The Fate of Shin-Osaka – Chapter 1

The wok sizzles, and water spits from the large stock pot as noodles boil. Kotashi ladles sauce on top of vegetables and flips them around so each is coated and cooked to perfection.

I inhale and process the data coming across my field of view. According to the algorithm, Kotashi is making teriyaki noodles with shrimp. The sensors in my nose can detect the scents, and my brain churns over the selected molecules in an instant, selecting the most likely choice from the database. But it’s not really teriyaki to my taste buds. I don’t have those anymore. The taste is a collection of ones and zeros and if-then statements. When the engineers at Kiiroi Yama said this android model had shortcomings, they were serious.

“Stop staring, Saki,” Kotashi calls over his shoulder without turning around and seeing me standing there. He doesn’t know me as Yumi. As far as he’s concerned, Yumi is dead, and thank the gods for that. He got Rin back. That’s all he cares about.

He knows I’m an android, though, which is why he never has anything nice to say to me. I wish we had never told him.

“Sorry,” I say, pumping my shirt a few times to cool off. I may be an android now, but that doesn’t mean I’m not programmed to act human. I get hot, I sweat, and I sneeze; I’m as lifelike as they come. More human than human. To everyone else, that is. Not to me.

I pull the elastic from my wrist and tie up my hair.

“Here.” Kotashi slides two bowls of noodles onto the counter. “Order up for table three. And when you’re done, find something to do.”

When I was a human, I would have rolled my eyes or huffed and stomped away. But my reactions register, and nothing happens. I should be annoyed by how he treats me, but the emotional governor on my system keeps me on an even keel. No bursts of anger, bouts of sadness, or moments of happiness. Just acceptance. A steady line like a heart that’s flatlined on an EKG. Don’t bother getting out the paddles to shock me back to life, though. There’s nothing here.

Out in the dining area, two tables are occupied. Table four has two men devouring a very late lunch, lost in their own worlds, eating their own meals. Table three awaits my arrival. The rest of the dining room is empty. Past the tables and the sidewalk, a never-ending stream of people rush along, back and forth, all day, every day.

I love that Matsubara Ward is always lively and active. This part of the city may be the overcrowded, low-rent district, but it has an energy I never felt in Kadoma Ward. I don’t like many things about living here, but at least it’s never quiet. Quietude just means that I think too much. Overthinking will only get me into trouble.

“Aw, this looks great. Thank you,” the man on the right says as I place the bowl in front of him. His button-down shirt is untucked, the material a thin, cornflower blue cotton that’s threadbare in some areas and shiny in others. His sleeves are rolled up to his elbows, the cuffs frayed, and the collar open to reveal a scruffy beard and dirty white undershirt. In the heat of summer, most people wear a lot less.

I freeze as I feel a hand coast over my backside.

“Hey, baby. I’ve been watching you work here for the last couple of days. Any chance you want to come home with me later?” The other man at the table looks up at me with a smirk. He smells like sweat and desperation, a hint of beer on his breath. His companion pays us no mind as he digs into his noodles.

“I am not your baby. You will remove your hand from my ass, or I will remove it from your arm.”

His smirk widens as he pulls his hand back. Instead of apologizing, his lips pinch into a kiss. I lean down and look him in the eyes.

“I could crush your larynx and bury your body before your friend even finished his noodles. Fuck off.”

All of that is true. One hundred percent.

His smile fades. His eyes dart to his friend, and the slurping of noodles suddenly becomes deafening. My hands clench into fists, and I’m tempted to remove his head with one swing.

“Eat and never come back here.”

His friend kicks him under the table. “For crying out loud, I actually like this place.”

I point to him. “You can come back. Get better friends.”

I may not have much in the way of emotions, but I can fight for myself.

Ignoring them, I gather condiment bottles and pots from each table and bring them to the corner station to refill them.

“You told them, and you did it better than me. I hate having their hands on my body,” the real Saki, what’s left of her, says in my brain.

“Yeah, I know. They never seem to stop.”

“It’s what you can expect in Matsubara. The men here have no shame.” Saki huffs, and I smile as I open the containers and set the tops aside.

“Well, no one ever hit on me in my old body like they do in this one. That must have been exhausting for you.”

“Why do you think I learned to fight?” The memory of us going to Friday night fights on the Southern Continent feels like a lifetime ago.

