Page 57 of Dragon 7

Where the fuck am I?

I opened the other eye and tried to pull the room into focus. It wouldn't come fully. Edges blurred and doubled. A figure passed at the foot of my bed in white and moved on.

“This isn’t back in the day when men had a little sense and some traditional manners.” Deja kept going. "We’re in a new age, where the biggest downfall for a woman is a broke man.”

My vision was still blurry, yet getting better second by second. I felt the soft pillow under my head and turned.

A few feet away, on the cot next to mine, Zo lay flat on his back. A thin blanket was pulled up to his armpits. His mouth hung open. His blonde hair was a perfect mess across the pillow, the way only Zo could make a mess look styled. A long snore ripped out of him, climbed for a beat, and then dropped off into a soft whistle.

Oh, Zo. I hope you get to sleep through this whole war.

Warmth opened in my chest at the sight of him. Then Zo let loose another snore loud enough that one of the women across the room glanced over and shook her head with a small smile.

“We've got too many Pick-Me chicks and Wanna-be Good Girls. In this world as a woman, you have two choices for success.” Deja snapped her fingers. “Either be a Gold Digger or be about your own personal growth. The latter means. . .you're focused on your own paper, and you must decenter men."

I widened my eyes.

The room came in clearer. It was a long basement space. Low lit. Bamboo posts ran the length of it like the bones of a building turned inside out.

Cots lined both walls. Men in bandages slept on most of them. One groaned in his sleep. Another had an IV running into his arm and a nurse moving around him with quiet hands.

Facts hit my head without my understanding why.

We’re in the Bamboo Garden building. Underneath it. East side of the island.

I blinked.

How do I know that? I mean. . .I KNOW it without any doubt in my mind.

I looked in front of me.

At the far end of the space, Deja sat in a wooden chair like she was holding court at a barbershop. Twenty women had pulled cots and stools into a half circle around her. Some looked like nurses. Some wore civilian clothes. Two of them, on the outside of the circle, had pens in their hands and were writing every word Deja said into small notebooks.

Oh my God. Class is in session.

And in the holster at Deja’s hips rested her gun.

Oh, damn. She brought Betty Boop to Tokyo?

Betty Boop was Deja’s small handgun. The grip was a deep cherry red with black scrollwork curling across it. The barrel was matte black. A little red bow had been engraved into the slide near the back.

A young Japanese woman raised her hand the way a girl did in school. "Miss Deja, what does that mean? Decenter men?"

"Oh, girl." Deja leaned forward. "So decentering men from your life is definitely not about hating men. It's just that men aren't the center of your universe. Your success, career, and health is. They're not the prize. They're not the proof that you're worthy. They are not the thing you are praying and waiting for to make your life fulfilled."

The two women on the side wrote it down.

O-kay. . .how did this TED talk happen? And why wasn’t I able to register?

A deep voice sounded beside me. "How are you doing, Tora?"

I slowly turned my head and Yoichi sat on a stool by my cot. His hair was loose and shadowed half his face. The other half was lit by the lantern. His expression was unreadable.

"Yoichi." My voice came out rough. "How did I get here?"

"I brought you."

"How long have I been here?"