by Shouji Gatou
Something’s coming... from the sky? Who? How? And why didn’t our radar detect the attack?! The colonel looked up. At first, he couldn’t see any sign of their attackers. But as he strained his eyes against the night sky, he noticed distortions in the starlight, almost like a heat haze. “Is that...”
From one of those atmospheric flickers came a sudden surge of blue lightning. Like black ink oozing out from a thin veil of light, three figures appeared. This was ECS—The ultimate hologram-integrated stealth system. But to achieve total invisibility... nobody had that ready for battle yet. Did they?!
The three figures were soldiers, who were dangling from parachutes. Firearms ready, they descended on the base, firing shots sporadically...
Just three soldiers, though? the colonel wondered. No... They weren’t soldiers; they weren’t even human. They were far too big. “Arm slaves?!” he gasped incredulously.
The ASes descending upon them were unlike anything he’d seen before. They had rounded, gray armor plates and a frame that was lithe yet strong, much closer to a human form. These never-before-seen gray machines—was this Mithril? Were they here?!
The three aesthetically pleasing ASes detached their parachutes 50 meters above the base and plunged into furious freefall. Then, like the titans of legend released from their chains, they crashed onto locations all around the base and began to wreak havoc. Sparing no fire from their giant rifles and shotguns, they tore the armored cars and helicopters to shreds. They routed the panicking soldiers with their head-mounted machine guns, kicked jeeps aside, and broke watchtowers in half.
“You can’t run and you can’t hide! Surrender!” one machine shouted from its external speakers. To the colonel’s shock, it was a young woman’s voice.
Her AS’s palm unleashed a taser at the fleeing trainees. The electricity knocked them out, one after another. The colonel could only watch helplessly as his base was torn to shreds.
《Destruction and capture of main targets confirmed. Switch to search mode?》 his machine’s AI suggested in its deep male voice.
“Affirmative,” he answered. “Switch to active mode.”
《Roger. ECS off. ECCS on.》 The AI executed the operator’s commands immediately.
Inside the cockpit that engulfed him, Sagara Sousuke carefully studied the display on the screen. These gray ASes were the main armament of Mithril, the mercenary force with which Sousuke was aligned. They were known as the M9, or the Gernsback, and they possessed cutting-edge specs that were far beyond those available to rank-and-file armed forces.
Fires continued to rage around the jungle stronghold. With their tanks, armored cars, and invaluable ASes in pieces, most of the enemy soldiers had surrendered. About fifty in all had been gathered in the central plaza of the mock city, hands raised. Now and then, one of them thought they saw an opening and tried to escape, but whenever that happened, Sousuke or one of his companion machines unceremoniously hit them with a taser.
Their mission was almost over; they just had to search the prisoners for the Japanese group they were looking for and hand the rest over to the Filipino government.
The operator of an ally machine, standing back-to-back with Sousuke’s AS to watch over the other side of the base, called him on the radio. “Easier than expected, eh, Sousuke?” The laid-back voice belonged to Sergeant Kurz Weber, Sousuke’s comrade. He was operating an M9 Gernsback, identical to Sousuke’s own.
“That statement seems premature. Remain on guard for ambush units using heavy weaponry,” Sousuke responded steadily.
“Please, we’re fine. Not even a rocket can dent these babies,” Kurz responded, referring to the M9s.
“I’m more worried about the prisoners. We can’t complete our mission if they’re killed by stray fire.”
“Oh, I get it, you unfeeling bastard...” Kurz grumbled. “I’m a man fresh off his sickbed, remember?”
“Stop talking and confirm the targets,” Sousuke demanded.
“Hmm... fair enough.” Kurz’s M9 stepped in front of the prisoners. “Ah, ahem,” he began, his voice blaring out through the external speakers. “Are there any Japanese trainees here? They’ll be young, and from a terrorist group called A21. You won’t be killed or harmed, so if you’re here, please come out.”
The prisoners remained silent to a man, turning to each other questioningly.
“Nobody? C’mon, you there—mask off,” Kurz ordered. “You, too. Hurry it up.” As the M9 began to brandish its taser, several of the men quickly removed their balaclavas.
