Chapter 7: The Gala Begins
The stretch limousine glided to a stop under the gilded porte-cochère of the Phoenix Grand, its black paint drinking the floodlights. A valet in white gloves opened the door, and the night air rolled in, warm and thick with jasmine and the distant clink of champagne glasses.
Aiko stepped out first. Her bare foot hit the red carpet, and the crowd's murmur changed. A ripple, a hush, then a rising wave of whispers as heads turned. The oil on her skin caught the lights like liquid gold, every curve of her body gleaming under the flash of cameras that were definitely not supposed to be there.
She heard Tessa's footfall behind her, the soft, deliberate slide of naked soles on carpet. Then Tessa was beside her, pale and shining, her blonde hair pinned away from her sharp face, her nipples capped and perfect. Together they walked the length of the carpet, and the whispers followed them like a wake.
"Two of them," someone said. "Who are they?"
"Investors," another voice answered. "New money. From the mainland."
Aiko kept her smile small, her chin high. She'd been naked in front of people before, hundreds of times. The exposure never bothered her. What bothered her was the weight of the cameras, the scrutiny, the sense that every eye in the crowd was measuring her for something she couldn't see.
"Nice view," Tessa murmured at her side.
"Focus."
"I'm focused. I'm also admiring the architecture."
The ballroom doors opened ahead of them, twin panels of glass and brass, and the sound of a string quartet spilled out. Inside, the chandeliers hung like frozen waterfalls, casting a warm gold wash over a crowd of hundreds. Men in black tie, women in shimmering gowns, all of them wearing the careful masks of people who had more money than taste and knew it.
Aiko scanned the room with the automatic precision of a trained eye. Exits at the four corners of the room. A balcony running along the east wall, accessible by a spiral stair. Two waiters moving with the slow, watchful gait of hired security, trying too hard to blend in. And across the room, a cluster of men standing beside a marble pillar, and at their center, a heavyset man with a silver mane and gold-rimmed sunglasses.
Hector Diaz.
Aiko touched Tessa's elbow. "There he is. Eleven o'clock."
"I see him." Tessa's voice was low, barely audible under the swell of the quartet. "Where's Tanaka?"
Aiko searched the cluster around Diaz. Men in expensive suits, women in expensive gowns. No grey-haired doctor in a lab coat, no woman who looked like the ghost in the N.A.K.E.D. files. She scanned further, across the buffet tables, past the dance floor, along the edges of the crowd.
"Not here," she said. "Or not visible."
"Keep looking."
They drifted through the crowd, two naked landmarks in a sea of jewel tones and black silk. Aiko let her gaze slide across the room, cataloguing faces, memorizing the positions of the security men, reading the subtle angles of the room's architecture. This was the part she loved, the puzzle, the slow sharpening of the mind.
A woman in a gold lamé gown broke from the crowd and moved toward them. She was tall, Latina, with long brown hair that fell in soft waves past her shoulders. Her gown clung to an athletic body, cut deep at the neckline, wide at the hips. Her face was sharp-featured, elegant, and her smile was the practiced smile of a woman who owned half of what she saw.
That was when Aiko recognized her.
Veronica Diaz.
"Good evening," Veronica said, stopping close enough that the scent of her perfume, something white and floral, reached them. "You must be the investors from the mainland. I'm Veronica. I'm so glad you could make it."
"We're glad to be here," Tessa said smoothly. "Your home is beautiful."
"Thank you. My husband is very proud of it." Veronica's eyes ran over them, slow, assessing. "And you're both, well. Very comfortable."
Aiko caught the flicker in her gaze. A code, a recognition, the ghost of a signal passing between women who knew what the other really was.
"Comfortable," Aiko repeated. "That's one word for it."
Veronica's smile widened, an invitation that was also a test. "Tell me, what brings you to Macau? The gaming tables, the skyline, or the architecture?"
"All three," Tessa said. "We're looking at properties. Resorts, mostly. The region's hospitality sector has room for the right kind of investment."
