mostly short Japanese, and she wasn’t even wearing that much color. The six-foot black woman with a purple afro literally stood head and shoulders above the crowd. Her fashionably oversized, black and white block-patterned jacket covered a skin-tight neon orange crop top and baggy black cargo pants with matching orange details. Her thick-soled combat boots added another two inches to her height.

People both on and off the train gave Taka a wide berth. The Zuul wore her normal black jumpsuit with a Kevlar-lined biker jacket. Her claws clicked on the concrete with every step. Jeni wasn’t the only one she needed to take shopping for clothes. Not that any amount of trendy fashion would help Taka blend in.

Sakura had dressed just as punk as Jeni in almost identical pants and boots. She’d opted for a lime-green asymmetrical hemmed top and a cropped black military-style jacket. Everything had a thin layer of spider-silk armor built in. It wasn’t merc grade, but it’d keep most attacks from being fatal. She’d pulled her hair up into a messy ponytail secured with a couple of tactical hair sticks. It was a sure bet Jeni had something hidden in her hair as well. It was surprising how often opponents failed to consider hair adornments to be threats—a fact that’d worked in her favor more than a few times.

Jung’s fashion was more low-key. She wore a lightweight, spider-silk-lined duster over a red Chinese traditional vest and baggy gray silk pants tucked into black combat boots.

Just some girls heading out for the evening. Sakura laughed to herself. Every woman in the group exuded an air of danger and power. They held their heads high and backs straight. They were polite when appropriate, but men who’d normally expect others to move out of their way in the station gave them a wide berth. It could’ve been because of the alien among the group of Human women, but even so, it was nice to be given room.

To the casual observer, the Low Level station looked run down, but Sakura had been there often enough to know the graffiti wasn’t random. Someone had paid several artists a lot of money to “decorate” the place. Trash bots kept the station clean, and though the escalators looked battered, and a few lights flickered, it was all for atmosphere.

The same couldn’t be said for Low Level proper. The city government had long since given up keeping order on any level lower than Ten.

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