Sousuke magnified his screen image and studied the men’s faces. “They’re not here,” he said. Some of them had Japanese facial features, but none matched the pictures on the briefing document given to them earlier.
“You’re right...” Kurz trailed off. “What’s going on here?”
Their pre-mission briefing had said a Japanese terrorist group was in hiding here. It was an organization called A21, which had planned some bombings in the city several years ago, but their plan had been exposed and they had fled overseas. It was rumored that they were plotting a new incident of terrorism soon, though...
“They’re not here,” Sousuke repeated.
Just then, the M9 of Master Sergeant Melissa Mao returned from its foray of chasing escapees into the jungle. It was holding four taser-paralyzed terrorists in its arms. “No luck here, either. I couldn’t find one Japanese person. Guess we just got a bad draw.”
“More bogus info from intelligence, huh? Dammit...” Kurz’s M9, relaying its operator’s intent, kicked over a nearby drum. The act sent a tremble of fear through the prisoners.
“It’s not an uncommon occurrence. If they’re not here, they’re not here... We should hand these people over to the Filipino military, then meet up with the transport chopper at the landing—” Suddenly, Sousuke stopped. With his face clouded over in anguish, he let out a sound between a groan and a sigh, and then shook his head.
“What’s wrong?” Kurz inquired, noting Sousuke’s behavior—the M9 was shaking its head in mimicry of its operator.
“I forgot,” Sousuke moaned at last, in tones of sheer agony.
Hearing that, Kurz’s M9 went on the alert, swinging its rifle back and forth. “What is it? You’re usually so cautious... You forget to encrypt your channel or something stupid like that?”
“No, not that. It’s something even worse...”
“What the hell is it?!”
“I... I made a promise to someone,” Sousuke explained. “To meet up at 1900 hours today.”
“Huh?”
“She’s going to be so mad at me,” he whispered. A cold sweat had risen on his brow. He was in complete disarray—It was hard to believe he was the same person coldly carrying out orders just a few minutes ago.
“Who’d you promise?” Kurz wanted to know.
“Kaname. I was supposed to stop by her house so she could help me to study for the term final test. Japanese history is my weakest subject, so...”
The shoulders of Kurz’s M9 slumped (third-generation ASes were capable of this motion, thanks to their more complex joint structures). “You are really something...” he said.
“Must be tough... A soldier with a side job,” Mao added, as she dumped her unconscious haul into the prisoner ring. “Filipino army transport helicopters will arrive in five minutes. Finish the questioning before then. After we hand over the hostages, we’ll start moving toward the RV point. Got it?”
“Uruz-6, roger that.”
“Uruz-7, roger that...” Sousuke answered despondently.
This was the other side of Sagara Sousuke, elite member of Mithril’s top-secret special forces: he was also a high school student in Tokyo.
25 June, 1518 Hours (Greenwich Mean Time)
Amphibious Assault Submarine Tuatha de Danaan, 50 Meter Depth, Luzon Strait
“It was a bust?” Tessa inquired, her brow knitting, after hearing Melissa Mao’s report. She was sitting in the central control room of the m
assive Mithril submarine, a room the size of a lecture hall, from which orders could be issued to both the submarine crew and their ground forces. From her captain’s chair, she had a view of the room’s three large front screens and the stations for about fifteen personnel.
Tessa—Teletha Testarossa—was the captain of the amphibious assault submarine, Tuatha de Danaan. She looked like a girl in her mid-teens, with large gray eyes and ash blonde hair, which was styled in a braid that draped over her left shoulder. The rank insignia “COL” gleamed on her pale brown civilian clothing.
“Yes, ma’am. No signs of the terrorist organization A21 found,” Mao responded over the radio.
“And no one connected to them, either?”
“We questioned the camp’s instructor. Apparently ten days prior, a Japanese group matching their description came to the camp to observe.”
“Where did they go after that?” Tessa wanted to know.
“He said he heard they were going from Manila to the Gold Coast, but I’d bet that’s BS... The man doesn’t know anything,” Mao told her in disgust.
