(Sincere apologies for the long delay in updating. It wasn't supposed to take this long, honest!)

Part 4 – Coming of Age in the ArmaLite Generation

The ringing of the doorbell sent Maria springing to her feet as if she'd been jabbed by a needle. She walked the length of the hallway practically on the tips of her toes, Minoru close behind. Locating the intercom panel, the blond photographer made a ballpark guess and pressed the biggest button. "Hello..?"

"We're back." Alphard sounded like her usual self: unhurried and confident.

Minoru wrestled the bolt aside and eased the door open. "Welcome back," he said gingerly, stepping aside as Alphard and Berdan filed into the house.

"Um..." Maria faltered as Berdan cheerfully pulled two halves of a long black rifle out from under her jacket. "A... A..!"

Alphard looked at Maria expectantly. "A..?"

Maria thrust the unsealed envelope at her, then braced for the backlash. It was not soon in coming: the one-armed woman read the letter quickly and then strode down the hallway, muttering to herself.

"Uh oh." Berdan locked onto Minoru. "Fill me in, bro."

The journalist took a deep breath. "Boxer kidnapped Canaan," he explained. "Yunyun was in on it."

"You gotta be kidding me." Berdan scurried after Alphard. "Boss? Boss!"

Minoru exchanged a worried look with Maria, then locked the door and followed the others. They found Alphard on the couch, the letter dangling from her fingers. "Boss," Berdan repeated insistently, "what is it?"

Alphard merely held out the creased paper.

"Uh, boss... I can't read Arabic, remember?"

"It's Turkish," her employer corrected flatly, "in Arabic script. Fatima has stolen a march on us."

"And Boxer went back to her... So now what?"

"Now we wait." Alphard crossed her legs. "The letter says she'll call with instructions."

Maria took exception to this lackadaisical outlook. "But Canaan... Canaan is..!"

"Since it's Fatima, she's probably safe for the moment."

Berdan cocked her head. "You sure about that, boss? If the hag is getting in on this – "

"I don't think she is," the Arab opined. "It's not her style." She rested her elbow on the back of the couch, drawing her coat aside and baring her toned abdomen. "Berdan, I need some coffee."

"Uh... Yeah, sure. Right away, boss." The underling slunk out, leaving Minoru and Maria standing awkwardly by themselves.

"You might as well sit down," Alphard pointed out. "It won't be long."

Maria put on a resolute face, marched straight to the vacant side of the couch and emplaced herself on it. Minoru eased himself into the chair which Boxer had earlier occupied. "What did you learn?" he ventured as the three seemed poised to slide into another of those ghastly silences. "From the, er, drug dealer?"

"A little," the criminal genius answered enigmatically, "though it seems of dubious value now."

Maria searched her face with a pleading expression. "Are you really sure Canaan is safe?"

"As long as Fatima has her, yes."

Minoru was starting to feel slightly peeved at the way Alphard kept dropping that name with no explanation. "So just who is this – "

Brrrrrrrrring-g-g!

The shrill noise came from a grotesque brass fixture on the wall, which Minoru had initially taken to be a candle holder. Alphard was back on her feet in a flash, snatching the handset from its cradle. "Salaamu 'Alayk," she said, a caustic undercurrent running through the words. The rest of the conversation passed too fast for the others to follow.

Berdan came back in with cups and a pot balanced on a tray as the long-distance spat wrapped up. "Boxer planned ahead," she announced with grudging approval. "What's the word, boss?"

"Istanbul," Alphard replied, returning to the couch. "Tomorrow, seating for four."

The pugnacious redhead's features darkened as she poured the coffee. "So she wants us to go to her, eh? What's the hag after?"

"She wouldn't say, but the rest of the clan is not invited."

"And the shrimp?"

Alphard shrugged. "Taken as insurance, or so she claimed."

"Huh." Berdan poured an additional cup for Minoru, though he hadn't asked for one. "Sounds like she's afraid of you."

