E-Day

by Nicholas Sansbury Smith

  “Free water!” Akira yelled in Arabic. He had begun to learn the language when they arrived at the outpost two months ago. Everywhere they traveled, he spent hours mastering the local language through downloads to his chip and practice with Perez.

  “Well done, Captain, you got it down,” Perez said.

  Ghost took another hose and fired it at a group of kids. They squealed with delight and danced in the spray. The adults seemed less amused, but Akira noticed several cautious smiles. Ten kids became twenty, then thirty. Okami watched, sniffing the air for threats.

  Akira filled buckets as people walked over, graciously accepting the water. A tall muscular boy with dark brown eyes and a mop of black hair walked up to Ghost and handed him something that looked like a beaded necklace. Okami sniffed again, but then sat, not sensing a threat.

  Ghost thanked the boy. It wasn’t often the locals gave them gifts. Raising his arms, he burst into an Italian song about the summer.

  Akira allowed himself to smile. This was the best part of his job, helping people instead of killing them. But he knew danger lurked out there, and he kept focused. Blue Jay flew above, scanning for snipers. The targeting system on Akira’s HUD searched for hostiles on the rooftops, balconies, and in the crowd. There were no doubt Coalition extremists hiding among the population here, some armed with sniper rifles that could punch through his armor. And while the Pistons made easier targets with their lighter armor, every Coalition soldier dreamed of taking out an Engine.

  Ghost put down the hose and took his pack of cigars out of the duty belt around his waist. “Hold these for me,” he said, tossing them to Akira. Then he waved at Frost. “Hit me!”

  She directed the hose at his armor. He held up his arms and turned as she rinsed off the dust from the night before. Soon, his armor was a shiny white again.

  “Beautiful days and long summer nights!” he sang.

  More kids came running toward the singing Engine. A teenage boy in a baseball cap ran up behind Ghost, splashing in the water. Akira noticed something familiar about him. Okami sniffed the air again and started growl-barking.

  Akira dropped his bucket and started to walk over when he saw the young man’s face, instantly recognizing it from the night before. It was the same kid who had shot Akira in the chest.

  “Rossi!” Akira shouted.

  “The hell…” Ghost said. He twisted as the teenager slapped something against his legs and bolted away.

  Ghost looked over at Akira, right before vanishing in a blast.

  Akira scooped up Okami and clutched the droid to his chest as an inferno slammed into his back. The wave spread out into the crowd behind them, tearing through the flesh of civilians.

  Perez pulled the shield from his back. He braced it with his shoulder to block the shrapnel from hitting him and Frost.

  Akira was much closer to the explosion. The impact slammed into him, knocking him hard to the ground.

  Warning sensors went off in his helmet, masking Apeiron’s voice and a transmission from a Piston patrol. Akira released Okami and the droid bolted away to sniff for more explosives.

  Akira pushed himself up and staggered over to the last place he had seen Ghost. The Engine wasn’t there anymore. All he could find were what looked like smoldering tires.

  As his visor cleared, Akira saw they weren’t tires at all. He slid down next to what remained of Ghost’s blackened armor.

  “Rossi, oh God no, Rossi,” Akira said. He crouched over the lieutenant, whose legs were gone. Part of his right arm was still intact, but his left was missing at the shoulder.

  “Apeiron, we need a medic team! Now!” Akira yelled.

  “They are on their way, Captain,” she replied.

  Perez, and Frost ran over, but Akira waved them away.

  “Get a perimeter up!” he screamed. His heart pounded as he realized the mistake that had gotten Ghost blown to pieces.

  You did this!

  Akira buried the dread. He would punish himself later. Right now, he had to save the lieutenant.

  The Pistons in the area were already moving out, and the UAV was circling. Okami bounded out toward the dispersing crowd to sniff for more explosives.

  “Hold on, brother,” Akira said. “We’re going to get you out of here.”

  He gripped Ghost’s remaining hand. Blood pumped out of holes in his armor that Apeiron couldn’t clot.

