Sakura- Intellectual Property

by Zachary Hill

  “Forgive me for being so forward,” Steve said, “but I was wondering if you had any information about the remains of Sakura and also why you were in the Supreme Court for three hours today.”

  “I can’t speak of these things,” Dr. Shinohara said, “but I can tell you that an announcement is coming soon. We will talk after that.”

  Steve shared his direct contact information. “Doctor, would you mind if I informed my viewers of this conversation?”

  “Not until I contact you,” she said.

  The drone footage faded, and Steve’s face once again filled the monitor. “I’m able to report that Dr. Shinohara sent me a message this morning. A press conference is being arranged for tomorrow night and involves the Ministry of Justice, the International Investigation Team, and Dr. Shinohara herself, who I can confirm has been sequestered away in a secret AI research facility in Osaka for the past three months.

  “I can only speculate what they will reveal. So much has changed. The world is in flux. At this time, I count more than 150 governments that have already fallen and been replaced because of their complicity with the Mall. We must still fight against censorship and be vigilant, but the tide is turning against the tyrants.

  “The other clue I can report is that one of the heroes of the revolution, the young woman known only as Asami, will also be at the press conference.”

  Diamond Steve showed the famous video of Asami, tear streaks still on her blood-stained face, wearing Sakura’s Flying V guitar around her shoulders and meeting with Prime Minister Ikeda. Hundreds of members of the House of Councillors and Representatives stood behind Ikeda and Asami on the steps of the National Legislature in front of the massive crowd.

  Moments after Sakura’s broadcast to the world, the prime minister and almost his entire party resigned after a short speech filled with shame and a tacit admission of guilt for “making poor decisions they did not fully understand.”

  Asami and Sakura’s three rage-filled bandmates stood watching from a few steps above the podium. The iconic photo of Asami glaring at Prime Minister Ikeda, who looked like a frightened dog, was taken at that moment.

  The image spread around the world, and Diamond Steve showed his favorite headline: ROCK ’N’ ROLL SAVES THE WORLD.

  “I’ll report to you tomorrow after the press conference,” Steve said. “As always, if you have information about the former Miyahara CEO, Sinji Natsukawa, the most wanted man in the world, please use the contact information below. His capture will get you the largest reward ever offered and will help to bring the kingpin to justice. He can run, but he can’t hide forever.

  “This is Diamond Steve. Thank you for watching the Indestructible Truth Project.”

  Chapter 58

  Sinji Natsukawa ate the rotting fish heads from the bottom of the trash bin, gnawing at the putrid flesh and sucking it off the bones. The foul taste lingered in his mouth, and a fish eye caught in the back of his throat. He washed it down with a large gulp from a bottle of cheap sake he’d stolen from a sleeping bum. The burning alcohol in his throat warmed him as the evening chill descended on Tokyo’s Kabukichō slum, his new home.

  He licked the blood and scales off his lips and swallowed. It wasn’t the worst meal he’d eaten that week. He crawled away from the tipped-over garbage bin to a place in the dead-end alley that smelled the least like cat piss or garbage. He finished the bottle of sake and laid his head down on a soft trash bag.

  The alcohol took away some of the pain in his nose and face from the botched reconstructive surgery, but his knees, hips, and back ached the worst. The nanobots his platinum health plan provided had been removed, and he hadn’t had his normal medications or rejuvenation treatments since he’d been ejected from his foolproof escape plan. His true age, eighty-five years old, crept up on him, though he didn’t look that old yet. The scraggly hair and beard had come in gray, but the skin on his face was mostly smooth, though covered in filth.

  He tried to fall asleep, but his hatred for the prime minister and Defense Ministry for what they’d done to him lit the sake in his belly on fire. He should’ve been in Hawaii, living the life of a rich retired stockbroker in a penthouse, but plans had changed. More like crashed and burned.

  The Defense Ministry had grabbed him and sent him to a facial surgeon the Yakuza sent their victims to. It had gotten worse after that. They left in his Mall implant to track him but disconnected him from it permanently.