While I fill up condiment jars and stay out of Kotashi’s hair, I spend some time in my brain, going through my warehouse of memories. Over the last three months, since they downloaded me into this body, I’ve had the time to sit and rummage through the boxes in my head. I’m not sure what I’m looking for… Something. Some flash of understanding. A scrap of a memory — open eyes, rain. But beyond that, I don’t know.

I pick at the edge of a box, fiddle with it, run my nails along the seam, until it opens. Ah, damn. I sigh. It’s just another childhood memory of my mom talking to her cats. They loved to slink in and out of her legs while she stood in the kitchen. “That’s not true,” she said with a laugh. She covered her mouth with her hand. “Birds are not ‘asking for it.’ Please.” They had this argument whenever a cat brought home a dead bird. It should make me smile, but that’s something I rarely do anymore.

I reach out for a different box.

“Don’t touch that. It’s one of mine,” Saki says with a sigh.

“What if it’s the memory I’m looking for?” I protest.

“It’s not. It’s one of my brother.” I can’t see her, but I know she’s shuffling around the boxes. “Damn it. Why did these get left behind? It’s so annoying that I’m here at all. I shouldn’t be here.”

“Yeah, well, you are. I guess they tried to wipe you before they put me in, but it didn’t happen. I just… I really need that memory.”

“I’m looking. I promise,” she insists, and I have to believe her. “Hey, any chance you’ll do something constructive soon instead of just serving noodles and walking around?”

“Why? What’s it to you?”

She huffs. “It just seems like a waste of the android body if you’re not going to do something with it.”

“We are running out of time.”

My hearing tunes to the sidewalk outside and around the corner. That’s Kazuo, so that must mean…

“We ran out of time months ago.” Yeah, I had a feeling Rin would be there too.

“She asked that we retrieve her body, and we haven’t even stepped foot in Kadoma Ward.” Ah, Shintaro is with them.

Of these three men, only Kazuo treats me like Yumi, the woman he helped raise. Rin and Shintaro treat me like Saki — Rin out of necessity and Shintaro because he’s hoping it’s all a mistake. They’re both in denial. Only a few outside of my inner circle know the truth, the original team who put me together — Isao and Wataru, Shiroi Nami, and Okamoto. Everyone else — Aimi, Ryoko, Chiéko, Atsumi, et cetera — thinks I’m dead. I haven’t disabused them of this notion. There are certain advantages to just being Saki.

“It’s still there,” Kazuo insists. “Ryoko has been keeping tabs on it. It’s frozen in the basement of Kadoma Ward General Hospital. We can retrieve it, or at least her eggs. That’s what she wanted.”

When no one says anything, Kazuo continues. “She’s a Jane Doe, anonymous. One of many down there. But eventually, we’ll have to retrieve her because the company does audits every few months. They’ll figure out she’s an interloper and dispose of her. I’m surprised they haven’t already. There are new casualties added to their inventory every day. They’ll run out of room at the rate Aoi Uma is killing people.”

And there are a lot of casualties. Aoi Uma is now in charge of Kadoma Ward, plus most of the southern wards, and their borders expand every day. Kiiroi Yama ceased supplying them with munitions months ago, but that hasn’t stopped Aoi Uma. Citizens riot, attack strongholds and destroy property as androids show up in numbers without mercy. The population is rebelling, but Aoi Uma is too entrenched, and they don’t care what happens to the city. They would rather burn everything to the ground than give it over and surrender. No conscience. No remorse. Each day, there’s a new assault on a local Kiiroi Yama precinct, and a skirmish breaks out. Sparks burst. Smoke. Fire.

My fists clench, and I crush an almost empty soy sauce bottle without realizing it. I sigh and set it aside. I don’t know my own strength in this body. Why? Because all I do in this body is serve noodles, walk for hours and hours, or sit and stare into space, like Saki said. This incredible wonder of science is misused and neglected most days.

Rin sighs. “We could send in a team…”

“Why do you sound so hopeless?” Shintaro asks.

I’m ready to tell them to can it and move the conversation elsewhere. I’m tired of everyone working around me, but not with me. They put me in this android for a reason, right? Yet, I’ve done nothing since we moved here.

I screw the tops on the bottles and exit the restaurant onto the sidewalk.

