Fukusha Model Eight – Chapter 12

“Are you fucking kidding me?”

Maybe I’m still not right in the head after a two-day migraine and another bump on the head. Maybe I’m just seeing things.

“Of course, I’m not kidding.”

Kazuo smiles as I inspect his gift — a tiny pad of paper with an everlasting pen attached to it.

“People still make paper and pens here?” I’m amazed this exists. We use paper back on Orihimé. Plenty of books, calligraphy, and drawings exist only on paper. It’s considered old fashioned, but so many people do it because they love the tactile feel, the smell of paper, ink, and paint.

“Sure do. At least in little artisan towns like this. I saw one woman in town making silk thread from actual cocoons. Not synthetic.”

I run my thumb over the red lacquer cover embossed with a chrysanthemum motif, brush off the band holding it closed, and flip through the paper. The sheets are of excellent quality, not too thin, not too thick, and smooth. I figure the little pad is probably ten centimeters by six at most.

Kazuo sits down on the bed next to me. “I got a small one so you can keep it in your pocket or even slip it into your bra strap.” I raise my eyebrows at him. “It’s a thing I’ve seen women do. I have eyes.”

He reaches over and scratches Ninjin’s head. Ninjin hasn’t left my side in days. He knows what a migraine looks like, having seen several of them already when I had no one to help me, and he’s good at comforting me through them.

“Here’s what I want you to do. I want you to write everything down. Everything you think might be useful. Start with the stuff you want to remember, Rin’s address, your memories of Shin-Osaka, of Kurai. Work your way back to Orihimé —”

“I won’t forget Orihimé,” I interrupt, but he shrugs in response.

“You don’t know that.” He places his warm hand on my head. “I don’t want to sound like a doting father or anything, but your brain is special. You always remembered the tiniest of details, the way a person spoke, or some insignificant comment that turned out to be the key to everything.” He lets his hand come down and squeeze my shoulder. “This new development is scary. I can’t help but think the gods are trying to tell us something by taking your memories.”

“What would they tell us?”

“I don’t know,” he says, standing up. “But it’s not good. So we have to fight fire with fire.”

I swoosh the pen through the air like a rapier. “Isn’t there some saying about pens and swords?”

“There is. Now it’s time to get up, get dressed, and get on with this mission. Samurai Seven is waiting for us. Rin is too.”

“How long do I have?” I ask, holding the pen.

“Take thirty minutes.”

He leaves me to get dressed and ready to go. My legs are weak from so much time in bed, and my head still hurts, but it’s outward physical pain, not my brain trying to migrate out of my ears and eyes.

Ninjin does his duty by sitting and watching my every move.

“Are you sure you want to come with me?” I ask him. He cocks his head to the side. I remember all the long conversations my mom had with her eight cats, and how I envied that growing up. What I wouldn’t give to be able to speak with Ninjin like we do at home with our animals and the animal translation chip. I sigh as I pat him on the head. He’s not coded with the genes that would make communication possible anyway, but he’s a good dog, nonetheless.

Once my bag is packed, I sit down on the bed and take out Kazuo’s gift. I open it to the front and write my name on the first page. Man, my handwriting is poor, like childish. Oh well, I’ll have to get used to that.

I start at the beginning of my trip to Kitakyushu. Scribbling along as fast as I can, the events I conveyed to Kazuo hit the page, one after another. Sick on the ship. Sleeping in the streets. The attempted assaults. The drug dealers. The days without food. I stop and remember other more positive things. Drinks with Saki’s landlord. Koro and Akira. The Friday night fights. The food at the night market.

And then it’s time to face the music. Despite Atsumi putting me in harm’s way, I’m still at fault for getting Rin kidnapped. Two wrongs don’t make a right. I owe Rin an apology as soon as I see him. Don’t forget to do that, Yumi.

I decide to write it down. “I really screwed things up here. I was supposed to do one job, and instead, my loose lips got Rin kidnapped. I hope he forgives me. But I can’t force Rin to do anything, so if he breaks up with me after he finds out I was the one that gave him away, so be it. I’ll be… I’ll be really fucking upset is what I’ll be. I didn’t expect to lose someone I care for so quickly after finding him. But I guess it wasn’t meant to be. I’ll have to go on knowing I’m a changed person. I’m not the same hardened young woman who left Orihimé months ago. That’s about it. But I’ll let him know he can still go to Orihimé with us if he wants to. Rin’s important to me, and his happiness, after all he’s been through in his life, is paramount.”

