Fukusha Model Eight – Chapter 19

Energy ripples through this seaside town, the citizens electrified by good food, booze, and happy conversation. Walking through the streets, everyone laughs and calls to each other. A group of young adults, maybe a few years younger than me, run up to a house and knock and wait for another young adult to join them. The sound of music from loudspeakers filters down the street, an uptempo beat of drums and a flute.

I thread my arm through Rin’s and clutch him closer.

“Are you nervous?” he asks, through his mask.

“Yeah. Although I don’t have my long hair to play with anymore.”

“You obviously must grow it out then and get rid of the brown too.”

I pull back and appraise him. “Ho ho, since when do you get to tell me how to style my own hair?” I put as much attitude into the question as possible.

He laughs. “Since never, it appears. But, if you love it, keep it. I would cut my hair for you, but that’s because you have me under your spell, remember?”

I do remember that conversation on his couch. That seems like ages ago.

“I hate the hair, and I will be growing it back to what it used to be. I would’ve gone bald if it had kept me from becoming Haku’s target.” We step around a group of people drinking and talking in the middle of the street. Shun calls out to one guy, and they high five and bump shoulders amiably.

“And now it looks like he’s on your tail again,” Rin says, and I cringe. He pulls me closer to him. “What did you do to piss him off?”

“Hmmm, it could’ve been anything. Maybe because I told him I wouldn’t ever work for him. Ever. Then I yelled at him once for supplying Takahashi with drugs. The man was always fucking comatose. And then Haku would turn off the electricity on everyone to extort more money out of us, and I had just had enough. You know? I yelled at him for that too, and I threatened him with Kiiroi Yama retribution. I’m not surprised he defected over to Aoi Uma.”

I wish I had left town right then. I should’ve picked up and run.

Everything always makes sense in hindsight.

“Plus, I’m like 850,000 credits in his debt now that he owns my contract.”

“Fuck. I forgot to check on that before we went offline.” Rin looks over his shoulder before squeezing me to him again. “But this is what I love about you. You don’t just lie down and let people walk all over you. You fight back.”

I’m grateful I’m wearing the fox mask because it hides my stupid smile.

“I used to be stronger, but the memory problems have kept me from being too impulsive.” I flash back to my last migraine. Was that only yesterday? Time is expanding. “Unless you count me trying to kill Atsumi because I had been planning that for months.”

This time it’s Rin’s turn to cringe. “I thought she had come around. I trusted her too much, and it almost got you killed.” His grip on me tightens. “I’ll never forgive myself.”

“Don’t worry about it. We’ve both learned a good lesson. I’m glad you’ve left Kiiroi Yama’s employment and showed her you’re the boss of yourself. We can’t let her use us again.” Atsumi’s warning that she’ll come to kill me, though, sits back in my thoughts. We’ve provoked her, and I expect her to retaliate. Soon.

Rin nods, his eyes behind the mask searching the surrounding area. Always on alert.

Around the corner into the town center, the party is hopping. Stalls selling grilled fake meats on sticks, takoyaki octopus balls, beer and mixed drinks, tempura and rice, and an endless amount of other treats line the four sides of the open square. Men and women stand around drinking and eating. Several families have already claimed the open grassy spots underneath tall, green trees. I haven’t seen grass that green in months, and it’s a treat to lay my eyes on it now. The Southern Continent is hot and arid, especially compared to cool and windy Shin-Osaka. They must take irrigation seriously here.

My eyes scan the surrounding buildings, that itchy feeling in the back of my head warning me that we’re being watched. And we all are. Men and women, not dressed for partying, keep an eye on the crowd below. Most carry swords. Some carry guns, long, deadly looking ones I don’t know the names of. Surveying the crowds in the streets, I spot the same people patrolling around too. Whoever these people are, their security is tight and on guard.

“Come! Let’s get in line for tempura. I know how much you love it,” Saki says, waving to me.

My jaw tightens, the feelings of betrayal coming back strong.

