The Fate of Shin-Osaka – Chapter 4

There’s no time like the present to make things happen, and I’m not waiting another moment to get on with this mission, also known as ‘the rest of my life in this android body.’ I’m putting one foot in front of the other. First, I rescue my body. Second, I figure out how to lead us out of this mess. I’ll figure the rest out later.

“What do you think? Is he the one to get it done?” I ask Saki while I sip a lemonade in the café across the street from the android surgery… place. I don’t know what to call it. This is not a hospital. It’s not really a business, though they’ll happily take my credits when I walk through the door. It’s a… a workshop. Yeah, an android surgery workshop. And the owner is sipping his coffee in the side alley while scrolling on his mini-tablet and talking to himself.

Yoshi Hidétama has a checkered past. He was kicked out of every technical school he ever made it into. Before opening this shop in Matsubara, he worked for the yakuza on the Southern Continent for three years. Despite the tattoos and purple hair, he’s exceptionally clean — doesn’t drink, doesn’t do drugs, won’t even take a painkiller if he needs it. His metabolism must be off the charts because he’s skinnier than my pinky finger and eats five times a day. He barely sleeps, which may have something to do with it. He wears the same thing every day — a black t-shirt, black ripped jeans, black canvas shoes. His hair is the only colorful thing on him. Even his tattoos are devoid of color.

“I wonder why you chose him. This isn’t the place that Rin recommended.”

“Because Rin likes to play it safe. I’m not looking for safe anymore. I’m looking to win. I’m looking for someone for the long haul. You saw the same data I did.”

“I try not to eavesdrop. This is no longer my brain.” I feel her eyes roll, even if I can’t see them. “Do you think he can archive me away?”

“Do you really want that?”

“I want my own body and all my thoughts back in one place. I guess that’s too much to ask,” she says, sulking.

“I’ll see what I can do.”

I’m not sure there’s anything to be done, but I’ll try. I’m in mission mode, and it’s time to make plans and gather my team for the fight ahead. But first things first. I need a new identity, and Yoshi is going to give it to me.

Leaving the empty glass on the table, I wait for Yoshi to head back to his office, count to ten, and cross the road to the workshop. I scan my wrist at the door, and a chime inside jingles, alerting the young man at the front desk to my presence.

The workshop is nothing more than a blank office space up front with two chairs and a wallscreen playing a running track of soft music to colorful moving fractals. The walls are white and featureless, clean and sterile. The floor is a dark-painted concrete, a few streaks of light reflecting off it artfully. A hallway leads down to five doors, all closed. I can hear the hum of machinery at work, the liquid sloshing of coolant, the clack of computer keys, and the beeps and chirps of keyboards. This is not a place of breath or flesh, not with these sounds in the air and those colors on the wall. There’s not even a sign on the door. I know shady when I see it, and this is so shady it’s midnight.

It’s perfect.

“Miss…” His eyes coast over the data in front of him. “Erina Matsumoto, correct?” This is one of my throwaway identities; I’ve only used it a few times in the last three months. He swallows as I nod. “Did you bring your android?” He cranes his neck to look out the window.

“I am the android,” I stress, keeping my smile polite.

“Um, then, where is your owner?”

“I have no owner.”

“Uhhhh,” he stammers, unsure where to go next with this conversation. I have perplexed him with my independence.

“Just ping Mr. Hidétama and tell him I’m here. He’s already expecting me, and everything he needs to know can be done with a scan.”

The nearest door in the hall opens, and Yoshi’s head leans out as he reclines back in his chair. His shocking purple hair stays in one spot, a sign that he’s a liberal pomade user. Usually, I would have thoughts on that, but I’m trying not to be choosy.

“Are you my three o’clock?” He leans farther out to look past me. “We’re missing someone.”

“No, we’re not, and yes, I am.” I turn to the assistant. “Thank you,” I say with a slight bow.

Without waiting for an invitation, I enter Yoshi’s office as he wheels himself back from the door. Shelves holding all types of diagnostic equipment, wires, and bins of instruments fill the space. A wallscreen and desk take up one wall, and Yoshi waves the tōsha projections away as I close the door behind me. Soft music is a constant and monotone presence, and the air smells clean, like a freshly laundered sheet. His office is as clean as he is.

He twirls his chair around and tilts his head. “Did you want to have a consult prior to bringing in your android?” His chair comes to an abrupt stop, and he shrugs. “I don’t mind, but the time will cost you.”

