Fukusha Model Eight – Chapter 36

“I never thought I’d ever come back here.”

Rin’s trying to sleep, but I’m doing an excellent job of involving him in my insomnia. I slip my arm over his chest and lay my lips on his skin. He hums as he pulls me a little closer. He might have been asleep, but he never says no to me.

After three days in migraine hell, I’m free of pain, but my sleep schedule is out of whack, and my brain won’t let me drop off. I’ve been spending my time trying to reconstruct my memories from the past few weeks — the fight and retreat from Susami especially. I crave all the details, but many remain scattered. The little notebook Kazuo gave me is almost filled to capacity. I’ll need a new one soon.

The ambient light in the room is turned to zero percent, but that doesn’t stop the planet light from Hikari shining down and into our bedroom in the Shiroi Nami compound. This place used to be a temple, much like Ryuanji Temple where we stayed when we were first rescued on Kurai. Shiroi Nami moved the monks elsewhere and converted the buildings to their compound a few decades ago. The rooms are comfortable enough, even though they lack many amenities, and we’re safe here since the outside was retrofitted with extra shielding to block the moon’s radiation.

The stark white walls and warm wood glow softly, keeping me awake. Ninjin is passed out on his fluffy bed in the corner, his snores almost like cat purrs. I need to cover the windows with dark fabric soon, or I may never sleep again.

“Neither did I,” Rin mumbles, rubbing the stubble on his chin over my short hair.

“Do you think we did the right thing? With Mara and Shien?”

Four days ago, before my migraine, Rin, Kazuo, Shintaro, Ryoko, and I slipped into Aka Matsuba’s old territory on the other side of the moon to find Shien’s body and bury it with Mara’s. It took a few hours, but with all of us shoveling, we laid them to rest next to the river where our escape pod ended up. The very same place where I fought Rin, and he left his scar on me. The escape pod was gone, probably snapped up by Aoi Uma at some point, but they left Shien to decompose in the radiation.

It was not a pretty sight. We had to cover him with a tarp.

I had always felt guilty about leaving him there, and I’m glad we could put him to rest finally.

Rin sighs, knowing he won’t get any more sleep when I’m questioning everything.

“I would’ve preferred to either bury Mara on Hikari or have her cremated, but this was the best we could do. She was a good person and fun to be around, but she was private. I have no idea if she wanted different for herself after death.”

Outside in the hallway, the clack-clack-clack of a spider-person’s legs approaches our door and then fades off into the distance. Their many limbs and eyes make them ideal guardians, but they’re the stuff of nightmares. Called kumojin by their creators, they are assigned version and identity numbers, not names. That’s the way of Shiroi Nami. They take the word for the animal their creature represents, tack on -jin to humanize them, and then turn them back into a creation by giving them numbers. Only the bat-men, tensojin, and the giant purple men, murasakijin, have names. I’ve not met a female of either.

I hold my breath and listen to it walk away. Ninjin raises his sleepy head, listens for a moment, and huffs himself back to sleep. Once it’s gone and I relax again, Rin pulls another layer of blankets over us and invites me to lay my head on his chest.

“Do the… creatures bother you?” His arms settle around me.

“Yes… no. Yes, they bother me in an ethical way I can’t put my finger on. Are they just bred for this work? Do they have their own families? Or are they only made for one purpose? How are they any different from androids, really?”

Rin rests his lips on the top of my head and inhales. “Many questions are keeping you up at night.”

“I don’t interact with any of them, except for Isao, and even then, we’ve only exchanged a few polite words.” I close my eye and draw strength from the warmth of his skin. “But I want to know more about what my family did here. I just feel… betrayed. Kazuo tried to warn me, but I was not prepared for this.”

I concentrate on the beat of his heart for a few moments before he speaks.

“There’s more to family than a name or the same DNA, Yumi. Just because some of these people are distant relations doesn’t mean you’re responsible for their actions or even that you have to side with them.” He yawns, and we both snuggle up to each other. I love this, the intimate connection I have with him. It’s what I craved all those months apart in Kitakyushu. I never want to give him up. “I consider Kotashi and Gina my family, though I’m still mad at them for the way they treated you. And you’re my family now, too, more than ever.”

“That means you’re somewhat related to my brother. I hope you understand what you’ve gotten yourself into.”

His chest shakes with laughter. “Considering he’s stopped hitting on me at every available opportunity, I think I’ll be okay.”

We’re quiet for a few moments, slipping in and out of semi-consciousness.

“Yumi,” Rin whispers.

“Mmm?”

“I, uh, have a confession to make.”

“Have you been stealing my hand cream? I wondered where it all went.”

He huffs a gentle laugh. “No. I’ve been searching through everything you brought from your planet, on the data device.”

This grabs my attention, so I prop myself up on my elbow and face him. “Go on.”

“I’ve found some things I believe will change the course of this war. For good. Back on Earth, at the time of the Environmental Decline and the rise of artificial intelligence, we invented many things that were both miraculous and detrimental to our survival.” He closes his eyes, sleep still wanting to take him away to dreamland. “Remember how many things I said came from science fiction? Such great ideas that couldn’t be realized in their own times. Many of these stories lost to our wars, or merely misplaced…”

His voice tapers off, and I hold my breath waiting for the reveal.

“I found literature about robots and androids, how they were programmed to obey and not harm humans. They were given laws, like safeguards. And I thought, this is what’s missing from Aoi Uma’s androids. Narumi Ogawa has only ever told androids what they could do, their set of operating instructions. It was something we noticed every time we got our hands on a malfunctioning android at Kiiroi Yama. There was too much room for error.”

I stretch out my arms and lay my head on them. “And this was on the data device?”

He raises his eyebrows like a shrug. “Well, I was looking for something to read.” He scoots down in the covers next to me. “I didn’t want you to worry, but I think I’ve found the one thing that can keep the androids from becoming Aoi Uma’s weapons.”

This is intriguing. I often wondered what else on the data device could be used to help us. Maybe Rin has found something?

He brushes the short hair around my temple and glides his touch over the tape holding my eye bandage in place.

“So we’re going to heal up, get your eye fixed, figure out how to be friends with Shiroi Nami, and solve this android problem once and for all.”

He draws the covers up to my shoulder and tucks it around me while I think of Saki, deactivated and sitting in the locked storeroom down the hall. Something tells me I made the right decision to bring her back.

“Let’s go to sleep and deal with the details tomorrow,” he whispers, and my eyes droop.

With all of my questions settled for the time being, I rest my hand on Rin’s arm, close my eyes, and drop off to sleep.

Yes, we’ll deal with it tomorrow.