  Ghost made a choking sound, and Akira saw why he wasn’t talking. The nape of his chin armor had broken into his neck.

  Akira did his best to remain calm. “Tadhg, I need you!”

  Wails of agony erupted from across the market. Akira looked away from his dying friend at a sight of horror. Hunks of burning meat littered the ground from the fiery wave that had torn into the civilians. Frost and Perez spread out, rifles roving for hostiles or distant snipers. Tadhg raced over to assist Akira.

  “Shit, shit, shit, oh fuck,” Tadhg said as he bent down.

  “Help me with his helmet,” Akira said.

  They carefully pulled it away from Ghost’s head. Part of his scalp came off with it. His eyes were mush, and his nose was sheared off, yet somehow, air still whistled out of his mangled face.

  He was still alive.

  “I can’t see,” he stuttered, voice weak. “Captain, I can’t see.”

  “We’re going to fix you up, LT,” Tadhg said.

  “Don’t lie to me,” Ghost said. “I know I’m dying… please give me…”

  “What? What can I do?” Akira asked.

  Ghost choked, coughing out blood. “Sing to me,” he whimpered.

  The wails and cries of the other injured rose to a cacophony.

  Akira looked to the sky. “Apeiron, where’s our evac?”

  “On its way, Captain. Thirty seconds.”

  Ghost gripped his hand. “Sing to me,” he said in a weaker voice.

  “Hang on, man, we’re going to get you out of here,” Tadhg said.

  Ghost slowly shook his deformed, bloody head. “No,” he grunted. “I’m not… just sing… please, sing.”

  Akira cleared his throat. Then he and Tadhg broke into the hymn of the Nova Alliance Strike Force. “At the crest of the mountain we stand, swords in hand, the bodies of our enemies at our feet.”

  “You have a better voice than I thought, Captain,” Ghost whispered. He started to cough again, blood bursting through his broken teeth.

  Perez and Frost ran over. Together, the team hunched around Ghost, singing to him quietly as Apeiron pumped drugs into their systems to keep them calm.

  Okami joined them, his tail between his legs, whimpering.

  “We will fight for the alliance till our last breath, killing all enemies wherever they rise,” the squad sang. “The sky, the land, the oceans… together we fight, together we fall, together we are one in life and death.”

  Ghost cracked what looked like a smile with his swollen, bloody lips.

  “Till the end,” he stammered. “Together… we are…”

  “One,” Akira said, finishing the song. He bowed his head over his dead brother and friend, a man who had saved him years ago—a man who had once brought life where there was only death.

  Together, they were no longer one.

  Not without Ghost.

  — 10 —

  “AI is salvation!”

  Ronin listened to the chants from the streets twenty floors below his perch on the rooftop of an apartment building, but his attention was on the horizon. A fierce tsunami of grit, dust, and smoke the color of burned flesh rolled straight for Megacity Phoenix from the desert beyond.

  It would weaken when it hit the walls, but anyone outside would suffocate if it didn’t skin them alive first.

  Electric billboards and holo-screens flashed air-quality and storm warnings inside the city. The crowds gathered outside the hospital continued shouting and chanting louder to be heard over the encroaching storm.

 
“Come on! You scared, Ronin?!” Zachary shouted from an adjacent rooftop four feet below. He had just cleared the six-foot jump to the neighboring building.

  “No way!” Ronin shouted back.

  His tight black t-shirt and pants rippled in the gusting wind as he walked along the ledge, looking for the best place to start running.

  The chants of the AI worshippers carried against the howls of the storm. Ronin looked over the edge of the rooftop.

  Lines stretched from the various entrances to the hospital, snaking away as far as he could see. Thousands of people wore masks and face shields to protect their lungs from the storm that was likely carrying dangerous nanoparticles.

  Many of these people sat on the street, too sick and weak to stand for long. Others were in old-fashioned wheelchairs or newer hover-carts. Some had family members or friends with them to help, but Ronin saw most waited alone.

