Tokyo Stopover

While they're shopping the next day, Aila spots a Sony employee talking to a Tellus rep. "Faris, you can't let that happen!" she exclaims. Faris walks over and summarily punches the Tellus guy, then lies that the man is wanted for corporate espionage. They haul him out. Sonya takes over, figuring on pinning a few crimes on the man that'll lead to further investigation before throwing him to the police, but when she looks, she finds the man is completely clean. In fact, there's an industry convention in town and this guy, um, was interviewing for a job with Sony.

Faris leaves to wipe the Sony rep's memory of the little incident.

"So you were going to frame an innocent man," Monkey Girl asks. "No," Sonya replies. "I was going to frame a guilty man." "Just not for what he was guilty of," Monkey Girl clarifies. "Right," Sonya confirms, to which Monkey Girl comments, "Her morality goes up and down like a hooker on a trampoline."

They prod Faris into setting up an interview with Dreamsoft for this man ("He'll have to show up for his job interview," Faris jokes. "He missed the last one."), and Sonya and Jonas convince him to whistle-blow on Tellus. He was, in fact, getting out while he could because of the dirt.

Then Ambrose discovers he's got another guy using his name and face. Guess who? The others tease him about it, and wonder if Tillingtast'll hunt up Evil Ambrose. Good Ambrose has calls to make to keep control of his own identity.

Aila remains a little depressed about ambushing an innocent man. Monkey Girl reassures her. RF spots a Magadon commercial for a new line of medicine for animals that's set to ship to Red Talon-heavy areas. Wondering why that'd be airing in Japan, Sonya looks it up to discover that they're premiering the vaccine in Japan for use on endangered Japanese red wolves. Which are pretty much entirely Hakken Kin. Monkey Girl places a call to the Hakken to make sure they know; Sonya volunteers to meet with them in order to pass on everything they know about Pentex, since it's beginning to operate more heavily in Asia. The meeting will be in two days.

At the same time, RF discovers that the Tellus employee had opted out on a 'general health drug' made freely available via Tellus's health plan. Called Anagraph 45.6, it's been around since the 40s, a project of Enzo Giovanni that supposedly promoted health, vigor, and retards aging. Probably vampire blood.

The fae receive a summons from the High King in light of 'certain issues' addressed in a report he just received--in other words, the Arcadia Jar. Man, word gets around fast. Maybe it was that Boggan kinian, Fitzsimmons? Ambrose gives Jared the Astarte box.

Ambrose's credit card was used in Chicago, at a highly skeezy Chinatown black market shop that, um, deals in what we'll call "spontaneous organ donations." He gets a knock on his door at 1 AM from a MiB with an advance copy of Paradigma where "Ambrose" published a tell-all report on his myriad plagiarisms. "Do you want us to kill him?" the MiB asks. "I'm not asking the Technocracy for favors," Ambrose replies. "That's not a 'no,'" the MiB observes. He offers to frame Evil Ambrose as a Progenitor clone, to which Ambrose repeats, "I'm not asking the Technocracy for any favors." The MiB compromises by leaving a bag near the door. "Take it if you want or leave it if you don't." He leaves.

Ambrose can't resist peeking into the bag. It's, ew, cloning material: organs and tissue from Ambrose. How very morbid and alarming. Jonas, walking by to take a leak on the wall (he claims to be terrified of Japanese toilets), makes some comments and enough noise to wake up Mark, who shares Ambrose's alarm. Various others pop out, grumpy about the noise. Finished with the wall, Jonas walks in a circle and lies down in the hallway, then gets poked back up and sent to bed. RF and Aila order Ambrose to just take the bag and go to bed.

"Take the bag and go to bed," Mark repeats mockingly. "Thank you!" Ambrose tells him. "At least one of you appreciates the irrationality of what you're asking me to do!"

Aila worries over whether the circus is in Chicago, so Jared calls the city's tourist bureau and learns that it's scheduled for a show in two months. Jonas plots to spread allegations of bestiality online before it arrives.

Jonas makes a comment about cameras sucking peoples' souls. "Mine might," Ambrose realizes. "Yours might," Jonas agrees. "You be careful with that." Consideringly, Ambrose looks around then takes a picture of a nearby fern with the Nephandus-tampered cell phone. The fern does indeed wither on the spot. Ambrose squeaks. "I have to get this thing exorcised!"

Finally people get herded back to be. Mark points out that it would be dangerous to leave the bag in the hall. Ambrose takes it in and plans to leave it out in the morning. Turning to step back into his room, he comes face to face with a black-clothed man who punches him in the solar plexus, then snatches the bag and leaps for the door. Ambrose whips out his sonic pointer and assaults the man's sense of balance with it, sending the ninja or whatever toppling out the window some 12 stories to the ground. The sound wakes the Garou. RF stays with Ambrose for the rest of the night, and in the morning talks him into keeping the bag with a reminder that the Technocracy does sort of owe him a favor.

