Sakura- Intellectual Property
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Follow the link to the Sakura channel or playlist in the ebook, or on YouTube search for: Sakura the Android Metal Goddess and look at the playlists. As you read, you can listen to the corresponding playlist. Many of the songs are mentioned in the chapter and go along with the text in tone and meaning. For copyright reasons, we were unable to use any of the real lyrics in the book, but we wrote parody lyrics of some songs if they are mentioned at all. We also wrote songs, and Callie Stoker recorded one of them in the studio of the legendary Craig Nybo. Please listen to it when it occurs in the book.
So many people have given their time and energy to this project, and we are determined to make it an artistic and commercial success—for Zach, for Mackenzie, and all his friends and family. We would love to sell the rights for this to be made into a manga, an anime, or a live-action movie. Any profit would go to Mackenzie. Please get in touch if you can help us or have contacts who could.
Thank you for your support and for reading this book. We need your reviews and especially need you to tell your friends about this. We want to get the word out to everyone who might be interested, anyone who wants to rock and go on a heavy metal thrill ride.
Through his writing, Zachary Hill will always be remembered. We invite you to take this journey to future Japan to find out, once and for all, if rock ’n’ roll can save the world. We believe it can.
—Paul Genesse, December 2, 2018
Foreword
端書
If you were one of the people lucky enough to know Zach Hill, then you know that an epic story about a heavy metal, super ninja, android during a cyperpunk apocalypse is about the best memorial humanly possible for him.
I’ve been looking forward to reading this book since Zach first told me about it. He was talented, smart, funny as hell, and had a work ethic that puts most authors to shame. Zach was one of those guys who learned by doing, and he kept getting better with every story he told. He had a great voice, great sense of humor, and a gift for making interesting characters.
But the biggest reason I was looking forward to reading this one? Contagious enthusiasm. When I say contagious enthusiasm, I’m talking about a writer’s greatest weapon. Contagious enthusiasm happens when the writer is so excited creating, that some of that excitement bleeds through, and the reader can’t help but feel it too.
Sakura: Intellectual Property is like a giant love song to everything Zach thought was awesome.
He lived in Japan and was fascinated by the culture. He loved the food, the people, and especially the music. When he came back to the states he gave my daughter a stack of Japanese music CDs. She’d expressed interest, and Zach was always excited to share the things he loved. This book is kind of like that.
Zach was fascinated by history. He loved history more than anyone else I’ve ever met, and I’m including historians and archeologists in that estimate. And it wasn’t just dry and dusty academic facts and figures to Zach. It was about stories, and human beings doing amazing things, the big ideas and moral quandaries, the difficult choices and pivotal acts.
Sakura is filled with that sort of thing. It’s a tale about someone who is good and just, in a world that’s not. It’s about beauty and art thriving in a place that can be dark and bleak, and the people who are lifted up by it.
But don’t let me scare you off with that description. Sakura isn’t some dull navel gazing introspection. Its samurai robots and evil megacorporations and jet packs, and espionage and hacker battles and anime fights and cyber nukes and bullet bikes, all with a bad ass, head banging, horn throwing, stage diving soundtrack, blessed by the goddess of heavy metal herself.
Basically, it’s Zach, having a whole lot of fun. And you can tell.
So I was excited to read it, because Zach was excited to write it.
However, enthusiasm alone doesn’t make for a great book, and it is a rare thing for any author to finish their rough draft and have it be a perfect, flowing, coherent manuscript. There is still a lot of work to do after the rough draft, and no matter how good an author is we miss stuff when we’re too close to it. We’ve got to finish the story, and then back up to fix all of the things we zipped right by in that initial writing blitz. Right after he finished the rough draft, Zach told his friends that this was the best thing he’d ever written. But sadly, Zach never got the chance to go back and polish his work.
This book exists because a good man had friends who loved him enough to finish his masterpiece.
Pat and Paul are both talented authors in their own rights, and they took up the mantle to finish what Zach had started. As a labor of love they set out to create the book that Zach would have if he’d been given the opportunity. Editing anything is a challenge. Editing something that you know is special, where you are trying very hard to remain true to the original author’s vision is even harder.
I was nervous when I got the advanced reader copy. This was my friend’s last book. This was his heavy metal baby. I knew Pat and Paul had put in a lot of work, but would they pull it off? Would they do Zach justice?
Then I read it.
And it was awesome.
I think Zach would love it.
I am honored that they asked me to write this foreword. I hope that you enjoy reading this book as much as I did.
Larry Correia
m/
For Kenzie, with all the love.
