The Fate of Shin-Osaka – Chapter 5

A blank space. Whiteness stretches out to infinity, and I stand alone, as myself, as Yumi, the corporeal being I was before Gen ended my life. This is how I see myself, forever and always. There’s no going back.

But for now, I need to be someone else.

“You can’t be someone else. You’ll always be Yumi. Just like I’ll always be Saki.”

“Saki is still here,” I say aloud.

“He’s working on it,” she assures me.

“I hate the blank white space. I prefer the boxes.” At least the boxes felt real. This is an asynchronous, pseudo, imaginary reality. It is unreal. It is disconnected from my world.

It is really fucking bright.

I squint my eyes and look into the distance at the flash of images coming at me.

“Prepare thyself!” Saki croons. “Yoshi has found the original directory map for your memories.”

A zooming flash of memories hits me so hard that I lean back. Crying in the bathroom after a rough interview. Watching a movie with Ayamé. My mom’s cats. The streets at home filled with animals. The moment Rin held me down in the river. Buichi Tamura’s bug eyes behind his enormous glasses. Mom picking me up from school. Eating an apple straight from the tree. Commuting to K&G Noodles early in the morning. The café in Susami. Walking with Ninjin. Beating Atsumi with a stick.

Damn. I forgot about that.

More and more memories keep loading. Stacking — ten, a hundred, a million, a trillion. Things I wish I could forget. Things I miss from home. Things I want to leave behind.

“So, you said the engineers couldn’t map your entire consciousness?” Yoshi asks.

“Yeah. I was told they could only map about eighty-five-ish-percent.” I remember nothing from that session. My memories end at the moment I sat in the chair in the Kiiroi Yama building.

“Hmmm. No. That’s not the case. They got everything, but it looked worse because of the damage to your brain. I’m rebuilding those pointers now.”

I inhale as the stack of memories grows and grows. They’re overwhelming, piling on and on and on. As I’m about to protest and panic, they fade into the background.

“There. All fixed!” The triumph in Yoshi’s voice is unmistakable. “Well, mostly all fixed. There are a few we’ll have to work on later.” He huffs a short laugh. “I’m really the best at this.”

I laugh at his overconfidence, and my body buzzes with a small burst of excitement.

Then it’s gone.

“Oh, wow. I saw that. That’s the only emotional range they gave you?”

“Yeah. I’ve been living with it like this for months,” I reply.

“That won’t do. Let’s tackle it next.”

This time, the change is slow and steady. I’ve been so used to my emotions being absent that I didn’t bother to have them for the last three months.

The wave starts with a kernel of happiness. I’m so glad I’m finally getting this android shit sorted out. I’m relieved… excited… elated! The emotion fills my chest, travels up the back of my neck, and makes my hair stand on end.

“I see visual confirmation of your emotions,” Yoshi says. “How does it feel?”

“Amazing,” I breathe out. My body is almost normal… almost. Will sadness or fear be the same? Will they flow over me too? My skin flushes and a smile grows on my face. I can only assume my external body is doing what I experience in this white space.

I temper my excitement and happiness, push them down, and make them tolerable. It works, just like it did in my actual body. Huzzah! I want to jump up and dance but merely wiggle in my chair.

“It seems you are well within control of your own emotions. I wonder why you had a governor in the first place.”

I try not to laugh. When I was a human, I was a wild tempest of emotions that raged in my chest and hampered my senses like an oncoming storm. Anger rushed at me, and sadness tried to drown out all rational thought on many occasions. I often felt as if I were being torn in half by jealousy, grief, rage, and loss. I don’t know how well I’ll control this once I’m back in the field, working against Aoi Uma. Maybe I’ll be better this time around.

Yumi 2.0 will have advantages the first version did not.

“The original consciousnesses that Aoi Uma developed for the Fukusha Model Seven, based on the people they stole them from, had trouble controlling their emotions,” I explain. “Instead of fixing the problem, they installed the governor. The programmers did a better job with the Model Eight.”

“Ah, probably because of an issue with the consciousness mapping. There are mapping and pointer errors all over this code. They obviously had a lot of problems with it.”

“That’s because Aoi Uma stole the consciousness mapping program from Shiroi Nami. They didn’t develop it themselves.”

“Shiroi Nami has this? What are they using it for?”