I chew on the end of the pen and think for a moment. How open should I be with myself?

“I should tell him I love him, though I’ve never said it.”

I cross that out. That’s dumb. When did I become such a sap?

My chest flutters, and my throat closes up, trying to force tears into my eyes. No. I have to be strong now. I fell for him pretty quickly, despite my initial misgivings. If he’s pissed and wants to end this, I’m sure I can fall out of love with him just as quickly, right?

It’ll be a piece of cake, I’m sure.

Something tells me I’m deluding myself.

I write like I’m possessed by the wind. “I’ve spent the last three months wondering if Rin knew about my situation in Kitakyushu, and if he did, why he left me there. I could’ve easily died the first few days. I passed by other women and men who’d been stabbed to death. He said he’d always protect me and knowing he wasn’t there to help gutted me for a few weeks. But eventually, I told myself he probably didn’t know I was in danger. I’m glad I was right. I never trusted Atsumi. I wanted to because Rin and Okamoto trusted her. I should never have ignored my instincts. I need to remember to listen to my gut. Listen, Yumi!”

“Yumi! We have to go!” Kazuo calls up the stairs.

“Coming!”

Pressing my lips together, I concentrate hard on the events of the last few days, and there’s something important I’m forgetting. Something that Kazuo and I talked about on the way here. What was it?

Shit. I can’t remember.

I slip the notebook and pen into my bra and marvel at the insight from an older man who’s never been married and hasn’t dated a woman in years, as far as I’ve known. He is observant.

Downstairs in the main room, Shun and Saki sit cross-legged on the tatami mat floors, reading on their tablets. Kazuo is packing our backpacks, and Atsumi is in the back room yelling at someone on her tablet, her usual state of being. She fires some poor bastard, ends the call, and then stalks into the room. I’m examining my head wound in the mirror when she points at me.

“You. Come with me.”

“Uh, Atsumi, we’re about to leave,” Kazuo says, his eyebrows drawn together.

“It can wait.”

I feel like I’m being led to my slaughter as she takes me to the back room and closes the door.

“I don’t know why you bother closing the door. Everyone for three kilometers can hear you in here,” I say, leaning against the desk and crossing my arms. “What’s up?”

“What’s up is that we need to have a talk about what you’ll tell Rin and Okamoto of what happened in Kitakyushu.”

I try hard not to roll my eyes and barely succeed.

“We don’t need to talk about it. I’m going to tell them the truth about everything.”

“And you honestly think they’ll believe you? Rin has devoted his life to both Kiiroi Yama and Okamoto. He would rather die on the job than leave this all behind for a dream on some far-off world.”

My brain is fuzzy, and my memories of Shin-Osaka are buried under months of shit from Kitakyushu, but I remember a few things. I remember standing with Rin in his apartment, him telling me he didn’t belong on Hikari. He wanted a new life, and he wanted that life with me.

“When he came to tell me that this was his last mission,” she continues, “and that he was going to leave with you, I knew right then and there that this was all a whim. He would regret saying it after a day or two, and he’d be back on the job in no time.”

The memory I have snaps into a puff of smoke. My brain tries to grasp at it and fails. I swallow, my throat as dry as two-day-old toast.

She crosses her arms, looking down her nose at me. “Let me be completely clear here about something. If you tell Rin and Okamoto about… the ‘situation’ I put you in in Kitakyushu, I’ll tell Rin that you not only compromised his position, but I’ll also tell him you worked as a prostitute for the yakuza before you left. Then I’ll come and kill you with my bare hands.”

All my breath leaves my body in a puff. The more time I spend with this woman, the more I understand why she and Rin are no longer together.

Her smile takes on an evil cat-like appearance. I begin to sweat.

“You have a direct impact on me and my team of people, out in the field, doing dangerous work. If you can’t keep your mouth shut about Rin, about you, about all that data you’re holding onto, then I’m going to bury you under two meters of dirt. And don’t think I won’t. I’ve killed before, and I’ll do it again.”

She thinks she’s scaring me with her tough talk. Please. She’s like the hundredth person to threaten me in my lifetime.

“No mercy, no compassion, huh?”