  The crowds were mostly calm for now. He guessed it was because most of them were too focused on using the last dregs of their energy to try and get on the list for an L-S88 chip.

  That chip would be their saving grace if they could get one in time. The fact AI had developed the treatment only reinforced the motto these people were chanting.

  “AI is salvation!”

  Despite the calm, Pistons and city police patrolled the sector, prepared for unrest. While Ronin had heard reports that the Nova Alliance was making them as fast as possible, there still weren’t enough chips for everyone.

  Of course, the treatments would do nothing to stop the other diseases ravaging Megacity Phoenix and fomenting violence: dwindling supplies of strictly rationed food, medicine, and water.

  “Let’s go!” Zachary shouted. “We have to get home before that storm hits!”

  Ronin secured the breathing mask over his face and backed up twenty steps. He hesitated, heart thumping.

  “You want to be a Droid Raider? This is how you become one!” Zachary added.

  Ronin took in a deep breath and burst into a run. The space between the two buildings looked a lot wider than six feet, and if he fell into the gap, there was nothing to stop him on the way down to the concrete.

  You’re not going to fall…

  He ran as hard as he could, only a few steps from the ledge now. On the second to last step, he jumped. His black and red jump shoes helped propel him a few extra inches.

  Ronin narrowly cleared the ledge, and Zachary reached out to catch him and stop his momentum.

  “There ya go,” Zachary said. He patted Ronin on the back. “Nice work, little bro!”

  Ronin smiled under his mask and let out the breath he was still holding in. He turned to look back up at the rooftop, his heart still pounding, but now from excitement.

  “Whatever you do, don’t tell Mom,” Zachary said. “Probably don’t tell Elan either.”

  Ronin laughed. “I wasn’t planning on it.”

  “Right on. So, you ready for the hard part?”

  “I thought that was the hard part.”

  “That was a warm-up.” Zachary jerked his mask the other direction.

  They started across the rooftop, passing air-handler units. Ronin wondered how many times his older brother had jumped these roofs with his friends. He sure seemed to know the routes well.

  For the next half-hour, Ronin chased Zachary across the buildings, jumping from roof to roof, scaling walls, and cat-walking across ledges and planks.

  Ronin thought about the lives of the people packed into the slums beneath them. Most were hardly scratching out a living. Hummer Droids had changed the economy, taking jobs from people like Ronin’s mother, who had worked as a teacher. The Hayashi family now lived off Kai’s Piston salary, which wasn’t much. The money their Uncle Akira sent helped keep them above water, but not my much.

  They were trapped in the slums, like most citizens. Ronin had only left the city a few times. He felt lucky to have visited his Uncle Akira in Megacity Tokyo during one of those trips. Most of the people below would never leave these few blocks over the course of their lives. Generations grew up and died in poverty across these slums. But that was better than living in the poisoned wastelands outside where the law was the sword.

  Zachary stopped ahead, standing on a ledge thirty stories high. The storm drew closer, threatening to ram its red haze into the skyscrapers. A holo-screen video of Administrator Emanuel played on the street below.

  “Please take shelter,” the administrator said. “Follow all protocols to prepare your dwelling.”

  Suddenly, a humming noise came from overhead.

  “Get down!” Zachary blurted.

  The drone rocketed over and hovered above them. Ronin tried to shield his face from the scanners.

  “Ronin and Zachary Hayashi,” the administrator’s voice spoke from the drone. “Please exit this rooftop immediately or you will be subject to a fine and potential jail time. Then proceed to your dwelling for shelter.”

  “Yeah, we’re going,” Zachary said.

  He directed Ronin to a ladder. Halfway down, emergency sirens blared. On the right side of the road below them, a convoy of black hover cruisers rushed by and turned down a street.

  “What’s going on?” Ronin asked.

  “Not sure…” Zachary said.

  They moved for a better view. Dozens of military and police vehicles surrounded a complex of four yellow apartment buildings called the Butterfly Box. Whatever had happened was already over. Pistons were leading people out of the building.

