The Fate of Shin-Osaka – Chapter 25

This was such a bad idea.

I close my eyes and count the moments until we’re free of this cold, dark place. The truck rocks side to side and speeds up, so we must be past the bridge at the halfway point. It’s another twenty minutes to the shore from there.

Rin’s hand grasps my leg tighter. Shivers wrack his body and vibrate the few centimeters of skin we have touching. I raise my body temperature to accommodate him. I can turn off the temperature variables of my consciousness so as not to be affected by the bed of ice in the containers above us. Rin is not so lucky. Neither are Kazuo, Aimi, and Ryoko following in another truck. Sanaa is in the lead truck; her face not as famous here as ours are. She won’t live in blissful anonymity for long, but we might as well take advantage of it now.

“Not much longer,” I whisper to Rin.

He hums back. Despite the layer of clothes, the gloves, and the hat, he’ll be a popsicle by the time we get there.

“It wasn’t our best idea.”

“It was actually our best idea,” he says through chattering teeth, “but the execution of it may send someone to the hospital for frostbite.”

As we planned, Rin and Aimi convinced a few fishermen to bring us out to their boats in the port city of Kurobé. It wasn’t hard. As soon as we tell people we’re against Aoi Uma, they’ll do just about anything for us. A promising sign we’re in the right.

“I’ll turn up my heating by five more degrees.” I access the system, and it gives me a warning. Exceeding forty-five degrees Celsius may cause increased battery failure and water depletion. I’m not to exceed forty-five degrees for over ten minutes. Well, it will have to do. I override the setting, and my battery charge ticks down a percentage point from seventy-five to seventy-four… and another. I dismiss the information before I obsess over it.

It’ll be fine. I’m sure of it. I’ve run my battery down to nothing on several occasions, and I’m still here.

Yep. This is what I’ll keep telling myself.

Because hopefully after today, it won’t matter, anyway.

“Mmmm, warm,” Rin mumbles as he turns on his side and presses up against me. I lie perfectly still. If I close my eyes and spend the time sorting through memories, this will be over before I know it.

Twenty minutes later, I’m convinced that the ability to ‘let time fly’ as a human is the greatest gift the universe ever gave them.

The truck stops, the doors open, and we’re let out. I lower my temperature and recheck my battery charge. Fifty-one percent. Ouch. I hope it’s enough.

The man who drove here hands a metallic blanket to each of us, meant to warm us up quickly. I wrap it around my shoulders even though I don’t need it. Rin’s lips are blue.

I look around and find we’re in the back of a warehouse, parked far from the docks. The area is a maze of bins and boxes. They’re stacked in haphazard, careless stacks. Metal clanks against metal as wind chimes worship the sky with their tunes. The air smells of fish, oil, and salt. Heavy, smothering, and humid. Like the inside of a greenhouse. Summer near the shore is always pungent. The sun is rising, but it’s still too early for anyone to have seen us arrive.

“Most of the boats are already gone for the day,” the driver explains.

“Won’t it be suspicious that you’re later?”

He waves away my concern. “Nope. We fish in shifts. More trucks will arrive soon. I’ve gotta get this truck filled with the night shift’s catch.”

Sanaa approaches, adjusting her backpack. “You all okay? We got here as quickly as possible.”

“Fine,” I say as the other truck rounds the corner and approaches.

The back doors open as soon as it comes to a stop. I reach in and lift the latch to the storage area under the ice. Kazuo has his arms around both Aimi and Ryoko.

“It’s not what it looks like,” he says, teeth chattering.

We laugh. “Of course not,” Rin says, his smirk returning. Kazuo releases his arms, and they all climb out from the back. Rin shakes out his shoulders and hands the blanket over to Kazuo. Aimi looks away, and I wonder… Hmmm. They spent time together recently. Maybe they have a thing going? Eh, no. No way.

Turn your thoughts elsewhere, Yumi.

“Here,” I say, handing my blanket to Ryoko.

We take a moment to warm up and let the shivers subside. Kazuo jumps in place and blows air into his hands.

