There was a lit path leading from the spaceport to the ship, a clear avenue to freedom. A door on the ship’s belly was open, illuminated interior beckoning her forward. Off to the left of the path stood Aya, tears on her mother’s face. It was from her that the blaze of fear/no/panic/run/fear poured, a torrent brighter than a fusion drive. Next to Aya stood Grace’s father, Kazuo calm and ready. He was always calm. He had the sword Grace had tried to steal earlier, the blade held to Aya’s neck. “Hello, Grace.”
“Run,” said her mother. Her eyes weren’t full of sadness anymore. Nothing but fear lay there. “Run!”
“Yes,” said Kazuo. “Run, Grace. If you do, you’ll make it to the starship. You might even make it off this world. But I’ll find you. You are mine.” The sword didn’t waver. “But if you run, I will cut your mother down here, now. Her blood will spill against the ceramicrete, and everything she is will be lost. Her feelings for you will be gone.”
“Please, Grace,” said her mother. “Run. While you can.” Fear/no/no/no/no. “Everything I am is already lost if you live in his shadow.”
Grace felt stunned, the buffet of her mother’s feelings the most she’d felt from her in years. “I … don’t understand. You don’t even speak to me.”
Her father laughed. “Aya is clever, Grace. She has hidden her thoughts and feelings from me for a long time. She did that by pushing them so far down they weren’t there to be seen.” His smile glinted in the landing lights of the ship. “It’s a trick that won’t work twice. Choose. Run, or stay. There is a lesson either way.”
Grace’s eyes darted to the ship, then back to her mother, and the sword at her throat. She felt the tension in her legs, wanting to drive her to freedom, or to be a savior. Her heart was hammering in her chest, a louder taiko than she’d ever heard before. To be free. To save a life. Which to choose? What was the right choice? In the stars, there might be someone she could be together with. Japan under her feet held only fear, further lessons, and pain.
She had a thought that the pain here would be just the tiniest part of what she would feel if Kazuo cut the carotid artery at her mother’s throat. Grace wanted to be sick, and not just from the drug Mickey had shot her with earlier. There was no right choice. Everything she could do here would lead to sorrow, either for her or someone else.
“Run,” said her mother, her voice tight. “Please.”
Grace saw it even before her father did, the moment where her mother wanted to set her free. She felt the love/duty/guilt that would drive her forward, trying to cut her own neck against the ancient sword. Grace reached a hand out before it could happen, before that horrible future couldn’t be undone. “No!”
Kazuo saw the future reflected in Grace’s face, whirling his sword away at the moment Aya stepped forward. Just the tiniest line of blood remained on Aya’s neck, a failed attempt at setting her daughter free as she fell to her knees. Kazuo held the sword aloft, looking at Grace over her mother’s bowed form. “What is it to be? This choice is not hers to make. It is yours, Grace. Stay, or go.”
With a last look at the starship, Grace bowed her head. “I will stay.”
“Yes,” said Kazuo. “Because you are mine.”
No, thought Grace. That is not why. But she didn’t say the words. Sometimes there were lessons her father hadn’t intended. And today, she’d learned something valuable. Kazuo would kill his own wife to keep Grace close. And that gave her value, a higher worth than mere credits. And it showed Grace that all others were expendable in whatever grand plan her father had.
Tomorrow, there would be more lessons, and more pain. But that pain would be tempered by knowledge. It was up to her to put it to use.
CHAPTER TWO
THERE WAS ANOTHER lesson: actions have consequences.
Grace had spent her life in the clutch of the family grounds. She wasn’t allowed to leave without Megumi or Iwao, and even then, rarely. The return flight to the grounds was oppressive, the air inside the car having a weight and substance made of her father’s anger/betrayal and her mother’s fear/duty/failure. No words were spoken. Her father didn’t rage, or threaten. Her mother cried, but silently, as if it was a grief best kept inside, but so large it leaked out the sides regardless.
When the air car touched down, Grace made to slink away, to find her room with its bare walls and tatami and her single futon. Before she made three steps, her father said, “Where are you going?”
“Inside,” said Grace.
“No,” said Kazuo.
