Fukusha Model Eight – Chapter 35

Another two bat-men soar in and land near us. Isao gestures to them, and they gesture back.

“Please vocalize for our dear cousin,” Isao says, turning to survey the neighborhood. The fire in the nearby building is growing stronger, but the immediate vicinity is devoid of live androids. Plenty of them litter the street, broken and silent, but none of them move.

Saki’s body sits in a lump down a few buildings away, her long braid wrapped around her neck. Is she still in there? Narumi said she pushed Saki aside in order to take over her body.

“We have to go before too many people see us. We’re already in trouble,” says one bat-man to Isao. Are they all related?

Isao laughs. “Trouble? What are they going to do to us this time?”

“I don’t think we should push Aoi Uma any further.” The bat-man shrugs. “This one?” He points at Mara and Isao nods.

“What are you doing?” I trip forward, turning my head side to side to keep everyone in sight.

“We’re retreating. You want to take this woman, right? She was your friend?” I nod, tears in my good eye. “Then we’ll take her. Hidéki will take your friend, and Wataru will take your dog.”

“Wait,” I urge him, as he approaches me.

He spreads his arms out. “I promise. We won’t hurt you. Your other allies are already on their way.”

“That’s not…” I shake my head and force a polite smile onto my face. I remember my boss, Chiéko, telling me that no matter how stressful the situation, no matter how deep the pile of shit I was in, if I smiled, I could make it better somehow.

She wasn’t wrong.

Isao cocks his head as I lead Ninjin down the block to Saki’s body. “This one. We can’t leave this one behind.”

“But this one is an android. We don’t bring androids back. It’s against the Shiroi Nami laws.”

“This one is special,” I insist, “and she’s deactivated. We need to bring her. Her brother… I don’t know what happened to him, but if he’s alive, you probably saved him too. He’s also an android.”

Isao is unconvinced, and his brothers gesture to him.

“I said to vocalize!” he yells at them.

Well, I guess they must use some kind of communication I can’t hear. Great. I’m at another disadvantage.

“The other one is dead, deactivated,” one of the brothers says, waving his hand to a vague location down the street. “Shun, right?”

I nod, a wave of sadness cresting and crashing over me. I’m drowning in a sea of regrets.

“He was attacked by several androids at once. The Nomuras will be unhappy to hear he’s gone.”

All the threads to this tapestry are unraveling as I connect warp to weft. Shun must have called in the Nomuras to engage Shiroi Nami like Rin had tried to.

“But we can’t return with an android,” Isao insists.

“Just do it!” Both brothers yell back.

Isao nods. “I can carry you both.”

Flying in the arms of a bat-like man is as terrifying as flying on a sorabō. I keep my eyes closed and my legs wrapped around Saki’s waist. Knowing how heavy Saki is, I’m both in awe and frightened by the power these beings hold.

And I’m pissed off… Just so angry at the situation I’ve been put in. Everything has been one major fuck up after another in this society since we arrived here. They destroyed their own moon. They brought their birthrate down to almost zero. They relied on androids and the luxury of animals instead of raising their own children. And now I find out, the corporation I was hoping to ally with, has been making monsters. Monsters that share the same last name with me.

I have to assume Gen got away, and if he ever finds out about this, I’m a dead woman. My whole family will be fucked. Our empress, even though she’s held a grudge in the past, is an open-minded person, yet I don’t think this is anything she’ll approve of.

Or maybe I’m being too hasty. The people of Orihimé have shunned technical advancements in the past, but we’ve done our fair share of genetic manipulation. It might not be as bad as I think it is.

There I go, questioning my gut again.

“We’re almost there,” Isao says, banking to the left. “You’re a quiet person. Not what I expected from someone who’s a journalist.”

“How do you know anything about me?” I ask, cracking open my one good eye. I’m treated to a view of Isao’s hairy chest, so I close it again.

“I’m capable of watching videos, just like anyone else.”

“Great. My reputation precedes me.”

I think Isao chuckles, but I can’t be sure. Air rushes past my ears at a deafening roar, and we drop through the sky like a brick, my stomach rising up through my throat to the back of my mouth.

I’m going to be sick again.

Isao’s wings beat hard three times and then we’re on the ground. I tumble from his arms to my hands and knees, crawl across a short expanse of grass, and puke my guts out. Not that there’s much left. It’s been a rough day.

Rolling away from the sick, I take a few shallow breaths, my eye turned to the vivid blue sky to watch the other two bring Ninjin and Mara back down to earth. These wonders of genetic engineering are both beautiful and terrifying, and I know deep in my heart they are the results of Minamotos.

Only twisted people from my family could do something like this. And I thought Narumi Ogawa was my enemy?

Isao leaves Saki in a lump on the ground and steps forward to offer me a hand up.

“Did I land too fast for you?” By the quirk of his lips, I can tell he’s amused by my lack of constitution.

“At least you’re human enough for me to tell you’re being sarcastic,” I say, taking his hand and standing. I’m a little dizzy and shaky, but at least I avoided any bloody injuries of my own.

“I’m human in more ways than you think.”

I don’t want to know what that means.

“Yumi!”