“So they feigned joining the camp, then took off... They really did get the better of us, didn’t they?” Tessa sighed. The intelligence division had reported that the terrorist group in question was doing its final training in that camp, but apparently, they’d been ill informed. “I’m sorry. I wasted your time.”
“It’s not your fault, Tessa,” Mao responded kindly. “Anyway, we’re about to head to the RV point. Is that okay?”
“Yes. Return here as planned. I’ll be waiting.”
“Roger that. Ending transmission.”
In a window in the corner of the screen that displayed who she was talking to, the word “URUZ2” switched from red to green. Tessa sighed and sat back in her seat. “For heaven’s sake...”
“It’s common enough,” her executive officer, Commander Richard Mardukas, said from nearby. He cast a gloomy glance at the front screen through the black-rimmed glasses that sat on his lean technician’s face.
Noting his expression, Tessa responded. “We can’t dismiss this as ‘common enough.’ The terror group A21 has acquired Soviet-made ASes, hasn’t it? If they unleash them on the city, it will be a disaster.”
“Of course, Captain. But we aren’t omnipotent,” Mardukas protested. “It’s necessary to dismiss some failures with ‘these things happen.’”
“That sounds like indolence to me.” She had been given all of this equipment, all of these people. She and her squad had to be as close to omnipotent as possible. Perfect information, perfect planning—that was Tessa’s ideal blueprint for her organization.
“It is not indolence; it is flexibility,” Mardukas responded humorlessly.
Just then, the ship’s mother AI began to sound an alarm, calling for Tessa. “What is it?” she asked.
《Channel G1, Major Kalinin.》
“Put him through.”
《Aye, ma’am.》
The mother AI put her through to Major Andrey Kalinin, their operations commander currently in Japan on another mission. The channel opened and the man’s deep voice boomed through. “Colonel, ma’am. How did things go in the training camp?”
“It was a bust,” she answered. “The terrorist group we were after wasn’t there.”
“A21, you mean?” Kalinin didn’t sound especially surprised. “I received word that one of their members was arrested at Narita Airport.”
“I’m glad of that,” Tessa said after a moment. “But it sounds like bad news?”
“Yes. The boy they caught had the expected behavior.”
Tessa’s expression clouded over. “You mean...”
“It’s very likely that he can use a lambda driver,” Kalinin told her.
The lambda driver: an inscrutable device that could prove to be extremely dangerous in the wrong hands. It fed off of the user’s will to unlock such potential as to one day render even nuclear weapons obsolete. It took a special kind of person to use it, but if that despicable terrorist group had one in their ranks...
“He’s currently in Japanese government custody, so we can’t run more detailed tests,” Kalinin continued. “I was hoping you’d come to observe him directly, Colonel.”
“Understood. I’ll make arrangements soon,” Tessa responded, before closing the channel. Again... she wondered. Who is making these dangerous things?
26 June, 1001 Hours (Japan Standard Time)
Schoolyard, Jindai High School, Chofu, Tokyo
The ball slipped just past the metal bat and flew into the catcher’s mitt.
“Strike! You’re out!” A girl in a gym uniform proclaimed sluggishly. “So, uh... that’s three outs, right? Time to change positions!” At the umpire’s declaration, the girls swiftly swapped between batting and fielding.
“Whew!” Chidori Kaname, the pitcher who had just struck out her opponent, shook out her right arm as she got off the mound.
Chidori had black hair that came down to her waist. She was on the tall side, with a balance of proportions that was notable even through her gym uniform. She had a strong-willed, noble aura about her—at least, when she wasn’t talking.
“Kana-chan, that was three up and three down,” Tokiwa Kyoko, Kaname’s classmate, said as she sat down next to her.
Kaname flashed the smug smile of feigned modesty particular to girls who do well in gym class. “Easy as pie,” she declared, flashing her friend a V-sign.
“That’s not what I mean... this is just softball for class,” Kyoko explained. “It’s not right to take it so seriously. You really freaked Shiori-chan out.”
“Huh? I did?”