She leans forward. “Not when lives are on the line.” She sighs and lets her arms loose. “Look, in better times, under different circumstances, we might have even been friends. I’d tell you that Rin is worth having, worth fighting for. We weren’t compatible, and you two are. But he’s not going with you to Orihimé. Period. You either stay here with him or you leave alone. He’s my employee, my hardest worker. I won’t allow you to endanger his life or take him away because you feel lonely and want a friend.”

Ugh. I want to die of embarrassment. She’s a bitch, but she’s right. Kazuo told me this morning that I was incoherent and vulnerable the last two days, and I believe I’ve let things slip in the last three months when I didn’t mean to. But that doesn’t excuse Atsumi’s current behavior. She doesn’t dictate orders to Rin or to me.

“He’ll never believe that blackmail you want to pull. Not in a million years.”

“Do you really want to find out?” Whenever Atsumi gets serious, her eyes darken to black pools of hatred.

I turn around and leave without being dismissed.

Does she know Rin better than I do? I haven’t seen him in three months, and I’m banking my entire future on whether he’ll believe me. But I can’t help but feel he knows Atsumi better than I do. He told me she was conniving and ruthless, that there were good reasons why they divorced.

Seems to me she thinks Kiiroi Yama is more important to him than I am.

I’m gonna guess that she’s wrong, and there’s only one way to find out.

—-

I ignore Saki for the entire walk to the Susami Loop Butsu, but I can’t take it anymore. Inside my chest, rage circles over and over, a dog chasing his tail. I’m angry they used me. I’m angry Atsumi is trying to blackmail me. I’m angry that this friendship I thought I had with Saki was fake, as fake as those androids Narumi Ogawa, the head of Aoi Uma, keeps sending after me.

“So how long have you been watching Rin?”

She walks along next to me, her eyes on the ground in front of her. She’s not talking.

Shit. Without her talking to me, my mind is wandering to awful places, places I discovered during my two-day migraine that I had no idea even existed. I imagined Rin starved and beaten. I imagined him maimed irreparably. I imagined him tortured to the point of silence. All awful, horrible things that kept me awake when I should’ve been passed out. I held back all of those thoughts on the trip to Gobo, but they came cascading out of me like a waterfall in spring once my guards were down.

“How long were you buttering me up while you held him?”

“I wasn’t buttering you up.”

I gasp in mock surprise. “She speaks!”

“I wasn’t playing with your feelings or spying on you…”

“Playing with my feelings?”

“Yeah, you seem to be hung up on that. You went on and on yesterday.”

I swallow and look away. Damn Kazuo. Why did he let her into the room with me while I was going through my migraine? I remember none of that. The last two days are a total blur.

“I had a job to do, but that doesn’t mean I didn’t enjoy hanging out and spending time together.”

“Whatever,” I say, waving at her. “We’re not dating.”

“And a good thing too because you’re dating Rin and… well, you know. Anyway, I think we’ve only had him in custody for about two weeks and been watching him a little longer. And I promise” — she covers her heart with her hand — “I knew nothing about the android copy. I told my boss your description of Rin, and then I never heard back again. So I thought that was him when he came to town, and I figured the deal had changed.”

Walking in front of us, Shun turns around and eyes Saki. “You should probably shut up now. You know Daito wouldn’t want you talking to her about any of this stuff.”

“Who’s Daito?”

“One of the bosses,” Saki says at the same time Shun says, “None of your business.”

I glance at Kazuo, and he shrugs.

Saki and I remain quiet and slow down, allowing Shun to pull out ahead of us. I think if I’m going to gain some kind of advantage here and not be an asshole about it, I’ll have to forgive Saki somewhat for what happened. If she genuinely didn’t mean to use me, if she was only doing her job, then I can at least back off the hostility enough to work with her.

Besides, after a migraine, I always feel emotionally vulnerable and slightly forgiving. This is how I fucked up in the first place. I saw Saki at work at the tail-end of a migraine, and I told her about how Rin used to help me through them and how much I missed him. I told her he was expected back in Susami from his maritime duties any day. I gushed secrets when I shouldn’t have.

At least I’m predictable.

“How do you know Shun?” I ask, trying to keep the conversation going even though I know the answer.

She laughs, looking down again. “He’s my brother.”

