Mecha Samurai Empire (A United States of Japan Novel)

by Peter Tieryas

  My right eye is in a lot of pain, and I realize I’m on the ground. “I—I, uh, think so.”

  Griselda helps me up. Izzy pulls us both away from the fray.

  “You two need to get out of here, NOW!” he shouts, pointing at the exit as the fight intensifies.

  I have to lean on Griselda because I can’t see out of my right eye. We go down a floor into what is labeled the Digital Forest Dance Stage. It’s almost pitch-black except for hundreds of neon lights that appear to be floating in midair. You can barely see the person in front of you, which is the point, as everyone’s dancing without knowing who their partner is. Griselda grabs my hand and leads me through the crowd. Random strangers grope at my body, trying to make me dance with them, but Griselda pulls me through.

  We make it down to the first floor when someone yells, “She’s the one who started the whole thing!”

  From my left eye, I see two men sprinting toward us. As soon as they get close, Griselda kicks the first one in the groin. A waitress is passing by, and Griselda grabs a bottle and batters it into the head of the second. Both are down on the floor as we continue to head for the entrance.

  “You sure know how to make an exit,” I tell her.

  She grabs another beer bottle and tells me, “Put this against your eye.”

  The bottle is cold and wet. I press it onto my bulging eye. Griselda gives the waitress a wink and pays via her portical.

  We get outside and grab a taxi.

  “Where are we going?” I ask her.

  She brushes dust off her shirt and says, “To eat, right?”

  * * *

  • • •

  We take a cab to the bistro. On the way, she’s telling me about food, intentionally avoiding talking about the fight.

  “My mutter loves eggplant with vinegar. She cooks eggplant a hundred different ways, and it tastes new every time. My vater loves blood sausages with apple sauce and garlic mashed potatoes. I introduced him to stinky tofu, and he loved it, but my mutter couldn’t stand it.”

  “I can’t stand stinky tofu either.”

  “It’s the best!”

  I try to think back on my own parents, but my memories are blurry. “I wish I remembered what my parents liked to eat.”

  “You don’t remember?”

  “I know my mom liked basi digua.”

  “What’s that?”

  “They’re like sweet potatoes with caramelized sugar. There was other stuff, but I couldn’t stand the smell of vinegar. I liked only the sweet food, especially pears. I couldn’t peel a pear, and I’d have to wait for her to do it for me because I didn’t like eating them with their skin on.”

  “Can you peel a pear now?”

  I shake my head. “Either I chop it all up, or I cut my fingers.”

  We arrive at the Cunningham, a restaurant devoted to a multitude of cuisines, with each of the eating areas based on a different field in portical entertainment.

  She pays for the cab via her portical as I have no money.

  “I’m really sorry about what happened,” I say, broaching the fight.

  “I know you RAMs don’t get a whole lot of money,” she replies. “My treat.”

  “Sorry, I—I meant the fight.”

  She nods. “I know.” She waves it off. “I get it all the time. I don’t deny what the Nazis have done. Their actions are inhumane and evil. But that’s not all of us. It’s a group of lunatics who never should have been given positions of power. There are many who oppose them.”

  “There are?”

  “Of course.”

  “Why don’t they say something?”

  “Things are changing in the German Americas. For many of us, we have no choice. We’re born there and taught that Aryans are the superior beings. It’s a slow transition, but this brutality can’t last. I just can’t stand the hypocrisy. Do you know how many the USJ killed in San Diego?”

  The question reminds me of the one from the imperial exams last year. “A lot,” I answer her.

  “I’m sorry about your eye.” She puts her hand on it. “What if our two sides get less friendly in the upcoming years?”

  I’m saved from answering by the hostess, who says, “We have an opening for two in the Onmyoji section if you come with me right now.”

  We take off our shoes and are given slippers—servers take away our shoes and store them until the end of the meal.