• • •
The chair she was strapped to was a Western design, an unfamiliar thing of leather and metal. The straps were woven polymer, tough and durable. They could not be chewed or cut, not by any weapon Grace would find on the grounds. The chair was designed for a grown person, Grace’s teenage body leaving plenty of room for her sweat and fear to show.
Her father stood before her, eyes dark and glinting. Dawn hadn’t come yet. Grace wasn’t sure it ever would. “Mongrel, I have shown you every opportunity. I have given you the best training. I have used guards and tutors in equal measure.” His disfavor/disappointment was like an extra person at his side. “You have wanted for nothing, yet still you falter.”
“I won’t run again,” said Grace. She meant it, too. With her mother here, her father’s blade poised to cut Aya’s flesh, there was no running.
He gave a short laugh, devoid of humor. “It is not that you ran, Grace. It is that you failed to get away.” He turned. “Again, and again, your mongrel blood turns traitor. You can’t see the thoughts of others, the simplest thing for our kind. I am the first, and I am the strongest. No daughter of mine will fail.” The lash of his mind hit with the force of a whip, and Grace cried out. Her arms jerked against the restraints. “Something to say?”
“No, father,” said Grace, tears falling from her eyes.
“You speak with the wrong voice!” yelled her father. The lash of his mind, the pain as real as being alive, without a mark on her flesh. “Do not use your mouth. Use your mind, mongrel.”
She tried. Grace tried so hard, to push out more than the pain/fear/betrayal. She wanted to say, Why don’t you love me? Grace wanted to say, Why must you have me and mother both? You value neither. But nothing came out. No voice of the mind. Her inner lips were mute. Even her soul lacked the power to weep.
Her father waited, silent, as Grace strained in the chair. Not against the straps, but against herself. When nothing happened, he made a small sound that could have been a sigh, cut off. “Until you make this change, you will be called mongrel by all. No one will call you Grace. That name should never have been yours.” He turned on his heel, stalking from the room.
• • •
The room stood empty of everything but Grace, the chair, and her fear/pain, a loop that kept circling around her head like a child’s train set. Grace wondered when she would be set free. She was thirsty, and needed to pee.
The shoji in front of her slid open to reveal Mickey Chase. He carried a small box, which he set on the floor next to her. His usual sneer was missing, his insides roiling with loathing/fear/duty/fear. None of that made his face as he looked up at her. “You’ve got to understand, kid. I’ve got to do this right.”
“What?” said Grace. “Mickey, let me go.”
He shook his head, then opened the box. Inside was a small fuel cell and a collection of cables. Mickey attached these to her. Grace recognized the device from their lessons. It stimulated nerve endings with delicate touches of electricity. It was precise, capable of leaving the subject in pain or pleasure. “Kid, you can’t run,” said Mickey. “You can’t ever run.”
Grace tugged at her straps. “Please, Mickey. Don’t do this.”
He paused, just for a moment, on the second to last cable. “You don’t understand,” he said. “I’ve got to do it right, or I’ve got to do it again.”
“What do you want?” said Grace. She was sobbing now.
“Me?” Mickey frowned, hand
s on the device’s console. “I’d like to not have to torture kids, for a start. Kazuo said you’d know how to make it stop. But I don’t know. It’s a machine, right?” He said something else under his breath, in English. Hellofathing. It sounded like a single word, and she didn’t understand what it meant.
When he turned the device on, Grace’s back arched, arms straining at the straps. Her mouth opened in a silent scream, lungs paralyzed. The pain was a thousand things at once, being boiled alive, or having her skin removed, or her organs punctured, or her eyes boiling in their sockets.
It was a mercy when she passed out.
• • •
Grace awoke to find herself still in the chair, the smell of fear now mixed with urine. Mickey and the device were gone, replaced by Megumi and Iwao. “Little Grace,” said Megumi. “Why did you run?”
Iwao looked sad, his heart saying run/duty/loathing in equal measure. “You shouldn’t have run.”
“You shouldn’t have run,” said her father’s voice, from behind her. Grace craned her neck, trying to see him, but she couldn’t quiet get her head around. “And now, Megumi and Iwao will hurt each other.”