“Well, we made it past the checkpoints, and no one stopped us,” Sanaa reports. “Now, it’s an hour up the coast to our destination, then another two-hour hike inland. Is everyone ready?”

Ryoko grabs backpacks from the truck and hands them over to Aimi and Kazuo. Aimi, Rin, and Kazuo grab their swords. We’re all armed somehow, so this is it.

“Ready as we’ll ever be.”

Rin and I follow behind, but as I’m approaching the dock, a message from Isao pops up in my inbox.

“We’re waiting and on standby. The GPS coordinates confirm you’ve made it to your destination. Please let us know when you’re ready.”

As we approach the dock, I flag down the captain of the ship we’re traveling on. The captain’s a grizzled old man with gray hair and years of experience etched into his face. His eyes are bright, his skin brown and wrinkled from the sun. He nods to us and wipes his hands on a towel.

“Hi there,” I say, reaching out to shake his worn, calloused hand. “Thanks for giving us a ride up the coast.”

He taps his fingers to the brim of his hat. “No problem, Miss. We’re happy to help.”

“Is your boat all charged up?” I wave to the heavy-duty electrical lines stretching to the boat’s aft section. Everything on this world is powered by electricity. Back home, we use a combination of electricity for on-the-grid power and bio-oil fuels for off-the-grid. The corporations that make batteries on Hikari are the quietly wealthy ones. Some more than Aoi Uma.

“Yeah, we’re ready.”

“Great. We’ll be on in a moment.”

“What are you…?” Rin’s voice tapers off as his eyes follow the line of cables past the dock to the substation next to the warehouse. “No,” he breathes out. “No. You can’t.”

“I can and I will,” I say, smiling. “There’s more than one way to wield power on this world, and I intend to make the most of my hefty budget.” I’m sure it comes off as a bit evil, but I’ve gotten over the fact that you have to break eggs to make an omelet. “I double-checked, and hospitals have battery backups. Anything essential will be fine.”

He grabs my arm. “It’s never happened before. Never.”

“Welcome to the war,” I respond, switching over in my head to Isao. “Now’s the time. Kill the lights. And meet us at the rendezvous point in three hours with all of our friends.”

“Got it. See you then.”

I take Rin’s hand in mine and lace my fingers with his, squeezing the life back into them because he looks just about dead. Counting the seconds off in my head, I hold still and wait. Five, ten, fifteen… at eighteen seconds, everything on the dock quiets. The fans in the warehouse stop. The robotic lifts grind to a halt. An alarm squeals as batteries click on.

The power is out here and all over the continent. Not just Shin-Osaka, but every major and minor city everywhere. It turns out that when you let one corporation, Denki Mainichi, run every electric grid and power plant, then you can use that to your advantage. It’s going to cost me approximately a billion credits, but it’ll be worth it.

“What just happened?” Kazuo calls out from the boat.

“The power is out,” I call back, pulling Rin around. “I played my ace, and we’ve gotta go. I only bought us twenty hours of downtime, so whatever we do, it has to happen now.”

Kazuo looks from me to the mainland. “Son of a bitch,” he mumbles. I feel his panic as much as my own. This war will be over within a day, and hopefully, we’ll come out the winners.

Hopefully.

Rin glances at our team on the boat and frowns. “I thought the six of us would be enough. But now I wonder if we’re falling into a trap.”

“Are you worried we’re not the only ones who have thought of this? I’m certain Gen is on our tail or ahead of us, so I’m not worried. I’m ready for him.”

Rin raises his eyebrows. “Yeah. But not Narumi. Narumi would rather die than go back to Aka Matsuba’s employees for help. Not after the way she overthrew them. So, if Gen is there, then Narumi is truly dead.”

“And if Gen is there, we’re going to need help. It’s a good thing I’m prepared. Let’s go.”

Rin holds the gangway and gestures for me to board the ship ahead of him.

“Well, I can see you were busy while I was in the hospital. I would never have thought of this.” He waves his hand at the silent shore and the people wandering around looking at the sky like it’s about to fall.