In the morning, commotion occurs on the street when a flat ninja is discovered on the sidewalk. "So why do you think the ninja tried to steal the bag?" Monkey Girl wonders. "I don't know what ninjas want," Ambrose replies. Maybe he planned to hold it ransom for the map?

They take the day to sightsee around the city. Ambrose spends most of it on the phone, sorting out his doppelganger's mess. But he keeps forgetting the phone has gone evil, so when the Adept on the other end asks, "You okay? Your phone sounds kind of staticky," he quickly borrows Aila's.

Aila sees a lot of ghosts, and while she's looking around at them, she spots a black limo with a blowgun aimed out the window at Ambrose. She shoves him out of the way. "Ow!" Ambrose exclaims. "I gotta go, somebody just tried to kill me." "Okay," the VA replies, unruffled. Sonya nabs the license plate, which is traced to the Shinjuku Corp., and Aila snags the dart, which is dipped in some kind of psychic projection drug meant to kick a person's astral self to the Wicked City. How unpleasant. "We're escorting the Lindbergh baby!" Monkey Girl declares. And it's revealed that Ambrose would rather be mocked about having a hand in a jar or soul-sucking phones than about Tillingtast.

"Before we go, I want General Tso's," Caleb pipes up, apropo of nothing.

In the evening, Ambrose is getting ready for bed when he sees the hand in the jar twitch. It waves when he pokes at it. He grabs Mark, whom it flips off, then starts making shadow puppets. "I'm getting Monkey Girl," Ambrose declares, figuring this is up her alley. In fact, it's so up her alley that it turns out Monkey Girl is the one doing it. Ambrose and Mark are very relieved.

The Garou have their meeting with the Hakken the next day. Caleb goes with them; Tim does not. They take a taxi to the meeting, which gets attacked by corrupted shapeshifting spider-people! Six of them!

Spiders swarm up the windshield and then huge pincers rip through the roof to yank the cab driver out and suck him dry. Caleb gets out, shifts, and attacks. Sonya slides into the driver's seat and runs over one with the car. The rest of the pack shifts and attacks. Aila rips a door off and wields it as a weapon, clobbering one with a door, stabbing another with the pointy misshapen shrapnel left from the clobbering, then throwing it like a warped metal discus at a third. Caleb sweeps the spider off the cab's roof and hurls it. When a spider leaps onto the back of the cab, Sonya leaps out, shifts, and drives the thing face-first into the car.

Meanwhile, at the hotel, a calm Japanese man comes to the door asking for Ambrose. Rey plays gatekeeper, amusing himself with excessive formality. "Dr. Ambrose, sir, a caller is here to see you."

Ambrose doesn't want to let the guy in. "I'd rather talk to you from there; people who come in keep trying to kill me." "And if I stay out here, I won't?" the man asks curiously. "If you stay there," Ambrose points out, "I'll have more time to run." The Japanese man threatens Ambrose's spleen, making no good impression on anyone, then tries to winnow a description of the 'shapeshifter' from him. "I told the other guy," Ambrose says apologetically (because Monkey Girl is sitting right there). "They looked Asian, had several faces, dark hair, dark eyes, good cheekbones."

When the man tries to get Ambrose to let him poke around through his memories, Ambrose categorically refuses. "I don't like having threatening people in my head." "I'm being honest about violence," the man says reasonably. "The other guy wasn't exactly subtle with his offers to negotiate a good deal with a demon for me," Ambrose points out. "I know him," the man dismisses. "He's a bit heavy-handed."

Of course the guy isn't going to get anywhere, so he starts changing shape into...a really frigging huge evil dragon! Time to run. Rey closes the door on the morphing dragon-man in the hallway. Jared bops them across the hall into the other room, then bops the whole group of them outside to a nearby alley. Tim tells them to hit it with gold. The dragon, now a full 100 and some feet long, rips out of the building to chase them. Ambrose, who habitually carries silver trinkets around, changes some of it into gold and throws it at the dragon, and they book it.

Down the street and around the corner to where they find the Garou standing in a pile of spider-bodies. Jared calls them over and turns their claws to gold, and the Garou pack attack the dragon. Ambrose, meanwhile, finds himself being assaulted by swarms of little spiders, which he tries to fend off with bug spreay. They pull back and combine into another spider-monster. He dodges the thing with a yelp; Jared traps it, Rey calls his hell hounds, Monkey Girl sets it on fire, and then Mark stabs it. The spider-monster dies. Tim laughs.

Then they need to get under cover before authorities arrive, which means making different hotel arrangements. Ambrose eradicates the evidence at the scene. The Garou still need to get to their meeting.