“What?” said Grace.
“The power we have, mongrel, is to make others do as we wish. And Megumi will be first, because she used your forbidden name.” Megumi nodded at this, as if it was expected. Iwao drew a short knife from his belt, stabbing Megumi in the shoulder where she’d been shot.
Megumi’s eyes were wide, but her lips were rigid, her too-Western features pale with shock. Her father stepped into Grace’s field of view, hand out to Megumi. “See? She can’t even scream without my permission.”
Megumi pulled a knife of her own, face going slack, and stabbed Iwao in the stomach. Iwao’s body made a small huff as the knife went in, his face held immobile by her father’s will.
“Stop it!” said Grace.
“Why?” said her father. “Can you make me?”
She wanted to. Oh, how she wanted to. Grace strained and pulled at the straps on the chair, her arms chafing to bleed against them. She tried to use the power her father said was buried inside her, but nothing happened. Because she had no power. Because she was a mongrel.
“A pity,” said her father, as Megumi stabbed Iwao again. Iwao didn’t seem to know or care as he slipped his own knife in under Megumi’s ribs.
It went on for minutes, until Megumi — smaller, with less blood to lose — fell to the tatami in a pool of crimson. Her father frowned, then left.
Iwao swayed, as if waking from a dream. He dropped to Megumi’s side, then looked at Grace. “She lives.”
“Help her,” said Grace.
“I could help her,” agreed Iwao. “Or I could set you free. We have time.”
Grace wanted to be free. But she saw Megumi, dying, a pool of blood widening around her. Megumi, who called her little Grace, despite her father’s edict. “Help her,” said Grace. “It’s too late for me.”
• • •
It would be weeks before the sessions stopped. Things would never return to normal, whatever that was. The lessons would continue, but there was no more ice cream trips to Ise. Grace was never called Grace in the grounds again, not for years, and only then, on a night of darkness, fire, and death.
CHAPTER THREE
THE YEARS SLIPPED by. Grace found it easier to not count birthdays, but like much in her life, it wasn’t always up to her. At least it was the people around who her wanted to make a fuss. It was the eve of her eighteenth birthday, and the grounds felt charged, something festive holding in the air, leaving the scent of mental ozone in her mind.
Before her birthday party, a secret impossible to keep from someone who could read thoughts, in the house of a man who could read and control minds, a day of study remained. There was always study. Eternal lessons. If not the holo, then physical training. Tensioning the body or mind for what was to come.
Her father hadn’t explained the finer detail of Grace’s future to her. Her mother was silent on the matter, although spoke to her often. The secret of her mother’s love, if it ever had been one, was out in the wild. This was no genie willing to return to the lamp.
Grace sat on the tatami, legs crossed under her. Across from her sat Mickey Chase, his sneer in place. He reached across the short distance, meaning to slap her into attention. She eased herself back from the swipe, Mickey collecting nothing but warm air. A slight hint of anger reached the creases of his eyes, his hair a little grayer now. Grace picked up resentment/anger/caged before he spoke. “Pay attention.”
“I was paying attention,” said Grace. “You talk so slowly, I can imagine whole worlds in the gaps between your sentences.” Constructing English still felt cumbersome to her, like a camel with too many packs, but her father insisted that more than one language should feel natural to her.
He laughed, zero humor in the sound. “So. What was I saying?”
“Messenger boxes,” said Grace. “Encrypted comms.” She waved a hand in the air, as if the universe was made of these things. Even in Mickey’s training room, the scent of cherry blossoms reached her. She’d rather be training with sensei.
“Okay,” said Mickey. “Show me.” He gestured with a sharp jab of his hand at a table at Grace’s right elbow. On it, two small black devices sat. Tiny portable communication consoles.
She picked up one console, clicking it on. Grace leaned back from another attempted slap from Mickey, not even bothering to look. His revenge/attack was heavier than the scent of blossoms on the air. The console chirped as she turned it on, a tiny holo field lighting. “Here,” she said. “It’s easy.” She keyed in a crypto code, thumbs working the small keypad.