I pull another chair next to the shelves and sit across from him.

“I am the android, and before you ask, I don’t have an owner.”

His eyes narrow. “That’s not possible.”

“It is. You can verify everything with a full-body scan. I’ll let you in. I’m a Fukusha Model Seven with an autonomous consciousness pulled from a live human being and an emotional governor.”

His jaw drops open.

“I actually have more than one consciousness inside of me, and I’m hoping to offload the second. I also want to change and upgrade my appearance. I did the research, and I’m sure you’re the right person for the job.”

“No, no, no,” he says, raising his hands. “There is no Fukusha Model Seven. They skipped right from the six to the eight. Now, they’re on ten.”

“Because the seven has… well, had flaws, most of which have been fixed already in me. We didn’t have enough time to remove the emotional governor, so you’ll have to do that. And I have memory problems and a host of other issues I’d like you to fix.”

He lays a hand across his mouth and stares into space for a long moment.

“This is highly illegal. Like, I could go to prison and get the death sentence kind of illegal. You’re not supposed to be walking around without an owner.”

“How can I be owned when I was never for sale?” I ask him, leaning back and crossing my arms over my chest. “Aoi Uma doesn’t know I still exist. They think I’m dead, deactivated. I am way off their network. I was loaded with this consciousness three months ago after the previous consciousness was backed up and erased. Except she’s still here too.” I keep Kiiroi Yama out of the conversation on purpose. No need to give away all the details.

“And she wants out!” Saki yells. I wince.

“And she wants out. She’s tired of my drama.”

“Damn straight. The way you baby Rin drives me insane.”

I clear my throat. “What would you have me do?” I ask her.

She sighs. “Nothing. It’s an impossible situation.”

“So, yeah, anyway, I need a new body and some work done to my, you know…” I circle my finger around my head. “What’s it going to cost me?”

Yoshi blinks a few times. “Welllll, if everything you’ve said is true…” His voice trails off while he places his hand over his mouth again and thinks. The veins in his arms stand up and snake through his tattoos. His pulse and body temperature are both elevated but not significantly. Whatever he’s doing to himself with the five meals per day, the long walks to and from work, and the lack of addictive substances appears to be working. He pulls his hand away and flips it palm up. “Then yeah, I could do what you’re asking for.”

“All of it?”

He shrugs. “I’ve reversed governors, ones the owners had installed and then didn’t like. And I’ve separated out memories in Models Six and earlier, but they didn’t have implanted consciousness.” His eyes lift to stare at the ceiling. “It can’t be that different if you were on the update network and aren’t anymore. I won’t know until I get a full scan.”

A devilish smile blooms across his face. I’ve hooked him. He rubs his hands together.

“Yeah. Yeahhhhhh. Oh hell, an independent android. Please tell me you’ll do something awesome with that power.”

Only end Aoi Uma and all the new androids, so you’ll have a job forever, my friend.

I smile back. “You’ll have to watch and see.”

“I like it.” He claps his hands together. “Where’s your data port?”

“I don’t have one.” This brings on another head tilt from him. He reminds me of Ninjin. Shit, I cannot wait to see my dog again. “I have a non-broadcast wireless portal.”

“No shit. Usually, I have to cut open an android on first meeting.”

I shake my head. “Not today, but soon, I’m sure. Let’s get started. I have a lot to tell you about.”

—-

Yoshi pushes back from his desk, blows out a long breath, and shakes his head. I’ve been sitting for five hours, telling him my entire life story while he’s run every diagnostic he can think of. Watching the data flow across my field of vision, I’ve done my best to ignore it and just sink into a meditative state, but I can’t. As an android, everything is so present, so now. There is no getting away from the data. There is no zoning out or imagining or forgetting. There is no escape.

I hate it.

“So, what do you think?” I ask him, knocking him out of his own head.

He rubs his face. “I think that if you’re anything like the Fukusha Model Eight and everything that comes after, we’re in a lot of trouble.” He points to his monitors. “It’s a whole new matrix built on an existing framework. I’m surprised the Aoi Uma engineers made it work.”

This sets me back a few degrees. I know, in my heart, that Aoi Uma is going in the wrong direction because of Narumi Ogawa’s leadership. Her corporation has been smart enough to hire the best of the best, and who knows what those minds could do if set to a better, more positive task. But knowing this changes nothing. They are still heading towards the extinction of human life. They think they are prolonging life, but really, they’re ending it. We cannot let them continue.

