by Eric Warren
“Who are you?” she asked, fully aware he wouldn’t be able to understand her. And without the Device to translate for her she had no hope of understanding him. Was this one of Hogo-sha’s Psuedokeepers or was he the real deal?
“Switch to English,” the man said to the rest of them in perfect English. “They are not native to Japan. Human infiltration unit, which means we kill on sight.” He raised his weapon. Her vision was clearing and she could see they were fully surrounded. One had come up behind Blu and placed a weapon to her head. Another was behind Jonn, two guns on poking into the shawl he wore.
“Wait.” Arista coughed, her face aching from the blow.
“This one is a machine. What’s going on here?” the one behind Jonn said.
“Jonn,” Arista said, pushing up on her elbow. “Tell them.”
“We’re not an infiltration unit,” he said. “We are here in search of two allies for Arista Barnes.” He pointed at Arista, still on the ground.
“Tell them we’re not a threat,” she spat. She’d heard the urgency in the man’s voice beside her. It wouldn’t be long before they decided to shoot all three of them and not take any chances.
“We were sent by Trymian in London to appeal for assistance in finding Charlie. It’s our mission to locate and destroy him.” Jonn said.
Their assailants were silent and non-moving for a moment. “Why should we believe you?” the man above her said.
“I am friends with Mitsu and Takai,” Arista said. “We need their help to find Charlie.”
“Bastard,” the Peacekeeper spat.
Arista glanced up at him. “Are you the Peacekeepers? The ones who gained full autonomy? The defectors?”
“We are the proud children of Jairo,” the man said. Arista furrowed her brow. She’d heard that name before, but she couldn’t quite remember where. “And you are human spies sent to finish your mission!”
She sat back, putting her hands up. “We’re on no mission from the humans. We don’t even know where they are. Check the gate logs, we just came from London. The human colony is abandoned, they’re being exterminated just like you are…by Charlie.”
The Peacekeeper exchanged glances with his comrades. “Kurt, her hand.” One of them pointed to Arista’s raised artificial hand.
He peered at it, examining it closely. “You are the one we’ve heard of. The one whom Hogo-Sha saved, only to turn on him and kill him when it suited you.”
“What?” Arista protested, getting up. Kurt pushed her back down to the ground. “I was trying to help him. He was my friend. I tried to get Mitsu and Takai to—”
“You wanted them to use their bodies,” Kurt said.
“I wanted them to volunteer. But it was their choice. I didn’t kill Hogo-sha. Another human named Sy did that.”
“It does not matter which of you did it,” Kurt said, staring her down. “You brought her here. You caused this. And now you will face your judgement.” He grabbed her by the lapels, hoisting her up and yanking her down the street. She glanced behind her to see Blu and Jonn following, though Blu yanked out of her escort’s grip.
“Judgement, by who?” Arista said as soon as she finally got her feet under her.
“The council.”
“Wait a second, you can’t just abduct us, we’re trying to help you,” Blu yelled.
“Tell your human to be quiet unless she wishes to be shot,” Kurt said as if Blu was nothing more than a pet to be silenced on command. Arista turned to her and shook her head. Blu didn’t understand. They’d have to face this council and plead their case before they could find Mitsu and Takai. If only her Device still worked, she might be able to contact them. But there were too many Peacekeepers, and she didn’t want to risk being shot.
The rest of the Peacekeepers fell into line with them as they walked, acting almost as a guard against any other outside threats. “How many times have you been attacked by the humans?” Arista asked.
“None,” Kurt said. “But we know the attacks are coming soon. Just like they did six weeks ago. Humans appeared and killed us at random.”
“I know,” Arista said. “I was trying to stop them.”
“You did a very poor job,” Kurt said. “I was stationed in Germany. The attacks were quick and fierce.”
“But you speak—” Arista began.
“—whatever language the locals use,” Kurt said.
Arista noticed they were headed in the direction of the tower, though now they were out in the middle of the street instead of staying confined to the shadows. Would they have just stopped Jonn had he been by himself? His appearance was so strange she could imagine it. Though an uninhabited husk would completely ignore him.
“Where is everyone?” Arista asked. “The husks?”
“Charlie controls them all now,” Kurt said. “So we destroyed them.”
“All the husks in Hogo-Sha’s sector? That has to be millions?”
“Not all,” Kurt replied. “Just the ones that come close to the council.” He remained stone-faced and facing forward, even though his grip was still on Arista’s arm. All she had to do was press her fingers together and activate the key and Kurt would be dead before he hit the ground. But she needed to know who this council was and what they wanted with her. If things went south maybe she’d use the key then. Until that happened, it was best to sit back and watch things play out.
***
Arista had been right, they had been heading toward the tower. Once they climbed the wide stairs to the glass needle, Kurt escorted them in past heavy security. She noticed plenty of burn marks on the concrete structures outside along with holes in the glass and other damage.
“Firefight,” she said. “I remember talking to Mitsu and Takai about it as it was happening.”
“The humans wanted to take the tower, but we would not let it happen.”