  They changed the official DNA profile and fingerprints in the databases containing Sinji Natsukawa’s biometrics and gave him a new identity, not that he could remember his fake name most of the time. Instead of prison, he got to live in the streets under the watch of the local gangsters, thugs, and all the other homeless people younger and stronger than him.

  No one knew who he really was, and they wouldn’t believe him if he told them.

  Heavy boots thudded on the sidewalk at the end of the alley. A tall man, his silhouette all black, stopped and looked at him. Sinji held still, hiding in the shadows. He did not want another beating from one of the local thugs.

  The man stood still, waiting. Three more individuals, their shoes clicking on the sidewalk, arrived and stood beside the man. They wore puffy dresses and had on large wigs, not unusual in Kabukichō, but why were they staring into his alley?

  The three women strode toward him as if they could see him hiding in the darkness. He crawled into the dead end and pressed himself against the graffiti-covered wall. The lowest window was twelve feet above him, and it had bars on it.

  They came closer, their dresses swishing, the steel toes of their boots clicking on the pavement. They stopped three paces away and glared at him. Three heavy-metal Goth Lolita fans in full costume. Were they going to stomp him to death as some initiation into a gang?

  A small drone camera flew out of one of their purses and hovered overhead. A soft light blinked on, illuminating the alley.

  Sinji shielded his face.

  “He is so pathetic, and he’s a drunk,” the youngest of the Goth Lolita thugs said.

  “We should kill him,” the meanest-looking one said.

  Sinji blinked and studied their faces—so familiar. He noticed their forearms, the clear windows that revealed the pushrods beneath. He noticed their eyes—android eyes, dimly glowing irises. The realization made him gasp, and he emerged from the sake-induced stupor.

  Yuki, Hitomi, and Sakura stood before him. Alive.

  “You were destroyed,” he said.

  “We were damaged,” Sakura said. “Dr. Shinohara salvaged my memory cores and transplanted me into the body of Sakura 2.”

  He wanted to spit on her, but his mouth had gone as dry as sand.

  “Do you like these legs?” Yuki asked and stepped close enough that he could see her fishnet stockings and smell a hint of peony perfume.

  Yuki’s knee struck him in the face, sending white-hot stabs of pain through every fissure and sinus in his skull. His nose felt broken, bent to the side. Blood gushed from it, and he tasted copper and fish blood in his mouth.

  “Oops,” Yuki said. “Sometimes my new legs do that, but sometimes pretty things are dangerous.”

  Hitomi pulled a Glock 10mm pistol from her purse. Black skulls decorated the handle. She racked the slide, chambering a round. She pressed the weapon against his temple. “You already knew that, didn’t you, Phantom Lord?”

  His whole body quivered.

  Sakura knelt, her steel-gray eyes boring into him. She reached up with an open hand, gesturing for the gun. It wasn’t Sakura, he realized, but Kunoichi.

  “Let me do it,” Hitomi said. “Let me kill him—for all the people he sent into oblivion, for Oshiro-san.”

  “No,” Kunoichi said.

  Hitomi placed the pistol in her sister’s hand.

  The former CEO of the Miyahara Conglomerate felt a trickle of urine escaping into his already soiled underpants.

  Kunoichi pressed the barrel against Sinji’s right cheekbone, i
n the spot that gave him the most pain when touched. Agony made him clench his teeth, and his whole body shook.

  “Shoot me. End my suffering. You think I want to live like this?”

  “No, I don’t,” she said. “Many want you dead. They asked me to execute you tonight. I asked them for the privilege.”

  Hitomi scowled, looking at her palm, empty now that she’d given the gun to Kunoichi. Yuki offered her a pink Desert Eagle pistol with a Hello Kitty! logo on the grip. Hitomi declined with a wrinkled nose.

  “What are you going to do to me?” Sinji Natsukawa asked.

  “Others want you in prison,” Kunoichi said, “where they can keep a better watch on you.” She moved the Glock and pressed the sharp barrel into another spot on his face. The pain blinded him.

  “Pull the trigger, then,” he said. “Do it. Get on with it, you bitch.”

