Thrasher kept an eye on their newly retrieved friend while Sora made a few inquiries into the damage done to the hairdressers the police had been at, discovering that – allegedly – they were the ones responsible for it. That sounded suspicious in itself, so he had them show him their proof, which came in the form of a jacket left behind and security footage.

The footage looked convincing enough to most, but Sora spotted a few oddities. The supposed raiders didn't even think of breaking windows or mirrors, just scattering their tools and such around, and while they appeared rowdy it was definitely not the kind of thing he thought the Black Guard would do.

A quick search of the jacket left behind turned up a short office memo detailing the exact events they'd just observed, under a letterhead that revealed the true culprits. At the top of the page in heavy, imposing lettering were the words, 'Tansetsu Securities – from the office of the Chairman'

After turning that up and convincing the staff of it's legitimacy, Sora absently promised them they'd do something about this and headed back outside, handing Thrasher the note.

"Them again," he snarled with contempt after glancing at it. "As if we didn't have enough to worry about."

"Who?" the girl asked, taking it off him. "Oh. Akira's corporation. Yeah, that's bad news," she agreed.

"It's not bad news girly, it's a prelude to a fight," Thrasher told her. "You know this has to be passed on to the boss, right?" he asked Sora.

"Shingle, Latissa or both?" he replied.

"Both. Along with what you did there before. How did you do that, anyway?"

"Do what? Hold fire in my hand and create ice around their feet?" Sora asked. "I didn't. And I certainly didn't do it by magic, because that doesn't exist. Does it?"

Thrasher frowned, then to the girl, "Go on. I'll look you up this evening, girly."

She winked at him and started on her way, while Thrasher put an arm around Sora and started guiding him back toward their clubhouse.

"Shade, you took the Code. Don't treat that like a question," he said, holding up his free hand. "That means what's ours is yours – within reason – and what's yours is ours. We don't cooperate and share, we're no better than them up in their metal towers."

"Don't lecture me," Sora told him. "I know that. I've got a few things that aren't from around here though, things you won't find anyone else with. What you saw back there are examples of them. I'm supposed to keep from using them just to meddle in the affairs of worlds – though that's kinda gone out the window now," he admitted. "The zombie idiots did that for me. That doesn't mean I can just suspend the rules."

"Oh, go hang the rules. The rules are what got people here into this mess. The rules are what lets the 'zombie idiots' do things like this to you and get away with it. As long as you keep to the Code, the rules happen to other people."

They walked on in silence for a time, Sora considering this in some detail before he finally asked his next question.

"Tell me something, Thrasher. Are we the good guys, or the bad guys?"

"You should already know the answer to that from both sides."

"I don't mean by our standards or the zombies," Sora said, waving a hand to dismiss that. "I mean the normal people. The ones who have to suffer under the zombies for whatever reason."

"Hard to say really. We have our sympathisers and our detractors. I doubt you'll find it hard to find someone who, however privately, hope we're on to something given how corrupt the system is. But you will find it hard to find someone who'll admit it openly – unless they're one of us."

"So that basically makes us the bad guys then?" Sora persisted.

"You can think of it that way if you really want, why?"

Sora grinned at him. "Because I've never been on that side before, and if I am it means I might as well toss out the rulebook. Bad guys always get to break the rules."

Tommy considered his options. The Embassy, supposedly for the use of visiting diplomats, was not an unfamiliar place to him, and the stately rooms he'd been locked into were a place he'd been before.

The difference was, of course, his situation. He had freedom of movement inside the suite, though they had been stripped of anything that could be used even as an improvised weapon. Were he to try to leave and enter the rest of the consulate though, he'd find there were the Inspector's trained apes waiting for him. Stepping out on the balcony was a possibility – it had been how he'd broken into the Embassy once before, following the guidance of his then-mentor Ven – but now the fake-grass lawns were littered with more of the Inspector's people.

There were still options. Ven had taught him many things, not all of which had been approved of by the leader of their gang back then. Still the Golden Lions, but the gang of that time was very different. There were always at least a good forty members, and they had their hands across the board. Members from other gangs periodically joined them, when relations went sour they could take refuge there – the old leader ensured that the gang was a safe haven for all kinds.

They negotiated agreements with others who'd have them steal for them, or carry cargoes through territories they couldn't go themselves. When other gangs didn't want to deal directly with another kind of gang, they would call on them and any of those people within who were willing to help in their place. The Golden Lions, it had often been remarked, was the Jack of all Trades.

There were windows besides the balcony, but as a matter of routine he'd already checked them and found them either too small or locked – usually both. In the ever-changing political turmoil of the Union, the Embassy was a safe haven for visiting dignitaries – and that meant keeping people out. Those same precautions also kept him in.