“Let me guess, they just disappeared about six weeks ago? Sound about right?” she asked. “The humans pulled back because Charlie got inside the colony and destroyed it from the inside out. They’re in no position to mount any kind of attack on you. They’re probably doing whatever they can to just survive if nothing else.”
Kurt scoffed and led them into an elevator. “A human would say that.”
Arista rolled her eyes. She just wanted to get this over. So she wouldn’t have to fight or to struggle anymore. The capture by the Peacekeepers had injected a fresh flood of adrenaline into her system, though now that was waning and her exhaustion was catching up with her.
The lights on the elevator continued to rise, indicating they were headed for the sky lobby. “Change elevators here,” Kurt said, as they got off. As they moved to the next elevator bank Arista recognized this was the same floor that housed the infirmary. Her eyes lingered on the long hallway leading down to the room where they’d managed to revive Frees after his encounter with Sy. She’d thought she’d lost him then, but it almost seemed like someone was trying to give her a warning of what was to come. First Frees had almost died in Charlie’s lair, using all his power. Then Sy had nearly captured him for the colony where they would have done who-knows-what to him. Then he almost died in the other universe when an angry mob of humans outed him to the police. Why hadn’t she seen it before? It had all been a warning; a message. Signals for her to indicate her feelings before it was too late. And yet she let each event pass by without saying so much as a word; relieved he was okay but never showing anything beyond a smile or a few words to get under his skin.
She’d had plenty of chances. And she’d wasted them all.
They changed sky lobbies one more time before getting in the final elevator to take them to the top.
“This has to be one of the biggest buildings I’ve ever been in,” Blu said.
Arista turned to her. Jonn remained silent in his corner of the elevator, staring at the walls. “You mean you never went in any of those buildings in New York? What about Echo’s tower?”
“It was more like this,” B
lu said, placing her palms close together and moving them up and down to indicate a slender shape like the buildings in Manhattan had tended to be. “But this place, it’s like…” She spread her hands out wider. “…massive.”
“I can’t argue with that,” Arista said. “It was one of the last buildings built by humans. Before—”
“We took our rightful place,” Kurt replied, still not looking any direction but forward.
“Really?” Blu asked. “I can’t believe this stuff has held up this long.”
“Hogo-sha told me they only maintained certain parts of the city, for efficiency sake. And he used to live in this building so this one received the most care.” She glanced to Kurt for any hint he was starting to believe that maybe she hadn’t been lying about being friends with Mitsu and Takai, but he gave no indication of such.
The doors opened and they filed out into the long hallway. The same hallway where Arista had been on the receiving end of Hogo-sha throwing his minions at her in an attempt to stop them from escaping.
“This way,” Kurt said, leading them along. Everything in here reminded her of that final battle with Sy; she never thought she’d see it again.
As they approached the large doors to what used to be Hogo-sha’s sanctuary, the doors opened by themselves, revealing the large room to them. The room was still circular in shape, with shelves upon shelves of books lining the walls on both floors. The staircase and the catwalk which encircled the entire upper floor had been completely repaired, as had all the windows that looked out on to downtown Osaka. And there, in the middle of the floor on a platform that hadn’t been there before, sat Mitsu, Takai and a third person Arista didn’t immediately recognize.
The unknown man stood, gesturing with his hand. “Welcome to your judgment.”
TWENTY-EIGHT
Blu could barely comprehend this place. The room itself was massive, and yet at the same time it was cozy. The walls were a rich wood, and the books—holy shit the books! There were so many and they covered a wide variety of subjects. Never had she seen so many paper books in her life. Everything she’d encountered had been digital. Sure, she’d seen a few as a child, and one of the other resistance members back home had one or two they kept, handed down by their families; but for the most part everything in her world had been electronic. Which was why she liked collecting the older music players; it was a way to ground her to humanity’s past and this was no different. Except these books had been collected and stored by the machines. Or at least, that’s what she assumed. Why would they keep them here if it weren’t the case?
The rest of the room was as impressive. Along the back of the curved wall giant windows stretched from the floor to the ceiling, where something truly massive had been attached once, though now only the struts remained. Arista said this had been Hogo-sha’s tower, perhaps this was the room he’d been stored in. She had yet to see an AI, but from the way Arista described them they were very large.
“Mitsu, Takai,” Arista said, stepping forward, though Kurt held her back. “It’s me.”
“Hello, Arista,” the woman with the petite features and long, silky black hair replied, but remained seated. The only one of the three standing was the larger man, in the middle. She turned to him. “We may need to change tactics, these are not the humans we were expecting.”
“No matter,” the tall man in the middle replied. His long black hair came to a neat ponytail in the back, at the base of his skull. Blu had a hard time looking away from his piercing orange eyes. “They must still face judgment. Take the machine down to the ninetieth floor. We will question him separately.”
“What humans? Who were you expecting?” Arista asked as one of the guards turned Jonn around and began walking him back to the doors.
“You will only answer, you will not ask,” the man snapped. “Do you accept responsibility for the crimes of your race? For the crimes of humanity against the machine species? Are you willing to accept the consequences for the actions of your people?”
“Jairo, you can’t—” Mitsu began.