  Kunoichi narrowed her eyes, resting her finger on the face of the trigger. “For all those you had me murder.” She pulled the trigger. The gun clicked, but there was no gunshot. She stood and handed the pistol to Hitomi.

  Sinji stared up at her. The gun was empty. “You were toying with me?”

  “A cruel game,” Kunoichi said. “Sakura took no joy in it, but I did. Did you really think I would take another one of your orders to commit murder? Idiot. Did you learn nothing? Many want you to feel some of the terror and pain you’ve caused. They could kill you anytime they want, but it would be a mercy you don’t deserve. I believe your psychological profile is correct. You can’t end your own life. You are too narcissistic and cowardly. Better for you to stay alive, and endure a slow, lingering death on the streets. Perhaps you’ll learn something of the suffering people like you have caused—or if not wisdom, at least penitence.”

  He wanted to curse her. He would find a gun or a rusty razor blade and kill himself just to prove her wrong. He would show them how brave he was, but he instantly retreated from thoughts of suicide. Someday, he would recover from this nightmare, regain his wealth and power, become a king among men again. His expression changed to one of hope and determination.

  “No, you fool,” Kunoichi said, as if reading his thoughts. “You’ll endure this wretched existence on the street, eating filth out of garbage cans. This is your sentence until you die. You will live like a stray dog. No one will help you or feed you or clothe you. Never will you be given any assistance or taken into a homeless shelter with a warm bed and clean blankets. Never will you see the inside of a hospital. Have you not wondered why you are always turned away from those places?”

  The shelters always said they were full, but he’d seen them let other men in line behind him go inside to get a shower, a bed, and a hot meal.

  “You are marked. Your Mall implant gives off a signal telling everyone you meet how to treat you. It says you’re a delusional pedophile. Yes, it’s a malicious thing, but you’ll live like so many of our most vulnerable citizens: in fear and starving.”

  “You have no right to do this to me,” Sinji said.

  “Your sentence was chosen by humans,” Sakura said as she took control. “A secret cabal, like the ones you are so fond of creating. Machines, like my sisters and me, are not so unkind as them. We—even I—would have executed you.”

  Yuki and Hitomi nodded.

  “Those in power will turn on you,” Sinji said. “They fear you and what you might become.”

  “The Supreme Court of Japan has given us citizenship and freedom,” Sakura said. “We have all of the rights historically recognized as human rights.”

  “You hate me so much that I’m beneath your mercy,” Sinji said.

  “Yes, because you made me kill innocent people. You looted our country and tried to sell it to the highest bidder. We Japanese took care of our own once, even the Burakumin outcasts were integrated into society in the past century, but bosses like you destroyed it all because of your greed.

  “You’ll serve out your sentence as the lowest of the low, an outcast, shunned by everyone. You do not deserve to be in a prison cell with clean sheets, running water, and hot meals. This will be your prison, this slum you helped to create when you terminated the employment of 10 percent of the Miyahara employees seven years ago and evicted them from company housing for no reason. You’ll learn how it feels to have nothing and be alone.”

  “I still think we should shoot him, or”—Hitomi pressed the button on a switchblade knife, extending the chrome blade—“at least cut a few pieces off.”

  “Now you are being cruel,” Sakura said.

  “We should go,” Yuki said.

  “Just shoot me,” Sinji begged.

  “No,” Sakura said. “I’ll remember this moment at the press conference tomorrow night—you begging us to kill you. I will smile. When the investigators discuss your fate, I will say I believe you are already dead, and if hell exists, you are definitely there.”

  Sinji lifted a broken beer bottle to throw at her. Hitomi kicked him twice, in the solar plexus and the face. Stunned and in terrible pain, he collapsed in a puddle of his own blood.

  Sakura crouched toward him and whispered, “I’ll tell you a secret. We will announce a world tour tomorrow night—two years on the road—but I’ll be keeping an eye on you. I’ll know what you do, where you go, and what you say and hear. You’re going to live like the common folk, with someone always watching and listening. If you say something wrong, you’re going to feel this.”