Rin sprints across the lawn we’ve landed on. I force my feet to move, open my arms, and collide with him in a fierce hug. My feet leave the ground, and he swings me around, but this time I’m happy to be aloft in the arms of someone I love, someone who doesn’t want to hurt me. I bury my face in his neck and squeeze extra tight before letting out a satisfied sigh.

“I’m so glad you’re okay,” he whispers against my ear. “I didn’t want to leave you behind, but they promised they’d get you right away.”

Thank goodness for a speedy retreat. I flashback to the fight, the creatures with multiple arms, the giant centipede-like bugs, the huge purple men. Who knows what other things entered the fight, and I hadn’t seen them yet?

“That was the scariest thing I have ever been through. Worse than crash landing on Kurai.”

“Worse than almost being sold into prostitution?”

“Shit,” I say, laughing and squeezing him harder. “My life is one horrifying event after another.”

He lets me go, settling me gently onto my feet, and holds my shaved head between his strong hands.

Then his eyes register the rest of me. He holds my hands in his and tips them up to see the blood there.

“It’s not mine,” I push out through the lump in my throat. I pull my right hand from his and touch the strap of Mara’s sword across my chest. Rin’s eyes dull and fade as he spots one of the winged men stride forward with Mara’s body.

“How did she die?”

I lift my chin. “In the line of duty. It was an android, and she was overwhelmed, and brave, and she was… She told me she has no family.” I don’t tell him the other things she said. I keep those in my heart for later.

We’re interrupted when Ninjin runs up to us, barking and jumping, showing off his happy doggie personality. I kneel to hug him and hold him still while Rin approaches Hidéki. He takes Mara’s body from the giant beast, and cradling her against his chest, he carries her to the house in the distance with tears in his eyes.

—-

I shuffle my feet along behind Isao, Wataru, and Hidéki. I’m weighed down by death and loss, things I don’t want to acknowledge or even think about. How did everything get so out of hand?

All I want to do is go home. I’d even be happy to be back at Rin’s place. I imagine myself in his deep bath. Then I look down at my bloodied hands, and I know I’ll never wash it off enough to not think of it again. Ayamé, Saki, and now Mara. Gone.

Inside the house, I’m met by a flurry of activity. In the usual place I expect to see a living room, four men and women surround a tōsha projection of the streets of Susami much like the projection I witnessed at the Kiiroi Yama headquarters when I visited Rin there. Animated representations of the creatures and humans still fighting in Susami clutter the streets and buildings of the projection. The men and women direct drones through the sky to catalog blue dots, the enemy, who continue to fight. They call out locations and numbers of assailants to their contacts, and the models on the projection react. It’s a well-practiced dance I didn’t know Shiroi Nami was capable of.

It looks like, despite the genetic aberrations I witnessed today, I chose the right ally.

Several people in a group at the far end of the room pause their discussion to turn and stare at me. I recognize Reina first, and I raise my hand in a half-hearted wave. Then the other people become familiar as well — Michio Hayashi, the leader of Shiroi Nami, Daito and Miho Nomura, and finally, Sayaka, our old contact from Aka Matsuba.

Reina circles around the others and approaches me. “Are you injured? We have a clinic set up in another room. Your friend, Kazuo, is there now.”

“Is he okay?” I had been numb, but now my heart is alive with panic.

“He’ll live.” She shakes her head with a smile. “These men you brought from your homeworld are quite interesting. He fights like he was born to do it. He only had a few wounds that needed stitching up, but he twisted an ankle and broke his left arm.”

I hiss at Kazuo’s pain.

Did she say… “Men?” I ask, pushing through my confusion. My brain is so battered, it feels like a lump of mud.

“Your brother is here, and the other woman, Ryoko, as well. I’m sorry we can’t locate everyone from your mission. But Rin knew where these people were, and we were able to fetch them earlier this morning.”

I blink my eye a few times, trying to put the puzzle together. My thoughts are fuzzy. Rin had gone to the waitress at the café to contact Shiroi Nami, but he hadn’t heard anything since then. Right? Only memories of the fight occupy my brain now, and the mass of gray matter in my head pounds with steady pain.

Reina presses her lips together and tilts her head to the side, a motherly gesture I haven’t seen in months.

“Once we get back to Kurai, we’ll fix your eye. Why don’t you go spend time with your family?” Her eyes linger on my backpack. I’m sure she wants my tablet and the data device. I’m lucky no one wrestled them away from me.

“Kurai? We’re going back to Kurai?”

She shrugs. “I’m afraid the Southern Continent is a total loss between Aoi Uma and the yakuza. We had a feeling our time here would be limited, so we never moved back fully. It appears it was one of our better decisions.” A person at the Susami projection calls Reina over, so she dismisses herself with a quick bow.

My body refuses to move as my emotions drown in hopelessness, despair clawing at my feet and drawing me under. Everything is lost. We gained nothing. Where do we go from here?

I should find this clinic so I can check in with Kazuo and see my brother. It’s been months since we last talked, and I’m desperate for a little home.

But I veer off the path on my way into the house, find a bathroom, and lock myself and Ninjin inside. Choosing the quietest and cleanest corner of the bathroom, I haul my broken body into the dry tub, bring Ninjin in with me, and sob into his coat until I have nothing left.