  Several waiters dressed as magic and divination specialists bow to welcome us. One says to me, “Your spiritual outcast looks foggy,” while to Griselda he says, “There is much conflict and confusion in your path.”

  “So vague as to mean nothing,” Griselda says to me, as we both take our seats.

  I leave the food choices to her and go to use the bathroom. I stare in the mirror and see my eye has swollen. It looks like the entire side of my head has a bulbous mass popping out of it. I wonder about the question she asked: What if we do go to war with the Nazis? How would our friendship change? Even thinking about it gives me a headache as I can’t bear the thought of our being on opposing sides. I wash my eye before heading back to our table.

  One of the onmyoji brings out a covered plate on a tray. He uses his fingers, does a chant in Japanese, and suddenly, the plate cover floats away.

  Griselda claps as they place the food on the table. She explains, “They dip the Wagyu beef in special panko and soy sauce, and they fry it for thirty seconds at one hundred eighty degrees.” She cuts it open. “It’s pink in the middle, just perfect. This miso soup uses this fresh aka dashi the chef makes every morning. The dashi stock here isn’t the powder kind, but it’s boiled with just the right amount of Katsuobushi, so the umami balance is spot on. Itadakimasu!”

  She takes a bite. I do the same. The beef is very tender. When she asks how it is, I tell her, “I love it.”

  I’ve never had a miso soup that is this rich with flavor, especially with the dried tuna from the Katsuobushi. The tofu practically melts in my mouth. We eat in silence, relishing the meal. The onmyoji brings out two mugs full of beer.

  “This is for lightweights,” Griselda says. “Kanpai!”

  “Prost!” I reply, as our cups clash.

  I take a sip. It tastes bitter, and I don’t like it at all. But when I look over, Griselda’s drunk almost half her cup. I force myself to drink a quarter before I have to stop.

  “How is it?”

  “Good,” I say.

  I was expecting to be drunk with my first sip, but it doesn’t have a noticeable impact. Griselda is already finished with her drink. “Don’t let me pressure you, but, uh, hurry up.”

  Two mugs later, I’m too full to drink any more. I still don’t feel anything until I stand up. I feel dizzy and stumble. Griselda catches me, laughing.

  “I feel like the whole planet is spinning around me,” I tell her.

  “That’s what I thought the first time too. Does beer put me in tune with the planet? But actually, it’s because alcohol thins your blood and creates a distortion in your cupula.”

  “What?”

  “Your reality is distorted because chemicals inside your ear are going crazy.”

  “Oh,” I say, not sure what it means but accepting it.

  She laughs, and says, “Let’s get out of here. Something amazing I want to show you.”

  * * *

  • • •

  We’re taking the cab to our next destination when I see a bright blue light shining up to the sky in a single beam.

  “What is that?”

  “It’s from the memorial,” Griselda says. “You’ve never been?”

  “No. What kind of a memorial?”

  “For Old Dallas and the radiation shield.”

  “From when we fought the Germans?”

  “From when you fought them. We can stop
by if you’d like.”

  “I don’t want to go to a memorial tonight.”

  “Looking at thousands of gravestones isn’t the way you want to spend your Friday night?”

  “Not exactly a spirit lifter.”

  She laughs, and asks, “You think the spirits of the dead watch us?”

  “I’d hope the dead would have better things to do.”

  “Like what?”

  “Like thinking about how they’ll get off the planet if they’re still here,” I reply.

  The taxi comes to a stop. “This is the biggest night market in the USJ,” she tells me.

  It resembles a field of glowing mushrooms. Outdoor kiosks and shops are everywhere. Thousands of people are searching for bargains. Griselda points out some of the women dressed in minikimonos that are identical to the traditional clothing on top but cut short below. Merchants sell everything from old gun pieces to dead insects like cicadas and tiger moths. The smell of antimosquito incense oozes through the air. The shops spiral outward from the old subway station, and it is bigger than any night market I’ve visited.