Rin’s hand on my arm squeezes with a playful tug. “Give her another chance. She really did want to be friends before this happened. She told me as much back in Susami. I ran into her on my dog walk.” He places his hand on my lower back and pushes lightly. “Go on. Get me some too. I’m going to walk around and get the lay of the land.”

I stand and watch him walk off, blending in with the other villagers. Little boys run up to him and growl, their own masks in place. He growls back, and they scream but run alongside him. He sets his hand on one of their heads, and my heart grows two sizes.

Sigh.

Someone is going to use that surge of love I just felt against me. Someday soon.

I join Saki in line for tempura and listen as she jabbers away to an older man in front of us about the awesome food in Kitakyushu. She can talk a hundred kilometers per second, barely drawing breath. It was something I found charming about her when we first met. Now, I look at her, and I wonder about her past, her brother, her parents. What are her dreams for her future? How does Samurai Seven play into all of this? They want the destruction of the Fukusha Model Eight, but why? Why not all the androids? There must be some way to wipe them all out.

Saki’s not paying attention to me, so I continue down this path. What about the data device? Our technology at home came from Earth. We have a wealth of knowledge on the device that could be useful here. First, there’s the nanotechnology which I hope will fix whatever health problems these people have. It’s advanced technology far beyond my understanding, though I do know it fixed the empress’s friend from an almost fatal poisoning.

But I’m sure there’s more technology on the device I haven’t come across yet. Maybe there’s programming or computer viruses that could be used against the androids somehow. I bite my lip in frustration. I don’t know enough about this topic to form an opinion about what good it could do in this situation. Kazuo would know. I’ll have to find some way to talk to him tonight or tomorrow.

“What looks good to you, Yumi?” Saki asks. We’ve finally reached the front of the line.

I peer through the eyeholes of my mask at the tempura on display. New bits of vegetables and shrimp are added to the pile as we hem and haw over what to eat.

“It all looks delicious. We should get an assortment, and enough for Rin, too.”

“Three servings of assorted tempura with rice. Got any beer back there?” Saki leans over the front of the stall and the woman hands over three giant beers. “Perfect. Here.” Saki thrusts the beers at me, nearly knocking me over. “Sorry. Grab us a table over there by the temporary shrine, under the overhang.”

I follow her line of sight and see a grouping of tables next to a towering shrine laden down with flowers, fresh fruit, masks, and carved talismans. I heft the bottles of beer to the table, and Saki follows with our food on a tray. She lays out the plates for each of us.

“Oh wait!” She runs back to the stand and returns with an extra helping of tempura.

“You gonna eat all that?” I ask, grabbing a pair of chopsticks from the container on the table.

“You betcha. My stomach is practically empty.” She pulls her rabbit mask up and licks her lips. We set both of our masks aside.

“You eat like a horse. Where does it all go?” I pop open my beer and down a few gulps.

Saki stares at me for a minute. “I store it in my fake leg.”

We both burst into a hearty laugh. The men at the next table over raise their beer glasses to us.

“Well, pass that leg over because I have to burn those calories like a normal person.”

“I’ll get right on that,” she replies, digging into a slice of sweet potato tempura.

Rin joins us, setting his mask with ours and keeping his thoughts to himself. I knock my knee against his under the table, and when Saki turns to talk to someone behind her, he leans over.

“Something doesn’t feel right. I can’t put my finger on it,” he says, shrugging. The men at the table next to us stop eating to stare at us for a moment.

A shiver runs up my back, all my good cheer evaporated into the festive mood around me.

I lower my voice. “No corporations. No money. Good-looking, healthy-looking people desperate for this nanotechnology I have. It doesn’t add up.”

Rin nods, focusing on his meal. “Keep your eyes open. I’d ask you to walk around and start filming but…”

I look around and notice it too. “No one here has any electronics out.”

Transactions at the tempura cart were done by giving Grandma Endo’s name, and the woman running the stall wrote it down in a small book, a little bigger than the one I’m keeping in my bra. I reach in and pull it out, setting it to the side of my meal. I write down details about Grandma Endo, her house number, how many food carts are in the square.