“Yes,” said Mickey. “I see you excel at turning computers on. Very good. Maybe you can impress the shit out of me by standing up and walking around.”
“Ha,” said Grace. She leaned forward. “Mickey, you don’t want to be here any more than I do. Why don’t we cut the,” and here, her tongue tumbled over the unfamiliar swearing, “shit and get out of here?”
“Well,” said Mickey. “I guess that’s something that sounds like fun. But you know what’s less fun? Getting your mind cored like a rotten fruit when your father gets pissed off.” Fear/fear, but a shadow of it. “Seen it happen. You’re just lucky he can’t do it to you.”
“Luck,” said Grace. “That’s a funny word to use.”
Sympathy/anger. She watched his face as the anger won. “There’s one lesson remaining for today. Finish the lesson, we can get out of here. You can, I dunno, go dance with the butterflies. I’ll find a beer and see if Megumi’s free.” Optimism/lust.
Grace eyed him over the crypto console. “I don’t think Megumi likes you very much.”
“You want to know a secret, Gr… Mongel?”
“Sure.”
“No one likes me very much,” said Mickey, winking at her. She felt a little sick. “Numbers game, pure and simple. Or a persistence game.” He tugged on one ear. “You know, I don’t think it matters. Ask enough times, the answer might swing to yes.”
Grace handed the console over to him. “You want to know a secret, Mickey?”
“Okay.”
“The fact that no one likes you isn’t a secret.” He laughed at that, no offense taken. At least, no more than the fact he had to be here, with her. That was offense enough for Mickey Chase. When she asked him a couple years ago why he was here, he said it pays better than stand-up comedy. There had been something dark in his eyes when he said that, a war on the horizon. Even she’d heard about the Resistance throwing lightning at the Empire. Grief/grief had sprung from him like a discovered spring, turned off as as their next lesson started.
“Okay, Mongrel. No one likes me. No one likes you either.”
She frowned at that. “I don’t think that’s true, Mickey.”
“It’s true,” said Mickey. “Your father pays us all to be here. Big with the Empire’s plans. Lotsa power. Influence too. We wouldn’t be h
ere without that incentive.”
Grace thought about that. “It doesn’t mean they don’t like me.”
“Sure, kid,” said Mickey, handing back the encrypted communicator. “Now, break it.”
Grace laughed. “You just told me how unbreakable these were.”
“Sure did,” said Mickey. “You can’t leave until you break it, though. That’s the deal.”
She studied him over the small device. It was still warm from his hands, the holo shimmering in the air. INPUT SECRET. Grace tapped on the console. MICKEY IS AN ASSHOLE.
INCORRECT SECRET. The holo barked a small alarm at her. TWO TRIES REMAIN. She looked at Mickey. “What’s the trick?”
“You said you were paying attention,” said Mickey. “I’ll give you a hint, though. Only because it’s fucking hot, and I want my fucking beer, and I want to see if Megumi says yes today. It’s not this lesson you needed to be paying attention to.” His eyes were hooded as he watched her. Resentment/weariness/anger.
Not this lesson, huh? Grace turned the console over in her hands, then looked at Mickey. “I was given the password in another lesson?”
“This isn’t twenty questions,” said Mickey. “Two tries left. Don’t fuck it up.”
She tapped on the console. RESENTMENT.
INCORRECT SECRET. The alarm sounded again. ONE TRY REMAINS.
“Fuck,” she said.
“You need to put more emphasis on it,” said Mickey. “Swearing is an art.”
“Fuck you,” she said.
“Better,” said Mickey. “One try left, though.”
“What happens then?” said Grace.
“I figure it’ll explode,” said Mickey. “It’s what those things usually do. Military shit and all that.”
Grace set the small device down, closing her eyes. She smelled the cherry blossoms, willing her fear back under the mask of strength she wore in front of Mickey. Opening her eyes, she said, “What’s the lesson?”
“Eh,” said Mickey. “Because it’s your birthday, and also because I don’t want to die, I’ll give you a hint. It’s time.” Resentment/frustration/fear. “But, you know. Happy birthday. It’s what you’ve always wanted.”
Tyche's Grace Page 3