"Personal real estate or commercial?"
"Commercial, mostly." Tessa's hand swept the room, a gesture that took in the chandeliers and the crowd below. "Lately I've been drawn to properties like this one. Big footprint, high ceilings, lots of glass. They have a way of making a statement."
"Land beneath the building is the real asset," Aiko added. "Cement cost is trivial. It's the dirt that appreciates."
Veronica tilted her head, amused. "You've done your homework."
"We always do."
A waiter glided past with a tray of champagne flutes. Veronica took one, Tessa declined, Aiko took a glass and held it without drinking. The music swelled, a waltz, and a handful of couples took the floor.
"My husband runs the construction arm of the family business," Veronica said. "He'd love to tell you about the logistics of building on reclaimed land. Especially if you're funding anything."
"Funding's complicated," Tessa said. "We prefer to stay out of the papers. Quiet money, quiet returns."
"Then you've come to the right city." Veronica sipped her champagne, studying them over the rim. "Macau rewards discretion. Wealth, too, but discretion especially."
Aiko caught movement at the edge of the room. Hector Diaz was leaving the cluster of men, his arm around a young woman in a crimson dress, steering her toward a door at the far end. Aiko filed the exit in her mental map.
"Is your husband unwell?" Aiko asked, bold, watching Veronica's reaction.
Veronica followed her gaze and let out a low, musical laugh. "That's not my husband. That's his fourth guest of the evening. He owns the casinos, but he likes to gamble."
"I thought he was the family businessman."
"He is." Veronica's smile went brittle at the edges. "I'm the family's good looks. He keeps the two functions separate."
Tessa's jaw tightened almost imperceptibly. "And that works for you?"
"It works for what sacrifices my marriage requires." Veronica set her empty glass on a passing tray with a decisive click. "Speaking of which. I have something to show you two, something that might interest your portfolio. But it's not down here. It's in my private penthouse. The one above the hotel."
"We're comfortable here," Tessa said carefully.
"I'm sure you are. But this is where the real money lives." Veronica tilted her head toward a corridor behind a curtain of orchids. "Five minutes. I promise you won't regret it."
Aiko watched her. The code, the recognition, the signal lay unspoken between the three of them. A N.A.K.E.D. asset was inviting them somewhere private, away from ears, away from eyes. Aiko met Tessa's gaze and tipped her chin, just a fraction.
"Five minutes," Tessa said. "Lead the way."
Veronica turned, her gold lamé gown whispering against the marble, and started across the ballroom. She moved like someone who owned the floor, which she did. Aiko and Tessa followed in her wake, drawing gazes from every table they passed, two naked figures trailing a woman in gold.
They took the corridor behind the orchids, past a service pantry and a security desk where Veronica nodded at the two guards, who stepped aside without a word. An elevator waited at the end, its doors brass and smoked glass. Veronica pressed a keycard to the panel and the doors slid open.
"After you," she said.
The elevator hummed upward, smooth and silent. Aiko watched the numbers climb on the brass panel, her naked skin cool against the smoked glass. The oil had settled now, dry to the touch but still gleaming, still catching the light like a second skin.
The car stopped. The doors slid open onto a corridor of deep burgundy carpet and amber sconces. Veronica led them past two doors, then stopped at the third, pressing her keycard to the lock. The bolt clicked back.
She pushed the door open and stepped inside. Aiko followed, Tessa behind her. The room opened into a private penthouse, smaller than their suite but warmer, more lived in. Dark wood furniture. A wall of windows looking out over the Macau skyline. A decanter of amber liquid on a sideboard.
Veronica shut the door. The deadbolt turned with a click that was louder than it needed to be. She stood there a moment, hand still on the lock, then exhaled, long and slow, as if she'd been holding her breath since the ballroom.
"Jesus," she said. "That's always the part I hate."