  “Can you believe they paid someone to design this?” she asks as she points at the old station’s architecture. “It looks like a long bathroom hall. All the walls are tiled like a bathroom. Makes me want to pee!”

  We glance over old fedoras, trinkets that hover when thrown into the air, and retro games. There are many dealers of cartridges from before portical games went purely kikkai. I spot Bionic Commander, which is about an IJA soldier with a mechanical leg thwarting a fringe group of American terrorists trying to resurrect Franklin Roosevelt. “That’s one of my favorites too!” Griselda exclaims. “Did you stop FDR?”

  “I did,” I reply.

  “Remember, you have to time the bazooka shot just right on the cockpit or you fall to your death?”

  I remember that last sequence well. I check the price, and it’s shockingly high. These older games have been going up in price, with all the new portical channels devoted to reviewing them (and in most cases, mocking them).

  She suddenly asks, “What blood type are you?”

  “I don’t know. I’ve never checked.”

  “I bet you’re a B blood type.”

  “What’s B type mean?”

  “Independent, goes their own way, flexible and afraid of being alone.”

  “What are you?”

  “Type AB.”

  “What’s that mean?” I ask.

  “I’m a dreamer whose private life is precious to me, and I have a strong spirit.”

  “I think I prefer AB,” I tell her.

  “You don’t get to choose. But it determines what kind of diseases affect you and what foods make you gain weight. The Fuehrer was a type A blood, and his vegetarian diet matched perfectly.”

  “Wait, so these blood differences actually make a difference in who we are?”

  “Of course. They determine your entire physiology. Based in that and your reaction to the environment, you can get a good picture of what kind of person you’ll generally be and who you match well with.”

  “What type do B blood types match with?” I ask her.

  “AB,” she says with a smile. “C’mon—let’s go that way.”

  We both smell food as we approach the food vendors. There’s a pork-belly taco shop that almost makes me ignore my full stomach. “There are so many things we have to try. When’s the next time you have a day off?”

  “This is the first time they’ve let me off, so I have no idea.”

  “Too bad we don’t have second stomachs,” Griselda says.

  The burger and sriracha-flavored tater tots smell so good. “I wish.”

  We keep on walking until we arrive at a couple of apartments.

  “This is my place,” she says. I’m surprised, not having expected us to come to her home. “Want to come in?” she asks.

  I’m taken aback by her invitation. “Uh, sure.”

  We ride the elevator up to the eleventh floor. Her apartment is a one-bedroom that I was expecting to be filled with German propaganda but is actually bare aside from some furniture I’m assuming came with the place.

  “Where’s your portical?” she asks.

  I take it out. She puts both of ours into a metallic case and locks it.

  “Is that a nullifier?” I ask.

  She nods. “Don’t want anyone listening in. Want some wine?”

  “Sure.”

  She finds a bottle of red wine, pours out two glasses. I have a sip of mine, which is way too strong for me. She turns on the visual display on the wall and we flip through channels.

  We land on a priest from one of the religious sects testifying that there is “a woman deeply in debt. She had almost nothing left except her faith. So she paid tithes to the gods, ten percent of all she had left. And through the blessings of the divine spirits, within five years, she was debt free again. Brothers and sisters, it is important that you give from the heart, not for rewards but because you are giving the gods their due.”

  “Those priests are richer than we are,” Griselda says.

  “What religions do you have in Germany?”

  “We’re officially atheists, but we have the Vatican the late Himm- ler built at Weweslberg. There are a lot of Celtic rituals, but it’s mostly for the SS. It was gracious of your empire to allow the Christian God into the Shinto Pantheon.”

  “It wasn’t enough for the George Washingtons,” I reply.

  “The GWs despise the NARA because the NARA doesn’t believe in a second coming and they think that Malek isn’t the daughter of God. The True Believers believe that Jesus isn’t real. The Realpolitik think all religions are false and that for America to arise again, they have to embrace the world for what it is. There are a lot of different factions vying for power, and they all disagree with each other.”

