The Fate of Shin-Osaka – Chapter 13

When Rikki strolls around the corner an hour later, my shoulders sink in relief. I don’t know, but something about him screams competence and security. He’s a big guy with broad shoulders and a sizable belly, and his gait rolls. The man wears nothing but black, and the sunglasses keep people from messing with him. I flashback to the moment I met him and the evening of dancing and sex with Rin. My stomach clenches, and I draw in a quick breath before anyone notices a change in my demeanor. That was one of the best nights of my life.

We’ve pushed back off the sidewalk into an alley, away from the security cameras. The shade is cool and quiet. Hopefully, no one has been following us. Hopefully.

Rikki tilts his head to the side as he approaches us. “Rin?”

“Oh,” Rin says, his hand lifting to his head. “Yeah, hair and glasses are my disguises today.” He clears his throat and gestures to me. “Rikki, this is Yumi’s cousin, Kara Minamoto.”

Rikki tips forward in a bow, so I bow back. When he makes eye contact with me, his smile is warm.

“You look a lot like her.” He approaches the gurney and covered coffin. “Is this her?”

Rin pulls away the sheet so Rikki can see through the window. He places his hand on the coffin. “Soon, you’ll be in your new body,” he says. I’m touched by his reverence. Swallowing through the lump in my throat is tough. He turns to us. “I saw the news. The hospital is an absolute mess. I was worried about the mission, so I’m glad you called. What’s the plan?”

“Club Seiun,” I say, leaning against the wall, “does it have a large UPN drop?”

He folds his arms over his chest. “Of course. DJs and bands own a lot of large equipment and instruments. It’s in use all the time.”

I glance at Rin, and he nods. Club Seiun is well outside of Aoi Uma’s territory. Once the body is delivered there, we’d be fine. Rikki and his staff are trustworthy.

“There’s a musical instruments store just around the block from here. Is there any chance you know the owner?”

Rikki blows air through his lips. “Kiran? Oh yeah. We go way back.” He looks at us both. “I see where you’re going with this. No problem. Let me go grease the wheels a little, and then I’ll come for you.”

Rikki crosses the street and disappears down an opposite alleyway.

Rin and I sink to the pavement and rest our backs against the wall. I check my power reserves, and they are getting dangerously low, around twenty percent. The drop has been exponential, and I fear I won’t last another hour, much less the several hours I will need to get to safety.

“Good idea to contact Rikki,” Rin says, stretching out his legs under the gurney. “I’m not sure I would’ve thought of that.”

“You would have figured out something else, I’m sure.” I sigh. “It’s been a day of improvisation. We’re doing the best we can under the circumstances.”

Rin laughs. “This is a time when I really wonder if it’s Yumi in there.” He reaches over and pokes me in the arm. “I see her in your actions and words all the time, but Yumi would’ve raged and cried over this kind of situation. You as Kara… you’re different.”

“I think it’s because, in this body, I feel in control. My memories stay with me. They don’t flitter away and die. I have strength and endurance I didn’t have before.” I shrug. “It has its good points.”

“What are the bad points?”

“I still don’t enjoy eating all that much. My programmer friend fixed that, but it’s not the same. I’m not me. I’m not Yumi. And I know you miss her, so that’s hard. Kara is who I have to be for now… And I’m running out of battery life.”

This makes him pull back. “How much do you have left?”

“About twenty percent? Actually, nineteen. It was a crazy day. Newer androids have longer battery lives, but not Model Sevens, and my particular battery health is low. The lower it gets, the faster it depletes. Yoshi, my programmer friend, offered to upgrade them, but it would have taken him a few weeks, maybe months, to requisition the parts without calling attention to our operation. I told him to just move on.” I shrug. “I probably should have considered it.”

“Weeks was time we didn’t have. It was the right call.” He takes my hand, and my heart beats at twice its standard rate. I have it bad for him. “Thank you for this.”

“For what?” I barely control the tremor in my voice.

“For Kara. For making the change and giving me the time to…”

“Heal?” I squeeze his hand in mine.

“Yeah, heal.” He closes his eyes and rests his head against the wall. “I still close my eyes at night and see her bleeding out on the pavement. I can hear her last breaths and remember the exact moment she was gone. It’s not something I’ll ever forget, even when she returns to me in her new body. But having you here makes it easier somehow.”