She kicked off her heels. They skittered across the marble floor, one and then the other, and she reached back and unzipped her gown in a single motion. The gold lamé slid off her shoulders and pooled at her feet. She stepped out of it, hooked her thumbs into the waistband of her panties, and let them drop too.
Aiko blinked. The woman who stood before her now was a different creature. She was naked, all athletic brown skin and full, dark-nippled breasts, her body cut clean and sharp like a blade. The careful smile had gone, replaced by a plain, tired expression that made her look both younger and more dangerous.
She crossed to the sideboard, pulled a cigarette from a slim silver case, and lit it with a match. She took a drag and blew the smoke toward the ceiling.
"Sorry," she said, her voice a full register lower than it had been in the ballroom. "The hostess voice is a mask. I hate it. I hate the whole costume, the heels, the gown, the smile that says I'm charmed by another man's cigars." She gestured at herself with the cigarette. "This is the real me. The one my husband never sees."
"I noticed the change," Tessa said carefully.
"Good. Then you're observant, which is what Odette promised." She studied them, her eyes moving over Aiko's oiled body, then Tessa's. "She also promised me you'd be, you know. Nudists. Actually. That the agency was really... like this."
"It's real," Aiko said.
Veronica took another drag, her eyes moving over Aiko's oiled shoulders, down the shine of Tessa's thighs. She exhaled smoke through her nose and let the cigarette hang loose between her fingers.
"You two are unreal," she said. "I mean that. I knew what Odette was sending, but the files didn't do you justice."
Tessa inclined her head. "Before we go any further. I want to thank you. For the Female Public Nudity Law. I've worked cover in twelve countries, and I can't tell you how much I hated the part where I had to wear clothes."
Veronica laughed, a sharp, genuine sound that cracked the careful mask of the ballroom hostess. "Oh God, that. You bring that up and now I have to think about it sober."
"Was it difficult?" Aiko asked. "Passing it, I mean. The legal machinery alone."
Veronica took her time. She tapped ash into a crystal tray and looked at Aiko with an expression that was suddenly, unsettlingly frank.
"Difficult? No," she said. "It was a Tuesday. I called three people in the legislative assembly. I made two of them nervous and one of them very happy, and the bill went through committee in a week."
"Then why?" Aiko said. "Why do a thing like that if it was so easy?"
"Because I could."
Veronica crossed the room, her bare feet silent on the polished floor. She stopped at the window wall and stood there, naked, the Macau skyline glittering beyond the glass like spilled jewelry. Her reflection was a ghost of bronze and shadow, her large breasts dark against the city's lights.
"Do you know what it's like to be a trophy wife?" she said. "You go everywhere in other people's clothes. You say lines other people write. You smile at men who smell like cigars and old money, and you let them think they're looking at something they own." She pressed one palm flat against the glass. "And then one day you realize you can change a whole city. You can make it legal for every woman on the street to walk the way you've always wanted to walk. And you do it. Not because it helps the agency, not because it's good policy. Because it proves you're real."
Aiko watched her. The oil on her own skin felt suddenly heavier, like a second layer of attention.
"That's the real power," Veronica said, her voice low. "Not the casinos. Not the construction contracts. The power to tell a million people what their Tuesday looks like. Hector thinks he has that. He has a fistful of bills and a gambling habit. But I wrote a law. I decided that a woman on the street has the right to stand in the sun with nothing between her and the sky." She turned from the window. "Men like my husband count their chips. I count the faces in the crowd who don't know my name but live inside the shape of my will."
Tessa stepped closer, her grey eyes intent. "And you want something like that from us."
"I want Tanaka. And I want her alive."
"I know what you want. That's why we're here." Veronica crossed to a wall panel and pressed it. The dark glass of a display case slid aside, revealing a massive television that filled nearly the whole wall. "But Tanaka isn't in Macau."
Aiko's skin prickled. "Where is she?"
"Patience." Veronica picked up a remote from the sideboard and thumbed it. The screen bloomed to life, a flood of color and motion that made Aiko's eyes go wide.