  I honestly didn’t know there were ideological differences between them. “What about you?”

  “When I was ten, I was required to join the Jungemadel.”

  “What’s that?”

  “It means Young Maidens, and we all have to take an oath to the Fuehrer,” Griselda replies.

  “Do you remember the oath?”

  She nods. “‘In the presence of this blood banner, which rep-resents our Fuehrer, I swear to devote all my energies and my strength to the savior of our country, Adolf Hitler. I am willing and ready to give up my life to carry out the mission he began, so help me God.’” She finishes her glass of wine and pours herself another.

  I drink down my cup and think about our friendship. I wonder what it would be like if there was something more between us. The alcohol must be warping my mind as I don’t think there’s any way she would reciprocate, is there? She is smart, witty, and one of the toughest people I know. Then I think about what Orwell said, and it makes me even more upset.

  “I accidentally saw a portical film my dad made the other day,” Griselda says, snapping me out of my thoughts.

  “What kind of film?” I ask.

  “It was about a world where the media runs everything. People couldn’t distinguish between reality and fiction because everything became a headline.”

  “Was it good?”

  “It was funny and bizarre. The whole message was that censoring media is good for the health of the Reich.”

  I laugh, and tell her, “I’ve seen plenty of films like that on our side too. Did your dad make lots of films?”

  She shakes her head. “He got into trouble, irritated one of his superiors, and got sent over to the East Coast in the German Americas to make nature films.”

  “Nature films?”

  “He had to record the reproductive habits of animals.” I look at her to see if she’s serious. She bursts out laughing. “It sounds funny now, but he was so bitter abou
t it,” she says.

  We finish off the bottle. I’m feeling dizzy so I lie down on her sofa. Griselda comes to me and squeezes next to me. She puts her fingers on my cheeks.

  “Did you think about me after graduation?” she asks.

  “I did,” I reply. “Remember that time at the apartment?”

  “Which one?”

  “After—after Hideki.”

  “Yes.”

  “You said sayonara.”

  “That means ‘good-bye,’ right?”

  “So does jaa ne, but sayonara is more final. You say it only if you know you’re not going to see someone for a while. When you said sayonara, I thought it was the last time I’d see you . . . I’m glad it wasn’t.”

  But she doesn’t reply, and I realize she’s fallen asleep. I hold her in my arms, and look at her. I wish I could stay like this long past the night. I make sure she’s comfortable, snuggle my head into a softer spot on the sofa, and doze off.

  * * *

  • • •

  When I wake in the morning, she’s in uniform. The red swastika armband seems to put up a barrier between us.

  “How you feeling?”

  “I have a huge headache,” I tell her, my brain feeling like an iron ball about to tip over.

  “You’re hungover. Drink lots of water. And eat something.”

  “You going somewhere?”

  “Class. It was so nice to see you. But I probably shouldn’t have brought you here.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Some of your fellow soldiers might misunderstand . . .”

  “I don’t care.”

  “You should.”

  “Can—can I see you again?”

  “My portical number is still the same . . . The door locks automatically, so shut it behind you when you leave.” She kisses me on the cheek. “Jaa ne,” she says, waves, and leaves.

  * * *

  • • •

  I sneak back to my dormitory and sleep most of the afternoon. It’s a restless, sweaty sleep that leaves me even more tired when I wake. A part of me hoped Griselda would be here when I opened my eyes. She obviously isn’t. I check my portical, stupidly hoping she contacted me. She hasn’t. I regularly refresh, hoping for messages from both Griselda and BEMA. I try to study, but my brain feels too clouded. I open my window, suck in the night air. I watch portical footage of the official mecha tournaments at BEMA among the cadets (something I’ve watched every year as long as I can remember). I get very excited when I see that Noriko is actually taking part as the cadets spar against one another. She defeats her opponents with ease.