I glance between the two of them though I can only see the back of Shun’s head now. He’s the handsome sort, rugged good looks and a piercing gaze, but he and Saki look nothing alike.

“Really? You said you were an only child.” She shrugs, and I sigh. “I thought it was abnormal to have a large family here. Two kids is a real luxury.” I’m prodding, but she doesn’t bite.

“I keep forgetting you’re not from Hikari,” she says, changing the subject. “When we first met, I figured you were from some hick town on the Northern Continent. You kept using strange words I’d never heard before.”

I clear my throat, embarrassed I gave myself away.

“It took me a long time to kick the Orihimé speech pattern.”

“I’d like to hear more about your homeworld sometime if you’d be willing to tell me more.” Saki’s eyes lift from the ground, and she turns to me, a hopeful expression on her face.

It’s hard to be mad at her. I told her to never talk to me again, but I cave so quickly.

Still, I should try to keep things ‘on the surface.’ No more girlfriend confessions. No more sitting around, drinking saké and getting stupid. It’s not safe for any of us. Before Saki showed up about four weeks ago, I didn’t talk to anyone about home or Rin or my brother or Kazuo. The guys at the noodle shop were nice enough, and Koro hit on me once, but that was about it. Did I tell Saki Shintaro’s name? Sigh. I probably did. I have to hope he’s doing okay.

I can’t keep running around saving people left and right. I don’t own a cape. I’m not made of steel. I’m a clumsy journalist with a bad temper and a short-term memory issue… and I desperately need a vacation.

“Yeah, sure. I’d be happy to tell you more of Orihimé.”

What I want to do is pump her for more information on Rin, what they want from me for ransom, and what will happen after.

Instead, I try something different — common ground.

“But right now, I have a mission and people I have to contact. As soon as I get Rin back, I have to move on to finding the people I’ve been looking for for months. Hopefully before someone tries to stop me again.”

Saki’s face settles into a frown. “We have our mission too, and… Well, I was hoping you’d help us with it.”

I recall the video we watched out in back of the noodle shop. “The destruction of the Fukusha Model Eights?”

“Yeah.”

My journalist instincts resurface, and my brain moves into interview mode. “So, you want to tell me more about why your people need to shut them down?”

Saki looks sideways at me. “As if you don’t know?”

I laugh. “Well, personally, I don’t like any of the androids. They all creep me out. It’s been nice not dealing with them here.”

She nods, hoisting her backpack higher.

“But I’ve seen what Narumi’s mercenary androids can do.” I shudder remembering Kurai and how many times I almost died at their hands. “They are inhuman, killing machines. Rin had a Model Eight in custody a few months ago, and it passed the Doshisha Test, a violation of the treaty.”

“You know about the Doshisha Test and the treaty?”

“Yeah,” I say, shrugging my shoulders. “Rin performed the test on me, and I learned about the history of your world when I lived in Shin-Osaka. I had a lot of reading time on my hands.”

“So…” She drags out this one word. “If we asked you for help to get rid of the Model Eights?”

In my mind, I’m saying, hell yeah, sign me up. But I already have a mission, a mission that can’t wait.

“I’d be open to discussing it. But you should know I feel strongly that androids are a step in the wrong direction period. You should work on eliminating all of them, not just one model. I understand they were a good stop-gap measure when your population declined, but people with real instincts, love, and compassion are a better fit for evolution than a synthetic replacement.”

Saki looks at the ground; her silence speaks volumes.

“You don’t agree?”

She lifts her eyes to mine, and they’re sad. “Believe it or not, I agree with you.”

“Great.” I smile at her, but she turns her face away. “I’m sure we can work together then.”

Supposing I free Rin and we find Shiroi Nami, I could divide my time and efforts to also get rid of the Fukusha Model Eights. Multitasking is one of my specialties.

I glance behind me to Kazuo, but he’s looking to the rear of us as well. The road we’re on stretches far out into the distance, and we’re not the only people on it. Bicycles have passed us several times, but pedestrians far outnumber those on bikes. It’s another few kilometers to the butsu, and it appears this is a well-traveled path.

“What’s up?” I ask Kazuo, turning around and walking backwards.

“Nothing. I hope.” He lengthens his stride and catches up to Saki and me. “Let’s move a little faster. I want to stay out of sight as much as possible.”

Saki and I look at each other and shrug before running to catch up.