“I remember you now,” Arista said, taking a step forward. “You were the third orderly. The last one I gave autonomy to. The one who refused to help Shin. You told me you didn’t want any part of it.” She glanced around the room, her eyes landing on the other two on the council for a moment. “Why have you allowed him to take over like this? He abandoned you.” Blu noticed Kurt’s eyes flick to the guard standing behind Blu, then back to front again. The guard escorting Jonn had stopped short of leaving the room.
“We decided it was for the best,” the other man on the council said, still seated. He was larger around the middle and had a cheerful face. Blu could only assume this was Takai. “When he returned with the Peacekeepers we changed our objectives.”
“To what? What is happening here?” Arista shouted.
“You were told to only answer questions, not ask them,” Jairo replied, staring down at her from the platform.
“I don’t care,” Arista said. “If you think you can just come back and act like you own this sector you have to be the stupidest machine I’ve ever met.”
“She is combative. Kurt, restrain and gag her,” Jairo said.
“Oh shit,” Blu whispered under her breath. She was glad she wasn’t on the receiving end of what was coming.
Kurt reached for Arista again but she spun on him, glaring at him. “Listen, Kurt, I have a special piece of equipment built into my arm here.” She wagged her arm for effect. “This item seeks out and disrupts machine code and—in less than ten seconds—will completely obliterate your code from the inside. Everything you are and ever have been will be destroyed and all I have to do is touch you. So if I were you, I’d think long and hard about your next move.”
Kurt stared at her a moment, then turned to Jairo, who urged him to go ahead. Blu took a step back, glancing at Jonn. He’d turned back to face them, his eyes on his own guard.
“What are you waiting for? She’s bluffing,” Jairo said.
“Want to find out?” Arista took a step toward the elevated platform. Jairo backed away, his eyes wide.
“That’s enough,” Mitsu said, standing. “Jairo, this woman is not our enemy. And she should not be treated as such.”
“I agree with Mitsu,” Takai said, also standing. “She is not to be harmed.”
Kurt took three steps back from Arista, his eyes on her artificial arm. Blu turned to her own guard who had also stepped back. “I bet you’re glad you got to escort me and not her, huh?” She smiled.
The guard didn’t respond.
“Mitsu, what the hell is going on here?” Arista asked, sympathy in her voice this time. “Why drag us up here to be tried for war crimes we didn’t commit?”
“I apologize, Arista, it’s what we agreed to when Jairo came back with the Peacekeepers. We thought it was the best way to proceed after the attacks.” She descended the stairs, coming face to face with Arista.
“He came back with the Peacekeepers? From where?”
Blu saw Jonn approach the center of the room again. He was eyeing each of their captors with interest.
“From all over,” Jairo announced. “They were being persecuted and destroyed…by you.”
“Not this one,” Mitsu said.
“I’m surprised you decided to help anyone after your cowardice when I asked you to assist Hogo-Sha,” Arista said, staring at Jairo. “You didn’t even consider it. At least Mitsu and Takai stayed. At least they tried to help. You just tucked tail and ran.”
“How dare—”
Mitsu put her hand up, silencing him. “I apologize. When they told us they’d captured a human with an artificial arm I wasn’t sure it was you. I thought it might be an imposter. Or a trick by the humans.” She glanced around. “I’m surprised Frees isn’t with you. Is he off on another mission? He always wanted to help.”
Blu caught the pain that flashed across Arista’s face, her heart going out to her. But somehow Arista manag
ed to retain her composure. “He’s…” she said, her words catching. “He didn’t make it.”
Mitsu’s eyes softened. “I’m very sorry. He was a good man.” Arista nodded. “But I see you have a new companion. Though he’s a little…worse for wear.”
Blu laughed until she realized everyone was staring at her. “Sorry. I had a tickle in my throat.”
Arista smirked. “That’s my sister, Blu. And that,” she said, pointing to Jonn. “Is the machine who betrayed me and Frees to Charlie. He calls himself Jonn but I like asshole better.”
“If he betrayed you, why is he with you?” Takai asked.
“Because she’s a human, she’s irrational and unpredictable,” Jairo replied.
“You want unpredictable? How about when someone uses a cruise missile to destroy an apartment building to try and kill you? How’s that for unpredictable?” Arista spat.
“I’ve apologized for that,” Jonn replied, his voice tinged with anger.
“Crimes against humans do not matter,” Jairo said. “Only crimes against machines.”
“Why don’t you tell us why you’re here?” Mitsu said. “I’m sure you didn’t come all the way to Osaka to be interrogated.”
Blu thought she saw Arista hesitate for a moment, though it might have been her exhaustion catching up with her. She’d come through from an alternate dimension to Antarctica, to England and now to Japan in only a matter of hours. On this side of the world, the sun was on its way to rising over the horizon and the sky was lit up with all manner of blues, violets, and indigoes. This was what jet-lag must feel like. Her internal clock was all over the place.
“We’re trying to stop Charlie,” Arista said. “You’ve seen for yourself he’s still alive.”
“We’ve been fighting off the husks for weeks,” Kurt replied. “It is the only way we’ve been able to survive; by banding together.”