“You did,” her friend confirmed. “Hey, are you in a bad mood or something? Every time I’ve talked to you today, you’ve been crabby...”
“Hmm... You can tell, huh? You’re sharp, Kyoko...” Kaname had been friends with Kyoko since the first day of school, so it was hard to hide anything from her.
“Did something happen with Sagara-kun?” Kyoko asked, even more sharply. That wasn’t just a bullseye, it was a dead center hit—her classmate, Sagara Sousuke, was indeed the one responsible for Kaname’s bad mood.
She’d promised yesterday morning that she’d help him study for term finals. Sousuke was supposed to stop by her house at 7:00 that night, but he hadn’t come. She had tried calling his cell phone, but she’d just gotten the message that it was out of range. Then it had gotten to be past eight, then past nine, past midnight. When morning came, the handmade dishes she’d made in lieu of studying the minute she got home were still sitting on her kitchen table. (For certain reasons, Kaname lived alone.)
“Hmm... nah,” she lied nonchalantly. “It’s not him.”
Kyoko saw through her immediately. “I knew it. I notice he’s not here today... do you know why?”
They could hear the voices of the boys playing basketball from the gymnasium behind them. Sousuke hadn’t been among them.
“Why would I?” Kaname scoffed. “He just ran off yesterday during lunch, remember? I haven’t seen him since.”
“Then why are you so mad?” Kyoko asked.
“I told you... it’s not about him. What do I care what the guy does all day?” This was another lie, of course. She wouldn’t have prepared all that food if she didn’t care. Baked mackerel, squid and daikon stew, pidan tofu, chawanmushi and more... Kaname found herself sighing.
Kyoko interrupted with a poke to her shoulder. “You’re up, Kaname.”
“Huh? Oh, I guess I am...” Kaname stood up, grabbed a bat and walked up to the plate. As she went, she heard the vague sound of a helicopter from somewhere nearby. She looked up at the sky, but there was no sign of anything in the area... Still, she was sure she could hear the pounding of rotors and the low roar of an engine approaching. She ended up shrugging. Ah, well...
The pitcher threw her an underhand pitch. It came to her so slowly, she could make out every detail on the ball. Kaname projected Sousuke’s overserious, su
llen face onto it. Sousuke, you... She hefted up the bat. “...jerk!” she cried, and swung with all her might. There was a satisfying thunk of contact, and the ball flew toward high left field. She’d really gotten a piece of it, and the outfielders ran back in panic.
Her team was cheering. The ball rose higher and higher... Then it stopped, suddenly, and began to fall straight down, toward the left fielder. It was as if it had hit some kind of wall.
Kaname gaped. She had been so sure of her home run that she found herself stopped just before second base. The other students were similarly forced to stop and stare up at the sky. No one could see anything.
Wait... is that a rippling in the air? Just as the thought occurred to her, the persistent sounds of a helicopter suddenly grew in volume, as a fierce wind kicked up over the grounds. It stirred up the dust, reducing her visibility to just a few meters.
“What in the world is...?!” she screamed, but she couldn’t even hear her own voice. The wind was so strong she couldn’t keep her eyes open. She threw herself on the ground, as if to cling to the base.
The mysterious roar finally reached its peak, and then moved away as swiftly as it had come. Immediately after, the wind died down and the silence returned.
Kaname looked up. There was still nothing in the sky— No sign of a helicopter, or any similar craft. “What’s going on? For heaven’s sake...” she grumbled.
She was just picking herself up when she found herself face-to-face with a boy in a summer uniform. He was about 175 centimeters tall, with a slim but toned frame. A large, olive green backpack hung from his right hand, and he carried a black school bag in his left. “Sousuke...?” she began tentatively.
The boy, Sagara Sousuke, gave an alert look around, then said, “Chidori?” in a completely neutral voice. He had a well-proportioned face, but there was an intensity to it, a guardedness that never wavered even for a moment. His eyes always seemed to be looking past her at something else. His brow was wrinkled, and his mouth was drawn into a tight frown. His black hair was cut haphazardly, like a man who didn’t care at all for style.