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South of San Francisco. Daly City.
"SO... where's this intel you mentioned?"
Wearing his floral shirt, Natsuki followed Jared through one crowded alley after another until they hit a stretch of street that had seen better days. Plenty of foot traffic, though , people dressed in styles from half a dozen different countries, shops selling everything from produce to electronics to god-knows-what. Small, but it had everything it needed.
"Relax, almost there." Jared glanced back at him with a grin.
"My old buddy can get anything."
He hadn't been the only one to walk away from the organization back then, and even through two years of drifting around as a vagrant, he'd never fully cut contact with the old crew.
Soon enough, they stopped in front of a tea shop tucked between two other storefronts.
"This is the place." Jared planted his hands on his hips, eyeing the big sacks of tea leaves stacked by the entrance.
"Oh." Natsuki looked the shabby little shop up and down. "It certainly has character."
He'd been around for nineteen thousand years. He'd run missions on planets where the locals hid their most dangerous contacts inside places exactly like this. A hidden master tucked away in a tiny shop , he'd seen that play out more times than he could count.
And the smaller the place, the safer it tended to be.
He was half-expecting Jared to knock in some kind of code.
Instead, the man walked straight up to the white wooden door and kicked it open. "Hey, old Russki — look who's here!"
The door, already half its paint gone, nearly came off its hinges. Jared didn't even flinch, just strolled inside already hollering.
The shop was simply furnished, shelves lined with teas of every kind, the air thick with the smell of dried herbs. Behind the register sat a bald man somewhere in his forties, with a bold, sprawling beard that made no apologies for itself. Rough-cut face, and the muscles filling out his white short-sleeved shirt made it clear he hadn't let himself go over the years.
"I believe I've mentioned this before," the man said, holding a small teacup with perfect calm. "You need to knock before you come in."
He was clearly of Soviet stock. And yet the way he spoke, the way he held himself , it was almost incongruously refined. Like a man who'd decided to cultivate patience somewhere along the way.
"You're saying that to a vagrant?" Jared raised an eyebrow. "Old Dem, since when did you get like this?"
The contrast threw him off. This was Demetri Andreyevich Petrov , the same man who, five years ago, had watched Godzilla tear into the MUTOs and jumped straight into that battlefield without a second thought.
"The organization has people looking for you," Demetri said, setting his cup down. His voice was low and even. "If you don't want to go back, you need to keep your head down for a while."
Unlike Jared, who'd burned every bridge on his way out, Demetri still kept quiet lines open to old friends inside. He always knew what was moving.
"Keep my head down?"
"Afraid not."
"We're planning something big." Jared jerked his thumb at Natsuki, grinning. "Something real big."
He'd already made his choice , he was in this, all the way in. Whatever came next was only going to get larger.
"You just got dragged through another Titan fight, and you want to pull off something big?" Old Dem studied him with genuine puzzlement. Had the man actually lost it?
He knew exactly how bad yesterday had been. The fact that Jared had walked out of San Francisco in one piece was already a small miracle. And now he wanted back in?
What had happened to this guy?
Last Demetri had heard, Jared had checked out completely.
"He's got weapons, intel, and connections," Jared said, not answering the question, speaking to Natsuki instead. "Getting him on board saves us a mountain of trouble down the line. The specifics? That's your call to explain."
He wasn't going to volunteer Natsuki's identity. What got said next was entirely up to Natsuki.
Natsuki paused , he'd been about to try chewing a raw tea leaf , and looked over at Old Dem, who was watching him with open skepticism.
"I'm the giant from yesterday. Member of the Space Garrison, from the Land of Light in the M78 Nebula. I'm here to help you deal with the Titan awakening crisis, and while I'm at it, drag out everyone pulling strings behind the scenes and put them away."
"That's about it."
Old Dem: "??"
He went still for two full seconds. His hand froze mid-pour, tea spilling over the rim of the cup and onto the counter. He barely noticed.
He was fairly certain Jared had lost his mind, and had brought another lunatic along for company.
Natsuki read the room. He raised one hand, and with a soft zzt, a thin stream of water shot from between his fingers, arced cleanly through the air, and landed in the empty teacup sitting beside Old Dem's elbow.
Still warm.
"What the FUCK." Old Dem stared, his mouth open.
An actual alien?
Wait. Wait. The actual giant from yesterday?
His worldview was having a very bad moment.
"So." Jared looked at Old Dem's face — that exact same stunned expression he himself had worn — and smiled. "You can spend the rest of your life in this little tea shop, going nowhere."
"Or you can join us and send those Titans and every maniac behind them flying."
This was a real shot. Up close, in the middle of it, watching Titans go down firsthand.
The teapot in Old Dem's hand started to shake. He closed his eyes.
Two voices, going at each other hard.
You've been retired this long, and you still track every move the organization makes. You really think that's just habit? You've been waiting for a chance to make those Titans pay.
Stop hesitating, you idiot. Cyka blyat. Let's go.
SMASH.
Old Dem came out of his chair in one motion, hurled the teapot at the floor, and watched it explode into shards. Tea went everywhere. He fixed both of them with a burning stare.
"You two better not be lying to me."
"Ha!"
"There he is." Jared laughed, loud and genuine. "Tell us which Titan is getting woken up next. We leave the second you do."
Old Dem looked at Natsuki like he'd just found something priceless.
He turned to Jared. "You son of a bitch. You actually brought me something good."
Two quick strides to the front door. He locked it, then waved them both toward the back.
"The organization's been reinforcing the defenses around Outpost 56," he said, already moving. "My read? The next one they wake up is the big red bird."
"Helicopter's in the warehouse out back. Let's get our things together and move."
➤ Next: Terrorist Attack
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