The factory had been abandoned long ago, but that’s not to say it wasn’t in use. One corner of its underground warehouse had even been nicknamed “the lounge.” It was the only part of the warehouse with an internet signal, and somebody had placed a sofa there, so it naturally became the designated spot for lounging. Apart from that, with no windows, no space to prep food, and a massive stash of drugs, it didn’t look like a place that’d fall into the “lounge” category.
A man called Bulldog was sitting on the sofa in that corner, drinking his favorite beverage—coffee—except that this was coffee in a can. Canned coffee had been a cultural shock for him when he’d arrived in Japan. They didn’t sell that sort of stuff in his home country. Or maybe they did, but he’d never seen it there himself. His boss had given him canned coffee in a big box when he’d said his crew could not work without coffee.
Bulldog didn’t consider himself picky when it came to food or drink, but he’d been aghast when he’d first seen canned coffee. It had an obnoxious metallic taste, and it was obvious that artificial flavoring was used to disguise just how weak the brew was. He hated it, but he still drank it because that was the only coffee he had.
While his home country was piss-poor, it was a coffee-growing region, and you could get good-quality beans cheaply. That fact alone made Bulldog think fondly of his homeland.
When he was young, his sick, bedridden grandmother told him that delicious coffee worked like magic. It could both energize and calm people… It had another effect that was not worth mentioning, but all in all, it made people happy.
The canned coffee did not make Bulldog happy. But whether all canned coffee was shit or just this particular kind his boss gave him, he didn’t know.
“Hmph.”
This was the only coffee he had, so he had to drink it, which he did quietly, thinking nostalgically about his homeland. People like him had to commit crimes to survive there, so Bulldog did just that. But eventually, his notoriety forced him to flee across the border, and since then, he’d lived in many different countries. Eventually, he wound up in a corner of Asia—Japan. And there, he plied a trade as disgraceful as the coffee he was drinking.
Apart from the coffee, though, the country wasn’t a bad place to live. The food was good, and you could find restaurants serving all sorts of cuisine, from Chinese to food from his homeland, which surprised him. Some places served the food he’d grown up with but poshed up. The people here didn’t use many spices, so everything had a Japanese twist. Maybe the chefs had to cut down on spices to cater to the locals. The ingredients were very fresh, so you could get away with less spice. Bulldog liked his food to have a fiery kick, but that was good too.
“It’s a good country.”
Bulldog’s employer was talking to someone on his PC. They were talking in English, but Bulldog’s boss was Asian. He looked decidedly Asian, and that was what he called himself, too. It was the nickname he went by. He had Japanese, Chinese, Korean, Vietnamese, plus a bit of Singaporean, Mongolian, and Scandinavian blood, and he was born on a smuggler’s boat. Assigning him a single nationality was impossible, which didn’t bother him. Asian was proud of his mixed ethnicity. All of East Eurasia was his homeland.
Bulldog admired his boss’s unshakeable self-confidence.
“It’s a good country. The demand for drugs is bottomless. It was like the market was waiting for us with arms wide open. Nobody’s defending the turf. In any other place, newcomers like us would have to fight to the death with the local gangs to carve out a piece of the market, but here? Not a single bullet fired in our direction!”
Bulldog finished his disgusting coffee and, having nothing to do, looked over at his boss’s screen. Asian was talking to a Japanese man, probably one of the yakuza, the local mafia. Or maybe it was just a gangster from a smaller organization. On second thought, it was perhaps the latter, based on how the twenty-something-year-old looked like a softy with black hair partially dyed blond.
Bulldog’s group had gotten in a massive shipment from abroad the other day, which they’d be selling to multiple customers. That gangster was probably their next buyer.
He could overhear that the gangster’s group had unique distribution routes. A small-profits, quick-returns sort of outfit, but given what they were selling, there was still plenty of money to be made. The gangster said something about herbal tea, which Bulldog didn’t understand. His field of expertise was limited to guns, killing, and coffee.
Bulldog knew he didn’t need to understand everything, though. The particulars of this deal didn’t matter. He and his crew would do what they always did: protect their employer and the goods. If everything went smoothly, they’d be paid for just being there. Easy.
“Don’t get too comfortable, Asian,” said the man on the screen. “Think about why there’s room for latecomers to move in here. I asked some clients about it, and they said larger groups always get wiped out somehow.”
“By some rival?”
“Nobody knows who’s behind it, but it doesn’t look like it’s a rival group based on how supply immediately drops. But it ain’t the cops, either—no official records of them seizing goods, no arrests. No dead bodies ever left on the scene, either. The dealers just disappear, leaving only clueless clients who hang around the trade spots like zombies. It’s really weird. Basically an urban legend at this point.”
“Are you telling me we have to watch out for superhero vigilantes or something?”
Asian laughed, and the man he was talking to joined in.
“You never know, could be. Doesn’t hurt to keep your eyes open…”
Suddenly, the man on the screen froze, and a moment later, the call got cut off. Maybe the connection died.
Bulldog picked up another can of coffee, but just as he was to pull the tab, he stopped, the hair on the back of his neck rising. Something was coming. His instinct, honed through countless brushes with death, told him that.
But who was it? A special police unit? The army? No. Their presence felt oppressive, like a cold metal club about to crush your balls. Whoever was coming was bad news.
If it wasn’t the police or the army, then who? Bulldog was drawing a blank. The enemy was unlike anything he’d faced before.
He put the coffee can on the floor and reached for his “work clothes”—full-body ballistic armor with a neck guard that looked like a giant dog collar. That was where his nickname came from. Lastly, he put on a steel mask.
“What the hell? The connection dropped… Huh? What are you doing, Bulldog?”
“Getting ready for work, Boss. You got a gun for self-protection too, right? Is it loaded? Better check now.”
While he was talking to his boss, Bulldog got his own gun, which looked like an AK-47 with a bipod attached—an RPK.
“Come on, man, no need to panic just because the internet cut out. Maybe it was a problem on the other end. Anyway—”
The lights went out.
Here they come, thought Bulldog.
Asian hurriedly grabbed a walkie-talkie to call his men outside the factory building. The blackout wouldn’t affect the walkie-talkie. But a strained expression appeared on Asian’s face as he stood there with his ear pressed to the transceiver. Bulldog knew what it meant. It was time to work. He heard gunshots upstairs.
“They don’t know who’s attacking, but they’ve taken out lots of our guys up there already… You got this, Bulldog, right?”
“No worries, Boss. You brought us to Japan to deal with this situation for you, and we will. It’s going to be fine… But how come they couldn’t tell you who’s attacking? Must’ve seen them, right?”
Asian screwed up his face.
“They did see them… Said they were girls.”
“What?”
“Cute girls, apparently.”
Bulldog wondered if his boss was high.