It was a trailer for a television show. The opening shot panned across a sunlit rooftop, and then the heroine appeared, leaping between buildings in a blur of athletic grace. She was tall and lean, with dark hair and a crown of gold, and she was completely naked. Her large breasts bounced freely with each leap, her flat stomach and powerful thighs gleaming in the sun, her body a weapon of pure, uncovered power.
The title card slammed onto the screen: WONDER WOMAN: UNBOUND.
"Wait," Tessa said. "Is that..."
"The American networks premiered it last week." Veronica's voice was smug, coiled with pride. "It's already the highest-rated new show on streaming."
The trailer played on. The heroine, played by a woman with the shoulders of a swimmer and the face of a Greek statue, stood on a gold rooftop while the wind whipped past her. Below her, a city spread out, and she stood there naked, her feet bare, her breasts high and firm, her nipples dark against the glow of her skin. She grinned at a pursuing pack of men in suits and ripped a fire escape from the wall, swinging it like a lasso.
Aiko was speechless. Her mouth hung open.
"What," she managed.
"DC Comics approached me three years ago," Veronica said, tapping ash from her cigarette. "They wanted to reimagine an icon for a modern audience. They had focus groups. They had marketing decks. They had a hundred million dollars of pre-production development." She took a drag, and the smoke curled around her smile. "I walked into a boardroom in Burbank with a copy of the Macau Female Public Nudity Law, and I told them they were pigs. That their entire superheroine was a man's fantasy in a bustier, and they'd never once asked the one question that mattered."
"What question?" Tessa asked.
"What would Diana do if she had nothing to hide?"
The trailer ended. The screen cut to black, then flared with a single gold line: WONDER WOMAN: UNBOUND. STREAMING NOW.
The silence stretched.
"Tell me you're joking," Aiko said.
"Do I look like I'm joking? It's the biggest franchise launch of the decade. The studio has invested four hundred million dollars in a naked superheroine, and they're terrified it's going to collapse." Veronica stubbed out her cigarette. "So they've hired Tanaka. Not to build weapons. To build the story. She's the creative consultant on set."
Tessa went very still. "Creative consultant."
"Her bioweapon work was a cover for something else, apparently. The woman's a genuine narrative genius. She wrote the bible for the whole second season. The studio flew her out to their facility in Kuala Lumpur, and she's been there ever since." Veronica crossed to the sideboard, picked up the decanter, and poured herself a glass of amber liquid. "She's not in Macau. She's in Malaysia."
Aiko's stomach turned. "How solid is this?"
"The studio head drinks with my husband. He told me himself, over cigars, after his fourth brandy." Veronica took a sip of whiskey. "The production is on a closed lot with a weapons-grade security contract. But the premiere party is in Bangkok next week. Tanaka will be there. She never misses a premiere."
"And that's where you send us," Tessa said.
"That's where you go." Veronica set down the glass. "You want Tanaka alive. I'm giving you a window. Five days from today, at the Siam Imperial Theatre, a woman who has the power to turn a whole culture's imagination naked will walk a red carpet. You'll be there, in the crowd, oiled and bare."
Aiko looked at Tessa. Tessa's grey eyes were fixed on the blank television, her jaw set.
"A naked Wonder Woman," Aiko said slowly. "We're going to be naked at a premiere for a show about a naked superheroine who was designed by our rogue scientist."
"I'm aware of the irony," Veronica said.
"You're not aware. You're the one who made it legal." Tessa turned from the screen. "But if Tanaka's there, we'll find her. Five days is enough."
"I'll have the details sent to your suite." Veronica picked up her discarded gown and folded it over her arm. "Now, I have to get back to the gala. My husband will wonder where I've gone." She paused at the door, looked back at them, and for a moment her mask cracked into something almost wistful. "You two. Whatever you do. Don't let them put you in a costume."
She was gone. The deadbolt clicked. Aiko stood naked in the penthouse, oil-slicked and burning with the shape of the new mission, watching the dark television reflect her own gleaming body back at her.