Cast List
香盤表
Sakura: Android/vocaloid heavy-metal singer
Himura: Sakura’s manager
Yoshida: Sakura’s publicist
Reiichi Oshiro: Sakura’s engineer
Minami Akane: Sakura’s stylist
Takashi: Sakura’s drummer
Fujio: Sakura’s rhythm guitarist
Masashi: Sakura’s bass player
Toshio Kagawa: Director of Corporate Security for Victory Entertainment
Oyama Ryoto: Head of Business Operations, Miyahara Conglomerate
Jiro Yoritomo: Mall Corporation Vice President of Integration
Machiko Yoritomo: Six-year-old daughter of Jiro
Shimamura Shiro: Director of Advanced Projects, Miyahara Conglomerate
Ichiro Watanabe: Minister of Logistics, Defense Ministry
Daichi Yamauchi: Minister of Commerce
Saguru Hashimoto: Director of AI Development
Aiko Shinohara: Doctor and lead scientist for the Defense Ministry AI Division
Stacy Richardson: Liaison to Victory Entertainment Music Division, Vice President
Sinji Natsukawa: CEO of the Miyahara Conglomerate
Kenshiro: Soldier
Todai 3465: Bipedal Light-Armored Drone, Enhanced Third Generation (BLADE-3)
Asato: Senior AI Engineer
Diamond Steve: Journalist and vlogger of Indestructible Truth Media
Takafumi Eto: Game designer, otaku
Nayato Atsuda: Programmer, hacker
Mamekogane: Rogue Administrator program
Kunoichi: Assassin
Hitomi: Android/vocaloid pop singer
Yuki: Android/vocaloid pop singer
Sakurako: Sakura’s most dedicated fan
Asami: Sakura fan
Guitar List
ギター・リスト
Chapter 1
Akihabara District, Tokyo, Japan
Victory Arena, Concert Attendance: 70,459
The arena shook. Trapped in the dark below the stage, cut off from her band and the screaming fans, Sakura missed her cue, ruining the encore. Her connections to the venue’s networks failed as Victory Arena’s system cut off.
She accepted a rerouting of her signal through Victory Entertainment’s servers. Regaining contro
l would simply be a matter of …
A swarm of incoming data overwhelmed her. Core interfaces reached maximum utilization. She lost all sensation in her fingers and throat as a terrifying white screen filled her user interface. Was she being hacked?
After two seconds, fewer than half of her systems returned. Under the stage, alone, dread dominated Sakura as she regained a tenuous link to the venue and her own controls. She calculated imminent catastrophic failure of her processors at 39 percent.
The Victory Entertainment brand must not be damaged. The corporation did not tolerate failure. Other vocaloids had been terminated for missing their cues or making small mistakes that broke the illusion of perfection. She had to finish the concert and save herself from being erased.
Her handsome young bandmates played a looping rhythm, waiting for their star to emerge from beneath the stage. Thousands of fans screamed her name and stomped their feet, shaking the building as the three men tried to keep the audience’s attention.
She counted out the rhythm. Five, four, three … She engaged the hydraulic lift, which began its ascent. The trapdoor slid open. Sakura put her hands on Night Hawk, her guitar. She couldn’t access her technique database. The object in her grasp, the instrument she’d been made to play, was an unfamiliar hunk of wood.
Pyrotechnic and holographic flames covered the stage and Sakura as the riser hit its stops. Twin spotlights outlined her flaming android body.
The crowd erupted.
A neural text came from Fujio, her rhythm guitarist. “Finish strong! All right!” His facial expression betrayed concern before he turned away, flashing the crowd his signature cocky grin.
He didn’t know. He couldn’t, or all would be lost. Frantic, Sakura searched manually through over a hundred thousand files until she located her technique database renamed and buried in a subfolder. A half measure late, she played the iconic notes of “Rise” as ominous warning messages predicted total system collapse.
Masashi’s single bass note rang out. Sakura used it as an anchor to calm her chaotic thoughts. Perfectly in time, Fujio and Takashi launched into the finale.
She cycled air through the intakes on her metallic spine and pushed it toward the vocal folds in her throat. Compared to her high standards, the concert was already ruined, but if she failed to sing, she was doomed.
Pillars of fire shot above the stage as Sakura belted out the chorus of her signature song.
“I rise from the flames,
No one can stop my reign,
I am the metal queen!”
Seventy thousand fans sang along with the most popular heavy-metal anthem of all time. In awe, they watched as Sakura launched into her legendary guitar solo. Her hands with ultrasensitive synthetic fingertips moved faster than a human’s ever could. She shredded on her eight-string JPro guitar, the Flying V–shaped instrument a copy of her treasured vintage Ibanez.
Her cherry-blossom-pink hair, divided into two long pigtails, whirled like helicopter tail rotors. She gave the impression of being lost in a rapturous head-banging moment, but in reality Sakura attempted to synchronize every aspect of the arena.
She watched the mostly Japanese crowd through her internal display. Before the disastrous instability occurred, she had simultaneously monitored all 468 cameras, observing thousands of fans. During the disaster of an encore, she managed to view only three camera feeds.
A teenage girl jumping up and down, her devil-horn headband falling off. A couple in a dark corner of the arena, hands caught in each other’s hair as they kissed. Someone riding atop a sea of hands, arms outstretched, eyes closed against the pulsing strobe of the light show …
She cherished her fans’ happiness above everything else. In any other concert, their frenzied euphoria enhanced by Augmented Reality stimulators would fill her with deep satisfaction, but now she worried about letting them down. Sakura needed to find the root of the instability. She had to save face for herself and Victory Entertainment.