“They have a lot of incentive to make it work. It means more profits for their corporation.”

“But it also means the end of everything, right?” Yoshi gestures to his monitors and the data there. “They took a human consciousness and put it into an android. They didn’t just make it up out of thin air like all the other models. Those characters were never human. They don’t know what they were missing.” He waves his hand around before dropping his hands to his lap. “They want to do this to everyone,” he mutters.

I close my eyes and thank the gods I chose correctly. This man is capable of making logical leaps. I only hope he can fix me, too.

“Yes. You can see why that’s wrong.” It’s a statement, and I wait to ensure I’m correct.

“It’s the end of everything,” he repeats. Yoshi’s jaw works back and forth as his eyes flick from one thing in the room to another. His heart rate increases, and sweat beads on his forehead. I’ve spooked him. Hopefully, not too much.

“How much?” I ask him, and he blinks back to our conversation.

“How much what?”

I chuckle. “How much will it cost me to get what I need? I have the funds, but I want to know if you can even do it before we discuss credits.”

He jumps to his feet and crosses his office to a mini refrigerator. “Water?”

“Yes, please.”

He hands me a bottle, and I drink to refill my reserves. He watches me consume the bottle in one go.

“Do you eat, drink, sleep?”

I shake my head. “I only drink to replenish the water reserves. Otherwise, I do nothing else except for the required downtime. I remember…” I pause as I press my hand to my chest. “I remember being human so clearly that everything else feels like a faded copy of the real thing. Lifeless. There’s no taste for food or drinks. No love. No passion. It’s like a prison where everything is black and white instead of all the colors of the world. Maybe that’s okay for other people, but not for me. I feel… broken. I would rather die than be stuck like this forever.”

Yoshi nods slowly. “I wouldn’t want it either.”

“Aoi Uma wants this for everyone, and…” I shake my head. “I know it’s just wrong. It can’t happen. Human life is so precious. We were almost lost to the wars on Earth before we made it out into the galaxy, and Narumi Ogawa is committing, well, genocide.” I sigh and drop my head for a moment before meeting his eyes. “I need the power to do something about it, and I can’t do it in this body like this.” I wave at myself. “Ogawa knows what I look like, and I want to sneak up under her nose and destroy her.”

“Okay!” Yoshi inhales with forced enthusiasm. “If you’re going to do something about it, then you’ll need the works. New face, new hair, new bone structure, maybe even change your height and musculature build, yeah?” He taps data into his tablet. “So, do you have an idea of how you’d like to look?”

I chuckle. “I thought I’d become a redhead…”

He narrows his eyes and leans away.

“But then I realized I would stand out and be easier to spot.”

“My thoughts exactly.”

“So, I was wondering if you could work from some photos?” I pull my tablet from my bag. I don’t use it often since I have access to anything I need straight in my head. But it’s good to use when displaying information to other people. After a few taps, I show him a photo of Shintaro and me, taken back when we were on Kurai together. It seems like a lifetime ago. “This is a brother and sister. I want to look like their cousin. Related to them, but not them.”

He takes my tablet and zooms in, leaning closer to examine the details. “Do you know them?”

“Yes.” I’m grateful for the neutral voice modulation of the android software.

He hums and nods his head, still looking at the photo. “I can make it work.” He swipes the image to his own terminal. “Since you’ll be doing undercover work, I’m going to give you enhancements too — ways for you to scramble your wireless ports, a series of digital viruses you can deploy, a cute little code breaker I’ve been working on, built-in electric weapons, the ability to shut down your emotions and autonomous systems…” He waves his hand in a circle. “You know, fun stuff.”

I smile and shake my head. “You barely know me. Why would you give me these things?”

He sips his tea and shrugs. “I’m an excellent judge of character. It’s how I’ve gotten as far as I have in this life. You” — he points at me — “are the real deal. I can feel it in my bones. The type of person who could command armies and lead a rebellion. I thought we had that a few months ago when we all learned those people from the other planet were here.”

I’m tempted to hold my breath. He shakes his head.

“But they’ve been quiet since the riots. You’re really one of them?”

I nod, keeping eye contact.

“Then this has to work out. I’m willing to try it.”

“Yoshi, you don’t know how much that means to me.” I reach out and pat his knee. “It means a lot.”

It means an end to this madness. I can only hope he’ll deliver on all of it.