Fukusha Model Eight – Chapter 33

The world swims around me. The street seems to jump into the air as I slam into it, and everything spins. It’s the worst case of vertigo I’ve ever had, and the constant motion takes my stomach and ejects its contents onto the pavement. Mara and Kengo are on the ground. I can’t lift my head to see anything else.

“Go!” Haku’s voice warbles through the street. Whatever he did to us didn’t affect him.

A strong pair of hands lifts me from the pavement, and I momentarily black out as the added movement sends my head spinning and my stomach tumbling again. I’m flung over a shoulder, and the person carrying me begins to run.

The bounce of his step is torture. It’s like someone has tossed me into the washing machine, and I’m being thrown around with all the clothes in a cleaning cycle. I close my good eye and breathe in so deeply, the air hits my toes. I don’t know why I think deep breaths will stop this assault on my inner ear, but I have nothing else I can try.

Time is what I need.

More voices bounce off the surrounding walls. Shouting. Yelling. Rin’s voice rises and abruptly halts.

When I open my eye again, the world is still in turmoil but not spinning anymore.

“Around the corner!” Mara’s voice reaches me as I gain enough strength to assess my situation.

From my vantage point of over the back of this man, I find I have little advantage here, except to cause harm.

I have to be fast. Once he knows I’m awake, he could dump me and hurt me. With one eye out of commission, I’ll have a hard time fighting on my feet. My depth perception is crap without two working eyes. I need to hurt him first.

Snapping my hand up, I grab a handful of his hair and pull. He cries out, and his steps falter. I jostle to the side, but the movement gives me the angle I need to wrap my other arm around his head. Slamming the bony part of my wrist into his face, I use my other hand to connect my two hands and pull his face around. We both come crashing to the ground.

It’s Haku, of course.

When he hoists himself up to standing, his nose and ear are both bleeding.

“You’re more trouble than you’re worth. And now, look. You’re half blind. I should get a discount for that.” He spits blood on the sidewalk before lunging for me again. “Give me the backpack.”

“No.” I roll away from him, rise to my knees, and try to flee when the sidewalk meets my face.

Haku laughs. “Those cochlear disruptors are so effective. I should buy more of them.” He hovers over me for a moment. “Let’s go. I’m taking you and your data, and there’s nothing you can do about it.” He raises his boot to stomp on my head, probably hoping to knock me out.

I close my eye.

This is it.

I’m done.

A loud thump and a whoosh of air precede a grunt from Haku.

I open my eye and don’t believe what I’m seeing.

Shun has Haku pinned to the street. Haku fights hard, but he’s no match for android power. Shun grabs Haku’s head, slams it into the road twice, and then violently breaks Haku’s neck.

Haku’s dead.

I burst into tears as Shun stands up, kicks Haku in the chest for good measure, and then comes to me.

“Where’s Saki?” he asks, kneeling next to me. “Have you seen her?”

My brain blanks, all my thoughts trying to catch up to what’s happening. I think this is shock —

He grabs my shirt in two fists. “Have you seen her?”

“N-no.”

He lets go of me, and I fall back to the pavement, coughing.

“Don’t touch her, Shun!” Rin rounds the corner, and though he sways like he’s had five too many beers, he still runs to me.

“I’m not going to touch her,” Shun says, annoyed, his hands raised in surrender. “I took care of that asshole, though. You could thank me for that.” He jerks his head at Haku’s dead body.

I slowly come to my feet with Rin’s help. “Thank you.” I let my guard down and throw my arms around Shun’s neck. He hesitates before hugging me back. I never expected him to save me from anything. He’s not exactly been warm and fuzzy with me in the past. When we part, he stares at the ground. I strongly suspect he’s blushing inside, even if his android body doesn’t show it.

Kengo rounds the corner with Ninjin in his arms.

“Ninjin!” I lurch forward. “Is he okay?”

“He’s a little woozy too, but he’ll be fine,” Kengo says. I’m surprised by how gentle he is with my dog.

I kiss my furry friend on the spot between his eyes.

“Where’s Kazuo? Mara and Gen?” Rin asks. He presses his eyes closed for a moment before opening them again. He’s struggling with the disorientation as much as I am. “We have to get out of here fast.”

“You can’t leave,” Shun insists, grabbing Rin’s arm. “I’m looking for Saki.”

“Then look for her.” Rin shakes off Shun’s hand. “It’s not like I’m going to forget that you were there the day we were ambushed. That you and Saki and your Samurai Seven were a complete lie.” Rin steps back, and his hand slides across his chest towards his sword over his shoulder. “I should disable you now. That’s my job, you know. I’ve killed more androids than you could count.”

Shun’s arms fall to his side. “We didn’t come to ambush you. We came to… to…”

“To what?” Rin’s hand drifts closer to his sword.

Shun sighs. “It’s no use. Saki was sure you’d side with us. But now I see you won’t. Even with all the destruction the Model Eights bring here.”

“You and Saki are spies for Aoi Uma. Who knows? I could be talking to Narumi Ogawa right now,” I say, backing away from him.

The urgency of returning to Mara and Gen tickles the back of my head, but Shun’s mouth is open in shock.

“What?” he asks, shaking his head.

“Saki is a spy,” I blurt out. “For Aoi Uma.”

“No.” He steps away from me. “You’re mad.”

“It’s true.” I increase the distance between us. “She told Aoi Uma things about me, about my time in Kitakyushu, that only she could’ve known. And you’re brother and sister. You have to be a spy, too.”

He’s stunned into temporary silence. A Kiiroi Yama drone passes overhead, kicking up dirt and trash in the street.