He could hide – the suite had any number of places for that. They would only search however, and that in turn would end up staving off the inevitable, and perhaps was even expected of him. He was not going to dance to their tune if he could help it.

So he waited, knowing that before long if he or the Alliance didn't get him out of it, he'd be obliged to speak his first words to his father in over ten years. He'd stopped talking to him at the age of four after they'd argued over his future from there on. His father had wanted him to go to a highly exclusive and expensive corporate school that would offer the very best education money could buy – but in being such a school, it was also the worst form of brainwashing. The children started there at such a young age, entering a fully corporate-controlled environment so early, that there was, he'd often since thought, no hope for anyone there.

His father had been concerned about his growing sympathies for what back then was a much smaller Alliance, before it had even picked up that generalized name. That had, of course, been the main reason he had wanted Tommy to go there, and also the main reason he had objected so vociferously.

Two weeks afterwards and after many attempts made to get him to talk to his father again, Tommy had concocted a very rudimentary plan that would get him past his father's general staff and security and out into the city, where he had hoped to find someone with better sense.

At the time it had seemed like genius. A few oversights the security team made here and there, an old note from his father's study with a few minor alterations. He'd only been stopped once, and that note got him through the incident without a problem.

It was what came next that was an issue. Since he had rarely been allowed out of the corporate skyscraper where they lived, he had a very poor idea of the city itself. He'd wandered for two days before finally giving up, lost, hungry and wondering if he'd made the right choices at all.

And then, Ven had found him. The tall blonde haired youth hadn't been looking for him, he'd been on the run from others, but in a split second he'd taken in the sorry state Tommy had been in at the time, snatched him up and got him to safety with him. Words had been exchanged later between Ven and Saban, the then-current leader of the Golden Lions, and from that point on Ven had become his mentor and tutor.

Tommy's attention was brought back to the present by a large screen set into the wall, flicking into life and showing the familiar features of Akira Tansetsu, head of the Tansetsu family, Governor of King City, CEO of the sprawling multinational security corporation that had once been nothing but the family business, and the man who had incidentally sired him.

"Father," Tommy said with cold irony. "I see you don't care to share the same room as me."

"Prudence," Akira replied, his ascetic face radiating unruffled calm. "No doubt you can understand that. I've heard quite a bit about your antics over the past few years."

"As I have yours," he replied evenly. "I understand you became city Governor. Was that by mistake, or did you just buy your way in?"

"I bought it," he shrugged, clearly having no qualms about such an admission. "Money buys everything, sooner or later. It was merely another step on the way."

"The Presidency?" Tommy said with a cruel smile. "Don't you think you're a little under qualified for that job?"

"Under qualified? My boy, have you not heard – it's one of the few top jobs that requires no previous experience. At any rate, qualification is irrelevant. I already own three quarters of the senators – I even helped get some of the elected in the first place. When the farce the nation calls an election next rolls around, I intend to put my own name in nomination-"

"And buy your way to the top," Tommy finished scathingly. "So typical. Do you really think it'll make that much difference?"

"You think it won't? You and your friends... the so-called Alliance are merely an inconvenience. A troublesome one, to be sure, but I think even you would be hard-pressed to stand against the might of the Union's military command – not to mention the recently formed Mecha corps. My own addition," he said with a hint of pride. "The first completely mechanised units are still a ways off due to issues with the AI's we've been trying to train, but our human operatives are drawn from the elite."

"How impressive," Tommy said flatly. "So you're going to bring in this metal encased bully-boys and stomp us down. People will watch you crush the rebellion for doing what they don't do only for fear of what passes for law. That's what caused us in the first place you idiot. You'll only make it worse. That's what puzzles us about you people, you know that? You think a bit of money and a show of force is all that's needed to cement your tyrannical rule, but you don't have a clue how the common folk think. You've spent so much time locked up in your tower you don't even know how to get your message across now. People see your propaganda for what it is, Father. They only continue to obey out of fear, and that's what we draw on."

"And that is exactly why I will make examples of you," Akira replied. "The thoughts of the common folk do not concern me. They are merely there to fuel my campaign. As long as they require goods, I make money. As long as I have money, the world will be mine – and what lays beyond also." Akira leaned closer and smiled, continuing, "My team is even now working on the craft you retrieved Sora from, boy. His friends, unwitting allies to my cause will soon unlock the mysteries held within, and then all the universe will be mine for the taking. Entire worlds, untouched by the hand of industry. Imagine the profits – profits you could still share in, my son."

"Forget it," he spat. "I won't be a party to spoiling other worlds like you have this one. Either let me go or do whatever you're going to do and get on with it, old man. The sight of you is starting to turn my stomach."