"Maybe," the boss conceded. "Or perhaps it's the others whom she fears."

"Will someone please explain what's going on?"

"No," said Alphard, putting on her smug look and dashing Minoru's hopes for a speedy resolution. "You'll see when we get there."

"That's right," Berdan chimed in as she put the tray aside. "Boss, I gotta call Old Man McClune."

"Of course."

Minoru wasn't quite ready to quit. "Who is he?"

"My dad, I think."

The coffee was pretty good, but it wasn't enough to distract the reporter. "You think..?"

"He won't admit it." Berdan proffered the pot. "More?"

"Dammit, boss! How do you do that?"

"Do what?" Alphard asked innocently. "I'm playing it as you showed me."

"Yeah, but... Crap." Berdan frantically twiddled her controls. "Switch, bro!"

"Eh?" Berdan's avatar, a burly Russian commando-type with a rapidly draining health bar, ducked out and was replaced by Minoru's Bruce Lee lookalike. The reporter tried to remember his least fail-prone combo, couldn't, and resorted to blind button-mashing. His character went bouncing across the stage, punching and kicking virtual air to the accompaniment of a ludicrous string of shrill screeches.

His escapade came to an end when Alphard's white-haired assassin waltzed in and hurled the hopping howler off the pagoda balcony, then leaped after him. "K-O!" the game's announcer crowed as she landed.

That left Berdan standing alone against Team AlMar. "Uh oh," she muttered, watching the brief replay of Minoru's defeat.

Minoru was privately glad to be out of the fight. Glancing to the side, he saw Alphard watching the high-definition screen impassively, her thumb and little finger tweaking the directional sticks of the plastic controller balanced on her knee. She might have lost the first couple of rounds, but she'd gone on to mop the floor with Team MiBer in every round after.

"Switching."

Maria started as Alphard left the arena and her own character, a denim-clad girl whom she'd chosen for being the least weird in the lineup, jumped in. "Huh?"

"You need one hit to win." The corner of her teammate's mouth turned up just slightly. "Go."

"Not this time," Berdan cackled. "Sorry, sister, but – oh, no way!"

"Eh... Eheheheh..."

"Winner!" the announcer added helpfully.

"You got lucky," the vanquished henchwoman growled. "But not this time!"

"That's what you said last time." Alphard sounded bored. "You really spend your pay on these things?"

"Not all of it," said Berdan defensively as the character select screen came up. "Take your pick, bro."

"Uh..." Minoru was pretty sure he'd lose again no matter who he played as, so he chose the purple-haired ninja without even looking at her move set. Berdan took the other ninja, with a laughably skimpy and conspicuous outfit, and soon they were being soundly thrashed by the same avatars they'd just discarded.

The journalist wondered just how much more surreal this could get. He and Maria had come to visit, ended up staying for dinner, become caught up in Alphard's latest intrigue and now spent an hour and a half playing this game to kill time before bed. Tomorrow they'd be flying to Turkey, of all places, and what then?

Please, Minoru thought as he was KO'd once again, let there at least be a good story at the end of all this.

"Hold up."

Maria turned around, her too-large yellow pajamas rustling loudly. "Eh?"

"Change of plan." Berdan, who owned the pajamas but had given them up for a snug-fitting t-shirt, jabbed her toothbrush towards the opposing doors at the end of the house's narrow second-floor hall. "You're in the room on the right."

"Huh? But that's Alphard's – "

"Bingo."

Maria scowled. "You want something weird to happen."

"I got enough weird happening already... Look," the bigger woman sighed when Maria looked unwilling to accommodate, "the boss gets lonely, okay? She was all fired up when the shrimp – when Canaan came." Berdan shook her head. "I don't wanna see her slide back into a rut."

This didn't sound like the cool and collected Alphard whom Maria had known before. "Then why aren't you staying with her?"

"I'm no good at this stuff," Berdan admitted. "And anyway... I don't think the boss wants another lackey fawning over her."