“Why would she do that? She hates Aoi Uma for what they did to us. I swear I’m not a spy.”

“Let’s go,” Rin says, his hand now relaxed and at my waist.

We turn away from Shun in his confusion and retreat far enough from him to be able to talk.

“Kazuo, Mara, and Gen are hiding in an abandoned store around the corner,” Kengo whispers, leading the way. He sets Ninjin down, and although my dog is a little wobbly, he shakes it off and trots at my side. “Haku didn’t have many men with him, and they were all inexperienced. Even dizzy and disoriented, we fought them off. Kazuo’s a bit bloody, but not too bad.”

I look behind us, careful not to turn my head too fast, and Shun snaps out of his thoughts to follow us. We’ll have to keep an eye on him. I doubt we can lose him now.

“Getting out of town is proving to be a lot more difficult than I thought it would be.” I round the corner back to where we just were and find Haku’s three men dead in the street, all done in by the sword. I’m impressed any of my companions killed anyone after what we went through.

We sneak along the building and enter an abandoned storefront for a convenience store half a block away from our skirmish. Inside, Mara is sitting on Gen while staring up at the news on the wall screen. Kazuo is rooting through the shelves, taking snacks and anything else useful he can find. When he sees me, he smiles and rushes over.

“Thank goodness he didn’t get very far with you.” He looks me over. “Your face is bloody. Let me find bandages for you.”

He turns, and his injury from the fight appears through a cut in his shirt, bright red, along his back.

“Find bandages for both of us.”

On the wall screens, footage from downtown Susami shows that an hour ago, Narumi Ogawa arrived, waved to the crowd, and entered an Aoi Uma building.

“She’s here, and we need to not be,” Mara says, pointing to the screen. “And Kiiroi Yama officers are all over this neighborhood, but they’re on retreat. Soon the whole place will be crawling with Model Eights.”

“You’re all totally fucked.” Gen’s hysterical laugh borders on psychosis. “Give up now.”

“Not a chance.” Mara reaches down and plucks a hair off Gen’s head. He screams in pain, and Mara’s evil smile surfaces.

“Where will you go?” Shun asks from the doorway. Mara looks past me to him, her eyebrows drawing together.

“Anywhere but here,” I respond. “Why?”

“I have nothing left.”

For a moment, I feel bad for him.

“We can’t stop the Model Eights. My friends are scattered to the winds. My sister is gone. There’s nothing I can do.”

“You can say that again,” Gen mumbles.

Ugh. I’m so tired of Gen. Why didn’t I kill him when I had the chance?

The power in the shop cuts out; the wall screens and lights turn off.

“They’re commmmmmingggg,” Gen whispers.

I’m exhausted, but it’s time to move again. Maybe this is the time we finally make it to the rendezvous point and get the hell out of there.

To where? I don’t know. Where else can we go?

Kengo edges up to the doorway. “Power’s out up and down the street. We should go. This is how they drive people out and arrest them. I saw it happen in several wards of Shin-Osaka. With the power out, the Model Eights can hear someone breathing from a half dozen blocks away, maybe more.”

“We have to get out of here before they ambush us.” Rin opens the door and waves us all through.

I’d give anything to not be on the run. My whole body hurts from the last fight I was in and now this one I just scraped through. Speaking of scrapes, blood drips down my cheek from where my face met the sidewalk. My jaw aches too. Will I ever recover from these injuries?

Mara runs up next to me. “Are you okay? You look really beat up.”

“I’m surprisingly nimble after everything I’ve been through today.”

“It might be that dose of stimulants you got before we left the hospital. I’m afraid it’ll wear off soon.”

“Probably right when I need it, too.”

The rhythmic thump of marching boots brings me to a halt. I used to say that Kay, the android from K&G Noodles, was like a metronome. Her chopping was so measured and precise, I could’ve conducted an orchestra by it.

Everyone in our party backs up. Rin angles me around so we’re back to back, and he draws his sword. Kengo hoists Gen to stand and holds a knife to his throat. Mara draws her sword and stands ready with Shun and Kazuo at her side.

We’re surrounded so quickly, we never had a chance.

The Fukusha Model Eight army reminds me of the army Narumi put together for Kurai. Most of the androids look the same, instead of different in appearance like the ones she puts up for sale. She also dresses her army in a denim and black uniform. Blue, blue, blue. Her color scheme always trumpets her corporation.

“Thank god you came!” Gen shouts before laughing with joy. “I thought you wouldn’t locate me.”

My hearing rings, and my heart speeds up. Ninjin’s leash slips in my sweaty hands. If the stimulant is going to give out, it’s not happening anytime soon.

We’re screwed, outnumbered, and on our own.

The android army shifts, and out of the crowd, a smaller woman appears.

Saki.

“I knew I’d catch up to you sooner or later!” Saki boasts, her hands on her hips. “You can’t get away from me, Miss Minamoto.”

Shun, facing the wrong way, pauses and turns, his eyes wide.

But there’s barely a gram of recognition on Saki’s face. Her eyes are solely on me. She doesn’t care about anyone else.

A moment in time slams into my memories, of Saki doubled-over right outside of her no-name village. One minute she was fine. The next she was foggy and disoriented. She didn’t know where we were or how long we had been hiking. She later said there was a dead-zone around the whole town, cutting it off from the rest of the continent.

Saki wasn’t just a spy for Aoi Uma.

Saki wasn’t Saki.

And only one person on this planet hates me enough to chase me down and try to kill me. I was right.

Saki is Narumi Ogawa.