“What’s the name of this town, Saki?” I ask, pausing to eat broccoli tempura. She’s shoveling rice into her mouth and washing it down with beer.

“It doesn’t have a name, and unless you run across it while you’re out and about, you won’t find it on a map either. When I said we were off the grid, I meant it.”

I dip my tempura in the soy sauce mixture and pause. “But people must know you’re here. Don’t flights come overhead? What about drones from Kiiroi Yama?”

“This is the Southern Continent. We have no concrete laws. We pay Kiiroi Yama to keep us off the maps like we used to pay Aka Matsuba. We bring in the entertainment from elsewhere, and we source our power locally as well.” She shrugs, not caring so much about the specifics.

“But, why? Why go to all the trouble?”

Saki thinks about it for a moment. “This is the way we want to live. Didn’t you say your people live like this?”

“Kind of. We have a national capitalist society with paper and electronic money and a constitutional monarchy, one in which our empress has a lot of say and puts her personal life and reputation at stake. Many towns at home live a simple life like this without the big city conveniences, but they’re still a part of our laws and political system.”

“And you all get along with no problems?”

I laugh, covering my mouth full of food with my hand. “Well, no. I wouldn’t say that. The population can become divided over anything at any time. It’s a constant state of balance and keeping everyone happy. But still, it’s not like this. We have no rogue factions split off on their own. Well, not anymore, that is.”

“Go on,” Saki prompts, obviously interested. The men at the next table over are listening now too.

“We used to have a splinter group in the South, The Kuroi Ninjas. They did what they wanted, when they wanted, to whoever got in their way. But the empress struck a deal with them that eventually led to their village being shut down and their younger generation rebelling against the older generation to become a part of the rest of the continent.”

“How did she manage that?” Rin asks, his eyes narrowed.

I wipe my mouth with a napkin. “She gave them her oldest son. He worked it out from within the ranks. They thought they’d have a chance at the throne.” I laugh, knowing the story from Koichi, the empress’s oldest son. We were friends before he went to live with the Kuroi Ninjas. He came back a different person. “They didn’t realize how persuasive he’d be. It was the end of their way of life.”

Everyone at both tables is silent. I raise my hand and smile.

“I know it sounds mercenary, but it wasn’t. Trust me. The Kuroi Ninjas were a nuisance. They caused a lot of havoc, destroyed crops and farm animals, terrorized families. They even tried to assassinate the empress once. Our planet became much safer once they were disbanded. Now their progeny teach the ways of their people in peace. It was a good outcome.”

“Wow,” Saki breathes out. “And your home is multicultural too, right?”

My chest feels empty, remembering home and how we lived. “Yeah. Lots of people from Earth were not Japanese. At home, we even speak a variety of languages. My first language is not Japanese. It’s English. My father spoke English, and my nanny did too before Kazuo took over my upbringing. And his first language is English too. We shift back and forth between English and Japanese easily.”

I would demonstrate now, but Rin’s eyes are as wide as the ocean. I don’t think I’ve ever spoken English around him, and it might send him over the edge if I do.

The men at the table next to us get up and walk away. My scalp prickles, and I’m aware that I probably spoke too much about home to be good for me.

I clear my throat. “Anyway, when’s the party getting started around here?”

Saki tilts her head and pauses. “Sounds like the parade has started on the other end of town. They’ll be here soon.”

We finish up our meal, and by the time we’re done, the drumbeat from the parade is echoing off the surrounding buildings. The festive mood intensifies as the food stalls move to the sides and everyone makes room in the town square for the arriving portable shrine and dancers. Saki, Rin, and I don our masks again and join the crowd.

“They’ll perform here for a bit and then take the portable shrine to the temple up the road.” Saki points to an adjacent road, and up along the way to the sea beyond is a red torii gate and a small temple with three pagoda roofs. “It’s been there three hundred years.”

“What’s the shrine’s deity?” Every shrine from here back to Old Japan had a deity they worshiped.

“Suijin, of course.”

The Water God. Makes sense.

