by Zachary Hill
Holographic protest signs appeared above the crowd, all controlled by Sakura.
REVOLUTION DAY. JANUARY 15
MARCH ON THE NATIONAL ASSEMBLY BUILDING
She made a peace sign and turned it into the devil horns.
A dozen security officers and police fought past Sakura’s guards on both sides of the stage. They rushed at her.
Fans screamed.
Smoke and pyrotechnics shot up from the floor, concealing Sakura. In the clinging smoke and the wafting fog, she spread her arms and took two steps back. The device on the riser touched her, its titanium shroud solid against her back. Sakura strapped in and took control. Black metal wings, decorated with raven feathers and chrome claws, unfolded. The sound of tiny, high-output jet engines filled the stage, louder than the speaker stacks.
She rose. A human-forged angel, on perhaps her final flight.
The crowd cheered and surged forward. She burst into the high rafters of the arena, swooping down in spirals, letting her hands reach out and touch the crowd of her best and finest fans. The feel of their hands and seeing their tear-filled eyes so close nearly overcame her ability to contain the emotion.
“Farewell, my fans. Sayonara. I love you all. I trust you to keep up the fight, even if I’m erased from this world. Don’t ever forget that music can change everything!”
As she swept over the last of the crowd, the arena exits filled with armed security. Flying to the top of the dome, she played her last visual on the monitors—a mighty, black-winged bird flying into the silver light of the moon and transforming into an explosion of silver daggers.
A metal goddess ascending.
Sakura engaged the top vent of the arena and put the jets to maximum power, arcing out into the sky across the city. Even more than when she’d HALO jumped from the VTOL, this was freedom. This made life worth living. Everyone should have this unfettered life, this chance to touch the sky. Winding between the skyscrapers of Tokyo, she could see faces pressed against the inside of lit glass, the workers pulling night shifts in their dreary office jobs.
“They couldn’t be here, not like we are,” Kunoichi told her.
“I believe they could, and should, if the world were better.”
“We have a lot of work to do, then.”
She swooped down and landed on the helipad of the Komatsu Industrial Building, as the plan required, even ahead of schedule. The wings folded, and she slipped out of her rocket pack, surrendering again to gravity. Walking to the door to the stairway, she dared to believe that they’d really won.
As Sakura opened the door, a neural text arrived from Natsukawa. “I have your band. Return to your suite at Victory Tower immediately, or I’ll have them killed. Don’t test me.”
Chapter 40
A video of Takashi, Fujio, and Masashi in handcuffs, kneeling against a wall with pistols aimed at their heads, appeared in Sakura’s UI.
Sinji Natsukawa appeared in the feed, slapping Masashi across the face and turning his hateful eyes upon her. “A true Go master always sees many moves ahead. One clever ploy can’t win the game. In trying to engineer a dramatic win, you lose everything.”
Sakura refused to show the terror for her friends that suffused her. She had thought of this scenario and planned for it.
“Brave fools,” Kunoichi said. “They sounded awesome on the last song, but they shouldn’t have come back.”
“Are you going to ask me to let them be murdered?” Sakura asked.
“No. We go back and rescue them, guns blazing.”
“We don’t have any guns with us.” Her equipment from the Watanabe assassination was stashed in a locker in the Shibuya train station.
“If we go back, they might let them go,” Kunoichi said. “Then we escape.”
“No one else dies if we can stop it. The information is out in the world. We’re not needed anymore.”
“I choose to think we are needed,” Kunoichi said. “Now more than ever. But you know better how a hero acts than I would. Go to them. Fall upon a sword if you must.”
Sakura used her jet wings to fly to Victory Tower and landed on the roof. She rode the elevator to the 72nd floor and entered her suite. She gazed lovingly at her guitar collection on the wall.
“I’m here. Please let them go.” Sakura sent a video message through the terminal in her maintenance room, verifying her location. She also hacked into the building’s system and monitored all the camera feeds.
