Flight

You slowly feel along the table with your right hand until you find a small porcelain bottle still half-full of sake. You whip it sidearm at the closest guard. The bottle soars across the room and smashes into the face of the first man, shattering into pieces. You are only a second behind the bottle, leaping up onto the table and rushing across it. While his compatriot is reeling, the other guard reacts quickly, to your frustration. Instead of going for the katana that is so prominently displayed, his hand dives inside his jacket and he pulls out a pistol. You leap off the table before he can fire at you and keep the man you hit with that sake bottle between you and the armed guard.

That man is groping for his katana and whips it out wildly when you get close. You see that he has one eye closed and blood is seeping out of it. The other is squinting and blinking rapidly, likely because of the sake. The guard swings again. You duck forward and under it then pop up, smashing the top of your head into the man’s chin. It hurts like hell but it works. The guard stumbles backward into his compatriot. You spin and take off down the hall, running as fast as you can churn your legs. You burst outside and sprint down the garden path. Your bare feet hurt when the slap into the stones of the walkway but you don't dare slow. You open you minicomp and desperately summon a taxi.

It swoops out of the sky just as you reach the end of the island. You dive inside and hear bullets impact the side of the taxi. “Remain calm,” the calm and pleasant voice of the taxi says. “Contacting police now.”

“Negative! Cancel!” You scream. The last thing you needed was for the local cops to get mixed up in this. “Override code charlie india alfa,” you say hurriedly. “Passcode ‘if you want to keep a secret, you must also hide it from yourself.’ Take me to safehouse Plum Blossom. Ignore all speed limits and traffic regulations!”

“Acknowledged.” The taxi rockets off so fast that you slam back into your seat.

“Warn me if any cars seem to be following us.” The taxi confirms your command but you don’t really think anybody will. The yakuza wouldn’t be able to get a taxi to ignore the law and they wouldn’t follow in their own car unless they didn’t want to head back to Yoshida’s penthouse. They might have come in two cars though. Still you were banking on Yoshida being more concerned with getting back home than catching you. His dossier painted him as a naturally cautious man.

Your assumptions hold true and you reach the safehouse without incident. It is a crummy apartment in a building one step above the bedrock. You step out of the taxi and command it to spend the rest of the night ignoring customers and flying around randomly in case it is being tracked. Then you enter the safehouse.