  “Coalition sympathizers, or maybe terrorists,” Zachary said.

  Storm sirens wailed in the distance, and the holo-screens across the skyline flashed final warnings about the imminent dust storm.

  Zachary pointed down a street. “Come on, let’s get home.”

  They took a sidewalk through a market. Most of the shops were boarded up. A few food-stall owners were still securing their shanties and the last civilians outside ran for shelter.

  Zachary and Ronin rushed through the empty alleys to another complex of apartment buildings called The Oaks. Metal appendages with attached solar panels extended from the wide brown buildings like branches on a tree, retracting in advance of the storm.

  Ronin hurried through the bottom entrance after his brother. Metal doors closed behind them with a thud. The blended aromas of curry and garlic and other spices lingered in the air as they made their way up the stairs to the tenth floor.

  “Don’t tell Mom or Dad where we were,” Zachary said as they reached their apartment door.

  “I won’t.” Ronin opened the door.

  “Where have you two been?” came the deep voice of their father. Kai was hunched in front of one of the window shutters in the tiny living room, securing it with a screwdriver.

  “Stopped by school,” Zachary said. “We came back as soon we saw the storm.”

  Kai looked up from his work. Thick black hair formed a widow’s peak above his dark eyebrows and eyes. He shot them a look filled with skepticism.

  “Why do I not believe that?” he asked.

  Lise stepped into the living room holding towels. She also had dark hair and eyes to match, and like her husband, was thin but muscular.

  “Come help Elan with these,” she said.

  Ronin and Zachary helped their parents secure the shutters. They had already removed the glass, just in time. The first angry gusts of wind slammed against the metal as they finished locking them into place.

  “You guys hungry?” Lise asked.

  “Starving,” Zachary said.

  Ronin went to the bathroom to clean up. The water meter showed they had already used eighty percent of their rations for the day. He grabbed a hand towel instead of showering off and cleaned the sweat off his body.

  When he finished, he went into the narrow hallway leading to the two bedrooms. He stopped when he saw a packed bag on his parents’ bed and a crate on the ground for Kai’s Piston armor. The case for
his helmet was out, too.

  Ronin changed clothes in the room he shared with Elan, then returned to the dining area that doubled as Zachary’s bedroom at night. Taking his usual seat at the table, Ronin looked at his father. He was a serious man who rarely showed emotion, much like his older brother Akira.

  “Let us pray,” Kai said. He bowed his head. “We thank AI for this food and water. For our shelter. For our clothes. For our lives, and for protecting us from this storm tonight.”

  “AI is salvation,” the family repeated.

  Lise scooped broth and noodles into bowls, passing them out while Kai pulled out a red envelope with the Silver Crane seal.

  “We got a letter from your Uncle Akira today,” he said.

  Ronin smiled. He loved the letters his uncle sent, not just because of the extra money, but because of the stories inside.

  Lise signed to Elan, who pulled out his Commpad as Kai held up the letter in the light.

  “After delivering the peace treaty to the Coalition, my squad has been assigned to Outpost Cairo, where we spend our days policing and keeping the peace among the locals,” Kai read. “I have made several friends among the population, and they seem to enjoy Okami, but I miss Kichiro deeply, much like I miss you all.”

  Kai narrowed his eyes.

  “Soon, once I’m on leave, I hope you can make the journey to Tokyo and visit me. I believe it’s time I finally give Zachary, Ronin, and Elan a tour of Edo Castle,” he said.

  “What’s Edo Castle?” Zachary asked.

  “A special place in our family history,” Kai replied.

  “We’re going to see it soon?” Ronin asked.

  “Maybe…”

  Kai placed the letter on the table.

  “There’s something else I need to tell you. Something I found out after the letter came.”

  He steepled his hands, a motion he always did when sharing bad news.

  “I just got word that one of the men in Uncle Akira’s squad was killed earlier today in Cairo,” Kai said.

  “Who?” Ronin asked.

  “Lieutenant Rossi.”

  “Ghost?” Zachary said.

  “That’s right.”