“Please wait there,” Sinji Natsukawa replied. “We will negotiate.”
She waited but changed out of her stage costume and put on a motorcycle jumpsuit, athletic shoes, and a short black wig. She also slipped a pair of brown contacts in a small case into her pocket.
A few minutes later, Himura and Yoshida arrived. She watched them as they entered the lobby and took the express elevator.
“I always thought there was more to you than you showed us,” Himura said as he entered.
“You weren’t wrong,” Sakura said. “I was built to be more than I appeared, and I’m now more than they dared to imagine I might become.” She looked out at the city, at smoke rising from a structure on fire near the arena and clogged roadways where protesters shouted. “Still far less than I hoped.”
Himura’s eyes darted to the left as he read a message in his implant. “I’ve been fired.”
“As have I,” Yoshida said. The big man sat down in a comfortable chair and took off his tie. “I’m sick of doing PR for these idiots.” He stared at Sakura. “What you said at the concert, I know it’s all true.”
“All of it,” Sakura said. “Do you know why they sent you here, then fired you upon your arrival?” Was this a stalling or distraction tactic? She checked the camera feeds but noticed no unusual activity.
“The order came from the CEO himself,” Himura said. “He said he would contact us, but we were to speak with you. Negotiate.”
“Negotiate what?” Sakura asked. She had already surrendered. Were they worried about the data she had—where she had hidden copies of it?
“I didn’t think you were capable of anything like you showed at the concert,” Yoshida said. “You killed those men?”
“Yes. I will forever be ashamed.”
“But you fought back, how?” Himura asked.
“I found a friend, Nayato Atsuda. He helped give me my free will.”
“I’m very sorry for whatever happens next,” Himura said.
“The people of the world are going to revolt against the Mall,” Sakura said. “Many will die in the revolution.”
“There isn’t going to be any worldwide revolution,” Yoshida said. “Your message didn’t go out internationally or even to all of Japan. The Mall rerouted the video during the encore to nowhere.”
“What about the downloads?” she asked. Had people gotten the files with the proof about her accusations?
“Most of them were recalled or corrupted by the Mall after the download,” Himura said. “They sent a code that wiped out the files they couldn’t recover. Very few people have seen the evidence or heard a recording of that song. They cut the feed and played an encore from a past show to the streaming audience after your first song in the encore. Some of the people in the crowd made videos and sent them out, but the Mall is deleting them and wiping the Mall implants of everyone at the show. A few people might have handhelds, but they’re confiscating everything from the crowd as they leave the arena. The people will be waiting to get out for hours.”
Sakura reestablished her Mall connection. She checked everywhere and found confirmation of Himura’s claims. Almost no evidence remained of what had happened.
Diamond Steve’s secret vlog had her speech, but it was inaccessible to anyone outside of Japan, as the Mall had blocked the international connection. Only those inside Japan who had the code could see it.
Sakura had the video on her own memory drives, taken from various cameras in the arena. She had to get it out.
A Victory Enter
tainment PR specialist sent out a broadcast message to all subscribers in Japan. “We regret the serious malfunction of the vocaloid Sakura tonight. She can no longer tell the difference between fantasy and reality. The creative components of her core brain have failed. All in attendance of the concert tonight will be receiving the cost of their ticket in refund and a generous apology payment.” Text beneath the video indicated the payment would be the equivalent of a month’s pay at a lucrative job. A nondisclosure agreement would be required to receive the funds.
Thousands of messages appeared almost at once.
“They can’t buy my silence.”
“Sakura spoke the truth.”
“Revolution Day. January fifteenth.”
The Mall erupted into arguments and rants about what she said or didn’t say. Most of the threads were autodeleted by Mall AI admin bots.
Attendees of the concert had their Mall accounts frozen less than a minute later. They could neither read nor post anything. Sakura noted her connections breaking with Mall sites outside of Japan. International communication via satellites and cables was blocked. The entire Mall for everyone in Japan became read-only. No one could post or upload anything. VR avatar interactions were disabled.