I shrug. “I had to be creative. You would have done the same.”

“Yeah,” he says, his eyes focused far off as the boat pushes away from the dock. “I don’t know about that.” He sighs and leaves me to join Kazuo.

It’ll be okay, I reassure myself. Everything I’m doing is for a purpose. We just need to get through the next few hours.

I hope I won’t regret this decision.

—-

The hike up the hill has turned every one from popsicles to melted puddles of sugar water. The sun is high in the sky, blazing down on the forested paths. My thermometer says it’s thirty-three degrees and humid, still about four degrees cooler than the city. According to my research, this continent only gets one or two days like this a year. Of course, it had to be today.

My water reserves are plummeting, even though I drank fluids all the way here. Between the heat, my earlier foray into becoming a space heater, and my battery life dwindling, I have little energy left to get through this meeting on my own.

I’ll have to power through, anyway.

Bringing up the rear, I watch the body language of everyone in front of me.

Rin walks confidently, his head up and watching the forest like a hawk on the hunt. Good. His respiration and heart rate seem normal for this amount of exercise. I count breaths and heartbeats and keep him in my sights at all times.

Aimi and Kazuo walk together, quietly keeping the same pace. I’m hyperaware of the space between them and how Aimi drifts towards him whenever she can. Her eyes shift in his direction every few meters like she’s hoping to catch his notice. If Kazuo weren’t nearly double her age, I’d suspect some romantic intent here, but I don’t know. Maybe? I was only just getting to know Aimi before Gen killed me.

The memory of how she dragged me through the square and spoke to the crowd that fateful day is flipped. Because this consciousness wasn’t there. Seeing it through Saki’s point of view leaves me feeling displaced. Who is the small and scared woman watching Aimi call to the crowd? That can’t be me. She looks like death, wet and shivering, desperate to feel better after what Gen did to her.

I slow down, watching the scene again.

Aimi shouted, “You want freedom? You want the end of androids? You want families and lives worth living?”

The kumojin from Shiroi Nami crowded into the square, and people panicked.

She yelled, “People! My friends! Don’t be afraid of the creatures around you. Remember how you loved your Aka Matsuba way of life before Aoi Uma created androids? You had children, and animals, and families… and the androids replaced them. We can bring you back to that way of life! Shiroi Nami and the corporation, Kazenoho, want you to be in charge. No more contracts. No more castes. No more being owned by someone else! Independent and free to choose. Free to vote for your leaders. How does that sound?”

It sounded like the right thing at the time, and it still makes sense for Hikari.

No more contracts. No more castes. Just family, children, and animals. No more androids. It’s what I want, and it’s right for these people.

But I can see myself in the crowd. I know the dread I must have felt, even if I’m not seeing it from my point of view. It was written there on my face the entire time. Terror had been eating away at me for days, months, almost a whole year. I was never meant to be here. No matter what happened between crash-landing on Kurai and walking into this forest, a journalist still doesn’t belong in this position.

And Gen doesn’t belong, either.

We’re both aliens.

Suddenly, all I want is to go home.

Ryoko slows down and comes up to my side. I look over at her, but she has her eyes on the ground, watching her footsteps as we trudge through the woods. Leaves crunch, and twigs snap and break. When a ray of sunlight breaks through the thick canopy, it pours down on waxy leaves like liquefied honey. The light dances through the foliage as if the forest was its own disco ball, throwing rainbow-colored specks of light onto the ground. The trees moan and groan in the wind, and their branches reach out to touch me. I love being close to nature.

I continue to put one foot in front of the other and ignore my low battery. According to our coordinates, we’re heading in the right direction and only about a kilometer away.

“Funny to think how far we’ve come, right?” Ryoko asks, grasping her backpack straps. “I mean, not just in distance.” She chuckles. “Obviously, we came across the stars to be here, but how far we’ve come since then.” She lifts her eyes up. “I think about Kurai all the time, those days we spent apart after the crash, and how I left you to travel with Gen.”

I raise my eyebrows at her. Do I call attention to the fact that I’m still Kara?