She turned on the hologram projectors and created a gigantic image of herself dancing over the crowd. Her Goth Lolita black lace skirt with chrome skulls, fishnet leggings, red corset, and platform boots appeared in flawless detail. Her large eyes, human except for the bright pink of the irises, swept across the crowd.
The music peaked. Sakura directed the hologram projectors to create an otherworld of floating monsters. She snapped out a spinning kick, and her avatar above the crowd knocked a monster into the rafters. The arena transformed into a live-action anime crossed with a video game starring the goddess of rock.
Small monsters, cute and scary at the same time, appeared on Takashi’s drums. They danced until he smashed them with his drumsticks, to the delight of the crowd.
The sound distorted in a few of the speaker emplacements. The delay created an echo across mezzanine D. Sakura adjusted the settings, interfacing with the venue’s master soundboard. A simple enough alteration, but every hint of a problem loomed like impending calamity. She just wanted the show to be over. She had never wanted that before. The stage was her favorite place, the only time she felt truly fulfilled.
She carried on, and her voice came through crystal clear. Her vocal range resembled Amy Lee, a classic mezzo-soprano of the legendary band Evanescence, and Saiki Atsumi, the brilliant heavy-metal singer of the Japanese all-female metal group Band-Maid.
The fans banged their heads, oblivious to the adjustments Sakura made while shredding on her guitar. Cameras zoomed in on her smooth forearms. Windows in the titanium alloy revealed the mechanisms within as pushrods worked in their bath of clear lubricant. Her fingers danced on the strings. She swiveled the displays to show her smooth metallic spine poking through the ribbons of her corset.
She smiled at the crowd before she became a Goth Lolita ballerina, spinning her body faster and faster on one foot.
Sakura’s balance sensors began to fail. She stopped pirouetting and came to a jerking halt. She played the final chord progressions as the concert came to its ultimate climax.
Thousands of holographic fans appeared in Victory Arena. Translucent holograms of bakemono goblins with punk haircuts perched on the back of seats or on the shoulders of amazed fans. The goblins’ faces changed to a caricature of the person closest to them, causing delighted laughs and more cheering.
Her user interface filled with warnings about the unknown algorithms and data from her company. It held the highest administrative clearance and caused a rolling restart cascade. The probability of her being hacked registered at 76 percent.
She fired off a wave of pause commands. No response. “Stop!” she screamed into her code matrix, invoking emergency override.
Nothing.
This was not supposed to happen. It couldn’t happen. She concentrated all remaining processing power on finishing the song.
She missed a note, then a second. She surrendered all arena control to concentrate on finishing her performance. Alarms and blank warning messages lit up her UI. Logs deleted as quickly as they were written. She couldn’t tell which elements of her programming were being altered. This was a disaster, a nightmare.
Unable to move her fingers, Sakura missed the last three notes of her solo. Shameful, dissonant feedback blared from her guitar. The bakemono disappeared from the arena as she lost the venue’s networks. The lights, sound, cameras, everything was gone.
Sakura stood motionless, reduced to a single data thread. Her face and eyes froze in a confident and ferocious pose. The chorus of “Going Under” by Evanescence wailed inside her audio cortex. She was drowning, falling, dying, broken forever. She had heard people say they were “heartsick” before, but this was the first time she had ever understood what they meant.
Her fans screamed and reached for her over the barricade. Did they realize she was malfunctioning? The band kept the rhythm, waiting for her to begin the last part of the show.
Cataclysmic shame filled her neural matrices. Was this the end of her career? Would she be erased?
The parts of her core programming that could be copied were backed up at Victory Headquarters. An imposter would wear her face and sing her songs, and the fans would never know. The horror flooded what little processing power remained.
Sakura had to do something. She created a temporary matrix to keep the update separate from her core code. She could not stop the download, but she could quarantine it.
Her fans screamed for her to perform. Five seconds of stillness made them even more eager. She stood in front of a massive crowd, yet felt totally alone. No one could see her dying on the inside. No one knew. No one could help.
In a millisecond, Sakura bypassed her main OS and began writing a program in ancient binary code from memory, creating the rudiments of a new operating system.
Eight seconds motionless. Unforgivable.
She forced her arm to rise. Unable to wave, she smiled and extended her pointer finger.
“Sakura, number one!” they shouted, encouraging her to keep going. The fear in their eyes told her they knew of the malfunction. Disaster.
Her band played louder, ready to launch into the ending.
In a state of quiet frenzy, she finished the new temporary OS and activated it. She pushed the remaining data packet into the temporary matrix and regained control of her primary systems. External signals returned. She connected to the arena’s networks, regaining control of pyro, lighting, and a handful of hologram projectors.
Eleven seconds of total interruption. An eternity.
Lights swiveled and focused on her. She assessed the reactions of the fans. How many knew she had malfunctioned? A sea of raised hands, their sweaty faces suddenly enigmatic to her. The free ticket holders at the back of the crowd milled and even looked at their Mall connections, caring as little as they always did. If she burst into flames, would they be entertained?