I pause for a moment, wondering how far I trust this man.

“They’re moving consciousness from one body to another. Well, from an origin body to an upgraded body. Flesh and blood, though. Not androids.”

He whistles low. “That’s next-level stuff.”

“Stuff you’d be interested in?” My voice has a hopeful lilt to it.

“Yeah.” He pauses. “Yeah, totally. I’d rather be an upgraded human than an android any day.”

I hold back a sigh of relief and smile. “I bet Shiroi Nami could use someone talented like you. Hell, I could use someone talented like you.”

He chuckles. “For the right price, I’m yours. Now, back to the task at hand. It looks like I’m able to smooth out these directory maps for both you and Saki.”

“Saki’s still here?”

“I am. Just sitting here waiting for you.” I imagine her staring at her nails and pushing back her cuticles while she rolls her eyes and sits in the corner.

Okay, I’m not alone yet.

“I’m isolating Saki’s directory mapping,” Yoshi says. “She should be able to unlock her memories in a moment, and then we can offload her and give you some sense of peace.”

‘Some sense of peace’ is right. It won’t be real peace as long as I’m in this body, but something is better than nothing.

“Did you hear that, Saki? You’ll be able to go soon.” Even in this blank space, I can feel her relief.

“Thank goodness, I’m just as done with this pseudo life as you.” The pressure of her hand wraps around mine, ghostly but comforting. “Why don’t you come with me? Yoshi can store everything, and you can tell Rin, Kazuo, and everyone to figure things out without you. I’m sure the body Isao made for you will be better than this. Just skip this and go straight to human again.”

“It’s tempting, but…”

“You have revenge on your mind. I don’t blame you.”

“I shouldn’t. It’s a terrible excuse to continue with this experiment, but I promised myself I would see this through to the end. See Hikari through to the end. I went through all the trouble of starting a corporation and igniting a revolution, and I haven’t been a part of either. I feel like a failure, and I hate failing. I won’t be able to rest until Aoi Uma, Gen, and Narumi have been destroyed. Their very existence is a thorn in my side, and every day they continue to live, they do long-lasting damage to this society. Maybe they feel the same about me? Like I’m the villain in their story?” I shrug. “I have to do this. One last hurrah to make them pay.”

“Shit, Yumi. I’m inspired. But not enough to stay. Wait… Wait… The memories are returning.”

I can’t see what she sees. Her consciousness is separate from mine, and for that, I’m grateful. It would have felt like a psychic break to have us both occupying the same space.

She gasps, and her hand leaves mine.

“What? What do you see?”

“Oh no. You will not be happy about this. Not at all.”

“Can I see it?”

“Here.”

A box appears in front of me, much like the boxes in the warehouse of my mind, before Yoshi arrived to fix things. I reach out but hesitate, drawing my fingers back to my lips. Maybe it’s better if I don’t know?

No, Yumi. That’s the coward’s way out of this.

I’m here and attempting to work this whole situation out for the better. This is information I need.

The box opens, and I shiver in the rain.

It’s the square in Shin-Osaka where I died. I don’t remember dying, of course, but I’ve seen the drone footage from Kiiroi Yama over and over. There was a time when I watched the video repeatedly for days, hoping to catch the barest bit of audio from Gen’s last words to me. I never had any luck.

But I was never as close as Saki was to me then.

She’s on the pavement, struck down, her opened eyes pointed towards me. The error logs stream past with the view from her eyes. Everything was broken. Her nervous system was overloaded, and she couldn’t move. But she could record.

I was less than a meter from her once Gen threw me to the ground. He had me pinned down, my knife in his hand.

“You miss home. I get it. But you’ve fought hard for a dream that will never be realized. Never be fulfilled,” he said, leaning into my ear. “They’re never coming for you. The beacon never made it to its first jump. And here’s the secret I’ve kept from you, from everyone. That possibility of a rescue mission within a year was a lie.”

No. No, no, no.

I didn’t believe him then. My eyes filled with tears, and I shook my head from side to side.

“Believe it. I got to see the second ship before we left. They asked me to help with the lab specs. It was at least five years out from completion. At least.”

He pulled away and grinned.

“So, go to your grave, Yumi, and rest. Because you were never going home to begin with.”

“Stop,” I squeak out, and the memory halts. The box closes.