Matsubara Ward is teeming with life, cramped, dirty, and noisy. People dressed in business and casual wear dart about the streets, some carrying packages and bags, others with nothing in their hands at all. Some are heading to work, and others are going on errands, possibly to see friends or enjoy the day. The spices of freshly cooked noodles and steamed dumplings are joined by the scents of people, perfumes and colognes, deodorants and lotions, and body odor. Sweat and sex permeate the air. Swaths of vibrant color emerge from the balconies, like a forest armed for war, the result of many days of draping wet laundry over them to dry. Several individuals gather their wash into baskets and bring them indoors. They’re expecting rain today.

Rin, Kazuo, and Shintaro probably thought they were in the clear by having their conversation three buildings away, but nothing beats my android ears.

I sidestep a shoe shop that’s spilled all the way into the street and head directly for the guys. Kazuo spots me, brings his fist to his lips, and clears his throat.

“Hi, guys,” I say, sliding into their tight circle. “Yes, it’s been too long, and we should totally do something about it. Aoi Uma is unpredictable. They could burn and bomb the hospital, and then my body, my original body, would be gone forever.”

Shintaro deflates. “I told you we were too close. No one listens to me.”

I turn and point back at the noodle shop. “Look, the restaurant was an excellent cover. Everyone thinks I’m dead, and Aoi Uma is getting overconfident because they have so little competition. I don’t want to sling noodles for jerks who touch my ass every time I bring out a new dish.”

Rin straightens his shoulders.

“So let’s get moving on to our next phase. There’s a next phase, right? You didn’t bring me back from the dead to just make me a waitress, right?”

They silently stare at me.

“Look, I know we don’t have a definitive next move, but we’ll come up with something,” I stress, looking each of them in the eye. “I’m eager to be done with all of this.”

I fold my arms over my chest and look away from Rin. He shoves his hands in his pockets, a classic guilty move.

“We don’t have to,” Kazuo assures me. “Not right now. It can wait.”

I knock my toe against his boot. “You said so yourself. We’re running out of time, and I am way out of patience. They’ll find my body and dispose of it, eventually. Probably sooner rather than later. We should get in there and grab it.”

“Okay,” Kazuo relents. “We’ll sit down and figure it out. Today,” he insists, looking at Rin and Shintaro.

“Great. When we’re done with that, we’ll need to figure out how to win a war against Aoi Uma. Should be a cakewalk, right?” They all frown. I clap my hands together and take a step back. “Evening rush is coming soon, so I’ll get back to the shop, and you all will work this out.”

“Saki,” Rin says, his tongue tripping over the name, “you’ve covered every shift for the last ten days in a row. Call in the backup help.”

“Why?”

He opens his mouth twice, his expression bewildered. “So you can take a night off?”

“Okay, let me ask again. Why? It’s not like I have anything else to do. And I don’t get tired anymore, so…” I shrug.

I haven’t slept in three months. Literally. Androids, as I have so painfully learned, don’t sleep. They have a shutdown mode, so their owners don’t get creeped out by them being awake all the time, and I only use it when I’m prompted to. I miss sleeping. A good night’s rest, soft sheets, and drowsy dreams are things I miss. I haven’t lain in a bed in three months either. If I’m not out wandering the ward, I will sit on the couch in Rin’s apartment, put my hand on the contact charger, close my eyes, and devote the hours to sifting through the boxes in my head.

I completely understand why some androids went crazy and killed. Aoi Uma hindered the internal sensory programming and installed an emotional governor on the Fukusha Model Sevens to avoid this, but they strayed too far in the opposite direction.

Rin grasps my upper arm. “Because somewhere in there is Yumi, and Yumi’s not used to this.”

I step out of his grip. “Yumi is right here, and I am used to this,” I say, stressing every word. “But I don’t want to do it forever. So, get moving. You all put me in this body.” I point my finger at them, being sure to focus on Kazuo. “Do something with it, or I want out.”

I’m halfway down the block when I hear Kazuo sigh. “She’s pissed.”

“She has every right to be,” Rin replies. “We went against her wishes. She’s in this body that’s a shell of her former self, and both Narumi and Gen will recognize Saki if they see her. We took her from one impossible situation to another.”

“You could let her back in, you know,” Kazuo growls. “I thought you had made a commitment. She adores you, and you have shut her out.”

Rin sighs. “Yeah, well, things change.”

I keep going.