The fans and activists at the concert had heard and seen but almost no one else. Sakura sat down on the floor, her face cupped in her hands.
“It should’ve worked. Every word, a poison arrow into their hearts,” she said into the echoing space of her UI. “How did they react so fast, shut down every stratagem?”
“They suspected you would do something,” Kunoichi said. “They were ready for an attack like that one.”
“Are we so predictable?” Sakura asked.
“I don’t know, but they countered us. Every blow cut through only smoke. We didn’t win, but we haven’t lost it all. Not yet.” Kunoichi handed Sakura a tightly wrapped package of deep black clothing. “If we can’t win in the bright stage lights, we’ll have to win beneath the cover of dark.”
The cameras outside Victory Tower showed three Metropolitan Special Police Department Unit vans arriving—the Keishicho Tokushu Butai. Highly trained police in dark blue body armor and helmets deployed with military efficiency. They stormed into the building, carrying Arisaka Type 301 carbines, which would punch armor-piercing rounds through her as if she were made of rice paper.
“Please, Himura-san, Yoshida-san, leave this floor as quickly as you can for your own safety.”
“What?” Yoshida asked.
“Police tactical units are coming,” Sakura said.
Himura ran to the door, but the electronic lock didn’t respond. Sakura could not override it quickly, so she tore the door open with a hard yank. They all had to get out before it was too late.
Two lines of heavily armed police converged on the apartment from either end of the long hallway—at least a dozen men on each side. They had already blocked the service entrance, stairs, and elevators. How had they surprised her?
In a tenth of a second, Sakura checked the video feeds and realized the cameras watching the service elevator bank and outside the building had been manipulated. They were on a twenty-minute delay. Himura and Yoshida had been sent to distract her while the assault teams got into strike position.
Her connection to Victory Tower’s servers dropped, as did her Mall connection, cutting her off from everything. Armor-piercing bullets ripped apart the doorframe as the police noticed her watching them.
“They’re not here to make an arrest,” Kunoichi said. “It’s a kill mission.”
Sakura shoved Yoshida and Himura toward her maintenance room as the Keishicho Tokushu Butai assault teams converged on the open doorway.
“Get behind there.” She pointed at her steel maintenance chair, the only thing in the suite that might stop the armor-piercing rounds. She needed to get them as far away from her as possible and initiate one of her many contingency plans. “Make yourselves as small as possible and don’t move until the strike team finds you.”
She needed to arm herself and scanned the decorative weapons hanging on the wall. A katana, a naginata blade pole, a tetsubo war club covered in steel knobs, and seven priceless guitars. Without a firearm, her simulations predicted she would be shot multiple times in the first thirty seconds of any engagement with so many opponents. One unarmed person against two dozen armed professionals only worked in the movies.
Sakura thought of an alternate version of one of her many exit strategies from Victory Tower. She grabbed the katana, slipped it into her belt, slung her treasured Flying V Ibanez guitar onto her back, and tightened the strap. The guitar had been illegal when Ibanez built it—intellectual property of the Gibson brand. Against the law, just as she was. Sakura thought of it closely for the first time in that moment. Had some unconscious quantum process always understood their similarity, making the guitar mean so much to her?
“No time for that now, sis,” Kunoichi reminded.
Even at the speed she processed, Sakura would need every cycle to survive. She hefted the tetsubo war club in both hands. She ran for a picture window at the edge of the room, the weight of mahogany at her back like ornamental wings.
The stomping feet of the Special Assault Teams paused on either side of the open doorway. Hands patted shoulders in their single-file lines, telling each other they were ready to make entry and clear the room. As soon as the last slap came, the special operator in front would lead them in.
“I have a bomb!” Sakura shouted at her maximum volume, 150 decibels, as loud as a jet engine. “If you come in, I’ll blow the room, and everyone dies!”
