Fukusha Model Eight – Chapter 32

Gen fights Kengo hard as Kengo escorts him to the door.

“I’m not going anywhere with you!” he shouts.

Kengo rolls his eyes. “Are you a complete idiot? Shut up, or I’m going to knock you out.”

Out the back door, I’m faced again with private gardens, alleyways, and no clue which direction to travel in. Mara and Kazuo are at the rear. Rin and I are in front with Kengo and Gen in the middle.

“Which way?” I clench Ninjin’s leash in my shaky hands and adjust my backpack on my shoulders. I have to hold on to my only assets, the tablet and the data device.

“Away from the explosions,” Rin says, looking left and right, up and down the alley. He points left.

“I’m telling you, this is a huge mistake,” Gen insists, fighting against Kengo’s hold on his bound hands. “Narumi will come for me. Even if you don’t believe that she’s, well, in love with me —”

“I’m definitely going to be sick,” I mumble, my stomach turning over at the mental image of Gen and Narumi getting it on.

“Shut up, you one-eyed freak.” Gen spits at me, and Kengo throttles Gen hard enough to snap his head back and forth. “She’ll come for me because I haven’t finished my work with her yet. Fukusha Model Eights are only the beginning.” His diatribe is insistent now, but for what purpose, I’m not sure. Is he trying to win me over? Or trying to let me know how I’ll fail?

Probably the latter.

“With scrubbed consciousness, they’ll do whatever we ask them to. No exceptions. They’re strong, and they’re willing. But Narumi’s advancements in stored consciousness are amazing. Soon, we’ll be able to store everything on a chip.”

He laughs as Kengo directs him around a corner to a street streaming with people.

“I’m using the animal translation chip from home as the starting point. From here we can go on forever. And not just ourselves, but bonded with animals too. Animal consciousness that we can store. Specialized training for other worlds.” Despite being dragged along in the street, his eyes are far away, traveling to distant planets with immortal humans and animals.

I glance down at Ninjin and wonder how much time we’ll have together. He already knows me so well. He can tell when I’m sad and need extra attention. He can handle my migraines almost as well as Rin or Kazuo. Would I want to bottle up his consciousness and put it in another dog when he dies?

The idea is tempting, but something about it feels wrong and convoluted. Clones of animals and humans, just waiting to accept their actual personalities. Where would that take us?

A flying vehicle comes screaming up the adjacent street, and we all look right and wonder who it is. Is it Kiiroi Yama? Do we even have friends there anymore? I know Rin doesn’t think we do because he grabs my arm and hustles me along faster.

“Don’t you see that this is the best way forward for our people?” Gen shouts at my back.

I slow down as I realize this has been his purpose all along.

He’s trying to sell me on the idea.

“We can take this technology and colonize the stars with it! Find other colonies from Earth and bring it to them as well. It’s evolution, Yumi. It’s the next step.”

The fervor in his eyes is fierce. It’s the look of someone who has touched God and no longer lives on the same plane as everyone else.

Past him and Kengo, Mara and Kazuo, a stream of determined people march up the street behind us. If I didn’t know better, I would assume these people were members of the same school or business, all wearing blue uniforms. But with their swinging arms in synch and eerily emotionless faces, I do know better.

I turn and move my legs double time. “We have Model Eights on our tail. They’re trying to be coy about it until they’re on top of us, but it’s them.”

Rin throws a glance over his shoulder. “I see them.”

He flexes his free hands, and a mask of quiet countenance descends over his face. This is what he trains for. Behind us, Mara and Kazuo hang back even farther, ready to pull interference should we need it.

“Did you search Gen when you brought him to the house? What if he had a tracker on him?”

Rin’s eyes dart from one building to another and his lips move as he counts people we walk past. “We disabled his wrist chip. But who knows what other trackers Aoi Uma has developed in the past six months. It could be organic for all I know.”

“We are out of our depth now.”

I glance behind again just in time to witness Kengo look away as well. Gen, aware of our distracted attention, stomps on Kengo’s foot, pulls Kengo forward, and knees him in the stomach. Kengo lets go of Gen, and Gen bolts.

“Shit.”

He disappears down an alley before Kazuo and Mara can catch up to us.

“Go around!” Rin shouts as he blazes past me. Ninjin barks and runs to the end of his leash, jerking me forward.

“Are you okay?” I ask Kengo as I run past him. He growls, straightens, and follows us.

Gen is fast for someone who can’t use his hands or arms to gain speed. He leans into his run, his hands bound behind his back, zipping in and out of people going the opposite direction.

I don’t bother to yell at him to stop. I am only a few hours out of the hospital as it is so I have to save my energy for my legs. Rin is faster than I am. He’s a few meters closer to Gen when Gen dodges to the right and hits another open street at full speed.

A flying vehicle zooms up the street from the opposite direction and turns on its lights and sirens.

“This is Kiiroi Yama!” The vehicle’s speakers boom into the street. “Halt and stay where you are!”

Everyone on the street scatters, and no one stays where they are. I laugh as I follow Gen and Rin down another alley.

Where are Kazuo and Mara?

At the end of the alley, Gen disappears in a tangle of limbs.

“Got him!” Rin cries out as he runs up to the corner of the building. When I join him, we both look upon Gen face down in the street with Kazuo’s knee in his back.

Ninjin growls, and the hair on my neck stands up. Mara and Kengo draw their swords, and the street clears except for Haku and his yakuza backups.

I have way too many enemies on this world.

“She’s mine, Rin Hara. Hand her over.” Haku’s voice thunders up the block as he approaches us and draws a gun from his waist.

“Never!” Rin calls back.

I feared our bid at freedom would end like this. There was just no way to get out of town without encountering Haku and the yakuza or Narumi and the Model Eights. Or both. This situation has turned into a scene out of a horror movie. We’re trapped, and all we can do is fight until something comes along to save us.

“I thought you’d say that,” Haku says, producing something small and black from his pocket. “This all ends now.”

He tosses the black device in the air, and the whole world tips to the side.