Fucking hell. I could see it on my face then and feel it in my soul now. I believed him. I believe him.

What could have happened with the second ship? I thought construction was going well, but I never visited the ship or interviewed anyone working on it. My mind searches through the data I have about the space program before we left. Protests were on the rise on Orihimé, in my hometown of Yamato and other cities too. People wanted to concentrate on their home planet, not fly off into the universe. Perhaps that had something to do with it?

But if the emergency beacon never got away, then we may be stuck here for years or longer. Forever. What will happen back home when we don’t return?

Despair washes over me, an emotion I haven’t felt in a long time. This means that even if I get my new body, this is the only home I will have for the rest of my life. This is the only life I’m going to lead. This is all I have left.

“Is everything okay? I’m seeing a lot of emotional feedback here,” Yoshi says. “You’re crying.”

I reach up and wipe my face, and my fingers come away wet. I must be crying outside of this blank white space.

“I got some bad news from Saki.”

Yoshi doesn’t respond for a few moments, and I wonder what he’s seeing on his monitors.

“Should we proceed with the plan? Or do we need to stop? Because we’re making substantial progress, and I’d hate to give up now.”

Me too.

“We need to proceed. What I just learned changes nothing.” I straighten my shoulders and nod. “Box up Saki and archive her. Then we move on to plastic surgery. I have work to do.”

I imagine Saki smiling. “Thanks, Yumi. I’ll see you around. Tell Isao I want a body, too. Maybe we’ll be friends again in the real world.”

“I’d like that.”

“Okay, I’m archiving her now,” Yoshi says. “I’ll put her on a private server and provide you with the encryption key to her data.”

“Actually, I’ll give you the address of someone else to hold that key, just in case.”

“Whatever works for you. I’m also going to give you a gift no other android has, the ability to govern your own emotions, pain, and internal systems. Aoi Uma never cared about this stuff, but you will.”

“I doubt I’ll ever turn off my emotions now that I have them.”

“You may need to someday. You never know. Okay, one last thing. I need to complete a full systems diagnostic before we move on to surgery.”

A stream of variables zips by me, too fast to catch anything. Yoshi is fantastic to be dealing with stuff like this. I hope I can convince him to join my team when we’re done.

One system notice pops up, red and blinking.

“Oh. Hmmm. That’s not good,” Yoshi says.

“What?” I reach out and pull the data towards me. “Battery life?”

“Yeah, we have a problem here. Due to poor battery hygiene in the past, your battery health is only around… Fuck. Sixty-two percent.” He sighs. “Normally, I replace batteries once their health is at seventy-five.”

“Okay, let’s do that. I’ll pay for it, of course.”

“Can’t. There’s a shortage of batteries right now. Aoi Uma is using every one, even after-market packs, for their army of androids. It would take me weeks, maybe months, to find you a new one.”

“I don’t have months. What happens if we leave it as-is?” Emotion rises up, constricting my throat and pricking my skin with tingles. Fear. I haven’t felt fear in a long time.

His hesitation scares me even more. “You’ve been topping up your charge every day and night? I see it in the logs.”

“Yeah.” I rarely go a day or night without charging. I charge during the day at the noodle shop when there are no customers. At night, I charge before I go out if I decide to avoid Rin.

“Well, you’ll have to stay on top of it. Right now, a full charge will only last you about six hours. Any extra activities you do will drain it even faster. Past eighty percent, you’ll see a dramatic drop-off in charge.”

“Six hours? That’s nothing.” I have so much to do. How will I accomplish anything in only six-hour chunks?

“Sorry,” he says, disappointed. “There’s nothing I can do. You just need to be aware of low-charge protocols. Normally, when an android’s battery falls to one percent, its system broadcasts a data burst to nearby data nodes. This includes location, health, and a recording of the last ten minutes of memories, in case of catastrophic neural net failure. According to the logs, your system has been off the data network for months, and based on the work you want to do, we should leave it off. But this means that if your battery fails, you should be somewhere safe or with someone you trust because no one will ever find you otherwise. They’ll have no data to go off of.”

This seems awfully risky, but it’ll be one I have to take. I can’t put myself on the network to be hacked. “I understand.”

I take a deep breath as my muscles relax, and my blank white space darkens to black.

“I’m moving you from the consciousness construct to unconsciousness for surgery. In three, two…”

I never hear ‘one.’