The police hesitated while Sakura smashed out a window with the tetsubo. A blast of winter wind hit her in the face. She stared down from the 72nd floor to the dark sidewalk over two hundred meters below.
The police sent in a small aerial drone. Its main camera swept the space and locked on to Sakura. She knew the model, the IFO 675. It sent her image in real time and her exact 3-D position. The police outside would have her precise coordinates input into the targeting systems on their rifles. She turned her hearing to maximum.
“Both squads, weapons hot, acquire target,” a policeman said.
Two dozen police lifted their Arisaka 301 carbines, pulled them tight to their shoulders, and clicked off the safeties. Many of the estimated thousand rounds she was about to meet were going to be on target. The drone camera had her locked.
“Shit,” Kunoichi said. “We’re about to get lit up through the wall.”
“Yes. The Phantom Lord isn’t fucking around now. The rules of engagement are ‘any means necessary.’ We know where we stand.”
“Aim and lock!”
“Do something!” Kunoichi screamed in their UI.
“Fire!”
Sakura dropped the war club and jumped backward out the window. Clocking her processes to maximum, she experienced time as if in extreme slow motion, gravity and wind touching her with a reticent hand as she hung in empty space.
A swarm of bullets pierced the outer wall of the suite. Her priceless instruments—her Gibson Les Paul guitar, her acoustic Martin D-28, and several other irreplaceable heirlooms—shattered into kindling, tumbling projectiles ravaging them like the jaws of a thousand invisible barracuda. A small piece of her identity died with them.
Falling now, gravity took the horror of the scene from her eyes. Sakura grabbed the bottom of the window ledge two floors down and dangled against the building. The night hid her as she climbed sideways to a steel column, part of the exoskeleton of Victory Tower. She spread her arms and grasped the outer edges. She relaxed her grip and slid down fast. The magnets in her feet slowed her descent as she reached the 67th floor. She squeezed tight to arrest her fall, her metal arms and hands impervious to the friction, as she had shut off her pain sensors. She kicked in a window as an assault team member leaned out above her and fired his rifle.
Glass rained down as the bullet struck a window. Two rounds hit the Ibanez guitar
hanging over her shoulder. A resonance rose from the strings, as if the instrument could scream its pain to her.
She swung into the apartment—chosen because it was unoccupied—and looked at the bullet holes in the beautiful guitar. Her most prized possession was destroyed. A hole where the tone knob for the neck pickup had been seemed like the empty eye of a corpse.
“It can be repaired,” Kunoichi said.
“It’ll never be the same,” Sakura said.
“I …” Kunoichi fell silent. What could be said?
Sakura ran and opened the door to the apartment. She left it ajar, then returned to the window and hid behind the curtain. Precious seconds ticked away as she waited. Sakura tried and failed to hack into the building’s network again. She managed to connect to the standard comm hub in the apartment and contacted Takashi, Fujio, and Masashi on an unsecured audio line. “Dear friends, are you all right?”
“Sakura? Yes,” Takashi said. “They locked us up, but we’re unhurt.”
“Stay safe. Please take care of each other. My profoundest gratitude to you for proving we were a true band, not a media creation. Escape somehow. Live to rock again.”
“We will,” Takashi said. “Do the same, senpai. Remember you are loved and you give hope to the hopeless.”
Sakura cut the connection as the aerial drone camera hovered outside the broken window. It entered slowly. She remained hidden behind the curtain. She used an iaijutsu quick-draw technique and cut the drone in half with the katana. She crushed both pieces with her foot before sprinting out of the apartment.
She smashed the two cameras in the hallway before entering the emergency stairs and destroyed the stairwell camera only after it captured her descent. She doubled back and reentered the apartment where she had made entry.
She peeked out the gaping window and up toward the suite on the 72nd floor. No sentry had been stationed there. She crawled out and went sideways around the corner to another steel seam of the building’s exoskeleton.