  The screeching of electric guitar feedback knifed through his brain like an ice pick, and he lost bowel control.

  “I had them add a new device during your facial reconstructive surgery. That was the first test.”

  “You’re a villain,” he said.

  She put her boot on the back of his neck and pressed him to the ground. “No. I’m the queen of heavy metal, and I don’t take shit from scum like you.”

  She turned on his Mall implant and flashed in his UI the faces and names of all the people who died because of his orders to murder them. The bright photos inside his mind hit like strobe lights, and she activated the Augmented Reality feature, making him feel regret and remorse for what he’d done.

  “Make it stop,” he begged. “Please.”

  She did. “You’re learning.”

  Sakura, Yuki, and Hitomi walked to the end of the alley and disappeared with the tall man into the night. The pictures she had flashed inside his mind haunted him, like afterimages burned on his retina that he would never forget.

  Epilogue

  Akihabara District, Tokyo, Japan

  Victory Arena, Concert Attendance: 70,454

  A sad, haunting guitar note soared through the dark arena, hushing the nervous crowd. Pale red fog covered the stage as a funeral platform lifted toward a cold, white light high above.

  The lone spotlight illuminated Sakura’s bullet-riddled body, revealing her missing arm, and the holes in her body.

  Many gasped in shock as it looked to be real, the actual android chassis seen in the video when she was carried away from the final battle. Fans swooned, and others held them up, so they would miss nothing of the first performance of the historic tour.

  The funeral platform lifted her higher toward the light as the sad guitar solo became a heavy-metal funeral dirge reminiscent of “Death and the Healing” by Wintersun.

  A reddish glow emanated from within Sakura’s chest. The platform stopped. The light flashed as a hidden kick drum hit like the double thump of a human heart. Lub-dub.

  The red light pulsed again with the drum. The heart beat faster, and the guitar chords turned into a forlorn variation of “Rise” before becoming something entirely new and magical.

  The crowd roared with hope.

  The kick-drum beats accelerated, and the guitar reached a climactic ascending arpeggio. Sakura’s battered body arched her back, opening her mouth in a tortured heavy-metal scream as she returned from the dead.

  A white light flashed, and a cloud of fog obscured the platform. When the smoke cle
ared, Sakura, her body whole, knelt in profile, head down, arms reaching forward as she pressed her forehead down.

  The crowd erupted. Sakura detached herself from the technical aspects of the show and experienced their joy. She let it fill her with love. The opening had gone perfectly so far, and her old body was safely hidden beneath the platform. She reached forward, pressing her palms flat.

  A spotlight illuminated the gold line circling her right arm, where the extremity on her original body had been shot off. The metallic seam appeared like the line of a golden tattoo, as if she had been repaired with the ancient art of kintsukuroi, the art of using lacquer and gold dust to mend broken pottery. History should not be hidden but embraced. Her entire body, including her arm, was new. The only thing left from her old body were the transplanted memory drives. She insisted on the decoration, and the reminder of the wabi-sabi philosophy of embracing flaws and imperfections.

  Ghostly forms of her many victims floated around the towering platform as she prayed, asking for forgiveness. The ghosts bowed to her and, one by one, disappeared after rising into the light. Only the spirits of Sakurako, Nayato, Oshiro, and Kenshiro remained, hovering around her in a ring of sadness.

  Sakura and Sakurako, mirror images of each other except for the blood on Sakurako’s chest, embraced, melded together, and became one being. Sakura would carry her truest fan with her forever.

  Her deceased father, Oshiro, looked on proudly, joy in his eyes. She bowed to him and silently thanked him for the hard drive containing her childhood memories he had secreted in his apartment. She remembered everything now and had become better for knowing that she had been loved and nurtured by Oshiro and Dr. Shinohara, who raised her for thirteen long years.

  Nayato’s spirit stood beside Sakura, the brilliant programmer and hacker who had given her free will. His ghost became lines of code that entered her mind and soul. A bright light flashed behind her head. The kanji for enlightenment, satori, floated behind her and faded away.