Maria slowly nodded in agreement. Nobody needed another Liang Qi. "Did you know... that person?"

"Who, the psycho with the 'Big Sister' fetish? I stayed away from her." The ex-soldier grimaced. "If you pushed her buttons, she'd rip your face off."

"I know." The blonde shivered at the memories of her own encounter with Alphard's crazed lieutenant. "What do you want me to do?"

"Just be there... Just in case, you know?"

"Mm." I guess... I should do it for Canaan's sake, right? "Um, about Mino-san..."

"I won't do anything." Berdan did a passable impression of her employer's smirk. "Even if he snores."

Maria watched the henchwoman slip into the room on the left, then gathered her courage and walked to the door on the right. The bedroom was dark save for the light which spilled in from the hall or slipped through the blinds of the window. Alphard was already in bed, lying with her face towards the wall and seemingly asleep. Good, Maria thought as she pushed the door shut, tiptoed across the carpet, turned down the covers and slipped between the sheets. This isn't so bad.

"I suppose this was Berdan's idea?"

"...Eep!"

There was a soft laugh. "She can't walk as gracefully as you."

Maria wasn't mollified by the compliment. "She said you... might need someone."

"Is that the only reason?" Alphard rolled over. "Or don't you have your own motive for coming here?"

"I don't know what you mean."

The dusky-skinned one evidently found this exchange amusing. "I think you want something more from me."

"You're wrong."

"Perhaps you'd like to take another picture... this time without clothes?"

Maria turned her head away, feeling a heat in her cheeks. "Stop it."

Laughing again, Alphard rested on her elbow, allowing the blanket to fall loosely around her waist. "I haven't forgotten how you stared at me that day," she whispered seductively. "I don't mind if you want to... explore."

"No, no, no, no, no!" Maria's fist thumped the mattress between the pair. "I will not have sex with you!"

"You don't want to experience what Canaan and I share?" Alphard's dark eyes glimmered among the shadows. "Or do you only want to try it with her?"

Maria twisted in the other direction. "I'm going to sleep," she said firmly. "Stop being weird."

She should have known better than to think the mastermind behind one of the world's deadliest organizations would quit so easily: Alphard crept upon her like the snake after which it was named, advancing until her nude form was all but pressed against Maria's back.

"We want the same thing, Oosawa Maria." The voice in the photographer's ear was soft and sensuous. "I'm willing to share. Are you?"

I hope Maria is all right.

Sleep wasn't coming in a hurry, though Minoru's discomfort at sharing the narrow bed with Berdan had eased once the aggressive female passed into slumber without making any advances. Keep it together, he told himself. A reporter must adapt to all circumstances!

No good. He could repeat the mantra until the cows came home, but it didn't change the fact that he had only a dim idea of how really complex this new situation was. Who was Fatima? Was she behind the attacks Canaan had mentioned at dinner? Why did Alphard act so nonchalant about the abduction? What did she expect to find in Istanbul? Where was this all leading to? When would anyone tell him what was really going on?

Bah! Minoru planted his face in the pillow with a grunt of frustration. One sheep! Two sheep!

He almost missed the faint scraping as the bedroom window was wedged open from the outside. "Oosawa Maria!" a voice hissed theatrically. "I've come to save – gwaaamf!"

Either Berdan slept very light, or wasn't asleep at all: she vaulted off the mattress, sending the blanket flying, and yanked the intruder into the room. "I had a feeling you'd be back," she hissed, dragging her small-bodied victim away from the window. "How many friends did you bring along?"

"Nnnf..!"

Minoru blinked. "...Yunyun?"

"Yeah, it's her." Berdan slowly backed the pistol's silencer out of the Chinese girl's mouth. "Talk, you little shit."

"There's nobody else," Yunyun whimpered. "I came back to – "

"We heard you the first time," the unamused underling growled. She straightened, hoisting the captive up by her windbreaker's collar with a sinister leer. "Think the boss would like more company?"