I blow out a relieved breath. I did the right thing, then.

“Can I ask a favor? Can you promise me something?”

He opens his eyes and smirks at me. “Depends on what you want.”

“You have a dirty mind.” I throw my head back in a laugh. “When I deplete, and it will be soon, please put me in the bed in your apartment and put my hand on the charger. I want to wake up in a familiar place.” I bob my head side-to-side. The apartment is nothing special, and I didn’t spend much time in the bedroom before this happened. But it’s better than waking up in a dark, lonely kitchen.

“That I can do.” He pauses for a second. “And it’s your apartment, too. Not just mine.”

I don’t argue because it’s pointless. That is not my place. It belongs to Rin and my ghost. He wishes Yumi was there, but she’s not. And if everything goes according to plan, she never will be.

Rin releases my hand. “What about what happened back there?” He jerks his head to the side.

“To Narumi? I’m not sure. Gen didn’t look well, either, to be honest. He was acting crazed, almost uncontrollable. But a few puzzle pieces are fitting together, based on what we saw the other night. I think… possibly… maybe the downloads to new bodies aren’t going so smoothly.”

“Yeah, you sound super confident about that.” He chuckles.

“What can I say? I have little to go on. But Yoshi had to do a lot of work to make me comfortable in this body. The Aoi Uma programmers may not be as thorough or aware of what’s happening. We’ll need to watch and see.”

I sigh and rest my head back. Is it just divine intervention, the universe coming in on our side? Or is it the work of the resistance here? Hard to say.

We wait in silence another thirty minutes before Rikki appears around the corner, a smile on his face.

“We’re all set! Get everything and follow me.”

—-

Rikki scans his chip at the music store entrance, and the door clicks open. This place is three blocks opposite the hospital, so we didn’t run into any Aoi Uma guards on the way here.

Cool air wafts over us, and I sigh in relief. It’s hot out there today. My shirt is plastered to my body, and my head sweats under the wig. Running my hand through the wig hair, I pull out the pins and take it off. Ah, thank goodness. I feel ten degrees cooler. I toss the wig onto the gurney as the door closes behind us.

The building is one big open warehouse space. Banners hang from the ceiling announcing concerts from the last three decades, and the store is sectioned off into multiple areas for each kind of instrument. There’s no one around, and most of the lights are off.

“Where is everyone?” I ask, looking side to side.

“Kiran sent everyone home early. I paid for them all to go out to dinner.”

“Thanks, man,” Rin says, nodding to Rikki. “We can cover your expenses.”

“It’s on me.” Rikki gestures to the guitars enshrined on the walls. “My buddy has owned this store for three generations. All of his ancestors were musicians. These are all pretty famous.”

I glance at the guitars as we walk past and file away the musicians’ names for later. Sometimes, I dig through the databases in my quiet moments, absorbing the Hikari culture. I used to do it when we first arrived here, and though the early months were tough, I enjoyed the hunt for knowledge. The music scene is not something I covered in my previous searches.

At the rear of the store, we take an elevator down a level to a storage facility. The UPN drop is in a room just opposite the long hallway. Trying to conserve energy, I stand back and let Rin and Rikki load the coffin into the UPN drop. Rikki uses the touchscreen to choose a destination, and with a whoosh and a rush of air, the coffin floats down and shoots off. I look over the edge of the open window to verify that it’s gone. There’s nothing but blurs of packages coming and going to all the surrounding businesses.

I have a fleeting moment when I think I should also use the UPN to get home, but it passes in a puff of air. Yoshi said I should be with someone I trust when I deplete. What happens if I’m lost in the UPN, never to be found again? Nope. No thanks. My old body is a lot more expendable than I am.

“No worries, Miss Kara. My most trusted employees are waiting for it at Club Seiun. What do you want us to do with it, then?”

I glance at Rin. He says, “Kazuo will be there soon to take care of it.”

Rikki nods. “Understood.” He dusts off his hands. “Well, now that’s done, I’m going to meet the guys at the restaurant for food and drinks. Care to join us?”

I bow to him. “Thank you so much. But I’ve had a stressful day. I think we’ll head back to Matsubara Ward.”

“Next time,” he says with an amiable smile.

I adore this man and want to reach over and squeeze him in a giant hug, but I don’t. He doesn’t know me as Yumi, and it’s too early to be so familiar.