The air here reminds me of the sea back home, slightly salty and rich with decaying plant life. I wonder how many people here are farmers and how many are fishermen. Looking around at the people in the square, it’s hard to tell. Everyone is dressed up for the festivities, not in their usual daily wear. If things were different, I would be interviewing them for the people back home. I’d ask them about how this festival differs from the ones they attended when they were kids. Or what’s their favorite part of the evening?

I feel like I’m missing an arm. It sucks not doing what I love.

Rin puts his arm around my waist. “You’re going to chew a hole in your lip if you’re not careful. What are you thinking about?”

“The usual.” He turns his head and waits for me to elaborate. “I wish I could do my job instead of just standing around like a useless statue.”

“Yumi, we have spent the last day and a half running from people who want to kill us. People who will catch up to us eventually, probably soon.” He scans the crowd, but so many people are wearing masks, it’s hard to tell friend from foe. “I think we should make this deal and be out of town before sunrise.”

“Where will we go next?”

“Back to Susami and then I don’t know. Shiroi Nami — we have to find them. And I’m damned sure Saki and Shun made that bargain with us in bad faith. There’s no way they have connections with Shiroi Nami. If they did, I would’ve heard about it long before now.”

I deflate, sinking into Rin’s side. “Let’s just see what happens.”

I shake off the feeling of defeat and try to summon up a good mood from nowhere. Saki and Shun join us, handing us beers, so I chug mine, hoping it’ll improve my attitude.

The portable shrine makes its entrance on the backs of thirty men. Men and women dressed in summer yukata play drums and flutes in front of and alongside the procession. Their bright smiles and raucous beats are infectious, and before long, I begin to smile and clap along with them.

The portable shrine is two stories tall and looks to be about as old as the colonization itself. The men carrying it circle around the town square, going faster and faster, the crowd cheering louder and louder.

Dozens of women and children dance along the outside, closer to the crowd. Their movements are in sync with each other, practiced and precise. I love the fans they carry and dance with, emblazoned with a wisteria family crest. Children run past waving sparklers in the air and laughing.

The energy of the crowd is infectious. Everyone seems to be having a great time like they’ve worked hard and deserve the time off. My doubts about this town and its people fade as I see their happy side. They’re just like everyone else I’ve ever known. They like to work hard and play hard too.

The portable shrine comes screaming by, but one man up front is flushed, and his breathing is labored. I tug on Rin’s sleeve and point to him just in time for the man to trip and collapse to the ground. The man behind him doesn’t act fast enough, loses his grip on the shrine, and crashes to the ground next to the fallen man.

The crowd gasps as the portable shrine tips and creaks.

“Run!” Someone in the crowd yells and waves her arms around, scattering people in all directions.

Rin and I shrink back from the towering and tipping mass as a man riding on top jumps to save himself. He hits the ground with a sickening crunch. “My legs!”

I jolt forward, pushing aside panic and fear. I need to help him!

Rin grabs me around my waist, pulling me to safety. “Stop, Yumi!”

A blur passes me as I struggle to free myself from Rin’s grip.

It’s Saki, and she’s to the man faster than a blink. She rolls over him, using her speed to grab his upper legs and lever him up over her shoulders in a move I’ve never seen before. She doesn’t even pause as she gets to her feet again and runs to safety.

Shun and four other men and women take her place. They grab the falling shrine, stop it, and heave it back up to vertical.

All of that took place in three seconds.

The crowd pauses before cheering and hugging each other, but my thoughts are tunneling down, down, down.

No one is that fast.

No one is that strong.

No human that is.

All the pieces come together. Saki never lost a fight in the ring back in Kitakyushu. She was never tired, never drunk, never hungover. She could hike for days and not be thirsty. She never feared anything. If she was bleeding or hit, she was healed the next day. Whenever she grabbed me, her grip was so strong she left bruises. Her hearing is acute, and her vision is so accurate, she could see mold growing on vegetables at the restaurant.

Fuck. My enemy has been right in front of me the whole time.

I grab Rin’s arm, my heart beating way up in my throat and the world crashing around me. He locks eyes with me, and I know he sees it too.

My voice is hard to find. “Saki is an android.”