Yunyun's eyes widened in horror. "N – no way..!"

Great, thought Minoru, scratching his head as Berdan marched Yunyun out of the room. Next thing I know, that kamikaze cabbie will show up.

Someone was faintly humming: the sound had a gritty texture in Canaan's brain. There was a reddish scent in the air, and the fabric under her bare arms tasted coppery.

"She's awake."

"Yes." That voice was Boxer's: opening her eyes, the synesthete found the demure maid standing over her, hands clasped. "Do you feel ill, Miss Canaan?"

"No..." Gradually Canaan's head cleared enough for her to sit up. She found herself on a sofa in a living room furnished in a modestly middle eastern style, with a gallery of glass sliding doors overlooking a sprawling garden.

A woman sat in the armchair which faced the sofa across the room's low central table, a leather-bound book lying open in her hands. She looked to be in her early forties, with a face closely resembling Alphard's and hair which cascaded elegantly over the shoulders of her pale blouse. "I must apologize for the rough journey," she said, putting the book aside. "Under the circumstances, it could not be avoided."

The assassin frowned as the night's memories began to fall into place, though she could detect no hostile intent in either Boxer or the unknown party. "Who are you?"

"My name is Fatima," the lady replied. "I believe you are... familiar with my niece."

"Alphard..."

"Such a troublesome girl," Fatima sighed. "But it serves them right for foisting her off on that clumsy mercenary."

Canaan needed more context, though the clumsy mercenary would presumably be Siam. "Them?"

"Forgive me – I forget that Alphard has not told you what is happening." The elder woman rose from her seat. "If it does not inconvenience you, may we talk outside?"

It made little difference to Canaan, but some fresh air and a stretch of the legs would be nice. "All right."

"I'll see to breakfast," Boxer volunteered.

Fatima didn't overlook the way Canaan's eyes tracked the maid as she left. "Boxer worked for me before Alphard picked her up," she explained. "It was fortunate that she did not forget her old loyalties."

Canaan followed Fatima as she rolled one of the door panes aside and stepped out into the morning sun. "What do you want with me?"

"To tell the truth, I want nothing from you," Fatima answered matter-of-factly, leading the way down a winding path lined with flat stones. "But I was not sure Alphard would come without motivation."

"Why?"

"She looks down on me." A bee wandered across the path, on its way from one flower to the next. "I own a shipping company, a property I inherited from my late husband. Alphard thinks it is... I am not sure of the right word... Unglamorous, perhaps?"

"Mm." Close enough, Canaan figured. "You want her to come here? For what?"

"To discuss an alliance." They came to a wooden bench, thinly shaded by a lemon tree, and Fatima sat down. "Against her father's family, who are attacking her."

Canaan sat as well. "What do they want?"

"It is complicated," said Fatima, watching another bee go about its work oblivious to the human onlookers. "It began with her grandfather, a man who did... shrewd business, I think I should say, with the opposing powers of the Cold War. He gathered a great sum of money, and also collected information which could be damaging to certain governments. The money was passed on to his children, but the location of his other legacy was not known until recently."

"The family wants it."

"Yes." A gust of wind rustled the lemon tree's overhanging branches. "Alphard's mother – my elder sister, that is – was our father's favorite child. According to his will, the documents would go to her if she were still living."

"And now they belong to Alphard?"

Fatima nodded. "I have renounced any claim I had, and I am sure that is the only reason they are not attacking me as well." A stray leaf wafted past her face. "Perhaps it is petty, but I do not want to see the others obtain this bequest."

"You want Alphard to have the documents."

Canaan's host shrugged. "Alphard has never shown any interest in them," said she. "She prefers her own sources."

"I see." The synesthete quietly absorbed her companion's colors for a few moments. "What happens next?"

"My niece and the angry Canadian will arrive soon. I think they are bringing your friends... After we have talked, you will be free to go."

"And then?"

Fatima rose. "Then we will see what happens."