“Absolutely. I promise.” I lay my hand over my heart.

“I look forward to it.”

We follow Rikki out through the store. When the door closes and locks behind us, Rikki salutes and heads off in search of the restaurant where everyone is meeting.

“Let’s take the butsu back to Matsubara,” Rin insists, gesturing to the right. There’s a tōsha sign there pointing to the closest ward loop. I call up the map, and it’ll be quite the haul from here.

I shake my head. “I don’t have enough power to get there if we take the butsu.”

“But the butsu is less likely to be crawling with Aoi Uma soldiers.”

I sigh. “We could find a charge point somewhere and stop, but it could be hours before I’m charged up enough to make it home. I’m sorry, but the subway is our only option unless we call a car.”

“We definitely can’t do that.” Rin looks left and right. “Okay. The subway it is.”

We both walk to the right. I check my charge level. “Shit, I’m at eight percent now. I don’t even think I’ll make it to Matsubara on the subway with what’s left.”

“Some androids have a low-charge mode that steps them down to only basic functions. Can you do that?”

I shake my head. “It won’t get me past any obstacles.”

Rin takes my hand in his and squeezes it. “I need to get rid of this gun.”

I had been so focused on our mission I forgot the disguise he’s been in this whole time — Aoi Uma gear with a large gun hanging from his side.

“I should look like I’m off duty and going home.”

We wait until pedestrians pass us and the sidewalks are clear for a few blocks. He slips into the alcove of an abandoned storefront and jumps up to place the gun on the top of the rolled-up shutter box. Backing up to check his handiwork, he nods. “No one will find that for a while until they look for it. It’s tagged, so eventually, Aoi Uma will find it and match it up with street surveillance footage. Hopefully, that’ll be days from now.”

We’re quiet as we approach the subway entrance. I access my microchip and find a throwaway identity that’s good for only a few uses, but then I stop before I can make the switch. Fuck. I’m still wearing the Inochi clothing, and there’s nothing I can do about that now. I don’t have enough charge left to go shopping, change, and then try to get out. Still, I should do something to disguise myself. I pull the pins from my hair and let down my braids. The Inochi pin comes off and into my pocket. I untuck my shirt and unbutton it to show some cleavage.

Rin glances sideways at me. “Don’t get any ideas,” I say with a smirk.

A queue of people waits to get into the station. Rin and I split up, putting a few people between us, and join everybody on the slow climb down. I crane my neck and see guards at the bottom of the stairs scanning everyone. They are doing their jobs, but several are talking and not paying attention to the crowd. It’s just a normal day for them. Terrorist attacks will probably be an everyday occurrence from here on out.

Rin makes it through and waits for me down the platform near a garbage can. We make eye contact, and he looks away to check the train schedule.

“Chip,” the guard says to me as I approach. I present my wrist, and the Inochi profile hits his screen. “Wait.” He holds up his hand to stop me. I swallow and hope to the gods that this is no big deal. “You were at the hospital today?”

“Yes, I was.” I make firm eye contact with him. “Such a tragedy.”

His eyes leave mine to examine my profile again. “The system shows you didn’t log out today.”

“Come on,” the man behind me grumbles. “The train is coming.”

I speed through everything that happened today and find a plausible excuse.

“I didn’t log out of the hospital today because the system was down, and I helped bring patients out of the building. Then I was called back to my company. I’ve been there for the last few hours.”

The station rumbles, and air rushes past us.

He looks at me again.

“Can I go?” I try to act annoyed yet casual.

He steps to the side. “Go. Next time, remember to log out.”

I walk away without saying anything. I would roll my eyes and salute if I felt a little braver, but not now. With my charge nearing five percent, the warning in my field of vision is persistent. I’ll shut down at two percent to preserve the lifetime battery capacity, and there’s nothing I can do about it.

I meet up with Rin, and we get in line to enter the train near the front of the platform. Finding two seats together, we sit, and I breathe a sigh of relief when the doors close and the train leaves.

“I’m going to sleep now,” I whisper to him. “There’s not enough energy to get me through. I’m sorry. You’ll have to carry me in. Make an excuse that I’m drunk or pregnant or something.”

I rest my head on his shoulder, close my eyes, and prepare to shut everything down.

Please. I hope this is not a giant mistake. I trust Rin to get me home, but I don’t trust the rest of the world.

I have no choice.