“I can only hope I’ve made up for that stupid decision since then.” Her tone rises, a hidden question at the end of this statement.

“You had nothing to make up for.”

She stares into my eyes for a long moment, her lips pressed straight. “That’s kind of you to say.” She clears her throat and returns her attention to the walk. “I just want you to know that I am planning on staying if our people ever come here for us.” She shrugs. “There’s nothing for me at home. Here, I can have something of my own.”

I glance at Rin and everyone walking in front of us.

“Oh yeah? What would you like to do here?”

“That’s why I’m bringing this up now.”

With a few more steps, we crest the hill we’ve been climbing, and the forest thins out before us. Down the slope and out into a pasture clearing, a compound of buildings encircles a sizable caged area that has to be at least a square kilometer. Even from here, I can see the foxes lying in groups or running around.

My whole body warms at the sight. I love foxes. I adore their smiling faces, little paws, and fluffy tails. They were always my favorite animal back home, and I was intensely jealous of the people who could pair with them. Lucky bastards.

Ryoko gasps. “Look at them all.” She smiles as her eyes sweep over the sight.

“So many of them. I think I expected like twenty or thirty, not hundreds.” We both smile at each other.

“I want to work for Aka Matsuba,” Ryoko blurts out. “I want to work with them on animals.” She nods, sure of herself. “Yeah. It bothered me that I was never able to get the animal translation chip like my family at home. I want to change that. I want this to be my life’s work.”

“Really?”

Rin, Kazuo, Aimi, and Sanaa wave us down the hill behind them.

Ryoko nods, her face lit up with glee. “I know I don’t have the technical background for it, but it’s what I always wanted to do. Do you think it can happen?”

I reach out and squeeze her upper arm. Her skin is bright in the open light and all the more so for the strength of her purpose. She looks tall and capable, a young woman who has allowed herself to be propelled through the world by a force she does not understand but respects.

“Let’s go find out.”

We hike down the hill, through the sparse trees and tall grass that whips against our legs and gets caught in the treads of our boots.

“This looks like the rear of the compound,” Kazuo says as we hit level ground and approach the fence. “We should circle to the left.”

Several foxes nearby race towards us. They chitter and squeal, pushing their snouts through the square fence. I’m tempted to approach them, but I figure it’s best to give them some distance. Will they know I’m an android? I’ve often wondered if animals have a sixth sense that tells them things humans ignore.

My breathing kicks up, and excitement grows in my belly when I think of the people here becoming like those from Orihimé — humans and animals in pair-bonded relationships, at one with nature.

I stop in my tracks as I dig up a memory from before we left on this mission. My mother talked with me about what we might find here in the Hikoboshi System.

“Kazuo,” I call out, my breathing running away from me. I close my eyes, find my emotional regulators in the system preferences, and dial everything down.

No, now is not the time for panic.

“What is it, Kara?” Kazuo touches my upper arm, and I open my eyes to look at him.

“Remember what Yumi told you after you crash-landed on Kurai? That her mother came to talk to her before the mission?”

“Yes?” His eyebrows draw together, and he stares out into the distance. “Something about our mission here.”

I recall my exact words from that conversation and compare them to the original memory. “She said that should the mission fail or change, we were to unite Orihime and Hikoboshi at all costs. That someday other worlds colonized by Earth would find us, and we should stand together as one. And our family, with the support of the empress, would lead the way. That if these people didn’t have the same core family values we have, we’d give those values to them, make them conform… though she never said how.”

She never said how, but my mother has always been oddly prescient.

“This is how.”

Kazuo is as still as stone.

“Do you hear me?” I rise to my tip-toes to make eye contact with him. His face falls into a frown.

“We didn’t make it here first.”

“What?” I turn around and face the other direction.

The main building of the fox sanctuary is just in the distance, and along the front porch of the old Japanese-style farmhouse is a lone figure. He stands with his arms crossed and his eyes on us. His hatred is a burning force I can feel from meters away.

Rin was right.

Gen beat us to the punch.